The Vampire King's Cage

by T. S. Ryder

  She tuned out the sound of the weather report as she looked out one of the stained windows of Henry’s Manor. Her breath curled in soft, white vapor before frosting against the glass. She wiped it clean with the palm of her hand and continued watching the snow fall on the manor grounds. It was a thick, blanketing layer of white that turned the entire landscape into one uniform, blank canvas.

  Only a single line of gray interrupted the snowy layout, the main road leading up to the manor that had been shoveled and salted and was being kept clear by several snow ploughs that Henry had rented. Agatha smiled at the thought of Henry. Her arms curled around herself and her belly as the familiar warmth that came with thoughts of him filled her up. She could never have thought, in a million years, that she would have found someone like him.

  It had been such a whirlwind of a romance, an absolute fairy tale of a story. Agatha smiled and shook herself as the phrase ‘Cinderella story’ entered her thoughts. She chuckled despite herself and pressed her palm against the cool, stained glass window. “More like beauty and the beast,” she murmured to no one in particular.

  Agatha smiled and closed her eyes. There had been a fair bit of awkwardness at the office in the beginning. After all, it’s not every day that the CEO of a successful company falls for one of the accountants.

  The logistics of it, Agatha remembered Henry using that word, the logistics of it had been the trickiest bit to handle. It was hardly appropriate workplace behavior and the tabloids had had a field day with the story, trying their best to make it sound sleazy and unethical. Agatha had known better, deep in her bones, with a certainty she had never before experienced, that this was it, that Henry was the one for her.

  Henry, on their fourth date would confess just as much to her, confirming what she felt as well. He had wanted her to move in with him after the second month of dating, but she was the one who had wanted to take it slow. But despite their precaution, time had flown by so quickly, and before she knew it, she had gotten pregnant. Henry had been ecstatic. And now it was Christmas. Their first Christmas together. Agatha couldn’t stop smiling at that thought.

  “Would Madam care for some tea?” Agatha turned slightly at the sound of Stevens’ voice. He had been one of the best surprises of the relationship she had with Henry. Their first encounter had been a very rushed, panicked “Defeat the rabid werewolf” kind of an affair and even after that, poor Stevens had the considerably large chip of being the butler of what could easily be considered modern day royalty.

  He had quickly proven almost all of Agatha’s preconceived notions wrong. Not only had he been one of the most polite and professional people she had ever met, but more importantly, he had been one of the kindest. In him, Agatha had found not only a trusted confidante but an easy bridge into the lifestyle and culture of the Cranes’.

  Whenever she found herself ‘weirded out’ by the reality of her situation, by Henry’s unique condition, it was Stevens who provided perspective and support to her. He was the one who had guided her into the rituals and traditions and quirks of the Crane household. He was the one who had held her hand while Henry had locked himself in the steel doored basement of the manor during one of his sessions and it was he who had helped Agatha and Henry gain some valuable alone time away from the prying eyes of tabloids and townspeople.

  “Thank you, Mr. Stevens.” Agatha smiled as she accepted the warm drink from him, bringing it to her lips for a quick sip. “It’s delicious!” she said. She had learned early on that Steven was as sensitive to false compliments and praise as any person could possibly be. Any praise that was offered had to be sincere or it would be rebuffed as politely and as sharply as only a British butler could, with impeccable manners and acerbic wit.

  “Thank you Ma’am.” Stevens smiled with the slightest bow of his head and turned to leave.

  “Stevens?” Agatha called after him, stopping him before he could leave “Why did Henry want me here?”

  Steven arched a brow, the corner of his lips twitching ever so slightly as he replied, “I believe it’s called a ‘Christmas party’ Ma’am.”

  Agatha smirked slightly. “Right…..and I’m Jennifer Lopez.”

  Stevens bowed smartly. “Very good Ms. Lopez,” he said and turned to leave crisply

  Agatha couldn’t help but chuckle again. In a world full of magic and werewolves and CEO boyfriends, Stevens helped provide much needed grounding and perspective.

