The Horned Mage: Books 1-5

by Hayden Harper

  I stared at her for a moment. “Huh?”

  She met my gaze and clasped my wrists in hers in a grip to rival Sarah’s. “Caleb. I’m pregnant. It’s yours.”

  Chapter Six

  “What the hell is wrong with him?” Lexus demanded as Sarah and I walked into the door.

  Though she was the one fresh out of the hospital I was the one leaning on her. In hindsight it’s pretty damn embarrassing. But I was feeling so many differing things right then I couldn’t think straight, let alone walk straight. To keep me from weaving on our way to her car she’d grabbed my bicep and simply steered me. When we’d finally arrived home—and I say finally as if I had any real sense of the passage of time—it was all I could do to get my feet underneath me.

  I was joyous. I was terrified. I was confused beyond all possible recognition of the word.

  Just yesterday I’d been told I was never going to have kids of my own. Now I was having one…with my girlfriend’s and her stepsister’s mother. Dammit I was fucked. I loved Jadeite and I loved Lexus.

  I was reminded of just how much I loved her when she careened into me, pulling me into a hug, narrowly avoiding my antlers as my head fell onto her shoulder. My arms reflexively lifted and I squeezed her into me. I took in her warmth, her scent, her entire aura. Lexus was good. I was lucky to have her in my life.

  I still wanted her stepsister Jadeite. And I’d gotten her mother pregnant. The one in a bajillion chance of a pregnancy had hit. Because it was me.

  “Oh hey,” Lexus said as she was pulled against my chest.

  “What’s going on here?” Victoria asked, hopping off the couch.

  Home for us was a loft over Eleanor’s garage. It was basically a single, long room with a bathroom and an improvised kitchen at one end, a bedroom in the middle, and a living room at the entry on the end opposite the bathroom. It should have been cramped with all four of us standing in it but it wasn’t. It felt good and right to be with my girls. Their nearness leveled me out and empowered me at the same time. As if their very proximity was propping me up.

  Maybe it was. I healed faster when we made love and all of us did a lot better when we spent time together. It was weird but I never got sick of being around any of them like I would have with my old roommates. I don’t think that even newlyweds enjoyed each other’s company so much as we enjoyed each other’s. Or maybe that’s the wrong word. We simply did better when we were together. If any of us had been true loners before my magic had bound us together, we weren’t anymore.

  “Caleb has two pieces of exciting news,” Sarah said, yanking me out of my headspace and into the present.

  My knees were suddenly very weak. I made myself stay standing. I couldn’t afford to be weak now. They needed me strong and stable. Shame at how I’d made Sarah take care of me suddenly welled in my chest and threatened to overwhelm me. I shoved it aside. Forward. I had to move forward and address these…not problems—they weren’t problems—issues? I had deal with this new bout of craziness that life had thrown my way.

  Which to start with? Not the baby news—that was way too big. Nothing would matter after it. Maybe nothing else should matter. Good God I had no idea what I was doing.

  I swallowed. “I asked out Jadeite today.”

  I said the words to Lexus. Jadeite was her stepsister. Good Lord, Reagan was her mother. Could I do anything else to hurt their family at this point?

  Lexus let out a squeal and bounced up and down in my arms. Her body rubbed against mine with every bounce in the most tantalizing way. I felt myself responding and had to will my erection to behave. I had no business getting worked up that way right now, cambion or not.

  Amidst all the squealing I was able to pick out a few choice words, most of which amounted to “I can’t believe this” and “It’s about time” and “I’m so excited” but with more cursing and slang.

  She approved? I glanced over at Sarah, who was looking at the two of us with a knowing smirk on her face. Okay, this was not at all what I’d expected.

  “You’re okay with this?” I asked.

  Lexus nodded hard enough to send her hair flying. “Yes! Do you know how awkward this has been? Pining after her with you? My God, when I first started feeling it I thought I was going nuts.”

  I stared. Pining after her with me? What the hell did that mean?

  That thought didn’t get the chance to properly develop because the next expression I caught sight of was Victoria’s. Unlike Lexus and Sarah she had her arms crossed and a scowl across her face.

