In-Between Work and Play (The Jocelyn Frost Series Book 1) by Relina Skye Page A

knuckles.  His long-sleeved dress
shirt was cuffed so that only his fingers could be seen.  I imagined he did
that to hide the excessive hair.  Hopefully, he wasn’t the one plating our
meals. 
    After thanking
the waiter, I swirled my wine like I’d often seen done in the movies, and gave
it a taste.  “Do you think your father knows a spell that could help us out?”
    Dex rubbed the
back of his head.  “I’m not sure.  I would like to say yes, but then again, I’m
here, right?  You’d think he would have cast a spell like that before cheating on his wife.”
    “Not to sound
harsh, but umm…”
    “Did he care
about getting my mother pregnant?” 
    Were my thoughts
that transparent?  I nodded, not wanting to seem insensitive.  My father didn’t
care.  I doubted he thought about me more than once in a blue moon.
    “To be honest, I
don’t know.  I’ve only seen him a couple of times.”  He leaned forward as if he
were about to share a huge secret. “I bet you didn’t know that they can exist
in multiple places at once.”
    “Holy Helheim,
really?”  That was news to me.
    “They aren’t
really gods.  They were originally called Watchers or Guardians.  Do you know
the story about how the In-between and Erda were created?”  His eyes lit up. 
    I had to smile.
Dex was totally hot, in a college professor sort of way. “No, I’ve heard bits
and pieces, but not the whole thing.  I lived most my life on Earth.”  I pulled
a few curls from behind my ears to hide my face, which was starting to turn
red. 
    Dex almost
started to glow from his excitement.  Suddenly, I became his favorite new
student.  “I’ll try to summarize this as best as I can.”  His eagerness
continued to grow. “Just to warn you, I can easily get carried away with the
details.  Let me know if I start to bore you.”  He paused to see if I would
tell him to forget about it, but when I didn’t, he took that as his cue to
continue.
    “Picture what it
was like when Earth and Erda were one and the same.  Non-magic users and magic
users lived together, side-by-side.  They shared knowledge and interbred with
each other regularly, creating many different types of species and
subspecies.”  He waited while I thought about it.  What would growing up have
been like if people used magic all around me as readily as I’d seen it used
here?   Would non-magic users turn to magic users more often?  Would magic
users take advantage of non-magic users?  Not to mention, the beings that found
humans to be rather tasty…
    “All right, now
here’s the history lesson.  During the Earth’s last Ice Age, a wizard called
Rebastes figured out a way to steal the life force from other beings. Inside
every individual’s life force lies an ability to use and manipulate magic. 
When he stole the life forces from other people, he became the first warlock. 
    “Rebastes
manipulated his stolen powers and shaped them into balls of energy that were as
destructive as modern day nukes. It’s safe to say that other witches and
wizards figured out how to do the same thing. Before long, they were firing
weapons of mass destruction at each other.”
    My eye’s
widened. “You’re talking about Ragnarok?  I always thought that was a metaphor
for a meteor strike, and that humans created the myth to explain what
happened.”
    “I can see why
you would have thought that.”  He looked up as the waiter placed our food on
the table. 
    I gave my plate
a quick scan to make sure there weren’t any werewolf hairs on my chicken
parmigiana.  Seeing none, I started to cut it up into small pieces. 
    “Anyway, millions
of humans, fae, and mythos died in the ensuing chaos.  Those that lived erected
a magical barrier separating those who were born to magic and those who were
not.  That space is called the In-Between.”
    I wiped my lips
with a napkin. “How could they make two worlds out of one?”
    “The same way a
plant cell divides.