Harley Merlin 2: Harley Merlin and the Mystery Twins Read online

  Harley Merlin 2: Harley Merlin and the Mystery Twins

  Bella Forrest

  Contents

  Problems reading?

  1. Harley

  2. Harley

  3. Harley

  4. Harley

  5. Harley

  6. Harley

  7. Tatyana

  8. Harley

  9. Tatyana

  10. Harley

  11. Tatyana

  12. Harley

  13. Harley

  14. Harley

  15. Harley

  16. Tatyana

  17. Harley

  18. Harley

  19. Harley

  20. Harley

  21. Harley

  22. Tatyana

  23. Harley

  24. Harley

  25. Harley

  26. Harley

  27. Tatyana

  28. Tatyana

  29. Harley

  30. Harley

  31. Harley

  32. Tatyana

  33. Harley

  34. Harley

  35. Harley

  36. Tatyana

  37. Harley

  38. Harley

  39. Tatyana

  40. Harley

  41. Tatyana

  42. Harley

  43. Harley

  Read more by Bella Forrest

  Copyright © 2018

  Nightlight Press

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Problems reading?

  If you experience any problems reading this ebook—such as pages skipping, etc.—it’s a Kindle glitch. Just delete the ebook from your device and re-download it, and the problem should solve itself. If not, contact Amazon’s customer support; they’re usually very helpful and efficient.

  One

  Harley

  A massive ball of fire came at me.

  I dropped flat on the ground and felt the scorching heat of the blaze as it shot past, warming my back before it dissipated somewhere behind me. I jumped back to my feet and put my hands out. My palms felt hot as I summoned the flames within me, eager to pay it back in kind.

  Panting and covered in a sheen of sweat, I managed to produce a flurry of small fireballs, which I shot toward Wade. Poof! Poof! Poof!

  He ran across the training hall. My blazing balls missed him by inches every time. I cursed under my breath. Wade chuckled as he slowed down, then stopped.

  “You’ll have to get more precise with your shots, Merlin!” he said, breathing heavily.

  He came back to the center of the hall, his tall figure reflected in the black marble floor and in the four walls surrounding us. I caught snippets of myself as well, and of Preceptor Nomura standing on the edge of the training space, which was marked with a thin line of white paint that glowed whenever one of us crossed it.

  “Hey, I’m better than I was a month ago!” I retorted.

  “Watch yourself, Crowley! You lose points if you leave the training space,” Nomura interjected.

  Wade gave him a quick glance, then shifted his focus back to me. Sometimes it was difficult to concentrate with Wade Crowley looking at me. His deep green eyes seemed to pierce through my very soul, and in combination with the large curls of his black hair and the way his dark blue pants and vest hugged his athletic figure… well, I had to put in additional effort to focus on his magical abilities so I didn’t get plastered all over the floor.

  “Come on, Merlin. Hit me. I just lost ten points dodging instead of blocking your fireballs,” Wade said. “Attack me again so I can get them back.”

  I laughed mockingly, then put my hands out again. He took great pleasure in riling me up—I could feel it in my chest. There were definite perks to living with Empathy. When we trained, Wade focused more on the action and less on his emotions, which allowed me to read him accurately. Outside the training halls, he was guarded, aware of my ability to feel him. He’d been practicing emotional control over the past couple of weeks. I could feel that, too. He didn’t like me knowing how he felt.

  “I don’t know about that, Crowley. I’ve got you running around like a monkey already. It’s only a matter of time before I get you all hot and crispy!” I replied.

  I produced over two dozen small fireballs this time and worked on perfecting my aim as I released them at Wade. Some he dodged with smooth and fluid moves. Others he swatted away with his hands. Without his ten Esprit rings lighting up orange to prevent his skin from burning upon contact with my fire, he had to use his raw Fire Elemental ability to protect himself.

  “Well, for someone who, up until a month ago, didn’t even know what a magical was,” Wade said, “you can hold your ground. I’ll give you that.”

  “I could do a lot more if someone would just let me use my Esprit!” I shot back, gritting my teeth.

  This was a non-Esprit training session. Only our raw powers were allowed, and I hated it because even without his rings, Wade was a fearsome adversary.

  He ran toward me, grinning like the devil.

  Like the rookie that I still was, I froze.

  He moved so fast that I didn’t even have a second to react. He stopped about ten feet away from me and released another fireball at full strength. I gasped and crossed my forearms in front of my face. I summoned my own fire to protect me, but I moved one split second too slow.

  Wade’s fireball smacked right into me. The force of its impact threw me backward. I landed on my back with a painful thud, then slid past the training circle.

  Thanks, physics!

  Once I stopped, I stared at the black marble ceiling for a few moments. I heard Nomura click his teeth.

  “Too slow,” he said.

  “Gee. You think?” I replied dryly.

  Wade showed up in my field of vision, smirking as he looked down at me. He offered me a hand. I slapped it away, then shakily got myself back up and wiped the soot from my face. This wasn’t the first time I was getting my ass handed to me, anyway.

