by Heloise Hull
Making Midlife Mistakes
Forty Is Fabulous 3
Heloise Hull
Henwin Press LTD
Contents
Making Midlife Mistakes
Before You Begin
Foreword
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Making Midlife Marvels
Afterword
About the Author
Copyright © 2021 by Heloise Hull
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Any appearance to real people is purely a coincidence and should not be inferred.
Created with Vellum
Making Midlife Mistakes
To prevent the next great war between the gods and supernaturals, I had one job. Keep my sons far, far away from Aradia.
Then why are they sitting next to me, enjoying their own Italian getaway?
Back home, they're Josh and Jacob, two average college freshmen with a propensity for pranks. In my world, they are the She-Wolf's twins, feared and fated to rise—or fell—great empires.
Nonna swears it's fine. They’re safest by my side here on Aradia. That's why she invited them to celebrate their eighteenth birthday with their mother.
But it doesn't feel fine. Suddenly, my stalker god has found his voice, whispering in the shadows and speaking in dreams.
Fortunately, I’ve finally begun to master my powers, and for the first time, I feel strong enough to protect my sons—from the Council, from evil mages, and even from the gods themselves.
I only hope I’m not mistaken.
Dux femina facti.
Queen Dido of Carthage
Before You Begin
In the book before and the book that follows, Ava mentions her time as Cleopatra VII in Egypt. If you’re confused, you’re not crazy. You just haven’t yet read Making Midlife Memories, book 1.5 of the Forty Is Fabulous series. It’s a short story about Ava’s vision the first time she astral projects with Manu on her way to see the Council. The events in the short story directly precede the second book in the series. However, it is not necessary to have read it to understand what follows. Think of it as a bonus scene!
If you’d like to read Making Midlife Memories, simply sign up for my newsletter, and I’ll send you a free copy. You’re under NO obligation to stay on my list, but if you do, I promise I only send out new release notices and sales/giveaways every few months. You can also follow me on Amazon for new release updates.
NOTE: If you don’t read the short story, you won’t miss anything in the main arc of Making Midlife Madness or Making Midlife Mistakes. It simply deepens the relationship between Ava and the god in the cave. But if you do choose to read it, please know the novella is grittier than Ava’s story thus far. Be prepared for blood, sex, glory, and even an ancient Roman recipe for honey fritters. If you’re cool with that, then sign up and I’ll send you a copy!
Foreword
When I decided to write a book about a midlife heroine, the movement was just beginning. While we love our YA protagonists, sometimes we wish we could sit them down, push a strand of their ridiculously perfect hair out of their shining eyes, and say, “Oh, honey.” Or maybe, “Bless your heart,” if you’re Southern-inclined. We want to read about a heroine with the grit that comes with childbirth, sleepless nights, shared experiences, lost friendships, lost marriages, and those pesky, midlife, body changes. The thing about writing a first book, however, is you can’t always imagine your audience. I had no idea who would be drawn to Ava’s story and if they would love her and Aradia as much as I do. Now that I’m working on the final books, the hurdles are different. You are here with me and I worry about your happiness, too. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I hope I did Ava justice. Enjoy, and don’t miss the sneak peak to book 4 at the end.
-Heloise
Chicago, Illinois
May 2021
Prologue
Unknown location
September 1, 1346
Jeanne de Clisson
My children were dead. My Black Fleet was in ruins. The only thing I had left to live for was my revenge.
The man’s bare feet didn’t leave footprints on the beach. They seemed to glide along the sand. His face shone too bright, radiating lambent moonbeams. I couldn’t look upon him properly. He claimed he was a god and that I was destined for greater things.
“I don’t want greater things,” I told him. “I want to cut off Philip’s head.”
He laughed at that and called me his little wolf. He promised me power and knowledge beyond my wildest fantasies. I believed him, but still, I kept my axe.
“What do you want in exchange for such power?” I asked, caution filling me like sand in my boots, weighing me down to the beach.
Without seeing his face, I couldn’t tell if the god smiled, but I thought I heard a lightness in his voice. “Always guarded, aren’t you? All I ask is for your help in combat. Simple, really, for someone of your… prowess.”
“Who is your enemy?” I imagined the dark-skinned pirates coming up from the east or perhaps more treachery in Avignon. Maybe the Romans had surged over the Alps or the Grand Master of the Knights Templar had faked his assassination.
What I hadn’t imagined? The pictures the god painted in my mind of men with lion heads and serpent tails and enormous birds that talked. Of giants and trolls and demons.
