Chapter 1
Chapter One Helena “So, this is my new house.” Graham stepped out of the car looking stunned. “It feels strange to be given the house of a man I barely remember.” “A midcentury modern. Wow! East coast wizards never have homes like this.” We were in the most California place I could imagine, in a tiny town unmarked on maps called Avalon Wood. It was definitely a wizard town, the name hinting at magic while the town’s unincorporated, very low-key vibe definitely suggested they didn’t want any strangers poking around. We had passed through a 1920s-era downtown with several shops and cafes but none of them had signs. Any tourist who stumbled on this town would keep on going. On a hillside rising just over the town was this neighborhood of large midcentury homes, clustered into a wizard community. It was getting into the holiday season, but flowers were still blooming in yards, citrus trees fruiting, spiny desert-y plants eternally green. Very different from Thanksgiving in the Hudson Valley where I’d grown up. The houses were all angles and glass, rock gardens, and ancient cars parked in driveways. “Is that a ’57 Chevy next door? And whatever that is…” Graham held a hand to his eyes to shield the sun as he looked toward the next driveway down, which had a European sports car in the driveway with 1960s style. “Is this a car collectors’ community?” “These are probably all the original owners,” I said. “Wizards live so long. They hate moving. They hate change. And they hate modern cars. So I bet almost everyone here is ninety to a hundred or else their kids inherited these houses and the cars too.” “The original cars from when the neighborhood was built?” Graham said. “Yes.” “There’s something eerie about it,” he said. “I don’t think I want to live in a wizard retirement community.” “Well, no one said you had to live here,” I said. “We’ll just search it and sell it. Byron’s body has to be here. I wonder where the graveyard is… Maybe you can find it since you’re so keen on digging up bodies.” “I’m not keen, I’m just not scared of a pile of bones. He died forty years ago.” Billie and Gaston pulled up behind us just then. The Sullivan brothers were farther back somewhere because Jasper was a slow-ass driver and they also seemed to get hungry more than Graham and I did. Billie, as a newly made vampire, and Gaston, as a very old vampire, naturally brought their food with them. Billie jumped out of her truck, flip flops hitting the pavement, huge coffee in hand, and did a few stretches. Despite that I had always heard becoming a vampire was a traumatic experience, she seemed to be handling it pretty well. “Hel, did you see that there’s another house for sale on this street? And it’s real rundown. Boy, does it need help.” “No! Where?” “A few houses down!” Graham dropped a hand on my head and stopped me from running. “You two are not buying another house. We’re not really here for houses, are we? We’re here to find the last piece of the map. You don’t even have money for another flip since Greenwood Manor hasn’t sold.” “That’s not fair to say until we know what price the house is,” I said, but he wasn’t buying it. I glanced at Billie. At the least, we would go poke around the property later. The Sullivan brothers arrived, completing our group. Jasper and Jake got out and both kissed me on the cheek just to mess with me in front of Graham. “Hey!” “Well? You are our girlfriend, right?” Jake said. “You didn’t miss us on the road?” “I wouldn’t miss you if you drove faster,” I muttered. “That’s all Jasper.” “I was doing eighty the whole way, I don’t know what you want,” Jasper said. “When Helena took a turn behind the wheel of the BMW she went for it,” Graham said. “I’m surprised we didn’t get a ticket.” “I just hit a hundred for a second on a very empty stretch of highway because I wanted to see how it felt,” I said defensively. “My truck doesn’t have that sort of mojo. But I got it out of my system.” “It was a pretty sexy thing for my girlfriend to do,” Graham said, slipping an arm around my waist. “What is this girlfriend business!? Now you’re all just trying to embarrass me!” “I can’t let them have a monopoly on you,” Graham said. “We’ll probably get more competitive and aggressive as the days go on, I imagine, until you won’t have any peace at all.” He was speaking right into my ear, his nose pressed to my hair, and this mild threat made me wet. Oh god, what had I gotten myself into? “Let’s…get to business,” I said, shoving Graham off, not without effort. Graham’s BMW, Billie’s work truck and the Wolves at the Door company van definitely stood out in the quiet neighborhood. I didn’t love how close these houses were, considering how our plan was to use the maps to tear down the barriers between the magical worlds. How popular would this plan be with the locals? Probably not very. At least the house was surrounded by some lush gardens. Probably one and a half acre lots, I figured. The house was one story in front, two in back, overlooking a hillside view. The house itself was all boxy shapes stacked on each other and large glass windows, typical of midcentury design. “I’ve never worked on a midcentury modern before,” Billie said. “Me neither, but there is a warlock around here who does midcentury design and restores furniture and stuff. Tom Atomic. I watch his videos sometimes and he’s pretty cute and funny.” “Well, we’re not taking any advice from him,” Jasper said. “Cute and funny? Sounds like a fucking nightmare.” I snorted. Graham was still just looking at me in a seductive way, like the world had stopped for him, except for me, as he pondered my apparently sexy handling of his BMW. Then he ran a hand through his dark hair and fished the house keys from his pocket, striding to the door before stopping at the lock. “Will there be a demon in this doorknob?” he asked. “Maybe,” I said. “You just have to man up and try it. Don’t be scared.” He gave me a scathing look that was still plenty sexy, his dark green eyes piercing, and turned the key in the lock. No demons. But something worse than a demon. “Excuse me!” An old man with a withered voice tried his best to yell at us from the street. “Excuse me!” We all turned. The old man was bald but had an impressive mustache. He was hunched and pot-bellied, wearing all black—polo shirt, dress shoes and slacks. (You know he called them slacks.) He was wearing a big gold and crystal pendant around his neck like a rapper with bling. I guess this was wizard fashion around here. “Who are you?” he demanded of all of us, Graham especially, since he had the keys. “Sam didn’t have any sons, did he? I never heard of it. You look like him, though, come to think of it.” “I was a family friend,” Graham said. “He left the house to me. Graham Capello.” “Capello! That sounds Italian! Capello… Hey, Hepzibah, where do we know the Capello name?” A female voice shouted from somewhere in the distance behind the neighboring house, “That was Sam’s friend! Freddy or something!” “Fiore,” Graham said. “Fiore Capello!” “So you got this house, eh? Well, you better take good care of it. We’re all watching you, eh, Graham? Keep it in the family, you know what I mean? My name’s Al.” “Sure, Al, nice to meet you…,” Graham said. “You know the history of this place?” “Maybe not in the way you’re hoping to tell me.” “Oh, you’re a funny one. An incubus, right? I can tell. I can always tell. Well, this neighborhood here, we’re all the kids and grandkids of the town founders who came out here because the elitist witches and