The Hanged Maiden: A Reverse Harem Romance (Rise of the Ash Gods Book 1)

by Cara Wylde

  “Why are you helping me?”

  He stopped, and she stopped, too. They were standing in the middle of the alley, people passing them by as if they were invisible to them. Loki stepped closer to her, and Valentina suddenly felt the urge to lift herself on her tiptoes. He was so tall, and she felt so small and fragile. She resisted the urge. And when his warm hand cupped her cheek, she also resisted the urge to close her eyes, moan in contentment, and lean into his touch.

  “When you came to me, on that rainy day, your hair disheveled from traveling through so many dimensions, your eyes filled with fear and confusion... You were there only in your etheric body, but you felt so real to me. A little girl, lost in time and space, being thrown from one place to another relentlessly. How could anyone refuse to help you?”

  “They did... one by one.”

  “Then, they don’t deserve you. They don’t matter. You’ll find them, you’ll put them in your cards, and you’ll move on. With me by your side. I will help you, Valentina De Rossi. I will help you save the original Tarot and become High Keeper of your coven. If only...” He rubbed her cheek with his thumb. So close to her lips, so close...

  “If only what?”

  “If only you give yourself to me.”

  She felt like her heart had stopped beating. She opened her mouth to say something but stopped herself in time. His eyes told her he wasn’t done yet.

  “And then, I will help you find another aspect of the Trickster, the God of Mischief, and put it in your card. It doesn’t have to be me. I don’t have to be your Hanged Man. I could be your mate, instead. Your partner in crime.” He smirked mischievously. “What do you say, love? You and me. The witch and the god. Let’s save the world and live happily ever after.”

  His thumb reached the corner of her mouth, and just as he was getting ready to swipe it over her lips and lean in for a kiss, Valentina pushed his hand away and took a step back. She scowled at him.

  “You’re just like the others. You said you’d help me, you let me believe you’d get inside the card once Sia paints it, and now you’re trying to get away. Give myself to you? What does that even...” She shook her head frantically. She didn’t need those images in her head. “No. Never. You’re trying to trick me. Well, it figures... You’re a Trickster God.” She stuck her index finger in his face. “Listen here, God of Mischief. I found you then, and I found you now. You’re the Hanged Man, like it or not. I won’t go hunting for another aspect of Loki. I have enough god hunting to do as it is.”

  Loki laughed out loud. “Oh yes! I remember now. Even though you looked lost and confused that first time, I could feel it... You gave off that vibe, that sexy, feisty, witchy vibe. Witchy, because I don’t want to say bitchy. Bad idea to insult a De Rossi witch.”

  “Ugh!” Valentina stomped her foot, then mentally cursed herself for acting so childishly. No, she should have cursed him for making her act so childishly. Curse him for real. He was getting the best of her. “Okay, answer me this: why does no one want to get inside the cards? You’d literally be saving the world. You know that! Without the masculine cards of the Major Arcana, the Tarot is doomed. All the other cards will fall asleep one by one, will become... inactive. Lifeless pieces of cardboard. You know what happens then. You know!”

  Loki shrugged. “So what? A bunch of Ordinaries stop evolving spiritually and traveling through dimensions. They’re pretty bad at it, anyway. They don’t even know they’re doing it, and it will take another few dozens of generations until they learn. Boo-hoo.”

  “This planet is the only place in the Universe where everyone is free,” Valentina tried to reason with him. “You’re free here. All the other gods and goddesses who’ve chosen to incarnate and reincarnate here are free. That’s why they chose Earth, right? Because it’s the only goddessdamn place that allows multi-dimensional travel. And you want to destroy that? The Mysteries of the Trionfi is what’s keeping all of this in balance. Otherwise, the third dimension would be just that, the third dimension, and now one would get out of it. Same with the fourth, the fifth, and so on.”

  “Not everyone can travel, anyway. Would it be so bad if Ordinaries stopped traveling, too?”

  “What do you mean?” Valentina took a couple of deep breaths. He’d gotten her so worked up that she was getting dizzy. She really should have eaten something in the morning. “Everyone can travel. As long as Earth exists and is not locked, everyone can move through dimensions.” She suddenly understood what Loki was hinting at. She cleared her throat. “As long as they are multi-dimensional themselves, of course. As long as they have aspects, like you, or Higher Selves, like me, Magny, and Piper.”