“There are monsters threatening this world. We will fight them together.” He snapped his fingers and the beach around me disappeared. He told me my children weren’t dead. They had never existed.
So I took his hand. I was used to fighting monsters.
The moment our hands touched, shock waves rippled through my body and my nerves fired across my fingers. Suddenly, all of those odd things my men used to whisper about me—that I was a witch, that I could control the sea—made sense. I didn’t know what I was, but I hardly cared with the power spreading down my back and infusing my marrow.
“What is this sorcery?” I breathed.
The god smirked. He handed me a broadsword, its gleaming blade twice the size of my chest. I never should’ve been able to lift it, let alone wield it properly.
“Now, we fight.”
The field of battle was smoke and char. In all the oceans I’d sailed, I’d never seen a land like this. It smelled like sweet blossoms and rose up like worlds beyond my dreams.
Behind the scorched rocks and smoked sky, I saw clouds that looked like spun sugar and groves of plum and cherry trees. Most had been snapped in half, their bark blistered.
A man, or perhaps a giant in a bronze helmet with rams’ horns and leather armor, defended a vast, white column that stretched beyond the clouds. He flung burning stars, strung together in constellations. They exploded on impact, but he was quickly overwhelmed. Birds with human heads and the lion men attacked him. He went down as they covered his massive form with their snarls and their teeth.
He bled gold.
It was true, then. The gods fought monsters, and maybe monks with their bestiaries knew more than I gave them credit for.
Water spritzed from my hands. Was I supposed to fight monsters with dew drops?
I ducked at an explosion to my right. Beasts were flung into the air and crumpled to the ground. It was a parting shot from a dying god. Hurriedly, a man with golden arms stooped and placed honey on the monsters’ bloodied mouths.
Why would a mortal man fight for monsters?
“Unleash your powers,” the god ordered, a hint of fear in his eyes. He had tried to hide it, but I saw it lurking in the shadows. There was something familiar about him. Odd mists of memories pummeled me whenever I looked at him. “Now!” he commanded.
I let the chill of an English Channel wind whip around me, concentrating until it distilled into constrained chaos. Clouds descended from the sky. Then, I let it surge. I screamed as my flood rushed from the clouds and swept away the beasts. The man struggled to hold onto a branch from a blackened tree over the roaring waves, but I hardly cared. I had my own struggles. I had to maintain the waters.
Still more monsters surged over my flood. I could barely describe their horrid appearance, which was enough to make the most hardened of my pirates whimper and turn tail. The sky burned with their hatred. It sent shivers creeping up my spine to see such hunger and devastation in their eyes.
Another night and day passed and still the god kept me fighting. He said the other pillars were toppling, but I didn’t know what he meant until I heard the boom, a huge crack forming at the base and zigzagging to the sky.
On the third day, I saw the god crumple to his knees. He didn’t seem like a warrior to me, but I wasn’t supposed to be one, either. I was supposed to be at home in France, keeping house for my beheaded husband.
I raised my broadsword and began to run to him, wonder and murder in my heart in equal measure. We had unfinished business. He had promised me revenge, and I intended to take it.
Chapter One
My twin sons jumped from the bed with huge smiles on their faces. They were the two people I loved most in the world, and the two people I didn’t want to see. Not here, not on Aradia.
It was too dangerous.
My heart did a complicated set of gymnastics, worthy of an Olympic gymnast. It jumped with surprise, swelled with love, and recoiled in fear. It didn’t stick the landing, either, and I held tight to the doorframe to steady myself.
“Mom?” Josh and Jacob took a halting step in my direction, their grins melting away.
Half of me wanted to wrap my arms around them and hang on like a limpet. The other half fought the urge to run straight to the basilica to check on Thoth to ensure he was still in stasis, then hustle them home on a ferry.
“I’m okay, boys. You just surprised me. Come here, let me see you.” I looked them over from head to toe with the practiced eye of a mother. “Are you brushing your teeth? Eating your fruits and vegetables? Attending all your classes?”
“Seriously, Mom, you’re already going there?”
“Where? Your health and safety?”
Jacob squinted at me. “Why are you bleeding? And why is your shirt torn?”
“Dude, did you get into a fist fight?” Jacob crowed. He sounded proud.
If they only knew. It was more like a battle royale with a blood sucking vampire and his overwound mummy sidekick. Or was it the other way around? Clearly Bruno fancied himself in charge, but the events of the past few hours showed his arrogance hid a lot of ignorance. “Of course not,” I said. “Violence is never the answer. I took a bit of a tumble. You should be careful here, the cliffs are slippery.”
