Visions of Chains Read online

  Praise for the Awakening Novels

  Visions of Skyfire

  “Hastings continues with the second book in her witchy, alternate universe series with great success. While building upon the expertly woven foundation of Visions of Magic, the new characters presented here are exciting and the sexual tension between them sizzles off the page. Waiting for the next installment of the Awakening saga won’t be easy!”—Romantic Times

  Visions of Magic

  “Magic, passion, and immortal warriors—this fabulous new series has it all.”—New York Times bestselling author Christina Dodd

  “Hastings launches a troubling and darkly riveting new Awakening series . . . This series starter begins laying the foundation of an intricate mythos that promises exciting future exploration. Good stuff indeed!”—Romantic Times

  “Regan Hastings provides a powerful but dark thriller. The story line is fast-paced, with deep characterizations that make the Awakening of magic seem real. However, it is the underlying social issue of burning the Bill of Rights that makes this a terrific cautionary tale.”—Alternative Worlds

  “A nice addition to the paranormal genre.” —Romance Reviews Today

  “I really, really like the world setup that the author created.”—Fiction Vixen Book Reviews

  “This book has it all: romance, adventure, witches, magic, and immortal hunks.”—Jennifer Lyon, author of Night Magic

  Also by Regan Hastings

  Visions of Magic

  Visions of Skyfire

  Visions of Chains

  An Awakening Novel

  Regan Hastings

  SIGNET ECLIPSE

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by Signet Eclipse, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Copyright © Maureen Child, 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  SIGNET ECLIPSE and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-58865-9

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  To my kids, Jason and Sarah

  For all the love, all the laughs

  I’m so proud of both of you

  And couldn’t love you more.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A big thank-you to my ever-amazing plot group, Susan Mallery, Kate Carlisle, Christine Rimmer and Teresa Southwick. Without you guys, this book would have had way more holes than plot.

  Thanks to Jennifer Lyon and, again, Kate Carlisle for always being willing to listen while I obsess. I really owe you guys. Lattes on me next time.

  Thanks to my agent, Donna Bagdasarian, for her incredibly hard work, tenacity and incredible wells of patience.

  Thanks to my editor, Kerry Donovan, for brainstorming and for her insights in all the right places.

  A huge thanks to my family—they never seem to begrudge the craziness.

  And again, thanks to the Wiccans I spoke with along the writing journey of this book. I appreciate your help more than I can say.

  Contents

  Prise

  Also by Regan Hastings

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgement

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 1

  Deidre Sterling was used to being followed. Secret Service. Reporters. Paparazzi. But giant black dogs? That was new.

  She peeled back the edge of the drapes and looked out the window of her friend’s apartment. Her heart was hammering in her chest and her stomach was tumbling like an Olympic gymnast. If she had any sense, she’d leave before things got worse. But then, if she had any sense, she wouldn’t have been there in the first place.

  Three floors below, the street lay in complete darkness, but for the puddles of light from the streetlamps gleaming on wet asphalt. Cars were parked along the curb. A newspaper hurtled down the street, tossed by the wind. Lamplight shone from a few other apartments across the street and directly below her stood two men in black overcoats. Her Secret Service protection.

  Hell of a thing to be a grown woman and not be able to take a walk without at least two armed guys following behind her. But since her mother was the president of the United Sta
tes, Deidre didn’t really get to make that call.

  Still, here she was, planning to ditch her guards, just to do what she had to do. Her gaze moved on, checking every shadow, every slice of darkness that could hold—there. Just outside a pool of lamplight. The dog. It moved with a stealthy sort of grace that gave Deidre cold chills. Its head was huge and its paws were the size of saucers. What the hell was it? Great Dane? Pony?

  “What are you looking at?” Shauna Jackson walked into the room and slipped beside Deidre at the window.

  “A dog,” she answered, feeling stupid. But she could have sworn over the last few days that the damn thing had been following her. Everywhere she went, she felt its presence, even though she’d caught a glimpse of it only once or twice.

  Shauna took a quick look and shrugged. “Don’t see anything except your two human guard dogs in overcoats.”

