The Harder I Work, the Luckier I Get

by Amber Lynn

I woke up the next morning with Nate cocooned around me.  A mere day stood between us and the titles of husband and wife. That didn’t leave much time to track down the warlock from the arena. We couldn’t allow someone that destructive to be out on the street.

  “Good morning, Avery,” Nate said, kissing my head.

  “Hey, soon-to-be-husband, did Mak get all settled while I slept?” I asked.

  The call to my bed had been so strong that I was a horrible hostess. I tended to be a bad hostess all the time, but I hadn’t even made sure Mak had come back with us, and he was supposedly tied to me somehow.

  “Yup, last I saw him he was jumping on his bed like a five-year-old. Evidently, his previous masters weren’t that nice to him, and he hasn’t had a real bed for as long as he can remember.”

  I was glad to hear he was settled, but my mind immediately went elsewhere. “Do you think Vinnie will have pancakes waiting for me?”

  I was hungry enough that my stomach could’ve asked the question. I should’ve eaten the night before, but chances were my head would’ve landed on my plate.

  “I bet there’ll be something ready for you. Vinnie always knows how to take care of your morning hunger for food, and in two mornings, I’ll be able to take care of your morning hunger for other things,” he said, rolling over to get up.

  “You’re such a pervert.” I threw my pillow at him and wished I had something a little firmer. “Now that the time is almost here, we should probably have a little talk about what’s going to happen.”

  “I know you’re worried about getting pregnant before the epic battle we’re facing,” he said, running his hand through his hair. “Knowing your good buddy Eva, the second we even touch each other in a sexual way you’ll get pregnant. I’m surprised she hasn’t found a way to accomplish that by us just looking at each other.”

  “What do we do about that? You aren’t willing to go into battle with me carrying your children, are you?” I asked

  “As long as you don’t get killed, I don’t think anyone can hurt them. They’ll be encased in their shells until just before they’re born. Those shells are impenetrable until the week leading up to their birth, when they start to dissolve. I really don’t think even a bullet to your stomach would break them,” he stated. “Not that I’m advocating you going out and getting shot.”

  “If I do go into battle with them already inside of me and things go bad, do you think you can have someone cut them out and keep them alive in incubators, so they can still be born?” I asked.

  I wasn’t sure exactly what the knife would do to me, but I had to believe there’d be a way to save any children if they did exist. I just knew I was going to end up doing something stupid and I didn’t want it to affect my unborn children. At that point they were unconceived children, and I was hoping to keep them that way for as long as possible.

  “My first priority will always be you. I’ll do everything I can to save them, but it’s you who must live. You know I already have made plans to not stick around forever if you don’t.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll do everything in my power to stick around forever, so you’re going to be stuck with your neurotic wife. Let’s stop the depressing talk. Were any plans made for warlock hunting yesterday?”

  “Really? You think that’s a solution to stopping the depressing talk?” he asked, then laughed and came back to the bed so he could kiss me. “You say the strangest things sometimes. We can discuss that in a second. I want to talk about something I noticed yesterday, but decided to let you rest before I question you about it.”

  “Okay, shoot,” I said, sitting up in bed.

  It wasn’t like I didn’t know what he was going to ask. There were times I wondered why we bothered talking. Our connection let us know exactly what the other was thinking.

  “You saw the future, didn’t you?” he asked, but it was more of a statement.

  “Not that I remember,” I said, trying to pinpoint what would make him think that. A lot had happened in the chaos and my head wasn’t exactly thinking clear. “Oh, wait, you mean when I saw the building explode a couple minutes before it was scheduled to.”

  “That would be the moment I’m talking about. I don’t believe you’ve seen the future before in this reincarnation, have you?”

  “Not that I remember while I was awake. I’ve had dreams where I can see things, like I did with the kids running around the house,” I said, getting up and pushing him out of the way, so I could go to the bathroom.

  I could tell he was really happy that I was continuing to get back my abilities. There were times I didn’t understand what he wanted from me as far as my enhanced skills went. Most of the time he told me to take things slow, but for something like seeing the future, it sounded like he wanted me to get that skill figured out pronto.

  I’d learned that even though we could pretty much read each other like open books, there were still ways we could hide thoughts from each other. Emotions were harder to hide, and right then he was excited for something he thought was going to happen that day. I really hoped the guys hadn’t decided to take him out for a bachelor party. He was already shackled to me, so it wouldn’t have made a lot of sense.

  I hurried in the bathroom, since it was the only thing between me and my breakfast, other than a set of stairs. As I walked out the bedroom door, Nate grabbed my hand and decided we’d greet the rest of the gang holding hands. He was such a cornball sometimes.

  In the kitchen, I was glad to see Vinnie had prepared a buffet. It looked like quite a few of the guys had already made their way through the line. Another ten minutes, and I bet it’d all be gone. I fixed myself a plate and headed over to the table to eat.

  “Good morning, everyone,” I said in a cheerful voice. “How did everyone sleep?”

  “Very well, my queen,” Brad answered quickly.

  He loved to be the first to address me. I had a feeling he was trying to lead by example and get everyone to call me their queen. Most of the others around the table smiled as they continued to eat their food.

