Fifth Essence: A Reverse Harem Tale (Lovin' the Coven Book 5)

by Jacquelyn Faye

  I'd closed the trunk and slid the cart to Yuki, who had offered to put it in the corral, when the air pressure around us dropped. I looked up, half expecting the somewhat-cloudy sky to start with a light dusting of snow. "Yuki hurry."

  She looked over her shoulder and saw me staring at the sky.

  I heard her gasp and push the cart the remaining distance while I stared at the swirling black clouds above us. "Get in the car!"

  I nodded, still sort of mesmerized. Tornadoes weren't that common in Virginia and even rarer in upstate New York. I'd never seen one, let alone see one forming. Something about the whole situation felt wrong.

  "Something's coming," Dar said from behind me.

  "Yeah. The fricking Wicked Witch of the West. Come on, Dorothea and Toto. Get in the fricking car." Yuki almost sounded panicked.

  "She is right, Master. Let us go."

  "Afraid somebody is going to drop a house on me?"

  "Or worse."

  I nodded and turned, getting in and starting the engine with the key fob. We were all in and backed out when it fell from the sky. It wasn't a house, it was an angel. She landed in a classic superhero landing, knee to the ground and punching a solid crater into the asphalt in front of my vehicle.

  "Fuck," I said deadpan and threw the car into reverse as I stared at her glorious, monstrously-sized wings as they stretched out and batted the cars parked in her landing zone backward into the cars behind them. People started screaming around us and running toward the store. "That's gonna make the news," I said and stomped on the accelerator, throwing us back away from her.

  "Dorothea Blackwell!" Her voice boomed all around us, not unlike when I had yelled at Yuki to get off Candace.

  "She knows your name," Yuki said fearfully.

  "I noticed."

  "She looks pissed."

  I ignored her, spun the car away from the main entrance, threw it into drive, and gunned it. "Where is she?"

  "Running after us."

  "Not for long." I stomped on gas again after sliding out of the parking lot and heading back toward Cedar Falls. I was finally grateful we didn't have our own Walmart. At least the news of an angel crashing to earth wouldn't be town gossip for once. I fervently hoped three people being smeared across the highway didn't, either.

  Looking in all my mirrors, I couldn't see her. "Where is she?"

  "Flying behind us." Yuki was hanging over the back seat, looking out through the rear window.

  "Gaining or losing?"

  "Staying the same."

  "Shit."

  "Can you not go faster?" Dar was white knuckling the dashboard.

  "No. You okay?"

  "I do not care for…those creatures."

  "Angels?"

  "Forget what you think you know about them. Most of that is trash."

  "So, not heavenly beings?"

  "No more than the denizens of Gehenna. Simply from another plane."

  "Great."

  "As Gehenna is the lowest of the spiritual planes, it has the greatest negative energy. They come from the highest and have positive spiritual energy. We are natural enemies."

  "Okay. Thanks for the lesson."

  "You inquired."

  "Not really. But, just to clarify, no heaven?"

  "There are several of them depending on your gods of choice, but the heavens are not part of the spiritual world. It encompasses it."

  "So, no hell?"

  "Some places would make you think you were there. But no eternal damnation with a pitchfork-wielding devil stirring your soul in a cauldron of damnation because you didn't go to church every week."

  "Good to know."

  "Can you two concentrate on losing the thing with wings?"

  I nodded at Yuki in the rearview. "Why is there never a tunnel around when you need one?"

  "Make your own?" Dar looked over at me.

  "Uh, yeah. Let me just whip one out."

  "You opened a rift to the mortal realm in Faerie."

  "Surrounded by limitless energy. Here… I don't have that kind of power."

  "We will not lose that thing unless you try."

  My energy reserves were full. The only thing I could do was give it a shot. "Fine. Take the wheel."

  He reached over and grabbed it. "You can do it," he whispered calmly.

  "She's attacking! With a big fucking spear!"

  "Fuck me." I held my hands out on front of me, aiming my intent above the road in front of us.

