The Horned Mage: Books 1-5

by Hayden Harper

  In no time flat we were both fixed up with a beer in our own red plastic cups and mingling with a throng of dancers in an enormous living room. Bodies bumped and grinded, bounced up and down. Girls squealed and danced closer to each other to tease the boys. I could feel the sexual energy in the air, a low thrumming that ran through the hormone-ridden crowd. I realized that if I wanted to, I could take any girl there home tonight. I wouldn’t even have to do like I’d done in the library and push my magic at them. I could simply tell when anyone was ready to go.

  None more so than Lexus, though I also realized, that her excitement levels were fluctuating differently than almost everyone else’s here. Most of the guys were simply charged and ready to go at a moment’s notice, requiring only a simple push to flip their switch. One or two of the girls were like that as well, but most of them went up and down depending on things like how much they had to drink, who was around them, and so on. Their arousal was a heavier, more involved thing that built or fell slowly but strongly. A good number of them had simply come for a good time and didn’t actually care about getting sex—though I sensed that most of them weren’t necessarily opposed to the idea, it just wasn’t what they were there for.

  After a little bit of analyzing the room I turned my attention to Lexus. She fell somewhere in between, with an arousal that was left at a constant low and heavy setting, like the girls just there for fun, but with a switch not unlike the guys. Only her switch was more specific and would crank her arousal into overdrive at the drop of a hat. And I was holding the hat. No pressure.

  I took a drink of my beer and pushed the concern of responsibility aside. This was a party. Lexus was here to have fun and so was I. Once that thought, and the alcohol, hit my system, I found myself in a state of relaxation I’d never have felt in a crowd like this before. I was powerful and in control and knew something about all of these people that many of them probably didn’t even understand about themselves. I was even comfortable enough to dance, though as Lexus was kind enough to point out, I was absolute shit at it.

  Fortunately she was also kind enough to correct me. Soon, I was doing that weird little bob-to-the-music-thing that guys do that passes for dancing while Lexus worked a whole new kind of magic, much to the crowd’s appreciation.

  Eventually we stepped out of the mass of dancers to catch our breath and sip our drinks and that’s when Bruce found us. He waded through the crowd like a parent through a kiddie pool, grinning down at us. “Glad you could make it, man.”

  “Me too,” I said. “Bruce, this is Lexus, Lexus—“

  “Bruce Fletcher!” She grabbed his hand with both of hers, shook it, and then took a moment to examine his championship ring. “So. Fucking. Shiny! You totally earned this last year.”

  Bruce gave an almost embarrassed laughed. “Thanks. Always nice to meet a fan.”

  And they struck up a conversation about football that went so fast that between that and the music I was completely lost. I’d known Lexus had said sporting events were one of the only forms of entertainment around town, but I hadn’t realized exactly how into sports she was. Then again, this was THE SOUTH. Football was its own form of worship down here. It probably shouldn’t have surprised me that she was as into it as she was.

  I wasn’t sure whether or not to be jealous of her and Bruce’s conversation or not. I decided not, but only because some primal, instinctive part of me understood beyond a shadow of a doubt that Lexus was mine. I made a mental note to educate myself a little bit better on football and take her to a game next season. If we were still doing whatever it was we were doing together come then. And if I was still here. Which, I reminded myself, thanks to Jadeite’s hookup with the Morrows it was looking like I just might be.

  All told I was feeling pretty good until the sorority girl from the library appeared at Bruce’s side.

  I don’t think she’d seen me, I was easy enough to miss in Bruce’s shadow, even with my antlers reaching up over the crowd. She froze like a deer in the headlights, as if I was the last person she’d ever expected to see. Bruce absently put an arm around her and pulled her in close to him.

  “So are you two an item?” he asked, absently bending over to kiss the sorority girl on top of her head. She didn’t give any indication that she’d felt it—just kept staring at me.

