Dark Destiny: Book One of the Destiny Novella Series (Destiny Novellas 1) Read Online Free

forward in his seat.
    “My mom.” Lily put her palm to her forehead and closed her eyes. “I saw my mom.”
    “Your…dead…mom?”
    She nodded, her eyes still closed. She braced her elbow on the table, head in her hand, reliving the adrenaline rush she’d felt after the explosion had blown her into the street. “She talked to me right before you got there.”
    Bennett exhaled and she opened her eyes. He sat back slowly in his chair and tossed his napkin next to his gumbo. “Oh, Lil.” He shook his head. “It was as bad as I thought. You were almost gone.”
    “That’s not the worst of it!” Lily felt a surge of anger. “She told me to embrace my freaking family gifts. I hate that crap, it doesn’t do anyone any good. Ever.” Lily turned her attention to the band, not really seeing them, not seeing anything but desperately wanting a distraction. How could she have forgotten a visit from her dead mother?
    He was quiet for so long that Lily finally looked back at him to see him regarding her with an expression she couldn’t read.
    “What?”
    He shrugged.
    She folded her arms across her chest. “No, really. What?”
    “Seems coincidental, doesn’t it? This crazy thing happens at the shop and your mom pays you a visit from beyond, telling you it’s time?”
    Lily exhaled slowly, trying to rein in her temper that really only ever flared dangerously when she discussed this one issue. “Bennett, you grew up with a very positive impression of your mom’s ability to read auras and have premonitions. And my mom’s abilities are the reason she’s dead. People killed her and my dad trying to get what she had, and I want nothing to do with it.” The air around her pulsated ever so slightly as a result of her heightened emotions and she winced. “Dammit.”
    Bennett moved his food out of the way and braced his arms on the table. “Lily,” he said, his voice low, “you may not like it, but you may not have a choice. What if someone wants the same thing from you, or Ronnie?”
    “Seriously, most people think paranormal abilities are nothing but crazy new-age crap and I’m at dinner with the one guy who believes otherwise.”
    A muscle worked in his jaw, a tic she recognized as a signal of his own building temper. “You’re with the one guy who knows otherwise. Have you called Mimi yet?”
    She sighed. “No. I slept most of the day, went upstairs to see Ronnie, and then you came.”
    “And you’re putting it off. You have to call her, Lil. Her daughter is lying in the hospital.”
    She scowled at him, knowing he was right and feeling like a spoiled kid. She hadn’t wanted to call Mimi for so many reasons she couldn’t count them all. The worst of them was that Ronnie was in a coma and she was Mimi’s last living child. She wanted to protect her grandmother, let her remain in happy ignorance for as long as possible. “Stop telling me what to do.”
    “You call her or I’ll do it.”
    “You don’t know her number.”
    He gave her a flat stare. “I can find it.”
    “She’ll just tell me the same thing. She’s been saying it for years and now she’ll have the satisfaction of seeing me cave.”
    “Ok. First of all, you’re not caving. And secondly, even if what happened at the shop has nothing to do with anything weird,” he waved his hands in the air, “it wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to be able to use what you have. Help keep you safe.”
    She narrowed her eyes. “Do you know what happened the last time I read an aura?”
    “No.”
    She leaned forward. “I’ll tell you what happened. I had been seeing colors everywhere my whole life and just accepted it, never realized that not everybody does. I was nine years old, at the mall with my mom. There was this teenage couple that met in the food court, and as they walked toward each other, these red tendrils reached from the guy’s groin, straight toward hers.”
    Bennett’s lips twitched, but to his credit, he remained silent.
    “I