Unlock and Bind: (Maya Strom Series - Book 2)

by A. B. Marie

  “Thanks for all of the help, by tomorrow I should hopefully start to feel better.”

  He gives me a kiss on the cheek. “Take your time, we’re your army. Penny has called a few times today. You should have her and Danika come over before they crash through the gates.” I give him a smile and look back over to him. The moonlight makes his softer features appear harder and more shadowed. His bright red hair is sticking up all over his head and his gray eyes look black. He’s shirtless and wearing a pair of soft, black sweatpants that hang low on his cut hips. Mmm.

  “Sounds good, I’ll have her come by for lunch or something tomorrow.” I sit up to place Luna in her bassinet and her little mouth is still softly sucking. I chuckle at her and lay back down in bed and lay on top of Nolan’s chest.

  “Let me in, you dirt bags! I need to see this baby!” I hear Penny yelling from the front of the house. I chuckle to myself and see Gerard slowly making his way through the foyer.

  “Ms. Penny and Ms. Danika, welcome. Please do come in.” He says sarcastically and leads them into the living room where I’m sprawled across the couch.

  “Maya! You dirty bitch! I wanted to be here for the birth!” I give a pointed look to her and move my eyes to Danika and Penny just rolls her eyes.

  “Yes, well, birthing an almost nine-pound baby and passing out for twenty-four hours is really the time for me to invite over company.”

  She rolls her eyes at me. “I don’t want to hear your excuses. Where is my niece?!” She walks around and looks in the bassinet and sees that the baby is asleep. She makes grabby hands towards the baby. “Gimme, gimme, gimme!” She softly picks up Luna and cradles her. “My goodness, Maya. She is so gorgeous.” She takes a long look at me and her eyes go wide. “Holy shit, you’re glowing!” She sits down on a chair and Danika stands behind them smiling.

  “Meet Luna Ray.” I give her another pointed look towards Danika, and she nods.

  Penny smiles widely after calming down. “Wow. So, when can I babysit?”

  “Whenever you ladies want to! Maybe the guys and I can go to the club in a few weeks.” She nods, and her and Danika take turns holding and cooing at her. They stay for lunch and we set up another girl’s day for next week before they leave. I spend the rest of the day being a cow and changing a couple of diapers before I’m attacked by Polly and Luna wanting attention. “Yes girls, come say hello to baby Luna.” They rub their heads on her and chitter. They both say ‘protect’ in my head and I smile at them. “Yes, my babies, we’ll protect her.”

  Chapter 14

  Maya

  _______

  “You both are doing perfect. Just feed her when she’s hungry. She’s such a sweet, calm baby.” Beatrice hands Luna back to me and takes a seat on the glider next to my bed. Luna is five days old and we’ve spent the last few days bonding and relaxing in the shade in the backyard.

  “She truly is. When am I cleared to work out again?”

  She gives me a curious look, “You’re pretty much healed. Just don’t over-work your body, listen to it when you’re tired and sore.” I smile at her and pull out my phone to text Brant to ask when the gym will be complete. Thanks to these freaky goddess powers, I am close to how I looked pre-pregnancy. I need to build back up my muscles and stamina, but with muscle memory it should be fairly quick.

  “Perfect!”

  She winks at me and gives me a hug. “I’ll see you in about a month. Be good, Maya.” She waves and sees herself out. I place Luna in the bassinet and roll her into the bathroom with me so I can shower. I decide to head into town and do some shopping. We weren’t planning on her being so big, so we need to get more clothes in her size and trade in the smaller sizes… Might as well get out of the house. I step out and think about how I want my hair to look and I watch in the mirror as it changes. No more needing to use my finger or think of incantations, I guess. I haven’t had the time to read through the books in the library, but so far, I can think of what I want and it finds me, no matter where I am in the house. A bottle of water, a diaper, pack of wipes, and a bag of chips so far. It cracks me up when the guys give me curious looks.

