by KT Strange
Phoenixfire
#8 in The Rogue Witch: A Reverse Harem Romance
KT Strange
Heartcandies Publishing
Copyright © 2019 by KT Strange
All rights reserved.
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.
To Okami and Sparrow,
Bravest doggos.
Contents
Stay in touch!
1. Darcy
2. Finn
3. Darcy
4. Darcy
5. Darcy
6. Darcy
7. Darcy
8. Darcy
9. Darcy
10. Darcy
11. Darcy
12. Darcy
13. Darcy
14. Darcy
15. Darcy
16. Darcy
17. Darcy
18. Eli
19. Darcy
20. Darcy
Happy New Year
Stay in touch!
About the Author
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1
Darcy
Eli turned to me, the cloying scent of death filling the tour van, choking down my throat until I was almost gagging on it.
“You want the honors?” he asked, his voice a guttural, low sound. I knew what he meant. Outside the van, we were slowly being surrounded. I could feel them; moving through the clearing, a group of hunters who apparently hadn’t gotten the memo that the war between witches and werewolves was over. I’d put that shit in the ground and buried it deep when I’d taken out the witch’s council.
And, yeah, I did want the honor of sending the message loud and clear to these rejected stragglers who’d come to kill us.
“Get the door,” I said.
“That’s our girl,” Cash murmured, shifting into place behind me.
“Light ‘em up,” Charlie added, and Finn snorted.
“They’re not gonna know what hit them.”
“Well that’s a damn shame,” Ace said.
“Door?” I asked. Eli quirked an eyebrow, a deadly smile spreading across his face.
“Sure thing, gorgeous.” His hand wrapped around the handle. He yanked it, the door rolling open.
My skin crackled with electricity and a war cry split the air from one of the hunters ringing our traveling home. I stepped out, fury racing through my veins. They’d come here, in the middle of the night, stealing up to take us out and destroy the only family I had left. The only family that had ever really been mine.
Never.
I counted eight I could see. Soon there’d be none. They weren’t getting a second chance. You didn’t come out to murder and get the option of changing your mind. This wasn’t like a sex-consent issue.
The lightning gathered inside me, making my body feel light and airy, lifting me up. My hair floated, static electricity snapping and popping in my ears as I raised my fingers. Overhead, the sky misted over, and then the rumble of thunder shook the air.
A man stood in front of me, a long, cruel knife in his hands. He took a step toward me, unsteady, uncertain. A blood-thirsty desire pulsed in my chest.
“Fuck off,” I said, the words mild compared to the hunger I had to rip out his throat. I was clearly spending too much time around my werewolves, not.
“Blood traitor,” he spat, his brow furrowing. He shot a glance at another person, a woman, ten feet from his side.
“That fight is over, and this fight?” I said, “I’m ending it now.” There. My power crested, a wave inside of me that screamed to the heavens for backup, and with a roar I felt the lightning strike from above. Instantly I was overwhelmed, the power greater than I’d ever felt, and my cry was lost in the unending crash of thunder.
My head blew back, my body arching, as it flooded my senses, my vision whiting out. It poured out of me, into the ground, rippling the earth. Behind me, I heard the van groan, and my guys shout in surprise.
And I felt them die. The hunters. My lightning sought them out, defied the laws of nature and traveled straight through the ground, racing through the dirt and rock to find them, wrap around their bodies and kill them instantly, turning them to dust.
The lightning left as quickly as it’d come, disappearing into the air and ground, taking all my energy with it.
I coughed, falling to my knees with a wheeze, the disheveled earth biting into my palms as I toppled forward and caught myself on my hands.
“Darcy,” Charlie was there in an instant, murmuring into my ear, his arms wrapping around my waist.
“What the shit-” Finn stumbled out after him, and I looked up.
The hunters were gone, pulverized instantly, but so were the trees, shrubs, and any other organic material three hundred feet out from us.
“Holy--,” Ace whispered, stepping out of the van, squinting into the dark. The enormity of what I’d done, the kind of power that had conducted itself through me, fell over my shoulders until I felt so heavy that I wasn’t sure my own legs would bear my weight.
“Up, sweetheart,” Charlie said, helping me to my feet. My knees trembled.
“I didn’t mean to do that.”
“It’s that way too,” Cash murmured as he stood beside me. I turned to look in the other direction. I’d cleared a circle, hundreds of feet in all directions.
"Hey.” Eli moved into my field of vision, and his hands wrapped around my shoulders gently. He knew before I did that I’d need him to steady me. I looked up at him. “Oops?” He said, with a tilt of his head.
