Wicked Release-ARE-Epub

by R. G. Alexander

  Sarah tuned them out and let her senses guide her. It was in this room. The second doorway. The book that shouldn’t have existed. She had only remembered one. It had been open beside her on the floor when they’d formed their circle. When they’d cast her inside.

  Somehow, it was here. In this hidden, disgusting rat hole with this small, disgusting man. It was difficult for her to believe he had the skills to rewrite a spell so complex.

  It was difficult to believe he could tie his shoes.

  There.

  She attempted to emulate Harrison’s breathy tone, but to her it only sounded as if she were ill. Which wasn’t far from the truth. “Lawrence? I want this jewelry box. I must have it.”

  Leah Gryffin rushed over to help her sell her performance. A Gryffin was helping her lie to a Maris.

  It had been a strange few days.

  She cooed. “You have amazing taste. I have been eyeing that since it arrived yesterday. Mr. Maris simply refuses to tell me where I can get one like it.”

  “Yesterday?” Con and Lorie both spoke at the same time, glaring at each other as Maris hobbled in Sarah’s direction.

  “No! No, I’m um, sorry dear but no. I’m just holding that for a friend, you see. I never sell what isn’t mine. Wouldn’t be legal. Pick something else. Anything else.”

  Sarah noticed the change in Leah first. Her brilliant smile faded and her hands rose, covered in flames. Sarah took several steps back, until she was pressed against the bookshelf.

  “Oh, Winnie? I don’t think you’re being entirely up front now, do you? You sell things that aren’t yours all the time. I happen to be wearing some of the proof.” She opened her arms, the flames following her movement, to reveal three necklaces and a pair of antique earrings. “I was about to leave and send the law in your direction, but how about I make you an offer? I’ll tell them to go easy on you if you give the lady the box.”

  Harrison joined the others in the crowded room. “We should also know who brought it to him yesterday. I knew this wasn’t the guy.” She paused for a moment. “By the way, Leah? Remind me not to tell your brother about your first bust. I don’t think his heart can take it.”

  “What’s going on here?” Maris was mad now. “I let you into my home and you steal from me? Threaten me? I know the law too, young lady. You aren’t allowed to use unnecessary force.”

  Leah’s hands snuffed out, the flames evaporating. “You’re right, Winnie. I apologize. Just tell us who left you the box and we’ll leave you alone. Probably.”

  “Yeah, Winston.” Lorie’s blue eyes burned as they stared down the nervous man. “Tell us who brought you the box.”

  At the sound of his name, Mr. Maris seemed to deflate before their eyes. “I need a drink. Can I at least get my drink?”

  He pointed to the closed, dusty bottle on his end table, and Lorie nodded.

  “Thank you. Why do you want to know about that box, anyway, Abbott?”

  Sarah, who’d been silent, watching the exchange, came forward. “Are you Hester’s descendant?”

  “Who?” His hand shook on the bottle. “Oh. Yeah, I guess so. I never was that interested in genealogy. Can’t sell a family name, now can you? And all they’ll ever cause you is grief. Who wants to know?”

  She felt the anger pulsing beneath her skin, her hands curling into fists at her side. “Sarah Blackwood wants to know.”

  Lorie tensed. “Sarah, wait—”

  The bottle slid out of his hands and rolled to her feet, still unopened. “Blackwood? That’s not possible.” He shook his head, looking around the room with wild panicked eyes. “It’s not possible.”

  “You look worried, Winston.” Con knelt beside her, picked up the bottle and handed it back to the trembling man. “Any reason why?”

  Sarah watched, unblinking as he twisted off the bottle’s top and tipped his head back. A sudden sinking feeling hit the pit of her stomach when he finished the bottle with one swallow. “Mr. Maris, what’s in that? What are you drinking?”

  He started to laugh, though it came out more like a choking, gargle. “You’re not possible, Blackwood. But you’re here, aren’t you? You are here.” His small, dark eyes, so much like Hester’s, met hers with resignation. “So I can’t be.”