  "No. Do not open a hole beneath us, we will fall! It's why you dropped part of this world into Faerie. Open one in front of us."

  "I thought we needed to go down."

  "Up, down, does not matter. This realm was all you knew. Now you have been to Faerie. You can take us there without dropping us from the sky."

  "Sure. I'll just take your word for it."

  "Trust me, Master. You can do this. Picture the clearing in your mind."

  I gave it my best shot, ripping a hole through reality right in front of the car… and screamed as my car started bouncing across the unpaved, un-mowed grasses of Elfhame Autumn Glade. Unfortunately, we were nowhere near the clearing where the portal was and it was apparently night time in Faerie.

  "I did it!"

  "Close it!"

  I flung my intent to the wind, severing my tie to the rift behind us. It slapped shut with a clap of thunder as I slammed on the brakes, sliding across the dew-covered grass. Even with the portal closed, we covered our ears as the angel's scream rang through.

  "She sounds pissed," Yuki said with a throaty laugh.

  "Great. We're safe. Now how the fuck do we get home?"

  "Well, I would not suggest driving through the gate. It would be more difficult getting your vehicle out of the basement of the bar," Dar said, looking around.

  "I was picturing the clearing, where the hell are we?'

  "I do not know. The only places of the elfhame I saw were with you."

  "Well, I guess we could drive around and ask someone for directions," I said and looked around. We were in a field of grass nestled between two large hills, replicas of where we were in the mortal realm, without the highway between them. "Wait."

  "What?" Yuki leaned closer between the two seats.

  "We're where we were in the mortal realm, just in Faerie. Look around you. It's a geographic match."

  "So if you keep going about ten miles and then head south…"

  "We can go back closer to the house," I said.

  "Hopefully we don't end up in a house."

  "Yeah. That would suck."

  "Better than sitting here waiting for the elves to notice us."

  I nodded and gave the car a little gas, turning us around and heading in the direction we'd been going when we came through the gate. I reset the trip function on the odometer. Being a shitty judge of distance, it was the only way to know when we were getting close to town.

  "I'll pop us back out before we head south. Hopefully there won't be any cars in front of us."

  "Good plan," Yuki said and patted my shoulder.

  "Wouldn't call it good, but it might work."

  We sat in silence, everyone watching for anything that might hurt the car or us, while I slowly watched the odometer finally climb its way to ten miles. I stopped the car and gave a little prayer to the goddess that we would emerge unscathed.

  "Look around you."

  "Yuki, we're in the middle of a field."

  "Look not in this realm, Daughter. Use your eyes and intent. Focus. What do they see?"

  Yuki's eyes were glowing golden in the mirror. Apparently, Candace and I weren't the only ones who could be inhabited by the goddess. "Greetings, Lady."

  "Hello, Child."

  "I see grass and a starry sky."

  "Now think of your world as you do."

  I knew better than to question her. If she said I could do it, I could. After about a minute I was ready to give up. Until I saw a set of red glowing lights pass right by us at about sixty mi
les an hour.

  "Oh, shit. That would have been bad."

  "Now you have your reference." She kissed the back of my head and I felt her presence leave.

  Yuki made spitting noises. "Why am I kissing your hair?"

  "You said you loved the way my shampoo smelled and then started making out with the back of my head."

  "What?" She pulled away. Even Dar started laughing.

  "Just kidding. You were visited by the goddess. She showed me a new trick."

  She shuddered. "I think I'd rather have a shampoo fetish."

  I moved the car over about twenty feet from where I had seen the tail lights pass us. If we had come out where we were, it would have been in the middle of oncoming traffic.

  "You could see the mortal realm?" Dar was staring at me incredulously.

  "Yeah. We were in the westbound lane. That could have been bad."

  He nodded.

  "Okay, here goes nothing," I said and pulled the magic from around us, leaving my already filled reserves alone, in case we needed it when we got back to New York.

  I opened another rift in front of us but didn't move until I saw grass and not asphalt on the other side. Breathing a sigh of relief, I slowly rolled us through, closing the door behind us.