  I walk into my closet and get changed into a soft black dress that reaches my knees, a pair of gold sandals, and my pendant that Collins made for me that’s imbued with dampening magic to reduce my glow to hopefully stop my power from pulsing outwards. Shrugging my shoulders while I look over myself in the mirror, I head to Luna’s nursery and grab her a cute pink outfit that’s lined with soft ripples along the pants, a pair of white socks, and a white cap for her head. I go through her closet and see that we had already washed all of her smaller clothes, I decide to leave them for now and I’ll pack them up for donations later. I get Luna ready and pack up her baby bag with everything we need.

  “Maya, where are you going?” Mark comes stalking up to me from the living room to where I’m standing in the foyer grabbing my car keys.

  Giving him a sweet smile, “Shopping.”

  He rolls his eyes and puts on his shoes from where they’re sitting in the hall closet. “You should be staying home, it might not be safe to leave, especially with Luna. We don’t know anything about her powers.”

  I wave him off. “I’m bringing the familiars. They’ll be with her in her stroller, I’m wearing my pendant, and Collins placed a small spell on Luna to bind her powers until we know more. I’m able to remove it at any time if I feel any protective magic coming off of her. We’ll be fine. And it looks like you’re coming anyway.” I roll my eyes and start walking outside towards my car that’s parked in front of the house.

  “You’re a pain in my ass.” We get in and I get Luna in her car seat. I look over and see Lola and Polly are cuddled up next to her and they keep peeking their heads over the side, I snort at them. I put the baby bag in the back seat and make sure the stroller is in the trunk. I start driving and put on some low music and start singing and jumping around in my seat.

  “Can you check my phone to see if Brant replied?” He nods and grabs it out of my bag in the back.

  “He said in around two weeks. He wants to know if we finished picking out all of our equipment.” I nod for him to reply and I focus on the road.

  “We need to read through that book and talk more about your magic, Mark. I noticed a few months ago in the magic room that you weren’t using incantations, why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  “Because you already had enough freaky magic for the lot of us, I didn’t want to think about it. I just thought I was adopted or something, I never really considered being a demi-god.”

  I squint at him and hum. We park and Mark grabs the stroller and disconnects the car seat from the base and locks it in. “Ready?” I nod and place Lola near Luna’s feet and keep Polly with me on my shoulders. We spend a few hours walking around the shops and I pick up several sets of sleepers, onesies, pants, socks, and caps in bigger sizes. We are stocked up on diapers, wipes, and blankets at the house already. “Think of anything else we need?”

  “No, I think we’re good. She’s going to be hungry soon, pick a place for lunch.” He leads me down another block and we settle into a small sandwich shop. I roll Luna to restroom and get her changed and cradle her in one arm while I push the stroller to the table. “Ready to eat, sweet girl?” She tries to suck on her hands, and I kiss her head, such a sweet girl. Her green-purple eyes are blinking widely at me and I smile at her. I cover us up with a light baby blanket and get her feeding.

  “Turkey and the works on rye with a side of fries, vegetables with hummus, and a lemonade.” Mark sets down a large pile of food in front of me with a smirk and he sits across from me with his own tray filled up just as high as mine.

  “Thanks.” We dig in and I switch Luna to the other breast and put her back in her stroller after she falls asleep. “Ready to head home?” He picks up all the trash and we walk back to the car.

  “I really am sorry for not telling you sooner, especially when we were kids and you thought you were
a freak. I was just worried about you.” He looks down to me and gives me a grim smile.

  I roll my eyes at him. “Stop being an idiot. So, what else can you do?”

  He thinks about it and rubs his hands down his face. “Basically, everything you can do, but I still need to use potions and draw runes. But I can astral project without any extras and do most spells without much else.”

  “Can you call anything to you or levitate items with your mind?” He shakes his head and we drive back home in silence. He probably thinks I’m mad at him, but I’m not. Especially not after everything our families went through to ensure my safety; I just hope that we get more answers about his parents soon.

