Phoenixfall: A Reverse Harem Romance (The Rogue Witch Book 2)

by KT Strange

  “My sister is… innocent to many things, including the fact that modern witches get alerts on their cellphones when their younger siblings use a credit card to purchase flights,” Kenton said, sounding very much not amused. “The family thought it was best that I come to get you. Your parents…”

  “Couldn’t be fucking bothered?” I spat. Kenton narrowed his eyes.

  “You speak ill of them. Your mother was destroyed when you left. She simply did not wish to create a scene at the airport.”

  Right. A scene. She hated drama. As did my father. My sister, Eva, was the perfect daughter; always quiet and self-controlled. Then they’d had me, wild-haired and wild-eyed, more prone to knocking over expensive crystal vases than primly reading a book of regency poetry.

  It was fine. I’d made my decision. I was home, like it or not.

  “Maybe I’ve got some issues to work out,” I said. Kenton sighed and, for a moment, I thought he would put one immaculately manicured hand to his temple. But good breeding held out and he did not.

  “Let me take your bags,” he offered.

  “They’re dirty,” I said. He gave me a flat look, and plucked my duffel bag from off my shoulder, and then grabbed my backpack before I could argue further. Oh yeah, I hadn’t forgotten their ridiculous rules about women being too delicate to carry more than a serving tray from kitchen to dining table and even then, only if you were a maid and ‘meant for such work’. Never mind that if she put her back into it, my sister could grow vines as thick as a tree-trunk, digging her heels into the earth and forcing her magic into plants to make them do amazing things. It took physical strength to wield magic, and we did that just fine as women. The men in the witching world didn’t seem to think twice about it. Idiots.

  I followed Kenton out, to where the limo was parked. Of course, he’d brought the limo. Everything about my family and the rest of the council patriarchs was over-the-top and affluent. The driver hopped out and held the door for me with a low-murmured,

  “Miss Llewellyn.”

  Hearing my name said that way was like putting on a dirty shirt. I shifted onto the plush leather seats, and looked out the window as Kenton got settled, my bags neatly tucked in the trunk of the limo. Dread knotted up my gut as we pulled away from the curb and merged into the myriad of cars exiting the airport’s drop off and collection zone.

  “I suppose I should say welcome back to DC,” Kenton said, his voice mildly amused. “But I do not think you have come back to us out of an abundance of homesickness.”

  I inspected my fingernails and wondered if he’d be pissed if I just didn’t respond to him. It was like I was sixteen again, the fires of rebellion stoking inside me. It’s not that Kenton was a bad guy, and the short time he’d been married to my sister before I left had never given me a reason to think he was awful to her, it’s just that… he was one of them. My family, the council, the history that stretched out beyond us to our ancestors, Kenton was cut from the same cloth, sewn with the same thread. I knew that even though I’d burnt his brother pretty badly, he’d still argued against stripping me of my powers to his own father, a point in his favor. The fact that he wasn’t outright cruel to me, or to my sister, was a small miracle. He could have been. I knew more than one of the council patriarchs saw nothing wrong with regularly striking their wives, or their children.

  My father certainly hadn’t abstained.

  I sank down into my seat, resenting my own stupidity. If only I’d stayed. I could’ve been curled up against Finn’s side, the soft touch of his fingers along my curls. So what? So they could just use you for your powers? Powers you don’t even have? They’d toss you out once they figured out you really couldn’t make them a heartstone.

  My brain was being a bastard. I closed my eyes and tried to relax as Kenton put on some music, classical of course. He seemed content to let me be and I was grateful for that. The streets felt familiar, even with the clear changes since I left, and I watched them slide by from behind my closed eyes.

  We turned out onto the highway and I tried to control my breathing. Was this really happening? It felt like a dream, the world slipping past us as Kenton looked at something on his phone.

  After a few minutes he sighed and put his phone down.

  “You stink of werewolf,” he said, wrinkling his nose. I swallowed hard.

  “I… I do?”

