Sands of Time: A Paranormal Urban Fantasy Series: Daughters of Hecate, #5

By Meredith Medina

Time… It's the one thing that everyone tells me I'm running out of. But if I can get this spell to work, it's the one thing I won't have to worry about ever again.

An ancient betrayal set in motion a thousand year feud between vampires and witches, and only the 'chosen one' can set it right…. The only problem? I'm definitely not the chosen one, and this is the literal worst idea that anyone's ever had in the history of ever.

Lacey's bleeding out on my kitchen floor, and Maia is a hysterical mess. It shouldn't be this hard to go back and fix something so small...

When one danger seems to have been pushed aside, another looms, and Ophelia Turner will need all her courage to face not only the future, but the past as well. A forbidden spell, passed down through generations of witches has finally been deciphered, but the portal that has been opened will lead Ophelia and her friends down a very different path than the one they expect.

From the streets of Brooklyn to the foot of Hecate's throne… "Sands of Time" is the conclusion of the Daughters of Hecate series.

To Read in Order:
PROLOGUE: Witchmark
PROLOGUE: Vampire Punk
Book 1 ~ Sticks & Stones
Book 2 ~ Moonlight Burns
Book 3 ~ Power of Three
Book 4 ~ Haven
Book 5 ~ Sands of Time

• Language: English
• Publisher: FireHive Media
• Release date: Nov 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393775157

Book preview

Chapter 1 ~ Ophelia

"G ive me the key, Powerful One. Give me the strength to find you.

Give me the wisdom to serve you fully. Let me be your daughter. Give me my revenge. I invoke you…"

The jolt of Maia’s cold fingers as she gripped my arm tore me back into the room. 

What the hell are you saying? she whispered. 

I didn’t realize that I’d been speaking the words aloud. I hadn’t even heard her come across the apartment.

Why was I in the kitchen?

I unclenched my hands and stared down at the marks my fingernails had made in my palms. It’s… it’s nothing.

Maia’s cold gaze burned into mine. It’s not nothing. Where did you hear that?

Those words had echoed in my head for weeks—but she didn’t need to know that. Annoyance rose up inside me.

The words meant nothing. And then, suddenly, they did.

Magdalena, I whispered. It’s what she was shouting… When we—

"Is that what it meant? Maia let out a quick breath that was almost a laugh. I think I was happier not understanding whatever bullshit she was babbling."

The incantation is correct, but she didn’t have the… I looked down at the moonstone in my palm. It was cold against my skin and I frowned at it briefly. This is impossible. We need Vivienne.

Maia looked back to where Lacey lay on the hardwood floor. "We don’t have time. We have to figure something out!"

No… No, no, we can bring her here. You’ve done it before—you pulled me back.

Maia shook her head. That was a lucky shot. I almost lost you a few times. You’re fucking lucky I didn’t drop you in the Hudson.

I didn’t know what to do with the fear that rippled up my spine and weighted my limbs so completely. I wasn’t indecisive. This wasn’t me. Maia’s gaze was desperate and I closed my fingers tightly around the moonstone.

My power had only been growing stronger since I had pushed Magdalena out of my system. Maybe I could do it on my own. Maia grabbed my clenched fist and I felt her power surge in her fingers.

No. 

Not on my own. We could do it together.

You’re right.

Maia blinked at me in surprise. I am?

We have to try. I hoped that my voice sounded more confident that I felt. "Besides, it’s not like I’m not going back years. We only need an hour… maybe a little more. Just enough time to stop Meridian—"

 Right. It’s not a big deal. Maia didn’t sound convinced, but it was better than nothing. I needed her power, and her care and love for Lacey.

Lacey needed both of us.

Exactly. We have the incantation—

And only one of the elements the spell requires, Maia said bitterly. That stone isn’t going to get us anywhere.

She released her hold on my hand and walked back to where Lacey lay on the floor. She dropped to her knees beside her and laid a hand on the bandage she had tied around the wound. Dark blood was already soaking through the white linen already.

Blood.

What… What did Lacey say about blood, I demanded as I strode back toward them. 

What? Maia looked confused.

The second part of the spell. The blood of something.

The blood of the defiant, Maia replied. So?

Lacey said something. It was about the Catamarian... the blood of the defiant...

He defied Hecate, Maia whispered. But I don’t know what that means.

You don’t have to know what it means, I said quickly. I skidded to a stop and dropped to my knees beside her. We just have to trust that she knew what she was talking about.

I opened my hand and pushed the moonstone into the center of my palm. I looked down at the blood that had spilled onto the floor and gritted my teeth.

If I was wrong, we’d have to try something else. Why couldn’t these spells be more straightforward? It was always so goddamned vague.

I reached out and swept my fingertips through the blood that stained the floor.

What the fuck, Maia whispered.

Shh.

My fingers hovered over my palm and I took a quick breath before I closed my eyes and smeared the blood on the cold surface of the moonstone. I stared at it, wondering if something would happen. 