  After getting home and handing everything to Maggie to wash, I go and find Troy and Ross in the surveillance room looking haggard. “Hey, what’s going on?”

  Ross looks up at me and tries to give me a smile. “Watching the tracking feeds and listening to their conversations. So far, the council members are still here in London. Amelie is still at the treatment center we dropped her off at… They keep leaving voicemails for their superiors and Nathan, I assume, but no incoming calls or anything other than that. Probably just healing up and waiting for their orders.” I nod and take a seat to rest my feet.

  Troy looks up from his computer, “Other than that, we are just working on our PI jobs, we have to leave for a week or so soon to work on some leads. The clubs are taken care of with the managers. We have been making around $100,000 per month per club so far… After taxes, paying the employees, and taking our wages, we’re bringing home around $50,000 a month so far. We set up a separate account and added you and Mark to it.”

  I shrug my shoulders. “That’s awesome guys. Why don’t you just put all of that in savings and give Mark a percentage after paying him back the $40,000 he put down? I don’t need your money.”

  Ross glares at me. “You bought and paid for the new club, paid off the loan on the first one, bought our old house, paying to update it, and bought us a new SUV.”

  “Yeah, and? I have more money than I know what to do with. I’m not greedy. The others won’t let me do anything for them.” I roll my eyes and start typing up a list in my phone for shit I can do for them. Maybe vacation homes for their families? I’ll ask Gerard for some ideas. “Anyway, you should come down for dinner.” I wave at them and head back to the master to grab the book with the prophesy in it. I open it up and read through it all again. When I get to the last page, I see a few new paragraphs that weren’t there before, all written in that fucking weird ass language. Grumbling under my breath, I pick up my journal to start deciphering it from when I did this months ago.

  “Luna’s awake, want to feed her and come down for dinner?” Mark walks in with Luna wide awake in his arms. Looks like she had another outfit change. She’s in a dark green sleeper and a matching green cap on her head.

  “Matching her to your eyes?” I wink at him and set everything down to feed her.

  “What are you working on?”

  I nod over to the book. “The empty pages in the back are no longer empty. I was just about to start deciphering it.” He picks it up and squints his eyes at it and sets it back down.

  “Interesting. I’ll leave you to it. Malek grilled some chicken in his weird sauce that you love.” I smile at him and he leaves the room.

  “Alright baby girl, time for your parents to eat.” I wrap Luna up in a baby wrap and head out to the back deck to scarf down my food after she finishes eating. “Fuck yeah, Malek is amazing.” I tell the rest of the guys about the book and they all grumble.

  Collins perks up, “Do you think it’s another prophesy?”

  I shrug. “Probably.” After dinner Graham takes Luna upstairs to put her to bed and said he’s going to sleep. I smile at him and gave them both a kiss. It’s a getting colder at night, so I grab a blanket and head out to the hammock to look at the calendar to take a trip back to the island. “Hey Collins, what are the dates for fall break on campus?”

  “November twenty-fourth through December first, why?” He gives me a questioning look with his navy-blue eyes from his seat on the sofa. He looks so sexy out here in the dim lighting. He’s wearing casual clothes – a gray long-sleeved shirt with black sweatpants. His normally pristine auburn hair is messy and needs a cut.

  “No reason.” I pull up the email address for the warlock, Damien, that Gerard set us up with to take the yacht from the island to a port a few hours away. I think we should all drive the yacht and spend a few days on the island, we deserve a break. I shoot Damien a message asking him if he can take a look to see if we need anything before we head out and fill it up with gas. Then I start a list for everything we will need to bring.

  I look up and see I’m alone outside, and I lean back and put on a show on my phone and end up falling asleep under the stars with the gentle wind rocking the hammock, lulling me into a dreamless sleep.

  Graham, Nolan, and Collins decide to go back to campus since they don’t have much to do to occupy their time at home. The twins are leaving in a few days for a PI job somewhere up north, so it’ll just be Mark, Luna, and me at home with the staff. I spend the days setting up plans for the island and I talked Gerard, Maggie, and Malek into coming with us on the yacht, instead of flying to the island ahead of us like they usually do. They weren’t happy about it, but they can deal. We don’t leave for several weeks, so I have time to get everything sorted.

