The Rise of the Dark Lord

by Ashley, Kristen

  Dr. Ambrose Bennett—Stepping down as Executive Director of the Institute in order to retire to “do nothing but paint and garden, Mathilda, and do that happily. I’m pleased good prevailed, but all this brouhaha nearly done me in.”

  Side note: Has put Aidan’s name forward to take over in his stead (we shall see!).

  Cystien—Has started his own sex cult somewhere in Wales because, “Welshwomen have the most beautiful voices, among other assets.” Ash and I are invited to attend him “at our wont.” As I don’t wanna see Cystien in action (and Ash really doesn’t), our wont hasn’t come up yet (and probably never will). Also probably making Fae/human babies willy-nilly. (Would they be cousins to Ash and my baby? Mental note: ask Cystien when he’s not among his cult.)

  Fane—Has reportedly taken up with a witch, I do not know who, but in his last letter he shared he’s exploring “new appetites,” but did not offer further info, for which I was glad (and Ash was gladder).

  BecBec, Sar and Trae—Are still in the Realm and are shacked up, loved up and have invited Ash and I to visit, “whenever you wish, but soon, we miss you.” (This is under consideration, though in discussions of this consideration, Ash has declared under no circumstances was he ever going to wear the Fae loincloth, he didn’t care if he now had wings.)

  Anita—After a brief stint in a Dark Fae’s sex cult (where she was the only member), she’s back at the FWC, with promotion, and now outranks Agent Perry (tee hee).

  Side note: Dark Fae says he’s going to come to visit. (Yay for Anita!)

  Prunella—Still reports she does not know what to make of me. But I know she knows what to make of my buttercream donuts, since she comes into the coffee house at least once a week to get a dozen of them.

  Me and Ash—Me, pregnant, as you know. Ash, thrilled about the pregnancy, as you can guess. Our wedding postponed to Hallowe’en (as you know). And me, now with pretty much nothing to do but bake, promote my upcoming cookbook and cookery program in continuing endeavors toward World Cookery Domination and keep my baby healthy as s/he grew inside me. Also continue to plan the most awesome nuptials in history, make my man happy, and combat fashion disaster of the night of The Battle of Poet’s Walk by appearing in public always turned out in absolute style (which I did and one could say, being a public figure was kind of weird, but as Ash has noted, “You’ve taken to it so well, it’s a little frightening.”)

  Though, now with additional challenge of doing that soon in maternity clothes (mental note: study Kate and Megan’s maternity fashion selections and possibly get in touch with their designers).

  So, uh…yeah.

  Things are good.

  Happy.

  Settled.

  No drama.

  I’d fulfilled the Prophesies (the right way).

  And…well…

  Okay, I was going to say it.

  As I’d worried, life had turned boring.

  It’s sad

  But true.

  It had.

  Ack!

  9 December

  Have just made disturbing discovery.

  Most Excellent Boyfriend in History that turned into Most Awesome Fiancé in History and Not Just Because He Gave Me A Harry Winston Ring has alarming tendency to turn into Most Annoying Fiancé in History After He Knocks Me Up.

  Case in point:

  I flew home from the Dozen on my broomstick.

  I didn’t normally do that because it’s December, I’m in England, and it’s bloody cold out there.

  Also, because my guy dropped me off and picked me up, or let me borrow his awesome Audi TT, or I drove my own awesome Mini.

  That morning, though, Ash dropped me off.

  But I was hungry, and for once not for pastry (Perfect Adorable Ash Fae Baby already into healthy living?), wanted to get home, and I didn’t want to wait for him to come get me (even though, admittedly, this wait would only be about ten minutes).

  I landed in the drive, started walking to the front door, only to stop because Ash was barring my path.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” he asked, all surly and pissed off.

  Uh.

  “Coming home from work,” I answered.

  “On your broom?”

  I looked to my (new, obvs) broom in my hand.

  I looked to my man.

  “Yes.” I gave the obvious answer.

  “In pink high heels?”

  I looked down at my hot pink high heels with the cute bows tied at the front base of my ankles.

  One could argue hot pink was not a winter color.

  I would not be the one arguing that.

  Pink was an all-seasons color.

  I returned my gaze to my guy.

  “Yes,” I repeated.

  “Mathilda, you’re pregnant.”

  “Yes,” I said again. “I’m also cold. Why are you barring the door and asking questions you know the answer to?”

  “Because your pregnant,” he replied.

  “Yes, and cold,” I retorted.

  “You’re the worst broomstick rider I’ve ever seen.”

  Now wait.

  He did not just say that to me.

  “I am not,” I snapped.

  “Every time you’ve gone up, you’ve fallen off.”

  “Yes, except twice, just now and when I saved the world,” I shot back.

  Well, for some reason that tripped his trigger because he leaned toward me and bellowed…

  And no…

  You did not read that wrong.

  He bellowed!

  At me!

  His pregnant fiancée!

  “You’re pregnant!”

  I leaned toward him and shouted, “I know!”

  He leaned back and proclaimed, “You will not ride that broomstick again unless you’re, first, not pregnant, and second, don’t go higher than four feet off the ground.”

  Oh no.

