by Lana Ames
I shivered, with fear and fury in equal measures. “What a bitch!”
Max looked even sadder. “I understand how you feel, and I do not blame you. But it was not of her doing. Everything she does now is out of desperation. She aims to free us all.”
“Your magic will free us all…” “Wait a minute,” I said. “Justin said something, that first night. He said my magic will free you all—he made me repeat it back to him, before he made love to me. It seemed very important…like a spell that had to be spoken, or something.”
The gleam in Max’s blue eyes brightened. “And you did? You did say it, those words?”
“I did. I didn’t understand it, but, yes, I said it.”
“Ahh.” Max turned and paced around the room, suddenly energized. “That’s interesting, that’s very interesting.”
“What does it mean?” I was still pissed and terrified, but now also intrigued despite myself.
He turned back to face me. “You asked earlier whether people have magic inborn or whether they acquire it. I could not answer, with respect to our lady; but you clearly have magic inborn. It can be amplified, but the core that’s already there is powerful, quite strong. Even I can detect it, and I have no intrinsic magic of my own. All my magic comes from—” But he cut himself off there, turning and pacing once more. “Finley has a small amount of intrinsic magic, coming mostly from his musical talent. Justin’s is all bestowed, and Aiden’s…” He gave me a smile. “I believe I will let you discover Aiden’s for yourself.”
“Where does your magic come from?”
Max looked uncomfortable. “It is part of the binding.”
“What binding? Our cohort isn’t built yet.” And then I had a terrible thought. “Wait—you four men. Have you…been a cohort before? Are you one already?”
He bit his lip, looking down at the floor before looking back up at me. “We have been bound before. We are already bound; we live under an enchantment.”
“Who…?” I could hardly bring myself to ask.
His blue gaze held mine. “We were bound to our lady.”
Chapter Ten
Max’s words stunned me. “She…you…”
The tall, dark, handsome man gazed back at me sadly. “Yes. Justin, Finley, Aiden and I were initially recruited and bound by Margaret—Lady Periwinkle. We served her in every most intimate capacity for…some time, until she recruited a new, younger cohort.”
I blazed with renewed fury—this time on behalf of my men, cruelly cast aside for younger men. And it broke my heart to see this man before me, such a strong, powerful man, turned so vulnerable…so wounded. “What, and then she just kept you around for decoration? While you had to watch her with her new cohort?”
He looked at his feet. “It’s not like that. Not exactly.”
I snorted. “It kind of looks like it is exactly like that.”
“We are pleased to serve our lady, in whatever capacity she requires.”
That sounded so much like a forced phrase, I could hardly stand it. “Even if that ‘capacity’ is foisting you off on some other woman, of her choosing?”
Now he looked at me with renewed intensity. “But you can save us—and her,” he whispered. “When we are a bonded cohort, our power can shield her from Mundon and the rest of the demon plane…and you can shield us from her.”
I laughed out loud, deeply startled. Too many shocks in too short a time; I was starting to get punch-drunk. And I hadn’t even had any champagne today. “What?! Me?”
“Yes, you. Your power is undeveloped—it is barely discovered—but it is clear that it will far outstrip hers, when you work it. When you grow it. When you nurture it…with our help.” His eyes shone brighter than ever as he reached out and took both of my hands in his. “Emma. Our Emma. Bind us all together, and your magic will free us all.”
I stared back at him. It sounded good, but…it also sounded absurd. “How do you know I won’t just hold you captive, like Margaret did?”
Max blinked. “You are from a different time—modern times. You don’t share her obsolete values. She comes from an age of liege and vassal, of lords and peasants. There was no middle way; there was no equality, and no way to break free of one’s station in life. You, however: the horror I read on your face at these notions, I can already see that you will be a much gentler mistress to us. You will rule us with such a softer hand.”
I dropped his hands and turned away, striding over to the bookcase. “But…I don’t want to ‘rule’ at all. Soft hand or hard; I don’t want to be in charge of anyone. Heck, I don’t even want to supervise people at work.”
“That’s just my point! Since we are destined to serve, we seek to serve a lady who will be good to us.”
I shook my head. “You and Justin both have said I would ‘free’ you. Being a better boss isn’t making you free. Is there no way to break this enchantment altogether?”
Max now turned away, walking to the far window. He was silent for a while. Then, in a low voice, he said, “There could be.”
I walked over to him, coming up to stand just behind him. I hesitated, then reached my arms around the tall solid strength of him, hugging him from behind. “And how would we do that?” I whispered.
He stood stock-still for another long moment. “Lady Periwinkle is a sorceress.”
“Yes.” What was he getting at?
“And I have told you that you have magic, inborn magic. Strong enough that we can all feel it.”
“Okay.”
“Do you understand what happens when our cohort bond is completed?”
I didn’t…but maybe I was starting to. “I become a sorceress?”
He continued to gaze out the window. “Emma, you already are a sorceress.”
I gulped. Okay. “So…?”
“You have it in you to become stronger than Lady Periwinkle. And you must do that. You must defeat her.”
I swallowed, trying to stifle the fear that galloped through me. My instinctual recoiling at the very idea… “I…I don’t know if I can do that,” I said.