  “If it’s any consolation, you’re slightly better than last week,” Wade said, trying to encourage me yet again. It didn’t happen often, and I knew he meant it, so I gave him a soft nod in return before I frowned at Nomura.

  “I’d be a lot better with my Esprit, you know,” I said.

  Nomura shrugged. “And I told you that the Esprit is useless if it’s taken from you. Harley, you must be able to defend yourself and deliver strong attacks without it. The power is inside you already, and we’re training you to master it without the aid of a trinket.”

  “There’s not that much power in me to begin with,” I murmured, then pointed two thumbs at myself. “Mediocre, remember?”

  A month had passed since the gargoyle debacle, and the coven had yet to arrange a second Reading for me. It wasn’t exactly a regular custom, and it had taken them a while to find a new physician willing to relocate to San Diego. Still, I was wiser and better trained than the first time I’d set foot inside the San Diego Coven. I knew a little bit more about myself, too, even though it broke my heart. Harley Merlin was my real name. It sounded better than Harley Smith, I had to admit, but it carried a dark and painful history.

  Hiram and Hester Merlin were once two of America’s most promising and powerful magicals. Until my father killed my mother. My aunt, Katherine Shipton, had his child before he married my mother, and it was a well-kept secret until I got here. Katherine was and, unfortunately, st
ill is a murderous psychopath. The complexities of my family tree were still mind-boggling. She vanished years ago, but her son—my cousin and half-brother, Finch—managed to infiltrate the San Diego Coven.

  A plan had been set in motion. The Bestiary was sabotaged. Gargoyles were let out. People died. I managed to catch Finch, who turned out to be a Shapeshifter—a rare ability among magicals, from what I was later told. It was a bloody mess.

  The full scheme was still unraveling, though. Even with Finch in Purgatory, the magicals’ central prison, Katherine was undeterred. Based on what she’d already accomplished through her son, along with her criminal record and the fact that she’d yet to get caught, we all knew she was going to do much worse, and it was only a matter of time before she’d strike again. Worst of all, she knew I was alive now, and that couldn’t be good—not for me, anyway. Everyone had thought that I’d died with my mother when my father killed her, but I hadn’t. I was born and in my father’s care for about three years, before he surrendered, then got himself put on trial and executed.

  I had a bone to pick with Katherine Shipton.

  The gargoyles she’d helped sic on me had destroyed my car and my apartment, and they’d tried to eat me more than once. Her son, someone I’d come to actually tolerate despite his abrasive behavior, had also tried to kill me. Me, his own blood. The entire sequence of events made my stomach churn. Looking back, I’d had a more than turbulent first week in the San Diego Coven, but I survived it all.

  Now, it was all about honing my magical abilities. I had a lot of catching up to do, especially when compared to other magicals my age. On top of that, I wanted to become stronger and better so I could be ready when Katherine Shipton emerged again. Of course, according to my first Reading, I’d been deemed a Mediocre—a magical with limited powers, despite my varied abilities. I was a Telekinetic, an Empath, and a full Elemental, with command over fire, earth, air, and water. And yet, I was held back and most likely unable to fully develop. Both Alton and Wade had been present at my Reading, and they knew Adley couldn’t have fumbled or falsified it, despite her relationship to Finch. Besides, they’d already interrogated her with a charmed lie detector. We knew for a fact that her interpretation of my Reading had been sincere and accurate.

  “Just because you were labeled a Mediocre doesn’t mean you’re incapable of getting better at your craft,” Nomura said firmly. “You can still be effective and even deadly. Remember, I was branded a Mediocre for twenty years, until I found my Esprit, and I was already a preceptor when that happened. I took my so-called Mediocrity and I made something better of it. Technically speaking, you could do a Reading of me right now, and I’d still be a Mediocre, though my abilities and techniques are infinitely superior. Your blood shouldn’t dictate what you can do as long as there’s willpower.”

  Hiro Nomura had quite the story to tell as a warlock. He’d fought plenty of battles, the details of which I knew nothing about, but the slim scars on the side of his face said enough. I never saw him wearing anything other than his black silken tunic with broad sleeves and the two swords strapped to his back—together, they were his Esprit. The longer sword was the katana. The short one was the wakizashi. Together, they were the traditional duo of weapons sported by Japanese samurai, but for Nomura they served as his Esprit, objects capable of channeling his Chaos energy into more powerful spells and magical attacks. Had he not told me he was a Mediocre, I would never have guessed.

  Nomura was one of the six preceptors of the San Diego Coven, in charge of educating the young magicals in the arts of Physical Magic. Dylan Blight and I were his eldest students—both of us nineteen and lost through the foster system from a young age, recently found and reintroduced to the magical society. Granted, Dylan’s induction had been much smoother than mine and didn’t involve multiple attempts on his life by flesh-eating monsters and psychopathic half-brothers he had no idea existed in the first place. No, that hot mess was mine and mine alone.