  “Daria told us that she felt you had fallen in with some… unacceptable company, but I did not think it would be werewolves, of all creatures,” his voice was clipped, as if he had put up with my ‘stench’ for long enough and couldn’t keep ignoring it.

  “I don’t know what—"

  “Don’t lie to me, Darcy,” his words were sharp and loaded with the fire of his power. I could feel the heat rolling off of him, sinking into the fabric of my clothes, warming the skin of my face. I shrank back. “It’s better if you tell me now.”

  My jaw was stuck shut, and I gave him a mulish, stubborn stare. Maybe the guys had broken my heart but I wasn’t going to rat them out.

  “Where have you been?” he demanded. I shook my head.

  “I went to a concert,” I said. He snorted.

  “A concert.”

  “A rock show,” I said, “there were werewolves there.”

  “Simple creatures,” he scoffed, and I felt my own hackles rise at the insult. They were not simple. I’d never met people more complex, more… more perfect than my pack.

  “Don’t talk about them like that,” I snapped, showing my hand and not caring. Kenton raised one groomed eyebrow at me. Everything about him was groomed. It had never bothered me before, but it did now. I wanted to see him unkempt, what he looked like without all the polish and silk shirts… like my boys with ripped jeans and finger-tousled hair.

  Kenton would probably rather vomit than wear denim.

  He looked like he wanted to vomit because I was wearing denim.

  “So, you have formed an… association with these people?” He drew out the word ‘people’ like he didn’t really mean it, like the boys were sub-person to him.

  I guess that’s how he saw it. I guess that’s how all witches saw werewolves. The weight of my choice to return home sagged down over my shoulders, and I struggled to breathe slowly and quietly. I wanted to scream at him or launch myself across the limo’s interior to pin him into the seats. An unholy, untamable anger was rising up inside of me.

  But I was in the lion’s den now and I had to behave myself. Maybe I could run as soon as the car stopped.

  “I don’t feel like talking,” I said, shrinking into myself. Kenton eyed me and a smile crossed his lips.

  “My brother will be delighted to see you,” he commented lightly. Fear squeezed around my heart as my head jerked up. Kenton saw it and, in that moment, I realized he wasn’t nicer than other members of my family. He was just the same, maybe even worse. His smile turned cruel. “He missed you very much when you left. To think, we could be celebrating an anniversary or two for you both by now, or the arrival of your firstborn.”

  Vomit.

  That was the only word that came to mind at the thought of marrying Creston or having his babies.

  “Yeah that was never going to happen,” I said flatly. Kenton chuckled and shook his head.

  “You were always wild, but my family was happy to welcome you into our fold and help you find your place in this life. Creston was… short-sighted in his attempts to show you the error of your ways. He anticipated your union when he should not have.”

  “You mean he tried to rape me.” I was satisfied to see Kenton look upset at my choice of words. Good. He should be upset. Who the hell did he think he was anyway, to talk of the Hailwards welcoming me into their fold, especially after how Creston had tried to ‘welcome’ me?

  Gravel spit up under the limo, plinking against the undercarriage. This was it. We were home.

  I turned and looked over my shoulder at the looming spires of the Llewellyn manor. My heart skittered do
wn into my stomach and hid there, as fear stole over me.

  Three

  Finn

  The long drive to our next venue saw me sleeping for most of it. My arm ached but my heart was worse. I still couldn't believe that Darcy was gone, that she was so far away from me. All I could do was go over the last moments that we had together, and wonder if there was anything I could have done differently? Was there a way that I could've treated her better, made her stay with us? I felt like I wasn't enough. I knew the other guys were watching me, wondering how I felt. They were all missing her, but it was nothing in comparison to the grief that I was experiencing.

  I could've gotten into a thousand more fights, had more broken bones, had my skin sliced right open, and none of that would've compared to how losing Darcy made me feel. When you read about werewolves in folklore, they don't tell you the real truth about us. A werewolf can have many loves over many years. We live a long time, a damn long time. Witches live long too because of their magic, much longer than a normal human anyway. So, I imagine they share the same traits and difficulties in finding love that we do.

