The Castle of Fire and Fable (Briarwood Reverse Harem Book 2)

by Steffanie Holmes

  Arthur stared directly at me, fire blazing in his eyes. “You’ve every right to be with and do whatever you want with whoever you want. But I… I can’t be part of it. Not with those guys. I can’t share you, okay?”

  “But what if—”

  “No.” Arthur turned away. He drew back his fist and slammed it into the trunk of the apple tree. I winced as the whole tree shuddered and bits of bark flew off in all directions. Smoke smoldered from the trunk from where his hand had hit.

  Arthur stepped back, breathing hard, staring down at his hand as though he’d barely noticed the punch.

  “Okay,” I held up my hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “Not your fault. I don’t want to force you to choose. If it’s them or me… I know what the answer will be. So I’m just going to take myself out of the equation—bloody hell!”

  I leapt back as a flame exploded on the grass beside me, making short work of the wicker basket filled with sandwiches Rowan had given me for our lunch. I grabbed the water bottle and emptied it over the flames until they fizzled and died out.

  Arthur grabbed my shoulders. “See what happens when I’m around you? Maeve, you have to promise me this. I know you’ve got this hunger gnawing away inside you, but please, you’ve got to control it around me, okay? If we have to stop ourselves, I might not be able to do it.”

  I didn’t want to stop, but I nodded. “I’ll try, but this magic is in me, too. It’s pretty hard to deny, especially when you’re there looking all hot and Viking-like.”

  Arthur leaned back, wiping a layer of sweat from his brow. “Maybe we should call it quits for today.”

  “Are you going to be okay to hang out with the guys and me and not be all surly and emo?”

  “I’m gonna try.” He stood up and held out his hand. I took it. He threw the swords over his shoulder and we walked back in silence. As we neared the castle, I noticed Blake coming up the path on the other side of the topiary maze. As soon as he noticed us, he ducked into a briar bush, which had to hurt like buggery.

  Odd. I wonder what he’s doing?

  We kicked off our dirty shoes and went into the kitchen. Rowan stood behind the island, rolling out a sheet of cookie dough. “Chocolate chip biscuits will be ready in twenty minutes.”

  “Chocolate chip cookies,” I corrected him, leaning in to give him a kiss on the cheek. Arthur’s hand tightened in mine, but he didn’t scowl or stalk away. “Where are the others?”

  “Flynn’s trying to teach Connor how to play video games in the Great Hall. Corbin’s in the library.” Rowan darted a glance out the window. “I have no idea where Blake is.”

  I wondered again if I should say something about Blake hiding in the bushes, but what could I say, exactly? He had lived in a tiny forest with a bunch of fae his entire life. His ways weren’t our ways. Maybe leaping into briar bushes was a totally normal thing for him, and I didn’t want to give the guys another reason to suspect him, not when everything was just starting to feel… right.

  We went into the living room to find Flynn balancing Connor on one knee, explaining to him the intricacies of using the controller to decapitate zombies. Considering Connor hadn’t even mastered aiming food at his mouth, I thought it was a little ambitious. On the couch behind them, Jane read a magazine and sipped a glass of wine. She looked rather pleased with herself.

  I sat down beside Flynn. Arthur sat on his favorite beanbag and picked up the other controller. “What do you say, Connor?” he grinned. “You and I can gang up on the big boss.”

  “You’re both ridiculous,” I said. “Babies can’t kill zombies.”

  “That’s some serious trash talk from someone who hasn’t killed a single zombie, don't you agree, Connor?”

  “I bet I can do better than a baby. He doesn’t even have hand-eye coordination.”

  “Oh yeah?” Flynn tossed the controller in my lap. “I think you’re all mouth, no trousers. Go on, Connor and I want to see what the famous High Priestess can do.”

  “That’s not fair! I’m not even wearing trousers!” As I scrambled to pick up the controller and figure out which buttons moved what on my character, a zombie thrust its hand into my man’s stomach, pulled out his intestines, and ate them.

  Flynn fell over laughing, and Connor clapped his hands and giggled. Arthur reloaded the game and patiently explained how all the controls worked.

