Phoenixflare: A Reverse Harem Romance (The Rogue Witch Book 6)

by KT Strange

  “Come on, sweetheart. Come for me.”

  I moaned and arched up off of Cash’s body. An arm wrapped around me, supporting me as I shook, the white-hot pleasure coiling inside of me snapping suddenly. In the distance I could hear myself, the sound of my moans embarrassing but so hot. Eli was doing this to me, making me fly, and I could feel the buzzy hum of my powers wanting to unleash. I dug my nails into Cash’s wrists and hung on tight as my muscles tensed, keeping a leash on the lightning inside me.

  Eli’s tongue slicked over me, lapping slowly at my skin as I came down with a gasp. Behind me, Cash groaned, his cock hard as he shifted and rolled his hips.

  “Fuck, ‘m gonna-“ his arms tightened on mine, holding me still as he came hot against the small of my back, shudders running through his body.

  I lay there, muscles worn out and slack, and glanced up at Charlie. He was smirking at me.

  “That looked pretty,” he said, and then kissed me softly on the mouth, before laying a trail of kisses to my ear. He pressed into Cash’s side, making space for himself and getting as close to me as he could. Cash grumbled at him but let go of my arm so I could wind it around Charlie’s rib cage.

  Eli sighed, sitting back and slowly pulling his fingers out of me. I bit my lip and tamped down on my powers. I was so sensitive that every touch made me want to spark up.

  My eyes fell to the large bulge in Eli’s jeans, telling me just how turned on he was. He watched my gaze and then winked at me slowly.

  “Later,” he promised me, with a gentle rub of my stomach with his hand. “You look exhausted.”

  “Can’t sleep,” I mumbled, my eyelids drooping. “So much to do today.”

  Cash sighed, shifting himself out from under me so that I was sandwiched between him and Charlie. The two of them, like warm and very snuggly bookends, pulled a sheet up over me.

  “Nap now,” Cash said. “Do stuff later.”

  But Max would be back soon, I wanted to say, and the record label, and Dragonpack, and Daria… my body wouldn’t listen to reason though, and didn’t care much about my to-do list. I fell asleep, cradled between Cash and Charlie, their slow, even breathing lulling me into the darkness.

  Twenty-Six

  Darcy

  Max returned with my childhood friend later that day, eyeing my sex hair without comment. She turned to Eli and said,

  “I spent all your money and I don’t even feel bad.”

  She wasn’t wrong, either. Daria and Max had returned with bags of things that Max declared, “every normal girl needs, and Daria needs to learn how to be a normal girl.” To their credit, none of my wolves complained, not even when Max told them she’d ordered a second bed for Daria to sleep in. It was a good thing we had Wolfe for a benefactor, because it looked like Max had cleared out Macy’s.

  Thank every small god for Max. Without her, I wasn’t sure how we would have functioned. She was really starting to take her place in the pack, her dark humor deflecting everyone’s tension, cracking it like eggs. Daria stuck to her like a burr for the rest of the day, tagging after the phoenix with wide eyes and learning a lot more about the birds and bees than I really thought was appropriate. But who was I to argue? Daria was eighteen, had almost gotten married. I’d left home at her age. I hoped Daria would end up slotting into our lives as best she could, even though the guys would be varying degrees of cautious around her.

  And me? Things weren’t exactly strained between me and the pack, but they felt off. Good sex was a stress reliever, but it hadn’t fixed everything. I could still feel Eli wanting to pull away, and Finn wanting to talk about the dragon thing. Part of me wondered why Eli hadn’t fucked me in the bedroom earlier while Cash had held me down for him to wreck me, and that was making me feel self-conscious. Did he not want to do it in front of the rest of the pack? But wasn’t that what made us strong as a pack? That there wasn’t any (serious) jealousy amongst the guys?

  But our interpersonal problems would need to be shoved aside. We were too busy dealing with the label, and Gem, anyway.

  “I’m sorry, what?” I asked, the next morning, sitting at the label office and trying to ignore the ache between my thighs. My girly bits were seriously going to need to toughen up if I was going to be with a wolf pack of healthy, brawny men who insisted that sex every other day wasn’t often enough, and that orgasms before breakfast were a perfect way to start the day.