  "You did it, Master." Dar sounded genuinely impressed. We were just beyond the shoulder of the road. No cars and no angels were in sight.

  "Let's go home."

  Chapter 6

  "You did what?" Chief was rubbing the lower half of his face with one hand in shock. The other hand was on his hip, just above his belt.

  "Took a detour through Faerie. We were being chased by an angel."

  Chief had been parked at my house when we pulled in the driveway. It was almost like he had a sixth sense that magically alerted him when weird shit happened to me. "Why were you being chased by an angel?"

  "I don't have a clue. She looked pissed, though. That was enough for me."

  He just shook his head, rubbing the bridge of his nose and blinking several times in frustration. "Only you."

  "Tell me about it. Want a coffee?"

  "Sure."

  Yuki and Dar were bringing the bags of clothes, coffee, and beer in. We never made it to the liquor store, though. I was going to be stuck with coffee, not wanting to venture out again so soon. I just hoped my shields and wards were enough to keep the angel at bay.

  Chief followed me into the house. Candace came out of her room, crying. "What's the matter?" My heart broke seeing her cry. Especially since it wasn't over me for a change.

  She shook her head, sniffled, and rubbed her nose.

  "Candace?"

  She frowned, ran across the room, and wrapped her arms around me.

  "What's wrong?"

  She shook her head against my chest.

  "Give us a minute, Chief. Help yourself to the coffee."

  "Not a problem."

  I ushered Candace into my room. "Josie?"

  She nodded.

  "What did that brainless wonder do?"

  "It was not her. It was me."

  "Start over. What happened?"

  She sniffled. "We were in the shower…"

  I steeled myself for the details, wanting to be an attentive listener, but not really wanting to know. "Yes?"

  "We were…" She sighed. "We were being intimate."

  "And?"

  "I couldn't help it. Knowing how jealous she had become, it was all I could think of. I began to worry and worry and worry. It drowned out everything else."

  "What were you so worried about?"

  "That she would not be able to get over the thing with Yuki…and leave me."

  "Sweetie," I said in relief and wrapped my arms around her. "All you did was get kissed by Yuki. Trust me, making love to you was probably the only thing on her mind."

  "I know. But then I did the unthinkable."

  I chuckled. The unthinkable for Candace was probably cooing too loud. "What, did you call her Yuki?"

  I'd meant it as a joke. I said it without thinking about it at all. When her eyes widened and the tears started streaming, my joke wasn't funny at all. She had done exactly that.

  "Oh, shit."

  She nodded and started wailing, falling over and collapsing into a sobbing mess on my bed.

  "Candace, I'm sorry! I was joking, I didn't know that's what had happened!"

  She couldn't even talk.

  I'm a fucking idiot.

  Yuki came running into the room "What did you do to her?" She looked fierce and overprotective.

  "Nothing! If anything, you did."

  "Huh?"

  "Nothing. Never mind. You go in the other room, just in case Josie comes home."

  "What did I do?"

  "Nothing. Seriously." Candace accidentally called Josie, Yuki, I told her.

  Oh. Oops.

  Yeah. Not good.

  She storm off?

  I'm guessing.

  I'll leave you to clean up your mess, then.

  Damn you and your sultry Japanese lips. Wrecking homes already.

  Not funny. Seriously though, tell her I'm sorry when she can talk again.

  I will. Entertain Chief. Not with your lips though, please.

  You're hilarious.

  I turned back to the sobbing part-elf on my bed. "Okay. Knock the tears off, Candace. We'll fix this."

  "How," she managed to say between wracking sobs.

  "I'm going to text Josie, right now."

  "You will?"

  "Yes. It's my fault this happened at all. I'll fix it."

  She wrapped her arms around my waist and hugged me dearly. As if her life depended on it. From where she was, I'm sure it felt like it did. "Thank you, Lady."

  "Come on. Let's get you cleaned up and some coffee into you."

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket and motioned Candace toward the bathroom. Get your ass home, now, I texted Josie as I followed Candace into the bathroom.

