The Castle of Earth and Embers

by Steffanie Holmes

  “Sure.” I gestured to the staircase. “After you.”

  Maeve started up the narrow steps, her gorgeous arse hovering inches from my face. I made to follow her, but something heavy slammed into my side, knocking me against the wall. I cursed as my elbow scraped against the rough stone of the wall.

  “Sorry mate,” Flynn flashed me his devil’s grin as he leapt past me and followed Maeve up the stairs. “I didn’t see you there.”

  “I believe you,” I mumbled as I followed them up. “Millions wouldn’t.”

  At the top of the stairs, Maeve pressed her hands against the wood panel. “How do you get this open?”

  Flynn tried to reach around her to unlock the clasp at the top of the door, but this time, I beat him to it. As I reached around Maeve, she turned slightly to press her back against the wall and her breasts brushed against my shirt, setting off a fire beneath my skin.

  Her lips formed an O of surprise, and I couldn’t help but mentally fill in that O with the shaft of my cock. I blinked, trying to stop thinking about her like that, trying to remember that it was the magic making me into this animal.

  The air between us thinned, and an invisible force drew my body forward, my arm brushing hers. A few inches more, and my lips would be pressed against hers—

  No. You can’t do this. You can’t encourage her to choose you.

  “Well, isn’t this intimate?” Flynn shimmied his way through the gap so that he had his back against the opposite wall, his hands falling against Maeve’s hips. If he wanted, he could slide her back so her arse rubbed against his cock, and even though that was totally cheating, I wouldn’t even blame him. I was cheating just as bad – my face in hers, my eyes begging for her touch. All I’d have to do was lean forward, press my lips to hers, and it would all be over…

  But that’s not fair. You all agreed, and it was your idea. She’ll choose you in the end – it’s the only logical choice to make, and Maeve rules her life with logic.

  Maeve’s lips parted a little, her breath hitching. The energy pulsing from her body warmed the air around us. It was as though a magnet extended between all three of us, pulling us together. Right now, she had no idea who she wanted more.

  The other two guys clambered up the stairs behind us. Maeve glanced away, and the spell broke enough that I could gain control of myself and pull back. Flynn did the same, and he shot me a look over Maeve’s shoulder, a look that said, “how the fuck are we going to last around this bird without doing something unchivalrous?”

  Maeve didn’t look upset. In fact, her heavy-lidded eyes and ragged breath as her eyes flitted from mine to Flynn’s to Arthur’s and Rowan’s suggested she was pretty into the idea of one of us. Or all of us, who knows?

  Stop bloody thinking about it. My fingers brushed against the catch, and I let it off. The door swung out, and all five of us tumbled into the hall in a mess of limbs.

  “Here, I’ll help you up.” Arthur managed to untangle himself first, and grabbed Maeve’s hand. Flynn reached for her other hand, but she was already using her hand to leverage herself off the floor. Flynn swiped it out from under her, sending them both rolling across the hallway.

  “You guys are nuts.” Maeve stood up and dusted herself up. “I’m not an invalid. I can get up by myself.”

  “Point taken,” Flynn mumbled, picking himself up from the floor. There was an imprint of the carpet across his cheek.

  “I mean, the way you’re acting, it’s as if I’m some damsel in distress…” Maeve’s words trailed off as she caught sight of the large portrait at the end of the hall. She stepped toward it, her eyes wide.

  A shaft of sunlight fell across the frame from one of the small skylights above the hallway, illuminating the figure who appeared to smile down at Maeve from her spot on the wall. It was impossible to miss the family resemblance. The woman in the portrait had Maeve’s enormous eyes – although where Maeve’s were hazel, hers were an icy blue – and the same bow-shaped lips, lightly colored with red so they stood out from her pale skin like a droplet of blood. Her long brown hair fell in luscious waves down her back, and her hips and breasts swelled from her old-fashioned gown, revealing that hourglass shape that oozed sexiness.

