Order of the Akasha: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (Complete Series)

by E. M. Moore

  “So close?” I thought for sure this place with questionable people would be further away from Salem and the Enforcers. Wasn’t that like throwing things in their face?

  Randy nodded and pulled his feet up again. He throttled the bike and pulled away from the stop sign. Just to the right a dilapidated gas station seemed to grow out of the weeds. Next to that stood the dingiest diner I’d seen in a while despite there being several cars out front. Just down the road, we came upon a small village. A church, a convenience store, pizza places, all of which looked like they’d seen better days. Just on the edge of where it looked as if the road was going to turn back into the country, Randy pulled over and cut the engine. “This is it,” he said, motioning toward the falling down house we parked in front of. “Ren’s den.”

  “The dude’s name is Ren?”

  Randy shrugged, throwing his leg over the bike and helping me off afterward. “I’ve never met him before. I only know of him.”

  Randy placed both our helmets on the bike and then ran a hand through his hair. I watched as he did this, his movements jerky. Even a cricket in the nearby woods made him jump.

  “You seem worried,” I said, cautiously. “Should I be? What if they want to fight us?”

  “I doubt it will come to that, but just stick with me. Don’t go off with anyone else.”

  I gave him a look. “And just who am I going to go off with?”

  The corner of his lip tipped up. “I don’t know. It just felt like the right thing to say.”

  I shook my head. “Let’s just get in there. We’ll figure it out as we go. We’re asking for Ren, right?’

  Randy nodded. “It’s the only name I had…from before. It should get us to where we need to be.”

  Wonderful.

  He took my hand, and we turned to make the walk up to the decaying porch. The wood sagged under our weight as I knocked on the door. A woman answered, her eyes dark with heavy shadows under her eyes that she tried to cover up with makeup. She looked both of us up and down but spent quite a bit of time looking over Randy. It raised my hackles, but I kept my cool. “We’re here to see Ren,” I told her, hoping I wouldn’t have to explain anything else.

  She leaned against the doorjamb and crossed her arms over her chest. “Both of you?” She eyed Randy.

  “Both of us,” he said, sounding bored.

  Usually people were intimidated by Randy. The looks we got while walking around Salem were downright hilarious sometimes, but this woman, who had to have been in her thirties, didn’t seem afraid in the least. It made me worried for what we might see in here if Randy wasn’t the type to be fearful of.

  “So, is he available?” I pressed.

  The woman pushed the screen door open and Randy caught it. He gave her a curt thank you and we followed her into the house. It reminded me a little of the small shack I grew up in. Though, mine never had the smell of ass in it before. Though we didn’t have a lot of money, at least we kept up with the place. It wasn’t even the faint trace of rotten meat, which I expected from witches of this sort, it just smelled like people who didn’t know how to put on deodorant and old cigarette smoke.

  The woman walked into the living room and plopped herself down on a guy. He had a shaved head, just the fuzz of dark hair peeking out. He looked up at us as we approached and then looked at his lady friend. “They’re here for you,” she said.

  Ren, presumably, looked up at us, his gaze guarded. “And who are you?”

  Randy seemed to relax a bit. I wasn’t sure if it was a show, or if he’d truly cased the joint and figured there was nothing to be afraid of here. “Enforcers,” he said, his lip tugging up into a full-blown smile.

  The woman on his lap’s smile faded until she gaped at us. Ren merely matched Randy’s demeanor. “I was wondering when you guys would show up.”

  From a nearby room, a yell pierced the air that sounded suspiciously like the pleasure from a climax. I gazed at the wall close to us and then returned to the pair in front of us. The woman had sat straight up. “She’s done. Is it my turn?”

  Ren nodded once, and the woman placed both feet on the floor and got up, her legs separating a little as she did so, which I could only guess was for the benefit of the guys in the room. I watched as she passed. There was something weird going on here. I closed my eyes and felt the flecks and surges of others magic, yet just trace amounts. Specifically, there was a brighter burst coming from the area the girl sauntered off to now.

