Love Potion: A Valentine's Day Charity Anthology

by Graceley Knox

  "A lecture, huh?" he asked me, his hands coming to my waist as his body pressed against mine. "I can think of a better use for our time alone." His lips dropped to my neck, and I moaned my agreement.

  It had been so hot when we'd left the resort I'd just thrown on a loose sundress that was little more than a pretty, oversized shirt. When River's hand slid up my thigh, there was no hiding the fact that I was going commando.

  What could I say? The twins had held me to that agreement.

  "Sorry," I whispered to River as his fingers danced teasingly across my sensitive flesh. "No panties today."

  He grunted, still kissing my neck as his hand went to the fly of his pants. "Good. Never did care for them anyway."

  His words made me freeze, but he didn't seem to notice as he moved back a step, releasing his erection and stroking it a couple of times in his hand. A chill raced through me, pooling in my stomach and turning my insides to ice.

  "River?" I murmured, as casually as I could. "When we get back, do you think I could take your new Ferrari for a drive?"

  "Huh?" He frowned at me. "Yeah sure, whatever."

  He stepped closer, cock in hand, and I slammed him with a stun spell.

  Okay, in hindsight, I probably pushed a little bit too much power into it because instead of just freezing him to the spot, it sent him flying across the tunnel and slamming into the rock wall with an audible crack.

  "Holy shit," Cole exclaimed, running down the tunnel. "What the hell did you do that for?"

  I shook my head, warily backing away as he came closer to me. "I thought you left?"

  His dark brows pulled down in a frown. "I came back to grab the room key. You and River were the only ones carrying them, remember?"

  My eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Answer me something, Cole—if that's really who you are. I'm not wearing any panties today. Why?"

  Confusion lay thick on his face as he shook his head at me. "I don't know. Probably so I would stop ripping them?"

  I breathed a long sigh of relief and stepped closer to him, reaching out for his hand. "Well, this person"—I kicked the unconscious man on the ground—"told me he didn't much care for panties." Cole sucked in a sharp breath. "Yeah, I know. And then when I asked if I could take his new Ferrari for a drive, he said 'Yeah sure, whatever.'"

  Cole shook his head and gathered me into a tight hug. He knew exactly what I knew.

  This wasn't River.

  The real River harbored a borderline fetish for stealing my panties, was an Aston Martin loyalist, was scathing about Ferraris... and never, ever let me drive his cars. Not willingly, anyway.

  "Let's get him back to the room," Cole suggested. "We need answers."

  "More than that," I murmured, my voice thick with fear, "we need to know where the real River is."

  Cole muttered another curse under his breath, then hauled fake-River up and slung him over his shoulder. If anyone could extract the answers we needed in a timely manner, it was Cole.

  As it turned out, none of the Omega Group's fancy interrogation techniques were needed. After returning to our resort, we'd tied the fake-River to a chair and—after explaining to the rest of the guys how I’d known it wasn't River—thrown a bucket of ice water on him to wake him up.

  Yes, there were easier, magical ways to reverse the stun spell. But why should this imposter get an easy way?

  Anyway, the second that fake-River realized he'd been made, he started singing like a nightingale.

  "So, let me get this straight," I repeated, scowling down at the rose-red-skinned demon tied to the chair in front of me. He'd dropped his River-appearance really quickly when he figured out that it was just making us more enraged. "You're a demon—"

  "Rose demon," the creature interjected with the correction.

  I rolled my eyes. "You're a rose demon, which means that you're able to take on the appearance of anyone that your target loves? Have I got that right?"

  The demon bobbed its head. "Yes, ma'am. We rose demons are mimics, and damn good ones too. You were my assigned target, and because you feel deep, emotional love for this River person, I was able to replicate him. It's usually flawless." The demon seemed most upset that I'd seen through his disguise.

  I shuddered, wondering how many times these demons used their magic to get laid with unsuspecting partners. Typical goddamn demons.

  "Who assigned Kit as your target?" Vali asked, looking all kinds of intimidating in his tight, gray T-shirt over bulging muscles.

  The demon swallowed visibly. "Boss lady." He bobbed his head a few times. "Lahash."