warlocks out in New York and such didn’t want to make room for us. They’d all been here forever. And then we came over through Ellis Island, you know…and it was a whole little group of our grandparents who said, hey, you know what? What if we tried going out to Hollywood?” He went on for a while. I resisted mentioning that we were a pretty long drive away from Hollywood. His entire story seemed like it held a grudge against my family, or at least any wizard who fit the exact description of my family. I was expecting him to actually namedrop one of my relatives at any moment. “But who are the ladies?” the old man asked, turning his attention to me and Billie. “They look a little sweet to be Sinistrals.” Is this a Sinistral wizard community? I immediately felt awkward. I didn’t know I’d be stepping into that. I assumed that the final house on our little tour would be as isolated as the first two. Nosy neighbors seemed like a bad mix with everything we were planning. “We’re all Sinistral,” Billie said. “We just look sweet, but that ain’t our fault and we’re trying our best to overcome it.” “That’s right,” I said. “I’m glad to hear that. What are you doing with all these vehicles? You going to renovate? I hope you don’t gut the place. All these houses were built from 1957 to 1975 by Frank Pedrewsky. Graham, you ever heard of Frank Pedrewsky? Like Frank Lloyd Wright, but better.” Maybe I was a bad girlfriend, because at this point I just straight up abandoned Graham and went inside the house. And so did everyone else. “This is a real test of Graham’s demonic powers of charm,” Jake said. “Don’t feel bad. He has to work on it.” “Hmm…” It was easy to forget about Graham once I was faced with the first interior room of Bel Tramonto. The very first room was an entrance room that definitely did not have, and could not have, any other purpose. A patch of terrazzo floor faced a minimalist fountain set into a wall made from huge stones. The fountain fed into a little trickling stream that flowed out of the house and fed the garden outside. At least, it used to. Now it was dry. “Doesn’t California have water issues?” Jasper asked. “Can we even get this thing going again?” “Witches have their ways,” I said. “Maybe. Hopefully there isn’t some spirit of the spring we need to bargain with.” Two bridges crossed the stream, leading to two more doors, so when you came in, you passed through a front door and then another door. “I can only imagine how awkward this gets when you’re greeting guests,” I said. “I would definitely take these doors down, if not move this entire wall and…” “I would ditch the fountain,” Jake said. “And this whole Meet the Flintstones rock wall.” “I was gonna say Brady Bunch,” Billie said. “Can we open it up into…oh…wow,” Jasper said. “This living room.” Byron was standing in the center of the sunken living room holding out his hands. “Welcome to Bel Tramonto. I told you that you might want to make a few changes. You might have noticed that Fiore and Deveraux inherited grand old family homes, but Sam had to make his own way in the world, and this was his final home, the one he bought when everything was going well. The perfect house for entertaining glamorous movie stars who also happened to be demons…in the peak of the 1970s.” My brain was collapsing into 1970s overload. The living room was sunken. There was this huge groovy fireplace in the middle of it that had sort of the shape of a lava lamp, with a couch wrapped around it to seat about twenty people. All the carpeting was orange, the sort of orange that was making my eyeballs bleed on contact. One of the walls were that same stone treatment as the entrance, one wall was just glass overlooking palm trees, and one wall had been done in a psychedelic green wall paper, and that was also the wall that had a huge stereo system and shelves of records. Ash trays were scattered around and the smell of cigarettes permeated the carpet in such a way that this house would still smell like cigarettes in the year 2400 if we didn’t ditch all of this. Gaston, of course, took this as an invitation to light a cigarette. “Go outside!” I said. “As if it would matter at all if I smoked the ten thousandth cigarette this house has ever seen…” He shrugged and opened a door in the wall of glass, which led to a small deck that was shaped in a point, like the prow of a ship. It had sort of a tiki vibe in back, by the looks of it. “At least we have an open floor plan,” Jasper said. The kitchen connected to the living room, blocked off by a half wall. When you stepped up from the living room, you were in the kitchen and dining area. The kitchen cabinets were all that dank dark midcentury wood color, with light formica tops, green and chrome appliances and big globe lights hanging down over an island. More expansive windows looked out over the palms. I wondered if there was a pool down there in the backyard. “This hardly even seems like a wizard house,” Jake said. “It seems to be loaded with electricity and I don’t know where you would make spells or anything.” “I agree,” I said. “Definitely one of the least magical warlock houses I’ve been in. But he was a lawyer.” “He was the grooviest lawyer!” Billie said. “I love this place! I mean, we definitely have to change most things…but I love it.” Byron had stopped to look at some photos hanging on the wall in the hallway. I came up behind him and wished I could touch him. He could become touchable for brief moments, but only when he chose. My hand hung in the air just behind his back, the memory of my skin knowing all too well how solid he could feel. “All these celebrities are demons?” I murmured. “Yep.” “Hm. Well, I guess that explains how Tom Selleck got that reverse mortgage gig. Sam must have been a really fun guy.” The photos were full of what looked like totally rocking parties, like old photos of Studio 54 and everyone having a good time. Probably better than Studio 54. Wizards never trusted cocaine. “Byron…this must be hard for you, to say goodbye to the last of your friends.” Some of the photos of Sam and the other Sons of Pandora on the wall included Byron in them. He looked just the same, younger than the other three. I saw Graham’s grandmother there too. “I’m just glad you’re here,” Byron whispered. “This is all so long gone. Another life altogether. But when we’re together, Helena, this house feels reborn. And so do I. It’s so close now that I can taste you.” “Don’t you mean taste it?” “No, the first one.” He winked at me. A little mischief buried his sadness over losing his old—very old—friends. I couldn’t really imagine how hard it would be. As we looked at the photos, I felt like I could hear some very faint, sad female singing. The neighbors? “Byron, do you hear that?” “That’s Maya,” he said. Female. Singing sadly. Broken fountain. Crap. “Is Maya a water spirit?” I asked. “Indeed.” “Aw, crap.” The front door flew open and Graham ran in looking more disheveled than when I last saw him, you know, about five minutes ago. “Is your shirt scorched?” My eyes zeroed in on a brown mark on Graham’s arm, like you might get if you left an iron there too long. “We have problems,” he said. “It’s too soon for problems!” I cried. “Well, we have them anyway.” “Graham, you can’t handle a couple of old wizards?” Jake said. “I’ll talk to them.” “I wouldn’t—” Jake opened the door and was immediately zapped back into the door. Yep. We had one of the worst problems. Termites were easy to get rid of. Roof leaks could be fixed. But a mob of angry neighbors? Shit.
