Doctor Lector, Aerin’s vampire bat was the last to be counted, sleeping high in the eaves of the attic. He just yawned at her, not seeming concerned that Aerin might be in trouble. Cheeto hadn’t reacted with fear for Moira either, which filled Tierra with a groundswell of relief. They would know before anyone else if her sisters were in trouble.
She opened her senses further, going floor by floor of the manor. There were four stories of the mammoth Victorian to wade through, plus a basement. Eight bedrooms, solarium, multiple parlors, and bathrooms, not to mention, all the nooks and crannies.
Finding two humanoids on the second floor, Tierra raced for the stairs, though she was perplexed as to why Aerin and Moira would choose to be in Aunt Justine’s bedroom of all places.
Aunt Justine was more tolerated than a celebrated member of the family. She’d had a major part in separating the identical sisters at birth, along with an order to kill three of them. She’d kept Tierra for some odd reason and raised her after their mother had died in childbirth. When Tierra had performed a spell to call home the missing part—pieces—of herself, and her sisters traipsed into Port Townsend, Washington one by one, Justine had panicked. Knowing about the prophecy that four born of one would bring about the end of the world, she’d attempted to kill Moira.
Moira and Justine did mend their intransigent relationship when Nick Kingswood had held them prisoner for a time, and they’d been locked in a room together with nothing to do but come to terms. They more or less endured each other now, which was a welcome change over the attempted murder. Though, Justine still made living with her a challenge more often than not. But that was family, Tierra figured.
She reached the upper landing, with Killian hot on her heels, and swung open the door to Aunt Justine’s bedroom. Only Aerin and Moira weren’t there, and she wished more than anything she could unsee what she couldn’t blink away.
Aunt Justine and her midwife, Lila Sullivan were playing the hokey-pokey in bed together, without any real pokeys. Both women were fifty plus, and in better shape than Tierra thought fifty allowed. But still. Her aunt fondled Lila’s breast with one hand, the other thank the Goddess, was hidden under the sheet. Tierra didn’t want to think about what the other hand was up to. Lila moaned with pleasure, her head tossing on the pillow, demanding more.
They were so caught up with each other, they hadn’t heard Tierra and Killian barge in. Killian took charge of the situation as Tierra felt coated in bronze, her eyes wide, her body frozen in stupefaction. Killian lifted her off her feet and deposited her out in the hallway, shutting the door quietly on the mind-searing scene.
Amusement crinkled the crow-wings at the corner of his black eyes, his lips twisting with a smirked he fought, and failed, to keep hidden.
“Not one word,” Tierra muttered, pointing a finger at him.
He made a motion of locking a key over his lips, which made him look ridiculous, mirth dancing in his eyes.
She slapped his arm with annoyance. “Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“You know what.”
Jinx joined them and started up a figure eight dance around her legs. Tierra bent and picked her up and she climbed to Tierra’s shoulder where she liked to perch. She hissed at Death.
Good girl, Tierra murmured at her, scratching her ears.
She traipsed down the hall, needing to get as far away as she could from what she’d just spied. The sight would probably haunt her the rest of her days.
Entering her bedroom farther down the hall, she embraced the earthy scents of lavender and roses, taking comfort in the chaos of color that greeted her.
She needed the black tourmaline that Julian had given her to help in rescuing Killian from Hell. She’d yet to return it to him, not in any hurry to relinquish the power the stone provided. Hopefully it would aid in finding Aerin and Moira. She couldn’t feel them in the house. But how did she retrieve it with Death constantly dogging her steps?
Julian had made her promise not to let anyone know she possessed it. She figured Julian’s anyone meant his brother horsemen too. Either way, she wasn’t taking the chance.
“I need to be alone.” She turned to face Killian. “You need to leave.”
All amusement vanished from his expression, replaced by a look harder than diamonds. “Not happening.”
“Please,” she gritted out through a jaw clenched so tight, her teeth ached. She hated asking anything of him, knowing he’d require a favor, or favors, in return.