  The sense of anticipation and anxiety that Henry had exhibited when he had asked her to spend Christmas together had surprised her. It was more than the nervousness that any boyfriend might exhibit when taking a step towards commitment, it was….something more… something Agatha couldn’t quite put her finger on. She sighed and downed the rest of her tea, pushing the thought out of her mind. It was their first Christmas together, and she was determined not to let anything ruin it.

  She was about to follow after Stevens into the main dining room when a flash of light from outside caught her attention. She walked up to the stained glass window and peered out at several pairs of headlights making their way up the main path to the manor. A frown crossed her face as the cars, three of them, all black, all expensive looking, stopped at the main door and one by one emptied their passengers. Family, friends and coworkers started entering the building.

  Agatha turned to walk away from the window and stopped abruptly when she saw Henry standing there in the doorway.

  “Oh!” she gasped softly.

  Henry smiled at her. “I…uh…I hope I didn’t startle you.” His arm found its way around her waist and she had to smile at how easy and right it felt to have him touching her.

  “Just a little.” She gently caressed over his lapel, noticing the presence of a white flower there. “You didn’t say there would be guests. Not that I mind.” She looked up at him as he smiled mysteriously and said nothing. They walked together to the top of the stairs and that’s when Agatha realized, looking down at the gathered group of people in the lobby, what this was.

  She looked up at Henry. He smiled at her, that annoying, charming, mysterious smirk of his that always made her go weak in the knees.

  “Dear Agatha,” he began as the people downstairs quieted. “We haven’t known each other that long yet. But the past months have been the best of my life. I couldn’t be happier that we will soon be three. There’s only one thing in the world left that I want. And I hope you want it too.”

  Henry got down on one knee, the people below them clapping and cheering. He held out his hand, the most beautiful ring she had ever seen in his hand. “Will you please be my wife?”

  “Yes,” she murmured, barely audible. Tears were flowing down her cheeks. “Yes!” she said again, loudly this time, as she flung her arms around his neck. He kissed her amidst an explosion of cheers and cries. This had been a wonderful year. And the best was yet to come.

  *****

  THE END

  Heat, Hockey and Two Werewolves

  Description

  A curvy witch who is also an artist PLUS two sexy Werewolves who want her PLUS a hot hockey game!

  The only thing Piper Diamond wants to do with hockey is to stop hearing about it so much.

  For this witch, gallery owner and artist, the absolute worst time to be in her hometown of Uphoria, Alberta is when the town hosts the Werewolf League games, resulting in hockey permeating every aspect of her life. Even her normally attentive, sexy Werewolf mate, Baxter, loses his head during the hockey season and eats, sleeps and breathes hockey.

  But when the hunky center forward of Uphoria's home team, Patrick Giles, wants Piper and Baxter for his trois amour, a three-way mating group, Piper's interest in hockey suddenly skyrockets. Even though Patrick is sexy and Baxter is more than willing to have him join them, Piper's not certain that she can commit to a relationship with another Werewolf.

  Unfortunately she doesn't have much time to think about her love life. Her gallery is in financial trouble and it's all she can
do to keep warlock Thor Wragge from buying it and turning her dreams into cheap reproductions. Things don't get any easier when the gallery becomes a target for vandals and burglars, so Piper has to decide what she really wants from life.

  Chapter One

  Piper Diamond tried to ignore her mate, Baxter, as he sighed, rubbing his thumbs in small circles at the base of her neck. He always knew just the right way to touch her to ease the tension in her spine. His musky Wolf scent so close to her stirred desire like it always did, but right at this moment, he wasn't after sex.

  Instead, his eyes were sad and droopy, his mouth downturned, trying to convince her to do something far different. And far less exciting.

  "Please come to the game with me."

  "Baxter, I can't."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I have all this work to do," she gestured to the receipts and invoices strewn over her desk. "And because I don't want to. You'll have more fun without me, anyway."