Chapter 2
Chapter Two Helena This was not what you wanted when you were trying to deal with ancient artifacts and raise dead demigods. You know. The stuff you might rather do in private. Nor was it what you wanted when you were just trying to renovate a house. Somehow, in the five minutes we left Graham alone, one rambling old man had turned into more like a dozen old people shambling toward the house on wizened staffs and cool canes topped with silver animal heads. They were a chorus of, “Are you going to ruin Sam’s house?” and “You better not make noise past five o’ clock!” and “You’d better be aware that we have a town ordinance against any spirit summoning without approval!” I mustered up my best boarding school manners and said, “Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, let me just make a few things clear. We’re just here to spruce up this absolutely beautiful house. We won’t make noise after dark—” “We won’t?” Jake said behind me, but I barreled on, “And we’re not going to summon any spirits! We just want to make this place shine.” The old people looked a little deflated. “I mean, you could summon spirits, just not without permission,” one old woman said. I was going to guess she was Hepzibah because she was standing next to Al. She was wearing a black dress with a white collar that looked so much like the dress I was wearing that now I wouldn’t be able to wear it again, which sucked because I didn’t have that many clothes with me. “Yes, we want to know who the spirits are first,” a tiny old lady with a long white braid said. “Maybe you could even invite us over.” “You just shot me with a fireball a minute ago because I didn’t answer all your questions about summoning demons fast enough,” Graham said. “Now you want us to invite you over for a demon summoning party?” “Well, I had to test you, young man.” “It’s been a long time since any young people moved in,” the Hepzibah said. “Al and I were just wishing something would happen.” Oh, it will, I thought. Be careful what you wish for and all… “So many handsome men,” said a woman with thick black curls streaked heavily with gray and a lot of spangly jewelry as she emerged from the back of the group. “Are they all taken? I have granddaughters. For that matter…some of you look old enough.” Old enough…? For her? Yikes. “Yes,” Gaston said. I didn’t even realize he had snuck out here after we kicked him out back to smoke. “We are all taken. I’m with the little redhead.” “And the rest of you are with the blonde then?” When no one immediately denied it, Cougar Grandma said, “My my. Do you know, dear, that I, Zuzana, am the master of charms and seductions and all the spells of love. If you end up needing any help managing this madness, you know where to find me.” I wanted to melt into the floor. Jake looked at me as if reminding me that if I wanted this, I had to be brave and own it. I was finding it very hard right now. So many old people eyes and all of them were locked on me. “I’m just here to work,” I said, a little faintly. “And then you’re all moving in?” Hepzibah called. “Or are you just going to tear up poor old Sam’s house before he’s cold in his grave!?” “We’re giving it an update and we’ll find some new owners,” Graham said. “I am honored to inherit this house but I’m not a west coast guy. Maybe some of you have children looking for a house in your neighborhood.” This idea sparked some interest but Zuzana was still eyeing me up. “Four men is too many, girl. I don’t think you can handle that without magic or they’ll just fight over you all the time. But I have spells that will open up your sexual chakras,” she said. “I’m good.” I stepped inside the house, feeling very exposed. This was the first time anyone outside of my little circle knew I was in a bond relationship. Jake and Jasper came inside with me, flanking me with their reassuring presence. “Hey,” Jake said. “Don’t let them get to you. They’ll all die before we even finish this remodel.” “Some of those witches were looking at me like I was ruined as a person.” “Maybe Helena von Hapsburg is ruined as a person,” Jake said. “But you could be reborn as a better person. Helena Sullivan.” He spread his hands like the name was going to be on a marquee. Or maybe, more likely, the side of a work van. “Eye roll,” I said, but what I thought was, Aw, a shared van? Graham escaped back into the house, looking pissed off. “You left me with them again!” “Well, you’re a politician. You’re good at public speaking, right?” Jasper said. “I was always prepared for my statements,” Graham said. “I am not prepared to answer their questions about what we’re doing with this house and whether I plan to live here forever and have babies and whether I know how to share and…” “Well—let’s—let’s check out the rest of the house,” I stammered. The bedrooms were fairly standard—one master suite, two guest rooms. They were small for modern day standards, a common problem with midcentury houses, and I hoped there was another bedroom downstairs. If so, I wanted to combine the two guest bedrooms into one grand master suite with a walk-in closet, because the current one just didn’t cut it for such a large house. There was also the pleasant surprise of no wood paneling. I totally expected wood paneling. “Bets on the bathroom color,” Jake said, before we opened the door. “Avocado,” I said. “Pink,” Jasper said. “I’m betting some shade of gold,” Jake said. “Judging on the rest of the decor, I feel like Sam liked vivid greens,” Graham said. “I’m going with that.” “One of you is close,” Byron said. It was turquoise and white. Intensely so. Floor, tub, and shower, all the same bright tiles with white grout. “Point to Graham,” Jake said. “You get to shower with Helena in the remodel.” “What!?” I cried. “Never mind. She doesn’t want to.” “I didn’t say that either, I just—!” Graham chuckled. “All right, I’ll take the win.” They’re all making a real effort to get along, I thought. Could this actually, really work? I was getting anxious just looking at the bedrooms while surrounded by the four of them. When you added them all up their presence was so overwhelming that I could hardly think. I swear I could smell their pheromones and I wasn’t even a wolf. Then we went down the stairs. As we walked down, the air grew damp and cool, and I heard a plink-plink of water dripping. I would swear we were walking into a cave. “Ohh…,” I breathed. I was hoping for bedrooms down here. Instead, I got an indoor pool, in an artificial rock grotto. It was lit gently with pink and blue lights. A strong sense of magic filled the room. There was also a second kitchen with no oven but a big fireplace, so this must be where Sam had worked on spells. “This explains everything,” I said. “Upstairs is normal, downstairs is all about the magic. I like it. I wish I could get another bedroom in here, but…” “I think making it a two bedroom is fine,” Jake said. “I’m going to make a bet right now that we sell this to a gay male couple over sixty. If they had kids, they’ll be grown. This whole space can work as an office, so one guest room is fine.” “Only two bedrooms with a house this big?” Jasper said. “Are you nuts?” “Hmm, he might be right,” I said. “I follow Kiersten and Caleb on social media and their market is so different from ours. The northeastern wizards are so stodgy that openly gay couples usually move to California. And since this is an expensive house with extremely old neighbors, I doubt a younger couple would buy it. So no kids to worry about. I feel like having a really large, upscale master suite will be more of a selling point than three bedrooms.” Graham clearly had no opinion on housing markets so he was crouching at the edge of the pool. “Looks deep…” He touched the water. “The map must be here somewhere,” I said. A figure flew out of the water, grabbed him by the collar, and pulled him under clouded blue-green waters that even had plants growing within. The pool needed some work. “Graham!” I shrieked. “Byron! Was that Maya?” “That’s right,” Byron said. “I was just about to warn you that she’s been very lonely.” “Where the hell is Graham?” I ran to the edge of the water but they had both disappeared. “Tell me about Maya now!” “She’s an undine Sam summoned a long time ago to enchant the waters and keep the pool clean and the fountain running,” Byron said. “She’s usually harmless, but…” “But?” Byron glowered into the still blue-green water. “Well. she has the ability to kidnap men and drag them to her magical lair. I just haven’t seen her do it in a long time. However, in Sam’s later years he was getting senile. He didn’t remember her and he stopped visiting her, so she grew very sad and the fountain stopped running and the pool got murky.” “Maybe you should have mentioned that before we came down here!” “You probably need to release her from her bond to this body of water. But you’ll have to be gentle with her. She’s sensitive.” “How do I get Graham back?” “Might have to use one of the Sullivans as bait to get her to come back out. But you’ll need ear plugs. Her song is what enchants you.” “I don’t want to be drowned by an undine…,” Jasper said dubiously. “She doesn’t want to drown you,” Byron said. “She would want to seduce you in the hopes that you would marry her so she can gain a soul.” “I’ll take one for the team. Jasper, get the ear plugs out of the van,” Jake said, taking off his shirt. “Wait, waaait. Are we sure this is a good idea? I don’t want to lose any of you to a water spirit.” “We know where your heart lies,” Jake said. “Despite all the embarrassment. If we never come back, you’ll still have Jasper.” “Fuck,” Jasper said. “I should have volunteered to go. If I’d known you were going to make me your ear plug fetch boy while you make yourself into a hero…” Jake shrugged. “It’s a risk, but if I die, you definitely seem like the smart brother.” The water rippled. “Jake, you’re standing too close to the—“ The watery female spirit leapt out of the water and wrapped her arms around Jake’s knees, pulling him into the water with her. She looked at me and gave me a fanged hiss as she dragged him down. Despite the fangs, I couldn’t help but notice that she was a very beautiful spirit with rippling waves of hair, huge blue eyes and pale blue skin that seemed to melt into the water farther down her body. Undines were just water nymphs, so appeal was their specialty. “Shit!” Jasper tried to catch Jake’s hand while I fumbled for my wand. “Abandonner!” I cried. “Release!” Jake looked a little more freaked out than heroic as the undine sucked him deep into the pool and they seemed to disappear into a fathomless depth, a few bubbles coming to the surface and then he vanished before my eyes. Billie walked down the stairs as I was on my hands and knees searching desperately for my last sight of him, wand at the ready. “She won’t drown them,” Byron said. “She just wants to…play.” This was not reassuring to me at all. “This basement is even groovier,” Billie said. “An indoor pool! Wow! Hey…are you okay?” “We have a spirit problem,” I said, trying not to sound as upset as I felt. I wasn’t feeling worried so much as pissed off. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d dealt with a pesky house spirit, but…everything was different when I had other people to care about. Let’s face it, girl. The biggest thing you’re worried about is that an undine might lay a finger on your men. This must be what jealousy feels like.