  “What the hell?” Con reached for him just as Maris tilted over on the couch, white foam lining the seam of his lips. “What just happened?”

  Leah came to kneel beside him once he’d stopped seizing, searching for a pulse. “He’s alive. His pulse is normal. Weird. We’ll have to take that bottle in and find out what was in it.”

  Sarah noticed Lorie staring at her as his sister came to stand beside him. “Can you heal him, Sarah?”

  She held out her hands and shrugged, feeling helpless. “He isn’t sick or injured. It’s a potion. He must keep it out in case of emergencies.”

  Leah snorted. “How does that work? ‘Uh-oh, I’m in trouble, better take a nap’?”

  “In a way he got what he wanted, didn’t he? He won’t be answering any questions for a while. He’s not responsible.” Sarah glanced over her shoulder at the closed, black box. “At least we have the book. It is definitely in there. Maybe the answers are inside.”

  “I’ll take the book.” Harrison’s voice was steady as she took control. “Leah, you bring that bag of weenie and all his junk back to Tucker. Someone must know how to wake him up. Con and Lorie, you should take Sarah back to the Salem house and stay under the radar until we sort this out.”

  Con shuddered. “You don’t have to tell me twice. I think we all need a shower or five to shake this particular visit off our shoes.”

  Sarah couldn’t move. She wasn’t sure why. She couldn’t seem to tear her gaze away from Winston Maris. She was frozen. Trapped.

  “Sarah?” Lorie slid his arm around her back for support. “What do you need, sweetheart? What can I do?”

  Her mind was reeling. “Did you hear what he said? He recognized my name. He knew my name.”

  Lorie leaned his head against hers. “I know, my love. We’ll figure this out. I promise. We won’t stop until we know what the hell is going on. Whatever it takes.”

  Con stood and turned to face them, his expression resolute. “Whatever it takes.”

  Leah walked over to Harrison and shook her to get her attention. “Why do I get the feeling this has nothing to do with my little jewelry sting? Harrison? Who is she? What is going on?”

  “Ask your brother.”

  Chapter Eight

  She was sitting in the steaming bathtub, her hands cupped and filled with water as she watched Con attempting to fulfill his promise. She’d challenged him to cook breakfast from scratch. No magic. No clothes.

  So far he hadn’t set anything important on fire, but she was watching, just in case.

  Lorie’s voice startled her, causing the water to spill out of her hands. “Why do I get the feeling you’ve done that before?”

  Sarah felt her face flush, but sent him an innocent grin. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Lorie walked inside the bathroom and sat on the edge of the tub, his hand dipping in the soothing water to caress her thigh. They’d been here for six weeks, just the three of them, watching television and cuddling in Lorie’s special room. After the madness of the first few days following her release, it was a welcome change.

  She’d gotten to know her triad. Their habits and expressions. Their fantasies. And she’d gotten to know herself again through their eyes. She knew it would take time for her to truly heal herself. It wouldn’t be as easy as mending a physical wound—but she knew now there was hope.

  And still after all this time together and all they’d been through, they could not keep their hands off each other. It was more than a good sign. It was paradise.

  “Are you finished?”

  He nodded and she brought her knees up protectively, wrapping her arms around her legs while she studied his grim expression. They’d bound the secon
d book along with the first, to give them a chance to study it before it was destroyed, as it had to be when Harrison broke the spell. Lorie had brought it here, saying he had to be the one to read it. But only in a room Con shielded, as far away from Sarah as he could get and still be in the same house. It seemed she wasn’t the only one nervous about that book.

  They still weren’t sure what would happen when she and the rest of the Abbott family arrived this evening to end this curse once and for all. Harrison was confident that Sarah wouldn’t be affected.

  She wished she were as certain.

  Sarah splashed his arm playfully, trying to appear more relaxed than she was. “Tell me. Was it like the other book? Recipes and bad poems?”

  His sigh was telling. “Right now I wish it was, but no. It was Aaron Winston’s journal. It was…Sarah it was everything. A confession. A psychotic rant. A self-hating, tell-all Magian manifesto.”

  “Manifesto?”