  Gem put her hands on her hips, glancing at Willa, looking irritated at having to repeat herself.

  “Sometimes I question the seriousness with which you both take Phoenixcry’s career,” she said, before snapping her fingers in rapid succession. “Wake up! There are opportunities being missed as we sit here in some sort of donut-fueled sugar coma.”

  Willa sighed and shifted in her seat, tapping her pencil against her pad of paper.

  “Sorry, I was up late making calls to one of our publishers in Germany,” she said, her face displaying her exhaustion. Her dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail that had frizzled bits coming out of it, and her shirt was rumpled.

  “Well perhaps you should be assigning such work to another intern, but since we can’t trust this one not to run off with bad members, I can understand your reluctance to give them any task of importance.”

  I sank down in my chair a little at Gem’s rebuke. God, she was a bitch. An effective, efficient, terrifying bitch.

  “Our fraternization policy only technically applies to full-time employees,” Willa said, clearing her throat. “And anyway, you know how bands are.”

  “Oh, yes, I do, and understanding how bands are is what got you into trouble with Jake Tupper in the first place. If the label had been a little less interested in his unit sales and a little more into his extensive record of sexual harassment, perhaps this whole episode could have been avoided.” Gem sniffed, elegantly, and peered down at Willa.

  Willa, to her credit, wasn’t cowed and straightened her shoulders.

  “I made my views on his behavior known early on,” she said. “I was overruled.”

  “Troy is a lucky idiot,” Gem said, “that Tupper was willing to slip off into the night and take a sabbatical from music, and that none of his previous victims spoke out. This whole thing could have been worse than it was.”

  “I dunno, Eli going to jail was pretty bad,” I said, sticking to the official story. Willa and Gem had no idea about magic and illusions or any of that. They didn’t know that there was a world of difference between who I’d been when I left the venue that night and who I was when I’d walked in the door of the record label that morning. What had happened between me and Eli. What we had seen. It needed to stay that way. Magical problems had no place in the mundane arena. When the worlds were apart, we were fine. When they collided?

  Hell broke loose.

  “It made for excellent news coverage, especially his complete exoneration and Tupper’s disgrace. We can orchestrate a return for Tupper once he’s completed his recovery, and a sexual harassment course that I have chosen for him. Perhaps we could have the bands perform together—”

  “No,” I said, cutting her off so hard that she glared at me. “I don’t think… Eli won’t forgive him. No matter what. Let’s maybe just focus on Phoenixcry right now.”

  Willa shot me a tight smile.

  “We do need to get them back into studio,” she said. “A follow-up album might seem counterintuitive, but we’ve pushed all the singles to radio we can from the current record. We need more hits.”

  “I know the guys have been working on stuff, off and on…” There was nothing I liked more than to lay snuggled up with Ace on the couch as Charlie and Eli strummed together, Finn humming a vocal line along to some new song they were dreaming up.

  “Yes, yes, that’s all very well and good.” Gem got a faraway look in her eyes that made me worry. She was certifiable. Brilliant, obviously, but also a sort of evil mastermind. Disney should’ve made her into a fairytale villain. Sometimes I expected her to b
reak out into cackles. “I think perhaps, to celebrate his release and the clearing of his name, we should have Darcy and Eli go out on a dinner date. A well-publicized dinner at the most high profile eatery in town.” Gem’s fingers floated in the air as she gestured, clearly imagining what this sparkling evening would look like.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Uh?” Willa dropped the donut she had just grabbed from the stack in the middle of the conference room table. Powdered sugar went everywhere.

  “But—” I sat forward, staring at Gem, my cheeks heating up. Did she know? About me and Eli? Oh god, did she know I was with the whole band?

  “It paints the perfect picture. Finn, the rejected boyfriend, Eli, the victorious twin, the fans will adore it, especially after he absolutely pummeled Jake Tupper on your behalf. There are already rumors…”

  “Gem, that seems a bit um, extreme,” Willa sounded remarkably composed, although her eyes were wide in her face. She looked like she’d swallowed her dropped donut whole.