“Until we know what happened to Lucifer, you will not leave my sight,” he informed, his tone obstinate and rigid.
A sound of frustration escaped her. She needed a freaking break from him. He was too intense, too inflexible, and much too inviting. The more time she spent around him, the more she wanted him. They hadn’t had sex since they’d returned from wherever he’d hijacked her to. She’d missed his touch, the way he lost himself inside her, stripping away his harder outer shell and letting her glimpse the softer side of Death.
Something must have shown in her expression, for he growled and stalked toward her.
“No.” She held up her hand again, and Jinx backed up her verdict with another hiss. “That is not happening again.”
“Yes, it is. You are mine.”
Another thing they needed to talk about. He’d bonded her to him body and soul without her permission. While she loved his body—wasn’t sure if the immortal had a soul—she would have freaking liked to have been asked. That was something she found that Death never did. He took. He damn well never asked.
“I need to find my sisters, and you are getting in my way.”
“Get used to it.”
Sanctuary, Jinx meowed.
Of course! Why hadn’t she thought of that?
Men, they muddy the waters, Jinx returned.
“I need you to stay here, in my room, while I search…another part of the house.”
“Tierra—”
“I’m not leaving the manor, so you can sure as hell stay here.” She couldn’t reveal the cloaked sanctuary to him. She didn’t completely trust him. Didn’t know if she trusted him even the tiniest bit.
Hooves pounded outside followed by whinnies that echoed over the landscape like a macabre thunder. Great, there went her grass, being torn up under their razor-sharp, chopping hooves. Again.
The door crashed open and Claire rushed upstairs, hollering her name.
Tierra hurried to the top of the stairs. “I’m here.”
“Have you found them?” Claire asked, her eyes amber flames of worry and fear.
She shared a poignant look with Claire, praying she picked up her message and didn’t mentally share it with Dru who stood on the riser below her. Claire blinked and then gave a slight nod.
“Where are they?” Julian asked, from the base of the stairs, his blanched skin even paler, looking more like a cadaver than actually alive. He clutched a large trunk in his hand, the one he’d refused to leave the bowels of castle without.
Nick started up the stairs, determination in his every step.
“You guys need to stay downstairs,” Tierra said. “The room they are in is heavily warded. If it feels any kind of threat, I’m certain it won’t allow me to enter.”
“You have a room in the manor warded?” Julian asked, narrowing his eyes with interest. “Why?”
“None of your business, why. Just listen to me and stay.”They looked at her like a pack of hungry wolves.
“We aren’t men who can be ordered to stay like dogs,” Killian said beside her.
“We promised each other no more secrets,” Julian added.
Well, shit.
“Let Claire and I pass, we’ll collect Aerin and Moira, and then the four of us will discuss it.” This was not a decision she could make without the collective input of her sisters. One nod from Claire, sealed it. “We promise not to leave the manor,” she added, though that hadn’t seemed to sway Killian when she’d said it to him.
> A door opened behind her, and Tierra cringed knowing who stood there. Just what they didn’t need. Plus, she’d almost forgotten about what was going on behind door number one with four Horsemen of the Apocalypse invading their home.
“Just what in all that is holy, is going on out here?” Aunt Justine asked, belting a floral robe around her waist.
Tierra slid a look over her shoulder, grateful Lila hadn’t followed and that Justine and shut the door behind her.
“You’re making enough noise to raise the dead,” Justine said, her tone sharp and disapproving, then her eyes widened and she stepped back, seeing Death and the other three Horsemen. “What are they doing in my home?”
“Our home,” Claire said. “And its best if you return to your room and lock the door.”
“I will not be a prisoner in my house.”
“We can always lock you up somewhere else if you don’t do what you’re told, old woman,” Nick threatened, having no affection for his onetime prisoner.
“Aunt Justine,” Tierra implored, “Please, return to your room. I’ll explain all this later.”
