Royals of Villain Academy 7: Grim Witchery

by Eva Chase

  “But you came back.”

  “My father died when I was twelve—a cancer that was too aggressive for even magic to stop. For some reason, while I was grieving I got curious about the relatives I had over here. I did some digging and found out that the Bloodstone barony was essentially vacant. And once the idea got in my head, I couldn’t shake it. I could come back and fix all the things that had driven Grandpa away. He would have tried to talk me out of it, but after he passed on too… I don’t think my mother totally understands why I moved, but she didn’t argue with me. They never told her much about that part of our history.”

  She was my second cousin. I studied her face more intently than I ever had before. Her complexion and hair color was similar to mine and my mother’s; her face was rounder, but the shape of her nose and jaw might have hinted at the family resemblance too. Two generations removed had been enough to disguise her heritage from anyone who didn’t have reason to suspect it.

  “You didn’t take the barony, though,” I said. “You’d have had a stronger claim than my grandfather did while he was acting baron after they thought my mother had died, since he was past retirement age.”

  “I couldn’t have been full baron until I was of age anyway,” Maggie said. “And it seemed smartest to get to know the politics here and understand the situation as much as possible before I stepped in and painted a target on my back. I thought it would be easy. Everyone assumed you were still alive because the heart of the barony hadn’t passed on—I figured it hadn’t because of me, and I’d just present myself, and the mystery would be solved.”

  Her lips quirked up. “But just a couple months before I was due to graduate, you came into your magic, and even if you didn’t know it, it set off some kind of reaction that confirmed you were alive. Suddenly the blacksuits were running around like crazy, determined to finally track you down, and I knew I didn’t stand a chance at making a claim against the daughter of the rightful baron who’d been denied her proper place for so long already.”

  “So you waited some more,” I filled in. “Is that why you went to work for the blacksuits—for Lillian?”

  She nodded. “I wanted to know as much as possible about you from the get-go. It was just bad luck that Lillian ended up assigned to an urgent case that had us out of the way right when you got back. Maybe if I’d been here to see more for myself how those first months went down… I don’t know. It just seemed like you were headed down the same path as all the awful Bloodstones my grandfather had told me about. I figured if I could expose you for something your mother and the other barons would recognize as a major crime, I’d have a chance to step in as an alternate scion.”

  “Wow.” I leaned back on the stone, bracing myself with one hand against the rough surface. “I guess, from what I do know about the Bloodstones and the other baronies, I can’t blame you for coming at it that way. Even if I wish you’d given me more of a chance.”

  “Better late than never?” Maggie exhaled in a rush. “This mess with the Naries—we’ve got to stop the barons from going any further with it. It’s bad enough when fearmancers are screwing each other over left and right without giving them the entire world full of nonmagical people to push around on top of that. Maybe if we tackle the problem together and pool our resources, we can come up with a feasible approach. I don’t care how stuck in their ways the baronies are—we should have a say too.”

  A laugh spilled out of me, even though none of this was exactly funny. Maybe I could cross one worry out of the many dogging me off my list.

  “You know, I’ve actually already set something in motion that I’m hoping will get us back on the right track,” I said. “Whether you’ll agree with my approach is another thing altogether. But we could certainly use someone helping with damage control on the blacksuit side of things, if you’re game.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Rory

  Jude texted us as soon as he’d parked in the garage. I’d already been heading over after finishing up my talk with Maggie, and I got there just as he emerged from the building. He walked up to me with his mouth set at an awkward angle but his eyes gleaming, looking sheepish and remorseful and proud all at once.

  I grabbed him in a hug and buried my face in the crook of his neck, absorbing the firmness of his lean chest through his sweater and the sharp smell of his skin as if I needed all that to convince myself he was really here. He hugged me back just as tightly. For a minute we just stood there without talking, locked in the embrace. It took me that long to be sure I wasn’t going to start crying all over again.