Chapter 3
Chapter Three Helena I had lost a lot of my enthusiasm for looking at the house until I knew Graham and Jake were safe, but Billie was poking around in the kitchen. “This is nice,” she said. “So much storage. But I wonder where the map is…? That pool is radiating a lot of magic.” “I noticed,” I said. “I certainly hope that Sam didn’t make the undine the keeper of the map.” Billie and I both stared at the pool for a moment. I took out my wand and waved it over the water, feeling the pulse of magic like the water had a heart beat. “Well, shit,” Billie said. “I hope Graham and Jake figure out something. You could also use that pool for scrying. This would be great for a seer.” “Hel and Jake think the likely buyers would be a gay couple,” Jasper said, crossing his arms. Seers were usually female. “I think it’d be great for an older lady,” Billie said. “A glamorous type. The sort of lady who has a lot of boyfriends but never settles down. Like Auntie Mame.” “Well, that works,” Byron said. “Auntie Mame will have the same taste as the old gay couple, I expect. Helena…it’s no use brooding over the pool. I’m sure Jake and Graham can get out of it on their own.” At what cost? I wondered. I guess it shouldn’t really matter. If she seduces them that’s coerced sex. Of course, they would probably enjoy it in the moment. Nymphs have that power. But afterward… Jake seems very loyal. Graham…well, Graham too. I knew Graham had slept with a ton of women already, but he’d stopped doing that when he met me and he seemed serious about it. I wasn’t sure if I should be jealous or just worried. What if I was dragged into the pool by a male spirit instead? They would save me, as they should. “You can’t get to them,” Byron said. “Maya can choose who she wants to bring into her realm. Keep exploring.” Byron seemed on edge. He wanted me to find something. Did the undine have the map or not? He couldn’t tell me. I started circling the pool, inspecting the rocks. Then I noticed a small, dimly lit hall leading off from the pool area. The hall was cluttered with some dusty old boxes and folding chairs covered in cobwebs. Just a storage area. Two solid doors branched off from the hall. One of the doors had cold air radiating off of it. That’s weird. I tried the doorknob and it was absolutely freezing. I could only rattle it for a second before I had to pull my hand back and warm it up. I cast a heat spell on the knob and tried again. Still stuck. Either it was locked, or it was iced over on the other side. I kept the heat spell going for a few minutes and when I tried the door again, it flung open and a wave of frigid air swept out as the door opened to an ice cave with walls of crystalline ice. Some boxes with packaged meat and whole chickens were stored in here, and I was just thinking that this natural freezer was a very practical feature when I turned the corner and screamed my head off. Byron’s body was frozen in a big block of ice like some primitive man archaeologists might discover on a mountaintop. “Hel!” Jasper came running in, followed closely by Billie, and they both jumped too. Gaston meandered in from behind, carrying a frying pan. I guess he thought there might be some demon smashing to do. “Thank the gods,” Byron said. “You made it here. Finally! Good lord!” “G—guhh…” My teeth were chattering in the extremely frigid room. “You’ve just been chilling here for fifty years?” As if there was any question. Frozen Byron was wearing a 1970s suit with lapels to his shoulders and bell bottoms. The ice block that held him was propped against the wall but it looked like he had been laying down unconscious and then his friends froze him and stuck him in here. His skin looked bluish. It was a disconcerting sight. “It’s just me,” Byron said. “Aren’t you glad you don’t have to find some way of reconstituting bones? That’s so much messier. You’d have to make animal sacrifices and all sorts of very unpleasant business. But there’s a reason my friends saved me down here instead of just consigning my body to the ground.” He looked pointedly at Gaston, who had suggested that the Sons of Pandora murdered Byron to stop Pandora’s Box from opening. Gaston shrugged. “It was still suspicious. They did murder you, didn’t they? I think I was justified in warning the ladies about it.” “Murder is a strong word,” Byron said. “Mainly, they grew so terrified of the consequences of opening Pandora’s Box that they decided they had a duty to stop me, and yet, almost immediately questioned their choice. And so, here I am.” “I guess we’d better thaw him out,” Billie said. “Then what? That still won’t bring him to life. We have to sacrifice something to bring him back,” Jasper said. “If the Sons of Pandora truly wanted Graham to bring Byron back and open the Box, then…it’s possible they already make a sacrifice,” I said. “You’re a smart woman,” Byron said. “Oh, really?” I sucked in a breath. “So is that all I have to do? Thaw you out and cast a simple resurrection?” “That’s not…all,” he said. “Helena…I would like to have a moment alone with you.” His words held a particular weight, even more than usual. Byron always spoke in a way that let me know there was so much more he couldn’t say. But this was different. Like the end of the road. Jasper looked worried. “There’s something about this I don’t like,” he said. “Graham and Jake sucked out of the picture first, and then…” “It’s all right, Jasper,” I said. “I can take care of myself.” “I just hope you’re not putting her in danger.” Jasper looked at Byron like he didn’t really know what to think. He looked a little angry and then a little helpless. Whatever forces we were dealing with went far beyond a witch or a werewolf. Byron was something else entirely. And he was kept from explaining “Jasper, do you trust me?” Byron asked, in a tone that was soft and serious…almost veering toward a plea. “I—I guess I must, after all we’ve done,” Jasper said. Byron gave me a look that made me tremble inside, and I wasn’t sure whether it was good or bad. “Give us a minute,” I said. Jasper, Billie and Gaston left, but a little reluctantly. Up until now I had managed to compartmentalize all of this and tell myself it wasn’t really that big of a deal, despite the battles we’d had so far. I mean, my family wasn’t a stranger to some drama. Even Billie getting turned into a vampire was easy to dismiss because she was coping with it pretty well. Now I was faced with the real Byron, and whatever ancient thing Byron actually was. I felt it, seeping into me like the cold. Jasper shut the door on us, but he didn’t go far. Oh yes. There was no light in the frozen tomb now. I was shivering in the darkness, and Byron’s prison of ice began to glow softly. His voice came from his old body. “Helena,” Byron said. “Do you trust me?” That had always been a difficult question. Byron wasn’t like the other men who stood beside me. He led us all while he was unable to say much. Since he could never tell us what he was really about, all I had to go on was my gut. Byron was, without a doubt, the most beautiful man I had ever seen, every inch of his body from his golden eyes and long lashes to the classically strong, statue-perfect lines of his nose, mouth and chin. From his sculpted body and broad shoulders to the hands that knew just how and where to touch me. And the taste of him…the feel of him inside me…I would never forget any of that. But what faced me now was death. And this was not about getting with a gorgeous man. This was about what I knew, deep down, to be right. During these months I had been faced, time and again, with the evils of the wizard council. My family had been a part of the ruling class for longer than we could even trace—and we could trace our ancestry awfully far. Byron didn’t win my trust with his incubus charm. He had simply shown me that something must be done, and could be done. My gut knows, I thought. It always has. After all, I wanted Billie to be my friend when I first met her. My sisters turned me away from her, but here we are crossing paths again. Hell, we could have been sharing house flipping tips and stories and helping each other out all these years. And the Sullivans—I would never have been allowed to know them. I was ashamed to love them. Sometimes I still struggle with it all. That has to stop. My heart knows who it wants. “I trust you, Byron,” I said. “And I trust you,” Byron said, his voice a whisper in the shadows. “Will you be my queen, dearest?” “What are you really asking?” “I’m asking you to save me.” I took a deep breath. “I will be your queen.” The cold air closed in on me. The world turned on its head. And everything went black.
