Light Up The Night_a Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy Romance

by Jacqueline Sweet

  Of course it was from his room.

  The door had been ripped off its hinges and it provided an excellent protection from the ooze.

  Gray peered around the corner into the dorm room.

  An enormously self satisfied fat black cat sat on top of Tamsin, squashing her into the floor. The cat wore a six-pointed crown of stars and had three tails.

  Tamsin’s fingers twitched. She was still alive, if barely. Gray fought the urge to rush in blindly. The cat and Tamsin were within a series of magic circles that pulsed dimly with demonic energies. The circles had been drawn on carpet at first, but now the runes hung in the air a foot above the floor. The outer circle flickered though. It had been damaged. The protection wasn’t complete.

  The cat demon was grinning from ear to ear, displaying foul teeth. Columns of tentacles emerged from the demon’s back and were crushing Cash and Rye under their assault.

  “This won’t do at all,” Gray said as walked into the room.

  The demon’s head turned slowly to face him. Its grin grew only wider revealing rows and rows of dirty razored teeth.

  “I’ll have to ask you to leave my only three remaining friends alone.” Gray leaned against the wall nonchalantly and examined his cuticles theatrically. “So sorry to be a burden, you vile and repugnant thing. But I fear I might be a touch lonely without them around. They brighten up the place, you see. So do be a good blistering pustule of demonic filth and leave here at once. This is your only warning.”

  Two tentacles reached out for Gray from the floor, but they couldn’t penetrate his shield. Though if more came he knew he wouldn’t so lucky.

  The demon then tried his mind, slipping in past his defenses to rummage through his memories. It searched aggressively for some shameful memory to seize upon to shock Gray. It showed him Esmé’s letter, his parents living in poverty, and Gray being caught cheating at cards in the Highborn lounge. But none of it bothered him. Gray regretted none of it. He was immune to shame.

  He pushed the demon from his mind.

  “You’ve done quite some damage to this room. You’ve broken Cash’s prized bottles of bottom shelf liquor. You’ve destroyed Rye’s dear paintings of his miserable little village back home. And you’ve destroyed the tapestry that was my one and only keepsake from the Winter Palace.” Gray took his wand and drew a path across his palm, cutting the skin and making blood well up. “I loved that tapestry. I’m afraid I must rescind my offer of leniency. Good bye.”

  On the wall beside him was the language-scrambling rune he’d used to prank the dorm on move-in day. It was dormant now. He’d never felt like removing it. It had taken him all summer to craft and he was ridiculously proud of the design. Truly, it was a masterpiece. And all it required to spring to life again was its creator’s blood.

  His blood.

  Gray slapped his bleeding palm against the rune and the symbol sprang to life.

  Every written word or symbol in the entirety of the dorm squirmed and changed.

  The magic circle that Tamsin had crafted writhed. That little crack in the outer bit was all the opening Gray’s attack needed to slip in and scramble all of the magic words.

  And with the words changed, the spell was broken. The circles popped like fireworks.

  The demon screamed and vanished, taking his goo and tentacles and horrid stench with him.

  One second Sixth Bentham was a nightmare, and the next it was merely a mess.

  All that was left was a destroyed room, with Tamsin in the middle of it.

  And she was dying.

  26

  Interlude: Body & Mind

  As soon as the demon vanished, the men rushed to Tamsin.

  Cash was the first to reach her. “She’s breathing, but just barely.” He had already healed from the demon’s attack. It was a shame Tamsin didn’t have his shifter gifts.

  Rye’s iron skin melted away as he crawled to her. He activated another of his runes and his eyes flared with a pink light as he examined Tamsin. “She is injured on every conceivable level. Her body and mind and soul have all been greatly harmed.”

  Gray was weak from the stairs, the shield spell, and activating his rune. An ashen pallor colored his skin. “I’ll save her mind,” he said with a weak grin. “I’ve always had a knack for mind magic.” He dropped to his knees and cradled her head in his lap.

  “These spirits owe me, and now it’s time to collect,” Cash growled. “I’ll have her body healed in no time.”

