Donovan Drake settled into a wrought-iron chair on the coffee shop sidewalk. After setting his iced latté on the table, he situated his tan leather satchel on the chair next to him and gazed out into the square.
Shift Creek was a quaint town, charming with its little shops and their cheerfully painted storefronts. An old-timey general store occupied the space next to the coffee shop, and an eclectic art gallery stood across the square. He’d passed an elementary school on his way into town with a well-kept wooden playground surrounded by a fence. It was the perfect place to raise a functional family. Functional being the keyword there.
He could understand why his father had chosen to move. To be taken seriously in black-market magic, warlocks had to make a name for themselves in large cities. But why the man had kept this place secret from Donovan and his brothers, he wasn’t sure. A magical creek ran through the town. A creek with supernatural healing properties…a possible way to fix his broken magic…yet his father never spoke of it. It was like the man didn’t want Donovan to be a warlock.
He didn’t, you bastard. He didn’t even want you. His jaw clenched at the thought. His father was dead now, so it didn’t matter what Marcus Rainecourt wanted.
As he unlocked the satchel and folded back the flap, a cloud of funk that smelled like a cross between hard-boiled eggs and microwaved broccoli assaulted his senses. He leaned back, wrinkling his nose and fanning the air as his familiar poked his head from the bag.
“For Christ’s sake, Martin, are you trying to kill yourself? Next time, wait until you have some ventilation before you let one rip.” Donovan had just given the mongoose a bath last night, after a crow took revenge on him for his attack. Now his fur would smell like fart for at least the next six hours.
“What?” The mongoose lifted his nose, sniffing the air. “I don’t smell anything.”
Donovan shook his head and pulled a journal from the satchel, fanning it to the side to remove the stench before setting it on the table. “Maybe another trip to the vet is in order? This much gas can’t be normal.”
“You’re joking, right?” Marty climbed onto the table, sitting upright and wiping his face with his paws. “Last time I went to the vet, they poked a plastic stick up my ass for no reason.”
“They were checking you for worms, Martin.” He opened the journal and unfolded a yellowing sheet of paper, gazing at the script handwriting. A family tree dating back to the early eighteen-hundreds cascaded down the page. It was left to him along with the deed to the manor here. Why, he had no clue.
“I don’t have worms.” Marty inched toward him, resting his paws on the journal. “And you only call me Martin when you’re in a mood. Why are you in a mood?”
Donovan tugged the book toward himself and folded the paper, tucking it between the pages. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because we’ve lost the one magical item that could have solved all my problems.” He slammed the book shut and pressed his fingers to his temples. “You’re sure you don’t remember seeing it?”
“I don’t, boss. I’d tell you if I did. You musta left it in New York.”
“I specifically remember putting the amulet in the satchel with you. It was in this pocket.” He dipped his hand into the front of the bag, rummaging around as if he might actually find the artifact.
He’d dumped the entire contents, turning the satchel inside-out, when he arrived at the manor. Before that, he’d unpacked two boxes of rare and expensive artifacts—things he didn’t dare leave behind in New York—tossing the paper and bubble wrap out for the garbage collectors to pick up this morning. Perhaps he’d accidentally tossed the amulet too.
No, he would never be so careless.
“I’m sorry, boss. We’ll figure something else out. We always do. You and me are a great team.”
He grabbed his iced coffee and took a sip. Cold and refreshing, the milk tamed the bitter espresso, much like Marty was trying to do to him now. But Donovan’s bitterness ran bone-deep.
A bastard child resulting from his father’s escapade with a prostitute, Donovan was only accepted in the Rainecourt home after a DNA test proved his heritage. His mother had left him on the doorstep as an infant, and he was lucky a housekeeper had found him and not the master warlock himself.
She’d listed Marcus Rainecourt as the father on the birth certificate, but the old man changed Donovan’s last name to Drake, after his mother, to prove he had no interest in raising him as his own.
When Donovan failed to develop magic as he matured, his father blamed his mother’s human blood, though Matthias and Griffin’s mother was human as well. Donovan seemed mundane, but his aura naturally held a faint, colorless glow, which indicated his magical lineage.
Pushing up his sleeve, he fingered the bracelet on his wrist. An enchanted silver coin with a hole through the middle was attached to a brown leather strap. The magical artifact cloaked his pathetic aura, creating the illusion he possessed the same level of power his family name suggested.
He should have had powers, and this place was the answer to his prayers. He could feel it in his bitter bones.
Donovan had done everything imaginable to activate his magic, but to no avail. After enduring his father’s inhumane attempts throughout his childhood, as an adult, he’d gone to healers and scoured the dark web for artifacts to release his powers. Finally, he’d visited a seer last year, who gave him a prophecy.
The old woman had said he did indeed have magic locked inside him. That part he understood. The rest was cryptic, as prophecies are, and made no sense until he received the deed to the manor here and learned about the magical creek.
She’d said the source of his power flowed through his destiny and only by sacrificing the magic of another would he break the ties that bound him.
He’d thought that was the end of his prophecy, but as he’d stood to leave, the woman had clutched his wrist and informed him of an impending deadline. If Donovan didn’t unlock his magic by his thirty-fifth birthday, his powers would be gone for good.
He would turn thirty-five next month.
Marty put his paws on Donovan’s hand. “If the creek really does heal magical beings, you won’t need the amulet anyway.”
“I don’t have an illness. My powers are locked, and I need the magic of another to unlock them. The amulet would have let me take the magic from the creek and use it to free my own.”
“You don’t know that for sure. You never got it to work before.”
He narrowed his eyes at the familiar. “I’m aware of my inabilities.”
It was true he hadn’t been able to make the amulet work, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t. Donovan dealt in magical artifacts. Buying and selling was how he earned his living. Most of the time, an artifact’s magic could be wielded by anyone—even the mundane. His father’s black-market business gave him access to all sorts of sellers, and part of Donovan’s job was to acquire artifacts that had fallen into human hands, returning them to the magical community where they belonged.
The mundane couldn’t behave themselves with computers on social media, much less with an artifact that granted magical abilities. Most of the time, humans couldn’t figure out how they worked, but when they did… The supernatural world was kept secret for a reason, and his business helped keep it that way.