by JL Madore
Thea’s plot to ensnare Phoenix came to mind. The pregnancy. The entrapment. His Mark lit as his beast roared to life. Could he and Ren have conceived a child? His emotions twisted within. “Explain to me what the two of you have been playing at, mate.”
The guilt in her eyes struck deep. “You’re right. I should have told you before things got serious—”
“Serious?” Ayana choked. “I practically strip down and mount you, and you flick me off like a bug. Do you honestly think either of us is stupid enough to believe that, in a matter of days, you fell for Ren? What game are you playing at?”
His beast lunged within at the snide disdain she showed Ren. That was her own sister—his mate—she was disparaging. It was all he could do not to rush the distance and grab Ren’s sister by her scrawny neck.
“Ren?” he said, turning his back on the sister to focus on his sweet, round-faced Cherub. “Tell me the truth. I’m barely holding it together here, and I don’t want to say or do anything that pits us on opposite sides. Whatever it is, I’ll listen and hear your side. I expect whatever is going on is much more her doing than yours.”
“Really?” Ayana sniped behind him. “Boy, did I play you wrong. You’re not an alpha male; you’re a sap.”
“Stop it,” Ren snapped. “Insult me all you want—it’s been my lot in life—but not him.”
Ayana’s eyes widened as she began to laugh. She pressed a hand on the plane of her stomach and tipped her head back. “You foolish twit. You honestly think he cares for you.”
“He does.”
“I do.”
“And what? Given the choice, he chose you over me? What qualities of yours do you think ensnared him? Your seductive curves? Your timeless grace?”
The growl that ripped from Hark’s chest was nothing he tried to stifle. It was all beast. He was throwing off the purple glow like a party favor and he didn’t even care that he was rocking the homicidal. “Watch your mouth. Ren has a beauty your angelic packaging can’t touch. Add in manners, compassion, altruism, and honesty, and you don’t even register on my radar. That you don’t see her magnificence says more about you than her.”
He frowned, looking from one to the other. Yes, he saw the resemblance, but he’d never put that together without seeing them side by side. “Ren said you and she are cut from a different cloth. I didn’t realize she was the finest silk while you are an old burlap sack.”
The scent of Ren’s tears sent his beast raging. He couldn’t bear to see her hurting. Pulling her to his chest, he kissed the top of her head. “Don’t cry, my sweet angel. You are loved beyond reason. Whatever the secrets are, we will conquer them together.”
“What? You love my sister?”
He stroked Ren’s back and brushed his thumb over the nape of her neck. Connected like that, his beast stood down, appeased. Meeting the jealous surprise in Ayana’s gaze, he smiled. “Yes, your sister. Without a doubt, your sister.”
Ren pushed back and turned in his arms. “Is it so unbelievable to you that a man finds me loveable?”
“Any man? No. A man like him? Yes.”
Ren tensed in his arms. Hurt and disappointment oozed from her very soul. “Well then, eat your heart out, Ayana. For once, I win the prize.”
Ayana’s chin dropped as her eyes narrowed. “Ah, there it is. Your attitude makes sense now. You were jealous Michael sent me down to seduce him, so you thought to best me.”
Ren stiffened. “No. I went because Lady Divinity asked me to, but thank you for telling him about your contract with Michael. I would never have betrayed your private business, but now he knows.”
Ayana looked at him, and her eyes widened to the size of moons. Backing up, she rushed for the door.
Hark raised his palm and locked them up tight. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Why, in heaven’s name, would Michael contract you to seduce me?”
The female pressed her lips tight together.
He shrugged and stalked closer. The acrid burn of Ayana’s panic filled his sinuses, and he breathed deep. “Spill it, female. What the fuck are you and the Archangel up to? And what does it have to do with my brother, Ringo?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ren hadn’t seen this side of Hark up close before. She’d had a secondhand glimpse at his fierceness in the illustrated pages of Ringo’s comic books, but the power of her male in real life couldn’t be captured on a page. He was glorious—muscles taut, gaze locked, and a tiny upturn to the corner of his mouth suggesting not only was he sure of himself but that he enjoyed tormenting Ayana a little.