  “Aha! But not everyone is multi-dimensional. Those trapped in the fourth dimension, for instance? What about them?”

  She sighed. “Their time will come. It always does.”

  “What if they don’t want to wait?”

  She squinted her eyes at him. “Loki, do you know something I don’t know?”

  “Oh, my love, I know many things you don’t know.”

  She bit the inside of her cheek. She’d just realized she had never told him what had happened at the temple in Castelluccio, and he had never asked. He’d never wanted to know how the Trionfi Chiari got turned to ashes in the first place.

  “Loki, for the love of... god, or the goddess or... for the love of me, since you said you wanted me, if you know anything about the fourth dimension and the ones who live there, you have to tell me.”

  He cocked an eyebrow.

  “Why?”

  “Because I saw two when I found the remains of the Trionfi Chiari. A mermaid and a manticore. Mermaids and manticores don’t have aspects and don’t have Higher Selves. They shouldn’t be able to exit the fourth dimension, where they came to be. Not until they become worthy.”

  “Nah. That’s impossible, love.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his long coat. He never parted with the thing even on the hottest summer days. He didn’t like where this conversation was going. He was just teasing Valentina. Annoying her. She was cute when she was angry and spat in his face. What he’d said about the trapped beings and how it wasn’t fair for them, he hadn’t meant anything by it. “I don’t know what you think you saw, but that wasn’t it. Manticores and mermaids can’t cross dimensions. They just can’t. Not even with the help of a witch or a god.” He smiled forcefully. “Let’s put it this way: if I, the Trickster of all Tricksters can’t go to the fourth dimension and bring a mermaid with me, then no one can.”

  “I know what I saw, Loki. And stop calling me ‘love’. I hate it.” She was lying about that last part. “I fought the thing. Or, the things... I separated them. They were linked somehow, glued together, in a cloud of black smoke.” She’d started pacing in circles. Seeing how she was on the verge of driving herself crazy, Loki grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward a wood bench. “Hey! Wait a minute. You were there. You helped me defeat the smoke monster.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I felt you.” She leaned in to smell his skin, where his neck met his collarbone.

  “What are you doing?” He sounded amused.

  “Don’t flatter yourself. I was just checking something. And now I know for sure. You were there. I felt you, and I smelled you. What cologne are you wearing, anyway?”

  “None, actually. Why? What do I smell like to you?”

  “Freshly cut grass and summer poppies.” She blushed a deep red. This was ridiculous! She had to change the subject. Or circle back to the original one, as it were. “The smoke thing was too strong for me, and the King of Spades and the Knight of Spades couldn’t help me much. I felt two energies beside me. They touched me, and my powers increased tenfold. I heard them whisper in my ear, they told me what to do, how to defeat the monster. And one of those... energies... was yours. It smelled like you. So, if you weren’t there, a part of you was, at least.”

&nbs
p; “Huh. Intriguing.” He thought for a long moment. “Nope. It wasn’t me.” He smiled at her. She’d calmed down, and she was sitting patiently next to him, on the bench. “You know what I think? It was all you. You did it. You pushed yourself beyond your known limits, killed the thing, but because you discovered that you’re more powerful and dangerous than you thought you were, your mind played a nice, little trick on you. It’s a common trick, actually. And you should believe me, okay? I know everything about tricks.”

  “What kind of trick?”

  He poked her forehead. “Your brain came up with a bunch of sensations, scents, and voices that weren’t really there. You thought one of them was me because you’d just dreamed of me twice. That’s all.”

  Valentina closed her eyes and sighed. “I don’t know. I really don’t know anymore. This whole thing is so confusing. But I do know what I saw once the black smoke cleared: a manticore and a mermaid that were joined in the middle, and I broke them apart.” She looked up at him. “Do you believe me?”

