Wicked Souls
A Limited Edition Reverse Harem Romance Collection
Various Authors
Dangerous Words Publishing
Wicked Souls © 2020 Margo Bond Collins, Dangerous Words Publishing
All individual story copyrights remain in control of the individual authors over their own works: Copyright © 2020 Rebecca Royce, Ripley Proserpina, Mila Young, May Dawson, Lacey Carter Anderson, Ophelia Bell, C.R. Jane, Skyler Andra, Katherine Bogle, Monica Corwin, Margo Bond Collins, Serenity Ackles, Maggie Alabaster, Tiegan Clyne, JE Cluney, Caia Daniels, Tanya Dawson, J.S. Lee, Dana Lyons, Niobe Marsh, Katie May, Ann Denton, Grace McGinty, Morgan Jane Mitchell, AJ Mullican, Elle Ryan, Bee Murray, KM McKenna, Krystal Pena, Eden Rose, Anna Santos, Faith Summers, Edeline Wrigh, Ivy Hearne
Cover Design by ATLANTIS BOOK DESIGN
All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
These are works of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
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Contents
Her Masks
Rebecca Royce and Ripley Proserpina
Tricked
Mila Young
True Monsters
May Dawson and Lacey Carter Anderson
Thieves of Fate
Ophelia Bell
Frightful Beginnings
C. R. Jane
Resting Witch Face
Skyler Andra
Her Curse
Katherine Bogle
Awaken
Monica Corwin
Her Wolves
Margo Bond Collins
Reaper Reborn
Serenity Ackles
Stealing Magic
Maggie Alabaster
Catrina
Tiegan Clyne
Everwood Academy
JE Cluney
Something Wicked
Caia Daniels
Millwood Academy - The Beginning
Tanya Dawson
Idol Threats
J. S. Lee
The Devil’s Lantern
Niobe Marsh
A Hunter’s Moon
Dana Lyons
Demon Stalked
Ann Denton and Katie May
The Lost and the Hunted
Grace McGinty
To Creepy With Love
Morgan Jane Mitchell
Witching Hour: The Stroke of Three
AJ Mullican and Elle Ryan
Reaper’s Last Homecoming
Bee Murray
The Dragonshadow Princess
KM McKenna
A Weekend To Remember
Eden Rose
Bloody Halloween
Anna Santos
Alpha Magic
Amelia Shaw
Her Protectors
Faith Summers
Roots and Gerunds
Edeline Wrigh
Her Masks
Rebecca Royce and Ripley Proserpina
One
Frenchman Street came alive on Halloween. I didn’t know exactly when the so-called new Bourbon Street had started to become the go-to party for All Hallows Eve, but it certainly was a spectacle to behold. Fairies danced alongside ballerinas as adults in the four-block area of the Marigny area of New Orleans lived out their fantasies for one night. Feel like being a vampire queen? Well, you could be, in your own mind, and with the helpful aid of alcohol, for just that one night. This wasn’t a children’s celebration. No, these were drunken adults, for the most part.
And then there was me. I stumbled through the streets, but not because I was drunk. Music poured out from the bars as some people took the chance to sing at the top of their lungs. I tried to decide what the most common costume I saw on the street was while I dodged the sloppily held cigarettes of careless owners that threatened to burn me. I’d been scorched by a cigarette before, and I still wore the scar on my arm. Repeating the experience wasn’t on my agenda tonight.
“Chaney,” someone called, and I whirled around as another person with my name flung herself into the arms of the man who had sought her attention. For a second, I stared at them. What were the chances that someone else in this crowd had my name? Apparently, greater than I would have believed, since it had just happened. Not that I expected anyone to call out to me tonight. There wasn’t a soul who knew I was here, not a person who’d yet been alerted to the fact that I’d walked out of my inpatient care facility, stolen three hundred dollars from one of my jailers—sorry, Doc—boarded a bus, and came here.
Although, if someone did know, if they somehow found out before morning, they would know exactly where I was. After all, I’d been making a fool of myself on Frenchman Street every Halloween for years. This was where I’d first encountered the masks and where I came to see them every year—until I’d been caught and eventually sent away for my absolute belief that what I saw was real.
At some point, they deemed me a danger to myself, and others. They. My parents. The doctors. I’d lost track of reality, forever believing in something that could not be. Shoved one police officer trying to restrain me three Halloweens prior, and I found myself in this mess. It helped that my stepfather wanted to bury any trace of me from existence and had run off with my mother like I’d never been born. He was willing to throw his considerable money at the problem.