  “I thought you said fighting was all about physics,” Arthur grinned.

  “It is in real life. This is two dimensional and there are zombies. I don’t understand the appeal.”

  After another two quick deaths, Arthur and I managed to corner the zombie queen in the corner of the dungeon. (Admittedly, it was mostly Arthur’s doing). He went at her with his mace, but she flung some kind of acid at his eyes and blinded him, so he just ran around in circles screaming, which was totally not what a blind person would do in that situation, but was still damn funny. The zombie queen turned to me. I tried to throw my morning star at her, but I got flustered and ended up mashing all the buttons. Instead of the attack, I dropped a to-go cup of coffee on the ground (why was my character carrying around coffee in the middle of a zombie invasion? This game lacked internal logic.) and the zombie slipped on the puddle and fell over and impaled herself on a meathook.

  YOU HAVE TRIUMPHED. The screen flashed in blood red letters. Flynn burst out laughing.

  “What the hell just happened?” I demanded.

  “You just won,” Arthur grinned. “You just beat the zombie queen with a cup of coffee.”

  Flynn was laughing so hard tears streamed down his face. “I’ve never seen the like of it. Never in my life—”

  A phone buzzed on the table. Flynn grabbed it and glanced at the screen. “Maeve, it’s yours. From Arizona—”

  I tossed the controller at Flynn and grabbed the phone, holding it up to my ear. “Hey Kelly, wait until I tell you how I just smashed this zombie…”

  “Maeve, it’s not Kelly,” A male voice echoed in my ear. “This is Pastor Tim speaking.”

  Pastor Tim – the guy who replaced Dad at church and kicked Kelly and I out of our childhood home? What did he want, to ask us where we stored the garden tools?

  But I didn’t say that, because it wasn’t Pastor Tim’s fault that he got the church’s house my parents no longer needed, and it especially wasn’t his fault that hearing his voice brought up memories of my parents that made my throat close. “Can I help you with something, Pastor Tim?”

  “I wanted to call you because I’m not sure if anyone else has thought to. It’s been a bit of a strange night and we’re all very shaken up. Your sister is in the hospital.”

  My heart stopped.

  “What… what happened?”

  Flynn must’ve noticed my tone change. He dropped his controller into Connor’s lap and slid down beside me, his hand on my back, warm and reassuring. He lifted one questioning eyebrow.

  “I’m not really sure how to say this… it was such a shock… such a shock.”

  “Tell me so I can be shocked, too.”

  Pastor Jim’s pause made my heart sink to my knees.

  “I’m running our annual overnight camp for troubled teens, and Bob and Florence sent Kelly along because she’s been acting out a bit at home. She didn’t show up for the evening bible study, and when we went to the cabin to look for her… she was passed out on her bunk. We think she swallowed some pills.”

  42

  MAEVE

  My heart plummeted from my knees right into my feet. “She… what?”

  Pastor Tim cleared her throat. “There was an empty pill bottle in her hand. I’m sorry, Maeve.”

  I swallowed hard. I couldn’t breathe. I sucked in air, but it didn’t seem to be able to move past the lump in my throat. Kelly… swallow pills? That didn’t make any sense. That wasn’t her…

  And then I remembered yesterday’s phone call. Kelly’s weird voice. The way she went on about my sex life and ho
w she was a disappointment to our parents. The way she finished with that heartfelt goodbye, the way she said she’d finally do something to make everyone proud.

  My heart was already on the floor, but the rest of my organs followed, leaving me an empty, hollow, numb husk. A husk whose sister had just tried to kill herself.

  “Where is she?” I demanded. “What hospital?”

  “They’re taking her to Phoenix General. But I don’t know if—”

  I hung up on him and opened my phone’s browser. I tapped frantically, scrolling to try to find a phone number for the hospital.

  Shit, Kelly. How could you do this? Why did you do this? Please be okay.

  “Maeve, what happened?”

  The wifi cut out and my phone stuck mid-search. “Bollocks!” I yelled, banging the phone against the coffee table until Connor started bawling. I checked the screen. Great. Now there were black lines zigzagging across the screen. That wasn’t better. That wasn’t getting me closer to finding out what the hell happened to Kelly.

