by KT Strange
Phoenixfall
#2 in The Rogue Witch: A Reverse Harem Romance
K.T. Strange
Copyright © 2018 by KT Strange
All rights reserved. ARC Copy.
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, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
For more information:
http://kstrange.com
[email protected]
Book Design: Heart Candies Publishing
Cover design: Ciaran Strange
Photography: Curtis Noble curtisnoblephotography.com
Model: Becca Briggs beccabriggs.com
For Susan
strong-and-brave.
May you show the world
how powerful you are.
Contents
Stay in touch!
1. Ace
2. Darcy
3. Finn
4. Darcy
5. Darcy
6. Darcy
7. Finn
8. Darcy
9. Ace
10. Darcy
11. Darcy
12. Finn
13. Darcy
14. Darcy
15. Darcy
16. Ace
17. Darcy
18. Darcy
19. Finn
20. Darcy
21. Ace
22. Darcy
23. Darcy
24. Darcy
25. Darcy
26. Darcy
27. Finn
28. Darcy
29. Darcy
30. Darcy
31. Darcy
Pls don’t eat me.
Stay in touch!
Song Lyrics: You Are My Home
About the Author
Stay in touch!
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One
Ace
I felt listless. That was probably the best word for it. The urge to shift, like always, itched right below my skin but I ignored it. I couldn’t have shifted if I wanted to. None of us could. Eli had the driver’s side window rolled down, and the breeze ruffled my hair as we drove through the hot desert from New Mexico across to Texas.
As every mile passed us I sank deeper into a pit of anger and sadness. Darcy was gone-gone. We were on our own and the van felt so empty without her presence. Her scent still clung to our things, taunting us, making it feel like I’d turn around and she’d be sitting right there in the back, curled against Finn, laughing at something on her phone.
But the only thing that would be there when I turned would be Finn; his face bruised, a scowl set on his lips. He and Eli hadn’t been getting along all that great since Eli decided for all of us that we’d take off after the Albuquerque gig and without waiting for Darcy to show up again. His reasoning was that we still weren’t sure if hunters were on our collective tails and she’d get in touch with the label if she needed to be picked up.
Finn had disagreed. Violently. I backed Finn up, but Eli had been in a mood, and even I knew not to piss off our alpha wolf when he was stalking around like an asshole. Finn was his twin though, and apparently brave or stupid enough to challenge his brother.
It’d earned Finn a nearly broken arm and a black-eye. The black-eye would heal, the arm too, in a matter of hours and a day or two respectively. His heart, and mine? That would end up taking a little longer.
Yeah, Darcy was gone, yeah probably back to her school, because her scent had died a few blocks away from the venue telling me she’d taken some sort of transport to wherever she’d taken off to. She’d chosen mundane life over messing around with werewolves and I had to respect that, I guess. That didn’t make it any easier to lose her.
In the short weeks she was in our lives, she’d become the center of our pack. I’d expected her to become our mate, the heart and soul of our world, and she’d just vanished.
“Hey,” Charlie said, nudging me. I looked up. He held his phone so I could see the screen. On it a small, fuzzy kitten rolled around with a ball of yarn. My brow furrowed.
“What?” I asked. Charlie wrinkled his nose.
“I thought it would make you smile. You love cat videos.”
“Meh,” I said. I looked out the window and closed my eyes, inhaling the hot air and wishing it would give me a hint of Darcy, anything, any small hint of her at all. But there was nothing out there and what was left of her essence in the van was quickly fading.
Maybe that’s why Eli kept opening the window, to clear out any evidence that Darcy had ever been with us.
Too bad he couldn’t erase the marks she’d laid on us that were invisible. Finn wore them, in his shadowed eyes. He actually had her. He’d loved her, pinned her to the bed in the back of the van and made her cry his name out. My own body ached every time he’d done it, but I wasn’t jealous.
Much.
“So, are we getting… a new tour manager?” I asked Charlie after a half hour passed, time liquid and stretching out. Charlie shook his head.
“Willa seems to think that Darcy’ll surface and, once she pays her penance, Willa will let her come back into the fold.”
Up front, Eli snorted.
“Really? That’s what Willa thinks?” he asked, glaring at us in the rear-view. I heard the low rumble of Finn’s growl from the back but ignored it for now. He’d been doing that, off and on, since we’d bailed out of Albuquerque without Darcy, without our heart. It was unsettling for such an easy-going, normally cheerful guy to be a storm-cloud of misery all the time.
Charlie rolled his eyes, the sound nearly audible.
“Sure, Willa doesn’t know what Darcy is, but just because our girl’s a witch doesn’t mean she isn’t also human. She’ll come back and I’m just fucking glad Willa’s willing to forgive her,” Charlie said, sounding confident, almost relaxed about it. My skin itched more and I nearly echoed Finn’s unhappy rumble.