But there was nothing. Just a bloody moonstone that gleamed dully in the dimness of the apartment.

I let out a breath and wiped my fingers on my jeans. The moonstone was still cold in my palm and I closed my fingers over it. 

I looked back at Lacey, her breathing was shallow—too shallow, even for her—and her eyelashes barely fluttered on her pale cheek.

What now?

Maia’s whisper cut through the silence and I shook my head. How the fuck was I supposed to know? This wasn’t exactly some simple candle spell we were dealing with.

I stood and pressed the back of my bloodstained hand against my forehead. My hand was cold. Why was everything so cold? What else does the book say?

Maia glared at me and flipped through the ancient tome. The crackle of the pages was irritating, and I could almost feel the sharp slide of paper through my skin as she turned them.

I don’t even know what I’m looking for, she grumbled.The third element—tears of the mother—what’s that supposed to be?

Heat filled my stomach and churned through my chest. It wasn’t Maia’s fault. None of this was. No more than it was Lacey’s fault. Every step we had taken since the October night when Lacey had first felt the touch of the Goddess had led us to this point. Every single choice had pushed us toward an unseen destination.

But was this really where it ended? It couldn’t be. I wouldn’t let it.

‘Tears of the mother’ is weird, Maia muttered again as she flipped another page. Magdalena doesn’t say anything about it. I can’t even read some of this writing. She frowned at the book and turned another page. I should have paid more attention in Spanish class. Whose mother are we talking about anyway? My mother? She’s dead, so that might be hard. Your mother? Even more dead...

Careful, I said through gritted teeth.

Maia let out a frustrated breath. Well, I’m not wrong.

We’re wasting time.

And your pacing is starting to piss me off, Maia snapped. 

I’m not pacing.

I had definitely been pacing.

Maia made a face at me and looked back at the book. "You’re not being very helpful, either. Can you think of anything that might be more helpful than whatever it is you’re actually doing? And what was with the blood thing? Did it do anything?"

I opened my hand and looked down at the stone. Nothing.

Great. We’re doing really great.

I closed my eyes and tried to think of something—anything—that might help.

Vivienne had talked a lot of cryptic shit, maybe there was something to it and she hadn’t even known. Or maybe she had known.   

Vivienne’s voice reverberated through my mind. Quiet at first, and then louder. 

Hecate is the one who protects you in remote places, when you have lost your way, when you feel trapped. She is the one who is the Dark Mother, who will hold you in the blackness until the first streams of light illuminate your path.

Hecate is the Dark Mother, I murmured.

And? Maia’s voice grated on me. She was anxious and angry, I could feel it radiating off her.

She was as worried about Lacey as I was. They were as close as sisters. The only real family each of them had ever known—the only family I had ever really known. I should have had my mother, aunt, and sister with me. But they had been stolen from me by a selfish Daughter who only sought her own power. Magdalena’s treachery had ripped through so many lifetimes—even now her ‘great work’ had stained and damaged us. 

I mean, if I’m supposed to take that literally, that means we need the tears of a Goddess. And need I remind you that those things don’t exist—

A sharp pain scraped against my ribs and my witchmark burned. Don’t let Vivienne hear you say that, I whispered.

Yeah, yeah. Maia shifted on the floor and she grimaced briefly.

Did you feel that?

What?

I shook my head and walked to the heavily curtained window. Nothing.

Even if she had felt something, the stubborn witchling would never admit it. She was too much like me.

I pulled back the curtain and peered out into the eerie early morning light. The sun hadn’t risen over the buildings yet, and there were no people on the streets—Meridian and his followers still lay in their own blood on the concrete.

I can’t find anything.

Maia’s voice was strangled and I pulled away from the window as she slammed the book closed. She wiped her hand across her eyes and shook her head angrily.

Too much like me.

I knew that I had to comfort her, but I didn’t know how. I had never really… I had never had anyone in my life for long enough to know how to do it properly. Eli didn’t need comfort. He came and went as he pleased and took whatever he wanted in the process.

His coldness had suited me just fine—warmth had only come into my life in the last few years. Maia with her flaming walls of rejection and pain, and Lacey with her untarnished spirit. Not even immortality could dim her light.

But now she was lying on my living room floor, bleeding on the hardwood. An immortal. Dying in my apartment.

I crossed the room and fell to my knees beside Maia. Magdalena’s book lay between us, pulsing with a dark anger that I knew she could feel just as keenly as I did.

We can’t give up, I said softly.

Maia’s gaze flickered to mine before she looked back at her friend. I shouldn’t have let her do it. I should have just dragged her up the stairs and locked the door.

You couldn’t have stopped her if you tried, I said. Besides, I needed you. I needed your help.

Maia took a shuddering breath and laid her hand on top of Lacey’s. The vampire’s skin was pale enough to almost be translucent, with a strange violet sheen that I had never seen before. "She needs us, and we can’t