  “No, it’s perfect. A genius idea, truly. I had thought about it when I first noticed how he looked at you, Darcy.” Gem gave me a good-natured, if patronizing, smile. “Truly, I think there is some spark of feeling there, although I’m sure he restrains himself out of respect for his brother.”

  My lips parted.

  She was insane. I glanced at Willa, desperate for her to say something, stop the rollercoaster and let me off. The guys were not going to like this.

  “Are you suggesting we manufacture a band rivalry over Darcy’s relationship with Finn?” Willa’s voice was strangled. She gulped down some water and then cleared her throat. “I thought you didn’t even like the fact that Darcy and Finn were, um, involved.” She cast me a sidelong glance and mouthed the word sorry. My cheeks were on fire.

  It was bad enough that I was sorta breaking rules, had basically stumbled so far across the line from the beginning of my internship that I couldn’t see it anymore, but that was the music industry. It was a business of rule-breakers. As long as things had stayed relatively drama-free, there might be a few raised eyebrows, but nothing major.

  “Dear, are you new?” Gem looked down at Willa, a sneer across her lips. “I am not suggesting it. I am planning it. I shall make the reservations for tomorrow night—”

  “What if people think that it’s just Finn out with me? I mean, they’re identical,” I pointed out, grasping at straws. We didn’t need this. Not right now. The guys were so real with their fans, they would never want this kind of fake drama to be cooked up for them just to get more eyes on social media. The look on the guys’ faces as I told them what Gem wanted would be… well, I didn’t want to even imagine it, let alone actually be the one to tell them.

  “Hmm, well that’s simple,” Gem said with a smirk. “I’ll get Finn and Charlie to do a live stream while you’re out. They can perform some of those new songs you say they’ve been working on.”

  My stomach sank. There was no arguing with the woman.

  “I’m still not seeing how this is going to benefit the band or sell their music,” Willa was the voice of reason, crossing her arms over her chest. Gem gave her an evil glare, and I was shocked that Willa didn’t wilt away in her chair right then and there.

  “Everyone loves a love story,” she said, “but everyone loves a love-triangle even more.”

  Willa and I gave her matching blank looks. Nobody liked love-triangles. Nobody.

  “And it gives them a handy villain to throw their hate at. They’ll adore the boys even more, and spend time disliking the fluff-headed little tour manager who tried to get between them,” Gem said, as if she was perfectly alright with ruining my reputation and sending a bunch of internet trolls after me at the same time.

  “No,” Willa said, and I breathed a sigh of relief at the steel in her voice. “That’s not going to happen. This whole incident was awful for the band, and I’m not going to let you use Darcy as some sort of bizarre pawn in your reality TV show vision for Phoenixcry.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Gem’s words dripped with ice, but Willa shook her head.

  “Not happening. Let’s find some other way of bringing back the band’s image, not that it was all that damaged to begin with.” Willa picked up her pencil and looked at me. “Any ideas?”

  Gem’s lips were pressed so tightly together that they’d gone white and bloodless. She looked like a viper about to strike, and I tried to avoid looking at her as I cleared my throat and picked up my own pen to write down some ideas.

  Gem looked at her phone, ignoring the two of us as we scribbled out some thoughts on what the band could do next. I could hear her heavy breathing from across the conference table.

  After a few minutes she made a noise that could only be described as a chuckle crossed with a satisfied hiss. I looked up a second after Willa, afraid of what I’d see.

  “Well, Willa, you may have made your little moral stand, and that’s quite sweet, but the fans are ahead of you by a mile.” She held out her phone so we could see, and my heart dropped into my stomach.

  There, on the screen, was a photoshopped picture of me, Finn, and Eli. Someone had drawn devil horns on me, and a tail, with the word YOKO scribbled above my head. It was an Instagram post, and it had over 1000 likes, and a bunch of comments under it. My stomach turned over. I knew without looking that most of the comments would not be nice.

