The Horned Mage: Books 1-5

by Hayden Harper

  Reagan stepped up beside me. “She’s doing well, all things considered. I think…we both are.”

  I nodded, pulling my gaze away from Caroline to fully take in Reagan. She was dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt. Was she deliberately trying to dress down? Send some sort of signal? If so, I appreciated it.

  “I’m really glad to hear that,” I told her. “If there’s anything I can do for you….”

  She grinned. It was a predatory grin, the kind women got when they thought about slicing off a man’s delicate parts. “You can make sure my baby girls are taken care of. Jadeite deserves a good night. I know you’ve got some sort of weird magical poly-arrangement going on, but don’t you dare hurt either of my babies or so help me...”

  A hand that looked like it at first was going to ball itself into a threatening fist instead opened and flattened against her lower belly. Over our growing baby. “You treat my baby’s well, Caleb Marshal. If you want any sort of custody.”

  Relief swept through me so hard and so fast that I almost laughed. For a moment I’d thought she’d been threatening an abortion. I had absolutely no right to ask her to keep the child to term and hadn’t even realized that I’d wanted her to—absolutely wanted her to—until that moment. I pulled Reagan into a sudden hug.

  “You’ve got it,” I promised her.

  The serious expression and commands for me to let go of her only lasted a moment and then she hugged me back. When we came apart she was grinning. “You are never in a million years what I would have picked for either of them,” she said.

  “Me either,” I admitted. “I’m a lucky guy.”

  “Mmm hmm. Don’t forget it.”

  Lexus stepped into the living room, waved, and vanished down the entryway mouthing ‘you didn’t see me!’

  What was that about?

  A moment later, Jadeite stepped out of the hallway and my mouth dropped open.

  Chapter Eight

  Gone were the hoodies and the baggie jeans and the sneakers and every attempt, conscious or otherwise, that she made to downplay her beauty. Her mane of braids had been styled into an updo that rose from the back of her head and spilled down her back in an elegant waterfall that drew attention to her slender neck and proud, leonine features. Her dress was tight black number with a sheen of purple to it that played up her every curve while, coming to a stop only a little ways down her thighs. The neckline was a sort of collar-slash-halter style that left her shoulders bare and had a diamond shaped peekaboo window over her impressive cleavage, which I had to yank my eyes away from.

  I knew Jadeite was well endowed, but I’d never really seen more than a hint of her breasts. My eyes fell to the floor for a second and I noticed her shoes—something I pretty much never do—and I couldn’t tell you more than they were nice and high heeled. She’d worn high heels for me. Jadeite, the queen of comfortable clothes and shoes. My eyes raced back up to her face. She was wearing makeup too. Not a lot, which had probably frustrated her stepsister, but it highlighted her best features and drew attention to her deep eyes the same way the sheen of her dress drew attention to her curves.

  “You’re gorgeous,” I said. Class and sex appeal all rolled into one.

  She blushed and glanced away. Her braids rippled behind her and the dress shimmered. Her every little move was going to cause some sort of shift in her appearance, something to tease the eye. She was mesmerizing.

  She took a step forward and nearly fell over. I lunged forward and caught her just in time. She wasn’t looking at me as I helped her upright.

  But she grinned when I offered her my arm. “Thanks. I’m not used to these shoes yet.”

  “You look good in them.” I wanted to add that if she wanted to change out of them I’d wait, except that she’d gone to the trouble of picking them out. Saying something like that somehow felt like it would be undermining her efforts. So instead I let her use me for balance and walked her out to Sarah’s car, stopping to open the door for her and checking out her bare legs as she lowered herself into the passenger seat.

  Just looking at her had me hard. Boy was I in trouble.

  I expected the ride down to the hibachi restaurant in the next town over to me awkward. Admittedly the first few minutes were and it didn’t help that I had to keep myself from glancing in the mirror to catch a glimpse of her cleavage. I mean—damn! Was she wearing a strapless pushup bra underneath that dress? And then I was thinking of what else was under that dress and my mouth went dry.