  He did not.

  “You can’t tell me what I can and can’t do,” I declared.

  “I absolutely can,” he retorted.

  “You cannot!” I yelled.

  “I can and I will!” he roared.

  Roared!

  Oh my Goddess!

  He couldn’t be believed!

  “My sweet diddumses,” Mavis said, emerging from the door behind Ash. “What on earth is all the shouting about?”

  I jabbed a finger at my fiancé. “He won’t let me ride a broom.”

  “I won’t,” Ash instantly confirmed. “Because she’s bloody rubbish at it.”

  “Stop saying that!” I shouted.

  “Well, you are, my dear,” Mavis pointed out.

  I snapped my mouth shut.

  “Come inside,” Mavis bid. “I’ve made a lovely shepherd’s pie.”

  My baby wanted shepherd’s pie. I knew this when my stomach rumbled.

  “Come on.” Mavis rolled a hand to us, moving back inside.

  She disappeared in The Gables.

  Ash shifted aside.

  I stomped by him.

  “We’ll finish talking about this later,” Ash murmured as I passed him.

  “We will not,” I returned, entering the warmth of the house, feeling Ash come in behind me and definitely hearing him slam the door. “Later, I’m going to the library and I’m finally going to read the damn Prophesies because I’m pretty sure you haven’t let me do it because it says I throw you over prior to our wedding, have our baby out of wedlock, and when it’s your time to have custody of him or her, I return to whatever Fae sex cult I’ve joined.”

  He caught me by the waist and whirled me so I slammed into him.

  And as he did this, his wings unfurled with an angry snap.

  Hmm.

  Guess there were other occasions when Ash had little control over his wings.

  Good to know.

  Also hot.

  I wasn’t going to focus on the hot part at that juncture, however.

  I also wasn’t going to focus on the fact that he was
wearing another fabulous shirt I gave him, and I heard it rip when his wings came out.

  Guh.

  But what he said next was unexpected.

  “You are not reading the Prophesies.”

  I stared up at him, my stomach going tight.

  Then I whispered, “Oh my Goddess, they say we break up.”

  “Mathilda, for the last time, they don’t. We make three children, remember?”

  Oh, right.

  “Do they say we join a Fae sex cult?”

  “Fuck no,” he bit out.

  “Do they say we form a Fae sex cult?”

  “They make utterly no comment about Fae sex cults.”

  “What do they say?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “Ash, what do they say?” I demanded.

  But from the look on his face, I didn’t let him answer.

  My blood ran chill and I whispered, “Oh shit, do I have to save the world again?”

  “No,” he grunted.

  “Do you?”

  “No.”

  Well, that was good.

  “Then what?” I pushed.

  Nothing from Ash.

  “What?” I snapped.

  He let loose a heavy sigh.

  “What!” I shouted.

  “Mathilda, you can’t think Josie was going to be your only Spellbound.”

  I hadn’t really thought about it.

  But now, thinking about it, I was a witch.

  That was what we did.

  And I’d gone through a lot to be able to do it free and clear of…well, anything, so I could do what I was born to do.

  “I’m getting another Spellbound?” I asked.

  He was again grunting when he said, “Imminently.”

  Huzzah!

  Things weren’t going to be staid and settled and boring anymore.

  I was going to get to be all up in someone’s business, doing my thing, and making it all right for them.

  Yee ha!

  “Do you know anything about them? Who are they?” I pressed.

  Ash started to look unhappy.

  He knew something about them.

  Totally.

  “Ash,” I prompted.

  “The Prophesies say, if you saved the world, which you did, then, well…fuck.”

  “Fuck what?”

  “Fane might be involved.”

  Fane?

  I could actually feel my eyes light up.

  “Yes,” he began, staring gloomily down at me. “As I said, fuck.”

  I grinned at him. “Does this involve, perhaps, me boning up on love potions?”

  “Again, as I said, fuck.”

  It did!

  Fane and love potions!

  I kept grinning but did it harder.

  His eyes dropped to my grin and he murmured, “You’re mad.”

  I totally was.

  “You wouldn’t have me any other way,” I reminded him. “Ridiculous and sublime, just like your momma wanted for you.”

  His eyes came up to mine.

  “Please don’t ride your broomstick while you’re pregnant, especially in the cold.”

  Well, since he said “please.”

  And worried about me being cold.

  And safe.

  I fitted myself more closely to him.

  His wings fluttered.

  My knees trembled.

  “Okay, baby,” I agreed.

  He touched his lips to mine.

  My stomach rumbled again.

  “My witch needs fed,” he said against my mouth.

  “Always,” I replied.

  “Ridiculous,” he muttered.

  Um…

  “Sublime,” he whispered.

  Nice.

  He kissed me again.

  Then he furled his wings and took me to Mavis’s kitchen.

  And okay, I’ll admit, he was back to Most Awesome Fiancé in History.

  Because he fed me.

  And…

  Well…

  He was Ash.

  And now.

  Well, now is now.

  Life is boring, which was good.

  For a spell.

  And for Ash, so he’d be a whole lot calmer while our baby grew inside me.

  So I’d take it.

  For a spell.

  (And for Ash.)