  These guys were witches alright, even Ren. He was the brightest of them all, smelling of spruce and earthy pine. The closer we were to him, the easier it was to breathe in this place. There were other smells as well, just hidden deep under the nasty odors in this place. “I take it you’re the leader around here?” I asked, eyebrows raised.

  “You must’ve known that otherwise you wouldn’t have come in here asking for me.”

  Randy, who’d gone still after hearing the interruption, now faced Ren again. “My name is Randy Lacone. Ring a bell?”

  A small smile spread Ren’s lips apart. “And how is the old man?”

  “Wouldn’t know, but I’m assuming he’s off being a douchebag, as ever.”

  Ren waved Randy’s comments away. “Ah, your dad wasn’t that bad. I actually liked him. He—”

  “I couldn’t really give two shits about what my dad did here,” Randy said, his teeth clenched together. “We’re here for something else.”

  This raised the eyebrows on Ren’s forehead nearly up into his non-existent hair line. “You’re here to take part.”

  “Fuck no,” Randy said, grabbing my hand. “We don’t want any part of what you got going on here.”

  Just then, a girl, only half-dressed fell out of the room the other girl just entered. She straightened up, trying to pull her hair together in a pony tail and pulling her tanktop down to cover her midriff. She blinked a couple times and then turned toward us. Her eyes lit up, and she took two steps toward us as if she was pulled gravitationally.

  Ren held his hands up. “Not now, Jessie. Our friends aren’t here for that.”

  Randy made a noise at the back of this throat, completely discrediting the fact that he called us friends.

  Jessie looked from Randy to me. Her eyes zeroed in and she walked forward. “Are you sure? I like the looks of her, and she has some color, too, doesn’t she?”

  Ren patted the couch next to him, and Jessie eyed it with a frown. “Sit,” he demanded, and she did so. He patted her on the shoulder. “Not that I wouldn’t mind watching you two together, but they’re not here to share their magic with us. They actually haven’t gotten to the part about why they’re here yet.”

  He eyed both of us, but I wasn’t paying attention to him. I watched as the woman’s eyelids grew heavy. Her blinks got longer and longer until she fell back into the cushions of the couch and fell asleep. I looked from her to Ren. “You’re doing what exactly?” I asked, not liking the looks of this one bit. It looked like a prostitution ring with this guy as the pimp. It wasn’t just about sex though. It was something else, too. Red had mentioned sharing magic.

  “These witches,” Randy said, spitting the word out, making sure we all knew exactly what he meant about associating these people with the word witches, “got addicted to using their magic. They used it and abused it until their magic got smart and took it away from them. They’re coming here to get whatever ‘hit’ they can and however they can.”

  “Like drugs?”

  Randy shrugged. “Basically. Magic is like their drug, and Ren here exploits that.”

  Ren chuckled. “I don’t exploit anything. I’m just helping these guys out.”

  Bile rose up my throat. He traded magic for sex. That was disgusting.

  Randy agreed with my sentiments. “Magic is a living, breathing thing. If it wanted these witches to have it, they’d have kept it. What you’re doing is sick.”

  A crash came from behind us. I twisted to find a couple had fallen to the
floor just outside the area that led to the kitchen. Two guys continued to kiss, and the surrounding area surged in electricity as magic poured from one to the other. The one on the bottom latched his lips to the other and wouldn’t let go. The girl on the couch woke up, her eyes growing round as she watched them.

  Ren stomped on the floor. “Take it to a room!”

  The guy on top smiled, pulling the other guy up with his hands and taking him right back in through the kitchen to God knows where. No wonder why the witches who didn’t have but a flicker of magic left stayed here. It felt nothing like when I was around the rest of my coven, but you could still taste the magic here, and I imagined if you wanted nothing more than that, you’d be drawn to this place.

  “Listen, Enforcer,” Ren said. “I hope you didn’t come here just to pass out judgments.”

  There were a lot of things I’d like to do while here but pissing off Ren when we wanted his expertise wouldn’t help us at all. “Listen,” I said, putting my hands on my hips and facing him. “We’re willing to look the other way on what you got going on in here if you can give us some information.”