  Her eyes were so big and blue that Loki could hardly resist them. He could hardly resist her. A moment ago, she was yelling at him and telling him how much she hated him. Now, she was staring at him like he was the only one in the world who could put her mind at ease. Should he let her know just how bi-polar she was, or should he go with the flow? Her flow, apparently. Because he had no control over Valentina De Rossi.

  “I believe you,” he said softly. “But you know what that means, right? If you believe it, and I believe it, if it’s real...”

  “Creatures that shouldn’t be crossing to the third dimension and to Earth... Yes, I know. It’s bad.”

  “We have to figure out how they did it.”

  “We?” She put some distance between them. “You’re going inside the card. You can still help me, but differently.”

  He rolled his eyes at her. “Do you even know how to summon the cards in flesh and bone? From what I understand, the King and the Knight couldn’t help you because they were not material. Am I right?”

  Valentina blushed again. How did he do it? How did he manage to make her feel small and silly every time she seemed to have the upper hand?

  “I’m not strong enough... as a witch,” she said in a small voice.

  “The hell you’re not. We’ve just determined that you are. You have to learn how to use your powers. For real. What you’ve been doing so far... parlor tricks.”

  “You haven’t answered my question,” she said after another minute of silence. “Why does no one want to go inside the cards?”

  “Why do you think?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.”

  “What do you think happens once someone goes inside a card? Or inside one of Sia’s paintings?”

  Valentina shrugged. “They live forever. Immortality. It wouldn’t make any difference to you, though. You’re already immortal.”

  “And free. Immortal and free. Important details right there.”

  Val thought for a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t get it. You would still be free. A painting, or a card in this case, can’t limit your consciousness. You can still step out of it, you can still expand your mind beyond time, space, and dimension. You can still travel.”

  “Sure. But I’d also have to be there for the Keeper, or High Sorcerer or Sorceress, whatever your ranks are. I’d have to answer when I’m summoned, assist witches and Ordinaries alike. Does that sound like freedom to you?”

  “It sounds like being in service.”

  Loki laughed out loud, startling Valentina. “You realize what you just said, right? In service. Yes, that’s exactly what it is! Now, can you imagine me,” he pointed at his chest for emphasis, “me, as in this aspect of me, ever being in service to anyone or anything?”

  She gave a deep sigh. She ran her fingers through her long hair, then stood up, her eyes searching for Piper and Magny.

  “Well? Do you get it now, or not?”

  “It makes sense,” she said bitterly. “That’s exactly how a pagan god would think. Sometimes I wish there really was just one God, the Christian God, the God of the poor and the wounded. Compared to you guys, he sounds pretty awesome in the Bible. I bet he’d do his part if it came to saving the world.”

  “Would he now?” Loki chuckled. He pushed himself to his feet and leisurely followed Valentina. “You don’t believe He exists?”

  She turned to give him a small, half amused, half bitter smile. As if to say: “no hard feelings”.

  “It’s either Him, or the bunch of you gods and goddesses.”

  Loki laughed again. If nothing else, she was a funny girl. For a witch who was born in the tradition and had learned about deities and world religions since she was a child, she was a classic non-believer. If he didn’t know any better, he might be inclined to think she didn’t believe in him, either. As he stood there, before her eyes, the summer sun warming up his pale skin and the wind playing in his disheveled hair, he might even think he was a ghost to her. Unreal. Immaterial. Although they’d almost kissed a few minutes before. No. He knew who he was. And that had nothing to do with Valentina’s beliefs. Her real problem wasn’t that she didn’t trust the gods or believed in the existence of the One True God, who was just a deity like any other, in his opinion. Her problem was that she didn’t believe in herself.

  “I’m hungry.”

  Her chirpy voice snapped him out of his thoughts. Her mood had switched again.

  “Finally,” he said. “I thought you were starving yourself to death. Or fasting. Do witches fast?”

  “Not a thing in the De Rossi family. Just like the deities.” She winked at him. “Get it? Not a thing.”

  He ignored her. “What do want to eat?”

  Piper came running to them, with Magny bouncing on her shoulder, his plump hands squeezing fistfuls of her T-shirt for dear life.

  “Burgers.”

  “I know just the place.”

  “You have to see these photos!” Piper waved the camera in the air.