  It was the Wolf League playoffs in Uphoria, Alberta. Winter howled outside and the windows rattled as sand-like grains of snow beat against them. And it always led people to bundle up in woolen hats and parkas to brave the frigid temperatures, so that they could sit in a freezing cold hockey arena and watch a bunch of Werewolves skate around on the ice, slapping around a puck with their little sticks.

  Hockey season was the worst season in Piper's opinion. Though she could easily summon up a small dragon to keep her hands toasty in the arena, she just didn't see the appeal of the sport. Not a very Canadian attitude, as Baxter repeatedly told her.

  When it came to hockey, the only delightful parts of watching a sports game–the rippling muscles of the athletes–were hidden beneath layers of padding and fur. Boring.

  What made it even more unbearable was that while the playoffs happened, they were all anybody in Uphoria, especially Baxter, would talk about. Piper couldn't even walk down the street without hearing fights over the finer points of what happened in the last game.

  Baxter leaned over her, nibbling at her neck. She tried to ignore the tingle that it created, focusing on her bookkeeping papers.

  "You have been pouring over these books for hours," Baxter nipped at her earlobe, his steamy breath in her ear. "If you come with me, I can make it really worth your time…"

  Piper swept her blue-and-purple hair out of her eyes and turned to her mate. As a Werewolf, he was able to shift forms at will and either be a man with firm muscles, dark hair, dark eyes, and a Latino complexion, or a humanoid wolf with hairy, clawed feet, hands the size of dinner plates and boundless muscles that rippled under gleaming fur the color of midnight.

  "You'll be able to enjoy the game better without me," Piper repeated. "The gallery is in the red again, I'm not sure how I'll make rent. It seems every time I break even, something happens and I'm in debt again."

  Baxter caught the arms of her swivel chair, trapping her. "Piper Diamond, you get your delicious ass out of this chair this instant. You need something to distract you, and you know how… desirous I get after we win a game."

  "You're insisting, aren't you?"

  Baxter nodded, and Piper wrapped her arms around his neck. He rarely insisted on anything, and so she knew that this was very important to him. "Okay. I'll go. On one condition. If we lose, you don't start pouting."

  Baxter flicked his tongue across her lips and she opened them readily and moaned.

  "I'll get your coat," he whispered, slipping away from her grasp.

  Piper smiled at him. She really did not want to go watch hockey, even though she had to admit the sex after Uphoria won a game and Baxter was all hopped up on adrenaline and excitement, was always mind-blowing. But Baxter was right, as he usually was. She needed a distraction and hockey was better than sitting around stressing.

  They had been mates since senior prom night. Neither of them had really understood just how permanent Werewolf mating actually was. They had been hormone-fueled teenagers with their heads in the clouds, lost in a night of music and dance.

  They hadn't even known each other prior to that night.

  Nobody had asked Piper to prom. She was the high school's fat-girl that nobody noticed, except for when she snuck candy into Mr. Breton's oh-so-boring History of Magic in the Americas class. She wasn't the only one eating chocolate while Breton droned on and on, but she was the only one the other students seemed to notice. Back then, Piper hated her body, bouncing from diet to diet, her weight yo-yoed like crazy, making her constantly sick.

  She hadn't even wanted to go to prom, but her mother wanted her to go. Her mother had just stopped chemotherapy and so Piper had agreed. During a slow song, Piper was making up an exciting story to tell her mother about how much fun she had when Baxter approached. He complimented one of her art pieces that was displayed in the school hall. Talking lead to kissing, intense and fiery.

  Piper was still not entirely certain how or why it happened, but before the end of the night, they were in the backseat of his car, clumsy, awkward, but with no second thoughts.

  It had been a mistake.

  But it was the best mistake Piper had ever made. Baxter was the sweetest, most attentive mate she could ever hope to find. Even though knowing that she was his mate for life scared the shit out of her at first, it didn't take long for her to truly fall in love with him.

