by Eva Chase
It’d been a long time since Hallowell manor had seen this much activity. My mother’s entire extended family—consorts and cousins and all—had flown in to join our homecoming celebration. Lesley and Imogen had come by, and my consorts had invited their parents. Everyone was grabbing food off the platters on the dining table and sipping wine and gabbing away in what sounded like upbeat tones. Our return to the estate appeared to be getting off on the right foot.
We hadn’t been gone that long, but it felt like a larger homecoming than it was in literal terms. This was the first time my guys had been able to acknowledge that my house was going to be their home too. I might have to hide my magic, but my consorts and I weren’t going to hide our relationship anymore.
Meredith came up beside me, holding a tray with a couple of the cleared platters. I’d tracked down the estate’s former manager, the woman who’d been the closest thing I had to a mother most of my life, as soon as we’d gotten back, and asked her if she’d consider letting me rehire her. My stepmother had booted her out coldly and abruptly a couple months ago, before the estate was mine, before I’d been sure I’d get to keep it once it was.
To my relief, Meredith had agreed without hesitation.
“It’s a fine family you’re building for yourself,” she said now, a quiet smile playing with her lips. “You’re doing me proud. And I can’t fault your taste in young men.”
I laughed. “Only maybe my inability to choose between them?”
“Ah, why should you choose if they all enjoy being by your side?” She winked at me and ambled on to the kitchen, where she’d been helping the staff.
I wasn’t sure everyone shared that sentiment. Aunt Irene still looked a little awkward as she glanced from Gabriel chatting with Naomi to Jin making Seth and Kyler’s mother, Mrs. Lennox, exclaim over his latest painting, which was hung in the living room.
Weirdly, even though it was Mrs. Lennox who’d gotten the most agitated by the Frankfords’ spell that had stirred up paranoia in all of the guys’ parents about their association with me, she seemed to be taking our joint relationship a lot more in stride than Mr. Lennox was. He’d been standing in the corner nursing a beer for most of the hour since they’d arrived, brushing off my attempts to make small talk. He didn’t seem angry or anything, just uncertain.
“He’ll come around,” Seth said, tucking his head beside mine from behind. I guessed he’d seen where my gaze had traveled to. “It’s not a standard relationship in the regular world either. It’ll just take some time for him to get used to the idea.”
“Do you think Damon’s mom will too?” I couldn’t help asking. She’d begged off attending the party altogether at the last minute, and Damon’s expression when he’d told me had made it clear he suspected she was just making excuses, even if he hadn’t admitted that.
“I guess we’ll see. Damon’s happy. We’re all happy. That should count for more than anything else.”
“Yeah.” I rested my hand over Seth’s where it had settled on my waist. “I guess we’re always going to get some weird reactions, even if we’re not overt about what’s going on between us. One woman going around with five guys…”
Seth shrugged. “Let them be weird. What they think has nothing to do with who we are or what we stand for.” He pecked me on the cheek. “You know you’re not supposed to be worrying on our behalf. We get to decide how much awkwardness we can handle.”
He was right. I wasn’t concerned so much about how anyone saw me but about how the guys’ friends and neighbors would react as well as their families. But that really was their decision to make. I let out my breath and went to ask Jin’s mother about her latest additions to her beloved garden.
Damon wandered by us with a wary but respectful bob of his head to Mrs. Lyang and a smile for me. When he stopped by the table, his fingers worried at the bandage on his left forearm while he considered what he’d eat next.
I sidled over to him after I’d finished catching up with Jin’s mom. “Is your arm bothering you?”
“What? No. It’s fine. You know, the same.”
I didn’t totally trust Damon to tell me that he was in excruciating pain if he thought avoiding mentioning it would save me a little distress. I raised my eyebrows at him, and he fixed me with a determined stare.
“Really,” he said. “I promise, I’d tell you if something was up. I don’t want this thing messing me up any more than you do.”
The demon had managed to get one of its claws into his arm before I’d tossed it over the Cliff. The Assembly’s medics had sealed the wound easily, but a silvery gray mark like a splintered bullseye remained that their efforts hadn’t been able to remove. Damon had decided he’d rather cover it up than show it off at this gathering. And to remind himself not to scratch at it, he’d said.
It hadn’t shown any signs of being anything other than a strange scar, even ten days later. Seth’s wounds from the demon’s earlier attack had faded away faster, but it hadn’t physically touched him. Maybe, just maybe, I should accept that the mark might not hurt Damon any more than my diminished spark still hurt me.
“Okay,” I said, and bobbed up on my toes to kiss him. He made a pleased sound that spoke of all the things he’d have liked to do if we hadn’t been surrounded by company.
Later that night, after the guys’ parents had headed back into town and my guests had retired to their rooms, I climbed into bed with my five consorts, fitting snuggly between them all.
“First order of business now that we’re getting settled back in,” I said, resting my head on Ky’s shoulder. “Bigger bed for the master bedroom. We should all have room to stretch out.”
“I don’t know,” Damon said, hugging me to him. “I’m just fine like this.”