  “I’m sorry,” he said finally, his voice rough. “I was trying to do something for you. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  I let out a huff. “Well, keep in mind for the future that I only want you doing things for me if you come back when you’re finished. You don’t have to prove anything to me. You don’t owe me anything. I just want you.”

  “Okay.” He dipped his head close to mine, sounding a little choked up himself. Then I felt his lips curl with a smile against my cheek. “I did manage to pull it off and come back. I get some credit for that, right?”

  I had to swat him. “It’s very impressive. I just wish you hadn’t given me a heart attack along the way. Now I want to hear all about how you pulled it off.” When I glanced around, the other scions were crossing the field toward us. “Maybe we should take this conversation to the scion lounge?”

  We all headed back to Ashgrave Hall. Before Jude said anything else, the other guys did a thorough sweep of the room both physically and magically, checking for any sign of outside monitoring. Malcolm and Connar worked together to weave a spell to completely seal the space.

  “The staff might start to wonder what we’re up to if we take these extreme measures too often,” Malcolm said when they’d finished, swiping his forearm across his brow. “But we can’t go driving off to random fields every time we need to talk.”

  “And the ‘random fields’ around here might not be the safest right now.” I sank onto the sofa with Jude, my hand twined with his. “You told the joymancers everything they’d need to know? Did it sound like they’re going to intervene?”

  “Oh, they were definitely horrified by the information. I don’t know how long it’ll take them to scope out the situation in town and decide how to tackle it, especially since I did get their guarantee they’ll go easy on the deadly force, but I’d guess they won’t leave it too long. If not later today, then tomorrow.” He ran his hand through his hair, looking briefly uneasy at the thought. He had just called down mages he’d generally considered enemies on his own people.

  I squeezed his hand. “It’s the best thing we could have done. The barons have to see they can’t expect to take steps like this without some backlash. And we’ll have some extra help in mitigating the damage. I’ll tell you all about that after you explain how you handled the deal.”

  Jude told the story of going to one of his fearmancer movie studio contacts, his voice and gestures becoming more animated as he played out his conversation with the joymancers. Whatever worries he might have about the events he’d set in motion there—or the role he was going to take in our society in general—it obviously hadn’t mattered to him that much that he’d been relying on someone else’s magic. The fact that he’d come up with the plan was enough to satisfy his ego.

  When he’d finished, Declan leaned forward in the armchair he’d taken. “You threw a lot of money at that studio to get the guy’s help.”

  “He had no idea what I needed the spell for,” Jude said quickly.

  Declan gave him a soft smile. “That’s not what I was getting at. Of course you were careful. But you can’t count on accessing any more of the Killbrook funds at this point. I just wanted to say that we can all pitch in to cover our portion of the costs. You did this for all of us—and you took on all the risk. You shouldn’t have to give up your savings too.”

  “Oh.” Jude’s cheeks turned faintly pink. �
�I didn’t expect—it was my money, my decision to take that approach.”

  “Declan’s right,” I said. “It was a better idea than anything we’d come up with, and it made sense to go to an expert to pull it off.” Jude might have been able to conjure an illusion that strong if he’d had his usual magical capacity, but I doubted any of the rest of us could have. To use that strategy, we’d have needed outside assistance one way or another, and to give them something to convince them to pitch in.

  “Why don’t we wait and make sure everything pans out the way we’re hoping before you start repaying me?” Jude said with a chuckle that didn’t totally hide his discomfort. He clearly liked that he’d taken care of everything himself, so maybe it was better not to push the issue just yet. He turned to me. “What’s this extra help you were talking about?”

  I leaned back into the firm cushions of the sofa. “That… is a long and kind of crazy story.”

  I repeated most of what Maggie had told me, watching the guys’ expressions grow increasingly shocked with each added detail. “Holy fuck,” Malcolm said when I’d finished from where he was sitting in the other armchair.