  “You don’t approve?”

  “No.”

  Ouch. I mean, I guess I’d expected disapproval, but I’d expected it from Lexus. I’d been prepared for that. And then when Lexus had been almost as excited as me about the date I’d gotten my hopes up and let something inside of me unwind. That something was stinging right now.

  Lexus whirled free of my arms to glare at Victoria. “What the hell?”

  I set my hand on her shoulder. I was about to open my mouth to say something soothing I hope, but Victoria beat me to it.

  “I like Jadeite. She’s hot and she’s smart and all that.”

  “Then why don’t you want Caleb to date her?” Sarah asked.

  Victoria looked at Lexus and me. “I get her not understanding, she wasn’t here, but have you guys already forgotten?”

  “Forgotten what?” I asked.

  Victoria rolled her eyes and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. The effect on her hips was almost enough to distract me. Almost. “Back when we were dealing with her dad, Crimson? We had a plan and she nearly got us killed.”

  I had to think hard. That night, the fight was a blur and memory of chaos. But then pieces came back to me. We’d been counting on Jadeite to trap the undead servants that her father was sending after us. The ensuing fight was sudden and terrifying, and instead of carrying out the ritual that she was supposed to Jadeite had fumbled her materials. We’d had to fight until she’d gotten her stuff together and could finish off the ritual.

  “You’re holding that against her?” I asked, genuinely shocked. “I don’t think there’s any way she could have been prepared for that.”

  Victoria shrugged. “You’ve handled yourself pretty well.”

  That was news to me. I felt like I was blundering through the woods blindfolded and barefoot.

  “I don’t think that’s a fair comparison,” I said.

  “Life’s not fair, Caleb. Everyone you bind to us needs to make us stronger. Jadeite’s smart and hot but I don’t think she does that.”

  “There’s a difference between making us stronger and being a good fighter,” Sarah said.

  Victoria raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment.

  “Like you said, she’s really smart. Like, stupid degrees of smartness,” Sarah said.

  Lexus nodded in agreement. “Obnoxiously so. She wants to be a contract mage like her dad.”

  “That could be very useful,” Sarah said. “Imagine having guardians or helpers around our home? I think that’s a fairly strong mark in her favor.”

  Victoria put up her hands. “Date her before you bind her, that’s all I ask. Maybe she could be useful, but please use your head as well as your heart.”

  “I will,” I said. “Promise.”

  She grimaced, then forced it to turn into a grin. “So what’s your other big news?”

  The relief that had begun to swell within me died. I opened my mouth but only a little noise slipped out of my throat. My eyes fell back to Lexus, who was turning around to beam at me, eyes brimming with delight and curiosity.

  “Reagan’s pregnant,” I said. “It’s mine.”

  Lexus slapped me so hard and fast I never even saw her hand move.

  The force of it whipped my head to the side

  There was a flash of pale hair and then Sarah had Lexus pinned to the ground. She was only there for an instant because Victoria tackled
her off of Lexus and the pair careened into my knees, knocking me to the floor. They rolled over me and crashed into the closed door. Lexus threw herself over me—to attack Sarah or pull Victoria off I don’t know.

  “STOP!”

  I don’t know what surprised me more, the fact that I’d found my voice or the power that vibrated from it. The girls froze, and I saw what could have turned into a truly ugly fight. Girls, it turns out, don’t fight like guys. A guy will punch and elbow but unless it’s life or death. It’s a little bit like two rams or bucks fighting when all the ewes or does go into season. There’s an unspoken set of rules there.

  Not so with girls. Sarah had a grip on Victoria’s hair and looked about ready to rip it out at the root. Victoria’s finger was a slip away from plunging into Sarah’s eye, prevented from going in only by the fact that Sarah had bitten her thumb and refused to let go. And Lexus was tangled up with both of them doing who knew what.

  “What the hell?” I demanded. “You’ve never fought before.”

  Sarah said something around Victoria’s thumb. A little blood spilled out from her teeth.

