The Ancient's Destiny - Book Three in The Prophecy Girl Trilogy

by Danielle Austen

Genres: Fantasy Romance

Synopsis

Seven magi remain on Earth, including the subject of an ancient prophecy, Cereza Mikhailov. Abandoned by her first love and isolated from everyone she ever cared about, Cereza has turned her back on her past and lives a shallow existence of lust and indulgence, unaware that the world is about to change for ever. An ancient magical being wants to wipe out humanity and bring about a new world. An old enemy is rising again. Cereza?s parents are missing. And caught in the middle of it all is young waitress Rose Covington, whose budding relationship with a mysterious stranger might be cut off before it even begins. Combining explicit sexual content, intense supernatural action and shocking plot twists into a dark erotic romance unlike any other, The Ancient?s Destiny brings an unforgettable conclusion to the Prophecy Girl Trilogy.

Release date: April 25, 2014

Publisher: Accent Press

Print pages: 218

Sample

Chapter One

Cereza Mikhailov quivered as another slug of cheap whiskey burned her throat. Under cruel fluorescent light, she appraised her reflection in her bathroom mirror, looking back at herself through green eyes that seemed brighter than usual due to the thick, fake eyelashes she wore and the glittery black shadow on her lids. She ran her long, slender fingers through her hair, perfecting the fall of the choppy, jet-black lengths onto the alabaster skin of her slim shoulders. She pursed her lips, ensuring that she didn’t need to reapply any of the shiny, dark crimson lipstick.

For a moment, she was lying naked in a field underneath the scorching Italian sunshine, her lover delicately brushing her snow-white hair out of her naturally beautiful face.

She frowned and turned up the volume on her stereo. The abrasive sounds of complex guitar riffs and banshee-like screamed vocals brought her back to the present.

Returning to the mirror, she turned from side to side, evaluating the way her ripped T-shirt fitted her slim torso. She cocked her head; there was something not quite right about a scruffy cotton T-shirt atop a minuscule latex skirt and fishnet stockings, even if it was deliberately torn in such a way as to display her toned stomach and the subtle curves of her small cleavage.

Her brain replayed the dream or conversation or whatever it was that she’d had with her mother last night. “Isua’s back. If you see him … run. Run away from him as fast as you can. He wants to wipe out humanity and start a new world with you.”

She heard a car horn beeping. Her taxi had arrived. ‘Fuck it,’ she said, her voice a quiet mutter, and pulled the T-shirt off over her head. She briefly considered her perky breasts in the mirror, wondering what on earth she could do that would work with the rest of her outfit. Then she reached into a drawer and pulled out a roll of sticky black tape. She bit off two short lengths and crudely stuck them over the light pink circles of her areolas. Her five-inch stiletto heels clacked on the floor as she stomped out of the bathroom. She picked up her leather jacket, hastily threw it on, and zipped it up as she left the house.

After a short, silent taxi ride, Cereza arrived at the Cauldron Lake Theater, a concert venue a few miles away in the neighbouring town of Bright Falls. She paid the cab driver, blew him a kiss, and walked to the building’s side entrance. A burly bouncer allowed her to pass, nodding at her in silent recognition. She navigated the maze of identikit grey corridors and let herself in to the band’s dressing room.

‘Hey,’ she said.

The lead singer of local rock band Pale Horse was looking in his mirror, putting the finishing touches to his eyeliner. He turned to Cereza as she walked in, his eyes roving lustily over her slutty ensemble.

‘Nice outfit. How do I look? There’s a really important A&R guy here tonight so I want everything to be perfect.’

Cereza gazed at her boyfriend with equal desire, admiring how his tight black trousers hung below his hips, almost indecently close to his crotch. With his entire flawlessly sculpted torso on show, and his long dark hair and kohl-ringed eyes, he was the perfect combination of masculine and feminine – every inch a textbook rock star. Finally she answered him. ‘Put it this way … if that A&R person is female, you’re going to be signed before you even sing a song.’

‘Yeah?’ He confidently sauntered over to Cereza. ‘And you wouldn’t be even a little bit jealous?’