“For all we know, Miss Llewellyn decided to go back to her family and let them know that a group of wolves was touring the country,” Eli said, his shoulders tense. Finn snarled, wordless and enraged. Movement in the front passenger seat made my eyes dart from Eli to where Cash had been sleeping, or so I’d thought he’d been sleeping.
Cash lifted his head, looked Eli square in the face, and laughed.
“You honestly think that?” he demanded. “You think Darcy went running back to her family to tell them that she’d been getting horizontal with werewolves? That she reported us to them, so they could come and wipe us off the planet?”
Eli’s shoulders hunched even further.
“Well—”
“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Cash sat forward, stretching out, although his irritation radiated out from him, in every inch of his body despite his relaxed pose. “You don’t believe that for a second. I think you’re fucking butt-hurt t
hat she left us and you’re trying to come up with reasons why she did to make her into the kind of monster she isn’t.”
Behind us, Finn went quiet for a moment, the lack of his growling almost as unsettling as the sound of it had been before.
“Darcy would never betray us like that. She hated her family. Hated them. She knew that we, us—all of us, we were where she belonged. I think she got scared cause someone kept pressuring her about creating a heartstone,” Finn snapped the last few words and Cash turned, glowering.
Charlie held up a hand and whistled so sharply that my ears crackled. I covered them with my hands, wincing.
“As much as this game of pass-the-blame is exciting, new, and fun,” he drawled, “it’s not getting us to our next venue any faster, it’s not bringing her back to us, and it’s giving me a fucking headache. Also, Willa’s calling me, so shut the fuck up, all right?”
We fell quiet.
Even without Darcy, certain things were still important, like keeping our label happy. They were the money and they gave us access to the crowds that seemed to eat up our music. The audience wasn’t our pack but none of us could deny that performing, and them responding with such enthusiasm, was a little bit like being back with our big pack before they’d all been slaughtered.
I barely remembered those times, because I’d been too young, but the other guys told me sometimes of what it was like, to be surrounded by a huge pack, the music that made up every fiber of our being floating in the air. In wolf form, or in human form, the music was in our blood and if we weren’t making it on a regular basis, we all got a little stressed out.
“Thanks Willa,” Charlie said with a sigh, rubbing his face. “Well… if we hear from her, we’ll tell you. But our calls go right through to voicemail too.”
I looked over my shoulder at Finn. His eyes were downcast and he looked as miserable as I felt. Maybe that’s why Eli was so grumpy. Elias would do anything to protect us, but most of all, he looked out for Finn. As the older twin, he felt responsible or something, I guess. Darcy leaving had cut Finn open, exposed the sensitive spots inside of him that Finn had forgotten he’d had.
I’m not sure when the last time Finn had been in love. Probably a good few decades, back when he was just barely out of his puppy years and chasing tail amongst other packs.
Back when there were enough female werewolves that you could chase tail and it wasn’t attached to a female wolf directly related to you.
Charlie finished his call with Willa and was quiet for a few moments. We waited, patient, because that’s what we were: long-lived and patient.
“She hasn’t checked in at the label. Willa had to report Darcy to the professor at her college as a no-show, which means… yeah, she’s in shit with her degree, and we’re still out a manager. Willa put in a call to her roommate, Max, but hasn’t heard back yet.”
“And our Darcy,” Finn croaked, his voice raw. Well, he had been screaming a lot at Eli, so it made sense. He really needed to watch his voice, so he wouldn’t lose it for the show later. “You forgot to say we’re missing our Darcy.”
Charlie let out a breath.
“Honestly, I didn’t think it needed to be said.” He hitched one shoulder. “Aaron texted me. He and Chelsea feel like shit because she disappeared on their watch—"
“Well they fucking should,” Finn snarled each word like they were being ripped right out of his heart. “Aaron should never have let her stay on the Glory Rev bus. He should’ve told her to come back to us—"
“What the fuck were you going to do, pin her down and fuck some sense back into her?” Charlie twisted in his seat. Finn roared, and in a split-second he was across the van, throwing Charlie onto the floor. Eli slammed on the breaks, the tires squealing, and I lurched forward, my seat-belt keeping me from smashing my face into the back of Eli’s seat.