  I shook my head and stood up. “Get off each other.”

  Slowly, they untangled from each other’s grips. It was a little like watching a trio of gunslingers lower their weapons to break up a Mexican standoff.

  “She hit you,” Sarah said. There was a heat in her voice that I’d never heard there before. I don’t think I’d ever heard her so angry. “Nobody hurts you.”

  The way she said that wasn’t just a casual sibling or lover comment—there was a venomous heat there, the kind that made the word “zealotry” come to mind. Everything that had been happening to her and she’d been prioritizing my wellbeing. All those years and I’d been so oblivious. How much worse would the last few years of my life have been without her? And she was still protecting me.

  “It’s okay, Sarah.” I stepped forward and pulled her into a hug. She was shaking, actually shaking, with anger. “It’s okay. She wasn’t really trying to hurt me.”

  “The hell I wasn’t,” Lexus snapped.

  Victoria cuffed her upside the head. Lexus shot her a wounded glance but Victoria wasn’t looking at her. She was grinning at me. “Congratulations, Caleb. We should do something to celebrate. When is she due?”

  She was happy about this? This. Jadeite pissed her off but knocking up Lexus’s mother was something to celebrate?

  Lexus glared at Victoria. “I can’t believe you!”

  Victoria gave her a puzzled look. “What’s not to believe?”

  “He knocked up my mom!”

  Victoria gave a nod. “Yeah, that’s awkward, but it wasn’t like he betrayed you to do it. And this way the child will actually have some of your blood in it, right?”

  Lexus’s mouth opened and closed several times before she finally screamed “I want to have his baby! Not. My. Mom!”

  Oh wow. That I hadn’t known. And then Lexus was sobbing, shoulders shaking as she heaved great gulps of air and tears spilled down her face.

  We converged on her all at once, arms going around her. They’d been fighting just seconds ago but as soon as the tears came out everyone was there to give their love and support.

  “Don’t you want his baby?” Lexus asked.

  “I came to terms with not being able to have children a long time ago,” Victoria said. “But if I could, I would.”

  Damn. I had no idea what to say to that.

  “I could handle Sarah’s baby changing,” Lexus said. “Or getting his magic or whatever but this…I can even get him being in love with Jadeite. But…it’s not fair!”

  It wasn’t. Not at all.

  We hugged until our legs cramped and we sank to the floor. I loved these girls. And they…loved me. I don’t think I had ever been loved so deeply. They wanted to have my children? That was both the most heartwarming and most terrifying thing I had ever heard. That went way past whatever my magic could induce—cambion magic, from what little I understood about it, could only generate lust and fae magic, could only produce a facsimile of emotion, not the real thing.

  This meant one of two things: I was either the wielder of the most evil type of magic in existence; or I was loved, absolutely loved, by three amazing women who I definitely didn’t deserve. Either way, I had no idea what to do.

  Chapter Seven

  At first I was completely stumped where to take Jadeite out. I mean, after I got over waffling about whether or not I should, what with me having gotten her stepmother pregnant and all. It was actually Victoria who pushed me forward. She got fed up with my indecision and finally threw her hands up in the air.

  “Alpha the fuck up. You asked her out—do it or don’t, but make up your fucking mind.”

  I wanted to do it. Despite everything I wanted to make Jadeite a permanent part of my life. Victoria wasn’t completely convinced that dating Jadeite, let alone eventually binding her if and when we had sex, was a good decision, but once I had decided on my course of action she threw herself into planning the perfect date with Sarah and Lexus, though that brought up something else that I hadn’t considered and really should have.

  “When are you going to take me out on a nice date?” Lexus asked, partway into the planning.

  I’d stared at her. We’d gone out, sort of, but nothing like this. And that definitely wasn’t fair to her. I ran a quick calculation of how much a single fancy date cost and then multiplied it by four, optimistically assuming that all of the girls wouldn’t just dump me in the near future. The amount was more than a little staggering. Fuck, I needed more money.