‘Like I haven’t watched you fuck some dumb slut before, Brett. You should know by now that I am not your ordinary groupie.’

‘I know that.’ Brett smirked sleazily, reaching down with his right hand and placing it underneath Cereza’s miniskirt, rubbing his fingers across her naked pussy. Her teeth caught on her dark bottom lip and she gasped at Brett’s commanding touch. She was already wet for him.

He spoke again, his voice husky. ‘No underwear? Nice touch.’

In reply, Cereza took Brett’s hand by the wrist and brought his slippery fingers to her dark lips. She took him knuckle-deep, her eyes locked on to his as she tasted her juices on him, her tongue working over his digits, claiming every drop of her own sweet nectar.

‘How long have you got?’ she said.

‘Not long enough, Rez. If this was any other show, then sure, but I need everything to be perfect. This could be our shot at the big time. Can you imagine? Touring the world, playing shows to thousands of people, huge outdoor shows underneath the stars …’

His hand moved to her chest, his thumb pressing hard over the barely contained peak of her stiff left nipple.

‘No stars.’ Cereza’s heart skipped a beat as she realised the significance of what she’d just blurted out. With her mood soured by memories of Ezio, her demeanour became more aggressive. Her hands snapped to the waistband of Brett’s trousers, her fingertips trying to gain entry.

‘Come on, Brett. I know you want to fuck me.’

‘Of course I do, but you can wait a couple of hours. Man, you English girls are desperate, huh?’

Cereza huffed childishly and dropped to her knees.

‘I’m part Russian, actually. And part Italian.’ That last part wasn’t really true – living in Italy for 18 years didn’t make her Italian. She didn’t know why she’d said it. Her hands gripped Brett’s strong thighs, his muscles obvious beneath the tight material of his trousers, and she leant her mouth into him, looking up at him with doe eyes as she dragged her teeth over the huge, thick bulge at his crotch.

‘Please?’

Brett was silent a moment, his eyes glazed over. ‘Not yet,’ he eventually said. ‘After the show.’

‘Damn it, Brett,’ Cereza said through a whisper. A drunken whine of frustration slipped her lips as Brett moved away from her and returned his attention to the dressing room mirror.

‘This is our last song. We’re Pale Horse; thank you for coming. This is Masque of the Red Death.’

Cereza smiled from the side of the stage, savouring the cheers and whistles from the 500-strong crowd. She felt glass pressing against her arm, and turned to accept the bottle of vodka that was being offered by the lead guitarist’s girlfriend, Lacie. She swigged the strong liquor, her eyes wandering over her sort-of friend.

It could not be denied there was a very good reason why Lacie had been the lucky one to snag the soon-to-be famous guitarist. She was young and gorgeous, with long, blonde hair adorned with a few red streaks, and her face was thick with dark make-up. Piercings adorned her left nostril and the centre of her bottom lip, and like every other band groupie, she also had a fondness for skimpy clothing. Annoyingly, Lacie had managed to successfully pull off the ripped T-shirt and miniskirt combination that had so eluded Cereza.

Cereza beckoned her closer and then leant in to Lacie, pressing her hand between her mouth and Lacie’s ear so she could be better heard.

‘You know that A&R guy’s here tonight, right?’

‘Sure.’

‘Want to go cause some controversy?’

Lacie smiled and took Cereza’s hand. Even above the sound of the band, Cereza could hear the gasps from the crowd as they arrived onstage – some people sounded offended, but the majority were whooping excitedly.

Cereza looked at Brett as he sang; he barely seemed to notice her. Whether that was a good thing or not, she wasn’t sure.

She and Lacie began to dance, their hands on each other’s shoulders, gyrating in time with the driving rhythms of the bass player and drummer. They held eye contact, their hands slowly moving down each other’s bodies to their waists, and Cereza felt a genuine moment of excited apprehension as she leant in to kiss Lacie. She closed her eyes softly, electric tingles shooting through her body to her sex as she waited for the soft touch of Lacie’s blood-red lips on hers.

In Cereza’s mind, a middle-aged Italian woman kissed her instead.

‘Stop it,’ she said, her teeth gritted with frustration.

‘What?’

