Page 29 of Lunar Desires (Celestial Magic #2)

RILEY

O h. My. God. The twisted arsehole.

Okay, breathe. Break the windows. None of you are drowning in here.

Everyone had the same idea, attacking the glass with whatever they had. I used Tidal Pull, blowing out every window.

Take that, Uncle!

We climbed out into the rain, the weight of the deluge like taking punches, complete with an extra icy bite.

Oof!

I immediately searched for his face, his body, anything. I kept my mouth closed as much as possible. Didn’t want too much of his water getting into my system.

I heard laughter, a figure forming in the curtain of rain, followed by four more.

Isaac flanked me. “Fucker!”

“I’ve been saving my best tricks for last,” Uncle Jonathon retorted.

What did we have to hurt him?

“This is the end for you.”

Yawn! How many times did we have to suffer this crap?

Drake and Jake took position beside us, guns drawn.

“Ready?” I muttered to my brother, only opening my mouth a little.

“On the count of three.”

Good to know we were on the same page.

Three.

Two.

One.

I took on one watery uncle while he went after another. Drake and Jake got to shooting the others.

Yay! Teamwork.

Tidal Pull failed to do anything, the gravitational force slipping through the water. Dammit.

“Pathetic!” Uncle Jonathon roared.

Isaac’s sunlight lit up the road. Our uncle laughed again.

Screw this!

Pissed off by his mocking laughter, I charged him, going for a right hook. It went straight through his face, a cold sting biting my skin.

I recoiled, taking a hop back as ice spread across my hand with cold fire.

“Crap!” I yelled, trying to shake it off.

Rainwater got in now, pouring down my throat. Freezing, invisible fingers held my mouth open, prizing it wider and wider, straining my jaw, defying my attempts to close it.

Damn. It. Hard.

I pushed on my chin, meeting nothing but rigid resistance. The water closed off my airways, filling me like a jug. So cold, a brutal flood with no dam in sight.

Using Tidal Pull in desperation, I prayed it found purchase on him.

But I fell to my knees first, then collapsed onto my back. My lungs were burning, my heartbeat a deathly drum pounding down the minutes until I left this world.

Rain battered my face, numbing my skin.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Slow, arduous beats against the cold and the drowning. There wasn’t much pain, surprisingly, every cell of my being closing off to all feeling other than the probing cold.

An invasion of liquid ice visited my organs. Cooling them down to death.

“There, there,” Uncle Jonathon said, appearing above me as a floating head of water. “This was inevitable. There can only be one Moon. Me.”

I struggled, the fight not leaving me yet.

“Hush now, dear nephew. Let me guide you into the afterlife.”

No voices of my people around me. No other sounds other than the rain.

Come on! Get to your feet and kick the crap out of him!

“There is no help coming,” my uncle whispered, his voice slithering into my mind.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

“I’m giving you an easy death, Riley. Because I do care for you. I do. After all, we are family. We are joined by the same blessed blood.”

Yeah. Right. So caring, so loving. The jealousy, the bitterness, and murderous intent were just a front really. What next? He didn’t mean it, his hand forced by circumstances beyond his control? Like making a deal with a fae to get to me.

What a crock.

He’d had his shot at being The Moon, and now it was over. He could’ve chosen differently, but he decided to be an arsehole.

“I’m sorry you’ll never get to meet The Star,” he said. “But you can’t miss what you never had.” Laughter. “I’m such a caring uncle to numb the pain. After the way you’ve behaved, I should be making it hurt.” A savage snarl followed. “Maybe I should. To teach you a lesson.”

Thump. Thump. Thump.

“Never mind. Slip away, Riley. Pass over to?—”

My vision filled with moonlight, a warm wind whipping around me. An embrace, a hug. Heat filled my veins, bringing a powerful knowledge into my brain with it.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

“What is this?” Uncle Jonathon cried.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

This blood might be blessed, but it wasn’t to be shared with a stain like him.

He was unworthy of the Aurora name.

He had made his choices, murdered a family to gain power.

Nothing but scum.