I stepped around another raucous crowd and turned right down Treasure Street, heading in the direction of I-10. I wouldn’t be getting that far, so I didn’t have to concern myself with the highway. I set down the beer that I’d hardly touched—it didn’t mix well with whatever cocktail they had me on in the hospital—and headed straight toward my destination.
The houses here had changed over the years as the area grew more gentrified. My stepdaddy’s company had a lot to do with that. Swooping in and buying them up, renovating them for a penny so that they looked pretty on paper, and making a sweet dime on them. The houses wouldn’t last long without needing repair. They were nice on the outside, but they weren’t made to last the test of time. I knew that because I was in the meetings where he made the decisions on what to spend money on and what to let go. Plumbing for example. That was going to go to hell really quickly.
It helped when people thought you were crazy and ignored you. They said all sorts of things in front of you, because who would ever believe a word you said anyway? The alley up ahead remained as I’d first seen it four years before when I was sixteen. It would be hard to get rid of the small, ancient theater at the end of that alley, since no one really knew who owned it. Funny how in this day and age, that could happen. The parish thought it was privately owned, no records were ever
found to verify, and so far, the state was nervous enough about being sued for knocking down what might be some kind of landmark that they did nothing about it.
In a town where people regularly paid off their tax collectors, it wasn’t surprising that no one knew what to do with my theater. And that was what it had become. Mine. All those years ago when I’d disobeyed instructions and headed into the desolate building that nobody owned.
Where they waited for me.
This would be my last trip here. After this escape, they were going to send me away from Louisiana. I’d live who-knew-where. Some place where they could for-sure guarantee I wasn’t going to come back. New Orleans, my home sweet home, I loved it here, but I loved the masks more. I’d sacrifice anything to see them again.
To hold on to what I knew…that they were real.
I finally made my way to the building and stepped inside, glad the door still opened. Over the years, this place had earned quite a reputation. Kids ran through the halls on dares. But only I had ever seen the truth of this place.
Once it had been a beautiful, albeit small theater, where people came to see opera singers perfect their craft before they made it to the big time. Those days were long gone.
The place had been raided years ago. Only the small stage remained in the center room. There wasn’t even anywhere to sit the last time I’d been here.
I studied the room, searching for the three, arm-length, oblong canisters I’d left here so long ago. When I’d first found them in this theater, I’d thought they were masks—three-dimensional and oversized. As I’d approached, staring at the features the shadows made on them, I’d wondered if they’d been displayed above the stage. Even now, I could make out the planes and colors that had drawn me to the assumption I’d found masks.
In my mind, I still referred to them that way—masks. My masks. But that wasn’t what they were. They were stranger and more fascinating than simple masks.
There they were. Right where I put them. It was as though everyone knew to stay away from them. Maybe the magic inside protected them from being disturbed.
Chaney…
I clomped over toward them, my legs starting to feel heavy and my mouth totally dry. Stupid medications. I was going to go through some kind of withdrawal soon, probably. That was okay. I just needed one more look at the three men who would come from the masks to prove to myself it had all been worth it, that every sacrifice I’d made had been because they existed. I didn’t have it in me to deny them.
Scott came from the mask that always reminded me of comedy. Matthew’s mask was frowning. And Robert’s mask was the most colorful of the three. The first time I’d touched their masks, they’d come to life, appearing in front of me like something out of a dream. It was as though by laying my hands on those masks, I’d conjured djinns or angels. A smart girl would have run, but I was too enthralled by the unexpected magic.
So I introduced myself, and they did the same.
Of course, Scott, Robert, and Matthew weren’t their real names.
Matthew had told me that I’d not be able to pronounce their real names, and those were the closest they could come up with.
And they could still appear. One day, once a year, on All Hallow’s Eve. I wouldn’t let them spend another year trapped in their masks. Not when they could only be alive on this day. Everything inside of me rebelled at them never walking the Earth again. I could free them, and so I would.
I had to. It was a must. I’d met lots of people in my life, and I didn’t care what happened to them. But those three—they mattered, like a compulsion.
I touched each of the masks, reverence in my every move as I stroked my fingers over the outside of each of them, feeling the ridges and the designs. Amazing no one ever touched them but me. How were they not sold or broken? I’d worried over that detail for the last year in something that my therapist had called the obsessive part of my disorder.
That was fine. I’d be obsessed because this was real. R.E.A.L. Real.
The first time I’d done this, it had been like I was in a dream. I’d known what I was doing, although I’d never done so before. Now, it was a memory, something I could recall. As though there were x-marks on the ground, telling me where each mask needed to be placed individually. Scott. Then Matthew. Then Robert. They had to be lined up in that order.