  “I just feel stronger with my Esprit,” I replied. “More confident, more focused. Now that I’ve found it, I have a hard time being without it. My Telekinesis and Fire, in particular, are insanely better when I’m wearing it!”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s still just a gadget for the time being. The better you are at controlling your natural abilities without your Esprit, the more powerful and precise you’ll be with it,” Nomura said, then sighed with frustration. “I’m not here to teach you how to cheat better, Merlin. If you want Esprit training, you can wait until I deem you ready, or you can ask O’Halloran for private lessons. At your own risk. Frankly, no amount of Esprit training will make your natural abilities better.”

  I seemed to have a knack for irritating Nomura. According to Wade, that required tremendous skill—and he didn’t mean it as a compliment. I lowered my head slowly, once again disappointed that I couldn’t train with my Esprit under his guidance.

  Nomura noticed my childish disappointment, then groaned and rolled his eyes. “Crowley, put your Esprit on,” he snapped.

  Wade nodded, then took his ten sterling silver bands from his vest pocket and slipped them on his long fingers. He breathed deeply and smiled. I knew that feeling all too well now, of putting an Esprit on and experiencing the surge of power through every fiber of my body. It happened every time with my ring-bracelet.

  “Now what?” Wade asked.

  “Well, Merlin here doesn’t think one can do much without an Esprit these days, so I’d like to prove her wrong. Fight me,” Nomura replied, before removing his swords from his back and handing them over to me.

  Wade stared at him, blinking rapidly as he tried to process the unexpected order. Nomura raised an eyebrow, then moved to the center of the training area. Each room of the San Diego Coven continued to amaze me. They were all different in design, size, and function, seamlessly wrapped within a giant interdimensional pocket right where Fleet Science Center stood. Like all the other covens, ours was wirelessly powered by the Bestiary, which had become our responsibility for the next hundred years, as demanded by tradition. The monsters inside the Bestiary were raw Chaos energy expelled by magicals during Purges. It was all a natural flow of Chaos, repurposed to fit our needs as witches and warlocks in a world that wasn’t ready to learn of our existence.

  Nomura’s training hall was my favorite, mainly because of its design simplicity, and it was made entirely from Chaos energy converted into matter. It was a black marble box, with each surface polished and glazed to perfection. In the middle was the training circle. There was nothing else, and yet so much happened in this room on a daily basis.

  “Excuse me, sir?” Wade asked, gawking at Nomura.

  “I said fight me. With your Esprit,” Nomura replied.

  “But you don’t have yours—”

  “That’s very observant of you.” Nomura cut him off, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “Quit wasting my time. Come at me.”

  It took Wade another couple of seconds to assume an attack stance. Judging by the look on his face, he wasn’t used to sparring with Nomura. There was fear in his heart, too. He was genuinely afraid of Nomura’s abilities, and I worked hard to stifle a chuckle when I realized that.

  “I’m going to show you how a magical can defeat his opponent, even without an Esprit,” Nomura said, looking at me. He then motioned to Wade. “Come on, Crowley, I don’t have all day!”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Wade mumbled. His rings lit up bright orange. Flames gathered around his fists.

  Nomura assumed a defense position, his arms slightly bent in a kung-fu-style pose. As soon as Wade released the first round of medium-sized fireballs, Nomura used his Telekinesis to swat them away like pesky flies.

  “Crowley! Don’t be such a wimp! Give me something serious to work with!” Nomura barked.

  I held on to his swords, biting my lower lip to stop myself from laughing. There were very few people in this coven who chewed Wade’s ass, and Nomura was one of the top three. Wade came from a leg
endary bloodline. His mother was the director of the Houston Coven, and his father was on the Texas Mage Council. How he’d ended up with a mild Irish accent I had no idea, but it had a way of making my skin tingle whenever he opened his damn mouth. His parents had to be first-generation Irish immigrants, I figured.

  Wade exhaled, then launched a second attack. This time, as Nomura requested, he didn’t hold back. His fireballs were perfectly round and highly concentrated, burning hot red as he hurled them at Nomura’s head. The preceptor grinned and used his Telekinesis to slice each fireball in half.

  My jaw dropped as Nomura advanced toward Wade, who continued his flaming attacks. Wade’s speed and precision were no match for Nomura’s agility, though, and the preceptor disabled each fireball with his Telekinetic whips. Before Wade could throw out another round, Nomura’s invisible whip grabbed him by the throat.

  With one flick of his wrist, Nomura threw Wade out of the circle.

  “Oh, snap,” I breathed, watching Wade hit the ground and roll like a potato across the marble floor. “Are you okay, Crowley?”

  Wade groaned, then scowled at me. He managed to get back up and went after Nomura again. He was angry this time—and if there was one thing I’d learned the hard way during Physical Magic training, it was that anger served no one other than your opponent.