I stuck my tongue out at him, and he grinned. “I’m not saying I want more space right now,” I said. “I’d just like to give you all the option. Maybe a couple of day beds in case someone wants one to themselves some nights?”
“Bed shopping added to tomorrow’s agenda,” Gabriel said teasingly.
“What else is on the agenda?” Jin asked in an unusually thoughtful tone. “What does the lady of Hallowell manor do when she’s not unraveling conspiracies and fending off unexpected enemies?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I mean, I’ll find some ways to occupy myself. I was going to put together that modern witching history… Maybe I can help the Assembly’s investigations into the history of nontraditional consortings. And I was thinking…”
“What?” Seth prompted gently when I hesitated. He rubbed my foot where he was sprawled at the end of the bed.
“Maybe I’m not the best person to do this. I mean, I don’t have any formal training in social services or whatever. But I thought it might be useful if I could spearhead some sort of program to help witches who are having trouble finding a suitable partner in the witching community. Come up with strategies to allow them to connect with unsparked men who might be a good fit.”
“I think your experience has been more than good enough training for that,” Gabriel said. “And I think you can find a way to accomplish just about anything you want to, Sprout.”
I snuggled deeper into my consorts’ combined embrace. It had always felt amazing, being with these guys, but now, without any threats hanging over us, even my fractured spark danced with a brilliant warmth. We’d fought, and we’d won. The long life together I’d dreamed about could really be ours, from this night onward.
“Is there a relationship agenda too?” Ky asked, rumpling my hair. “Do you want us all moving onto the estate permanently?”
“Of course,” I said. “I mean, if you want to. I’m not going to be offended if you’d rather spend some of your time in town or wherever. I just… I’d love to have you here as much as you want to be here. I know you have the rest of your lives too.”
Ky chuckled. “I have a few clients who are going to be overjoyed that I can remind them to reboot their computers again. I
don’t think that requires I keep my apartment, though. It’s not exactly far from here to town.”
“I have no desire to spend any more time in that shitty basement my idiot landlord passed off as an apartment,” Damon muttered. “Especially not when I could be here with you instead.”
“You know I’m already moved in,” Gabriel said.
“And me,” Jin said. “I’ll probably be doing some traveling to gather new pieces for display once the gallery is rebuilt, but there’s nowhere I’d rather come back to than this house.”
“Maybe you’re going to need me to build an addition to go with that bigger bed,” Seth joked. I poked him with my toes. He caught them, running his thumb over the arch of my foot. Then his hand went still. “I guess there are other things we’ll need to talk about at some point. Like… kids?”
“Kids?” I repeated, with a shiver of emotion that was nervous and joyful all at once. I hadn’t let myself think about anything that far in the future when we still hadn’t been sure we’d get to have any future at all.
“Your Assembly has to approve, right?” Gabriel said. “Now that they’ve made us official and everything… Not that I’m saying I think we should get started on that step just yet.”
“But sometime,” I said, the shiver turning into a full-out flutter in my chest.
“Sometime,” he agreed.
“Just saying this now,” Damon said, with a kiss to the side of my neck. “We all know Rose and I will make the cutest kid. So clearly I should go first.”
A laugh sputtered out of me. “You figure we’re going to have a rotation, then? Not just leave it to chance?”
“Hey, if you want the best…”
“Hold on a second,” Ky said. “I don’t think we do all ‘know’ that. Should we bring an objective third party in to evaluate our respective cuteness factor?”
Jin snickered. “Knowing you, you’ve probably already got an expert in mind.”
At that remark, we all cracked up. I lay back, soaking in the warmth and love of the five men who’d joined their lives to mine.
What we had here, what we’d made together, it was right. It was good. And I couldn’t imagine ever feeling lost or lonely again, not while I had my consorts by my side.
* * *
Thank you so much for sticking with me through Rose and her guys’ difficult journey! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. :) The main storyline of the Witch’s Consorts is now complete, but you might be interested to know that I’m planning a novella from Damon’s point of view that’ll come out next year. To be notified as soon as it’s available and get news about my other books plus three free stories, sign up for my author newsletter here!
If you’re so inclined, I’ll always appreciate reviews on this book or any of the earlier ones in the series!
Magic Waking excerpt
Did you know I also have a romantic urban fantasy series about a female incarnation of the wizard Merlin, who fights to protect the reincarnated King Arthur from a fae threat—while also trying not to fall in love with him all over again?
Sarcastic wizardry, cruel fae, Arthurian legend, and a star-crossed love fifteen hundred years in the making await in Magic Waking…
MAGIC WAKING
1
The day I found my king started with a stomachache.
I stretched on my bed amid the tangle of blanket and sheet, still waking up. The warmth of the sunlight streaming through the narrow window soaked into my skin, but the knot in my stomach didn’t loosen. I knew what it meant. My heart thumped.
Today, after twenty years, four months, and six days of searching and waiting—not that I’d been counting or anything—I was going to set eyes on him again.
I rolled over and caught sight of a creature I was much less enthusiastic about.
A gloom was lurking under my computer desk. No one else would have been able to distinguish that patch of thicker darkness within the regular shadow, but my magic-touched sight could make out even those mindless scraps of dark intent. I grimaced.
