Southwest Nights (Semiautomatic Sorceress Book 1) by Kal Aaron (large ebook reader txt) 📕

“It still ends up cheaper than contracting a Torch to deal with a sorcery-based threat, let alone going through all the trouble to get the Society to send an Eclipse to deal with a rogue Sorcerer.”

Damien furrowed his brow. “These guys weren’t Sorcerers. They were normies using shards.”

A lot of non-Sorcerers were offended at being called Shadows, but she thought normie was a more insulting nickname.

Lyssa’s nose itched, and she wrinkled it under her mask. “I don’t know. That part I’m not sold on, but there’s no way I buy that no one knew about the shards.”

“I’m not saying I disagree. I’m trying to figure out where we go from here.”

“The simplest explanation is often the best. I think Samuel would have mentioned it if he knew. That guy might like his government connections, but he’s still an Elder in the Society.” Lyssa sucked in a deep breath. “Maybe I’m thinking too low-level on this. I wouldn’t put it past the government to have heard and decide not to mention it. This wouldn’t be the first time the EAA played a little fast and loose with their info.”

Damien frowned and leaned close to her, almost touching. “Come on, Lyssa, you know me. Don’t be like that.”

“Don’t use my real name ever when I’m in full-up Night Goddess mode,” she snarled. She stared at him until he backed off, looking contrite. “And I need explanations and soon. The next time I walk into a situation that’s supposed to be a bunch of normies, and I’m getting shot at with elemental crossbows and robes charged by death, I’m going to be a lot angrier. I’m not going to end up like…”

Like my brother, she thought.

“Like what?” Damien looked confused.

Lyssa frowned. “Forget about it. Just listen to what I said.”

“Fair enough, and I understand why you’re pissed.” Damien sighed. “I’ll do my best. There might have been a miscommunication somewhere, but I’m sure we can figure this out. I’ll get you an update within a week.”

Lyssa hopped onto her bike and started it. “You do that. I’ve got to go buy more ice cream. That’s another thing this night ruined.”

Damien blinked. “Huh? Ice cream?”

“What, am I speaking Lemurian? My ice cream melted.”

Lyssa pulled away, leaving the government agent staring after her, his expression confused. Driving around town with a wounded leg seemed like a bad idea, even with her regalia and painkiller herbs. It was time for some good, old-fashioned delivery.

Chapter Seven

“Ninety-eight,” Lyssa counted. “Ninety-nine. One hundred. One hundred and one.”

Sweat poured off her brow as she continued doing push-ups. Her muscles screamed at her to stop, but at least she didn’t feel any pain in her leg.

The wound was healed. A couple of days mostly spent in her regalia and Tricia’s herbs had taken care of it.

Maintaining physical readiness was critical, given her aggressive and acrobatic combat style. Efficient delivery of pain and harm with minimal active spell use was what made her such a good Torch.

Not only that, but it was also as good a time as any to work off the nervous energy and all the calories from the pints of ice cream she’d downed while marathoning TV and recovering from her injuries.

Lyssa tried her best to ignore the shadow cast by tomorrow’s anniversary of her brother’s disappearance. While she always remembered it, she never observed it because part of her felt it’d be like admitting her brother was dead. It was easier to throw herself into TV and exercise.

During her time at home, she’d binged the entire first season of Sensual Sorceress, a reality show in which thirteen men thought they were being set up for a chance to convince a Sorceress to marry them.

The show’s Sorceress was a Shadow actress. The featured sorcery was nothing but a lot of impressive timing and well-applied special effects.

For anyone with a taste for or knowledge of sorcery, everything about the show was a train wreck, from its take on regalia and sorcery to the ridiculous conceit that the alleged Sorceress on the show specialized in seduction magic.

This last led to a lot of painful melodramatic sequences of men claiming they were unsure if they loved her or were under her spell. Tight dresses, big boobs, and copious amounts of booze could be enchantments for the right sort of man.

Lyssa might have found the sorcery depiction ridiculous, but she proudly defended her self-declared trashy taste. She found the show strangely compelling.

In its way, it was a sociology experiment, exploring what Shadow men believed about Sorceresses. Contrived, yes, and edited for maximum entertainment, but the discerning woman could discover a nugget or two while watching a fake Sorceress who insisted she hadn’t used a so-called make-out spell on a man who was trying to suck her face off.

Chuckling about the thought of a bunch of men competing for her love, Lyssa lost count of her reps and lowered her body to the ground. After rolling onto her back, she took deep breaths of precious oxygen and stared at her white ceiling. She needed something up there—a ceiling fan, maybe.

Her thoughts drifted back to Sensual Sorceress. The show made sense on one level. Sex and love were at the basis of human existence for both the Illuminated and Shadows. Sorcerers and Sorceresses would have gone extinct a long time ago if they never tried to find someone outside their tiny circle.

Despite recent increases, there were barely two thousand adult Illuminated in the world, a far cry from their numbers in ancient Lemuria when there were far fewer Shadows. They might not have good records of everyone with Lemurian blood since the Cataclysm had sunk the continent ten thousand years ago, but she wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t a little of Lemuria in every country.

Sex, love, dating? Even a Torch needed a life.

The Sorcerer dating pool was shallow, but the Shadow pool ran into the billions. The problem was finding a Shadow she could trust. How long