“Is it bad I feel worse about the trees than murdering those people?” I muttered.
“Self-defense,” Charlie quipped. “They came at us. May every god weigh their souls, and find them wanting.”
“Ain’t murder if they come asking for it,” Finn said, stretching his arms above his head. “And don’t feel bad, the trees will grow again.”
“We should rent you out to farmers who want to clear their land,” Ace added. I shot him a dirty look as he winked at me. Their playful, irreverent attitudes helped though. I inhaled, my lungs shivering as they expanded.
Eli pulled me into a warm hug. I felt Finn bookend me from behind, and he sighed as his cheek rested on the top of my head.
“Doesn’t feel right, us not protecting you, but you’re just so damn much better at the fight. You take them all out, and all we gotta do is wrap you up in our arms after,” Finn said, his voice rumbling through me.
“Don’t get used to it. This should be, will be, our last fight. The only struggle in our lives now is going to be picking which baby bands open for you on tour,” I said, hoping I was right and more hunters weren’t going to pop out of the shadows at us
.
The wind picked up, caressing my cheeks as I hid my face from the destruction I’d caused, burrowing my forehead into Eli’s chest.
“I like your plan, doll,” he said, “let’s hope we can stick to it.”
It was too unnerving to stay in the clearing, especially since we were surrounded by a circle made up of tiny piles of ash from where the hunters had stood. I hoped the wind would come along soon, scattering them, erasing them from history.
Eli pulled the van out, the tires grumbling over the dips and ruts in the ground where it had rippled under the effect of my power.
I sat near Charlie, staring out the window at the destruction my powers had caused.
“It’s this,” I said, pulling the heartstone out of my pocket. “This is the only thing that’s changed.” I looked at the tiny stone, warm in my palm as it glinted in the dim light of pre-dawn.
“So you learn to control it,” he said with a shrug. “You’ve learned before. Won’t be the first time you have to figure yourself out.”
A soothing hand curled over my shoulder from behind, and I turned my head. Ace smiled at me, and the tightness in my belly relaxed. Finn shot me an equally relaxed, confident grin from where he sat beside Ace.
“Not like you’ll need your powers much, or at all, in the future, but you should keep practicing,” Ace urged. “You never know.”
“Witches weren’t the only monsters in our world,” Cash said from up front, in the passenger spot beside Eli.
I swallowed and settled back in my seat.
They were all right. Hadn’t I learned by now that I could do anything, especially with them at my side?
Charlie pulled me in close and nuzzled my hair.
“You’re going to be just fine,” he said with a contented sigh. When I glanced up at him, he had an easy smile on his lips, and I let go of the tense knot in my stomach with a deep, slow breath. Our fights were over. I could relax. But why then, was I feeling like it was the calm before the storm? Was I so used to looking over my shoulder that I couldn’t do anything but worry about what waited for us?
Charlie’s phone went off, making me jump. He groaned and pulled it out of his pocket. I knew that ring-tone. It was the theme from Jaws.
“Gem,” he said into it, “it’s late, is everything okay?”
She was so loud I could hear her through the phone, and Charlie pulled it away from his ear, given that his hearing was more sensitive than mine.
“I’ve had an absolutely fantastic vision for the future of the band,” she said. I raised my eyebrow at him. She was, as Wolfe would have put it, starkers… or stark-raving mad, but she sounded over-the-top excited even for her.
“What’s the good word?” Charlie asked, lacing his fingers through mine. A couple of the guys shot him curious looks; he raised an eyebrow at them, telling them to wait before talking.
“We’ll combine those intimate shows that you wanted to do with a larger stadium tour, the buzz on you is absolutely big enough now that we can make that happen. I’m thinking we won’t announce the small shows, just give them for your most dedicated fans-” There was a rustling noise. “I’ve got the lists here for all the major cities of who’s been most active with your street team units.”
Charlie lifted his hand from mine to rub his temple.
“That’s great-”
“Is that the engine running? Are you driving? At this time of night?” Her words were sharp. “Accidents are much more dangerous at night, Charlie. You tell Elias to find a parking lot, or a Walmart, or something equally peasant-like and settle down. I do have to say, these days of trundling around in that little beetle of a tour van are done. It’s Prevost from here on out, or flying to each gig and hotels… the gear can follow you on the ground.”
Charlie tried not to sigh, and I tried not to smile as she rattled off on another five-minute rant about the guys’ choice of automotive transport. Elias’s shoulders were stiff, and I knew that he wasn’t going to pull over even if Gem materialized in front of the van, somehow.