The only saving grace, looking back, was that we were on a deserted stretch of highway. Eli’s seatbelt clicked loose and he was into the back of the tour van in another second, crashing into Charlie and Finn like a boulder. I winced as the force of their bodies piling on top of each other rocked the van. Cash leaned over his seat and shoved the sliding door of the van open. The other three guys spilled out onto the hard cement, snarling and snapping at each other. I piled out after them, staring helplessly at what remained of my pack. Cash got a hand into the fray and dragged Finn out, wrapping his arms around Finn’s ribcage. Eli grabbed Charlie, who’s lip was split, blood splattering on the ground below. The two fighters glared at each other, Finn lunging forward despite Cash’s grip
“Stop it,” Cash snapped, jerking Finn away. “Stop it you fuckhead, seriously.”
Eli was muttering low in Charlie’s ear. Charlie glowered at Finn for a moment then looked away. I took in a shaky breath. Cash let Finn go and pointed at me.
“You’re setting a shit-ass example for our youngest,” he said, slapping Finn in the chest. Despite the power behind the blow, Finn barely shifted, his weight rocking back onto his heels for a moment.
“He’s an adult,” Finn’s voice was barely above a guttural hiss, but guilt crossed his features. I shoved my hands in my pockets, looking at the ground. They always did this. Treated me like I wasn’t enough despite being of age, despite pulling my weight just like everybody else in the pack. Anger simmered in my belly but I ignored it. We had enough problems without me lashing out at the guys who had raised me after my parents were cut down in front of me. Especially Cash, I owed him my life directly.
“I don’t give a fuck. You behave yourselves,” Cash was barely breathing enough to get the words out, that’s how angry he was. He shoved Finn again, his shoulder into Finn’s chest, and stalked over to me.
“I’m fine,” I said, when Cash looked like he was going to inspect me all over for damage like I was a silly pup that had wandered into a three-pack-brawl. He gave me a broody stare and I threw my hands up. “I’m fine! Fuck! This isn’t the first time I’ve seen violence.”
Cash let out a breath he’d been holding, his eyes running over my face.
“Yeah but I promised myself that you’d never… see it again,” he said, his words halting. Behind him, Charlie went pale in Eli’s grip and stepped away as Eli let him go. All four of them, my pack, my brothers-in-arms, carried the guilt of nearly losing me to hunters like it was their personal burden. I knew they blamed themselves for the death of the rest of our pack, as if by being survivors they were the cause.
It was stupid. I glowered at each of them in turn. If they were going to feel guilty then I was going to use that to school them into better behavior. I didn’t care if it was manipulative.
“Can we just get to the next show,” I said, looking at Charlie hardest. “And apologize to Finn. That was crass. You know how much he misses Darcy.”
“We all do,” Cash murmured, running his hands through his hair. The dark strands stuck out at all angles.
“Sorry Finn.” Charlie couldn’t meet his eyes as he apologized but that was good enough for me. I felt the hot melt of Eli’s appraising look over me and I glanced at him. The corner of his mouth was tucked up into a smile.
“What?” I asked, defensive.
“Being schooled by you, kid, doesn’t make me feel all that capable of leading the pack,” his voice was wry. I made a face and he laughed.
“Get back in the van,” I ordered them as I grabbed the front passenger door. “And I’m sitting in the front this time.”
Two
Darcy
I was tired, dirty, and scruffy by the time I got off the plane. Everyone around me was moving quickly, their feet clattering over the smooth floors as we deplaned. I caught a glimpse of my reflection as I walked out to the baggage claim area and pick-up area.
There were a few words to describe me right then, and left-over shit was probably the best of them. I looked… small. My shoulders were dragged down, my eyes red and tired. My hair was in a braid, pulling it all back and making me look younger than I w
as. I looked so lost.
I was lost. I ached to talk to Finn, to wrap myself up in his embrace, to hear Ace’s laughter, to steal Charlie’s cellphone. I’d even take one of Eli’s blistering glares, or Cash’s eye-rolling right then.
So much of what I’d done had been on autopilot for the last 24 hours. Protect yourself, hide yourself, keep yourself safe.
I’d run away from people who loved me. Maybe the other guys hadn’t said it, but I knew they cared about me too.
“Darcy.” My name made me look back and I stopped in my tracks. Kenton Hailward, my brother-in-law, and older sibling to my ex Creston, stood there. His hands were at his side, his formal suit and tie as dark as his hair and eyes. He watched me cautiously. He looked so formal, so out of place amongst all the passengers around me as they went to embrace family members. He sure as shit looked more put-together than I did, in my worn jeans, t-shirt and hoodie.
I walked up to him and he did not smile in greeting, his eyes dragging over my figure for a moment, the corner of his mouth turning down. The instinct to turn around and run back to the plane hit me like a cresting wave, dragging me into an undertow that wouldn’t let me breathe.
“You’ve… changed,” he said, his voice tight.
“You haven’t,” I countered. We stood there for a moment. “I’m guessing Daria broke and told you.”