‘No, not you, just …’ Cereza brought herself back to the present and knotted her fingers in Lacie’s hair, then lunged forward and kissed her, her tongue sliding over Lacie’s. The girl tasted of vodka and semen. Some strange kind of jealousy made Cereza turn her performance up a notch, glancing sideways at the crowd and parting her lips, kissing Lacie open-mouthed.

The crowd were going wild. She glanced over at Brett, noticing the obvious swelling in his trousers. Cereza couldn’t help but give a self-satisfied smirk. He was practically singing the entire song to her now.

‘Let’s go further than we’ve gone before; closer to the edge of disaster,’ he sang, both hands wrapped tightly around the phallic cylinder of his microphone.

It all became too much. The loud, sexy music; the obvious arousal from her boyfriend; the fact she was doing this on stage in front of hundreds of people … Cereza couldn’t help herself. Facing the crowd, she dropped to her knees and leant backward, supporting her weight with one hand while the other slipped down between her legs.

She closed her eyes and let all her other senses take control as she slowly stroked herself. The warm, thick smell of compacted bodies mixed perfectly with the way the vibrations from the bass rumbled through the wooden floor. The entire stage became her own personal vibrator.

Soon she felt the gentle caress of long, silky hair on the bare skin of her shoulders; Lacie had come behind her and was softly kissing her neck, her hands reaching forward to Cereza’s chest, rubbing over the rigid, tape-covered points of her excited nipples.

Cereza began to buck on her own hand, letting her slick pussy slide over the full length of her fingers, grinding into her palm like it was some subservient lover licking her. The final chorus of the song ended and a self-aware part of Cereza knew that she had only a few seconds of an instrumental section before it was over, and if she hadn’t come by then she’d just have to fake it. If she didn’t, the show could be ruined.

Her eyelids parted woozily for a moment and she happened to glance at the front row of the audience. Their expressions were a combination of shock, embarrassment, and obvious arousal; then she noticed a tall, muscular young man with an intent look in his eyes. The strong muscles of his arm were quite clearly pumping away at himself inside his trousers.

She squeaked involuntarily as a very real climax overtook her. The hand supporting her weight gave way but Lacie was there to hold her, and she seemed to know just what to do to allow Cereza to ride the crest of her orgasmic wave, lightly biting down on her neck and brusquely yanking off the black tape that covered the hard points of her nipples. The sounds of her moans were drowned out by a powerful crescendo of drums and guitars; then, like a perfect lovemaking session where both partners peak simultaneously, her orgasm and the band’s song finished together. It was hard to work out who the crowd were cheering more loudly for.

‘Mr Mikhailov?’ Ezio said, walking into the small room. He rushed over to the injured body on the floor, leaning down to pick him up.

‘Don’t touch me.’ Dmitri swatted Ezio’s hands away from him. With visible effort, he rolled himself over onto his back and then grabbed the side of the bed to pull himself up into a seated position. His legs weren’t moving at all.

‘Let me help you,’ Ezio said quietly, his deep voice carrying a heavy Italian accent.

‘I don’t need any help.’

Dmitri tugged at the bed, pulling himself upward using only his arms like an injured rock climber would. He’d almost made it when the bedsheets gave way on him, causing him to crash to the floor in a heap.

‘Please, Mr Mikhailov …’ Ezio had only met the man yesterday but all he wanted to do was help.

Dmitri sighed. ‘Fine.’

Ezio walked over, crouched down, and tucked his arms underneath the older man: one below his broad shoulders, the other under his knees. Then he lifted him up off the floor, his arms straining, before gently lowering him back onto the bed.

‘Thank you,’ Dmitri said after an awkward pause.

‘That is OK.’ Ezio poured two glasses of water from the jug that sat on the bedside table and handed one to Dmitri before taking one himself. He sat down on a small wooden chair next to the bed. Sunlight shone onto him through an open window on one of the lightly coloured stone walls. He ran his fingers across the thick stubble that covered his cheeks and then over his closely cropped hair.

‘How are you today?’