  Ren looked amused. “And what’s that, little star baby?”

  Star baby? Creepy fucker. “How much do you know about familiars? As in the demonic kind.”

  Ren nudged the woman next to him on the couch who’d fallen asleep again. When she didn’t wake up right away, he nudged her more forcefully. “Find a place to lay and go sleep it off, Jessie.”

  She gave him a dirty look and pulled herself off the couch like it took everything inside her just to do that. I moved out of the way as she stumbled past me and made her way into the kitchen, walking like a zombie who hadn’t fed in days.

  He eyed her until she was out of earshot. “Why would you think I’d know about that? You can tell yourself I don’t have anything that bad going on in here. If I had, it wouldn’t have taken you this long to come to me. I’d have tipped you off long before. I don’t know about anything that evil.”

  “Cut the shit,” Randy snapped. “I know what kind of magical shit goes down in here. No, you may not be doing anything wrong, technically, but you’re treading the line, and that line is getting thin. It’s damn near frayed, Ren, so answer the girl’s question. What do you know about demonic familiars?”

  “I haven’t messed with that shit,” Ren said, his jaw tightening. “I don’t play with that evil stuff. Like I already said, if I did, you guys would’ve been called here a hell of a long time ago. I’m clean.”

  Ren looked around, his leg jumping up and down. Classic paranoia signs.

  “You know people who do, though, don’t you?” Randy continued, inching closer and sizing Ren up. “We need to know everything we can about familiars, but specifically how to call one off, and you’re going to tell us.”

  Ren’s eyes widened as he searched every inch of our exposed skin. His eyes lingered near the cut of my shirt and I rolled my eyes. Yeah, there was a familiar in my cleavage. Jackass. “What can you tell us?” I urged, following Randy’s lead and walking forward, boxing the disgusting asshole in.

  He shook his hands in front of him. “Nothing. I don’t mess with that. If there’s demon happenings around here, I don’t know anything about it. I stay out of that shit. I have my little situation going on here, but that’s it. You should know that better than anyone, Lacone.”

  Randy took another step forward. “I don’t know anything,” he seethed. “I know that you corrupt people, that’s what I know. I know that you cut people down and cut people down until there’s nothing left of them and then they go searching for other ways to get their fix. So, excuse me, if I don’t give a flying fuck about any of your excuses. Talk to me about familiars.”

  Ren ran a hand over his buzz cut. His eyes darted around the room as if he was strung out on something. It didn’t convince me he didn’t know anything, it only served my suspicions that he knew a hell of a lot more than he was letting on. Ren shook his head. “Don’t bring me into this. Please. I don’t want any part of this.”

  Randy kicked back. The coffee table that was right behind us tipped over, the wood splintering. “Don’t make me fuck this house up even more than it already is.”

  Ren jumped, but stayed with his lips firmly shut.

  Randy searched the room. I watched as his face bloomed red and the muscles in his arms jumped. He took a beer bottle from the table next to the couch and threw it against the wall. It shattered, and the beer ran down the wallpaper. Now I could put a name to the other disgusting smell in this place. Stale beer. My stomach rolled. This place was a pigsty.

  “Alright,” Ren said, standing. His hands came out in front of him and trembled as if he was going through withdrawals. Maybe he was. If he was orchestrating all this, he was a step away from being a coked out magic addict like the rest of them. “I heard of a book once. I heard of a book that talks all about bad magic. What you’re looking for might be in there.”

  My heart leapt. “Where is it?” I asked, my voice rising. A surge of hope spreading through my limbs. Maybe we really could help Liam.

  Ren shook his head and looked at the nasty floor.

  “Damnit, Ren,” I said, at my wit’s end. “We need to know, and we need to know now.”

  He shook his head again. “I don’t know, though. I really don’t. It was only a rumor. I tried to get my hands on it once, but the people who have it are scary motherfuckers.”

  I nodded toward Randy. “Scarier than him because I’m pretty sure he’s a few seconds away from tearing this place apart and then how can you take advantage of these poor women and men?”

  His eyes darted from Randy, then back to me again. “Maybe I can get it for you?”

