Distant Light - Reverse Harem Romance

by Chloe Adler

  The next morning I can’t stop thinking about the rogue vampire from the night before. And since I’m still mad at Caspian for following me home when I didn’t give him permission to, I text Rhys instead of Caspian. He agrees to meet me at the Harbor House Cafe for breakfast.

  Thirty minutes later, he pulls out a chair for me and I plop down. “I’m glad you asked me to meet you.”

  “You are?” I blow a curl out of my eye.

  “Very much so.” He sits across the table. “I was worried we upset you last night at Confections.”

  “You did, a little,” I admit.

  “That wasn’t the intention. You know that, right?”

  “I do.” I chew on my lip. “But you guys were right; I am a target.”

  Rhys leans toward me, pressing his elbows to the table. “What happened?”

  I almost lose my concentration; he sure has that whole Ren angel look down, as though he’s employed the sun to permanently cast a golden beam of light to shine down on him. “He made an appearance last night. But surely you already know that, since Caspian intervened.” I lean back and cross my arms. We pause when the waiter appears and pours us coffee.

  “Look. We all understand that you want to be independent and we want that for you, too. But in order for that to happen, you may need our help in the interim.”

  I pour cream into my coffee but instead of sipping it, I swirl it endlessly with a spoon. “Why? That’s my question.”

  “Why do you need our help?” Rhys reaches for his coffee.

  “Why do you want to protect me? Is it because you need me?”

  He shakes his head, slowly, then takes a sip of the warm liquid. “We want to help you because we care about you.”

  “But you hardly know me.”

  Rhys licks his lips. “We know enough.”

  I cock my head. “What’s that mean?”

  “I saw Aurelia hovering at the door the other night when I picked you up. You told us at Confections how much you hate that. So why on earth do you put up with it? You keep fighting us for your independence, insisting on taking care of yourself, yet you let your mother walk all over you?” His tone is light, questioning, not accusing.

  “It’s complicated. I know how much my mother has lost, how much of her own life she’s given up for us. For me. How my sisters don’t really understand her motivations. But I do and it’s my responsibility to . . .”

  “What?” Rhys leans forward and places his hand on mine. “Your mother is not your responsibility, Iphi. She’s a grown woman who’s made her choices and gets to take care of herself. She’s the mother, not you.”

  I look at his hand over mine on the table. I tap my nails underneath it but he traces calming circles over the top and I stop.

  “You’re one of the kindest people any of us has ever met. You care about everyone around you, often putting them before yourself in detriment to yourself. I can’t imagine anyone knowing you and not wanting to help you or take care of you.”

  Though his last words rub me the wrong way—I don’t want to be “taken care of”—I appreciate the sentiment. My instinct is to snap at him, but I bite my tongue. Rhys is genuinely concerned and trying to look out for me. His cousins, I’m not so sure about. “Can you tell me why the rogue vampire is interested in me and who he is?”

  Rhys’s eyes shift away. “I can’t.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Look, Iphigenia, what matters here is your safety. We don’t want him near you again.”

  “Are you going to kill him?”

  His chair slides back. “No, of course not. That’s not an option.”

  I let out a relieved sigh.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “Are you happy?”

  I haven’t really asked myself this question before. I consider myself a positive, carefree person, though I don’t ever give the h-word much thought. “I have things in my life that make me happy, like the circus.”

  He smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

  “What then?”

  “This is just an observation, not a judgment.”

  I nod.

  “Well . . . all of your friends and your sisters, even your mother, are living their lives.”

  “And I’m not?”

  “I don’t think so. From where I stand, it looks like you’re living for those around you.”

  I take a sip of my coffee, then place it back on the table. “I don’t really get what you mean. How am I living for someone else?”

  He leans back in his chair, pushing his dark hair out of his eyes. “Why do you really still live with your mother?”

  I close my eyes for a moment. When I open them he hasn’t moved. “I stay with Mom because she needs me.”

