by Alyssa Day
She glanced through the doorway at the blue couch. It really did look terrific with her stuff. Granny hadn’t been too offended when Lily had asked her to take the rest of the furnishings and décor with her, citing lack of space. The old witch had gone home for her afternoon nap—“very good for the complexion, dear”—an hour or so ago, after pumping Damon for every ounce of information about the danger and promising to bring a brigade of witches over this evening to strengthen the wards to protect Lily.
Now her new house no longer looked like a box of paints had thrown up in it, which was helping her peace of mind. Damon’s patience with the idiot mover and his sense of humor over Granny’s craziness was comforting, too. If she could still laugh at something, then she had to believe they had a chance to beat Harry before he sent somebody else to kill her.
Or came himself.
“Damon.”
He’d turned around and was leaning against the railing, watching Hugging and Mugging and their antics while they checked out each individual piece of furniture. “It’s funny, but I--"
“Damon.”
He picked up on her tone of voice this time and whipped around to face the street. “What?”
She pointed, not trusting herself to speak. A line of five black SUVs in a convoy had just turned a corner and was headed straight for her house. A man wearing a long, black robe of what looked like velvet and fur stood on the hood of the first one, balancing perfectly, holding his arms palms-up in the air. He was clearly chanting something, but Lily couldn’t hear what over the noise of the engines.
“He’s here,” she managed. “He apparently didn’t want to wait to kill me.”
“Over my dead body,” Damon growled. His flesh exploded into a kaleidoscope of light and color, and seconds later the most enormous lion she’d ever seen stood next to her. He was the size of a pony, and his paws were as big as dinner plates.
The lion turned his huge golden eyes to her, and she knew he could understand her. She swallowed, hard, over the lump in her throat. “Don’t let him capture me again, Damon. He . . . he’ll really hurt me for leaving him. I’d rather be dead.”
The lion who was Damon butted her shoulder with his head, and then he sprang off the porch and onto the lawn, planted his feet, opened his mouth, and roared.
Lily had never been so close to a lion when it roared, and every cell in her body froze. The sound was so huge, so primeval in its sheer, terrifying majesty. It sounded like dominance—like thunder. Everyone who heard it would feel like prey and flinch or flee.
Even Lily, who knew Damon would protect her with his life, almost wanted to flee. She held her ground, though, and rolled up her sleeves. The warlock on the SUV had faltered in his chanting and was huddling back against the now-stopped vehicle’s windshield, so now would be a good time to take care of that problem.
The doors on all five of the SUVs opened, and a small army spilled out. Armed men carrying weapons of every size and shape marched toward her house, every single one of them with eyes and weapons trained on the lion.
So easy to forget one little fire mage in all the excitement.
Lily smiled and stepped off the porch.
9
Damon wanted to kill them all. Rip and rend and bite and claw and shred every single one of the bastards targeting his Lily.
His Lily.
He roared again, but this time he leapt across the yard and into the front line of thugs before the sound had even begun to fade from their ears. They shot at him, and they died. They swung swords at him, and they died.
But he bled.
They were trained killers, he’d give them that. After he’d killed maybe ten of them, the remaining twenty surrounded him in a loose circle. He snarled and looked for weak points, but for every advance he made, one of the men behind him would shoot. He was keeping a low-level focus on pushing the bullets out of his flesh almost as soon as they hit him, but there were too many. He was losing too much blood.
It didn’t matter what happened to him. He had to protect Lily.
He swung his head back and forth, searching for the warlock, but the men surrounding him started closing in, and pain and blood loss combined to drive him into defense mode. He roared out his defiance, and when one of them rushed him, he closed his giant jaws on the man’s head and bit it off at the neck. When he spit it out, the men around him all took an involuntary step back.
It was hard to keep up your nerve when your colleague’s head rolled over your shoes.
It gave him a breath, and a breath was all he needed to push out the rest of the bullets and start to heal those wounds.
Okay, you bastards. Round two.
* * *
Lily ran across her yard toward the warlock, who’d started chanting again. When she got closer, she discovered why. Harry stood on the far side of the SUV holding a pistol aimed at the warlock’s head.
“It’s over, Harry. You’re nothing, and today you’re going to lose,” she told him.
The warlock increased the volume level and pace of his chanting, which sounded like some nonsense version of Latin mixed with banjo music. Hideous. But the man wasn’t weak; she felt his power buffeting her.
Her personal wards were holding, though, at least for now. At least long enough for her to take care of this problem once and for all. She called to her power, and her hands started to glow a hot orange.
“I never lose,” Harry snarled at her. His lips were pulled so far back from his teeth in a grimace that he looked deranged. “Nobody leaves Harrison Bannon--"
“The Third,” she said wearily. “Yes, I know, you lunatic.”
The warlock smashed a spell against her head, and it knocked her down, almost to her knees.
“There’s no way I’m losing to a cheesy Vegas-magician-looking wannabe like you,” she shouted at him, and then she pulled.
Pulled her power from the air and the earth and the goddess who granted it. Pulled energy to her and transformed it into fire. Transformed herself into the fire mage she’s always been destined to be.
