Free Taken by Charlotte Abel

down to — whatever Channie wanted. She’d knocked his entire life off course.   All those years of training every day and racing every single weekend … wasted. All those injuries and surgeries and excruciating physical therapy … It was all for nothing.  
    He should be meeting with his coach and sponsors, planning the next step of his career, focusing on the Olympics.
    Instead, he was stuck out here in the middle of nowhere, married, and doing his best to figure out how to use magic so he could protect Channie. He was still committed to that goal, and to her, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t take one lousy afternoon off and do something he wanted for a change.
    He wiped the dried bird poop off the bike’s saddle, then pressed on the cross bar to test the tires. The rims hit the ground. He swore again and gave the bike a shove then spun around and kicked his car.  
    Josh took a couple of deep breaths then leaned over to pick up his bike. If his sponsors had seen the way he’d thrown it to the ground, they’d all have massive heart attacks, or aneurysms or both. Sponsors … ha. He didn’t have sponsors anymore. Channie had taken care of that. Why couldn’t she have waited until after Grands to run away?
    He still couldn’t get over the fact that he’d come in dead last in his first moto. In his whole career, every time he’d been the last off the track, he’d left on a stretcher. And even then, it had never been his fault. The last time was two years ago. Some idiot on the outside lane had tried to pass him on the first turn and bumped his rear tire. The next thing he knew, he was tumbling down the track like a rag doll in a washing   machine.
    That’s how he felt right now. His entire life was a disaster. He was headed for a deadly collision at break-neck speed and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it except ride it out and hope the landing didn’t kill him. But standing around feeling sorry for himself wasn’t going to help anything.  
    The electric pump was in Dad’s car. The floor pump was in the back of Mom’s 4-Runner. But Josh had a mini-pump in his tool-kit. It wasn’t very efficient, but it worked and the physical exertion helped calm him.  
    He locked his car and shoved the keys in his front right pocket, then reconsidered and tossed them on the driver’s seat, leaving the car unlocked. If he fell, he didn’t want to get stabbed by a damn key.
    Time to ride.
    Josh felt better immediately, but he needed to find the zone — that place where his body, mind and bike became one with the earth beneath his tires. But the magic roiling in his gut, his power-well — what a stupid name — was distracting. He pumped his legs harder, but the zone escaped him.
    When Mom told him she and Dad were splitting up, he’d ridden all the way to Longmont before he found the zone, but he did find it. He just hoped he’d have the stamina to find it today.
    He’d ridden for about two hours when he came across a well worn path. This was no game trail. “Alright!” It was a mountain bike course with wooden ramps, dirt berms and all sorts of natural and manmade obstacles. Josh wasn’t a mountain biker, but BMX skills translated well to the sport and it was just the sort of challenge he needed.
    He gave it everything he had and pushed his body beyond the limits of good sense to reach the top of the trail. It opened into a mountain meadow the size of Mile High Stadium.  
    January wasn’t exactly tourist season, so Josh was stunned to find someone had pitched a tent and built a campfire in the middle of the clearing. Two horses, tied to a tree stump, lifted their heads and stared at him. Strands of dried grass stuck out of the sides of their mouths like whiskers. The hair on the back of Josh’s neck stood on end as he hit the brakes.
    His shield snapped into place before he even realized there was another mage nearby. When the curse hit him, it knocked him over, bike and all, but it also