  She sat on a chair in the library, a few books stacked on the table beside her. She kept her hands folded in her lap, and on her right index finger, she wore a ring embedded with a citrine crystal. Around her swan-like neck was a larger citrine amulet, and a third stone was set in the diadem that encircled her forehead. Her face was serene, content in her power, and the corners of her mouth turned up into an enigmatic smile.

  Maeve reached up with her hands, touching the canvas right against the citrine ring. “Is this… my mother?”

  I ran to her side. “Yes, that’s Aline Moore. Have you never seen this portrait? The famous artist Robert Smithers painted it. He was a friend of hers, apparently. A smaller copy of it hangs in the National Gallery, but this is the better of the two.”

  “I just… wow.” Maeve’s eyes wandered all over the canvas, drinking in the details. “I knew she lived here, but I just never expected to see… wow.”

  “Do you need a minute? We can all bugger off downstairs—”

  “No, I’m fine.” Maeve placed her hand over her chest, swallowing hard. “I was wondering if—argh!”

  She leapt back as a dark shape streaked across the side table beneath the image, sending a Wedgwood bowl spinning toward the edge. I flung out a hand and managed to save it before it crashed to the ground.

  “Obelix!” I growled at the giant ball of black fur.

  But Obelix wasn’t listening, because he was a cat, and cats didn’t listen to the help. He was too enchanted by our newest resident. He perched on the end of the table, stretching out a fat paw toward Maeve in greeting. She stared at the paw, her hand tapping her chest, which rose and fell as she tried to calm her heart rate. I could relate. That blasted cat had given me enough heart attacks to last a lifetime.

  “You gave me a hell of a fright, cat,” she admonished him.

  “He wants to shake hands,” Rowan said quietly.

  Maeve snorted, but when Obelix didn’t retract his hand, she reached out and touched his paw. ‘This is ridiculous,” she said, but her face burst into a wide smile as Obelix wiggled his paw up and down, his fat body erupting into a loud purr.

  Okay, so maybe Rowan didn’t have the confidence of Flynn and I, but his ability to teach large furry creatures ridiculously useless tricks might see him win over Maeve yet. If only he could teach Flynn not to be Irish.

  “He’s adorable,” Maeve breathed, rubbing Obelix behind his ears. He collapsed against the table, his eyes rolling back in delight as he shoved his head against her hand to beg for more.

  “He’s a total pain in the arse,” I growled. “But it looks like he has a new favorite human, so maybe he’ll stop trying to hog my desk chair.”

  “Does he like to be picked up?” Maeve didn’t wait for an answer, putting her hands under Obelix’s shoulders and lifting him against her chest. The cat practically sighed in contentment as he nestled his fat head against her breast. All four of us clenched with jealousy, totally wishing we could be where that cat was right now.

  Maeve had been in the house less than an hour, and this is what it had come to? I was officially jealous of a cat. I was starting to regret my decision to keep her in the dark about her power.

  “Here are all the bedrooms,” Flynn skipped down the hall, kicking open each door with his big, filthy boots. Usually, watching him track soot and sawdust over the immaculate rugs made my hair stand on end and Rowan break out into hives, but today it couldn’t bother either of us – not with Maeve here.

  Maeve peeked into each of the rooms, taking in mine and Arthur’s heavy metal posters, Flynn’s enormous Irish flag, and Rowan’s immaculate white space in a single glance.

  At the end of the hall, a second winding staircase led up into the tower. At the top was a small wooden landing with an
arrow slit overlooking the inner courtyard below. Signs on the walls directed visitors to the gift shop and tour entrance. I turned the huge key in the lock and swung the wooden door open.

  “This is your room.”

  Maeve’s gasp sent a shiver through my body, right into my cock. I imagined that sound coming out of her mouth as I drove into her, my fingers digging into that gorgeous arse of hers as she bent over the bed I’d chosen especially for her—

  “Fuck!”

  I spun around in time to see a small ball of flame burst from Arthur’s hand, licking the wooden door. He slammed his hand against the door frame, grimacing as he snuffed out the fire before it could catch. He caught my eye and nodded. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one struggling to control myself around Maeve. At least Air couldn’t burn the castle down.