  Rhys’s head shakes from side to side, his eyes trained on mine. “There’s another reason, Iphigenia. One that’s all your own and has nothing to do with Aurelia.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I don’t want to overstep any boundaries or make you feel uncomfortable.”

  “No,” I wave my hand in the air, “go on. I’d rather know what you think.”

  “There’s a part of you that thrives on being needed. Whether Aurelia needs you or not, and I assure you that she doesn’t, you stay partly because you’re getting your needs met. Who would you be without your mother?”

  If I weren’t an empath, his words would sting. I fight back the intense heat flooding my system and focus instead on his emotions. What I pick up is concern for my well-being, deep caring, and something like . . . love? That can’t be right. The sensation makes me reel more than his words do.

  “I understand that you’re concerned, I really do, but I don’t agree with your assessment. I’m confident in who I am, I’m present in my body, and I have a fantastic career. I don’t need my mother. It’s just that everyone else left her. It’s my duty to stay so she doesn’t keep getting hurt.”

  He takes another sip of his coffee, letting his eyes do all the talking. They say, You’re fooling yourself Iphigenia, not me. Stupid empathy. Sure, my life’s not perfect but no one’s is. Do I love living with my mother? No, but I don’t hate it either. She makes it easy for me. I don’t have to cook, Alistair is a doll, and Mother is always eager to help me with spell casting.

  “Oh, darling, look who’s here,” a sultry voice purrs next to my ear. I turn, smiling at Burgundy and her girlfriend, Tiyah, both beaming down at me.

  “Ladies.” Rhys rises, kissing them both on the cheek and I flush with jealousy.

  Really, Iphi? What the hell?

  “It’s wonderful to see you both,” Tiyah says. “We just wanted to say hello, but we won’t intrude on your breakfast.” She pulls Burgundy toward a table already occupied by their third, Elijah, who waves at us and then stands to pull out the chairs for his ladies.

  Before they sit, though, Burg wraps her arms around her girlfriend’s thin frame and pulls her in for a hot kiss, then Elijah. In public. Without a care in the world. She doesn’t care at all what other people think. The three of them look like they just stepped out of the pages of Vogue together.

  Wow. Here’s their relationship out in the open, yet the crowd at the Harbor House has already lost interest and is moving on with their morning. I peek left and right but no one’s staring.

  “Well,” Rhys says, snapping my attention back to him. “If you want to move, or even if you’re looking for a little break, we have plenty of room on our property. You could even have your own little house.”

  I shift uncomfortably in my seat. “Oh, thank you for the offer but I don’t need a place to stay.” I blow my hair out of my face. “I’m perfectly happy living at home, with Mom.”

  He bites his lip, one of his fangs momentarily snagging the dark flesh.

  “Really. It’s fine. Aurelia doesn’t treat me the same way she treats other people or even my sisters.
We have a really good relationship, an understanding.”

  He nods, but his thoughts prickle with something like fear. That’s only because you haven’t done anything she doesn’t agree with. Yet.

  Ignoring him, I glance back at the thruple. A fresh plate of food sits in front of each of them. Tiyah is picking off of Burgundy’s plate and Burg swats her hand away playfully. Elijah picks off of Burgundy’s plate, too, just like Tiyah did, and every few bites he places a bite in each of their mouths with his hands, fork be damned. They joke and exchange words, their interactions effortless, like the petals of a flower blowing in the wind. Connected and strong even when challenged.

  It’s the most romantic and sensual thing I’ve ever seen.

  I’ve never had that or anything like it. No one to pick food off my plate or kiss me in public.

  “Do you like that?” Rhys growls in my ear and I color quickly, picking up my coffee to hide my obvious discomfort. “They’re a beautiful triad, don’t you agree?”

  “Yes, of course.” I don’t look up at him, suddenly engrossed in my water cup.

  “I don’t mean physically, I mean the way they interact. Their relationship is smooth, seamless. They make it seem easy.”