The gloom crept along the wall. When I breathed in deep, its presence prickled at the back of my mouth. Just one couldn’t do much damage—and wouldn’t bother trying to damage any ordinary human being—but set a whole crowd on the attack and no one would laugh. I’d witnessed swarms like that more times than I cared to remember.
They were the vermin of the dark fae, so I dealt with them the way I’d deal with a cockroach or a rat—extermination.
I sat up in the bed and snapped a twig off the weeping fig in its pot beside the window. A whisper of the living energy nestled inside the wood tingled against my fingers. It would fade by the end of the day, but in the meantime, it held power.
I raised my hand and pointed it at the gloom. My fingers clenched around the twig. “Darkness begone,” I murmured in the archaic English of my first existence.
A spark lit within the patch of shadow and spread across its body. In less than a second, it ate away my unwelcome visitor.
The twig had gone dry and dead against my palm. I tossed it into the base of the pot. Technically, I didn’t have to be up for another hour, but there was no way I could relax now.
I paced the room and grabbed a pair of jeans and a sweater from a basket of folded laundry. My hair resisted the ponytail I finger-combed it into. Several brown strands slipped free to drift across my face as I ducked to retrieve my sneakers from under the bed.
So what? I was going to see my king today.
No, I wasn’t as ready as I wanted to be. I still hadn’t figured out how to fix this mess I’d gotten us into—this repeated cycle of lives lived and cut short. I wasn’t even sure I could avoid my past mistakes, escape what had happened last time—
My throat constricted. Catching that thought before it could blossom, I balled it up and tossed it away. I’d never been completely ready. But we were both still living. At least I’d accomplished that much.
I knelt to pluck several more twigs off the fig’s outer branches, stuffed the handfuls into my pockets, and opened my closet.
My wands waited in a shoebox I’d stuffed under winter boots and a spare blanket. I ran my fingers over the smooth sticks. The magic I’d worked on them had sealed their life inside—if I’d left them out in the sun, they’d have started sprouting leaves. I tucked the birch one into my backpack.
To find a pair of gloves, I had to dig through my remaining moving boxes. But it wasn’t just glooms and other dark rabble my king would need protection from.
It was also me.
I jammed a thin cotton pair into my back pocket and stepped out of my bedroom, my pulse still jittering.
Priya, my roommate, stood in the kitchen. She was spreading jam on a piece of toast. Her head of sleep-rumpled black hair bobbed up at the sound of my door, and a smile leapt to her face.
“Good morning, Emmaline!” She waved the knife at me with her usual frenetic grace. “Want eggs? I was just thinking I’d fry some up to go with my toast.”
No one else called me “Emmaline” except my mom—I always told acquaintances and teachers to stick to “Emma.” But Priya had seen my given name when we’d been filling out the lease and declared it one of the most beautiful names she’d ever heard. Somehow I hadn’t had the heart to tell her I found it incredibly stuffy. In her cheery voice, it did sound kind of pretty.
I was already smiling back at her despite the twist of impatience inside me. Priya’s boundless enthusiasm made it difficult to be irritated at her, which was probably why we were tentatively becoming friends. I hadn’t been in the habit of making many of those—in this life or those prior.
“Thanks, but I think I’ll stick to toast,” I said. “Leave the jam out?” Food derived from animals didn’t always sit well in my stomach. No need to add to my supernatural indigestion.
Priya chattered about an article she’d read for her politics course and her theories about the latest episode of a TV show we’d been watching
while I gulped down my quick breakfast. Normally, I’d have contributed more. As I swallowed my last bite, Priya tilted her head.
“Something’s bothering you,” she said. “What’s up?”
I might not have been perfect at hiding my emotions, but I had centuries of practice at lying. After all, there weren’t many situations in which I could be truthful about being the reincarnation of a legendary sorcerer. People tended to get twitchy about even one part of that equation.
Downplaying worked better than flat-out denial. “It’s nothing major,” I said with a shrug. “Lab report due for a prof who seems like a tough one.”
Priya nodded, accepting my explanation unquestioningly. No amount of practice stopped the little jab of guilt I felt at seeing that.
“I’m sure you’ve got it in the bag. You work too hard.”
“New school, new expectations,” I said. “I’ll worry less once I’m into the swing of things.”
I tugged on my gloves as soon as I stepped out onto the street. Thank the light the October weather was just nippy enough that wearing them didn’t look totally bizarre. My gaze flitted over the streets the whole way to campus, my skin prickling at every shift in the breeze. I couldn’t be sure of anything about him except he’d be the same age as me. He might not even be a he in this incarnation. Unlike me, with my regular flipping back and forth, he usually arrived male, but I could never be sure.
When my eyes hit him, I’d know him, no matter what.
At the edge of campus, a broad lawn stretched toward the sprawl of three- and four-story buildings, the older old-fashioned brick ones skirted by modern concrete additions. The view sent a jolt through my chest, even though I’d seen it dozens of times now.
It was the same image that had swam into my head and prompted me to transfer here for junior year—after skimming through page after page of internet search results before figuring out where my capricious psychic ability was pointing me.
