Earth Enchanted by Brynna Curry

a blink by himself, he enjoyed the skill it took a mortal man to accomplish the same task. He glanced at the dainty clock on the bedside table. 3:30 AM. By this time tomorrow he would hold the Regent in his hands. Its paste copy rested in the briefcase on the little breakfast table of his hotel suite. He shared a private joke with himself. It wasn’t really a paste copy, but a real diamond identical to the regent, and there were two of them. One would be for replacing the museum’s stone, and the other was for Gueraldi. Had he cared to, he could have conjured a dozen more of equal value and passed them around like candy. No one but himself could have seen the difference, for the only one was the energy each held. The copies were blank of emotion, and the regent would be full of the history it had collected.
    He hadn’t owned a home in years. It was safer to move around, and his true home would always be a place he couldn’t go back to. This particular penthouse suite was elegantly decorated and exquisitely furnished in antiques. He’d lived in more hotels and houses than he cared to count or remember. He longed for home.
    He carried the glass of wine he had allowed himself with him into the adjoining bath. Turning the shower on, he stepped under the hot spray, hoping to release the tension in his muscles. He hated flying, but it wasn’t like he could just pop out of thin air in this day and time, so he was forced to resort to manmade wings as opposed to his magic. His was an ancient magic, pure and simple. He could conjure anything out of nothing, and impossibilities were barely worth his time. ‘Christophe’ was Devin Medlock, and that was only one of the names he’d used over the years.
    Centuries and some years had passed since he’d come into this world. Born in the highlands of Scotland, son of the laird of the clan McLoch, he was royal through his blood, could have ruled, loved, and died a man of power, but instead he was trapped. He was trapped in life by his own blood, barred from his birth land, without cause, by magic. A sneer jumped to his mouth when he thought about the circumstances.
    Daemon, his elder cousin and once friend, had let heart and magic rule him. Devin had known the moment the evil was summoned, seen it in his mind, just as the woman had. The woman falling into dust seconds only after Daemon had turned into water and was carried to the sea. Another woman, sister to his cousin’s wife, trapped in the wind, in an ancient circle of power, waiting for love to set her free. A love she’d neither accept nor welcome unless it suited her own plans, a love that didn’t exist for her, even if she would have been able to accept him. He had watched her over the years. Though destiny had decided she would be for him, he had developed no more than mild amusement toward her. “What a joke. That one wouldn’t learn her lesson if Fate had given her another thousand years.”
    Why had he been chosen? He was just as selfish, just as ruthless as she. He knew it and wasn’t ashamed and maybe just a little bit arrogant about it. The cycle would soon begin, until then he had to wait to finish his part, and the woman would have to wait as well. It gave him a perverse sort of pleasure to know it. He shut off the water and took a towel from the warming bar, wrapped it around him, and then as soon as he had put it on he took it off. Still mostly wet, he climbed between the sheets and snuggled up to Nicolette, his electronics specialist. Her honey blond hair flared out over the pillows. Yep, selfish and ruthless, and being so, Devin nudged her awake. He might be trapped, but there were advantages to being such. He intended to enjoy every one of them, before the axe of destiny came down on his head and he found himself chained to Arianne Farrell for the next thousand years.
     

 
    Chapter 7
     
    Olivia opened her eyes to a beautiful summer morning. Sunshine spilled through the filmy curtains and caused her to