Free Clash of the Otherworlds: Book 3, Portal Guardians by Elle Casey Page A

losing it a little.
    "Yeah, like what?"
    "Like Maggie.   Like ... others."
    I nodded.   "Maggie is pretty hideous, now that you mention it.   Are you saying she's dag-nasty because she has a lot of bad karma?"
    "You've been to her house, haven't you?"
    "Yeah.   It's pretty gross, I'll give you that.   But I've seen worse."
    "What about her pantry?   Have you been in there?"
    I felt like Samantha was leading me down a path I should stay way the hell away from, but my morbid curiosity won out in the end.   "You mean the one filled with boxes of mimickers?" I whispered.
    "So you know, then.   You know about Fates."
    "All I know is she has a bunch of soul pieces in there and that she uses them from time to time to make horrible spells that bring demons up from the Underworld."
    "They're also sometimes used to trick fae into bonding with other fae against their wills."
    "What?!" I screeched, my voice echoing off the stone walls.
    "Shhhh!" whisper-yelled Samantha.   "Do you want to bring all of them back in here?   And don't let Ben know I'm telling you this stuff, either.   Now you know why I don't want that for myself.   It's bad magic, Jayne.   Black.   Dark.   I'm not like that."
    It took all my strength not to look at Ben right now.   I leaned in closer to her.   "That really wasn't you who did that?   Tricked me into binding with Ben?"
    "Hell no, I can't cast like that.   Not yet, anyway."
    I shook my head.   "I cannot believe that old hag Maggie sold me out like that.   The next time I see her she is so going down to ass-kicking town."
    "She's just trying to fix things, she didn't mean any harm."
    My nostrils flared with barely controlled anger.   "How could binding me to Ben possibly be fixing anything or not be meaning me any harm?   How is that even possible?"
    Samantha dropped her face into her hands, rubbing them up and down a few times before lifting her head again.   "I don't know all the details, but I know who's involved.   And I know it was something that started a long, long time ago before we were ever in the picture or even born.   Somebody fell in love.   Somebody messed with fate.   Somebody screwed up, and now we're all paying for it."
    "Who?   Who fell in love, who screwed up?   Give me the names."   I was thinking that maybe with the guilty group identified, I could put some pieces together.   For the first time in the last hour I was glad that I was being held captive; otherwise, I never would have gotten this close to Samantha without strangling her.
    "Céline, like I said ... Dardennes, Maléna, Torrie, Maggie of course ... Ben, Leck ... maybe some others.   I don't remember all of their names."
    "You've remembered enough," I said absently, trying to figure out how they were all connected.   "Fuckers have been playing me from the beginning."   I looked up.   "But Céline?   Her I have a very hard time believing."
    Samantha shrugged.   "I heard her name a lot from Maggie and Maléna.   Neither were happy with her."
    I felt a glimmer of hope.   "That's a good sign as far as I'm concerned.   Any enemy of Maléna's is a friend of mine."
    "Don't be so sure about that," she said.   "Any of us can be fooled.   I've learned my lesson; I suggest you learn it too."
    "Did you know we're supposed to be related?" I asked her, venturing into territory I had sworn I'd never go to voluntarily.
    "I heard something like that," she said, a guarded expression on her face.
    "What do you think?   Is it true?"
    She shrugged.   "Could be possible.   Everything I thought was impossible before is suddenly part of my reality, so I never say never anymore."
    I half-smiled at how that sounded exactly like something I'd said before about my own new life.   "What is your family name, from like, way back?"
    "I have no idea.   I was in foster care most of my life.   I was left abandoned at a hospital when I was, like, two years old.   Too old to be adopted, I guess."   She