  She was still far enough that if Valentina wanted to whisper something in Loki’s ear, she wouldn’t hear it. Which Valentina did, lifting herself up on her tiptoes, gently placing a hand on the god’s arm for support.

  “I need to see someone.”

  Loki’s eyes snapped to hers. “Who?”

  “Someone who can tell me who Ravenna is. And how I can get my Higher Self back.”

  “A shaman? I hear they can go into the shadow worlds and retrieve lost pieces of souls.”

  “Sure. Do you know one?”

  “I just might.”

  Piper stopped in front of Valentina and pushed the camera in her face. She was trying to catch her breath, her chest moving up and down, her cheeks rosy from the run. Val laughed at the pictures. She scrolled through all of them, a series of photos with Magny on the back of a swan, Magny on the marbled shoulder of a statue, Magny grabbing a chipmunk by the tail...

  “He photobombed all of them,” Piper whined.

  Magny crossed his arms over his chest and stuck out his tongue at her. “You insisted.”

  “Yes, I insisted to take one picture of you, not one hundred.”

  Valentina and Loki were laughing out loud. For once, they seemed to be on the same page.

  “Come on,” Val said. “We’re getting burgers.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  It took Valentina three days to muster up the courage to see the shaman. She wanted to, the High Priestess had been a sign that she had to, but still... she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She had never been to see anyone before. Psychics, witches, shamans... The world was full of healers. Astrologers, angel readers, curanderas, santeras. They were all just as real and for real as she was, as the witches of her coven were. It might have been from her mother’s side. This intense feeling that she was being stupid, that she was betraying her family and her own tradition by employing the help of an out
sider. She was a witch, for Goddess’ sake! She should have been able to witch her way out of this situation! But she had no idea how. And there was no one she could go to for advice. If the world had been normal, if she were back in Leavenworth and the Tarot were safe, she could have gone to her mother and asked her for advice. Okay, no. Maybe not her mother. Adelle De Rossi wasn’t the kind of person to give her advice for free, without making her daughter tell her everything first. And she couldn’t tell her that she thought Ravenna had something to do with her twin. That would have made her mother yell at her, isolate herself in her room, and not talk to her for a week, at least. Valentina would have gone to the High Keeper. Yes, Virginia Conti would have helped her, no questions asked.

  But the world wasn’t normal. It wasn’t like before. She was in London, not in Leavenworth, and she was the only survivor of her coven. No, she couldn’t think about that now. They weren’t gone. No matter how hard she tried to make sense of what she felt every time she thought of Dante, her parents, and the rest of the Keepers of the Spades, Valentina was at a loss. Her rational mind said they were gone. For good. Yet, her intuition said otherwise. It felt as if they were somewhere far away, her friends and family... Just like when her father went on a long business trip, and little Valentina never despaired because she knew for a fact that he’d be back and she’d see him again. That was how she felt when she thought of La Congrega di Spade. They were on a long trip, she was on a long trip, too, and when it would all end, they would all come back home, in Leavenworth.

  Why was she so afraid? Why did she feel so alone? Why did she feel like this journey would never end?

  On the third day, after Piper had decided to go to Sia’s and keep her company while she painted, Valentina ended up alone with Loki. Magny had betrayed her, too, preferring to go with the girls than to be around the God of Mischief and the most bi-polar witch alive. This was the day. Anything than to spend it with Loki! It had gotten increasingly hard to hold her ground every time he came so terribly close, his lips yearning for her lips, his eyes challenging her to kiss him. Oh, how she wanted to take him up on that challenge! She hadn’t practiced in a while. Kissing... Not since she’d dumped that Keeper boy back in April when he’d bragged about doing more than just kissing Valentina De Rossi when they happened to come upon an empty room at the Temple. All the boys in the coven saw her like she was some kind of prize. The last thing she needed was for her parents to catch a whiff of gossip, and for her mother to freak out that she wasn’t a virgin anymore. Which she was. Which she intended to remain until she found the right boy. Or man. And Loki wasn’t a boy, nor a man. He was a god. Forbidden. She was too smart a witch to let a god steal her heart and run away with it. Gods couldn’t be trusted, and especially not this one.