  At this, both twins dissolved into cursing, and Cole punched a hole in the wall. Even Vali spat something in Romanian. Wes and I were the only ones who held any composure, but even so, I could feel my guts rolling and twisting with dread.

  On our wedding night, Lucy had come to tell us about how River's hellhound side was wanted by the courts of Hell for escaping eternal punishment at the hands of the demoness Lahash. While Hell had no jurisdiction in the human realm, Lucy had been pretty clear we should steer well clear of the demon realm.

  Apparently, Lahash had decided to take matters into her own hands.

  "You weren't alone, were you?" Wesley asked the rose demon, who shook his ugly, horned head.

  "No, sir. My partner was assigned to lure your friend into Hell using this one as a disguise." He nodded to me, and I groaned.

  Of course. The other rose demon had taken on my appearance and somehow tricked River into...

  "How would she have taken him to Hell?" I frowned. "Can you portal between realms?"

  "No ma'am," the demon replied, shaking his head. "But we are at our strongest magic on Valentine’s Day. It was a holiday created by my people, you know?" He looked proud, and I just glared back at him. "Well, anyway, on Valentine's Day we are granted the ability to cross realms at natural crossover points. We usually just lure in loved-up travelers, but this year Lahash chose us for this important task." His chest puffed with pride, then just as quickly deflated. "Which I've failed."

  "Natural crossover points," Caleb echoed. "You mean..."

  "The Hellmouth," the demon finished for him. "Yes. You didn't actually believe the story about sulfuric hot springs, did you?"

  I scowled at the laughing demon and stomped toward the master suite.

  "Vixen," Cole barked after me, "where are you going?"

  "To put on underwear!" I snapped back. "Because this asshole is taking us to Hell, and I would rather do it with my lady bits tucked safely away."

  Chapter 5

  "Fire and torture and Brimstone, oh my!" Caleb murmured in my ear as our rose demon escort led us through the lower city of Hellensburgh, which was apparently the full name for Hell's capital city. "How very cliched."

  I bit back a smile, then shuddered as a tortured soul let out a wailing scream somewhere nearby.

  "Boss lady won't like this," our indentured demon helper muttered for what seemed like the seventy-eight millionth time. "No, she won't like this at all. Are you sure you can't just kill me?" He spun around to implore me, but Vali gave him a rough shove to get him moving again.

  "Just get us to the high court, and you're free to go," I repeated. Again. But it was of no use. The demon started mumbling under his breath again in a way that so strongly resembled Schmegal that I questioned whether Tolkien himself had met a rose demon.

  The closer we got to the high point of the city, which was crowned with an opulent palace with bonfires burning in every turret, the denser the crowds became. Surprisingly, it wasn't all demons, either. Lots of the townsfolk looked like regular humans, despite the fact that I could sense their magics.

  "We're not all punishment and torture, you know?" The rose demon commented when I stared a little too long at a mother cradling her baby. She was fair skinned and blond. The only hint that she was more than human was the barbed tail swishing back and forth behind her.

  "You're not?" I repeated with scepticism. We had literally j
ust walked down a street called Nightmare Alley, and it had been filled with so many screams I worried for my hearing.

  The demon rolled his goat-like eyes. "Okay, yes. A lot of our realm does rely on torture and punishment as our main commodity. But someone has to do it, and those stuffy, bird-brained angels pay good money. Little demons still got to eat."

  This perspective made me pause. In reality, I knew very little about this realm. I'd just been relying on what I thought I knew from human pop culture. Surely the existence of, well, me should have been enough to teach me the error of my ways.

  "Hey." Our demon escort tapped an elderly, winged creature on the shoulder. "What's all the fuss?"

  "Didn't you hear?" the creature replied in a voice like breaking concrete. "Big court case going on. Even got a couple of them fancy princes in attendance."

  Our escort paled and swallowed nervously, but this news gave me hope.

  "Don't get too excited," Austin said quietly to me as we continued through the upper streets of Hellensburgh. "There are five princes and only one of them owes us any favors."