Okay, maybe more than a little.
“Take a seat,” he said, gesturing to one sofa as he reclined on the opposite one. “Might as well get comfy because we’re not leaving until I know what’s going on.”
Ayana frowned and eased down on the front edge of the cushion. “You can’t keep me prisoner in my own quarters.”
“Of course I can.” He chuckled, getting comfy. “If you recall, I’m a policing agent of the Otherworld. You’re up to something, and I’m not leaving until I know the whole story.”
He patted the seat beside him and, with a reassuring smile, gestured for Ren to join the party. “So, my sweet, start us off by telling me what you feel you can share.”
Ren sat sideways on the couch and took his hand in hers. “The fact that I kept anything from you all sickens me. I honestly, don’t know much. I’m sorry, when this started, Taharqa, Nephilim of the Ancient Moors, was a name in folklore and gossip. I didn’t know you or your family. I didn’t mean to—”
He captured her milling hands and squeezed. “I meant what I said earlier. I know your heart. Just be honest now, and it’ll be fine.”
She swallowed and drew a deep breath. “Ayana aspires to be recognized above our station, and is known to take on a certain type of challenge for the right reward.”
“A high-end call girl with aspirations, I’m with you.”
“I am not!” Ayana snapped, glaring at her. “Are you going to let him talk about me that way?”
Ren shrugged. “I’d set him straight if he was wrong. You seduce men and make them think they have a chance with you, for credits and nice gifts. At least he gave you ‘high-end.’”
If looks could kill, Ren would’ve been clutching her throat and dropping to the polished marble floor. The funny part was, she didn’t care. She’d always hated being in Ayana’s bad book before, but something fundamental had changed.
She’d found her worth.
And it was far more than her sister had ever valued her at.
“So, Michael contracted her,” Hark said, bringing her back to the conversation at hand.
Ren nodded. “He wanted her to seduce you and ingratiate herself into your household. He promised a fortune of credits to be delivered when she proved you were her plaything.”
“But why me?”
Ayana huffed. “All the other warriors are mated.”
“Lucky me. I feel so special.”
Ayana’s tablet beeped, and Ren strode to the shelf to read her sister’s mail. “It’s an incoming summons from Archangel Tower.”
Ayana’s brow creased. “Then you have to let me go.”
Hark chuckled. “Respond. Say ‘too busy.’”
“What?” Ayana said, her voice hitting a glass-shattering pitch. “You don’t tell Michael, Commander of the Seven, that you’re too busy to heed his call. Are you crazy?”
Ren typed the message as directed and sent it, wondering about Hark’s plan. “Sent.”
He rose from his seat with the grace of a predator and grew very serious as he met her gaze. “I need you to trust me, Ren. What I’m about to do is a show—a task as vile to me as any I endure in the blood of the streets. Please, forgive me.”
As the energy in the air tingled at the back of her neck, Hark shifted onto the opposite sofa and pressed Ayana onto her back. She couldn’t help the gasp of despair that escaped her throat. With a horror she’d never suffered bef
ore, she watched him press his lips to Ayana’s throat and clasp his large hand over her breast.
Her sister fought for a split-second, then groaned and wrapped a leg around his thigh.
A tremor exploded inside her, twisting her insides and spread through her entire body. Thankfully, Michael materialized facing them and missed the devastation on Ren’s face.
They looked beautiful together.
Her stomach lurched, and she ran straight to the nearest bathroom to be sick.
Hark’s beast yanked on his tether with a ferocity of an enraged dragon. Crushing the budding trust he’d built with Ren speared him straight through the heart. To have his mate think he wanted to touch Ayana cleaved him in two. Still, he played his part. For Ringo.
When the Archangel took form and had ample time to view their moment of indiscretion, Hark rose with the most convincing look of shock he could muster. “Michael? What are you doing here?”
“Interrupting, it seems. My apologies.”
