Cast in Hellfire: An Urban Fantasy Romance (The Mage Craft Series Book 2) by S.M. Reine Read Free Book Online

Winter Court. I could lock you away in prison for the rest of your life as easily as the Office of Preternatural Affairs.”
    His smile quickly faded. He cleared his throat. “Look, Marion, we have to get your memories back. Someone emptied your head of everything but the drive to seek me out, and the memories haven’t returned even though the summit is over. The loss was either unintentional, or it wasn’t related.”
    “I don’t see how restoring my memories helps you.”
    “You still don’t remember Elise and James, do you?”
    Rylie had mentioned those names. Marion understood that they should have been meaningful, but she could only shake her head. “I don’t remember anything since the last time we—when you helped me give that speech.”
    “Damn.” He raked a hand over his hair. “You mean your mom didn’t tell you?”
    “My mother doesn’t seem to be speaking to me,” Marion said. She hadn’t been able to get in touch with Ariane Kavanagh.
    “Aw, jeez. I don’t know how to tell you this.”
    “Tell me what? Who are Elise and James?”
    “Elise is your sister,” Seth said. “She’s also God.”
----
    M arion was a little too sober to discuss having a deity for a sister.
    It was a short walk through the orchard to reach the house. Her kitchen was as lovely as her garden: decorated in marble, with platinum fixtures and white everywhere. A little slice of heaven with three different ovens stacked atop each other so she could bake multiple batches of cookies simultaneously.
    She kept Seth in the corner of her eye to see if he was impressed. She wanted him to admire her home.
    Seth barely seemed to notice it.
    “Bottle opener is in the drawer to your left,” Marion said. “I’ll be right back.” She stepped down into the wine cellar to pick out a bottle.
    Yes, Marion had a wine cellar. It was almost as big as her closets, too, and equally well organized.
    It turned out that being the one independent force that could essentially audit all factions—and the Voice of God—was a very profitable job.
    Seth’s amused expression when she returned with a bottle of zinfandel said that he was thinking the same thing. “A wine cellar.”
    “And everything in it is excellent, I assure you.” Marion plucked two glasses from where they hung upside-down by the window. She set one in front of Seth. “Open the bottle.”
    “ You open it.” He tossed the bottle opener to her.
    Her instinct was to argue with him simply because she hated being told what to do, but picking fights over a wine bottle was stupid.
    She poured. “This Elise, my sister—you’ll have to start from the beginning. Make it simple for me, please. I’m still overwhelmed by trying to piece my life together.” Although saying she was overwhelmed might have been an understatement. “On the brink of emotional collapse” was a little closer. Ergo why her wine cellar was several bottles emptier than it had been before she returned home during the summit.
    “This is as simple as it gets,” Seth said. “I told you that there was a battle between old gods and new gods, and that’s how Genesis happened. Right? Well, your sister wasn’t a god at the time. She was the Godslayer. A weapon made by Metaraon—your father—to murder Adam, the previous God.”
    “My father made one of his daughters to murder God?”
    “Elise has a different father than you.” He picked up his glass once it was half-filled. “You guys share a mother.”
    “Ariane Kavanagh.” There were pictures of the woman around her house, so their relationship must not have been terrible, even if Ariane was impossible to contact.
    “Right,” Seth said. “Anyway, Elise won. In order to kill the last gods, she entered this thing called the Origin, which basically mixes people up and spits them back out as gods. She took her husband with her. James.”
    “Elise and James. That’s so boring. They should have taken notes from the Summer Court and renamed