My sister sat astride the large cat creature, laughing. My sister?I strode away from the second-story window using my energy as a stage. My power buoyed me, swirling purple and red with shimmers of silver, like sparklers at a celebration.
The woman on the far side of the Warlock Society's tall brick wall did look like me. Thinner with stronger facial features, but we had the same phosphorescent green eyes and dark, wavy hair. She definitely gave off more badass vibes. With half her head shaved and riding a giant feline, she had instant tough-girl status. Her aura swirled with rainbows like an oil slick on a puddle.
The cat creature was the size of a bus, with orange and black striped fur. Its long tail swayed behind it, twitching with anticipation like a house cat watching birds through a window.
Zombies filled the city street, swaying around them. When my sister laughed, the undead turned and watched as if waiting for a command.
A flash of sparkling fuchsia caught my eye. A child-sized woman with wings shot from behind the mammoth cat and fluttered above my sister. Bright pink hair braided in tight cornrows accentuated red, almond-shaped eyes. She smiled at me, exposing long, purple fangs. Okay...
"I am Ophelia," my supposed sister announced. "The seventh daughter of the seventh son, the shifter who cannot shift. The warlock who is a woman, the anomaly, the other part of you. Your destiny." The person Suki said I needed to end the zombies...
The undead parted, and a man appeared--naked except for intricate black tattoos from his chin down to the tips of his toes. His shaved head and sharp facial features were the only parts of him not inked.
"You want to introduce your friends?" I asked. Ophelia laughed again, and the cat grinned, exposing two more canines as thick as my arm. Awesome. "Okay...a shifter who can't shift. That's just not a shifter, right? I can't shift either, but I don't go around using it as a moniker."
Her lips didn't move, but her eyes lit with amusement as she answered in my head. "I'm the shifter who cannot shift into animals." Telepathic much? Green and yellow power pooled beneath Ophelia, lifting her into the air.
She wore black leather pants and a matching halter top. I resisted the urge to look down at my own outfit--a handmade linen shirt tucked into brown leather pants, scuffed, bitten through, and dirty.
The way Ophelia's chi supported her, the way the undead obeyed, the fact she had a giant cat, a fanged pixie, and a tattooed naked dude on her side all added up to a formidable opponent.
Ophelia walked toward me across her chi, stopping at the edge of the warlocks' dome of protection. The pink woman, her wings a blur of motion, zipped above us, darting around like a bug.
"I cannot shift into animals. But I can shift into the winds," Ophelia said inside my head. Trees in the yard below us bent as a wave of cold air blasted. "I can shift into the sea, into the rains." Thunder sounded and clouds manifested above us, curling into a storm, shot through with lightning.
"Wow," I said, because that was impressive stuff.
She paced at the edge of the spell's protection, her power moving under her. "I am your destiny," she said, stopping and putting a hand on one hip, "because I am your death."
So...this isn't going to be a sweet sisterly reunion--more of a fight-to-the-death kind of thing.
**Beware: This series is for adults who enjoy steamy paranormal romance with strong urban fantasy vibes and who don't mind a few f-bombs.**