  I could tell they had some kind of bet going to see how long it took me to stuff overeager Brad in a garbage can. I hadn’t figured out who’d picked which timeframe, so I wasn’t ready to put an end to my loyal subject’s adoration.

  “Has Mak been down yet?” I asked. “I wanted to make sure he was comfortable in his new surroundings, since I was rude yesterday and just went straight to bed.”

  “I’m right here, Avery,” he said from behind me, causing me to jump. “I felt you searching for me, so I came right away. I also hope it’s okay if I call you by your name. Some of the group told me you prefer it over master or queen.”

  “You’re correct, I do prefer it. I want to apologize to you for yesterday and apparently this morning. I’ll get this master and servant relationship resolved as soon as possible. I don’t want you to have to drop everything to come find me when I wonder where you are, and I really don’t want you to have to take things I say as orders. You’ll find many in our little family often stop to question what I say, and somehow they’ve all kept their tongues. Most days, that’s a miracle.”

  He’d have to spend a little more time with Freddie and me to see just how lenient I could be. If Freddie wasn’t missing any body parts, it was obvious I could put up with a ton of crap.

  “Your orders could’ve saved lives if you weren’t able to stop the boiler in time. I have no qualms about carrying them out. If I hadn’t been so unused to someone wanting to help people, I would’ve suggested you had me take care of the boiler itself. My methods wouldn’t have caused you the head pains you suffered.”

  “I don’t really have a reply to that, other than stick around here long enough and you’ll find that I don’t ask anything of anyone that I won’t do myself. I don’t know how jinn operate, but I see you seem to be wearing the same outfit you were yesterday, do you need any help retrieving your belongings to get moved in?”

  The statement earne
d me a funny look from my latest recruit. I could only assume I’d grown a third head while I was speaking.

  “I don’t have belongings, as you say, so no help is needed. I do have to ask how soon you’d be willing to meet my friends. We worry that someone will find their names at any moment. I called to them last night. They said they’ll bind with you in hopes of not having to fight against you later,” he replied.

  “Tell them to come over whenever they’re ready. I’m hoping by the time we get to fighting, you guys will be free to do as you wish, even if that means sitting the fight out.”

  “Thank you, I will call them right away,” he said. “Is it okay if I go do that now?”

  I nodded, because I had a big bite of pancakes in my mouth. I’d gotten tired of waiting for my belly to be full. He ran out of the room to make his call. I wasn’t clear how he planned on calling his friends. He didn’t seem like the cell phone kind of guy.

  When I finished chewing, I said, “So, warlock plans. Anyone got them?”

   “I’d say my plan is to chop him up into little bits for causing you a headache, but that’s frowned upon these days,” Liam supplied.

  “Yes, bad Liam, no cookie for you,” I replied, laughing at the face he made when the idea of no cookies hit him. “Any chance you locked onto his energy source yesterday?”

  “What? You were making cookies? No fair. I want some white chocolate macadamia nut. I’m sure we have all the ingredients,” he replied. “As far as the energy, if I came across it again, I’d know the signature. I don’t imagine that he’s just hanging around waiting for us to find him, though.”

  Only in my dreams did life end up being that simple. When it came to the warlocks, my dreams rarely ever came true.

  “Well then, we’re going to have to start looking around his last known whereabouts.” I replied, not bothering to continue the cookie talk.

  He would’ve started drooling at the table and I didn’t have a bib within reach to throw at him. I’d call mom at some point and ask her to have some baked for the wedding. I trusted Liam wouldn’t go into shock from not having cookies until then.

  I’d originally wanted to do all the cooking and baking for the wedding myself, but with the conferences, that idea was killed early on. My mom was back at our New York house preparing everything food related for the wedding, and my matron of honor Frannie was doing all the decorating.

  Our core gang would be heading back before the end of the day, so they could be there for the wedding the next evening. The warlock threw a little wrinkle in those plans, but I was sure we could get him figured out quickly.

  “So you want to go back to the arena and look to see if we missed anything?” Joseph asked.

  “No, actually, I was in his mind as he left the building. I know he was in a hotel south of it. I’m sure it won’t take Vinnie long to figure out which one. Once we get there, we can turn Liam loose and see if he comes up with anything,” I told the group.

  If I hadn’t been so tired, I could’ve, and should’ve, relayed that information before I’d crashed for the night. Vinnie was fast, but with even more time, he would’ve had everything about the building ready to be shared with the group over breakfast.

  “Awesome,” Kyle said. “Hopefully, he doesn’t know you were attached when he jettisoned out. He might be there waiting for us, which would be perfect with the little amount of time we have to play with him.”

  We finished eating our breakfast, while talk turned to a game plan for securing the warlock. I listened and found myself laughing at the group we’d collected. I really hoped I could keep them all safe. Each one of them meant something to me.

  I took my plate to the kitchen and rinsed it off and placed it in the dishwasher. Then I headed upstairs to take a shower and get ready for the day. The troops were going to take a little while to get ready, but I still hurried, so I didn’t get left behind, not that anyone was crazy enough to do something like that.

   

  CHAPTER 8

  You just can’t hide the family resemblance