Chapter 4
Chapter Four Helena “My lady Hulda. My lady Hulda!” “Huh?” I woke up in a large carved wooden bed, and…whoever the hell I was, I definitely wasn’t who I’d been. Or where I’d been. “My lady Hulda, you must get ready for your wedding! You have slept long enough.” I guess I was Lady Hulda. I was wearing a plain white nightgown and I had braids practically to my knees. Whatever language this girl was speaking, I understood it, but it wasn’t English as I knew it. “I would not sleep in if I were you. You are marrying one of the strongest of demigods who still deigns to walk with mortals.” Strongest. Strengest. I remembered that as one of the first words of Cyprium, the old language that Byron translated for me. “Oh!” I breathed. We’re speaking Cyprium! “Indeed, it will be quite a day!” the servant girl said. At least, I assumed she must be a servant. I decided the best thing for ‘Lady Hulda’ to do would be not to ask any questions. Clearly I was reliving something and… Am I marrying Byron? I looked around the room and saw that I was in very primitive surroundings, all stone walls and rushes on the floor, no glass in the windows, not much furniture, but what I did have was all carved or painted or gilded. The most ornate thing in the room was an altar with a scrying bowl, a cup and knife for simple spell casting, and some small icons. I also saw a staff leaning against the wall. So I am a witch, then… I must be in the eleventh century. Very little was known about this older history in the magical world because at this time, wizards guarded their knowledge fiercely and would rather burn their books than let them fall to an enemy. This era had some terrible wars so that didn’t help at all, but it wasn’t until the 1400s or so that wizards finally decided that preserving all their knowledge was better, even if it meant giving up some secrets. I was a little fascinated but also definitely a little scared. But I would see Byron soon, hopefully. I wondered if he would know who I was. The servants caught me in a whirl of preparations. A small breakfast was followed by a chilly bath in a basin, with the servants bringing up hot water in pails. This was all sort of weird but I just went with it. Who cared itfservants saw my naked body? I wasn’t even me, although besides how long my hair was, my body still looked like mine. Then there was a lot of hair combing, braiding, pinning, face painting, undergarments, lacing of the dress, jewelry, shoes, and so on. It was very strange to be getting all the fuss of a wedding when a moment ago I’d been stomping around a 1970s house, already ripping up carpet mentally. The girls went on about how handsome my husband-to-be was, but how strange, and how they hoped I would be happy in the magical realms, and that I could handle a massive cock. I guess the 1000s was before prudery was invented. I wasn’t sure how Lady Hulda should act so I just laughed nervously and said, “I’m sure I will manage.” I realized I was starting to get tingly all over, nervous and excited, thinking that I would soon see Byron the demigod, whatever that would mean. “You are all ready. Your lady mother will see you now.” “Oh…thank you.” My lady mother? Shit. I didn’t want to deal with someone who knew me—or rather, Lady Hulda—that well. There was a hand mirror on the table, probably the best mirror available for Lady Hulda at this time in history. I looked at my reflection, with my long braids bound with ribbons, and pearls and jewels adorning my hair and throat and ears. I looked like my own distant relative. My hair was lighter and my face powdered so my blue eyes stood out intensely. I looked a little more inbred, maybe. Not the European blooded mutt I was in the real world, with ancestors all the way from England to Romania. But I wouldn’t be surprised if I was related to Lady Hulda. A thousand years is a long time. “My daughter.” A woman opened the door, in a dominating way, and swept in to sit beside me. The woman was tall and beautiful but in a very stern way. The family resemblance was strong, although the mother’s hair was swept up into a cloth that covered her head. A wimple, I think. She still didn’t look very old, but despite her utter lack of wrinkles, she had an authoritarian personality. I trembled a little when she walked in and she wasn’t even my real mother. Although…there was definitely a resemblance there, too. I immediately sensed that I didn’t have to worry about a close family bond. Hulda’s mother seemed too distant to notice if her daughter had been possessed by a 21st century girl. Besides, I could summon royal manners. “My lady mother,” I said, bowing my head a little. Her cold hand forced my chin up. “You look beautiful. I hope you’re prepared for what is to come.” Oh, like demon dick? Yep. I can only hope this dream lasts that long. “I believe I am,” I said. “I’ve brought the poison,” she said. Wait—what? “The…poison.” “If you slip it into the beast’s cup tonight, then you should only have to stall for a brief time before he perishes, so you must ask to see the map and as soon as he dies, break it apart. Your uncle’s army will arrive at midnight.” She pressed a tiny glass vial into my hand. Hold up, Lady Mother. So you married me to Byron ‘the beast’ just so I could get close enough to him to assassinate him? And break apart the map? I realized what was going on here. I was supposed to separate the three realms by separating Pandora’s Box. Byron probably needed to marry a human girl, like demons often did to keep power. But the girl’s family wanted to betray him. So was Lady Hulda’s uncle’s army the men who were killing demigod Byron and sewing his mouth shut? And here I was, in the shoes of the girl who was expected to lead him to his death and the shattering of the magical realms. It was a super secret plan, I would guess, judging by the way the servants went on about how hot the wedding night would be. They seemed clueless. “Oh, Mother.” I looked toward the window, trying to look stoic and brave, but also like a compassionate young woman who might need just a tiny bit of assurance (and detailed information). “This is not how I imagined my wedding night…to take a man’s life. I know I must be brave, but…” “You must remember what is at stake. If you do this, we can keep our magic safe. We can keep the demons out forever. And you shall have your pick of husbands! I know he is a charming half-beast, but it’s what he protects that we must have. This is our only opportunity to get ahold of the Ethereal Paths. You know what careful diplomacy it took just to convince Lord Adras’ei to come to our realm for the wedding.” “I understand…” Well, I did. So that’s it. They must have been trying to steal this map for a long time and they used this wedding as some sort of excuse to make him bring it to the Fixed Plane. I felt terrible for Byron. What a dirty trick. The fact that Hulda’s mother called him a “charming half-beast” suggested that Hulda may have already met her future husband and liked what she saw. “Don’t be frightened,” Hulda’s mother said. “Everything rests upon you, and we women are not weaker than our men, are we? You must be up to the task or you will live a life of shame. Your uncle will be there to rescue you.” Yikes. No sympathy there. Hulda had to murder her husband and suck it up. I definitely felt for the girl. Of course, right now I was Hulda. I certainly wasn’t about to give Byron the poison. I wondered how much of this I would have to play out. I was led out of the bedroom and to a castle courtyard where an entire retinue was waiting to proceed to the church, with knights on horseback, ladies in fur-trimmed gowns, and banners with the family coat of arms. This all seemed to blur by like a dream as I was brought to a litter, a claustrophobic box that swayed as it was carried by four burly servants. The church was not far, at least. I wondered where in the world I was. What sort of name was Lady Hulda? Saxon? My dad would have been spouting off about it immediately, and he would have recognized the castle’s architecture and the clothing and the knights’ armor, but I had never cared about any of this. I felt a little woozy and the world seemed to recede as the litter swayed, and suddenly I was about to walk down the church