  “You see?” Gem said, smirking. “My plan is brilliant. So, how does seven sound for your dinner tomorrow night, Darcy?”

  Twenty-Seven

  Darcy

  “Ugh, she seriously said that? Fuck.” Max stared at me over a monumental ice cream sundae. The mall was busy-ish, but it was the perfect afternoon to spend inside. The rain had hit Seattle like a hammer, bringing with it frizz-inducing winds, and sock-soaking splashes from the pavement. I was more than happy to be inside and at the same time not cooped up with the boys at the penthouse.

  No matter how I’d tried to spin it, Gem’s idea had gone over like a lead balloon with the pack, and neither Finn nor Eli were happy about her whole “love triangle bullshit” as Cash called it. But the label was thrilled with the idea of Finn and Charlie doing a live stream, so...

  I was shopping for a nice dress to wear, since nothing in my closest was really ‘upscale restaurant’ worthy. Some small part of me wanted Eli to see me looking amazing. If we were going to do this date, then I wanted it to go over perfectly. We’d been stressed out enough as it was. Maybe we deserved a little downtime. Plus, when was the last time that I’d actually had a date?

  “Can we go into that store?” Daria asked, pointing at an evening wear store that had glittering dresses in the windows.

  “That seems a little too fancy for me.” I wasn’t looking for a ball gown. Daria rolled her eyes.

  “But you’d look so pretty in it. Don’t you think you should try and dress up at least a little bit? All the guys ever see you in is jeans or yoga pants.”

  “Yeah, Darce. Dress up, live a little, at least give Eli something to take off.” Max smirked at me. God I loved her even when she was a bossy bitch. I sighed.

  “Alright fine let’s go and have a look.” The worst that could happen was I wouldn’t find a dress that I liked. “But what if he doesn’t dress up? I don’t want to be the only one trying hard.”

  “Oh trust me, he’s going to be trying hard,” Max said with a laugh. “Have you seen the way he looks at you? That guy is so done for. We should get some fancy underwear too. Something with a lot of straps for him to work through.”

  I couldn’t help the mental image that floated through my mind at her words. Max really knew how to make me flustered. The thought of what Eli’s face would look like when he got me down to my underwear, and found it more complicated than just a bra and panties, had my inner muscles clenching hard.

  “He’ll just rip everything,” I muttered. Max laughed and Daria turned pink.

  “I don’t think I’m old enough to listen t
o this conversation,” she said. Max laughed even harder.

  “Oh you’re plenty old enough.” Max slung an arm around Daria’s shoulders as we entered the boutique. The nearest dress looked like it was more fitting for a homecoming dance, or somebody’s coming out party.

  “Ooooh, look, they have a dress that’s similar to mine.” Daria pointed. “Mother was so pissed at me when the seamstress brought my dress for the final fitting and she saw that I’d picked purple. I thought she was going to swallow her own tongue.”

  “Your mom was crazy,” I said.

  “Yeah.” Daria ran her fingers over the stiff taffeta of the nearest dress. “Is it weird that I miss her? Even after everything?”

  Max shook her head.

  “You can hate someone and still miss them,” she said.

  “Can I help you ladies with anything?” A sales associate had seen us molesting the dresses, and approached us with a tight smile.

  “Our friend has a fancy dinner out at the end of the week, and she needs the right dress for the occasion,” Max said. “We think her boyfriend might finally pop the question.”

  “Max,” I hissed.

  “I see, well congratulations,” the SA’s smile wasn’t any less icy. She eyed me up and down. “I’m not sure we have a big selection in your size, but I can try. There might be something in the clearance, or returns section.”

  This is why I hated shopping, and my nosey best friend who insisted on being super weird about things like my multi-dude relationship. I would’ve teased Max for being jealous, but there was still some weird vibes between us over what happened with her and those demons. Had I in some way influenced her to sleep with Levi and Landon?If I had, I’d be carrying that guilt around for awhile. They were... bad news. Not something that any girl should get involved with, ever.

  “I think our budget was somewhere in the range of two to four thousand,” Max said sweetly as I coughed. “So you might wanna drop the size-ist attitude before I drop you.”