I backed up. There would be a wave in the air when they came through that would knock me on my rear end if I were too close. My ass had hurt for two days after when this happened two years earlier. The last time I’d been here. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
With my mouth dry from the meds and my heart beating a mile a minute, I almost couldn’t speak the words I thought I needed to say. I believed they would come. No, I knew it. I’d held tight to that idea against all odds, against all labels thrown my way. But what if I were wrong?
Now, I would learn I’d wasted my time, and that I truly had been unwell this whole time.
I shook my head. There was no place for this doubt. I’d never faltered. I wasn’t going to start now. Not when I finally had what I wanted—to see them again.
Once a year wasn’t enough.
“Come. Please.”
I added the please. It wasn’t necessary. That was how they’d arrived. Every time. For a second, nothing happened—the longest second of my life. I sucked in a breath when the air moved. I’d never experienced anything like what happened when they appeared. It was like there were ripples in the air, as though for a moment, it was a door.
One second, they weren’t there, the next, they arrived. The three of them. It was so funny. Years passed, and yet every time I saw them, they looked exactly the same. They appeared over their masks as though they were pushed out of them, and for a second, I could see the masks over their faces before those faded. Instead of the masks, they were fully formed people with visible facial features that I’d memorized the first second I’d seen them all those years ago. I’d never forgotten them, and as they appeared, I was able to release a long breath.
Scott was the tallest and always the quickest to smile. His blond hair fell past his shoulders and shone like he’d just come out of the sun. With sparkling blue eyes and a cleft in his chin, he was beautiful. The fact that he smiled helped to add to his appearance.
Matthew, by contrast, frowned even when he was happy. His hair was as dark as Scott’s was light. The darkness gave the impression of severity, and yet, he was gentle when he spoke to me. His lips were plump and inviting, even with the scorn in his expression. Everything about him was striking, and I found myself staring at his high cheekbones, impressed they were even better than I’d imagined them. His brown eyes bored into me, as though he could see all of my flaws, and yet, his gentle nature made me think he didn’t mind my imperfections.
Robert seemed to glow with colors. If Scott and Matthew were polar opposites, it was as though Robert took pieces from both of them. His green eyes shone like Scott’s did with their blue depths. But his hair was dark like Matthew’s. Robert wore his the longest of all. It fell halfway down his back. I wasn’t sure, but I suspected the other two deferred to him, as though he were in charge of whatever the three of them did when they weren’t living in their masks.
The trouble was, I didn’t know what that was exactly. They’d always been pretty vague at answering my questions, which had done nothing to temper my absolute need to see them. The less they said, the more I wanted them to say.
Their clothes changed from visit to visit. Did they have a wardrobe inside the masks?
How did it work? Since this was going to be my last time seeing them, I needed answers, something to carry me through the long years of separation ahead. We had tonight, and I wasn’t going to let it get away from me, feeling like I’d let any of it slip away.
“Hi.” I stepped forward, and all three of them stared at me, seemingly all at once.
“Chaney.” Robert moved toward me first. “There you are.”
I swallowed. His voice did things to me. It was everything I could do to keep my knees steady, especially considering I was already sort of wrecked by my medication.
“Hello.” I smiled at all of them. “For a moment, I wondered if…” I trailed off. Maybe it was better they not know what I wondered. “Hey, I thought you might not be real” was not a nice thing to say. Who wanted to be considered a figment of a psychotic mind?
“That we might not be real,” Scott answered with a broad smile. “I think you worry about this every year.”
Matthew strode forward, staring down at me without touching me. They so rarely did. “Are you unwell?”
“Yes, well, no. Sort of. It’s hard to explain. My insistence that you three exist has gotten me into some trouble. There was a semi-violent incident, and now I live in a hospital where they pump me full of drugs and make me participate in group therapies and other things. That’s why I wasn’t here last year.”
Scott’s smile fell for the first time ever, his gaze clouding over into a serious composure I’d never seen before. “Has it been two years for you?”
They hadn’t even known. I’d been obsessing for a year, worrying they were angry, and they hadn’t known. Pain struck me inside where I kept all of my stress—in my stomach. I put my hand over it and ignored the sensation. It wasn’t new. I lived with a constant amount of stomach pain.
“I…I thought you would have noticed. But maybe you don’t notice time when you’re in your masks?”
Matthew touched the side of my face, and a burning sensation that scalded—but somehow also didn’t hurt—filled me. I didn’t understand how the two sensations could happen at the same time. They should be mutually exclusive and yet…they weren’t.
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