  “And her soul,” Rye said. “I will do what I can. That demon—I saw it consume part of her essence. I have to warn you my friend, she may not be able to be saved. The damage may be too severe.”

  “Shut that noise down,” Cash growled.

  Rye smiled. “I would try to save her if the sun itself was exploding around us, dear friend. Please forgive my words. I did not mean to suggest we try any less hard.”

  The three of them settled in to their roles. They needed to save her. Each in their own way needed her and loved her.

  In a voice that started as a raspy growl and then soared, Cash cried out to the spirits of Penrose. His call deepened and became a song sung in a forgotten language. For miles in every direction, his voice touched every heart. He called the spirits and named them and commanded that they come. A demon had done great harm to a human and the wrong needed to be righted.

  Cash’s song was beautiful and unfathomable to human ears. Nevertheless, Gray found himself weeping.

  The spirits answered. They crawled in the window and squeezed out of cracks in the walls. They flew in on dragonflies that they rode like horses. Brownies and Bogarts, Redcaps and Nerblins. All of the fae creatures that called Earth their home. They filled the room to bursting. The spirits came and worked their arts on Tamsin, setting her bones and stitching her skin. And all the while, Cash sang to them in a voice that reached for the heavens and beyond.

  “He almost sounds like Marvin Gaye,” Rye said.

  “Who?” Gray replied.

  Rye shook his head. “After this is all over, I will play him for you and you will have another good cry I think.”

  “Shush you big tattooed marshmallow, don’t distract me. I have to concentrate for this.” Gray placed his fingertips lightly on Tamsin’s temples and bent at the waist, until his lips were nearly touching hers. He breathed in through his nose and then out of his mouth and into hers.

  On his breath, his consciousness flowed.

  From his mouth to hers, from his mind to hers.

  Gray left his body and entered Tamsin’s.

  The experience was like leaping off of a tall building into a deep dark hole.

  He plummeted, deeper and deeper, into her unconsciousness mind.

  There was nothing but blackness.

  When he’d done this to William, he’d landed in the boy’s mind in an instant. But Tamsin’s mind was not at home.

  “If you’re already dead, love, this was a terrible idea. I’ll just fall forever here until my heart gives out.” Gray’s voice was swallowed up by the blackness. No wind ruffled his clothes. No debris rushed past him. He’d slipped into unconscious minds before but it had never been like this. She was just gone. Had the demon taken so much of her?

  “It’s such a pity,” Gray announced as he fell. “I was really looking forward to attending the Lughnasa dance with you. It’s quite a spectacle. I attended with Esmé last year, but she was never one for dancing. I adore dancing. How did I ever think it would work between us? Do you like to dance, ‘Sin? The dress I picked out for you—it has such great motion on a dancing body. If you don’t like to dance, that’s fine. I can always dance with Cash. He’s quite the singer, you know? With Esmé, whenever I danced with other people she would be overcome with a jealous rage. I suppose she only wanted me to hang on her arm and be charming, like an especially roguish purse.”

  Had something flashed in the darkness? A flicker of consciousness. Perhaps if he kept talking …

  “At the d
ance they have these masks that are just marvels of enchantment. They were made centuries ago but are constantly updated. They’re like masquerade masks, I suppose, only these conceal your identity if you wish it. It’s literally impossible to recognize someone who is wearing one. In the very old days, they were used as part of a fertility ritual they say. Wizarding families historically have very low birth rates so people did what they must I guess. They used to get a whole crowd of wizards sauced up, put the masks on, and watched an orgy unfold. It’s a bit less saucy these days, I assure you.”

  Yes, another flash in the darkness. Neurons firing? A mind waking up? Or the last signs of Tamsin’s life flickering away?

  Gray could pull himself out. She wasn’t dead yet. But if she died while he was in her mind, he would die too.

  He pressed on.

  “The best part is that the masks are enchanted with dances. So that no one has to be ashamed of not knowing them! It’s such a marvelously fun idea. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a whole room of stuffy elderly mages do that watch me whip, watch me nay-nay dance.” He bit his lip. Was he getting through to her? Perhaps instead of funny he should try for truthful. This was no time for holding back. Tamsin’s life was at stake. “And if I am being perfectly honest for the first time in my life, at the dance I was also planning on kissing you rather a lot.”