  “I feel like I’m going to say something stupid and you’ll tell me to take you home,” I said, then wondered why the hell I’d felt the need to say something that idiotic.

  “So far so good,” she told me. “I’m kind of nervous too.”

  “Nervous like ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this’ or nervous like Mal with Inara?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You cannot use Star Wars and Firefly to gauge my reaction.”

  But she was laughing as she said it and I knew then that everything was going to be all right. And it was until we actually got to the restaurant.

  We walked in together laughing, her leaning on my arm as we walked over an ornate bridge crossing an indoor koi pond. Nice!

  A hostess met us and guided us around to a table with a bunch of chairs seated around it and a flat metal center and what looked like some kind of vent dropping way down over it. It looked almost out of place amidst all the Asiatic decoration. Jadeite was a huge anime nerd and had studied up on Japanese culture and was pointing out what certain things meant and how others were anachronisms when I realized that we were being watched.

  A trio of girls sat at the next table over and looked away, giggling, when I glanced over at them. Jadeite looked from me to them and scowled.

  I shrugged. “Wonder what’s up with them? Do I have something on my face?”

  She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. The effect was normally severe when she did it. With the makeup and the dress…damn. It was still severe but now it was also smoldering and dangerous. Like a hot blade.

  One of them got up and, still giggling and glancing back at her girlfriends, made her way over to us. She was tall, a Caucasian brunette maybe a few years older than me, lithe and a hint curvy—like a slightly bustier runway model.

  “Hi,” she said as she got close. “I’m so sorry to interrupt your dinner but, you’re him, aren’t you?”

  I cocked my head. “Him who?”

  “The horned mage!” She laughed and pulled out her phone, which already had an image from the photoshoot pulled up on the screen. It was the one with me and all three girls laughing and beaming at the camera—they in their bikinis and me in my swim trunks, all of us soaking wet.

  “That’s you, right?” she asked.

  Jadeite stiffened beside me.

  “Uh, yeah, that’s me.”

  She squealed. “Oh my God, that is so cool! Is this one of your girls? Does she have the eyes? That’s got to be like, Photoshop or something, right?”

  She leaned over and stared at me in the face. “Oh my God they really are that green! How’d you do that? Is it like a spell? Do you have to be one of your models to get them?”

  She glanced over at Jadeite. “How does it work?”

  Whatever the girl was expecting to see it wasn’t Jadeite’s glare because she flinched. I would have too if I’d been on the receiving end of it.

  “I’m glad you’re a fan,” I told her, trying to keep my voice friendly but firm. “But I’m on a date right now. My time right now belongs to her.” I gestured at Jadeite.

  The girl blushed. “Oh. Oh right! Of course, I am so sorry just…could I get your autograph?”

  That I hadn’t been expecting. Small price to pay to get her to leave us alone and not blast me on social media. I knew that image would be important to the Horned Mage site the girls had cooked up. She pulled something out of her purse and I signed it.

  “Could I g
et a selfie?”

  Jadeite was visibly grinding her teeth.

  “Not tonight,” I told her. “Maybe some other time.”

  She pouted but made her way back over to her table with, “It’s a deal!”

  I returned my attention to Jadeite and found her giving me a deadly neutral expression. “You’ve got fans now?”

  I shrugged. “Apparently. First time that’s ever happened.”

  She thawed a little and bit her lip. “Think that’s going to be normal for you now?”

  “I honestly have no idea.”

  “Caleb, is that you?” a semi-familiar voice asked.

  I turned in my seat to find a couple I recognized being dropped off at our table by the hostess. Bruce Fletcher, frat boy by day, superhero by night, and future NFL tight end. His girlfriend Sadie, who was dwarfed by his absolutely massive frame, had been the one who’d spoken. She seemed a lot happier to see me than Bruce did. Which was a shame because I liked Bruce. He was a cool guy. He played videogames and had a let’s play on YouTube and had once clotheslined a mugger who’d tried to steal my backpack—hence the superhero profession. I didn’t know him as well as I’d have liked because he seemed like an all-around good guy.