‘How do you think I am? Yesterday I woke up to discover I’ve been in a coma for three years. I’m thousands of miles away from my family. I can’t even walk. And I’ve just found out that my wife’s stuck on an island in Japan, my daughter’s been alone for three years, the man who almost killed you is looking for her with the sole purpose of killing her, and worst of all …’

‘Yes?’

Dmitri sighed. ‘This is going to sound insane … I once had this friend called Billy. He was just a giant man-child. Totally simple. Three years ago, another magus told me this theory he had – that a long-lost magical artefact called the Isua was actually a person. It was crazy, but what he said made me think that it was Billy. Well, it turns out I was right. My wife’s been healing Billy’s brain – which I asked her to do – and apparently he’s not Billy any more. He’s Isua now, some thousand-year-old being of pure magic or something, and he wants to destroy humanity and start a new world with Cereza. And it’s all my fault; if I hadn’t been so desperate to protect Cereza then this wouldn’t have happened. He’d still be the happiest person ever just watching birds in trees.’

‘How do you know all of this?’

‘My wife came to me last night, but it wasn’t a dream. It was real.’ Dmitri gave a wry laugh. ‘Sorry, I’ve been so wrapped up in my world for so long that I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be a normal human being. You must think I’m an idiot, lying here going on about magic …’

‘I understand more than you think. I’ve known about magi since I was a child. I know why you look so much younger than you are. I know why you don’t get sick. I know the kind of things you can do. My stepfather was a magus. He was part of that … secret society or cult or whatever it was.’

‘The Solus Invictus?’

‘Yes. He’d bring his friends around sometimes. I hated them so much. They were all so … disgusting.’

Dmitri smiled, his eyes flickering with something like respect.

‘So you knew about Cereza? That she’s a magus?’

‘No, I … We’d only really just started seeing each other, and I was walking her home one day with some other friends when we got attacked by two armed men. Everything happened so quickly, but all I really remember is that I was about to be shot when Cereza did something. She used magic, and I know it was just to save me, but I was so blinded with hate that I left her. I’m so sorry, Mr Mikhailov.’

Dmitri exhaled loudly. ‘Please, call me Dmitri. You don’t need to apologise; I know how hard it is for normal people with ordinary lives to understand what people like me are capable of. I’d be scared of magi if I were you. Anyway, you came back for Cereza. You were asking for her when you walked into the middle of that fight. I assume you weren’t looking for her so you could dump her again.’

‘I knew I’d made a huge mistake. Just because my stepdad and his friends were horrible people doesn’t mean that Cereza is too. She’d been amazing to me. She’s such a good person.’

‘Do you love her?’

Ezio looked his ex-girlfriend’s father in the eye: this intimidating man who had almost given his life to save him. He was worried what the correct answer was. After a moment’s pause, he went with honesty, and nodded his head.

Dmitri smiled. ‘I’m glad I did what I did, Ezio. And thank you for staying here. I don’t know what possessed you to leave home and stay with a coma patient in Egypt for three years, but thank you. It’s nice to know Cereza had someone who’d give her the love and respect she deserves. Who knows, if we ever make it out of this alive, maybe you’ll get the chance to win her back. If you do, you have my blessing.’

‘Thank you, Mr Mikhai …’ Ezio stopped himself as Dmitri raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘Thank you, Dmitri. Can I ask you about the man who almost killed you? The one you saved me from?’

‘Ah. That’s kind of a long story. His name is Angelito Tarrago. Twenty-three years ago, he was a famous stage magician, but he was also part of the Solus Invictus. He and I were both in London looking for Lindsey, Cereza’s mother, because we’d heard about this prophecy telling of a female magus. It was a big deal; before Lindsey, all magi were male. But Angelito had also found one of three ancient magical artefacts, called the Koshnarek. It was like this crystal ball kind of thing that would take magical energy from those around it. He used it on the entire Solus – he got more than a hundred magi together in one room and stole their powers from them. It cost most of them their lives.’

Ezio cut in. ‘This was 23 years ago in London?’

‘Yes. Why do you ask?’

‘That was when my stepfather died.’