aisle, with flowers scattered everywhere and incense and perfume combating for the attention of my nose. At the end of the aisle was the demigod I had seen in the Arcana. Byron? I tried to find my Byron in him as I walked down the aisle but this man was more than Byron. He was nearly seven feet tall, not including the single black horn that curved out of his forehead. He had one black demon wing and one shimmering feathered wing. His face had a beauty that was almost fae, with high cheekbones, eerily perfect pale skin, and golden eyes with a slightly feline slant. His hair was black and a little longer than Byron’s, just past shoulder length, with a little curl at the ends. Although combed, it was hair that never really cooperated. He wore a red coat-tunic thing with a deep V-cut in front and back to make room for his wings, and a black shirt beneath it with a collar that wrapped around the back of his neck and buttoned at his throat, but was also open around his wings. A demon tail curled up a little out from under the skirting of the coat. His black leather boots came up to his knees, so only a little of his black hose was visible. He seemed to almost glow, his presence taking up the entire altar, and no one could take their eyes off him. This wasn’t the Byron I knew. This was the demigod in the Arcana, but definitely…way hotter in person. Well, when was the last time you looked at Medieval paintings and thought, He’s hot. In the little paintings, the mismatched wings and single horn looked weird, but in person, I was into it. I’d never seen anything like the real Byron before. No, this man wasn’t an incubus. He really was something beyond that. His side of the church was attended by demons, Ethereals, and fae, none of them human, and none of them hiding how strange they appeared. When he looked at me, his eyes seemed reassuring, as if he knew I might be intimidated by him, and he wanted me to relax. What I didn’t see was any sign that he was Byron, and that he knew me as Helena. It’s just a dream, I guess…but I’m trapped here. I realized I had been waiting to see Byron. My Byron. I thought he would tell me what was going on. Now I knew that wouldn’t happen. The ceremony blurred. I kept looking at the different magical beings assembled for Byron, all sitting together. Seven foot tall demons dressed in black with fearsome curving horns. Fae wearing cloaks of feathers and elaborate tiaras of silver leaves and acorns. Ethereal spirits in shimmering white with hair long enough to brush the ground. Nothing like this was ever seen in modern memory. “Princess Hulda of the House of Cyprium…do you take Lord Abiron Ter Adras’ei to be your husband, to love and obey?” I swallowed. Vows were never to be made lightly, not even in a dream. In the magical world, you had to assume that every oath would be taken seriously. Even if it turned into a shit show, I didn’t dare agree to this vow. “I can’t obey any man,” I said. “But I do love him.” I saw Lady Hulda’s mother shooting daggers at me. I guess Hulda was just supposed to break her oath and kill her husband. I wondered what Hulda had chosen. It must have been hard either way. There was no way she wasn’t charmed by Lord Abiron. The priest looked at Lord Abiron. He smiled. “It is well with me. I don’t demand obedience. Nor do I expect I will ever need to…” Some of the demons and fae laughed a little. The wizards seemed on edge. “Lord Abiron, do you take Lady Hulda of the House of Cyprium to be your wife, to love and faithfully protect?” “I do swear it,” he said. “In the eyes of our lord and the high gods of the three realms, I now pronounce you man and wife.” Lord Abiron slipped his large hands around me and drew me close to him, and kissed my lips, and as I shut my eyes I started to feel dizzy again. I clung to his clothes, digging my fingers into his solid flesh, as everything swirled around me and now he was still kissing me but we seemed to be alone in a room in the castle. What is happening in these gaps? I’m only seeing what I need to see, I guess, but… His body was folded over mine and he was very turned on, his erection pressing against my skirt. “My lady…” I gasped as he pulled back from my mouth. “My lord…” I tried to roll with it. “I said I wouldn’t demand your obedience…” He gave me a mischievous smile that was very Byron. I wondered if he’d been with the real Hulda a second ago. If so, Hulda was clearly into it. “Oh, you certainly do not,” I said. “Are you ready for me?” “I—I suppose I will know soon.” “You will have to manage somehow. I will go very gently with you tonight, my dearest. This is but the beginning of what will be demanded of you and I will have failed if you aren’t begging for more. I look forward to choosing a second together.” “Oh…yes.” I must have looked confused. What was a second? “I suppose you might prefer a fae to a demon. But perhaps I presume.” “What…would you prefer?” “Well, of course I would prefer an incubus,” he said, lifting my hand and giving it a kiss. “It will make the experience more enticing for both of us.” This marriage was planned as a threesome from the start? “The drink tonight has muddled my head,” I said. “What is the purpose of the second, again?” He looked at me like he didn’t quite buy that some ale had made me forget something this important, but he said, “My child will someday be the guardian after me, of course, and as I have the blood of the three realms, so shall they. Since you are of Etherium, we must also have a second from one of the other realms, and so the seed of two houses shall mingle in the third house.” “Like…three parents for one child?” “Precisely. But the second is something we will both choose together and we will find someone we can love.” “A handsome incubus…” I laughed. “You know, I might have already crossed paths with someone like that…” “Truly? You surprise me pleasantly. I must confess that I was reluctant to wed a human witch, with all of the conflicts between our races as of late, but I think this might be the beginning of a very happy union.” “The—the conflict has nothing to do with my feelings.” When he drew back, I could see the room a little better, although it was now dark and just a few candles pierced the shadowy stone and heavy wooden furniture. It wasn’t hard to spot the triangular shape of Pandora’s Box, sitting on a chest in the corner. The three maps were fit together, and they sparkled, with little shooting lights running between the three pieces. It was like a living map of the stars. “You brought Pandora’s Box with you,” I said, with a rising sense of dread. “It is never out of my sight,” he said. “I am its guardian. Pandora’s Box? Is that what your people call it? It is more properly known as the Way of the Paths.” He brought it over to me and pointed at each of them. “This is Sinistral…Wyrd…and Etherium, the realm of your magic, my lady.” “I see…” That made sense. Pandora’s Box must be more of a later code name to indicate that putting the maps together would open up a can of worms. “So they are all maps of the realms.” “Yes. They are all separate but joined, as you see. Each touches the other two. If you look closely in the dark, you’ll see that there are thousands of lights. Millions, even. Every person in every realm has a light, some very dim, some bright, based on their power. Most are still, some are moving…and sometimes you can see them cross from one realm to the other.” I stared at the map for a long moment because it was, to put it lightly, incredible. The stones that formed the map were dark and glossy, like some alien artifact, and just like the night sky, the longer I looked, the more lights I could see. “Do I have a light?” “Of course. You and I are here now.” He tapped the tip of the pyramid. “In the place between realms. This is my duty as a demigod. Simply to watch over the realms.” “You don’t actually do anything?” He grinned. “Now and then, I am needed to move souls between realms. I can cause angels to fall into darkness and demons to be banished into the world of order. If a day should ever come when the realms erupt into a war, I have the ability to separate the realms. Like pulling apart squabbling children. Only, the consequences would be much more devastating.