  (And our baby.)

  Until the next adventure came along.

  So…warning, I’m taking a break from my Book o’ Shadows.

  Because even with life boring, no offense, Book o’ Shadows, but I have better things to do.

  Being famous.

  World Cookery Domination.

  Wedding planning.

  The Battle of the Wooden Spoons.

  The wait until my next Spellbound.

  Eating Junior Poons crispy aromatic duck.

  Girls Movie Nights.

  Coven meetings.

  Becoming a maternity fashionista.

  And pretty much devoting every other moment not caught up in all that, caught up in making my guy happy.

  Because, you know…

  When it all comes down to it.

  That was my true destiny.

  Thank the Goddess.

  31 December, the Year Following

  It is of note that the following passage was not written by the direct hand or magic of Mathilda Guinevere Honeycutt Wilding.

  Recorded for posterity.

  It’s a boy.

  His wings were of his father, black and gold.

  And at the time of their wedding, his mother fit in her wedding gown.

  Magically.

  By the slivers of the moon,

  T o the tips of the stars…

  ‘Tis tales that are true,

  This lore that is ours.

  With an end that is happy,

  And a future that’s bright.

  Including adventures a-plenty,

  And times that are light.

  This is my wish for my love and me…

  As I will,

  So mote it be.

  In non-witch-speak:

  And they lived happily ever after…

  ~ THE END ~

  Discover the Ghosts and Reincarnation Series

  It begins with Sommersgate House

  Douglas Ashton is the cold and unfeeling owner of the gothic Victorian Mansion, Sommersgate House. Julia Fairfax is his stubborn American sister-in-law. After tragedy strikes, Douglas and Julia are forced to live together at Sommersgate and raise their newly orphaned nieces and nephew.

  Douglas has no desire to raise his dead sister’s children nor does he want the distraction of the tempting Julia living under his roof. Julia is struggling with grief and trying to make a go in a new country without much help from impossibly handsome but even more impossibly remote Douglas. Not to mention, she has to deal with the active hostility of Douglas’s frosty, Attila-the-Hun-in-a-skirt mother, Monique.

  Douglas decides the best way to give the children what they need, get his mother to behave and give himself what he wants is to marry Julia. When he tells her (yes, tells her) she will be his wife, Julia thinks Douglas is (probably) insane. And anyway, she’s decided if she ever has another husband (since the last one wasn’t so great), he was going to be short, balding, have a paunch and worship the ground she walks on (none of these characteristics define Douglas in the slightest).

  One more thing, Sommersgate House is haunted by the ghosts of the man who built the house and the woman who was the love of his life. They both died mysteriously at Sommersgate months after it was finished. When they did, a curse settled on the house making it seem strangely alive. And the only way for the beautiful but frightening house to rid itself of this curse is for its owner to find true love.

  Turn the page to read the first chapter now!

  SOMMERSGATE HOUSE

  Sommersgate House

  EVERYONE KNEW THAT SOMMERSGATE HOUSE was built for love.

  Its creator, Lord Archib
ald Ashton, Baron Blackbourne, spared no expense.

  Every piece of stone, every stick of timber, every pane of glass (and so on), were the best of the very best.

  He located the finest carpets, commissioned the most extraordinary fireplaces, purchased the most exceptional pieces of furniture, demanded the most magnificent chandeliers.

  Every inch had to be resplendent. It was to be a testimony to devotion.

  Sommersgate House was built for his wife, the love of his life, the beautiful Lady Ruby.

  It was tragic, then, that they both died within months of its completion.

  Everyone thought that was enough reason for the curse to settle on the house. After all that trouble, all that expense, all that dedication to an act of love, to have it all so quickly turn catastrophic in only a few months’ time was enough for any house to be cursed.

  And cursed it was.

  Sommersgate, once beautiful (if a bit ostentatiously so), during one dark day and one frantic, devastating evening, turned wicked, frightful and monstrous.

  As the decades went by, the curse became local lore. People could feel it, just walking, riding or eventually driving by the gatehouse of the great property. Its malevolence permeated the very air. For those who went to the house, they felt it, even though they didn’t see it.

  Sommersgate House was a most unhappy place indeed.

  And that didn’t even take into account the hauntings.

  Hope

  THAT MORNING MRS. KILPATRICK HAD a case of nerves.

  Mrs. K knew that there was still the possibility that this morning’s imminent arrival would get cold feet. That Julia Fairfax would decide, at the last minute, not to leave her family, her friends, her home, everything she knew, to spend the next thirteen years of her life at Sommersgate House.

  Yes, that morning Mrs. Kilpatrick was tense. Her daily girl, Veronika was tense. And before he left, Carter, the chauffeur, was tense.

  Worst of all, the house was tense and make no mistake about it, even though it was simply mortar and stone (albeit grand mortar and stone), Sommersgate could most definitely be tense.

  Mrs. Kilpatrick had been working at Sommersgate for the last thirty-seven years, since she was seventeen years old, and she was proud of it. She’d worked her way up from a daily girl to the lofty position of housekeeper. She knew every nook and cranny of the house, every noise, every creaky floorboard. She knew that house like she knew her own husband, through and through.