  I realized I was doing much the same and jerked myself out of it. Lexus was giving me a funny look.

  “Uh, we really haven’t put a label on what we are yet,” I said, hoping I hadn’t just put my foot in my mouth.

  Lexus gave him a grin—real or not, I couldn’t tell—and said, “Yeah, this whole thing with us is pretty new. We’re still figuring it out. What about you two?”

  Bruce’s grin widened. “Yeah, this is my girl, Sadie. Stole my heart freshmen year before I’d even made the team. We’ve been together ever since.”

  Sadie gave a jerky nod. “Hello.”

  “Hi,” I said, feeling like a complete idiot. “Uh—

  “Nothing happened!” The words came out shrill and angry and full of panic.

  Bruce looked from her to me and back to her, exchanging his grin for a puzzled expression. “What didn’t happen?”

  “Nothing,” Sadie said quickly. “That’s exactly my point. Nothing happened.”

  “Right,” Bruce said with a matching slowness before looking at me. “What didn’t happen?”

  “I’m not really sure,” I lied. My palms were sweating. My red plastic cup began slipping in my hand and I had to readjust my grip to keep from dropping it.

  “We were in the library,” Sadie blurted. “And—and—and…”

  “And I got a book down for you the other day, said hi, and you dropped the book and ran off,” I said. Please don’t mention the kiss. Please don’t mention the kiss.

  Sadie stared at me for a moment, not even breathing, and then nodded her head. “That—that’s right. That is what happened.”

  Relief swept over her in a wave that made it look like a hundred pound weight had been lifted off of her shoulders. “Really, nothing happened.”

  “You keep saying that,” Bruce said, sounding skeptical. “Why am I getting the sense that there was a little more to it than that?”

  Because there was. But how the hell did I explain this without being a complete and total douche?

  I gave a shrug but Bruce wasn’t looking at me. His attention was fixed completely on Sadie. She wouldn’t look at him.

  “I need another beer,” he said suddenly and pulled away, pushing through the crowd and leaving Lexus and I standing awkwardly with Sadie.

  She looked after him for a moment, looking like she wanted to call out but not knowing what to say. “You should go,” she finally said after a moment. “I don’t know what happened between us but—but it didn’t happen, okay? I’m not—I don’t cheat on my boyfriend.”

  She pushed her way into the crowd and disappeared.

  Lexus grabbed my arm and started pulling me toward the exit. “Where are we going?” I asked, a little more listlessly than I’d meant to. I wasn’t actually sure that I cared about the answer because the only thing I could really think of was how I might have screwed up Bruce and Sadie’s relationship.

  “If we’re going to talk about this,” Lexus said, “then we’re going to need better beer.”

  Chapter Seven

  Monkeyshines was a bar that I’d heard about—every freshman in town heard about it—but that I’d never gotten around to visiting. It was a low end establishment that took cash only and was not-so-secretly-infamous for being lax about checking ID. It was one of those places that everyone knew about and because everyone knew about it could only exist in a small town like Woodhurst. Local public secret.

  It was crowded, as it should be on a Saturday night, but otherwise I didn’t pay attention to the crowd and Lexus and I made a straight shot for the bar, finding an empty space and flagging down the bar tender for a couple drinks. I
asked for whatever was on tap and Lexus asked for something so complicated the words seemed more appropriate for a yuppie at Starbucks than a student at a bar. I eyed her as the bar tender set about taking care of our orders.

  She eyes me right back. “Don’t hate. What’s the deal with you and the dormouse back there?”

  “Dormouse?” I couldn’t help but scoff. There was nothing mousey about Sadie.

  Lexus punched my arm. “You know who I’m talking about. Little Miss Sunshine Sadie. She hurt you?”

  I almost choked. On what I don’t know since I don’t have my drink yet. “Me? She was terrified and you’re worried that she hurt me?”

