by Jaya Moon
Copyright © R H Butler 2020
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover © Derange Doctor Designs 2019
Created with Vellum
Contents
Author’s Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Thanks for Reading
The Ascension of Meghan may will conclude with
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Author’s Note
This is a slow to medium burn reverse harem story with explicit content intended for audiences 18 years and older.
For those of you who read the first book
and have returned to read the second
Thank you
1
I would erase them from my life. That was my quest on the first night after Tallow and Mox had once again sent me away for my own good. If it were that easy for them, it would be that easy for me.
Arriving back at my apartment in the late afternoon, I pulled off my clothes, throwing Mox’s sweatshirt into the laundry hamper before I showered. I scrubbed Mox and everything we’d shared away, and then, wrapped in a towel, stood at my closet. To one side were all the dresses I used to wear on my nights out on the town before I decided to change my ways, get a job, and stop trying to fuck myself back into existence. I pushed them along the rack, looking at each one until I found a short blue, low-cut halter dress; something that left little to the imagination. Over the next hour, I blowdried my hair until it was as full as a lion’s mane, made my eyes dark and smoky, and finished by accentuating my lips with deep red lipstick. Then I headed into the heart of Cincinnati.
I found a bar and ordered a gin and tonic—the drink they say never to have if you feel down, but I would prove nothing could touch me.
It wasn’t long before some guy took up the stool next to mine. Black hair, clean-shaven, eyes that weren’t worth looking into. Fundamentally different from Mox. From Tallow. And Abriel.
He engaged in the usual small talk. “You’re local?”
“I’m visiting.”
“Where from?”
“Los Angeles.” I’d never been there, but men like him weren’t inclined to pick my brain long enough to find out I was lying.
He waited for me to give him more, or ask him a question, and I could see a hint of exasperation on his face, but he was determined not to give up. His gaze traced down my neck to my chest, lingered there, and then moved back up to my face. “What’s a beautiful woman like you doing all alone in a bar like this?”
The most boring pickup line of them all, but at least we were on the same page.
“Looking for a bit of fun,” I said, then took a sip from my G&T, looking up at him from beneath my lashes.
He raised his glass. “I’ll drink to that.”
When he invited me to play pool, I laughed. There was something appealing about the thought of bashing balls around with a stick.
As the night progressed and he bought me drink after drink, the edges of things softened, then began to blur. I found myself laughing hysterically at how good I played bad: potting his balls or the white ball, or despite connecting with the black ball so hard it tracked multiple acute angles around the table, missing every other.
It was obvious every second we were together he spent assessing when would be the right time to suggest we go somewhere else. I wanted that, didn’t I?
The drunker I became, the more I couldn’t hold back where my mind went. Flashes of Mox—his lips against mine, tracing my body with his fingers and tongue—made heat pool between my legs. Some moments my stomach filled with a sensation like riding a roller coaster, going up, coming down, just like it felt when I’d flown with Tallow. And even the touch of Abriel’s foot against mine after he’d saved me from Lucien was somehow intimate; a connection.
I’d come to the bar to forget them. Instead, they began to consume my every thought.
As my companion for the evening set up another shot, leaning over, the pool cue pulled back, I yanked the stick out of his grasp.
“Come on.”
I grabbed his hand and pulled him out into the night, precarious on my heels. The first alley we came to, I dragged him into it, down the cobblestones. The memory of the night I’d saved Tallow from the angel swept into my mind. I pushed it away as fast as I pushed the guy up against the brick wall. Realizing I offered him what he’d wanted since the moment he’d set eyes on me, his mouth came down onto mine, and his hands grabbed hold of my ass as he pulled me toward him. His cock pressed hard against me, his cologne overpowering as his fingers moved like they were kneading dough.
What was I doing?
Once I’d fucked to feel—to remind myself I was alive. Each encounter had meant nothing more than that. It was physical. Never emotional. Now…
I couldn’t erase my feelings about what Mox and I had shared or discard the sentiment behind our afternoon together. Convincing myself I felt nothing for Mox or Tallow or Abriel was impossible. I couldn’t file Mox away with all the other men I’d fucked during my first year in the city and say he meant nothing, that they meant nothing.
They meant everything.
As the guy groaned into my mouth and ground against me, I realized my arms hung limp at my sides. My heart’s rhythm beat out words in my mind: He’s not Mox. He’s not Tallow. He’s not Abriel.
They had taught me to feel again, whether I wanted them to or not. They had reawoken in me my need to be cared for and loved.
Then they’d abandoned me.
Despite what they’d done, the drink and my misguided intentions, I couldn’t go back to who I’d been. I was no longer that Meghan May.