  A brighter flash exploded in the darkness blinding Gray for a moment.

  Gray wasn’t falling anymore.

  He was in a brightly lit hospital room.

  Was this one of Tamsin’s memories?

  Tamsin was there, looking younger and furious. Her hair was tied in two long black braids that rested on her shoulders. A large boy who could only have been her twin brother stood behind her. His face was still as stone.

  In the hospital bed, Tamsin’s father was explaining to his children that he had a seizure while driving and wrecked the car.

  Gray shifted uncomfortably. They couldn’t see him.

  Tamsin’s father explained that the doctors told him he has a rare genetic illness, where his body is devouring itself. The man glowed with love for his children. Tamsin’s mother was in the hallway screaming at a crowd of doctors. She looked like walking fire.

  Young Tamsin asked, “How long?”

  Gray was standing in a memory. A cherished memory.

  “The important thing is that you know I’ll always love you, Potato.” Her father had the saddest smile.

  “I always hated when he called me that,” a voice behind Gray said.

  He spun around and Tamsin was there. His Tamsin. She was sitting in a chair but not touching it. She floated above it with her legs crossed. She was on fire. But this fire was different. It was blue, for one thing, but it didn’t burn. The flames danced across her skin, leapt and twisted and returned to her.

  “You need to wake up, love.”

  Her eyes were pools of blue. The flames tumbled out of them. Her voice was cold and clinical.

  “Is that what I am to you? Do you love me?” She cocked her head. Her mind was here, but where was her heart?

  “Cash and Rye and I stopped the demon. It’s safe now. You can leave this space.”

  “This memory used to be the worst day of my life. I used to dwell on it, forcing myself to experience it over and over again, to prepare myself for the day my father left us for real.”

  “Your family is beautiful,” Gray tried.

  “Now it’s the second worst day of my life.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to see them again? My grandfather and I got along like a house on fire. Half of what I know I learned from him. I’d give anything to see him again.”

  Tamsin watched her father with an expressionless gaze. “Don’t you get it, Gray? I gave everything to save him. There’s nothing left of me and soon there will be nothing left of him. We’ll both be in oblivion together.”

  She was stuck in the memory. It was a prison of her own making.

  How long had she been so depressed? Why hadn’t she told anyone how she felt? It was a ridiculous question—who had he ever told his feelings to?

  Tamsin. He’d told them to Tamsin.

  “Did I ever tell you my name?”

  “Your name is Gray Aisles.” She regarded him with her unblinking eyes of blue fire.

  Gray grinned at her. “Magicians guard their true names. To know someone else’s true name is to have power over them. Cash’s name isn’t Cash. Rye’s name isn’t Rye. These are nommes de guerre. You’ll choose one, soon.”

  “I won’t have any more soons, Gray. This is my end of the line.”

  “My father named me. Did you know that? He named me after the day he met my mother. My true name is Gray-were-the-skies-when-I-first-looked-into-her-eyes-and-knew-with-the-surest-of-certainties-that-I-wanted-to-spend-the-rest-of-all-days-with-her-upon-these-blessed-aisles.” His heart pounded in his chest. He couldn’t find his breath. He’d never told another soul his name. He’d always made excuses or lied.

  Until now.

  “Gray?” Tamsin said.

  He looked up. Her eyes were pale green and shining with hope. She was stretching her hand out to him.

  “Take me home.”

  27

  Aftermath

  Tamsin awoke and found herself nearly naked surrounded by the boys next door.

  Every inch of her hurt.

  Rye leaned over her painting an intricate magic circle around her navel. It tickled.

  “This is getting to be a habit with you,” Tamsin said.

  “You are too reckless, too eager to throw your life away.” Rye’s voice was gentle but there was real concern under it. He didn’t look so good, either.

  Her shirt had been torn to shreds and her pants had been tugged off, leaving her only in her bra and underwear. The bones in her chest ached and felt like they had been hit by several cars, each larger than the one before it. Her skin prickled with pins and needles all over. But she felt calm. Incredibly tired, but calm.