  I gave him a tight smile. "One in five is better than none in unknown." But I still crossed my fingers and prayed to whatever higher power maybe owed me one that one of those princes attending the trial would be Lachlan—my mother's ex-husband.

  The court room looked surprisingly like an old fashioned courtroom in the human world, except, obviously, for the facts that the judge wore his white, rolled wig perched between two massive horns and his enormous, clawed hands made the gavel look like a toy hammer.

  "River!" I gasped out as we entered the viewing area. My British lover was bound with what seemed to be pure lightning, and he stood in a box labeled "accused" beside the judge’s bench. His head jerked up at my gasp, and he opened his mouth to speak.

  "Silence!" the huge, horned judge boomed, banging his tiny gavel so hard it snapped in half. Clearly this was a common occurrence, as a small half-woman, half goat scurried out and handed him a new one before disappearing with the broken one. "Court is in session! If you cannot abide by my rules, then I'll see you flayed!" The judge narrowed his entirely black eyes at me and grinned with fangs. "Oh, it's you. Well, isn't this quite the honor, Madam Fox."

  A gasp went up throughout the courtroom with hundreds of spectators clamoring to get a look at me. Madam Fox. Ruler of the supernatural side of the human realm. Fucking fantastic.

  "I apologize for showing up unannounced." I spoke clearly, attempting to use a little of the diplomacy that Vali and River had been teaching me. "But you seem to have something that belongs to me."

  The judge continued to stare at me while stroking his curled goatee with a clawed hand. Eventually, he shifted his gaze to River and then back to me. "So I do. This case just got a whole lot more interesting."

  "My lord," a primly dressed woman announced from the prosecution table, "she was not invited, nor did she gain the correct permissions to travel within our realm. You should have her arrested and charged for this total disregard for our laws."

  The woman turned slightly toward me and gave a smug, bitchy smile as she patted her perfect french twist. At first glance she seemed to be dressed in a smartly tailored, corporate dress, but on closer inspection, it seemed to be... was her dress blinking at me?

  "It's made of eyes." The rose demon murmured to me. "Her dress. It's made of the eyes of anyone who crosses her."

  I swallowed down some bile. "Lahash, I presume?"

  The rose demon nodded, then ducked back out of sight before Lahash spotted him near me.

  "My lord," the demoness started again when the judge said nothing.

  "Do not presume to rule my courtroom, Lahash," the judge snapped at her, and small flames shot from his flared nostrils as he spoke. "You hold no authority here, except as prosecution."

  The demoness tightened her mouth and glared daggers back at the judge but was, unfortunately, smart enough to keep her mouth shut.

  The judge turned his black gaze back to me. "You arrived just in time for me to pass sentencing on the convicted, escaped prisoner, Fenrir." I bit my lip to stop myself from arguing that this was River. Not Fenrir. "The fact that you have prior claim to this prisoner complicates matters, though. It's a fact that was not brought to my attention in the proceedings." Again, he glared at Lahash, and I got the feeling they were not on good terms.

  There was a long pause, but when I opened my mouth to speak, the dirty, gray-winged demon at the defense table gave me a panicked headshake.

  Finally the judge spoke again. "I have no interest in sparking a war with the human realm, as we in Hellensburgh are not unaware of the strengths you've amassed." He pursed his lips and tapped his chin. "I will consult with higher council on the matter. Court will reconvene in three moons." With that he smacked his gavel back down, then pushed up from his bench and lumbered out of the courtroom.

  "Three moons?" I exclaimed as the whole courtroom started speaking at once. People were moving everywhere, and I just barely caught a glimpse as River was escorted out by several enormous demon guards.

  "It's not as long as you think," the gray-winged lawyer told me as he approached, a beaten-up old briefcase tucked under his arm. "It's, uh, it's nice to meet you, Madam Fox. I'm Trent, Fenrir's defense attorney. Or, I mean, I was. I just lost, so I apologize for that. I'm not very good at my job, see. That's why they assigned me in the first place." He was rambling but gave me an embarrassed, apologetic smile.

  "He's not Fenrir," I snapped, gritting my teeth with anger. Wesley grabbed my hand in his, uncurling my fist and weaving our fingers together. The act was soothing, and I let him take the edge off my anger. "What do you mean that it's not as long as we think?"