“Yes, you will.” She harrumphed and slammed her door shut, the lock clicking into place.
“I need a drink,” Nick said. “It'll help rinse the taste of battle-axe from my mouth.”
“Liquor is in the pantry, make yourself at home in the kitchen,” Tierra stressed, grabbing Claire’s hand. “We’ll be right back.”
Killian grabbed her arm, refusing to let her pass. “I don’t like this.”
“Get used to disappointment. I won’t budge on this and if you try to make me, I guarantee you will hate the result.” She didn’t back down from his thunderous look, but held his stare with one just as stormy.
“Bane, get your ass down here, and let the women retrieve their sisters,” Dru said. “Knowing when to retreat, sometimes wins the battle.” War should know.
Killian said something under his breath, warning Tierra that she would pay for this later.
Insolent man.
Jinx, still perched on Tierra’s shoulder hissed her agreement.
Once Dru and Killian joined Nick and Julian in the large foyer, Tierra and Claire vaulted up the stairs to the fourth floor.
“I can’t believe you stared Death in the face and he backed down,” Claire said.
“The man is medieval in his thinking. He’s going to get an education in the modern, magical woman as soon as I have a few freaking minutes to deal with him.”
“So, your time away together didn’t smooth things over between you?”
“Not in the least. He squirreled me away from my sisters with no chance to explain and no choice in the matter. Yeah, he’s got a few painful truths coming his way.”
“Damn, but we need a girls’ night to catch up on what is going on with each other’s love lives.”
“Yes, we do.” Though she really didn’t have a love life. Killian never spoke of love, just possession. She wouldn’t mind some sisterly advice on that and she needed to discuss what she’d witnessed with Justine and Lila, too. Maybe they could help her lock away the image so she didn’t have to remember it ever again.
They reached the attic and found it quiet as a grave.
“Are you sure they’re in there?” Claire asked, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth.
“About eight-five percent sure.”
“If they are, why haven’t they left and come looking for us?”
“That I don’t know.” But they were about to find out. Tierra recited the spell that revealed the cloaked door to their mother’s sanctuary. She turned the knob and entered with Claire right behind her.
“About fucking time you two got here,” Aerin snapped.
5
Moira rushed toward Tierra and Claire, sandwiching them both in a crushing hug. “You ain’t dead!”
Tierra hugged her back, burrowing her face in Moira’s hair and breathing deeply, cherishing the smells of magnolias and rain that always reminded her of her water witch sister. Thinking that she could have lost her today about broke her heart. She glanced over to Aerin, and motioned her over.
Begrudgingly she stomped over and joined the hug. Now the smells of the south fused with high-priced complicated notes of the east. That was Aerin all right. Complicated.
They broke apart, and Tierra moved to shut the door.
“No!” Aerin and Moira yelled together.
But it was too late. The latch caught.
“Well, shit,” Aerin said. “We are now stuck in here.”
“How do you mean?” Claire asked.
“Near as we can tell, this room acts like a panic room. And believe me, there was plenty of panic going on. Turns out Aerin’s a touch claustrophobic.”
“I am not,” Aerin declared.
“Are, too,” Moira fired back. “That wasn’t me screaming and ruinin’ my manicure tryin’ to claw my way out.”
They had obviously spent too much time locked alone together.
“What happened?” Claire asked. “I thought I killed you. How did you get out and how come you didn’t send us a message that you were okay?”
“This room plum locked us away from the world. It’s like we’ve been shut away into another dimension. We couldn’t even access the door to the Standing Stones.” Moira gestured toward the magical door that Tierra had formed from the wood of the outside wall. It opened to the Standing Stones high atop the hill at Siren’s Cry, roughly ten miles from the manor.
“Nothing was getting in or out,” Aerin supplied. “All we could do was wait until one of you thought to look for us here. Took you long enough.”
“Sorry,” Claire said. “We came as fast as we could.”