  “Why won’t this thing work?” I yelled, tossing it on the table and grabbing for the phone poking out of Flynn’s pocket. Connor’s cries reached an eardrum-bursting pitch. Jane bundled him out of the room, her concerned gaze boring into me.

  “Oi!” Flynn grabbed for his phone and held it out of reach. “I’ll let you use this, but first you have to calm down and tell me what’s going on.”

  “It’s Kelly!” I yelled. “He said she’s in the hospital. He said she swallowed a bunch of pills, like she… like she tried to…”

  I couldn’t even say it. I couldn’t even conceive it. Angry, frightened tears spilled over and rolled down my cheeks.

  Flynn’s face transformed. He held the phone out and opened the browser. “What’s the name of the hospital?” he said.

  I told him, and he looked up the number on his browser, then called it and held the phone up to his ear. I tried to grab it, but Flynn stood up and walked over to the hallway entrance. He poked his head out the door and yelled up the stairs. “Guys, you need to get down here, now.”

  Rowan was the first person to come running. He hovered in the doorway for a moment, then he must’ve seen my face because he rushed over and wrapped his arms around me, resting his head on my shoulder. “What happened, baby girl?” he whispered.

  I tried to tell him, but the words still wouldn’t come out. My sister tried to kill herself. I just couldn’t comprehend how this had happened. There must’ve been some mistake. Kelly would never do something like this. She’s the most vivacious, in-love-with-life person I know. Not to mention the fact that she’s a believer. To her, suicide means a fast pass to hell, and she’d never risk that. No, it can’t be real. It’s some kind of mistake.

  Flynn moved out into the hall, and I could hear him talking into the phone. I wanted to run after him and hear what was being said, but Rowan’s arms felt so reassuring around me, I couldn’t move. He was the only thing holding me up.

  Another warm body materialized beside me. Arthur’s strong arms wrapped around my waist. “We got you,” he said.

  Footsteps clattered down the hall. Corbin and Blake burst in the room, crowding around me. “What happened?” Corbin demanded.

  “My sister—” I choked out. Rowan’s hand closed over mine, and he squeezed. When I looked into his eye, I saw panic there, like he didn’t know what to do. But he didn’t let go of my hand.

  Flynn came back in the room. “Okay, I managed to talk to someone at the hospital. She’s out of intensive care but she’s still unconscious. They’ve had to pump her stomach. She’s been moved to a room until she wakes up. They’ll keep her overnight at least, to monitor her condition, and then they’ll move her to a psych ward for an evaluation. But she’s okay. No lasting damage.”

  Tears of relief streamed down my face. Kelly’s okay.

  “Who is this? What’s happened?” Corbin was practically yelling. His face went all pale.

  “Maeve’s sister,” Jane said, appearing at the doorway again, rocking a grizzling Connor. “Someone in Arizona just called Maeve to tell her she’s in the hospital.”

  “She swallowed a lot of pills,” Flynn added, giving Corbin an odd look. “But they said she’s going to be fine.”

  “How did you get that information?” Jane asked. “American hospitals are notoriously terrible. They’re only supposed to release details to family.”

  Flynn grinned. “Luckily, I got Nurse Cissy McBimbo on the line and she succumbed to my Irish charm.”

  “You flirted that information out of her?” Flynn sank down beside me, handing me the phone, and I wrapped my arms around him. “You’re the best.”

  “I know.”

  “Hey,” Blake pushed his way forward, patting his chest. “Give the rest of us a chance, Princess. I could have got that information from the magical talking device if you’d given me a chance.”

  “I have to see her,” I said, reaching for my busted phone. “I need to get on the next flight to Arizona, but with everything that’s going on—”

  “Don’t even think about it.” Arthur took the phone off me and shoved it in his pocket. “Of course you’re going to see her, but in the state you’re in you’re just as likely to book a one-way ticket to New Zealand. We’ll get you to Arizona, fae be damned. This is more important.”