  Connar, who’d sat down at the other side of the sofa, reached to grasp my free hand. “Are you sure she’s willing to support you and not still looking to make a bid for the barony herself?”

  “I didn’t get the impression she ever really wanted to be baron,” I said. “She just didn’t want to see the Bloodstone barons continuing down the same path they’d been on, and if the only way she could do that was to take the reins herself, then she was willing to try. She seemed relieved that we could work together rather than fighting.”

  “And what did she make of the joymancer plan?” Declan asked with a cock of his head.

  “I don’t think the fearmancer community overseas has the same tensions with the joymancers there as we do here. She obviously understood why they’d be willing to step in, but she didn’t see it as the same kind of betrayal most people from here would. She actually complimented me on being willing to accept their help.” Which wasn’t exactly the way I’d have phrased what we’d arranged with the joymancers, but I hadn’t been going to correct her.

  “So, now we wait.” Malcolm’s hands clenched where they were resting on his thighs. Standing back while others took on the brunt of the work didn’t come naturally to the Nightwood scion. I wasn’t looking forward to pretending everything was normal while we braced for the attack either.

  A twinge of empathy ran through me, seeing his response, and then bloomed into something deeper and sharper in my chest. I let my gaze travel to all four of the guys sitting around me. For a few seconds, my throat locked up around my voice. But I couldn’t deny what I’d been feeling more and more over recent days. If they thought I was ridiculous, they could just say so.

  But maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe we actually had a chance. We should have a say too, Maggie had pointed out, and that applied to a whole lot more than just the barons’ policies about the Naries.

  And if, despite the care we’d taken, our plans went totally wrong, I might not get another chance to say this later. They should know how much they meant to me now, before I faced losing any of them again.

  “Is there something else, Rory?” Connar asked, studying my face. I mustn’t have hidden my emotions very well.

  I looked down at my lap, at my hands joined with Jude’s on one side and Connar’s on the other, and then back up. “The past few weeks,” I said, “with all of us together, working toward the same things, looking out for each other… and everything else—it’s made me realize some things.”

  Jude’s fingers tightened around mine, but to my surprise it was Malcolm whose stance tensed the most. What did he think I was going to say? I hurried onward, hoping he wasn’t afraid of what I actually meant to get at.

  “I care so much about all of you. I don’t know how I’d have made it through my time here if it wasn’t for the bits of happiness I’ve gotten with you—and I think part of that happiness is from it being all of us, in harmony, caring about each other. Like a family, like you’ve always said, in every possible way. And I… I don’t want to give that up.”

  Malcolm’s shoulders had come down, but his mouth opened and closed as if he didn’t know how to respond.

  “Rory,” Declan said, and trailed off uncertainly.

  I barreled onward, my chest constricting. “I know it probably sounds selfish. I know I’ve got less to lose than most of the rest of you, and I don’t want you to have to give up any of the things you’ve worked toward. I want to see you standing around the table of the pentacle with me too. I just had to put that out there, so you know, in case that’s something you’d want to try to have too. If the barons now can change policies as huge as keeping our magic secret from Naries, then there’ve got to be options for adjusting the rules around the baronies and inheritance and all that. There’s got to be a balance we can find between ruling and being together. If we decide to give it a shot. I won’t be upset with you if you’d rather not.”

  I shut my mouth, my throat hoarse as if I’d been talking for hours. An anxious heat trickled over my skin.

  “It wouldn’t be easy for you either,” Declan said quietly into the silence that had fallen. “There’ll be people who don’t understand, people who’ll use it as an excuse to discredit you and your position.”

  I met his eyes, my jaw tightening. “I don’t give a shit. Let them try. The only people whose opinion really matters to me are right here in this room. But if it’d be too much after everything you’ve already had to deal with—”

  The slow smile that spread across his face stopped me, his hazel eyes gleaming brighter than I’d ever seen them before. “No. I think you’re right—I think there could be a way to make it work. And if there is… I want to find it, because I’ve never wanted to give this up either.”