“So…how are the Horsemen? I know that they are all immortal and everythin’, but are they hurtin’?” Moira asked, her huge, healing heart on her sleeve. Well, not really on her sleeve as she never wore much clothing. But winter was headed their way, and Tierra was interested to know if Moira would finally cover up her amazing attributes. Currently, she wore skintight jeans with frayed hems, and holes in the knees, paired a blue tank that showed her bare midriff and set off her startling aquamarine eyes.
“How did you get out of the castle before it collapsed?” Claire asked.
“Aerin poofed us here,” Moira said. “It was awesome, like somethin’ out of Star Trek.” She turned to Aerin. “Think you could take me to the bayou to check up on Uncle Sal?”
“Me, in the bayou? I’d rather be caught dead in a flea market. Besides, I’m not exactly sure how I transported us here.” She tugged on her ebony, designer pantsuit, adjusting the lay of the center buttons. She’d probably picked up the outfit right off the runway in Paris or Milan, and it most likely cost more than Tierra’s pancaked Prius.
“Take us through exactly what happened,” Tierra prompted.
“Death had just flown off with you right after War dived off the balcony for Claire.” Aerin’s lips tightened at the memory. “Julian, that douchelord, was more concerned over some dusty trunk than my welfare. He left me there.”
“Now don’t be too hard on him,” Moira said. “He told you to transport us out of there.”
“I’ve never transported anyone before. What if I couldn’t do it on demand?”
“You poofed Julian to your bedroom for sexy times,” Claire pointed out.
“That was different.”
“I’d say,” Tierra mumbled.
“There was no pressure, no life and death if I fucked it up. And I’ve never had a passenger before.”
“He had faith in you. And he was right,” Moira said. “We’re here. We’re alive. I thought for sure we were going to be barbequed.”
Tears filled Claire’s eyes. “I’m so sorry. I thought for sure I’d killed everyone. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I'd lost even one of you.”
“Now, sugar, dry up them waterworks, or we’ll all be cryin’ and this room will flood with all the emotion I’m tryin
g to contain.” She sniffed. “Do you know what that twatwaffle Nicholas Kingswood did? Let me tell you. That immortal whip and chain-wielding, kinktastic, snatch hound didn’t even attempt to save me. Didn’t give me a backward glance as he hightailed his ass over to try and finish off Lucy.”
Tierra knew this could quickly turn into a Horseman vent if she didn’t stop it now. She had her own gripes regarding Killian’s controlling and over-possessiveness. While Claire was in the blush of love—poor thing—she was bound to get her heart broken. The Horsemen were immortal after all. How long did Claire really think her relationship with War could last? If they actually survived the end of days, what future would they have together when Claire aged? The same applied to her involvement with Killian. The length of time they had with the men was a small chapter or footnote compared to the span of their lives.
“Why did you choose to poof into the Sanctuary instead of the kitchen or somewhere else like the castle grounds so we knew you were alive?’ Tierra asked.
“I haven’t a fucking clue. The only thought I had was to find a safety.”
And what could be safer than their mother’s sanctuary? “So why wouldn’t it let you leave once the threat was gone?” Tierra asked.
“Like I said, it acted like a panic room, the kind you find in mega rich people’s homes,” Aerin explained when Tierra looked at her blankly. “You need to get out more.”
“Rich folks are about as common as hen's teeth in the bayou,” Moira said. “Only reason I knew what she was yackin’ on about was that I caught that movie with Jodie Foster a while back.”
“We’re all safe now and together, so the room should release us.” Claire moved to the door and tried to open it. Sure enough, it didn’t budge. “Any ideas on how we break out?”
“They’ve been gone too long,” Killian said, standing with his ankles crossed, leaning against the kitchen counter as his fellow brothers finished off the scotch they’d found in the pantry.
Julian was lost in his head, obviously going over what they needed to do as their second command center in Port Townsend had been destroyed in as many months. First, by flood produced by a vengeful Moira, and now fire from Claire.
Which Witch is Willing? (The Witches of Port Townsend Book 4) Page 2