With one blast, she blew the warlock twenty feet through the air and set his ass on fire. With a second blast, she incinerated the SUV to a pile of smoking ash.
Distantly, she recognized the other Lily—the sane Lily, the calm and reasonable Lily—thinking that she hadn’t even know metal could burn to ash like that.
But there was no room for calm Lily here. She was Fire itself, and she was set to burn. Here, before her, was a mass of babbling humanity who would serve as fuel.
Harry was crouched on the ground, his arms over his head, crying and begging. She’d calibrated the blast to the properties of the vehicle, or he’d be ash along with it. As it stood, his hair, gun, and clothing were gone, and all that was left of him was a crouching, cringing, whining pile of nothing.
It would be a mere moment’s thought to incinerate him. He had killed and kidnapped and tortured. Murdered. Destroyed lives and families. Almost destroyed her.
He didn’t deserve such a clean, purifying death, but she had no patience with his sniveling. Fire called to her and demanded that she answer; demanded its tribute.
She was a goddess, and this worm was sullying her presence.
She raised her arms again, but a shadow in her left periphery caught her attention just in time for her to see an enormous lion crash into her and knock her down. Somehow, the lion twisted its huge body in mid-air, so that he took the impact with the ground, and she was only slightly jarred.
Still, the beast dared to assault her? She would destroy it.
Or, perhaps, only kill it and keep its skin for her floor.
She called, again, to Fire, but the lion’s gigantic body shuddered beneath her and magic sparkled around and through its body for several seconds. When the magic dispersed, a nude man with golden eyes held her in his arms. He was bleeding from so many wounds, she knew he might soon die.
“Lily,” the human said. “Lily, come back to me. This isn’t you, I kn
ow it isn’t. Please, remember who you are. Please, come back to me.”
She didn’t move, just stared at him. She knew this one. He wasn’t like the other. This one was fierce and bold and she . . . cared for him.
“Lily, please,” he said again, pain and despair etching lines on his face. “Please. I can’t lose you before we’ve had time to discover what we have. Please.”
“I am Fire,” she told him, with a hint of regret. “You must die.”
She heard shrieks and sirens in the distance, but she ignored them. Such petty concerns were not for her. The man must die, and then she must Burn.
Burn it all.
“Lily,” the man said again. “I must die, if you say so. But first, I must do this.”
Before she could reply, or move, or think, the man put his hand on the back of her head and pulled her to him, and then he captured her mouth with his kiss.
Fire bloomed in her blood and her bones. She would destroy him for daring to touch her. She would . . .
She would . . .
She would kiss him back.
She kissed him while magic and guns and sirens screamed through the air around them. She kissed him, and her world changed.
She kissed him, and she came back to herself.
Damon. This was Damon.
She knew this man. He’d protected her and eaten with her and laughed with her. He’d held her in his arms while she slept.
And if he were Damon, then she was . . .
She was Fire.
“Lily. My Lily,” he murmured, tightening his arms around her, and then he kissed her again.
No. No. She was . . .
Lily. She was Lily Cardinal.
She was Lily Cardinal, and she was better than this. Fire would not rule her, she ruled Fire.
“Damon,” she whispered.
He kissed her again.
“Damon,” she said more strongly, holding his head back from hers with her hands. “I’m back. It’s me.”
He looked dazed. “Lily? Are you sure?”
She drew in a deep, shaky breath and then blew it out. “Yes. Yes, I’m sure.”
“It’s about time,” Granny said from behind Lily’s head, making her jump. “As much fun as it is to clean up all this mess while you roll around on the ground with the naked hottie, maybe you want to help out?”
Lily put her forehead down against Damon’s and quietly groaned. “Are you sure you want to get involved with the crazy that is my family?”
“Just try and stop me,” he said, grinning.
A tall, badass man with very dark skin stalked toward them, and Lily called to her power again. She had to protect Damon, she had to—
“Lily. It’s okay. That’s my partner, Zane,” Damon told her, still smiling at her.
Zane reached them and stood for a moment, staring down at them, unsmiling.
Granny reached out and patted his arm. “It’s okay, dear. They’re going to get married and have lots of babies, but we’re going to find a nice witch for you to settle down with. You just follow me.”
“You’d better go with her and interview her,” Damon advised his stunned partner. “She’s a material witness.”
Zane just shook his head, but then smiled down at Lily. “Nice to meet you, future Mrs. Jones.”
“Nice to meet you,” she managed, her brain whirling. Babies? Mrs. Jones?
Zane raised an eyebrow at Damon. “I’m looking forward to this story, not to mention why you’re butt-ass naked when we both know you can pull clothes into the shift. Also, I can’t wait to hear what you did to get Bannon to beg for mercy and start spilling every detail of his criminal enterprise. All we have to do is ‘keep the fire witch away from him.’”
“We’re going to need a bigger bottle of whiskey,” both Lily and Damon said at the same time.
They looked at each other and started howling with laughter. By the time they could breathe again, they were alone, and a pair of sweatpants and a shirt lay on the ground next to them.