  Lorie seemed to be in a state of disbelief. “They weren’t just friends, Sarah. Robert, Aaron and the others. They all had something in common. Envy. Of other Magian’s powers. Of privilege. Of their siblings. They formed their own society and made lists of the people they despised. Ways to get rid of them. To rule.” He shook his head. “They were delusional, but harmless at first. Until that night. He wasn’t even sure what it was about that particular night that had set them off, but no one walked away from that Triune without blood on his or her hands. And Winston, the only one of them skilled with spell craft, became their savior and the person they most feared. He used his abilities and their connections to make it all go away. Records. Memories. He even instigated the trials and deaths of innocent humans condemned as witches, as a distraction. An echo of what really happened, the scars left on our world from the act that couldn’t be entirely erased.”

  She was shaking in disbelief. “I can’t even comprehend that kind of madness. It’s—”

  “A nightmare I know,” Lorie’s voice was hoarse. She’d always known about the massacre, but for him, for everyone else, it had simply been erased. Whole families wiped from the town’s history. From the Magian archives. It was a massive undertaking for so small a group.

  “You were his price, Sarah. He wanted you to remember. Wanted you to be blamed and punished for the deaths. He’d concealed the second book to ensure he would always have access to you, and the other was given to the library, in the hopes that it would be buried forever.”

  “If you hadn’t had those dreams about me, it would have been,” she whispered. “What about Jackson? Did he mention Jackson Abbott?”

  Lorie reached down and lifted her out of the tub, uncaring of the water that soaked through his clothing as he pulled her into his arms. “Yes. Robert let something slip in a drunken rant and Jackson, knowing his brother, started looking into it. The journal didn’t go into detail, but we know that he got too close to the truth. I know they all came to believe you were the key to their undoing. Their witness. It was only Aaron Winston’s obsession with you that kept you alive.”

  She held him in silence, trying to take it all in. She’d suspected one of them was to blame for what happened, but she’d believed Aaron had let others in to do his killing for him. She’d had no idea that she’d merely been one piece of what was turning out to be a complicated puzzle.

  “What about the Winstons? Aaron and his brother?”

  Sarah lifting her head from Lorie’s neck to see Con in nothing but an apron, carrying small plate with one piece of burnt toast. She would laugh, but she could see by his expression that he’d heard most of what was said, and was no happier than she was.

  Lorie tilted his head. “I’m not sure, and that worries me. He mentioned being immortalized. Talked about continuing the work started at that Triune. But trying to decipher his plans from his insane ramblings? I’ll need Tucker’s help for that.”

  “Don’t worry about it right now.” Sarah stood and took Lorie’s hand, shooing Con back as they left the bathroom. “We need to get you out of those wet clothes before your family arrives.”

  “They won’t be here for hours.”

  “Which is why we have to hurry.”

  She walked him to the edge of the bed and reached up to undo the top button of his shirt. He was distracted, and with good reason, but she couldn’t stand to see him like this. Lorie had been her angel. Her hero. He had saved her from a twisted man’s curse, stood by her despite her own doubts and fears. Despite her grand schemes for vengeance.

  How could she do any less for him?

  She slid the now-open shirt off his shoulders and dropped it on the floor. “Now for the pants.”

  “I take it this means no one’s going to eat my toast.” Con set the offensive black square on the table, wiping his hands on his cooking apron. “And after I slaved for hours.”

  “She knows,” Lorie muttered. He watched her in silence as she unbuckled his pants and knelt to remove them. “Are you trying to distract me, sweet Sarah?”

  “Maybe a little.” She looked up at him, allowing everything she felt to show through her eyes. “I’m also loving you.” She reached behind her to tug on Con’s apron to pull him closer. “Both of you. With all of my heart. Forever.”

  When she’d moved Con to stand beside Lorie she made an attempt to be stern. “My turn to be obeyed. Sit.”

  They sat on the edge of the bed. Exactly where she wanted them. “Now let me.”

  Lorie slid his hand in her hair, an expression of wonder on his face as he watched her. The worries he’d been carrying, for the moment, brushed aside. “Let you what, honey?”