I patted Charlie’s hand gently in commiseration and listened as he gave mumbled half-word responses to her next set of questions.
“I think we’re about to go through a tun-” he lied, cutting himself off, and then quickly hit end on the conversation, letting his phone drop in his lap.
“Put the damn thing on airplane mode,” Finn growled. “I could hear her shrieking from here.”
“We could all hear her,” Cash snorted. “D’you think she was a foghorn in a previous life?”
“She’s doing her best for you guys, you should be more grateful,” I said, but I could barely keep a straight face, a task that became impossible when even Eli turned around to glare at me for a split second before putting his eyes back on the road.
“No one’s arguing that she does her best for us,” Ace said, still, as always, the peacemaker of our pack. “But I really wish she’d do it at a lower volume. And a little less frequently.”
I settled into Charlie’s side with a sigh.
“Ungrateful,” I teased. “You should be glad someone’s on top of things for you.”
“Speaking of on top of things,” Charlie’s voice dropped in pitch, warming the bottom of my stomach. I glanced up at him and he smirked. “Have you gotten in touch with your professor?”
My face flushed, and I swatted him in the chest for him using that voice on me, making me think he had something much more enjoyable on his mind.
“I’m still ninety-nine per cent sure I want to drop out,” I said with a shrug. “I have everything I want. You guys are everything I could ever want. I don’t want to work with other bands, or be stuck at a label when you’re on tour. It’s not like you can’t afford a plus one everywhere you go.”
A tiny voice in the back of my head said maybe they really wanted me to get my degree and not be totally reliant on them, but I squashed it. That’s not how packs worked. I had my place, and could do my job without finishing up my degree, I knew it. Why was I suddenly feeling so insecure about it?
“It’s just never a good idea to leave bad blood, and he might be miffed you haven’t even been in contact,” Finn said, before clearing his throat. “Don’t leave dead bodies in the street, is what our dad used to say.”
“Leave ‘em in the alley,” Eli piped up, “and don’t come out shooting at high noon, hide in the saloon.”
I had to laugh at their words.
“Was he a country and western fan?” I asked. They never really talked much about their families. I’d guessed it was just too painful. The only reason I’d ever talked about mine was because my hand had sort of been forced by their insistence on murdering my pack.
Cash laughed at my question after a moment.
“Was he? Nah, he was a cowboy back in the day. He was born in the Wild West, pretty much, when his ma took off with a wolf from another pack. She came back to Phoenixpack after awhile, with him in tow, but he’d gotten the taste of being a cowboy and it never left him until the end.”
“Yeah, back in yesteryear,” Charlie teased, “when you guys hunted in the snow, up-hill, in all four directions, for a week, before eating.”
I groaned.
“Can we not fall back into the ‘they’re old as balls, I’m slightly younger and smarmier’ thing?” I nudged Charlie in the ribs, and he grinned down at me.
“Hey, beauty before age,” he said, kissing me before I could protest. “They’re all age, and I’m all beauty.”
He yelped when a perfectly aimed ball of socks hit him in the side of the head. Cash, the culprit, gave him the middle finger.
“If you were half as smart as you were pretty, you might be able to use better lines on her,” he said. Charlie growled in response and tugged me in closer. He would've hauled me into his lap if it hadn't been for my seat-belt.
“I’m hungry,” Ace piped up. “Can we get burgers? I’d really like some burgers.”
“Shut up, Wesley,” Charlie said, and th
en ducked when more socks and a shoe launched themselves at him.
“You know he doesn’t want to be called that,” Finn reprimanded him.
“You call him that all the time.”
“Only when Darcy’s not listening,” Finn retorted.
“So if an insult falls in the woods and Darcy’s not around to hear it, did it even happen?”
“Oh my god,” I said, “you guys are tired, we’re still running on adrenaline, and can we just get some fucking burgers, please?”
“You got it, sweetheart,” Eli said, meeting my eyes in the rearview mirror.
“I should’ve asked you to ask,” Ace whispered as he leaned back to grab my hand. I squeezed his fingers, my heart warming. Even when they were arguing -- and being squabbling little children -- I still loved them with every bit of me. If only I could get them to stop harping on about getting in touch with my professor and finishing off my degree.
2
Finn
We picked up a few more radio appearances on the way back to Seattle. As much as none of us wanted to, we needed to get back to the heart of our lives and move on. That meant showing up at XOhX’s headquarters, and actually seeing Gem, Troy, and Willa. Doing the work, as it were. As much as we bitched about Gem Halloway, she was half the reason Troy still believed in us. The other half, well… if our social media was anything to go by, our fans were even more heated up for new music and new shows.