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “I hope you know that.” “Why would you think otherwise?” “I hear rumors,” he said. “I’m sure you know.” “I must confess that sometimes I do, but I try my best to ignore them,” I said. This was probably what Hulda’s mean old mom was talking about. The Ethereal wizards were hoping to break their piece off from the others. “Magic, like the people who use its gifts, are stronger when they can communicate,” Lord Abiron said. “I love to watch the lights that move and know that each one of them is a life dancing along the fabric of the universe.” “Is my familiar one of these lights too?” “Your familiar? I didn’t know you had a familiar…?” He was looking at me so oddly that I didn’t know what to say. Did witches not have familiars in the 11th century? I had always thought all wizards had familiars since ancient times. Or did Hulda’s familiar die? Maybe familiars just died young more often at this time. “Uh…maybe I don’t,” I blurted. “I was told no one in Cyprium kept a familiar. Now you tell me you have indulged in this slavery after all?” Oh shit. This was not a modern view of familiars, and I didn’t expect his reaction. “No, no,” I said. Now Lord Abiron definitely knew something was up. “Who are you…really?” “Uhhh…” “Something is wrong.” He started to look a little angry. “Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…” Good lord. What to say? “Who are you?” He gave my shoulders a little shake. “I’m from the future!” I cried. “I’m—I’m possessing Hulda’s body for a second. You sent me to help past you!” I paused. “I know this sounds pretty ridiculous…” “I sent you to help myself…to what end?” “They’re going to kill you and break up the box—I mean, the Way of Paths.” “Kill me…” He laughed sharply. “I can’t say I didn’t consider it. How far in the future do you hail from?” “A long time. A thousand years… It seems like you were reborn much later, and then you were killed again, and your ghost and me…met, and…” “I see. Are you meant to stop it?” “I hope so!” He looked at me and slowly he seemed to accept a darker truth. “No…that would be too drastic an outcome for the future, and you would not be able to turn back and undo it. This death must be written into fate already. I see. So you and I…this is not a beginning, then. This is my end.” I couldn’t bear the dawning realization on his face, the sorrow and courage that reminded me even more of my Byron. There was always something bittersweet in Byron’s face. “Hulda was supposed to poison you,” I said. “But I can’t do it. And I am not really sure Hulda wanted to do it either. I won’t kill you. We could still change the future, right?” Although I did wonder how that would work. “This seems beyond my ability to foresee,” Lord Abiron said. “But if I am fated to die this day, may I at least have the pleasure of knowing you first?” “Oh, Byron…” Tears welled in my eyes. Lord Abiron reminded me of Byron, but he was also more distant, more godlike. He accepted his fate much more easily than I would have. “Since we don’t know what fate is to bring, it’s possible that this night must still go on. I came here tonight to wed you and show you the pleasure of my bedchamber, and if I changed course, I might hinder the future.” “Maybe…” I just didn’t know what was supposed to happen. But the more time I spent in Lady Hulda’s skin, the more I felt as if she never intended to give him the poison. I don’t know why I felt that way. When I was here, of course, her presence was gone. But her body still had this sense of some other person clinging to it. Movements. Words. As if I could feel her instincts. Her mother’s request to kill Lord Abiron was at least as horrible to her as my mother’s desire to make me become some rich warlock’s wife and put aside my own dreams. Well, probably a lot more horrible. And like me, I thought, Hulda wasn’t going to do it. But then—what am I here for? “You already know me well, don’t you?” he asked, his words intimate against my ear. “I can feel it.” “We have, yes…although not quite like this. I’m worried about what will happen if the soldiers come. They think I’m poisoning you.” “My men will fight them. And then I suppose we shall see. There isn’t much you and I can do, unless you would like my men to attack your royal retinue, kill your small number of guards and Lady Hulda’s family. I can’t see that leading to a good result either. No, I had to put my trust in the humans and it seems it was misplaced, but I needed the strength of a human witch bride. I had to make a choice. Maybe there was no wise choice. Maybe all the humans have just been waiting for this chance.” “You expected it?” “I always expect it. It’s the way of history to keep others out. To stake your claims. They have never liked me because I keep the realms united and force them to deal with one another.” He kissed my ear and then the tip of his tongue glided down the edge of my cheek, until it reached my lips. “If you like me, I will be content.” Maybe all I could do for Lord Abiron was leave him with a good memory. I would have to be content knowing that this wasn’t really the end of him. I just hoped this was what Byron wanted me to do. It certainly wasn’t a chore to meet his lips with my own, and reach for him as he put his arms around me. He held me close in his massive arms as our lips met, his wings lowering around me, sheltering me. Then he started to slide downward, his fingers tugging open the laces at the back of my dress. He pulled the garment down, exposing my breasts, and then he started to give them the attention of his deliciously warm and skilled mouth. It was hard to think about much of anything when he was so good at taking it all in stride. His tongue licked and his lips suckled and his teeth nibbled as his hand played with my other breast, and then he moved from one to the other, so the wetness he left behind on my nipple caught the air and made my skin pebble with cold. He swirled his thumb around in the saliva and then gave my nipple a few rough tugs. His tail, meanwhile, curled around one of my ankles and moved my feet open. He pulled my hair out of the long braids, something I always liked in my normal life, but I’d never have the patience to grow out these crazy Wagnerian opera braids that Hulda had, so that just drew out the pleasure of feeling him tug and toy gently with my hair until it was loose everywhere. Maybe I should try to grow my hair longer, I thought. A spell tonic or something. But then washing it would be such a pain. Of course, if I had four men, I could make them wash it for me. Hmm… “Oooh…mercy…” His tongue had reached my pussy now. Lord Abiron was already an expert at working his tongue into every fold and crevice, just as Byron was. He teased me until I was having a hard time holding back the moans. Then he started trying to pull my dress off and then he just tore it open. “If you’re here to kill me, I hardly need to be polite,” he said, now sitting up, his sculpted body looming over me, his tail still cuffing my ankle and reminding me that my legs wouldn’t close until he was done with me. He slicked a finger between my swollen folds. “You seem very ready, but I will go slow. You may have noticed that I’m larger than most humans and your body will have to adjust to me inch by inch.” “This isn’t my first…tournament,” I managed. There was no word for ‘rodeo’ in Cyprium, and I probably shouldn’t have attempted to speak in idioms in a language I only knew in a dream-like way. I wasn’t an expert at out of body time travel, what could I say? “It is Lady Hulda’s, however.” “Oh. Ohhh…this is going to hurt.” “But it isn’t really your first time,” he said. “So you know what brings you pleasure. I don’t know who your first was, how skilled he was—“ I snorted. “Not very. He wasn’t even sure where to stick it exactly.” “We will go very…slowly…and I will make sure that this, your bud of pleasure, is well stimulated, so you will beg for every inch. Won’t you?” He gave my clit another little roll between his fingers. “Probably,” I gasped. The head of his cock penetrated me and despite that he was going slow, I felt split. He was bigger now than he was in the future. “You must bear it, my lady, until I have claimed your maidenhead,” he said, and I don’t think he actually had any choice but