Before he disappeared, Hark raised a hand. “What news of Ringo? Everyone at home is worried about the boy. Can I give them some peace that he is well and cared for?”
Michael straightened the perfectly straight knot of his tie and frowned. “Not that I answer to you, but the boy is fine. He’s with the Seraph, to be cared for and trained the same as any other Nephilim whelp. Now, excuse me, I return your privacy. Ayana, see me when you’re free.”
The moment the asshole vanished, Hark launched over the opposite sofa and raced deeper into the apartment to find his mate. The door to the en suite off her bedroom was open, and Ren was doubled over and vomiting into the toilet.
“Love, I’m sorry,” he said, dropping to his knees on the hard floor beside her. He stroked her arm, and she swatted his touch away.
Twisting onto her feet to avoid touching him, she snatched a cloth off the vanity shelf and wet it under the waterfall that began to flow at her beckoning.
“That wasn’t real,” he said, his stomach now threatening to betray him as well. “If Michael wants your sister to—”
“I’m not an idiot!” Ren shouted, covering her face with the cloth. “I understand why. It doesn’t mean I like it, or that I ever wanted to see it.”
Hark rose before her, desperate to ease her suffering, but aware she didn’t want his touch. He was at a loss. If his brothers were in this position, they’d know what to say or do to comfort their females.
He felt her sadness. He smelled her grief. His fault.
How did he make this right? “I’m sorry.”
She glared at him with a harshness in her gaze he didn’t think possible. “Please step outside. I want to freshen up and need a moment.”
Before he crossed the threshold of the door, he turned back. Devastation haunted her gaze and hollowed him out. He owned that. He’d done that. He vowed right there and then that nothing and no one would ever again put that look of disillusionment on her face.
His hands reached for her unbidden and he forced them back to his sides. “To the depths of my tainted soul I regret that I’m not better at this. I wish with everything in me that I understood more about relationships so I could say the right thing to you—for you.”
Her tears fell silently down her cheeks. “Please, go. Give me one damn moment to myself.”
His hope dropped to the floor with his gaze.
He’d destroyed something precious between them.
Storme finished smashing the brick with the hammer and swept the chunky red powder into the mortar Cleo gave her for her thirteen birthday. Working it into a fine dust with the ancient lonsdaleite pestle, she smiled at her odd but eager eight coven members for the night: Austin, Cassie, Ronnie, Thea, Layne, Jules, Pyper, and Clare Voyant, a local drag queen Oracle.
She’d never seen such a mishmash group.
They were perfect—and their coven room was perfect.
With all her heart, she wished she could thank Ringo for his thoughtful and skillful efforts: Tree of Life painted on the floor beneath them, its roots and branches reaching into the corners of the room, the triple moon symbol above the door honoring the goddess, and the stunning closed pentacle carved and painted in atop their Wiccan roundtable. He’d finished it off by treating the surface to make it seem like the artwork had been there for hundreds of years.
“All right, ladies,” she said, joining them as they all stood around the pentacle. “Tonight, we’ll cast a protective barrier spell and follow that up with a reflection of hex. Whoever dares to cast anything against our males will find their harmful intent returned upon them threefold.”
“Suck it, bitches,” Ronnie said, waving her purple candle in the air like a wand. “Serves them right.”
Storme chuckled but wouldn’t argue. “For the sake of everyone being on the same page, a few basics. Wicca is grounded in the love and power of nature. Despite judgy and narrow-minded belief, there is nothing demonic about it. The symbol in front of you is a pentagram. Its five points are tribute to the connectedness of the four elements—earth, air, fire, and water—and then spirit at the top. When we encircle it, as Ringo did, it is a pentacle and closed against negative magic and energies.”
She checked that everyone was following and they each nodded, taking this as seriously as she’d hoped.
“Some of you possess inherited magic, which is wonderful. That should be a boon to the cause. I don’t want you to call on your powers, simply focus on our intent. Everything we’re doing is intended to keep our males free from the negative magical influence of those that wish them harm. So, mote it be.”