  No. I need a little time.

  I sighed at her response. This isn't a request. You're being stupid, she's being stupid, and all of this is my fault anyway.

  No, it's not. It's that damned vampire with the loose lips.

  Yuki is as innocent as Candace. One more word and I'll vaporize your disco ball and fuzzy pink rugs.

  You wouldn't dare.

  Try me, biotch.

  On my way.

  "She's on her way home, sweetie," I told Candace, grabbing a washcloth from the cabinet. She hopped up and sat on my bathroom counter while I ran the rag under some cold water. "Now, when she gets home, and for the rest of your life, I want you to quit worrying about what happened with Yuki. Can you do that?"

  "I will try."

  "Do or do not. There is no try." I even did a horrible impression, trying to make her laugh. Failing miserably, I should have known she had never seen the movie.

  "Thank you, Lady," she said as I started gently wiping her eyes and face.

  "You're welcome. You are family, this is what we do."

  I probably should have kept it light hearted and not gone for sappy. She started crying again.

  "What if she leaves me?"

  "She won't"

  "But what if?"

  "You'll still be part of my family. But, you're over-reacting. She's not going anywhere."

  "Promise?"

  "I do."

  "Okay." She nodded.

  "Now go lie in my bed. I'll talk to Josie when she gets home and then you two can kiss and make up. Say it with me now. Joe." I motioned for her to repeat after me.

  "Joe?"

  "Zee," I said and nodded.

  "Zee," she repeated with a little smile.

  "Good. Now don't screw that up again, okay?"

  "Dear Lady, I won't. Ever."

  "Good girl." I followed her into the bedroom and got her settled, leaning down and kissing her on her forehead.

  "Thank you, Dot."

  My heart swelled with pride. She'd finally used my name. "
You're welcome, sweetie." I left the room and shut off the light, closing the door behind me.

  "Everything okay?" Chief handed me a cup of coffee.

  "I love you, man."

  "I love you, too." He leaned in and stole a kiss before I could take a sip. I blushed and gave him a goofy grin.

  "Can I get one more of those? I missed you."

  "You can have as many as you want." He kissed me again, after taking my cup and setting it, and his, down on the counter and wrapping me in his arms.

  It was a good thing I was wearing socks. Otherwise, he wouldn't have anything to knock off with that kiss. I melted in his arms and I was truly digging his new aftershave. Even when he pulled his lips from mine, I curled into him and just breathed in the scent.

  "Are you sniffing me?"

  "Yeah. You smell good. Damn good. Like really damn good."

  "Uh… Okay."

  "Why is that weird? I like your new aftershave and you're giving me grief?"

  "I'm giving you grief because I knocked the bottle off the counter and it shattered in my bathroom and I haven't made it to the store to buy any more yet. I'm not wearing anything but soap, and I haven't showered since this morning."

  "No way."

  "Way."

  I moved my nose to his neck and practically dragged it across his flesh like I was snorting a line of cocaine. Or at least what I pictured it would look like. Witches didn't do drugs. Spells had a tendency to spontaneously cast if we didn't have control over our magic and intent. I smoked a joint once and turned Josie's hair into a bag of Doritos. They had a nice crunch but tasted like Aquanet. She'd been less than impressed. Especially after she tasted one.

  "You smell like…steak, sex, and home."

  "Dot?"

  "Don't worry, I'm not going to eat you," I whispered into his ear but then licked his neck unconvincingly. He tasted even more amazing than he smelled.

  "Do you mind if I grab one of the beers you just bought?" Dar's voice pulled my face from Chief's neck.

  I looked over my shoulder at my blue demon in tight jeans and an extra-large T-shirt that stretched across his muscled chest.

  "Wow. You clean up nice," Chief said.

  "Thank you, William."

  "My beer is your beer," I said and moved Chief out of the way of the refrigerator. I couldn't help it, I checked out Dar's ass as he bent over and ripped the box open. When I looked up, Chief was staring at me and trying not to laugh.