What if you could cast a spell to help you do your everyday job? But . . . what if that job included casting fireballs and lightning bolts and destroying evil magic items? And your soul mate turns out to be a “wild talent” with abilities neither of you dreamed of? And you’re up against the immensely horrible Cataclysm Stone? Within the world of magic practitioners exist a group called Defenders and Swords.
Their purpose: to find and destroy items of evil magic. Irenee Sabel is a Sword, new to her blade and anxious to prove herself. On her first mission to recover a powerful crystal of ancient evil–The Cataclysm Stone–from its practitioner users, she encounters DEA Agent Jim Tylan. Part of a law-enforcement task force but also for personal reasons, Jim is after the same people for drugs and weapons trafficking.
When Jim and Irenee come together, they find that each is more than appears on the surface. Irenee is surprised to discover that Jim is a “wild talent,” in whom magic abilities spontaneously occur. Jim is astonished to realize that he can cast spells and Irenee and her team can actually destroy evil magic items. The biggest revelation of all concerns both Jim and Irenee. They are, in fact, ready or not, soul mates, and the soul-mate imperative is lurking, determined to bring them together. The villains have other plans for them, ones that will test Irenee and Jim’s new found magic powers–and their new found love.
What if you could cast a spell to help you do your everyday job? But . . . there’s more to living than work, and you’ve lost your soul mates to death? What if an ancient force brings you together with another? And throws both of you up against the worst, most evil magic item around?
Magic practitioners always find their soul mates and live happily ever after. Always.
What if the unthinkable happens, however, and a mate dies young? Is the living mate doomed to a life alone? After a perfect love, does the mate even want another life partner?
Defenders and Swords form teams to destroy evil magic items by sharing their energy. Sword Johanna Mahler and her team have developed a revolutionary method for combining magic energy–now they need to know if others can use it. Johanna has also vowed never to let a student Sword destroy himself by taking on a powerful item the way her young mate did–and died for his recklessness when they were teenagers.
The Defender Council sends widower Sword Saxton Falkner to demonstrate a new apparatus for measuring magic energy output. Equally important is determining how to best use those independents not affiliated with a team.
Neither expects to find a new soul mate in the midst of political practitioner arguments, bullies among the young–and older–Swords, a totally new method for generating magic energy, and battles with a disgruntled Sword determined to prove his superiority, especially to Johanna.
Before Johanna and Saxt can live happily ever after, they must survive not only all these problems, and come to terms with their losses and gains, but face a return of the Cataclysm Stone, a tremendously powerful evil crystal that wants the Swords’ blood.