“You can pull clothes into the shift?” Lily narrowed her eyes.
“Ah . . . I was injured? See, blood.” He tilted her chin so she could see a wound on his neck that had bled a lot but was rapidly closing.
She kissed his cheek. “Okay. We’ll let this one go. But maybe get dressed now.”
“Okay. And look at the bright side,” Damon said, pulling on the clothes, but not before Lily had gotten a mouthwatering eyeful.
Wow.
“What’s the bright side?” she asked, letting him take her hand and pull her to her feet.
“We have a great story to tell the grandkids about how we met.”
Holding each other, they limped cautiously over to her house, which was now apparently the official crime scene headquarters. Several men were handcuffed to each other and sitting on her lawn. Next to them were body bags.
A lot of body bags.
She looked more closely at the blood that was already staining Damon’s clothes. “Are you going to be okay?”
He shrugged it off. “Shifter. I’ll just need a shower so I don’t bleed on Tulip’s peacock feather couch.”
She thought about it, and a slow smile spread across her face. “Can I wash your back?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Epilogue
A week later . . .
Lily pointed a finger at the grill, and the coals lit up and started burning.
“That is very handy,” Damon said, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her back against his chest. “I might keep you.”
She laughed. “Well, you’ll be happy to know I cut my final tie with anything overtly criminal in the Dark Web today.”
“Overtly?”
“Um…A girl has to make a living, when she’s not being a fire goddess.”
He kissed her neck, then moved to stand in front of her. “I asked to transfer my base of operations to Ohio, like your cousin Rose’s husband Alejandro did.”
Hope flared up in her heart. She’d been willing to move to D.C., but she’d finally realized that her heart was here, and that she loved every single annoying, interfering, wonderful relative she had.
“Really? They’d let you do that?”
He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Well, maybe they would if I had something to offer. An expert hacker, for example?”
Her mouth fell open. “Me? Work for the man?”
“Lily,” he said patiently. “I am the man.”
“Squawk! Just kiss the girl,” Hugging said.
“Get to the chopper!” Mugging ordered.
“Argh,” Damon groaned, and Lily started laughing.
They heard voices, and Granny, accompanied by her daughter Sue, her very pregnant granddaughter Rose, Rose’s sisters, Rose’s husband Alejandro, and Austin Parker all came around the corner of the house to her backyard. Poor Parker looked like he was about three seconds away from fleeing for his life.
Lily laughed, but decided to rescue him. “Hey, Parker. Over here!”
The man scurried over, carrying a large white box.
“Hi, Lily. Your family is, um . . .” He ran out of words and thrust the box at her. “I brought donuts.
“I love Parker,” Damon said.
“They’re assorted jellies,” Parker said. “Strawberry, blueberry--"
“I hate Parker,” Damon said.
Lily patted his arm. “It’s okay, Parker. I still like you.”
He visibly brightened until his red hair practically glowed. “If you came to work with us, you could have state-of-the-art computers to play with, Miss Cardinal.”
Lily was suddenly very, very intrigued, and clearly Damon saw it on her face, because he smiled at Parker. “Good move, Parker. But I hate jelly donuts.”
Mugging swooped across the lawn and landed on Damon’s shoulder, a new trick they were both smugly delighted about.
Lily shook her head. “Do you want a jelly donut, Mugging? Damon doesn’t like t
hem.”
Mugging tilted his head and stared at Damon, whose eyes narrowed. “Don’t you even think about it--"
“Don’t be a pussy. Squawk!”
Damon smacked himself on the forehead. “Lily. We need to show them some different movies.”
Mugging chortled, and Hugging floated down to land on Damon’s other shoulder.
She smiled at her birds, and at her friends and family, filling up her yard and her life, and she smiled at the man who’d won her heart so fast.
“I think you’re right,” she told him, stepping into his arms. “How about the one where the fire mage falls in love with the lion?”
Her strong, proud, protective, funny, loving lion looked at her through his beautiful golden eyes. “Do they live happily ever after?”
“They do,” she promised. “Forever and ever and ever.”
She kissed him, and he kissed her back, and the world disappeared for a few wonderful, magical moments, until a finger poked Lily in the side.
She looked down to see Granny standing next to her. “Yes?”
“Let’s get this party started! I need some wieners!”
Damon leaned over and whispered in her ear, and she could barely hear him over Granny’s cackling laugh. “Hey, Lily? Do you have any other crazy relatives I should know about?”
Lily smiled serenely. “Oh, Damon. You have no idea. Welcome to the world of the Cardinal Witches.”
He gulped. “I’m doomed, aren’t I?”
“Absolutely.”
* * *
NOTE FROM ALYSSA DAY:
I’ve said it before -- I have a crazy family. We were Air Force brats as kids, and then I grew up and married a Navy Guy, so life has been one adventure after another. I’ve lived in or traveled to almost every state in the U.S. and lived in three foreign countries.
So my “What if?” for this book – and I always come up with my book ideas by following “What if?” down twisty paths – was “What if a family as crazy as mine also happened to be a family of witches?”