I hated how good I was at this. Not one lie in there. I had fallen. The cliffs were slippery. Violence is not the answer. And I never should’ve taken Mestjet’s life. Her blank eyes had haunted me all the way home.
Luca had done his best to comfort me. “It was self-defense, not vengeance,” he’d said. “You shouldn’t confuse the two, and based on the way you’re emotionally wrecked right now, you’ll be fine. Eventually.”
I didn’t feel fine.
“Your friend Nonna said we should come for our birthdays,” Josh said, an uncertain hitch in his voice.
Clearly, I hadn’t been able to wipe all traces of fear from my face. “It’s just that…” I began, but fell silent. It’s just that what? Their mother’s fate had cursed them and they needed to stay far, far away? That wouldn’t go over very well.
“Let’s get them fed,” Nonna intervened, saving me from myself. “They’ve had a long trip. Would you two like a bowl of Bolognese? Your mother made it herself.”
At their faces, Nonna gave them both an evil eye. “And it’s delicious.” She shooed them out of the room, whispering back at me, “I sent everyone else home. Thessaly is in her room. We can explain the whole undead thing about Aurick later.”
“Or not at all.”
“Mamma—”
“No. They are not involved. This is my curse and my problem. They will turn eighteen and go straight home.”
The second I was alone, a wave of regret and shame rolled over me. I missed everything, from their cookie crumb kisses to their popsicle hugs, but now? Now I was terrified. There was a curse hanging over their heads, a freaking archon imprisoned inside the Arch, and a god taking a nap under the basilica.
There was a knock on the door and I jumped.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Aurick said, his deep voice rumbling in my chest.
“I’m a little jittery,” I admitted. “With no time to decompress, it all feels so overwhelming right now.”
“What would make you feel better?”
“I have to go check on Thoth. Can you make sure the boys stay here?”
“Of course.”
“I’m serious. Don’t let them step foot out of the house.”
“I won’t.”
“If they try anything, tackle them. Use your mummy strength if you have to.”
“They’ll be fine while you’re gone. I promise. I’m more worried about you. You shouldn’t go to the basilica alone. Maybe you should take Thessaly with you.”
“Good idea. Tell her to stay in the liminal space. That way, she’ll be my ace in the hole.”
Aurick nodded. “Be safe, Ava.” He gave me a fierce hug. “And remember, the boys are here. Nothing earth shattering has occurred.”
“We don’t know that.”
“We would know if Thoth were awake. The whole island would be on fire by now.”
“Are you trying to comfort me or make it worse? It’s hard to tell.”
“The former. Now, we just have to keep the twins away from the basilica.”
I nodded distractedly, as if trying to convince myself. “Yes, away from Thoth. But I still better check to make sure.”
I detached from his altogether too comforting hug and crept to the window. I threw my legs over the sill, but Aurick’s fingers caught my arm, and I looked at him questioningly.
“We’ll figure it out. I promise.” Aurick bent to brush a kiss on my forehead, but I took his lapels and tugged him to me. I clung to his kisses for a moment, taking strength and comfort from him.
Finally, I pulled away. “I’ll be back soon. Hopefully.”
“You will,” Aurick replied. He looked apprehensive for once. “I guess I should go make small talk with your sons.”
I suppressed a
small chuckle. “Just don’t mention magic. Or making out.”
“Right. What do they like? Any interests or hobbies?”
“I’m not giving you spoilers,” I teased and hopped out of the window.
The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on me, sneaking out of my room via the window when it was just last summer that the boys were doing the same. At least mine was for a good reason.
It was time to pay a god a visit.
Chapter Two
Now that I knew what it housed, the Basilica of Aradia could give an abandoned insane asylum a run for its money. Besides being as dark as an espresso, it was deathly quiet. The only sound was my own breath, which in the silence of the sanctuary, came in short puffs that sounded a lot like a wild beast hiding in the shadows.
I forced myself to inhale and exhale for a count of three. It was painfully obvious that controlling my powers was connected to keeping a clear head, and I’d certainly need it to confront Thoth if he was awake.
“Thessaly, are you here?” I whispered, wincing at the echo of my voice.
Without a word, she somersaulted from a door over the crypt, her blue hair fluttering around her shoulders as she landed on the tips of her fingers and toes. Even though I was expecting it, my heart still twisted at the sight. I was glad Thessaly was my friend, because she could be seriously terrifying sometimes.