  Rye, she saw, had been busy. Intricate tattoos of silver ink no thicker than a spider’s web covered her chest and arms and upper legs, they were faint but Tamsin could feel them. They were holding her together with their loops and whorls and runes.

  “What are all these?” Tamsin asked. “They look way more advanced than your tattoos, Rye.”

  The mood in the room was gravely serious.

  “It seems our boy here has hidden depths,” Cash growled. He sprawled on the floor with his thigh under her feet and he looked even more exhausted than she felt, if that was possible. Also he was completely naked. Tamsin couldn’t quite see his business, but she also couldn’t move her neck.

  Rye, too, seemed to have lost most of his clothes. But he had put on a pair of boxer briefs for modesty. The big man leaned over her and frowned with concentration as he continued painting his spells on her skin. “The sigils on my body—they were the work of a child. They were an apprenticeship. They are not my true art.”

  Only Gray of them all, was fully dressed. And uncharacteristically quiet. Her head rested in his lap. His silks were cool and comforting on her burning skin.

  He looked shaken.

  “Y’know boys, I’d been hoping one of you would get me naked,” Tamsin quipped, “but I hadn’t expected all three at once.” She meant it to sound funny, to lighten the atmosphere a bit. It had the opposite effect.

  Gray spoke carefully, barely holding back his anger. “Why did you do that, love? Summoning a demon? I’d ask if you knew how dangerous that was, but clearly you didn’t. You didn’t just put yourself at risk, which is truthfully bad enough, but the whole world.“

  Tamsin tried to shake her head, but she couldn’t move . She could speak and breathe and blink, but that was it. She was paralyzed. It was Rye’s ink work—it was caging her. “I didn’t know it was a demon. I swear I didn’t. If I had known, I never would have gone through with it. And I tried to stop it as soon as I realized.” She needed to explain to them. She needed
to make them see. They all were so angry. So furious. What if they hated her now? What if they decided to turn her in to the administration? “See, Janet from my seminar told me she could help me pass the secret midterm. She said she knew a spirit who could, like, jump start my magic. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. Oh crap, did I hurt anyone?”

  “Of all the damn fool things,” Cash growled. “How can we keep you safe if you don’t tell us what’s going on with you?”

  “What secret midterm?” Gray asked.

  “If everyone could please be quiet,” Rye said. “Its is actually much more difficult to knit a soul back together than it looks.”

  A fury rose within Tamsin. She wanted to jump up and slap Cash’s pretty face. “How dare you, Cash? You’re going to keep me safe? You’re not my boyfriend, you’re barely even my friend. You’re just the hot guy next door who runs away whenever I try and talk to you and bangs glamoured-up blondes every night of the week.” That strange blue fire that the King of Shadow had put inside her, it wanted to get out. But it wasn’t like the door, no. The blue fire was in her veins. All it needed was a little permission to reshape the world.

  Cash snarled. “It’s too hard being near you, kid. It’s painful, is what it is. My wolf goes crazy whenever I smell you and since you live next door, I catch your scent all the time.”

  “Your wolf? Is that what you call your penis?” Tamsin scoffed.

  “I’m a shifter, darlin’. A werewolf. You must have known?”

  Tamsin tried to shake her head. Not being able to move was incredibly irritating. “I thought you had a curse or something. I didn’t know what it was.”

  His skin was so hot under her feet. “It’s why I bring girls home. Their scents help me forget yours, at least for a little while. I can’t be around you, Tamsin. Even sitting here, touching you is torture, because my wolf makes it unbearable.”

  “Because it hates me?” Tamsin said.

  Cash couldn’t look at her. “Because it thinks you’re our mate. My mate.”

  Tamsin wanted to run or scream or sing or do anything to avoid having to think about this. It was too much. She’d heard about shifters and their mates from Suresh. One of his roommates was a tiger shifter who was using Tinder to find his true mate. One true mate, they said, fated and destined. Shifters have an overwhelming need to find them in order to be complete.