He turned around in my arms, gently enough to let me know that he wanted me to keep holding onto him. Then he reached down and cupped my face once more, turning my gaze up to his. “If anyone can do it, you can, Emma Foster.”
“I thought you all wanted to save her. I thought that’s what this was all about.”
He looked uncomfortable, and his hand dropped away. “Our lives are tied to hers. If she perishes, so do we all.”
“So you need me to replace her.”
He nodded.
“And if I do? Then what? She dies?”
“She has already far outlived her time.”
I stepped away from him, frightened and deeply uneasy once more. “I am not interested in killing her—in killing anyone.” I whipped around to face him again before he could interrupt. “And yes: I know that technically, I would only be sentencing her to death. The demon would kill her. Right?”
Max’s pained look deepened. “That is correct.”
“I don’t want to do that. I’m not a killer.”
“There will be death no matter what you do,” he said, darkly.
“What do you mean?”
He walked over to me, but did not touch me. “If you walk out of here now, with our bond unfinished, Mundon will prevail. The lady, all four of us, and everyone else in this house will perish. You can tell yourself you are going back to your life, and you can pretend to believe it, but you will always know.” His steel-blue gaze drilled into me. “I know you that well already, I can see it in your heart. You will always know that you have killed us all.”
I snorted in frustration, fighting down panic. The only way to control my fear was with anger. I was trapped, and these people had put me here. “So I have no choice, then? That’s what you’re saying? I either kill her, or I kill her and all the rest of you? Thanks for respecting my agency here!” I turned away from him once more. I didn’t want to see his handsom
e face, the fear and doubt in his eyes.
Then a thought occurred to me. I turned back around. “How can you even be telling me all this? If you’re still under an enchantment to protect her—how does she not control what you’re saying?”
“Her power is sorely taxed, leaving her control over us fragile to the point of breaking. It frightens us all.” He took a step forward. “We are desperate, and terrified. We don’t want to be taken by Mundon.” Max reached for my hand; reluctantly, I let him take it. “Please, Emma. Don’t sentence us to an eternity in the underworld.”
I stared back at him, searching his face for the truth. He was absolutely sincere: I could see he believed what he was saying. But it was all too much. If I truly had magic in me, couldn’t I find a different way out of this?
I dropped his hand and folded my arms across my chest. “I need…I need some time to think, I need space.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll be back.” I turned and fled his gorgeous room.
~*~*~*~
I did not know this house, not really; I had been in the gallery downstairs in its several incarnations, and a certain particular guest room—the Magenta Room—on the first floor, and Finley’s rooms on the second floor. Justin had told me that his quarters were outside the house, on the grounds somewhere. I hadn’t even explored those grounds, nor did I want to right now; it was still pouring rain, even harder than earlier.
And I didn’t want to talk to Finley, or to Justin. Or even to Aiden, with whom I had not yet even been alone.
No, there was someone else I needed to talk to before any of this went any further.
I stood in the center of the gallery. It was now arranged as a cold marble hallway, lined with priceless statuary and formal portraits of unknown royalty. Assuming any of this was real…because it was time to admit to myself that, whatever else I might be willing to believe of what my men were telling me, this room was a hub of magic. Sorcery. Enchantment. This was far more than just clever décor and use of lighting. This room literally shifted shape and size.
“Margaret, Lady Periwinkle, whoever you really are: I need to talk to you. I have questions, and only you can answer them.” I spoke the words softly. Though I was alone in the huge room, I felt certain that she could hear me.
A few moments later, she walked in, appearing from an unseen side door. “Emma,” she said warmly, coming toward me with her hands outstretched. Her dark hair was pulled back into a simple ponytail, and she was wearing a purple dress with no adornment, and low shoes, practically slippers. “I have been wondering when I would hear from you.”
I did not take her hands; I just gave her my strongest look back. I could not afford to appear frightened of her, no matter how I actually felt. “I need answers.”
She gave a beautiful, innocent smile. Her dark eyes shone, guileless and pure, a stark contrast against her bright blond hair. “Of course. Shall we talk here, or would you rather somewhere else?”
“I don’t care where we talk, as long as you will give me the truth.”
She appeared to think for a moment. Then she waved her right hand, and the room changed again, this time before my eyes. Now we were in a small parlor, with a pair of armchairs arranged before a roaring fire. The rain still beat down outside the windows; I could feel the heat from the fire. “Please,” she said, indicating the left-hand armchair as she stepped toward the other.
I stayed standing. “If your power is so precarious, should you really be throwing it around like this?” I motioned to the magical ‘room’.
She stood before her armchair, gazing impassively back to me. “Who says my power is at all diminished?”
“Justin, Finley, and Max have all told me you’re in danger. Max just now said you’re barely holding everything together, and that this demon Mundon is going to kill everyone if I don’t bond with them—and Aiden—and take over.” I held her gaze. “And defeat you, somehow. Which I told him I would not do, in case you were wondering.”
Lady Periwinkle smiled once more. “Please, take a seat. We are not enemies.” She sat down herself; I hesitated a moment, then followed suit.