  “I don’t know her from Adam. I know you. I care about you. Answer me and be honest: are you okay?” She fixed me with those green eyes. The green eyes I gave her. The look is so earnest I couldn’t bring myself answer. She was being completely honest with me and it was touching. I had no idea what to do or say.

  So instead of saying anything I held her gaze and when the bar tender set our drinks down and accepted my cash, I chugged my beer. I was halfway through the frosted mug when it occurred to me that things around me weren’t right. The laughter was too deep and rough, the atmosphere jovial but charged with a violent undercurrent. And there’s a smell in the air, apart from the usual sour, salty, and smoky bar smells, grease and musk. Not things one usually associated with underage college students.

  I finished my beer and took a proper look around the bar. We were the only students in Monkeyshines. That wasn’t right, especially not on the weekend. It didn’t matter who was hosting what party, there are always college students trolling for beer. Monkeyshines should have been full to bursting with people in their late teens to early twenties. Instead the average age of the customers this evening was hard to gauge, mostly because everyone looked so weathered.

  Leathers and denim were the uniform of the evening, accompanied by big facial hair and tattoos. A lot of the guys had patches on their jackets that mirrored by the ink on their skin: Road Wolves. A motorcycle club passing through had decided to make Monkeyshines their unofficial hangout for the evening and more than a few were giving me and Lexus looks. Some dismissive, some mocking, and some…hungry.

  My magic stirred inside me, triggering my new instincts for reading people. Despite the apparent calm, each and every one of these people, from the biggest men to the smallest woman in a skimpy leather belt pretending to be a skirt, were predators. The way they all moved suggested an intimate understanding of relevant location—personal space was regularly violated but never on accident. Everything was deliberate. It was as if there was an entire other layer of conversation happening between all the bikers told solely through body language that I could only just make out. It was like hearing a group of people whispering and knowing that they were talking but being unable to make out the words.

  I put an arm around Lexus, claiming her. Mine, the gesture broadcast. A few of the Road Wolves chuckled. A few eyed my antlers and actually licked their lips. One mouthed what I’m sure was venison.

  I bared my teeth at him and the man actually flinched. He glanced away from me and over to the bar a little ways down from where we were situated. I followed his gaze and found three of the Road Wolves clustered around a single figure. They were all standing, and he was sitting, making it hard to get a good look at him.

  One of the Road Wolves was a stocky, older guy, a little under six feet tall but heavily muscled, tatted, and scarred with a triangular build that came from a big upper body workout and not much lower body. Made sense if he spent most of his time on a bike. Or in prison.

  The other two flanked him and the seated man. They had bronzed skin, their ethnicity hard to place but they definitely had an exotic caste to their features and had to be related. Brother and sister unless my guess was wrong and they looked to be in their mid to late twenties. Definitely the younger end of this group’s spectrum and the only non-straight-up-white bikers in the bar.

  Beside me, Lexus had tensed up, then made herself relax. I don’t know how I knew this, but she was ready to throw down if any of them made a move at me. I gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze and a little bit more tension bled out of her.

  The man on the bar stool, surrounded by the three amigos stood up and tried to hold the older Road Wolf’s gaze. It was Thomas Morrow. What was he doing with a bunch of bikers? I’d gotten the impression he was a computer nerd. Seeing him here was like seeing a dolphin in the African Savanah. Something definitely out of its element.

  He glanced away and the boss-man shoved him into the bar.

  Anger flared through me. That was my new boss’s son. He wasn’t mine, not like Lexus, but he was a part of my new territory. My responsibility, at least in part. And dammit, I had to do something right tonight because right now I was striking out in everything.

  I marched up to them, Lexus guarding my back, toting her overcomplicated drink like it was a grenade, and pushed my way into the thick man’s personal space. “Hey.”

  He whirled on me, as did his cohorts. Their eyes were glowing. Power radiated from them, hot and living and fixed on me. Their eyes were bright gold, solid orbs punctuated with little black dots of their pupils. They were the eyes of predators, something mankind has been afraid of since we first realized that we could be hunted.