  “One of us will go with you,” Corbin said. He grabbed one of the laptops off the table and flipped it open. “I’ll have a look at flights. We’ll get you there as soon as we can.”

  “But—” It was too much. All of this was just too much. Could I lose Kelly, too?

  “Got it,” Corbin said, clicking away. “There’s a flight leaving from Heathrow in five hours. We need to leave now if we’re going to have a chance in hell of making it. Flynn, can you call an Uber for Maeve and I? This is going to cost an arm and a leg—”

  “Wait a second, you can’t come with me.” Rational thoughts started to plow through the detritus in my head. “You’re the only one who knows where anything is in the library and you can lead the spells if something happens.”

  Corbin looked set to argue, but Rowan nodded quickly. “She’s right. You need to stay here. I’d go, but I don’t have a passport.”

  “What’s a passport?” Blake asked.

  “I’ll go,” Arthur said. “I’ll drive us down in the Jag. That’ll save on the Uber.”

  And that was how I left the boys and Jane at Briarwood with strict instructions on how to record results from my scientific equipment, and Arthur and I ended up speeding down the M1 toward London in that ridiculous gangster car. He talked about sword fighting and Talhoffer’s manuals and how medieval masters used two dimensional drawings constrained by specific religious rules to represent different tenets about timing and distance. Under any other circumstances it would be fascinating stuff, but I didn’t hear a word. Over and over in my head I replayed my last few conversations with Kelly, how I’d forgotten to call her back, how I’d brushed her off when I had more important things to do, how I’d been so wrapped up in my own bollocks to be the big sister when she needed me most.

  When I didn’t respond to any of his attempts at conversation, Arthur asked if he could put on some music.

  “Is it going to be heavy metal?” I asked, making a face.

  “Do you know why I like metal?” Arthur jammed a CD into the ancient Discman sitting on a shelf under the dashboard. Did they even make those anymore? Maybe he got it from an antique shop or something. “There’s no space. The music fills you completely. It overpowers you and pulls you down this rabbit hole, so there’s just no room in your head for anything else.”

  I thought about Arthur and how he struggled with anger, how his whole life was a balancing act, an attempt to stop himself losing control. I’d always thought that listening to angry music was a bad idea, that it made people think and do bad things. But maybe I’d misjudged it. Maybe angry music was how he kept his emotions from taking over.

  I co
uld do with some of that right now.

  The music started, low and heavy – bass strings plucking a mournful tune. A woman came across the speakers, her voice dripping with emotion as she sung an operatic melody. The words were in Latin or Italian or whatever language opera was usually in, so I had no idea what she was actually saying, but she sounded so achingly, impossibly sad. The music swelled behind her, the drums pounding, the bass thumping inside my hollow chest.

  And then a man’s voice joined hers, not singing, but growling. Like a beast risen out of hell, he roared and rumbled through the speakers, burning a dark hole into my skin, over my heart. The riffs soared and the drums rocketed like machine guns.

  It was dark and heavy and intense and insane. Arthur was right. I was so busy listening, putting all the components together, being swept away in the intensity of it, the righteous power of it, that I didn’t break down when Kelly’s face flashed in front of my eyes. Instead, the music drove me to remain calm and strong, for her.

  “Who are these guys?” I asked when the song finished.

  “They’re a band from the States, called Blood Lust. They kind of have this gothic vibe – they have lots of operatic songs like this, and they even dress in old fashioned frock coats when they play live. People on the internet love to say the lead singer’s a vampire. He does kind of look like one. Do you want me to turn it off?”

  “Hell no.”

  We sped down the M1, our heads banging in unison to the pounding music, my mind gloriously empty, my eyes dry. When the Blood Lust CD finished, Arthur put on a band called Beauty in Lies. “Rumor has it all the guys in this band are in a polyamorous relationship with the same girl,” he said.

  “Oh. Cool.” I expected him to say more, to try to talk to me about what happened yesterday. But he just hit play and a great and beautiful blasphemy rose from the speakers and hit me in the face, obliterating every thought.

  By the time we pulled into the parking building at Heathrow, my ass hurt from the uncomfortable seat, but my head felt light.