Nothing but a crumbling relic.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

“The goddess rejects you!” My voice sent shockwaves out into the rain. My body jolted, pulses charging through the water.

Uncle Jonathon wailed, the killing coldness breaking, stinging my throat. An alien, toxic thing my body rejected.

I shot up, my head thrown back, mouth still wide. Rumbling in my stomach, quaking in my bones.

Holy. Crap.

A beam of moonlight erupted from me, shooting into the sky, ejecting my uncle’s malice.

My eyes leaked, my heart hiccuping. The toxic water left my body, evaporating into the sky. Within seconds, everything came back online, my energy restored.

Phew!

The beam stopped, giving me back control of my mouth. I righted my head, turning to see a beam of sunlight streaming into the sky from my brother’s mouth.

Hell to the yeah. Our blood didn’t stand for his crap.

Thank you, Hecate.

With an aftertaste like cough medicine mixed with beer on my tongue, I jumped to my feet, facing down four watery figures.

“Oh? Where did the fifth one go?” I mocked.

They all pointed at me as Isaac came up to my side. My body had warmed up, the cold rain not so offensive anymore. Those punches lighter, the icy caress more like tepid water.

Ha, ha, ha. We can all laugh, arsehole!

Where were Drake and Jake? I checked, seeing nothing.

Oh, God. What if they were dead? What?—

Stop it!

The two men appeared, dashing around the flooded car.

“Dickhead froze us,” Jake said.

Drake trained his gun on the figures, breathing labored, shivering. “You alright?” He didn’t look at me as he spoke.

Thank Hecate he was okay.

“This ends tonight!” Uncle Jonathon bellowed before I could answer. “You can’t win this. You’ll never win. I am the only Moon!”

A ripple shot through the rain, ten more figures appearing, unleashing a chorus of thunderous laughter attacking my ears.

“Oh, you’re so fucking brave!” Isaac yelled, unleashing his sunlight again.

All it did was make rainbows in the night.

Rainbows…

What about finding his Rainbow Stone? It’d be nearby, surely.

The figures attacked, launching themselves forward as humanoid sprays of water. They splashed me, doing nothing more than adding to my soaked tea towel look.

Is that all you’ve got?

Isaac laughed, his body steaming from the heat of his sunlight and the abundance of water. “You know, I could just stand here and wait for you to evaporate.”

The figures realigned in a half circle. “Why won’t you just die?”

“Too pretty to die,” my brother countered.

“You won’t be so handsome after I peel the skin off your skull.”

A fabulous idea pinged in my brain.

Ooohhh yyyeeeaaahhh…

A violent crackle raced across my soul. I plucked an exploding potion from my potion belt, smiling at the white liquid.

While Uncle Jonathon spewed some more bile about our impending doom, I picked the perfect spot to unleash the potion. Right there, just outside my building.

Hee. Hee.

“Follow me,” I told the others, breaking into a dash straight for the entrance.

Without questioning, they followed me.

I noted the silhouettes of my neighbors in the glow of the windows, probably scared out of their mind as they watched these ‘witchcops’ do battle outside their little sanctuaries.

“There is nowhere safe for you!” Uncle Jonathon called.

Yeah, yeah. Whatever.

I stopped just before the main doors, noticing people gathered in the lobby.

Get ready for a show…

“Inside,” I commanded my people.

“What—”

I cut Drake off. “Get in. Trust me.”

“But—”

“Let me do this,” I interrupted my brother. “Just hold the door open for me.”

Let me trigger this pain for my dear, dear scumbag uncle…

They did as I asked, albeit hesitantly, heading into the lobby with the others.

“If you get hurt, I’ll stamp on both your feet,” Isaac tossed out, keeping the door wide. “If you still have them.”

I laughed, my attention snapping to the approaching watery figures.

“Moon on Moon,” they said, their voices giving off a creepy echo.

Screw them

Screw him .

“This is how I like it,” Uncle Jonathon added. “How it should be. I will take the power you stole and?—”

Blah, blah, blah! I threw the potion at the wooden pole supporting the power lines running from my building into the adjacent street, making a dash into the lobby.

I made it just as the boom went off.