to go slow. Lady Hulda’s body had never felt a man inside her, and I did feel as if I was losing my virginity all over again, and possibly to an elephant. As I gritted my teeth, sweating through the initial pain, I looked at how utterly gorgeous Lord Abiron was, and beyond that, how much he seemed concerned for me and was trying to make it a good memory for his new bride. His tenderness made me trust him and want him with my heart, but the way his body utterly dominated mine made me wetter. “Oh…,” I gasped as I felt wet heat inside me and his cock met less resistance. It was like I already came, in a quick flash, but then it faded before it started and now I was just soaking wet. “Oh, shit, Byron, why it is always so good when you’re in me,” I murmured. “It seems like you should destroy me and instead…” “It seems I have that effect. Very good, my sweet maiden.” “I just want to feel you in real life. In the flesh. As myself. Oh, I hope…this works…” My head went limp and I could barely speak now as he was going deeper into me, just when I thought, surely this must be his entire length… His tail let go of my ankle—certainly there was no need to spread me out any more than I already was—and instead looped around my waist and down to give my clit a slow, sideways stroke as he started to fuck me in earnest with the same rhythm. Each thrust went so deep, filled me up so completely, that all I could do was surrender entirely, braced for each wave of pain and intense pleasure. My moans became cries, sweat and hot desire drenching me as his pace quickened. He was getting closer. I was crying out. I reached for his single horn and gripped it as I prepared to ride out the finish. Suddenly, footsteps were charging toward the door. “Lady Hulda!” someone barked. Lord Abiron grimaced, rushing now, fucking me hard as I tried not to scream, and then his seed was filling me, getting all over me as he quickly withdrew himself from me. He yanked down my dress, for all the good it did, since it was all torn up. Then he shoved a small knife into my hand, opened a wardrobe that was sitting against the wall, and forced me into it. The doors shut and I was suffocated with the smell of wool. “Stay there until it’s over,” he ordered. I heard his palms slam against the wardrobe doors and he whispered a spell of protection. “Byron!” I gasped. I heard the bedroom doors burst open.
Chapter 5
Chapter Five Helena Truly, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do in this terrible past. Byron sent me here. He must know what would happen. And if Lord Abiron ordered me to stay here…I guess… I mean, what could I do, anyway? Damn. Damn it all! I wished I could go home. I wanted to go back to my safe world, and see Byron safe and sound. Lord Abiron, my Byron, my beautiful demigod, was brutally attacked by a warlock army. I could hear it all. I could hear the shouts of men ringing through the building, calling him a demon and a rapist and the spawn of hell, accusing him of brutalizing a human girl as they charged him with swords and spears. It was a wedding, I thought. Everyone agreed to it, and Hulda…was happy to marry him. I really think she was. And now they’re treating him like a criminal. I wanted to call out but I knew that this was part of my task. To endure this. To bear witness to this betrayal. I didn’t dare to move, breathing the stuffy air, trying my best to block out their cruelties. He was so brave, I thought, to face his death, knowing it was coming thanks to me. I wondered if Hulda’s fate was the same as mine. If Lord Abiron had also ordered her to stay in a cabinet and hear every word, or if she escaped before that. Or was she killed? I felt the heat as fire spells were cast, and then I wondered if I would burn here, but ithen t sounded like someone put them out. I could also hear fighting in the hall, beyond this room, and then outside as well. The whole castle seemed to be in an uproar. Lord Abiron had his own guard who fought back, and I heard bodies thump to the ground now and then, screams dying into gurgles and then silence. Soon I could smell death. And I heard Lord Abiron say, “If you split the maps…you will destroy the magical world as we know it.” “All I know is that we don’t want your demonkind around.” “I know you think that you’re establishing order, but the safety you seek is an illusion,” Lord Abiron said. “It’s my job to know the worlds, to watch them—to protect them from true harm. You destroy me, and that is gone. You will have nothing but false security. You think you can block out the demons, but evil can come from anywhere. Chaos is not evil, and balance is not good. Etherium has evil in it. It always has, and it always will.” “That sounds very poetic, I will say, but you slander the Ethereals to claim that they would ever stoop to the murder and violence that demons have unleashed on this world!” I heard a blow and Lord Abiron’s grunt of pain. Then, his voice struggling to maintain awareness as he said, “No…I plead with you to rethink…oh, but it is no use now…” I heard him fade away as other commotion swamped the room, the voices several men who sounded exhausted muttering about the wounded and the dead, and that they must hurry and get out of here. I knew that this must be the scene in the Arcana. Byron bleeding from his wounds, dying at their feet, while they made off with their treasure, splitting it apart. It was hard to fully comprehend that I was witnessing one of the most pivotal moments in magical history, that had influenced the next thousand years and changed all of us. And in my own world, no one even remembered it. No one talked about the maps, or Lord Abiron and Lady Hulda, or the entire realm of Cyprium and how they had seized the Way of Paths…it was all lost. Oh, Harris, I can’t wait to tell you that I actually got to witness a mysterious historical battle, you big nerd. In that moment, I tried to comfort myself by thinking how my brother would be envious that I got a front row seat to some interesting history. How I needed to remember this, and right this wrong. Many hours had passed by now. I probably would need to find a therapist. Quiet had descended on the castle. It also seemed like it was getting dark. I’m probably surrounded by dead bodies now… Is anyone else there? “Byron?” I called, my panic steadily rising. “When do I get to come back home? I don’t want to be Lady Hulda anymore…well…if I ever did in the first place…” It was so quiet now. “Byron…” A sob welled in my throat. “Take me home…please take me home!” I heard a shimmer. Which, isn’t actually a sound, but I didn’t know how else to describe it. It was the perfect sound effect for something shimmering, but it wasn’t a sound I’d heard before. A soft glow crept in around the edges of the wardrobe. “Abiron…,” a woman’s voice said. “Oh, no…wake up…please, wake up…something awful is happening…!” Her soft, lovely voice rose to a wail. I heard the woman’s silence, a heavy silence. I heard her doing something, maybe searching his body? Taking a knife out of him? It was hard to tell. “Curses!” she suddenly spat. I know that voice. It’s Byron’s sister…of course. “Marisa?” I called. “What? Who is that? Oh!” The doors opened and I nearly fell into her arms as I realized that my arms and legs were mostly numb from staying in the same position so long. “You…you are the witch from Cyprium. My brother’s bride!” “Sort of. I’m here to help.” “What do you mean by these words?” She eyed the knife I was still holding. I saw Lord Abiron’s body, grown pale and cold, with blood soaking his clothes and all over his face from the crude stitches that marred his beautiful face. His lips were sewn shut. I sucked in a breath of horror and looked away from him, at his sister’s pained expression. “Your brother sent my spirit here from the future to inhabit Lady Hulda’s body in this moment,” I said. “I didn’t understand why, but I think I know what I’m supposed to do.” I swallowed and got to my knees in front of Lord Abiron’s body. I hated to look at him, to see what they had done to him. I carefully slipped the blade of the knife under the stitches and cut the threads. As soon as it was done, I started to get very dizzy and the room spun around me.
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