  "I love you," she said, leaning against him for warmth as they scampered out to the car.

  Baxter kissed the top of her head. "I love you, too."

  ***

  The game, as Piper had predicted, had Baxter jumping from his seat, swearing like a sailor at the referee every few minutes, cheering and stomping his feet every other time. He wasn’t the only one, either.

  Piper watched him with a smile, only half paying attention to the game. On the rink, two teams of Werewolves, both in their beast's forms, faced off, snarling and slamming into each other. The Wolf League games were notoriously more violent than the ones humans played and it was common for the ice to stain red.

  "There he goes, there he goes!" Baxter screamed, pulling Piper to her feet.

  The center forward for the Uphoria team had the puck. Skating so quickly that it was hard to keep her eyes on him, he zig-zagged through the opposing team players. Baxter screamed so loud his voice grew hoarse.

  In that instant, as though she had called his name, the center forward looked up. His wolfish face was twisted into a snarl, white teeth flashing in the arena lights. Brown eyes burrowed into hers and he winked with a distinctive nod of his head.

  There was a flash of movement and a roar of approval from the crowd. Piper strained to see what had happened. A buzzer went off, announcing the end of the game. Or at least, she hoped it was. Her cheeks were flushed all of a sudden, her pulse quickening.

  "We won!" Baxter shouted, jumping up and down. "We won!"

  Piper applauded half-heartedly. Her gaze continued to follow the center forward, but he didn't look back at her.

  ***

  The next morning Piper yawned as she flipped the sign in the window of her art gallery from closed to open. After the game had finished, she and Baxter had celebrated with a few beers when they got back to the house her father had given to them as a gift after they graduated from college. The bottles were still sitting on the kitchen table, abandoned when Baxter had begun kissing her.

  Winning the game had made Baxter more passionate than normal and he had given her a night that made her forget all about that odd wink at the game–unfortunately, it had also given her only a couple hours of sleep.

  Piper walked around her little gallery, admiring the pieces of local art on display. As the host for the Wolf League playoffs, Uphoria always experienced an influx of tourists during the hockey season. This usually also brought in a couple extra thousand dollars and helped offset the unpleasantness of the season.

  It had always been a dream to own a big grand gallery in the city, but Baxter was a hometown guy. Even though they tried out the city for a
few years while they were in college, Piper could tell he was miserable and willingly came back to Uphoria.

  Even with her father's gift of a house to help them get on their feet, Piper had rapidly gone through her savings to open up this small gallery. Though she always managed to break even every month, keeping her business afloat was no easy task.

  Nobody appreciates the lovingly painted strokes of a real brush these days. They only want those cheap knockoffs Thor Wragge sells.

  Speak of the devil. The tinkling of the bell announced a visitor and even before she saw him, she recognized the slimy, greedy aura of Thor Wragge.

  Wragge owned a knockoff art souvenir shop directly across the street from her. He even dared to refer to as a gallery! The mindless could find any number of replicas of famous pieces of art over there, from The Mona Lisa to kits that would instantly paint any room like the Sistine Chapel.

  Wragge had a setup in his basement that constantly put out his rip-offs via magic, but there technically wasn't anything illegal about it, as he never claimed to sell the originals. It was just bad taste and lack of originality.

  "Can I do something for you, Wragge?"

  Piper refused to call him by his first name. Whether it had been him or his parents to arrogantly give him his name, he was no God of Thunder. He was a powerful warlock, yes. He was attractive enough with neat, sandy-brown hair and brown eyes, but he wasn't even of Norse descent.

  "I just thought I'd come over and take a look around. I've been getting so many customers lately that I need a nice, quiet place to think." Wragge flashed a smile at her.

  Piper bristled. She had seen the steady stream of customers in and out of Wragge's shop. In the last three days, she had had four. But that didn't matter. One of them had bought a thousand-dollar sculpture and that was worth the hours of sitting in the back, working on her own art while listening for the bells announcing a customer's arrival.