  “It’s there. At the mouth of the alley across the street.”

  Shauna looked again. “Nope.”

  Okay, why couldn’t her friend see the dog? It was huge. Deidre wondered if maybe PTSD was becoming an issue for her. Was she seeing things? And if she was, why wasn’t she imagining fluffy kittens? Why a dog that looked as though it could—and wanted to—swallow her whole?

  Deidre shivered as the huge animal tipped its wide head up and fixed its dark eyes on her. Okay, she was really freaking over this. The dog that her friend couldn’t see could not be staring at her. How would it know what apartment she was in? At that thought, she almost laughed. Crazy much? She let the draperies fall and told herself she was getting way too paranoid.

  “You’re not trying to back out, are you?”

  Deidre turned to face her friend. Shauna’s hair was clipped short, the tight, black curls trimmed close to her head. Her chocolate brown eyes were narrowed. “Dee, the execution is in the morning. How could you think about walking away? You agreed that rescuing the witches is the right thing to do.”

  “I know.” Five women were scheduled for the fires first thing in the morning. She didn’t know if they were witches or not. And she didn’t care. State-approved executions of witches and suspected witches were happening more and more frequently, despite her mother’s attempts to rein them in. The general public was scared. And when scared people came together they usually became bloodthirsty.

  She ran her hands up and down her arms, trying to dispel the cold that had been with her since the previous raid she had gone on, two weeks before.

  But the cold wouldn’t lift any more than the memories would dissipate. She remembered everything from that awful night. She saw it all over and over again whenever she closed her eyes. Her group, the RFW, Rights for Witches, had infiltrated an internment camp to free the captive women inside. But something had gone wrong. Somehow the alarms had been sounded and guards had fired on them and men had been killed.

  She hadn’t pulled the trigger herself, but she may as well have. And that night, she had made the decision to step away from the RFW. She had joined to stop the violence, not to perpetrate it. Yet here she was, drawn back in. But how could she sit back and do nothing when the Bill of Rights was being crushed under the heel of angry mobs? How could she let innocent women be imprisoned or executed without trials?

  “You’re having second thoughts again. You in? Or out?” The expression on Shauna’s face was impatient and her eyes glinted with determination.

  She took a breath, then reached down for the black jacket on the couch beside her. “I’m in. I shouldn’t be, but I’m in.”

  “Of course you should,” Shauna told her, slipping into her own black jacket. She picked up a revolver, checked to make sure it was loaded, then tucked it into the waistband of her black jeans.

  Deidre frowned, remembering that last rescue gone bad. “I thought we agreed no guns.”

  “We agreed you weren’t going to carry one. But, honey, if somebody shoots at me, I’m going to shoot back.”

  “This is nuts. The whole world is nuts,” Deidre muttered.

  “It’s always been crazy,” Shauna said quietly. “It’s just now, the whole crazy-ass world is on a mission.”

  A mission to kill witches and rid the world of magic. Which was why Deidre was here, ready to go on another raid. It was unjust. “There has to be a better way to end this.”

  “Well, if there is, we haven’t found it,” Shauna said flatly. “Besides, if anyone could do something about this, it’s you.”

  Deidre laughed briefly, gathered up her blond hair and quickly braided the mass to keep it out of her way. “Right.”

  “Your mother is the president of the United States.”

  “Yeah, and she won’t be pleased to know I’m back in the RFW.” Deidre didn’t even want to think about her mother’s reaction. She had been delighted to hear that Deidre was stepping back from the RFW. As president, Cora Sterling walked a fine line between the citizens who wanted magic stamped out—along with the witches who wielded the power—and protecting the witches, who—hello?—were also citizens and had rights.

  But then, every leader in the world was on that tightrope. Magic was out in the open now and those with power were being hunted down like rats by the very governments that should have been protecting them. At least her mom had shown some sympathy for the women being swept up and jailed. Or so Deidre had thought until she discovered that this execution was going ahead as planned without any intervention from the president of the United States.

