Sin & Lightning (Demigods of San Francisco Book 5) Read online

  Sin & Lightning

  Demigods of San Francisco series

  K.F. Breene

  Copyright © 2020 by K.F. Breene

  All rights reserved. The people, places and situations contained in this ebook are figments of the author’s insane imagination and in no way reflect real or true events.

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  Contents

  1. Alexis

  2. Alexis

  3. Alexis

  4. Alexis

  5. Alexis

  6. Kieran

  7. Alexis

  8. Alexis

  9. Alexis

  10. Kieran

  11. Alexis

  12. Alexis

  13. Alexis

  14. Kieran

  15. Alexis

  16. Alexis

  17. Alexis

  18. Kieran

  19. Alexis

  20. Alexis

  21. Dylan

  22. Alexis

  23. Alexis

  24. Dylan

  25. Alexis

  26. Alexis

  27. Alexis

  28. Kieran

  29. Alexis

  30. Alexis

  31. Alexis

  32. Alexis

  33. Alexis

  Sin & Surrender (book 6)

  Also by K.F. Breene

  About the Author

  1

  Alexis

  Bria wiped her mouth and leaned toward me over the small, round café table. “Quit stalling. Finish your wine and let’s go. If we leave now, we can get to that psycho rock wielder’s lair and back by dark.”

  “What? No!” Jack pointed at Bria, though she didn’t notice because he was dead, a spirit, and unlike me, she couldn’t see or hear him. “No way. Nuh-uh. Kieran will go apeshit if you go without him.”

  I swallowed the last of my tart wine and wiped my mouth with a napkin before leaving it on my finished lunch plate. Bria was right—we needed to get moving. We were in this small town in Montana for one purpose only: to meet the level-five, rock-wielding giant who plagued the nearby mountains. A giant who had killed a Demigod a handful of years ago and then sectioned himself off from society. A giant who wouldn’t be swayed by Kieran’s considerable charm.

  Or so Bria kept telling me. She was convinced I was the one for the job, and Red, Kieran’s former assistant and my current bodyguard, agreed with her. In fact, they’d convinced me to participate in their plan to recruit him behind Kieran’s back.

  “Even if Kieran was the best one to go, he won’t be able to get away,” I said to Jack, standing. “The leader of this place is on Kieran like stink on a pig. He’s only a level five of…” I squinted, trying to remember.

  “It doesn’t even matter,” Bria said, standing with me. “His territory is tiny, he’s not a Demigod, he’s got no money, and he has to know Kieran’s only here to try his hand at that giant. The guy’s getting all the face time in while he can. He probably hopes Kieran will lift him out of the slums like a professional Cinderella. It’s great for us, because it takes Kieran out of the equation. Come on, walk and talk. Let’s go.”

  I’d told Kieran the advice Harding had given me six months back—bulk up the collection of magical people around you. Fill your new, larger team with the best and brightest you can find, equipped with all different types of magic.

  Since Kieran had to stand up to my biological father, Magnus, a powerful and well-connected Demigod who had a history of killing his children, he had taken the advice to heart. He needed the best, and he needed them soon, because the next Magical Summit, the government leadership conference for magical people, was drawing ever nearer. Which was why he’d been traveling around the country under the guise of meeting other leaders in order to woo select magical workers from their territories. Poaching magical workers was fair game, apparently, so long as they hadn’t taken a blood oath. It was like recruiting employees from a business: offer the person more perks than they had, and they might just take you up on it. Many of the people he’d pursued were diamonds in the rough—people who had attitude problems, lacked social skills, or just didn’t have the gloss and je ne sais quoi that Demigods typically sought out for their inner circle of employees.

  In every single case so far, the strongly powered misfits had taken him up on his offer, in part because he was giving them something more—a place in his inner circle and a blood oath. In exchange for the increased strength, speed, and healing ability bestowed by the blood oath, the recipient would be magically compelled to protect him. They’d decided it was a fair trade.

  The new members of the team had made the trek to San Francisco and were in the process of setting up a new life. I hadn’t interacted much with any of them. They didn’t hang around our house like Kieran’s Six, the original oath-holding crew, did. The Six were family; the new people were part of the job.

  This situation wasn’t like the others. This guy had literally barricaded himself inside a mountain after claiming vengeance on the Demigod who’d killed his fiancée. Anyone who’d had a mind to punish him had died trying to reach him. Many trespassers had gone the same way. But because magical folk weren’t very good at taking a hint, more than a few Demigods had sent their people up that mountain to gain the giant’s favor. Fewer had come back down, and yet people still tried.

  That was the magical world for you—brutal to a fault, and if you were powerful enough to get away with it, good for you. Well done.

  Kieran was determined to recruit him before the Magical Summit.

  “Kieran should be heading up to that nutter in the mountains, not you gals,” Jack said, still talking to Bria as though she could hear him. “You’re going to get yourselves killed.”

  As we left the café, I repeated what Jack said to Bria, because it was a fair point.