I pulled away from him.
“I’m sorry.” The words were thick in my mouth. “I can’t. I shouldn’t have…”
He stared at me.
I knew what he thought, that I should finish what I’d started; he was taken aback at how hot and cold I’d blown—just like Tallow.
Turning from him, I began to stagger away.
“What the fuck? What the fuck’s wrong with you?”
What was wrong with me? Once I hadn’t felt a thing. Now I felt everything.
As I weaved my way back to my apartment, I glanced up and could have sworn I saw a silhouette high in the night sky. A bat? A bird? An owl.
When I blinked to clear my blurred vision, it was gone.
2
I swore at myself for not bringing a shawl, the night being unusually cold. I swore at myself for thinking I could erase Tallow, Mox, and Abriel with too many drinks and a guy who I had no interest in. Then I started
a drunken tirade in my head about how much I disliked the three of them, and that kept my mind busy until I reached my apartment, a walk that would usually take twenty minutes but seemed to go on forever.
It was late enough for the apartment security gate to be locked. I began to fish in my shoulder bag for the key.
Someone cleared their throat behind me. Startled, I swung my bag wildly as I spun around, but its momentum was stopped as a hand grabbed it.
I almost screamed before I realized I knew the barefoot, barrel-chested man dressed all in black who loomed over me. Berron.
“Ms. May.” He said my name like speaking it left a bitter taste in his mouth.
I yanked my bag from his grasp and glared at him as he stared at me. Out of all the kin I might want to see, he would always be on the bottom of my list. The first and last time I’d seen him, he’d treated me like I was a thing to be experimented on, making Abriel try to enrapture me. I had no time for him, but if he had come, maybe he wasn’t alone.
My heart betrayed me as I scanned the street, hoping to see Tallow, Mox or Abriel. When I realized they weren’t there, I snapped at Berron, “And what do you want?”
He drew a breath to speak.
“Nope. Don’t answer that,” I interrupted, waggling a finger at him drunkenly. “I don’t care.”
I knew I was lying, to him and myself, the moment I said it. Tallow had closed the door of his world to me, and yet it seemed that world refused to let me go, whether he liked it or not. In the place I’d gone to after I’d burst into flames during Lucien’s enrapturement, my mother had said I had things to do. I couldn’t help thinking those things had to do with Tallow’s world.
Berron bared his teeth at me. “Believe me when I say I’m as glad to be here as you are to see me. Tasks like these aren’t usually mine, however…” He growled in the back of his throat.
What tasks? And who would normally be sent to speak with a lowly human being, which Berron unmistakably considered me to be. Tallow? Mox or Abriel? I swallowed the question that leapt to my mind—“Why didn’t they come?”—because I already knew the answer.
“I’m here on behalf of Dore, head of the Council of Kin. He thanks you for your attempts to aid us and wishes to extend you an invitation. To come to his lodge and meet with him.”
Meet with Tallow’s father? I didn’t have to think too hard to work out reasons he might want to talk to me. It would include reminding me I was important, that I had “gifts” and could help the kin. All the stuff I’d heard before. But none of it mattered anymore. “You need to have a chat with Tallow. You missed the part where he dismissed me. So there isn’t going to be any meeting. You go back to your world and I’m going to go back to living in mine.” The finality of my words made my eyes sting with tears. Whether I liked it or not, that was the reality of my situation. The magical world of Tallow and the kin and any connection I may have had with it had ended.
Berron laughed a deep rumble as condescension rippled across his face. “Tallow is a child who, when it suits him, tries to play at being an adult. If you think he has the authority to dismiss you, you’re mistaken. When the head of the Council of Kin requests an audience, you come.”
Being drunk made me bold enough to laugh back at him. “Do I?” I glanced down at my shoulder bag, put my hand in it and started to rummage for my keys again. “I don’t care who’s making the request. I’m not coming anywhere.” The only place I’d go was upstairs and to bed. My hand swept over what I’d been looking for. I pulled out my bunch of keys and held them up to Berron like I had won some kind of battle. “I’m glad we’ve sorted that out.” I turned my back on him and began to unlock the security gate.
“You need to speak to him.”
I shrugged my shoulders and turned the key. You need to fuck off.
“It’s about Savannah Dacore.”
The mention of her name stopped me. Savannah. The mountain lion cub Lucien had in his apartment. The memory of the young girl I’d found when I’d placed my hand to the cub’s heart, curled in a tight ball in that dark void, quaking and alone, flashed into my mind. She’d been so frightened and begged me not to leave. I’d told her I had to go but promised I’d come back for her, only I’d become so consumed with Tallow, Mox, and Abriel I’d forgotten about her. How could I have done that? I knew what it was like to be alone and frightened. I’d given her hope then abandoned her. Had they gone back to rescue her? Was she now with them?