  "Oh, uh…" Trent mumbled something, bobbing his head up and down as he led us back outside the courtroom and pointed up. "See, the skies work differently here. Or, from what I gathered in human-realm studies. We have a series of moons which travel across our sky in a continuous pattern. Three moons is the equivalent of, uh"—he wrinkled his nose while he thought—"maybe one hour? Or is it one week? Sorry, human-realm studies was centuries ago, and my memory isn't what it used to be."

  I shook my head in disbelief and rubbed at the bridge of my nose. Vali laid a reassuring hand on the small of my back, but it was going to take a whole lot more than physical touch to calm me down.

  "So now what?" I demanded of Trent, the crappy lawyer.

  He shrugged, and little fuzzy bits of feather poofed off his wings. "We wait until court is back in session." He sat down on one of the courthouse steps and flipped open his beaten-up old briefcase. "Coffee?" he offered, withdrawing a thermos and pouring black liquid into one of the screw-off cups.

  "I guess," I murmured, accepting the cup from him and taking a gulp—before spraying it all over Vali's expensive Italian shoes. "What the hell? That's awful!"

  Trent looked up at me, confused. "Well, yes. Exactly. This is Hell... We don't have good coffee here. The angels claimed that a long time ago. They always take anything worth having." He sighed heavily, and his wings drooped.

  Suddenly I found myself reassessing my views on angels and demons, and it was weirding me out.

  Awkwardly, I handed the cup back and sat beside him on the step.

  "So how long have you been a defense attorney in Hell, Trent?" I asked, starting some polite conversation. Better than sitting there in silence for either an hour or a week.

  Chapter 6

  We'd been making uncomfortable small talk with Trent for maybe half an hour or so when a shadow fell across me, and I looked up to find Lachlan—prince of Hell and my mother's ex-husband—looming over us.

  "Kit, good to see you," he greeted me, then gave a nod to my guys. "The judge wants to speak with you in his chambers."

  My brows shot up, and I tilted my head with curiosity. "Lead the way." I stuck my hand out for him to help me up, then dusted off the back of my shorts.

  "Uh, no." Lachlan shook his head and held u
p his hand when the guys made to follow. "Just Kit."

  Austin and Cole both started to protest at the same time, and Lachlan glared literal fire at them both. "I said, just Kit. Save your testosterone-fueled bullshit for another day, boys. You know full well she can handle herself without you hovering."

  My guys all grumbled, and I bit back a smile. It was true, though.

  "Come on," Lachlan said to me, leading the way back into the courthouse with a swish of his long leather jacket. "I'm actually impressed with your restraint so far."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, jogging a little so I could walk beside him, not behind him.

  He arched a brow at me and scratched the stubble on his cheek. "When I heard Lahash had abducted River and was trying him in the court of Hell, I half expected you to turn up guns blazing and declare war on the demon realm."

  I gave a short, humorless laugh. "The day isn't over yet. I'll wait and see what this judge has to say before I start blowing shit up, though."

  Lachlan rolled his eyes. "My home thanks you," he muttered in a dry voice. "Through here. Remember, I still owe you a debt. Whatever I suggest, trust that it is in your best interest."

  I gave him a small frown of confusion, but there was no time to question him further as the door swung open to the judge's chamber and Lachlan ushered me inside.

  "Madam Fox, thank you for joining us," the demonic judge boomed and gave me a toothy grin. He was seated behind his huge desk—which seemed to be made of bones—and River stood in the corner with those living electrical bonds still around his wrists.

  "My pleasure," I murmured with insincerity as I eyed the rest of the room’s inhabitants. Perched in one of the chairs like she had a rod up her ass was Lahash, of course, and off to the side was another handsome man whom I vaguely recognized as another of the princes of Hell, but his name escaped me. "What can I do for you, Judge..." I squinted at the nameplate on his bone desk. "Judge Soul-Eater?" I shuddered a little at the name, then quickly told myself it was probably just one of those unfortunate surnames, like that kid at school whose surname was Hunt and his parents named him Mike.