  “Next month,” I promised Lexus. I’d have enough saved up from my current wages by then for a nice outing and maybe—just maybe—the courts would be wrapped up with our inheritance, legally bringing Caroline Marshal back from the dead, and assigning Sarah guardianship of her and the remaining property.

  Woodhurst only had one super fancy restaurant so naturally it was the one that I wanted to take Jadeite to. This presented the first hurdle, and one that I’d never had to actually consider. The name of the restaurant was General Lee’s Steakhouse and sported a big old Confederate flag over the front door. I’m pretty sure they were trying to sell their Southern heritage and delicious steaks and not racism, but somehow bringing my black maybe-girlfriend there didn’t seem like a good idea when I gave it a moment’s thought.

  I worked up the nerve to ask Lexus about it and she shrugged and said that it didn’t really matter to her, but then I’d had to explain to her who Robert E. Lee was. She got a weird look on her face before shrugging it off. “Whatever, a good steak’s a good steak.”

  In the end I decided against it. Jadeite and Lexus might have grown up around Woodhurst and been used to “Southern pride” but that whole shtick was just too divisive and a potential problem I didn’t need added to my already seemingly insurmountable pile. With the steakhouse ruled out though, I needed a new place to take my girl and Woodhurst didn’t have much apart from fast food, burger joints, and a few specialty ethnic places of questionable legitimacy—by which I mean all the sushi on the town’s only Japanese restaurant’s menu was fried. There just wasn’t anything nice enough.

  Victoria saved the day again, pointing out that the town 20 minutes south of Woodhurst on the interstate had a larger variety of restaurants and even a nice hibachi place a little north of its border. The date was settled.

  Or so I thought.

  My plan to get dressed half an hour before driving over to pick Jadeite up was met with undiluted horror. Then, when they’d gotten me all ready with three hours to spare and realized that my staying in the nice clothes they’d selected for me (I was not allowed to select my own attire for this event, apparently) would only get messed up if I was allowed to stay in them, they relented. In this at least, I did know better. Not that I was stupid enough to say so.

  Lexus actually left before I did to go help Jadeite get ready. Her
enthusiasm for this whole thing was surprising. I’d expected an uphill struggle with her. If anything, she was the most enthusiastic of the group.

  Finally—finally—I was dressed in a nice button down and a decent pair of slacks and out the door, borrowing Sarah’s car. I stopped in front of Jadeite’s house—Reagan’s house, really—and hoped that this wasn’t weird. The girls and me were on something very like a timeshare between her place and Eleanor’s, since Caroline needed a place to stay and Reagan had kindly volunteered Lexus’s old bedroom. Sarah and Lexus spent at least half of their time here, even if they spent the night with me more often than not. Damn this was a stupid time to be thinking about this.

  Then I realized what I was doing. I was afraid and so I was procrastinating, letting every little fear and worry get into me. I was on the edge and instead of taking the plunge I was sitting here twiddling my thumbs like the world’s most indecisive dumbass. Where was the guy who’d gone chasing off to find Lexus’s stolen necklace way back when all of this started? Missing girls? Sure I was your guy to track them down. Evil sorcerer or a pack of biker werewolves? I would face either down. Taking Jadeite on a date?

  It was time to “Alpha the fuck up.”

  I didn’t walk up the sidewalk to her house, I marched over it like I owned it. Jadeite—the girl I’d been in love with for the better part of a year—was at the other end of it and no case of stupidity or nerves was going to get in my way. Something clicked in my brain. This was a hunt. A different kind of hunt, one where the prey wanted to be captured, but could only let herself be captured if she was pursued in the right way. I had a sudden urge to grin, elation swallowing up my nerves. I was going on a date with Jadeite.

  I knocked and the door swung upon, revealing Reagan. She gave me an awkward smile and a more awkward hug as I stepped inside out of the Texas heat. I caught a glimpse of the dining room off the entryway and fought down the memories of our mental and physical rape as I stepped into the living room. Caroline—my adoptive mother was sitting on the sofa watching Wheel of Fortune. She glanced at me, told me I looked handsome, and then went back to watching her show.