  “How many times do I have to say it? He has a soft spot for women,” Bria said, climbing into the passenger seat of the black SUV parked by the curb. Red was waiting in the driver’s seat.

  “Did you get it?” Bria asked as she settled in.

  Red nodded.

  “Get what?” I shoved Jack back from the door before closing it. I didn’t need him crawling over me. It was gross. A moment later, he drifted in through the other side with a disgruntled expression.

  “He doesn’t have a soft spot for women,” Jack said, reaching for the seatbelt to strap himself in. “The nutter has been known to rape and murder women.”

  His hand passed through the belt, and his face fell. He faced forward with a hardened expression, and my heart broke a little more for him. I’d always had a soft spot for Jack, and it was hard watching him adjust to his new life. It was hard not to dwell on what I could have done differently if I’d known my magic better. It was a stark reminder of how much work I had left to do. I wouldn’t lose anyone else. Which made the current situation all the dicier.

  “I’ve never heard of any raping,” Red said after I’d repeated Jack’s warning. “There have been a couple escapees, so something like that would’ve gotten out. He’s murdered plenty of people, though. Women, men, shifters in animal form—he eats them, too.”

  She said this with a straight face, steering the car through town as calmly as if we were discussing the weather.

  “He…” I scrunched up my nose. “Okay, let’s take a moment here. I wasn’t told that.”

  “A good hunter eats what he kills,” Bria said. “Who cares? Dead is dead, no matter what happens after. Which won’t matter for us, because he won’t kill us. Lexi will rip his soul out before he can.”


  “You guys told me he only killed some of the people that went up on the mountain,” I said, leaning forward to try to see their faces. The angle made it impossible.

  “Some, all, it doesn’t matter. We’ve got you,” Bria replied.

  “It matters. Honestly, even if he doesn’t kill us, which I’m suddenly not so sure about, because I’m not as awesome as you seem to think, do we really want someone like that around? He’s not interested in job offers, clearly. I doubt he’s going to be real keen on a blood oath.”

  “Look, like I said before…” Bria turned in her seat so she could see me. “The reason he went nuts is because Demigod Sarges killed his fiancée. That’s understandable, right? You’d rip the soul out of the world if someone killed Kieran—don’t say you wouldn’t. Then, because he killed a Demigod, he had to go off-grid to a place he could defend with his magic. That’s all logic. The rest is just grief. It has to be. Grief makes us do strange things. But he’s had enough time to wade through his feelings, and he’s sequestered himself long enough that he has to be lonely by now. Or at least incredibly bored. He got his revenge, he’s had time to grieve, and now he’ll be ready for action, just you watch. Level-five magical people—sorry, normal level-five magical people—have trained their whole lives to use their magic. We aren’t built for solitude. He’ll be ready; all he needs is a pretty girl who’s a little nuts herself to sweet-talk him. Voilá, out he comes.”

  I waited a moment, willing Red to say something. Because while I’d been given the broad strokes of this plan, suddenly it seemed hopelessly simple. Like…foolishly simple. Like…we were morons.

  When Red didn’t offer any convincing arguments, I said as much.

  “You are in a unique position,” Red said as we headed out of town. Beautiful, rolling hillsides filled in around us. “Your magic is feared the world over, but you’re a dunce regarding the magical world. It makes no sense. You’re this superpower who can create puppets out of living people, and you’re hopelessly clueless about almost all things. It’s endearing.” I frowned at her. “Then there is the fact that Magnus is your father, Demigod Aaron wants to rule you and will kidnap you to do it, and everyone is desperate to get their hands on you…” She glanced back at me. “See the connection?”

  “No, I just see a whole lot of backhanded compliments…”

  “He’ll identify with your story,” Bria said. “He’s basically in the same boat. Add in the fact that you went to see him behind Kieran’s back, and we have a winner.”

  I rubbed my head as we wound our way into the mountains. “Was I drunk when I agreed to this?”

  “Drunk on fear, yeah. Remember? You caught the spirit of Demigod Lydia lurking in your flower garden,” Bria said. “You would’ve agreed to just about any sort of bulked-up defense at that point.”

  That night came rushing back to me. At that point we’d already been attacked by two of the Demigods of Hades, my father and Aaron, so I hadn’t been pleased to see the curvy shadow figure standing in my zinnias. I’d known from the exaggerated bust that it had to be Demigod Lydia, the only female Demigod of Hades’s line. She was checking me out, just as the others had, likely not expecting the extravagant team of spirit sentinels that loitered around my house twenty-four seven. They’d sounded the alarm, and Kieran and I had chased her away.

  The very next day, Demigod Lydia had called Kieran’s office to apologize and ask for a meeting. A meeting Kieran had not agreed to yet, wanting Henry, one of his Six, to compile a list of all her allies to make sure it wasn’t a setup.