“I don’t think I’m your enemy,” I told her.
“Brandy?” she asked, waving her hand once more. Snifters of brandy appeared on an elegant side table between us. She picked hers up and sniffed it, so I did the same. It smelled amazing; that, plus the roaring fire, made this feel like the coziest room that ever was.
“Thank you.”
“To not being enemies,” she said with a sly smile as she reached her glass out for a toast.
I touched her glass with mine, and then we both sipped. It tasted even more spectacular than it had smelled, and warmed me to my toes.
The lady took a second sip of her brandy. “It is true that things have moved very fast this week, and that I have not been afforded the chance to speak with you as I would have liked to. As I have done for my other cohorts. I do apologize for that.” She set her glass down. “So I am glad that you have called to me today.”
“Uh, sure.”
“It has never been my intention to leave you so in the dark. I invited both you and Edwin to dinner last night because I wanted to begin discussing the situation openly. Unfortunately, Edwin decided to be hostile and intransigent, and I sensed you were not yet ready for a full disclosure, that your mind was not yet opened enough.” She gazed at me, the firelight picking out answering deep colors in her eyes. “It was later in the evening that you communed with Finley and Justin together, was it not?”
I blushed, then picked up my snifter again to cover my sudden discomfort. “Yes.”
“That was an important step—far larger than you likely believe, or understand. I was very happy to know about it.”
Did my men tell her everything that we did, or did she somehow…spy on us, magically? Either way, it gave me a shiver of discomfort. I didn’t really want to know. “I haven’t…communed with Max yet,” I told her.
She nodded. “I thought not.” She gazed into the fire. “Poor Max.”
“Poor how?” Though I didn’t disagree with her assessment…such a strong and beautiful man, living in his astonishing attic apartment…and so lost and unhappy.
Lady Periwinkle looked back at me. “He told you that he, and your other three men, have been a cohort before, with me as their center?”
“Uh. Yes. He did.”
She gave a quiet sigh. “Yes, I thought so.”
“Is it true?”
“Yes. And no.”
“What does that even mean? I thought you were telling me the truth—”
She raised a slender hand to stop me. No enchantment behind it—at least, not so I could tell—but I stopped talking. “Though you have magic inside you, you do not have any experience with it, nor understanding of it. And of course you could not have: who would have taught you? No one. I am the first sorceress you have ever met.”
I blinked. “Okay.”
“So I will need to be the one to teach you, to introduce you to the rest of yourself.” She leaned forward a bit, warming to her topic. “The reason all four men are so happy to bond with you as their mistress is not only because they sense the powerful magic in you, which sings to that within themselves. Though that is certainly a powerful element of it, they are also so ready to do this because they were already introduced to the cohort concept, years ago. They have been working, living, and loving in this manner for long enough that it feels natural to them. I doubt any of them would care to be monogamous at this point, even if it were possible.”
“Your magic will free us all…” “They aren’t trapped, enchanted, right now?” I asked.
“They live under an enchantment, yes, but it is not a trap. It is the same enchantment that you will join, when you complete the binding. It is protective only—of yourselves, and of me; of the whole household. It is what enables us all to live here in safety, wealth, and comfort.”
“Why ‘poor Max’, then?”
She shook her head sadly. “Max is a wounded soul. I knew he was wounded when I first met him, and I have tried to heal him, but…” She took another long sip of her brandy, then held the snifter in her cupped hands, warming the beverage with the heat of her body…or perhaps more magic. “There are some places within him that can never be healed, I fear. I do not believe he will ever trust another, not all the way down. Fundamentally, he believes himself alone in the world.” Then she looked over at me again. “Perhaps you have met men like him before?”
On the one hand, I had never met a man anything like any of my four. On the other hand, I knew just what she meant. I nodded slowly. “I have.”
“He believed himself in love with me. When I joined him with Justin, Finley, and Aiden, I explained to them all just what was—and was not—involved. I told them that we would be finding a true center for them, and that they would love and serve her for all their days.” She smiled. “They will love and serve you.” Her smile faded. “Though this was made clear, Max chose to love me with as much of his heart as he had ever dared to give to anyone…so when it was time to let them go, to find and train the next four, he felt lost and betrayed. There was no way for me to make him see that he had brought this on himself…not without making things even worse than they already were.”
“Why does he think you are weak, though? Why does he think we are all in such danger?”
“He is not entirely wrong about the danger, though he greatly overestimates its severity and its urgency. He has managed to alarm Justin as well, I’m afraid. The demon Mundon is powerful, and his servant Edwin is an unpleasant sort, but I have struggled against far greater powers in my time and prevailed.” Now her smile returned, and looked almost feral. “What neither Edwin nor Mundon—nor, I fear, my vassals—understand is that I haven’t reached this age without learning a great deal about survival. About camouflage and protective coloration.” She looked at me with a new intensity. “As a young woman, you likely understand at least this much: sometimes it is strategically advantageous to appear weak. If one’s enemies underestimate one’s power, they can practically be goaded into defeating themselves.” With that, she leaned back in her chair and stared into the fire, still holding her brandy snifter.
