Mage of Shadows by Chanel Austen Read Free Book Online

make it as a career reporter. It didn't help that I didn't have a very dedicated mind. I found it easy to read, but hard to actually write.
    The words always came out flat, misrepresenting the beauty I imagined in my mind. No one would ever mistake me for a great writer… I was no Dickens, or Hemingway, or Tolstoy. I could read their words, feel inspired, but I would never be one of them.
    "That is a career for a young man who has the luxury of dreaming. You are no such man, Nicholas."
    I could hear him even now. There was no help from my mother either, especially near the end of my senior year in high school. With her, there were only more tears.
    "Just listen your father, Nick, he only wants what is best for you."
    I would listen, I would become a doctor… and I would become a damn good doctor. I would prove to both of them that I could do it.
    My father shattered my dreams, and my mother refused to help me pick up the pieces. They made a wonderful pair of parents, certainly made for each other. At times I felt like I despised their lack of belief in me as much as I loved them. Even with the resolve to prove myself worthy to them, I wondered… why couldn't they just support me? Encourage me to do what I wanted with my life?
    We had begun to walk again and Eliza didn't speak again. Perhaps she sensed the hidden turmoil of my reflections, which I had thought to be buried away and left behind in the home I had left behind… perhaps I had just been fooling myself, I realized as we walked.
    It was the sight of the officers in front of the UGL that pulled me back to the present.
    The first was a formidable looking man, tall and good looking in his uniform, with fair features and mussed brown hair. He held the sketch that I now knew to contain my hooded face, glancing at passing students with only the barest of efforts. His other hand was held easily on the butt of his gun, although his relaxed posture told me that he didn't believe he would be pulling it any time soon.
    However impressed I was with the male, it was the female officer that caused my heart to begin a pitched drumbeat.
    Dark hair was done in an efficient bun, pulled from her face and giving her sharp eyes a clear view of everyone who passed. In the light of the afternoon, I could easily see the high cheekbones that cut severe parallels with her slightly jutting jaw. There was nothing ruffled about her appearance, her uniform immaculate. She held no photo in her hand, but unlike her partner, her eyes beadily trailed every passerby.
    Her holster was noticeably empty, gun missing. Her weapon was in the hands of the mage who had nearly took me out the night before. I doubted he would simply acquiesce to giving it back, even if I asked him really, really nicely.
    She was the officer who had chased me down on foot, and I believed her good looking companion was the same as well, Officer Wilson. With every step Eliza and I took towards them, my heart seemed to skip a beat. I thought of turning away and changing our current direction- but I feared she would notice that. No brilliant plan came to my mind to fix our horrible collision course, and I felt as if I was walking straight to my doom.
    Closer and closer we came, moving to pass around the officers, only but a few arm lengths away from the pair and I felt that hawk-like glare turning to me.
    I found myself wondering what prison would be like.
    It was the glow of the Wilson's cigarette that saved me at the moment, as he took a long drag and gave me a sudden idea.
    I made a desperate grab for my power, with only the caution to hold a small bit of it. It came to me easily and I directed my will towards that fiery pinprick of light…
    The result was instantaneous. The cigarette burst into flames.
    With a startled curse, the officer dropped it in surprise. The attention of my nemesis was diverted, and I heard the audible smack of her hand against his shoulder as I passed as nonchalantly as I could manage.
    Eliza stopped