  She untied the knot in Con’s apron and tugged it off his lap. “Let me love you.”

  Sarah licked her lips, lowering her mouth onto Lorie’s hardening length while wrapping her fingers around Con’s erection. Hers. They were both hers. She could feel their magic reaching out for hers, and she welcomed the union. The sparks that were always just under the surface, waiting to emerge.

  “I’m wearing that apron from now on,” Con groaned, lifting his hips to meet her stroking fist. “Especially if it gets this kind of reaction.”

  Sarah laughed, the sound vibrating against Lorie’s shaft and he groaned. “No more jokes. I want this to last.” His hands tightened on her hair when she swirled her tongue along his skin in the way he loved. “So good, Sarah. That feels so good.”

  She lifted her head and wrapped the fingers of her other hand around Lorie, then slid over on her knees until her mouth could reach Con.

  He hissed. “I love it when it’s my turn.”

  Sarah smiled and continued to shift between them, until both men were moaning and glistening with heat and magic. Until she had to rub her thighs together, desperate for her own release.

  The men reached down together and lifted her up onto the bed, tossing her on her back with matching smiles. “Your turn is over,” Lorie’s voice was rough with need.

  Con turned her on her side and lifted her leg over his hip. “Our turn.”

  Sarah cried out at Con’s first thrust. Her body knew what to expect. Craved it—craved them—desperately. And yet each time had the same intensity as the first. She was wild for them. Shameless.

  She was shaking by the time Lorie had moved in position behind her, knowing how much he loved it. How he loved to tell her how tight she was. How hard it was for him to hold back.

  For a time the only sounds she heard were her lovers moans and their bodies rustling restlessly against the sheet. Then she could sense it—the sparks inside her igniting, everything she was transforming and soaring toward stars and beyond.

  Nothing could destroy what they were building together. Nothing.

  “You’re crying, baby.” Con pulled her up between them until she was spooned between them, her head on her favorite pillow. “What is it?”

  “I’m happy, that’s all.” She shrugged helplessly. “In spite of everything that’s happened, I’m happy and I don’t want it to end.�
�

  Lorie lifted his head and forced her to meet his gaze. “It never will.”

  But even as she shivered with pleasure from the power of her release, she knew that nothing was certain. Not yet.

  ***

  “That’s it? Is it over?”

  Harrison frowned at her. “What do you mean, that’s it? Do you know how long it took me to put all the components together, Sarah Blackwood? What Jenner had to morph into to gather everything we needed?”

  “Harry, relax.” Callie’s smile was kind when she left her husband’s side to put her arms around Sarah. “She didn’t mean it as an insult. I think she’s just as relieved as we are that she’s still here, right?” Sarah nodded and Callie gave her one more hug. “Right. Welcome to this wonderful family. Officially.”

  She slid something into Sarah’s hand. Thalia’s brooch. “You found it?”

  “I found it.” Callie was subdued. Sad. “I found more than I bargained for, but we can talk about that another time. For now, this belongs to you.”

  Sarah tightened her fingers around it, remembering how important it had been to her for all those years. Her proof. A proof she didn’t need anymore. But she would always keep it close. It had belonged to her best friend. Whether Thalia had ever remembered her or not.

  Harrison’s cheeks grew pink and she and blew out a frustrated breath. “We should get used to me apologizing to you right now, early in our relationship. We are sisters, after all.” Her smile reminded Sarah of Lorie’s. Breathtaking. “Welcome home.”

  Tucker nodded in her direction, but the sparkle in his eyes was somewhat dimmed. She knew why. Lorie had shared what he’d learned with his brother. Had told him of his worries about the Winstons and the unknown man who’d given the book to the still-comatose Mr. Maris. That mystery was his to bear now. She’d done enough.

  “Welcome home, sister.” Tucker’s low voice was solemn and sincere.

  She knew she should respond. That she should say thank you. She was still here. Still alive and with her triad. Lorie and Con. She tried to breathe but it came out sounding like a sob.