She waited, but they didn’t say anything. “Yeah, sorry, when I say, ‘so mote it be,’ you repeat that back to me.
A hodgepodge of the rejoinder came back at her.
“Gracious,” Thea said, looking around the table. “We need to work on that.”
“We sounded like a backyard cat choir,” Clare said, flipping her fuchsia braid to the back of her black catsuit.
Storme tried not to laugh. “First, we’ll open our circle by addressing the quarters with our ceremonial dagger. It’s called an athame. As I walk around you and greet the four points of the compass, turn with me. And when I say so mote it be at the end, you’ll repeat it. Ready?”
“So ready,” Ronnie said, straightening her pointed hat.
Storme closed her eyes and drew two, deep cleansing breaths. Letting go of the frivolity of teaching her friends witchcraft, she centered herself in her magic.
The athame warmed between her pressed hands, and when she looked up, she addressed the east by pointing the tip of its blade at the wall. “Guardian of the East, I conjure a Circle of Power, by my will and my word.”
She walked a quarter of the way around the table, passing Austin and Ronnie. The blade trailed a thin silver line in the air where she drew it around the circle. The ladies turned to face the next direction. “Guardian of the South, enclose us in a boundary between worlds, a sacred space for worship.”
Storme continued another quarter turn, dragging the athame through the air and completing half a circle. “Guardian of the West, shelter us from negative energies and outside forces.”
By the time she reached the fourth direction, and the ladies turned, they were wide-eyed, staring as the silver line encircling them grew thicker, stronger. “Guardian of the North, contain the energies raised within. Let no one here be harmed by what we do tonight.”
Once she returned to the starting point at the top of the sacred pentacle, she drew the tip of the athame around until it met its tail in one solid, unbroken line. A gentle crackle snapped in the air, and the rush of power swept around them in a gust. “By the powers above and the powers below, this circle is cast. Let no one here break our sacred circle. So, mote it be.”
“So, mote it be,” they repeated in perfect unity.
Turning back to the women spread evenly around her beautiful new table, Storme felt like a true witch for the first time in over a year. Cleo Queen h
ad a lot of undesirable characteristics, but her love of witchcraft was something she truly admired and understood.
“That was perfect, girls,” she said, proud of her magic misfits. “Let’s do this.”
In the iron kettle situated in the center of the pentacle, she dumped in the brick dust. “Scarlett, can you pour that water in next. And Layne, you’re in charge of a spoon of sea salt and mixing it up.”
When the base mixture was complete, she held up the athame. “Everyone, put your index finger over the top of the kettle. I’ll slice my finger with the athame, and you will each feel its bite.”
The raised eyebrows made her giggle. “Magic isn’t free. What’s a cut finger next to the damage our men take for us?”
Ronnie chuffed. “Guilt trip. I’m not a fan of being poked and prodded, but when you put it that way.”
Storme smiled. “Repeat after me. Blood is our payment of the price. Our essences offered, with one sharp slice.”
When they finished the refrain, she drew the blade across the meaty pad of her finger. They all hissed, but she shook her head when a couple of them moved to draw back. “Keep your fingers over the kettle and your bodies within the cast circle. It’s pain with a purpose.”
“Isn’t that childbirth?” Clare asked.
“This hurts waaaay less than childbirth,” Austin said.
Storme noticed the grimace tightening Thea’s face and stepped in to end that topic. “Our payment made, let healing begin. Magic around and magic within.”
She held up her finger, which was no longer bleeding. “See, nothing but a tiny, pink mark. That’s the protective barrier spell. Now we’re on to the reversal of hex and harm.”
“Yeah, baby,” Ronnie said.
When everyone looked at her, she shrugged. “What? I can’t be the only one tired of people abusing my man. Although, that last whammy they took wasn’t all bad.”
Pyper and Jules looked them expectantly.
“Okay, spill it,” Jules said. “What happened, and why do you all look like cats that swallowed the canary?”
