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Warrior of the Way: Summerlands (Book 4)

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Robbie Cox
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Summary

There's a place we all go when we die. It's peaceful. Calm. A place to reunite with your loved ones. Furthermore, the weather is perfect, like a perpetual spring. Hate does not exist here, nor crime, or even death. The residents of the Summerlands only experience joy while awaiting the rebirth into their next life, their next journey. The Summerlands are a place of rejuvenation and relaxation. Rest for the soul awaiting a new body.Until the original demons break out of the Nether and enter the Summerlands.Rhychard Bartlett, Warrior of the Way, faces his greatest battle as Baltabek, the first demon cast into the Nether, manipulates the Cauldron Coven's Recapturing Ceremony to bring his demons to the Land Above. To kill the demons and save his world, Rhychard may have to kill the witches.However, Tansy Paxton, leader of the Cauldron Coven, doesn't care for that option too much.Friends will turn against friends as they all strive to protect what's important to them.

UrbanSupernaturalFantasy

Chapter 1

Kayla Lewell sat at her vanity table, brushing out her long, reddish hair, staring at her green eyes in her reflection as she counted each stroke. Her pale skin, dusted with freckles, was a sharp contrast to her dark red hair, but she refused to tan, not seeing the point. Who would ever notice if she did? Would Alex Barrister even notice if she changed something about herself so vain as the tone of her skin?

Kayla smiled as she thought of the only male witch in the Cauldron Coven. Alex just left her house a little while ago, the two of them going through some of the rituals that Tansy Paxton had taught them at the Murky Cauldron. Kayla found herself drawn to the tall, lanky college kid who liked to dress all in black and pretend he was so solemn. He had taken to the rituals far faster than Kayla, but then again, he was a true believer in magic. Kayla was there because she needed somewhere to belong. She needed to shake her feelings of isolation in a crowded world, and the coven beat hanging around a bunch of emo kids espousing how miserable and unfair life was or staying home with her parents watching medical dramas on television. She was also there because of Alex.

Life was unfair, but there was no use whining about it. Life had always been unfair. Kayla only had to look at the death of Rose Tillery for proof of that. Some maniacs out at the Bottoms killed Rose at the young age of twenty-four. If Kayla was honest with herself, she would have to admit that was when she first believed in magic and the supernatural. Faeries were real, as were elves, and she truly was a witch. She had fought alongside Alex, defending the people of the Bottoms with her power, which she shot from the palms of her hands as she stood beside the others. At that moment, her entire life changed.

And then Rose died.

They buried her a handful of days ago, performing the Recapturing Ceremony to take Rose’s power into themselves, preserving her magic and memory. Even that had been a battle as the dark elves showed up to kill them all. Thanks to the Warrior and his coshey, along with Tansy and the other witches, they thwarted that, but what had they actually disturbed? Kayla didn't know. Oh, she saw the eerie, bluish-white light that seemed to pulse up out of the ground, even felt some sort of energy entering her as some tendril of that light floated through the air toward her, touching her chest and filling her with… What? Rose’s magic? Kayla wasn’t sure even now what transpired back in that cemetery. She wanted—no, hoped—to hear from Rose, to communicate with the other witch, but there had been nothing. Just silence. And then a battle.

Kayla continued to stare at her reflection in the mirror, her arm going up and down with the brush. She knew magic existed now, so why did she struggle to believe what she had already witnessed? Tansy said every ritual a witch performed was vital for the task for which it was meant to coincide, so why was this one different? Why was the light all they saw? The fact there wasn’t more of a show disappointed Kayla after what she had witnessed at Feather Lakes. The cemetery with its glowing light seemed like sort of a letdown.

She continued to stare at her eyes as she brushed her hair, only she finally realized her arm had stopped moving, but was still being held up beside her head as if she was still brushing her hair. She tried to turn her head, but couldn’t. She couldn’t even move her eyes; she just kept staring at herself in the mirror, her green eyes unmoving. Frozen, her whole body.

Panic gripped her, her heart pounding in her ears, her breathing quickening. She tried to move her lips and call for help, but nothing happened. That nightmare moment when you knew you had to wake up, to call for help, but fear stole your voice and marbleized your body, trapped her.

Kayla fought against whatever held her in its grip. She struggled without moving to break the bonds holding her. And then she felt the icy grip on her throat even though there was no hand, felt the stench of decay as something breathed on her, the breath tousling her hair. Still, she could do nothing but stare at herself.

Then her vision swirled. Or rather, the mirror swirled, and her reflection twisted into a draining twirl of color until another face took her reflection’s place, a burnt stone-like visage that sneered at her with its yellowish fangs that oozed saliva as it parted its cracked, dry lips. The creature’s eyes were blood-red as they pierced her with their angry scowl. You will be our first, the voice sounded in her head, and that was all she needed to break the spell that held her frozen in place. Kayla opened her mouth and screamed.