  Connar lowered his head to press his lips to my shoulder, his arm tucking right around mine. “If I can keep you in my life the way things are now and not screw up the rest of it—hell yes. Whatever it takes.”

  I turned to Jude, realizing I might need to add a little extra for his benefit. “Everything I said goes for you too, no matter what ends up happening with the Killbrook barony, or your magic, or—or anything. You belong with us. You belong with me.”

  Jude beamed at me, his expression joyful if maybe a little terrified at the same time. “Yes, I do, Fire Queen.” He touched the edge of my chin and drew me into a kiss so determined it left my head spinning.

  When he eased back, my gaze moved to Malcolm. The Nightwood scion hadn’t said anything yet. He was watching the rest of us without any hint of what he was feeling on his face. Then he swallowed audibly, and that sound spoke of all the emotion he was tamping down.

  “You’re sure?” he said. “We only just— You haven’t had that much time with me—not that was good, anyway. Lord knows there’s no one else I’ve ever wanted half as much as I want you, but I wouldn’t expect—”

  “I know,” I said, cutting him off before he had to express all his doubts. “I know you. I don’t need any more time to be sure.”

  He laughed. “Well then, what the fuck is there to decide? All I want to know is how long we’ve got to wait until our asshole parents step out of the way so we can christen that table the way no pentacle before has.”

  A giddy quiver ran through me at the thought. The temperature in the room seemed to have risen by at least a few degrees, with a thrum of energy that definitely wasn’t just magic. I wet my lips. “Seeing as that might take a while… I don’t think we’ve even properly ‘christened’ our lounge.”

  Jude teased his fingers over my hair with an arch of his eyebrows. “Just to make the agreement official and all?”

  A giggle slipped out of me. “Yes. That’s definitely the only reason.”

  I gave him a quick kiss to follow the one we’d already shared and then turned to tug Connar’s mouth to mine. When our lips parted
, Declan and Malcolm had gotten up from their chairs. Declan moved to me first, bending over to cup my cheek and claim my lips with his careful intensity. He drew to the side to leave room for the Nightwood scion to lean in. Malcolm’s kiss was all commanding passion.

  By the time I’d kissed them all, an eager trembling had spread through my body. I wanted all of them, but I didn’t know quite what to do with myself to make that happen. Maybe, like the rest of this complex and yet instinctive relationship we’d fallen into together, it was a matter of figuring things out as we went.

  Jude was stroking my thigh. Connar traced the curve of my breasts through my blouse and swept his thumb over one nipple. As pleasure rippled through me, Malcolm grasped the hem of the blouse and tugged it upward. It slid off my skin and whispered to the floor in a silky puddle.

  Malcolm knelt to plant kisses up the side of my knee. Jude eased my skirt higher, Connar undid the clasp of my bra and sank lower to suck the peak of my breast into his mouth, and Declan bowed over me, tipping my chin up with one teasing finger so he could capture my mouth again. My hands roamed over all of them, slipping down Jude’s chest, caressing Declan’s cheek, digging into Connar’s short-cropped hair. Wave after wave of bliss rose through me.

  As Malcolm’s kisses trailed higher, Jude stroked his fingers right between my legs. I arched into his touch at the pulse of pleasure when he found the spot where I was neediest. Connar swiveled his tongue over my nipple, and I moaned into Declan’s mouth.

  Jude caught the hem of my panties and yanked them out from under my skirt. Malcolm helped pull them the rest of the way down. Connar raised his head and Declan shifted to the side, just in time for Jude to guide me over to straddle the Stormhurst scion.

  Mmm, yes. I gazed down at Connar as I reached for his fly, and the stark hunger in his eyes told me he was just as eager for this as I was. As I freed him, his hands trailed down my sides. Declan’s skimmed over my breasts, and Malcolm gave my ass a teasing squeeze. Every nerve in my body hummed with gleeful anticipation.