  So when Shauna called asking her to help, Deidre had immediately agreed. How could she not? She had seen firsthand the women who were tortured in prison. The women who were so broken by the time they were rescued they would never recover. And that didn’t even take into account the women who had died. No, as much as Deidre wanted to be able to turn her back, she couldn’t.

  “Anyway,” she said, jerking her head toward the window and the two men—not to mention maybe that dog—standing in the street, “I still don’t see how we’re supposed to get past the Secret Service guys.”

  Shauna grinned. “They’ll never know we’re gone.”

  Chapter 2

  Twelve hours until the execution.

  Finn leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb and watched his lieutenants prepare for battle. There was no talking, only the occasional whispered comment. This group had been together less than three months and trust was still building. They worked on a first-name basis only—that way if one of them was captured they wouldn’t be able to give anyone else up. Danger was a constant companion with Death hovering around every corner and still they came to fight.

  He wondered if it was for love of freedom as they claimed—or if it was just that some people always needed something to rage against.

  The lights were dim and seemed to soak into the dank rock walls rather than reflect off of them. It smelled like old liquor and cats down here in the chamber below the apartment building’s basement. High aboveground, buildings sent spires skyward; down here, there was a labyrinth of tunnels and rooms long forgotten by those on the surface.

  Scowling, Finn looked at the people busily strapping weapons to their bodies, getting ready for the raid. Mortals. Willing to risk their already too-short lives in the hopes of saving innocents.

  He had spent centuries avoiding contact with humans. He hated cities. The noise. The crush of humanity. The relentless reminders of just how alone he really was. Yet here he stood now. In the heart of a city, surrounded by humans.

  War made for strange alliances.

  And they were definitely at war.

  Finn pushed away from the wall and lifted one hand to his second-in-command, Joe. A former Navy SEAL, Joe was, like Finn, a born warrior.

  “Everyone ready?”

  Joe glanced at the others as they checked pistols, stuffed knives into scabbards. “As ready as they can be.”
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  Finn nodded and reached for the curve-bladed sword he had carried for eons. He slid it into the sheath that ran along his spine. “We’ll leave as soon as she gets here.”

  “Whatever you say, boss.”

  Boss. How the hell had his existence come to this? Joe took orders from Finn because he agreed with the missions. He wouldn’t blindly follow anyone for long and for that, Finn respected him. Trusted him. He didn’t trust many, either. His brothers, of course, but humans? They were too fragile. Too easily broken or swayed by whatever popular opinion was in fashion. They lived foolishly and died too soon. What was the point of knowing them? To an immortal like Finn, a human’s existence was equivalent to a fruit fly.

  He checked his knives, then tucked a few extra throwing stars into the pockets of his black leather jacket. Although he was not accustomed to caring for humans, there was one who was different.

  At least he hoped to hell she was different. And he would fight to protect her.

  Deidre took another look out the draperies, to make sure the two men in black overcoats were still standing guard in front of the building. They were. Silent, stalwart sentinels. She almost felt bad about sneaking out on them. Almost.

  They left Shauna’s apartment and in seconds they were crossing the hall and slipping into the stairwell. They moved quickly, but carefully, trying to muffle the sounds of their footsteps, yet the hollow echo in the deserted space seemed to thrum around them. The fluorescent lights threw weird shadows on the walls as they passed and danger seemed to crouch around every turn. Deidre’s stomach twisted into knots and her breathing was short and sharp.

  She couldn’t believe it had come to this. Sneaking away from her guards. Going on a very illegal rescue mission. She’d be lucky if her mother didn’t have her imprisoned for treason. But she couldn’t let those women die without at least trying to save them. These days, the Salem witch trials weren’t just history; they were looked on more as a how-to manual for dealing with the supernatural.

  They opened the door to the basement and slipped inside. It smelled bad in there. Like mildew and old socks with a hint of cigarette smoke layered over the top. Shauna didn’t hit the lights, so the darkness was fairly absolute, but for the hint of moonlight slipping through the narrow casement windows. The basement was big but crowded with crap. No surprise. The tenants used the area for storage, she guessed, since towers of cardboard boxes lined the walls.