  Luckily, Maeve hadn’t seen the flame or heard Arthur’s curse. She stood in the middle of the tower room, mesmerized. We nailed it.

  Ever since our solicitor informed us Maeve would be arriving, the four of us had scrambled to decorate the room for her – mostly led by Flynn, who had an artist’s eye for these sorts of things. I had to admit that it looked pretty good. Tall banners hung from the ceiling, painted with Celtic knotwork and figures depicting some of the history of our coven. A dark-framed wooden four-poster bed stood in the center of the room, facing the largest mullioned window, and framed with diaphanous curtains. A second, smaller window was cut low into the wall – right near the floor, and we placed her desk in front of this, with one of the Louis XVI chairs from the other side of the castle angled so it looked out into the gardens below. There was no wardrobe, so Flynn and Arthur knocked up a set of shelves with a hanging rack and baskets and hid those behind an Edwardian privacy screen, also pilfered from the other half of the house. We’d even stuck up some old fashioned astronomical charts I’d found at a local antique shop, and a lamp beside her bed cast a galaxy of stars around the room with a single touch.

  Flynn shrugged, as if the hours of work to get it finished were no big deal. “We hope you like it. If not, you’re out of luck. It took me three days to paint those banners.”

  It didn’t, actually. Flynn had drawn the designs and Arthur and I had filled them in while Flynn went to the pub. Not that I’m bitter, or anything. I rubbed my knee, which still ached from kneeling for hours with a tiny brush in my hand.

  The look on Maeve’s face made it all worth it. “All this… is mine?”

  “Of course,” I said. “You are the landlord. If you want to change any of it—”

  “No!” Maeve blushed. “It’s perfect. But… all this must’ve been so expensive. I can’t… I don’t…”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Arthur said, his back resting against the charred patch on the door. “We all chipped in, and lots of the furnishings come from other areas of the castle, so it didn’t really cost that much.”

  “Please don’t feel like you owe us,” Rowan added in his quiet voice. “We wanted to do something nice.”

  Maeve’s face twisted, and for a moment I thought she might burst into tears. Instead, she grabbed Rowan, and embraced him. Rowan’s body went stiff under her touch, but he softened just enough to pat her shoulder awkwardly. “Thank you, thank you so much.”

  “I’m bored,” Flynn announced. Maeve let go of Rowan and he shot Flynn a grateful look, which was perhaps the first time anyone had ever been grateful to Flynn for anything.

  “How can you possibly be bored in this place?” she asked him.

  “You mean, how can I stand living under the same roof as my English oppressors?” Flynn wrapped an arm around Maeve’s shoulder. “Well, I’ll tell you, Maeve, me lass, it takes a fine Irish spirit and my body weight in Guinness just to see me through the day. Speaking of which, I think it’s time we hit the pub.”

  “Flynn, it’s lunchtime.”

  “The pub does lunch.”

  “Rowan was going to cook,” I protested. I’d barely even got to show Maeve my library yet.

  “The pub is fine,” Rowan said quickly, his eyes darting to the door. I realized that he wasn’t ready to cook for Maeve yet. Of course. I should have thought. Yet another way I’ve let Rowan down.

  “I’m starving. And I’ve heard good things about these British pubs of yours.” Maeve sniffed the air. “Hey, what’s that burned smell?”

  I leapt forward, but Flynn was faster, sliding in between Maeve, blocking her view so she couldn’t see Arthur frantically trying to put out a fire on the corner of the banner. “That’s the smell of these Protestant infidels after I beat them all at pool. Now, to the pub!”

  I followed behind the others, my cock already aching with need. One thing was for certain, when Maeve Moore learned how to harness her power, Briarwood Castle was going to be shaking right down to its foundations.

  9

  MAEVE

  I expected us to pile into some rickety English car and drive down to the village, but instead the guys set off on foot across the garden. Just outside the inner gatehouse was a small, cobbled path that wound down through the trees. It came out on the edge of a field. I could just make out the village in the distance – a row of houses dotted across the edge of the hill.

  I had no idea that England’s landscape was so irregular. In Arizona, the plains stretched out in all directions, so the horizon was a constant companion – always impossible to reach but right there in your face. Here, rolling hills, quaint villages and ancient trees obscured it.