  But whereas they get married and those bonds break upon the death of a spouse or some sort of wrongdoing between the couple, once a werewolf mates and I mean truly mates, as in loves forever wholly and completely, the one that he is physically intimate with, he will never find another that he wishes to be with.

  I may have had my share of women before Darcy came into my life, but I never loved them. Not like I loved her.

  One of my major regrets was not telling her that I loved her in a more delicate caring manner. No, I had to pull a classic Finn, make some offhand off-the-cuff remark, I turned my admission of love into a joke. For that, I don't think I could ever forgive myself. Especially if she never came back to me. She would never know how important she was to me. Even if I'd said the words the manner in which I said it? It was a fucking crime. Everyone was blaming Cash for how she'd run away from us but I knew, in reality, it was my fault. If I'd taken the time to be honest with her about my feelings, about my real feelings, and had made it clear to her how important she was how much I needed her… Then maybe she would still be in my arms.

  “You alright?” Charlie was looking at me. I wanted to be honest with him, to tell him that there was no way in hell that I was alright, but I knew that he wasn't looking for honesty from me at that time. He wanted me to lie. He wanted me to be okay. Because out of our group, he and Eli were the two ones who looked out for us the most. Even though Cash and I were older than him, Charlie looked out for us.

  “I'm good,” I lied. He ducked his head down, shaking it, and smiled. We both knew the truth. But he wasn't willing to press the issue and I wasn't willing to make him.

  “Fuck, I'm hungry,” Cash growled from the front seat.

  “We’ll eat when we get to the venue,” Eli said from the driver’s seat. I still don’t know how the hell he drove us, day after day, without needing a break. It had to be his werewolf stamina, that’s all I could really think of as keeping him behind the wheel. We hadn’t had any close calls on the road because of his driving, that was for sure. Plus, I think he was working hard at being a good driver because he liked to be in control, the grumpy fucker. I loved my twin, but he was a major control-freak.

  Cash grunted and slouched down in his seat, sulking. Ace pulled out a protein bar from somewhere and passed it up to him. It disappeared, the wrapper ending up crumpled on the floor, in a few seconds. I couldn’t help the wry, hollow smile on my face.

  The miles passed us by and finally the venue broke on the horizon, a large outdoor amphitheater in the middle of nowhere. Ace sat at the edge of his seat, watching everything as we pulled off the highway and into the parking lot.

  “Whatcha’ looking for, kid,” Charlie asked, his eyes half-shut. He didn’t miss much, even when he was talking a semi-nap.

  Ace bit his lip and sighed.

  “I thought I might—"

  “See her here?” Eli finished the sentence for Ace and snorted. “She’s gone.”

  “Well she might come back,” Ace snapped, sounding irritated, a low rumble of annoyance in his voice that made my eyebrows jump. He wasn’t usually in a shitty mood… maybe Darcy’s disappearing act was affecting him more than I thought. I should have checked in with him the night before, he was the youngest of us all and didn’t take losing people very well.

  Not after what happened to his parents.

  I sighed as Eli pulled up to the loading bay, tumbling out of the van to stretch. Charlie was beside me, rifling through his backpack.

  “I’ll check in with the stage manager,” he said, squinting at the Glory Rev tour bus that had beaten us to the venue.

  Eli muttered something about unloading the gear, and Cash went with him. Ace was still looking around the parking lot, his expression heart-breaking. It was enough to stir me out of my numb, forlorn state. I slung an arm around his shoulders and hugged him tight.

  He sighed and buried himself against me. Shit, he’d grown. When we’d first gone on the run, he’d barely come up to my shoulder. Now he was taller than Charlie. If I wasn’t careful, he’d be taller than me. Couldn’t have that. Maybe I needed to short his dinner potions.

  “Am I stupid?” he asked.

  “Hoping she’d be here? No.”

  He surveyed me and sighed.

  “You were looking for her too,” he accused gently. I shrugged one shoulder as he pulled away.

  “Feels like half my heart is missing,” I admitted. Ace bobbed his head.