When I turned back to face Berron, I saw the corners of his mouth twitch in a smile. He knew I cared and would hear him out, and I hated him more than I ever had.
“What about her?”
“We need to know every detail about where Lucien’s keeping her. What you saw and what she said.”
“I can tell you all that right here and now.” I didn’t need to go traipsing off to meet Tallow’s father to divulge the little I knew.
“Dore doesn’t like relayed information. He wants to speak with you directly and invites you to the Eyrie. It’s a place in the mountains. A safe place.” Berron peered around as though to emphasize the point that being in the city was a risk he wasn’t comfortable taking.
My mother’s words came back to me again. You have things to do. Had she meant helping Savannah? Were my parents guiding me from wherever they now were, like I thought they’d been back when I’d been at Tallow’s lodge? Or could I simply be looking for reasons to go against Tallow’s wishes because deep in my heart, I wanted to believe Tallow’s world needed me as much as I thought I needed it?
Berron broke through my thoughts. “You have no idea how important Savannah is.”
“Important?”
Berron sighed loudly like I was wasting his time. “If you come to the Eyrie, all will be explained to you there.”
She’s important. A swell of relief flowed through me before I smiled widely. “If she’s that important you’ll rescue her with or without my help.” I felt victorious knowing the kin wouldn’t leave her a prisoner.
Berron snarled. “The success or failure of that might depend on you.”
I might have been drunk and not thinking as clearly as I usually would, but I knew emotional blackmail when I heard it. I’d had enough.
I turned back to the gate, unlocked it, and stepped through. I made a show of making sure it had locked once I pulled it closed, then grabbed hold of the bars and peered at Berron. “Thank Tallow’s dad for the invitation. Unfortunately, I’ll be busy doing other things.” I had no idea what those things were going to be. I wished I did.
Berron bared his teeth again—bright even in the dull light—before he clamped his mouth shut. A smile, gentle but tightlipped, spread across his face. “What compelled you to aid us in the first place? What has changed between now and then? Our plight hasn’t changed. Why has yours?”
The question took me aback. At Tallow’s lodge, I’d decided to help because it gave me purpose and made me feel like I’d finally found a reason to start living. Why give that up? My decisions should have been guided by my fear of the Fallen after what Lucien had done to me, but deep down I knew they weren’t. The only thing guiding me at that moment was how hollow Tallow’s rejection had made me feel. Lofty owl. What right did he have to tell me what I could and couldn’t do?
I realized I’d fallen silent, and when I turned my attention back to Berron, he raised an eyebrow as though everything I’d thought was written across my face.
He pulled out a small piece of card and extended it toward me.
Before I could stop myself, I snatched it from his hand. “What’s this? My exclusive invite to your meeting?”
He rolled his eyes. “A bus ticket. To Knoxville. Someone will meet you there.”
“What is it with you kin thinking you can tell me what to do?” First Tallow, now Berron. I screwed up the ticket into my fist and threw it over my shoulder. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
He shrugged. “You might not believe this, Ms. May, but I don’t care. Come
. Don’t come. I’ve done what Dore asked me to do. The decision is now yours.”
Before I could think of a reply, a silver Mercedes slowed on the street and pulled up to the curb. Berron, without another look at me or word, went over, got in the back, and the car drove away.
3
The elevator in the entrance hall still hadn’t been fixed. Someone had cut the shape of a tombstone out of a cardboard box and stuck it to the doors. It read, “RIP Beloved Elevator. A service to us all that one week in May 1956 when you actually worked.” I laughed before it dawned on me there were four flights of stairs between me and my apartment.
I took off my heels before I started to climb the stairs so I didn’t end up breaking my neck, relieved for the wooden bannister rail, which not only helped keep me upright, but it was handy to haul my uncooperative body upward.
When I reached my apartment, I threw my bag and shoes inside the front door and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. I’d have an Advil or two, go to bed, pass out, and hopefully have few regrets in the morning.
As I turned on the faucet, tapping came from the front room. Just what I needed—rats in the wall. Along with the out-of-service elevator, rats were the second most common complaint among residents. I’d considered baiting them in the past but knew a poisoned rat could then be eaten by a bird of prey, killing both.
My mind drifted to Tallow at that moment.
“Damn you, Tallow.” I thumped at the wall again in response to more tapping. “Damn you, too, Berron.”