  “Maybe you can get it for us? Is that a question? It better be a fucking statement,” Randy said. “We’re not playing around. I’ve wanted to demolish this place ever since I found out my dad had made his way here. Just give me a fucking reason, Ren. All I need is one more, and you can kiss your little fucking pussy operation goodbye.”

  “I-I’ll get it for you,” Ren said, true fear in his eyes. “I will.”

  My heart squeezed. Not that I wanted to put all our eggs in the strung-out Ren basket, but it was better than doing nothing. I stared up at Randy and tried to keep my cool. We had something to go on now. Sure, it may have only been a shot in the dark, but we were one step closer to figuring this out.

  Randy nodded, his face still all business. “We’ll be back in a few days. If you’re not here with that book…” he trailed off, eyeing Ren dangerously.

  The look on his face even made my skin crawl and I knew Randy would never do anything like that to me. Ren was probably shitting his pants about now.

  “Do we understand each other?” Randy asked.

  “We understand each other.”

  I took Randy’s hand and squeezed it as we walked away from that dump. What did it say about me that him going all crazy animal on Ren’s ass made me want to jump him?

  4

  There was only one thing I didn’t like about the bike in comparison to a car. On the bike, you couldn’t have actual conversations. During the ride back, my mind was brimming with the new information and with what happened, however there was no one to share it with but myself. It was nice to have a moment alone with just me and my thoughts, but I really would’ve liked to take this time to talk to Randy about what had just happened. It blew me away that there were people like Ren in this world who exploited people of their own kind. Then, of course, it led me to thinking about what Randy was going through knowing his father had frequented Ren’s den before he moved on to more evil shit. That place was disgusting. If there was a part of Randy that cared still, it must have made him sick.

  Randy’s mood hadn’t improved when we left the house. He hadn’t spoken when he put the helmet on my head and helped me on the bike. He didn’t even speak as we got off the bike back at Liam’s parents’ house. Not knowing what to say to him, I looked up
at the house itself. Liam’s light was on in his bedroom, but the lights downstairs were all on as well. I had to guess Travis and Gabe were downstairs most likely watching the soccer game Gabe was all excited about while Liam stayed in his room doing who knew what. I never would’ve described him as a loner before, but I did now. It ate at my heart knowing that there was nothing I could do about it at the moment.

  We walked up to the house and as soon as we got in, Randy bent over to kiss my temple. He then ran up the stairs, not even looking back to ask me to follow. I had half a mind to follow him up there anyway, but Gabe called out, “Baby!”, making me laugh. He patted the sofa. “Come watch a little of the game with me.” I gazed up the stairs, unsure of what to do when Gabe yelled, “Some of these athletes are hotter than me!”

  Ha. I walked forward, dropping my light jacket on the closet doorknob and went right into the living room. “Not possible,” I said. “No one can rock a soccer uniform better than my Gabe.”

  Gabe patted my hand on the couch. “I love you dearly, Baby Girl, but please don’t call my sport soccer. It makes me go mental. It’s football. Football,” he said, over pronouncing it as if I were hard of hearing.

  Travis and I both chuckled. “Got it,” I told him.

  I stared down, noticing the guys had pretty much obliterated the snack aisle in the local grocery store. My stomach growled just looking at the array of chips, dip, and chocolate.

  Travis peered over at me. “You and Randy didn’t get anything to eat?”

  I checked the time on the new cable box. It was nine o’clock already, and I hadn’t eaten since lunch. I shook my head. “No, and I’m freaking starving.”

  He moved over on the sofa and patted the spot between him and Gabe. I eyed him, then the spot, then Gabe. Taking a deep breath, I walked around the couch and sat between them. From Gabe’s side, I felt nothing but heat and the attraction that pulled us together. On my left side, the side toward Travis, there was nothing but confusion. A mix of anxiety and uncertainty. Yes, I had the pull. It was strung tight, as if it wanted to pull tighter, but our resistance to it was beginning to fray everything. It wasn’t really my resistance, anyway. A blush crept up my cheeks when I remembered the hotter than hell dream I had about him that morning.