  Corbin swung open a small wooden gate, darting his eyes both ways as he stepped into the field. “Do we own this field, too?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “The estate next door – Raynard Hall – technically owns this field. In England, we have something called the ‘right to roam’ over open areas of land. It means that we’ve allowed to walk through here, even though we don’t own it and it’s not a public road.”

  Wow. In Arizona, if you walked on a farmer’s land without permission, he’d probably shoot you. I checked over my shoulder for rifle-toting farmers as I followed Corbin into the field, a delicious shiver of the forbidden coursing through my veins.

  We reached the village after a brisk twenty-minute walk that left me puffing. I expected exhaustion to grab me from all the traveling and jet lag, but instead, my body buzzed with nervous energy. The village looked just like the kind of quaint place you saw on English TV programs. Thatched-roof houses lined one long, narrow street, each one hung with handwritten signs declaring their purpose. There was a post office, a tearoom, and a couple of crystal shops. At the other end of the main street (or, as Corbin called it, the high street) were more modern shops with awnings, and something called Tesco that look like it might be a grocery store.

  Down a narrow cobblestoned alley was the Tir Na Nog pub. I’d never been inside a pub or bar before, and as first experiences went, this one was awesome. Corbin, Flynn, and Arthur had to duck under the low beams that crossed the roof as they descended toward the bar. Dim booths were lit by candles on the tables and wrought-iron lanterns on the walls.

  The boys lined up at the bar. Flynn pushed me in front of him. My eyes widened at the long line of bottles and the enormous taps jutting from the rustic wooden bar in front of me. There didn’t seem to be any kind of menu. How did anyone ever choose what they wanted?

  “Fancy a pint, lads?” A girl about my age with a thick Scottish accent leaned over the bar, her elbows pushing her tits together so her cleavage was practically in Flynn’s face. He didn’t look like he minded. She wore her fiery-red hair in two long braids, and her wide mouth turned up in a cheeky grin.

  “Five pints of your famous ale, thanks Neale, and a couple of menus.” Flynn leaned back and squeezed my arm. “We’ve got a friend with us today.”

  “Aye, I didn’t know you had any of those, Flynn O’Hagan.” Neale slammed five giant glasses with handles on the counter and started filling them from a tap.

  “I don’t even like beer—” I protested.


  “This isn’t your watery American piss, luv,” Corbin said as Neale slid an enormous glass of amber liquid underneath my nose. “Wait until you try a real English ale.”

  Judging by the bitter smell wafting off the top of the glass, I wasn’t going to be impressed. I dared a tentative sip, and nearly spat the mouthful back out again. How could people drink this?

  Neale flirted with the guys as she poured the rest of their drinks, sharing old jokes and gossiping about people from the village. They clearly came here a lot. This bothered me more than it should. I was starting to feel pretty grumpy until the guys backed away from the bar to find a booth and she turned to me with a conspiratorial grin.

  “Welcome to Jolly Old Blighty,” she pointed at my pint. “How about I get you something a little more special?”

  “Is it more beer?” I groaned.

  “I dinnae ken why they ordered you that shite. You’re clearly not a beer lass.”

  “Oh yeah?” I wasn’t sure if she was insulting me.

  “Aye. I can tell by looking at a person what their poison of choice is, even if they dinnae ken themselves.” She pointed to the door as a couple walked in. “He’s into the craft beer scam, so he’ll order something expensive that tastes exactly like the five-pound pint of piss in front of you, and she’ll have a white wine.” She called over her shoulder to the couple. “What’ll it be?”

  “A white wine for the missus, and do you have any of that Trappist IPA beer, you know, that one brewed by the local monks?” The guy stroked his hipster beard.

  “Coming right up,” Neale winked at me as she pulled out two glasses and fixed the drinks. “What did I tell you?”

  “That’s remarkable.”

  “It’s my superpower. That’s how I ken you’re not going to have another sip of that beer. You want tae ken what your drink really is? I’ll fix it for you.”

  “Sure, why not?”