  Unfortunately I’d nearly seduced Sadie in the library at around the same time we’d met and it had made things incredibly awkward. Sadie had been especially upset and I didn’t blame her. My magic had gotten her all worked up and acting in a way she normally wouldn’t, especially considering how in love she and Bruce seemed to be. Or rather, had been. She seemed a lot happier to see me now than I thought she should have been.

  She sat down in the seat beside me without a word to Jadeite or her date. “I saw the website. I didn’t know you were a model. Those photos were so hot.”

  They were? I mean, yeah they were sexy but…really?

  “Thank you,” I said to her. “How’s it going, Bruce?”

  “It’s okay,” he said, voice and face flat.

  I stood up and gestured to Jadeite. “This is my girl, Jadeite.”

  She stood up and they shook hands, both he and Jadeite visibly releasing tension from their bodies. I was here with a girl, not a threat to his relationship.

  The chef arrived and began making fried rice. We all sat down, placed orders, and began small talk. I was just about ready to breathe a sigh of relief when Sadie said, “You know, I could have sworn you were dating that other black girl, the one in the photos you took.”

  All eyes turned to me. Oh shit, how did I explain this?

  “It’s complicated,” I said. “But the arrangement is working for us. Tonight, I’m here with Jadeite.”

  I put my arm around her but she didn’t lean into me.

  Sadie pouted. “So is this just a date or are you free?”

  Bruce loomed over his girlfriend. “What exactly is your arrangement?”

  There were words to describe us. We’d looked them up and even done a few rehearsals, just in case the time came when we ever had to try and explain it to someone outside our group. Especially if we didn’t want to bring up the whole, magically bound to each other thing. But I’d only ever said it to people who were immediately connected to us, never to people I barely knew.

  “We’re a semi-closed polyamorous group,” I said, hoping I’d pronounced everything correctly. “I love Lexus. She’s awesome. I’ve been best friends with Jadeite since starting school up here and I want to be more with her.”

  “She doesn’t have the eyes though,” Sadie blurted.

  Bruce gave her a quizzical look and she blushed. “Those eyes. The girls on the website, they all had those green eyes…she doesn’t. So, is it not serious then?”

  Bruce cocked his head. “Dude, you’re sleeping with all those girls? Fuck, I don’t know whether that’s awesome or just plain wrong.” He looked past me at Jadeite. “How do you feel about all this?”

  Jadeite stared at Bruce for a moment, then tore her gaze away to meet my eyes. “I want to go home now.”

  Chapter Nine

  We pulled up in front of Jadeite’s house and she threw open her door, not waiting for me to get it for her. “You’re fucking my stepsister and two other girls, you’ve got my stepmom pregnant, and you killed my father. And somehow none of this is your fault. So forgive me if I don’t know how I feel about everything right now!”

  I was not engaging in a fight. I was not backing down either. “It’s okay that you don’t know. I’m not upset with you for being confused. I thought that’s why we were dating—to sort things out.”

  “Maybe I can’t sort them out on a date,” she said. “You got strangers coming up to you and people recognizing you and that Sadie bitch was about ready to jump you right there.”

  “She’s with Bruce,” I told her. “They’ve been together forever. They love each other.”

  “That was not the expression of a girl in love with her man,” Jadeite said, and then let out a shriek as she lost her balance on her high heeled shoes and toppled over.

  I rushed to her side to help her up and she slapped my hands away. “Don’t touch me right now. Don’t, just don’t.”

  And then she was crying. Oh damn, what had I done to make her cry?

  “Jadeite? Jadeite, hey it’s okay. There’s nothing to cry about.”

  “Don’t tell me there’s nothing to cry about!” she cried at me. “You finally asked me out a-a-and now you’re out of my league and I’m ruining everything!”