  “Yeah,” I agree, “I don’t understand how they do it. The three of them look and act as if they’ve been part of one another’s lives for eighty years instead of eight months.”

  “I think that’s the way it works when everything clicks into place.”

  “Have you ever had that?” I jut my chin toward their table.

  “Never. You?”

  I shake my head, not wanting to tell him that, in love, I’m almost as inexperienced as one can get.

  Chapter Nine

  Iphigenia

  Rhys insists on driving me home even though it’s early and a beautiful day to walk.

  “Can you park at the end of the drive, behind the oak tree so . . . ?”

  “Of course,” he says without asking me to clarify. He knows.

  “I really appreciate the ride,” I say as he pulls over.

  He stops the car and leans toward me, so close his intoxicating scent fills my nostrils. “Do you have any plans for tonight?”

  I shake my head because my mouth is so dry I couldn’t speak even if I wanted to.

  “Come dancing with me.”

  Oh, how I want to say yes. “At the V? Nah. It’s not my cup of tea. Plus, it’s twenty-one and over.”

  “Not the V, at Promise.” He leans even closer, our noses almost touching. I close my eyes, expecting a kiss, torn between wanting one and not wanting one. After a second, the air cools in front of me and I open my eyes. He’s leaning back in his seat.

  I turn my head and look out the window. “I don’t really dance.” A shadow flashes between the sun and the car.

  “You don’t dance? What? You’re kidding, right? With the grace of your aerial and contortion acts? Surely you move like a professional on the dance floor.”

  “No, I don’t dance.”

  “’Don’t’ meaning you don’t like to?”

  I chew on my lower lip. A painful past I’ve kept to myself, forever. Like a dirty little secret. Isn’t there a saying about shining a light on something? Maybe by bringing it out into the open, the pain will dissipate. Rhys looks at me expectantly but he doesn’t say anything. He’s open to whatever I have to say, without judgment. And because he’s hiding a deep wound of his own, I know he’s the one I can tell. If I don’t open up now, I may never get past this.

  I pull in a deep breath and clutch the seat on either side of me as though I’m on a roller coaster, teetering at the top before the long drop down.

  “When I was in middle school—“ I stop and he puts his hand over mine, urging me to continue. “I had an innocent crush on this guy.” He rubs the back of my hand, methodically, back and forth. “I went to the school dance, just hoping to see him, and was ecstatic when he pulled me out on the dance floor.”

  My smile could have lit up the entire room that night, waves of triumph and confidence burning through my body. Nothing mattered in that moment but him and me dancing together, and I completely let go, enjoying myself more in that singular, tiny space of time than I ever had before.

  “But there was this other girl there, mocking me behind my back.” I remember bringing my eyes up to my crush’s, expecting his smile to mirror mine, but he was laughing at something behind me. I spun around and there was this mean girl, Justine Miller, aping me, exaggerating every movement with jerky, flopping limbs out of synch with the music. “I cried and ran off the dance floor and, well, there you have it, scarred for life. I never danced again.”

  “So she transferred her own glaring insecurities onto you?” Rhys peels my hand from the upholstery and clutches it tightly. “Like a game of cooties.”

  “I know it doesn’t really make sense. I know she only did it because she was jealous of me and trying to steal my power. But . . .”

  “It worked. And you’ve let it keep you from dancing for how long?”

  I count on my fingers and laugh. “More years than I’d like to admit.”

  Rhys turns and looks out of his car window, then back to me, sighing. “Thank you for sharing that with me.”

  My cheeks flush and I peek at him through my lashes.

  “I had some challenges growing up as well and I just want you to know that now four mighty men have your back.”

  I nod and my cheeks stretch into a wide grin. “Thank you, that means a lot.”

  “Tonight then? I’ll pick you up at ten.” He leans over and places a firm, closemouthed kiss on my cheek.

  Exiting the car, I wonder how I’ll get past Aurelia later. Lie? I hate doing that and I’m not very good at it. Omit? I could pretend to go to bed early and sneak out. In all my twenty years, I’ve been the good girl, the role Sadie refused to play and Chrys rebelled against at twenty-five.

