Title: The Spellbinding Magic of You and Me
Series: The Magicals' Alliance, Book Three
Author: Timoteo Tong
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 09/16/2025
Heat Level: 2 - Fade to Black Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 120800
Genre: Paranormal, Young adult, magic/magic users, high school, first love, supernatural war
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Description
Excerpt
The Spellbinding Magic of You and Me
Timoteo Tong © 2025
All Rights Reserved
Below the vast concrete maze of Los Angeles, beneath miles of freeways sprawling across valleys, canyons, and passes, a middle-aged woman lounged on a sofa swarming with hundreds of thousands of fire ants. She had long, jet-black hair that cascaded down her back, its inky strands contrasting starkly with her pale skin, which seemed almost ghostly under the lights, tinged with an eerie green hue at the hairline. Her dark eyes, heavily outlined with thick, black eyeliner, cut through the room with a sharp, calculating gaze, like she could see right through a person. Her features gave her an air of regal intensity, but the permanent scowl on her lips sent shivers down the spines of those unfortunate enough to lay eyes on her. Everything about her screamed disdain as if the world itself was a personal annoyance to her.
“Darkness,” she exclaimed, “keep stinging me! Feels very refreshing.” She trimmed her nails with the sharp edge of a machete. At the same time, Coven Radio played in the background in the elaborate parlor of the Palatio de Malac, a gothic horror made of black obsidian decorated with the bones and skulls of countless Ordinaries killed by her kith and kin, the creatures of the shadows, vampires, werewolves, and, most importantly, witches, collectively known as monsters. She leaned over to drink bubbly, fermented Ordinary blood, chugging the heady concoction from a golden chalice.
“Tonight is glorious!” she said to the crows circling overhead in the vast expanse of the vaulted ceiling. “Devlina is getting her just desserts. My bae will emerge victorious, and he will elevate me to my rightful place, my despicable ones.” She stood and brushed several fire ants off her legs. “I will rule with an iron fist, bringing order to the stupid covens who have become complacent.”
A crow cawed loudly and descended in a lazy-eight pattern before lighting on her open hand. “Malius, whoever heard of monsters who don’t terrorize ordinary humans, who don’t hunt down families in the park or hide in shadows, ready to prey on young adults on the leafy universities of Southern California?”
“No one, your horribleness!” the crow said sharply. “Monsters have grown soft, lazy, comfortable.”
“Precisely,” the woman said. “And I can’t simply watch my brethren humiliate themselves in deference to the Pàcifimenta and the stupid Magicals Alliance.”
“Fools, all of them!”
The woman stroked the head of the crow with a long fingernail, filed into the shape of a V and painted black. “And you know, Malius,” she said, “it is time for the Máunadus to step up and lead the monsters. Take our place in the darkness and gloom and show those silly creatures what it truly means to be wicked!”
“Shall we go to the dungeons and scare some Ordinaries? Maybe torture them for fun?”
“Oh, that does sound delightful, Malius,” she said, “but we must plan out the coronation for when I transform from Máu Rabetica into Hêracansa, the Queen of the Gloom!”
Malius chirped, his black eyes sparkling. “What a glorious day that will be, my lady!”
“Won’t it?” Máu Rabetica asked, stroking the bird’s head. “What a turn of events for me, once a humble lesser goddess charged with ensuring the darkness in its entirety in the night, such a silly and tedious job. I went to the Paláujo Dorallen, the famed Golden Palace and home of the Casso Soljallen, the seat of Cupidêro Êímpagońena and his clan of the Sun and pleaded with him to allow me to be important like Amnoxha the Goddess of the Night. He refused, the sniveling fool, because she was the wife of Uvendra, the Goddess of the Moon and head of the Casso Uvendrallen, their rival house. He feared a resumption of war between the Three Houses of Morra Êímpagońena, which had lasted a millennium before the intervention of the Áuqala to restore peace.”
“We love fighting, death, and destruction!”
“That we do, my hated one.” Máu Rabetica ruffled Malius’s feathers gently. “Anyway, the Batanalla siec Êtaulls—the Battle of the Cosmos ends. Amnoxha’s reign of the night is agreed upon to placate Uvendra, and I ask the silly Sun God himself for a new name and more responsibility, and he scoffs. Instead, he offers to train me in Xem Sen Ou, telling me, ‘Coaugelus and Astroístus’—those silly semi-immortal descendants of the gods themselves—‘will revere and call upon me in their hour of need.’ Barf, no thanks. Especially because his condition was that I reject all worldly possessions and dedicate myself to humility.”
“You, humble?” the bird jeered.
“Exactly, pet,” Máu Rabetica said. “He told me to sell my beautiful palace of diamonds and opals situated among the mists at the top of Morra Rampsgàra in Passonea. I had seventy bedrooms, countless mirrors to admire myself, and the villagers below lived in absolute fear of me! And he wanted me to trade that in to learn how to smack a few heads around while also serving the other gods and goddesses?”
“Never!”
Máu Rabetica deepened her voice, imitating Cupidêro: “In order to truly become selfless—the core tenet of Xem Sen Ou—you must let go of your ego and transcend your id.”
“How would you do that? Meditate? Scream at people?” the bird asked.
“No, by scrubbing the toilets of the higher gods and goddesses, washing their feet, scrubbing their floors, and feeding them grapes.” Máu Rabetica gagged. “Can you imagine such humiliation?”
“Not for you.”
“I refused, of course, and, instead, offered to arm wrestle Cupidêro. If I won, I’d become Goddess of the Night; if I lost, he’d buy me dinner.”
“Surely you joke?”
“Never, but to your point, Cupidêro was outraged, and he punished me by sending me from Morra Êímpagońena to the Imvessanabo.”
“The Inversion!”
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Meet the Author
Timoteo K. Tong grew up in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles dreaming of living in a rambling Victorian mansion. He currently lives with his husband and way too many plants in San Francisco. He is obsessed with cheese pizza, drinking cola, and daydreaming about magic. He sold his first book when he was age eight, a story about his beloved stuffed animal named Crocker Spaniel. He is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators International.Facebook | Instagram
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