  “I wonder if she feels… the same way.”

  “Probably not,” I said, grief making my words harsher than I really meant them to be. “Witches are all like that, cold… calculating. She probably did this to weaken us.”

  Ace stared at me and then his eyes narrowed.

  “You take that back,” he said. I gulped down a sharp retort and closed my eyes.

  “I…”

  “Fuck, Finn,” Ace said, and then shoved me. I stumbled back, hitting the side of the van with a thud. I heard his footsteps stomp away. When I opened my eyes again, he was gone. Cash came around the side of the van, hauling my microphone case.

  “Idiot,” he said, punching me in the shoulder, harder than necessary. My sore shoulder, at that. I growled at him but didn’t hit back. He was holding my mic case, after all. He passed me the case and I took it. “Stop making him feel like shit.”

  “He’s gotta get used to losing people,” I said, “We lost her, and if we don’t find someone to create us a heartstone, he’s gonna start losing us too.”

  Cash grimaced.

  “Let’s just do the show, and deal with reality later.”

  The cool air of the desert at night did nothing to dull the heat from the lights on stage. I sweated through our performance, but my heart wasn’t in it. I could tell the other guys were pissed at me, but how was I supposed to perform when I felt like I’d rather be laying down, out in the dirt, slowly ceasing to exist? They had no idea how it felt. Sure, they wanted Darcy too, but they hadn’t been with her like I’d been. Lucky bastards.

  A girl grabbed my calf, feeling up my knee. Before Darcy, I might have felt a thrill of heat at the touch, vaguely sexual. While she’d been mine, I wouldn’t have even noticed it.

  Now it felt… wrong. I didn’t yank back though, just finished the song, thanked the audience, and ducked off stage. Eli took one look at me and frowned.

  “Are you up to going to the merch booth?” he asked.

  “Yeah, just gimme a minute,” I said. He frowned harder, if that was even possible.

  “You don’t have to do it.”

  “I said give me a fucking minute,” I snarled, slamming my fist down onto a gear box, splintering the wooden side. We both stared at it for a moment and then Eli growled and walked away, muttering about irresponsible assholes.

  If nursing the hole in my chest was making me an irresponsible asshole, then I was going to wallow in it.
He had no idea, none. Normally we read each other easily, the sharing of our emotions easy and free through the unique bond we had. He knew I was miserable now, but he didn’t get the full depth of it. For the first time my twin brother didn’t understand me. It was an… unsettling feeling.

  I took a minute to wipe the stage sweat from my face and change my shirt, before heading out to the merch booth. I heard the crowd before I saw them and pasted a smile on my face.

  “Hey there,” I greeted the first fan, holding out my hand for her to pass me whatever it was she wanted signed.

  “Oh my god your set, like, holy shit,” she babbled at me for thirty straight seconds, and I didn’t hear a moment of it.

  My arm came around her shoulders. Her hand came up. We smiled. The phone clicked.

  “Thanks for the selfie,” she gushed, and then hustled off to the side to squeal over it with her friends. I turned to the next fan, grinning wide.

  “Hey there—"

  “You. Were. Amazing,” the girl said, scooting around the edge of the table that I was half-standing behind. She squeezed right up into my space, her arm going around my waist. “Lana, take the picture. Lana! Take it, O.M.G., I’m sorry, my friend is such an idiot.” The girl who was clinging to me giggled nervously, her fingers kneading my side, like she wanted to get under my shirt. My skin itched, twitching, and the urge to shift was so strong that it hurt. I wanted to get away. I wanted to run. Too bad that I’d likely never get down on all fours again. I smiled instead as her friend, Lana, finally stopped gawping at Eli and brought her camera up to take a picture for us.

  I smiled, my face hurting.

  “Thanks, make sure you check us out online, we’re gonna be on college radio stations across the country in a few weeks with our new single,” I said with another face-breaking smile. She grinned back at me and then melted into the crowd.

  “AHHHHHHH!”

  My ear-drums were never going to be the same. A girl threw herself at me, and I had to catch her.