  Placing my key in the lock, I wait for the familiar click. Aurelia has insisted on making our locks magical so no one can pick them, something that happened for a short time in other parts of town. I think she’s being paranoid, but she’s racked up a lot more time on this earth than I have, so I don’t question it.

  “Darling.” She’s hovering just beyond the entrance. How does she always know when I’m coming home? The brand she put on the back of my neck is essentially a magical GPS for emergencies, but surely she has better things to do than spy on me with her crystal ball. “Did you and Burgundy have a nice breakfast?”

  “We did, thank you.” I avert my gaze quickly. Sometimes she knows when I’m lying and this one I need to cover up. “Did you and Al enjoy your morning?”

  “We did,” she responds stiffly. “Darling, aren’t you spending an awful lot of time with Burgundy?” She reaches out to tuck a curl behind my ear.

  “I guess. Why?”

  “Well, dearest.” She tries to flatten my curls, which I hate. The more someone touches my hair, the frizzier it becomes and I shake my head to dislodge her prying fingers. “She’s not the best influence.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s a stripper and a home-wrecker.”

  I bristle at her judgmental, ignorant label. My mother knows me well enough to know I would never agree. “So?”

  “It’s just that you’re not like that.”

  “Like what? I’m not a stripper and I’m not in a triad?” Thanks for pointing out the obvious, Mom.

  She lifts up another strand of my hair, shifting it from my shoulder to my back. “You don’t have loose morals.” My mother’s multicolored eyes pin me in place.

  I hold my hand up. “First of all, Mother, I don’t think that Burgundy has loose morals either. She’s happy in her relationship, and so are Elijah and Tiyah. And second, who cares if she does? She’s a good person who treats me with respect.”

  “I just don’t think—”

  I turn and head toward my room.

  “Do not walk away from me wh
en I’m talking to you, young lady,” she hisses.

  “What’s this?” Alistair approaches from the other end of the hallway. His welcoming grin disappears as I stomp past him without a word.

  “She’s impossible.” Mother doesn’t bother lowering her voice. “Just like her sisters.”

  I slam my door behind me, just like Sadie used to. I never understood why she did that. Until now. Why does Aurelia have to judge everyone else like that? It’s not like there’s a one size fits all with life. Everyone gets to make their own decisions, and what’s right for one person isn’t necessarily right for another. I understand that—I feel that—and give everyone room to be themselves. Even my mother. Especially her. It is, however, becoming clear that she does not return the favor.

  I decide not to tell Aurelia that I’m meeting Rhys at Promise later. She’d probably lock me in my room and spell the windows shut if she knew. Instead, I pretend I’m tired and turn into bed early. It’s a little sad how good I’ve become at this act, and I arouse no suspicion.

  Once I’m tucked neatly inside, I light four white candles and place them around my room, one for each cardinal direction. I remove my athame from a dresser drawer and use it to invoke pentacles in the air while reciting incantations at each compass point. When the circle is cast—with me, a casting candle, my herbs and my crystal ball in the center—I start weaving my spells.

  The first one I choose is a door-locking spell. Mother has never allowed any of us to have locks and I’ve never minded much in the past. I didn’t have anything to hide, though my sisters certainly did. But now I wonder what privacy would feel like, and even though I’m allowed to cast spells on my own, I don’t want her barging in and asking me about them.

  I don’t have my own grimoire, but I do know how to cast minor spells without looking them up. Maybe I can improvise a little, cast something more than minor.

  I add a pinch of clove and a walnut leaf to the burning candle. “Claude ostium.” Close the door in Latin.

  Sadie spent the last year taking classes at our local college on spell casting and Latin. I used to be the one who showed her the arts, since Mother kept her ignorant of so much magic, but now that she’s grown into her power, she’s the one teaching both me and Chrys whenever she can. I’m not fluent in Latin yet like Sadie is, but I am a quick study.