  Tears poured down her cheeks, dragging her mascara with them. I sat down on the grass next to her and pulled her to my chest, wrapping my arms around her. “Hey, where do you get an idea like that? Huh? You are gorgeous and the smartest person I know. Too smart to be saying something like that.”

  “So I what I say is dumb now?”

  “Are you trying to pick a fight with me?”

  She slapped my chest. “Yes, dammit! Why won’t you give me what I want?”

  “Jadeite,” I said, and rested my head against hers. “I love you. I’ve been in love with you for a long time now. You cry or hit me as much as you want.”

  “The right guy isn’t supposed to be sleeping with three other girls,” she said quietly.

  That cut me right through the heart, leaving it to bleed into my chest with every pump. I wanted a relationship with Jadeite. I wasn’t sure that I could end my other relationships. I was less sure that I wanted to. Pump. Pump. Pump. Pain throbbed through me with every pulse.

  I helped her to her feet and guided her up the walkway.

  “I’d like to try this again,” I told her. “Maybe somewhere where we don’t share a table with anyone and have our relationship dissected and spread out for them before we have everything figured out.”

  She let out a quiet laugh. “I-I think I’d like that.”

  The door swung open. A tall man stood inside the threshold, easily a foot taller than me. He had dark hair and feral features with a flat nose that put me in mind of a wolf. His clothing was nice but worn and everything about him screamed predator. His eyes flashed emerald green and atop his head were a pair of six pronged antlers. He grinned at me, flashing inhumanly pointed teeth.

  “Caleb.” He spoke with a slightly lilting accent. Irish if I wasn’t mistaken, but it was hard to tell because it was so faint. “It’s good to finally meet you. Why don’t you come inside?”

  I gaped at him. He had antlers like I did. Mine were darker, bordering on ebony now, but his looked like they’d come straight off a buck in his prime. Magic wafted from him like a smell, bringing the scent of must, pine, and adrenaline to my nose and a tingling over my skin. His magic felt alive. Like mine sometimes did.

  “Who are you and what are you doing in my house?” Jadeite demanded.

  He bared his fangs at her in something that was only vaguely reminiscent of a grin. “Your house? I thought the lady of the house was already in. As soon as I told her that your handsome companion here was
my son she invited us inside with all that famous Southern hospitality.”

  His son? Wait…this was happening to fast. Did that mean that he was…?

  Someone moaned from inside the house. The sound was followed by a sob.

  “What’s going on there?” I demanded.

  He stepped back out of the doorway. “Come on inside and see for yourself. We’ve got loads to talk about, kiddo.”

  Something wasn’t right. Jadeite kicked off her feels and we both sprinted past the antlered man claiming to be my father and into the living room, following the sounds of moaning and sobs, and came to a halt when we entered, nearly falling over ourselves.

  Caroline and Reagan were both on the floor, laid down facing the opposite direction so that their heads were right next to each other. What remained of their clothing hung from them in rags and left them bared to their tormentors.

  Each one had a shadowy figure lounging atop them, smoky limbs touching, caressing, and prodding as the two women lay prone and helpless, arms and legs pinned to the floor by an unseen weight. The one atop Reagan was vaguely feminine and its shadowy face seemed to shift with the angle it was looked at, one minute appearing like Lexus, the next like Jadeite. The one atop Caroline was more masculine and the face was very distinctive. It looked like Albert.

  A succubus and an incubus.

  Both women tried to struggle, to shake their heads, but even that seemed to take all of their effort. Tears streamed from their eyes and their jaws were clenched shut as if they had lockjaw, or I’m certain they’d have been screaming. Caroline’s eyes were wide and she looked to be on the verge of going into shock.

  On the far wall behind them, Jadeite’s pixie, Trixie, had been run through with a butcher knife and pinned in place. Purple blood trailed down the wall behind her and her head lolled to one side, eyes open but unseeing. They’d killed her.