  I knew Kieran was hopeful Lydia would become an ally against the other Hades Demigods, but shortly after Lydia showed up, a few of my spirit sentinels disappeared, Mia among them. Just vanished, without a trace. John said there had been a lot of talk lately of spirits heading to their final resting place, but I’d tried to pull one or two of them toward me, just to make sure (and to get a proper goodbye!), and they hadn’t shown up. Sure, they could’ve gone beyond my reach, but the timing was too close to be a coincidence. Lydia might be playing nice right now, but I worried something sinister waited underneath the cooperative exterior.

  Either that, or another of the Hades Demigods was messing with my spirits without my knowing. It was entirely possible. Aaron and Magnus had both been unnaturally quiet. It didn’t bode well. I was terrified when they’d pop up next, and what they would do.

  Bria was right, though. The incident with shadow Lydia had freaked me out. The Demigods of Hades could waltz through my neighborhood at any time. Even in their shadowy spirit form, they were more powerful than I was. So far, the Demigods had all “visited” in the dead of night, when Kieran was home. Someday they’d show up when he wasn’t.

  Adding a giant to our arsenal, especially one with power known across the globe, would greatly help our chances. Or so I’d thought. Now I wondered if it would help escort me into the spirit realm.

  “We probably should’ve told Kieran,” I said as we wound our way higher, the hillside becoming increasingly rocky. “What if this goes badly?”

  “It won’t. Or not any worse than if Kieran had come. Hopefully it’ll be better, though. Much better. I don’t want to end up like Jack any more than you do.”

  “Oh yeah, real nice,” Jack mumbled, looking out the window. “If I had a body, I’d turn this car around so fast…”

  “Don’t worry, though,” Bria went on. I didn’t bother to tell her what Jack was muttering. “I left him a message. On paper. He’ll get it when he gets back to the Airbnb. By then, we’ll have recruited a new member of his entourage without having lied about anything.”

  Jack stuck a hand out Bria’s way, looking incredulous. “Does her absolute conviction against the odds not set off warning bells? Lexi, come on—she’s always been crazy, but this time she’s just turned off reason altogether.”

  I passed that one on.

  “Demigod Kieran won’t admit it,” Red said as she slowed the car to a crawl. The SUV rocked badly, a tire going over a large rock on the road. The bottom scraped against another. “But if he wants to turn heads in a major way at the Magical Summit next spring, he’ll need some wow factor. He’s got you, and you wear his mark—that’s a good step in the right direction. The people he’s picked up recently are powerful. Another step. But he needs more key players, the kind of people no one else could get. And not by accident, this time, like he did with you. If he can get even a few of the talents on the list Henry, Bria, and I compiled, he’ll be in prime shape to show up at the Summit in six months with guns blazing.”

  “They compiled a list?” Jack asked, leaning forward a little as though Bria held that list right now. “Why didn’t I know?”

  I had the same question. This was news to me.

  “Because Demigod Kieran hasn’t seen it yet. He doesn’t have a chance at recruiting the people on that list,” Red replied. “He does great with magical workers who care about earning a place of prominence in the magical world. Those people like being charmed, and beneath his flattery and manipulation, they can tell he’s a fair and just leader, as well as a good man. But it’s different with the people who have flipped the bird to the magical world. They will hear his candied words, and they’ll want to kill him for it. He’ll remind them of the people they were desperate to escape. Henry agrees, Lexi—Kieran is no good for guys like this giant. He needs help, and thankfully, he’s got an ace in the hole.”

  “Who…me?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Bria answered. “Kieran needs your help, and you’re going to prove it to him by winning over the giant. You’re perfect for this role, Lexi. You’re the snake charmer of weirdos. You are not even remotely part of the normal magical society, even when you try. It’s pretty clear to anyone who meets you.”

  “Neither are you,” Red told Bria.

  “There’s a difference. I know the rules—I just don’t care to follow them. She blindly stumbles along, willy-nilly. She might get herself killed at the Magical Summit because
of it, but when dealing with other nutters, she’s going to shine, just you watch.”

  “I already said her quirks were endearing,” Red said dryly.

  I shook my head and looked out the window, anxiety coiling tightly within me. I didn’t want to think about my ignorance or how things would go at the Magical Summit. I couldn’t, or acid would eat through my guts. I needed to focus on the here and now. On the moment. And in this moment, we were going after a dangerous giant who might kill and then eat us.

  Was it too late for a redo of the past year?

  2

  Alexis

  The higher we climbed, the more the landscape changed. The slope on the right side of the car shot up steeply, and on the left the land dropped away to limitless blue sky. The narrow road wound upward, and our speed continued to drop as we hugged the side of the mountain. The SUV pitched and rolled, shaking us as it lumbered over rocks or dipped into craters.

  Finally, Red stopped the SUV in the middle of the small road. Looking forward, I widened my eyes.

  Another black Cadillac SUV, just like ours, was parked in front of us, hugging the mountain as closely as it could. In front of it, the road was blocked by a large boulder sitting in a pool of earth of its own making, having clearly fallen or rolled from farther up the mountain. Red and Bria climbed from the SUV.