  I part of me was ready to buckle, to cave the instant those eyes turned on me. A bigger part of me knew that was a mistake, understood in the most primordial of senses that they weren’t the only predators in the room.

  I locked my gaze with the golden eyed older man and bared my teeth. “Problem?”

  His flunkies glared at me as well, but I couldn’t take my eyes from the big man. Doing so would be a sign of weakness, an invitation for all three of them to attack me. I’d started something with him that I had to see through to the end or suffer the consequences. I didn’t think that I would like what they were.

  The wonder twins circled around to flank me on my right, moving to trap me against the bar. The girl looked like she wanted to get around behind me and completely box me in but Lexus got in her way and bared her own teeth in a flash of white I only caught out of the corner of my eye. I almost looked away then, admitted my weakness and defeat to the man in front of me, but I held my ground and his gaze. I didn’t flinch or blink or back down.

  “Do you have any idea what you’re doing, son?” he asked me through clenched teeth, the sound coming out a low, rumbling growl.

  “Do you?” I asked back and felt that predatory aspect of my magic flair up.

  I grabbed it. Pushed it. Threw it into him and the magic pounced as if alive. Alive and hungry. It passed from me to him in much the same way the erotic pulses had between me and Sadie at the library earlier but there was nothing sexual about this. The man staggered back, wincing as if something had physically struck him, and then his gaze lowered, just a fraction. And then it fell to the floor.

  The heat pouring from him was abruptly extinguished and the power radiating from the other two went out an instant later, visibly startling them. All through the bar the Road Wolves stiffened, stopping what they were doing to stare at me and the old man.

  I put an arm around Lexus and glanced at Thomas. “Let’s get out of here.”

  We turned to go but found our way barred by the girl half of the siblings. Her eyes, normal brown and human now, were fixed on me, an inscrutable expression hiding in their depths.

  “Move,” I told her.

  She stepped aside. We hurried past, unwilling to press our luck further.

  I waited until we were out of the bar and a two blocks away before asking Thomas, “What the hell was that about?”

  “They had me set up a website for an online business. It’s not doing as well as they hoped. They were blaming me.” He gave me an appraising look. “Not that I’m ungrateful but, why’d you step in? I mean, you’ve probably created a whole new shit storm for yourself.”

/>   I had? “Dammit. Like what.”

  That got a laugh out of him. “I couldn’t begin to guess, man. Watch your back the next few days though.”

  A few minutes later he separated from us to head back to his pool house while Lexus and I made our way back toward my place. Lexus took her shoes off and walked barefoot the rest of the way.

  I waited until we were in my front lawn, slightly uphill from the road before turning around and fixing my attention on the shadow that had been following us. Green fire sprang to life around my closed fist.

  “Why don’t you come out now?”

  Chapter Eight

  I should have fucking known better.

  A wolf the size of a mule padded silently out of the shadows across the street, eyes glowing gold. Road Wolves. Werewolves. I am such a dumbass.

  The wolf came at me slow, but low to the ground, cautious and predatory, ears back, hackles raised. Unlike a dog it didn’t snarl or bare its teeth, but there was no doubt that it was hunting. I did not care for being prey.

  Only I wasn’t. I was a challenge. That guy I’d stared down at Monkeyshines must be the Road Wolves’ alpha. And I’d undermined his authority in front of his entire pack. And not just a traditional werewolf pack, a biker gang—excuse me, motorcycle club—made up of freaking werewolves. Packs weren’t common and usually kept to themselves, establishing ranches or reservations where they could run and shapeshift away from people they might accidentally infect or kill. There is nothing safe about a wolf, especially not a wolf with the intelligence of a human. Some of the worst serial killers in American history were werewolves unable to suppress the urge to hunt or prove their dominance among regular humans. Whether that was because of the wolf or the human in them has been a matter of some debate.