Dmitri was silent for a moment, seemingly unsure of what to say. Then he continued. ‘I was there when this happened. So was Lindsey. We managed to stop Angelito before he could finish his plan – I destroyed the Koshnarek before he could take it for himself, and the combined powers of the entire Solus Invictus were distributed between the nearest magi: Angelito, Lindsey, and me. After that, the only magi left in the world were the three of us and the small handful who weren’t part of the Solus.’

‘Like the man who brought me here, yes? Farik has told me a little about this.’

‘Yes, he’s one of them. Now there’s just him, me, Lindsey, Cereza, Angelito, a psycho called Frank, and this Isua guy. So anyway, nothing happened for 20 years. Lindsey and I moved to Italy to raise Cereza. Then Angelito showed up, and I did everything I could to stop him. But he’d found another artefact. The Orran. It made him completely invincible. He literally can’t die. What I did to him should have killed him three times over. I really don’t think he can be stopped. Cereza’s our only hope.’

‘But … How? I saw that man get hit by a truck. His bones were all broken – he should have been dead, but he got right back up again like nothing had happened.’ Ezio shivered involuntarily. Sometimes he still had nightmares about that moment.

‘I forgot to tell you about the prophecy. Before Angelito and I knew exactly what had been said, we just thought it was about a female magus. But he found the actual text of the prophecy. It said, “I saw a young girl on the cusp of womanhood. She had hair as white as the purest snow. She engaged in magical battle with an evil man. A scar ran across his face, and he was blind in one eye. The Solus were no more. And then I awoke.” At that point, Lindsey was 23 and blonde, and there was no one-eyed magus. That meant the prophecy wasn’t about her, so Angelito decided he didn’t want her any more.’

Ezio’s blood ran cold. He thought of Cereza’s beautiful snow-white hair. He remembered the awful face of the man who had tried to kill him; the crinkled red skin and the white scar that ran across what had once been his left eye.

‘You understand what this means?’ Dmitri said.

Ezio nodded in reply, his breath ragged with worry. When he regained his composure he said, ‘So what happens next?’

‘I need to recuperate, and quickly. My wife’s on her way here: she’ll be able to help me if Farik can’t. Then I’m going to find Isua before he finds Cereza. And I’m going to kill him.’

‘You’re a bad girl, Rez,’ Brett said.

‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’ Cereza smiled slightly drunkenly at her boyfriend. She ambled over to him and her fingertips worked their way down the taut muscles of his sweaty torso. ‘You liked?’

‘Hell yes, I liked.’ One of Brett’s hands reached up and lightly gripped her hair. ‘Why don’t you stay the night at my place and I’ll show you just how much I liked it?’

‘You know I can’t stay over.’

‘Are you ever going to stay the night? We’ve been fucking for over a year now.’

‘I told you I can’t. What’s wrong with right now?’ Her fingertips continued their travels, firmly rubbing over the rock-hard bulge in Brett’s tight trousers.

‘I’ve got to talk to the A&R guy before –’

‘Oh, fuck the A&R guy. I’ll go and give him a blowjob if it’ll make you feel better. The rest of the band are all off getting laid right now, so why aren’t you? Do you want me to beg for it?’

Brett smirked at her sleazily. Cereza got the distinct impression that he did in fact want her to beg for it.

‘Please Mr Rock Star,’ she said in an exaggerated, Marilyn Monroe-esque voice. She looked up at him with pouty lips and deliberately blinked her eyes several times. ‘Please fuck my tight little pussy with your big rock star dick.’

Cereza unzipped his trousers and dropped to her knees, peeling the tight material off his muscular thighs with both hands. She smiled at his erection as it sprang out of its captivity. She wrapped the fingertips of one hand around it and slowly stroked his full, thick length while her other hand moved to his balls, stroking and caressing his weighty sack.

‘Still want to talk to the A&R guy?’ she said, her voice raspy.

Her hips ground involuntarily as hot tingles fired through her body. When he didn’t answer, she looked up at him, moved her hands to rest on his thighs, opened her lips and moved slowly forward, taking every inch of him into her mouth in one smooth movement until her nose was pushing against his hard belly.

She fully withdrew from his thick, saliva-coated cock and repeated the motion, not blinking once. . .