  I’ve been horny all day and Mark refuses to fuck me because he doesn’t want me getting pregnant again so soon. After growling at him for half an hour and trying to drag him into the BDSM room while Luna napped, I gave up and hid upstairs in the library with Luna asleep in a sleep swing. I suck it up to call Beatrice to see if she can think of anything that is safer than poisoning myself with the birth control potions the council gave me back in Seattle. Who knows if they’ll even work now with my powers unlocked?

  “Hello, Maya. How are you doing?” Beatrice’s warm voice answers.

  “Hey, can you think of any birth control options for me?”

  She hums. “Let me look through the library here and ask Headmaster Collins about more information he might have in his office. Since the academy was founded for demi-gods, there should be options for full goddesses somewhere. I just have witch and demi-god potions and spells available.”

  “Thanks. I incanted my own when I got pregnant with Luna, but apparently the potions the council were working before I moved here. I just didn’t know if they would still work now.”

  “I’ll look into it, sweetheart. I’ll call you back later.” She hangs up and I set the phone down. Might as well finish deciphering the book while I’m up here. I pull it off my shelf and stare at it for a few moments and groan. Here goes nothing.

  After several hours going back and forth with the English alphabet and the Heavenly scriptures, I worked out the new pages in the book. The first page reads:

  “To my dearest Maya,

  You have unlocked your powers and probably have a lot of questions.

  Your father and I love you so much and hope to meet our grandchild one day.

  We have to leave this realm and wish we could bring you with us.

  We write this down to you as your father holds you in his arms…

  Do not trust the council, they are not on our side.

  If you grow up with the Kreuss’s stay close to them and their son, Markus.

  With all of my heart and soul,

  Love, Mom.”

  I run my fingers over her beautiful writing and turn the page.

  “The Goddess bore the new beginning,

  More goddess than witch, brings new change to the realms

  Lost in the void, blinded by the new light,

  The King finds a new path for the realms to unite.”

  Well, isn’t that fucking ominous. I’ll just keep Luna locked up in the estate until she’s thirty. That covers that. The next few pages have added information on the Hell realm.
Lucifer is their king, followed by the seven sins that run different territories, shocker, and explains how Lucifer’s mortal mate was killed by a god, and the wars started due to his grief. Too bad they don’t state HOW she died. Rolling my eyes, I put the book away and update my journal with the new information. Kissing Luna on her head as I take her outside to sit in the shade with me, I relax up against a tree near the gym and watch the crew coming in and out the building.

  One of Brant’s men come walking up to me. “Good afternoon. Want to come take a look around? We should be done within the next two days.”

  I smile up at him. “That sounds amazing!” I follow him in through the steel double doors and spin in a circle. All of the walls are up and painted, the light hardwood floors are in, and the tall ceilings with floor to ceiling windows looks amazing with all of the can lights illuminating the space. “This is perfect.” He nods at me and we walk to the changing rooms. All of the showers, the restroom, and the wardrobes are all finished. Along one side of a wall is completely mirrored glass, hmm that’ll be fun to sit and watch my guys change. Heading over to the gun range, I chuckle thinking about my prisoners we had chained up along the walls. I open the door and bounce on the balls of my feet, causing Luna to open her eyes. The gun range is almost done, the targets need to be put up, the safe needs to be put into the wall next to the door, and the shelving is halfway done being placed to hold eye and ear wear. There aren’t any tables in here yet, but it still looks fantastic. You can’t even tell that I tortured anyone in here for days.

  I shake his hand while juggling Luna to sit up and put her head on my shoulder. “Thank you, guys, so much.” He nods to me and walks me out and I wave him off as I head inside. I turn back around and smile, I’m going to be living in that gym until I’m back in shape.

  Chapter 15

  Markus

  ________