Everyday Evil: A New Adult Urban Fantasy Harem Adventure (The Horned Mage Book 4)

by Liam Lawson

  I set my plate down, squared my shoulders, and gave him my undivided attention. “No one is being disrespectful, sir. We’ve explained our actions. You seem to be fishing for the same information we’ve already given you. What would you like to hear, sir?”

  Albert took off his spectacles, pulled out a handkerchief and cleaned the lenses. “I would like to hear, an apology and a promise that it won’t happen again, young man.”

  “If Nicole was a child, I would agree with you,” I said with a shrug. “She’s an adult.”

  “That may be,” said Albert, returning his not spotless spectacles to his face. “But she is still my child. And that is my grandchild in her belly.”

  Nicole flinched. I started paying more attention to her. She was strung tight, like a guitar string ready to be plucked. Fear rolled off of her. Was our conversation upsetting her that much?

  “As long as Nicole’s living under my roof, she will abide by my wishes. And you will both respect my authority.”

  The cool way he delivered both of these statements brooked no argument. Or at least, that was the intent. Instead his words slithered under my skin and stoked my temper. I was my own authority now. Nicole and I were adults. We didn’t need his roof or his authority. Cue South Park joke.

  “Then perhaps we should exercise more autonomy,” I said.

  He froze. He’d never gone completely still like that before. Was he even breathing? I didn’t care.

  “Neither of us are your dependents anymore,” I said. “If Nicole is hard up for housing while on maternity leave or whatever she is welcome to stay with me.”

  How that would work with Absinthe and Scarlett I didn’t know but we could figure that out later. We would make it work.

  “Caleb,” Nicole said, voice barely more than a whisper. “Stop it.”

  I didn’t stop it.

  “You seem to have forgotten what respect means,” Albert said. “You sit there eating my food and telling me how you’re going to live your lives?”

  “Yes.” I glanced at my plate. “And not to put too fine a point on it but I haven’t actually eaten anything.”

  Nicole made a little groan.

  “Get out,” he said.

  I cocked my head. That was unexpected but maybe it shouldn’t have been.

  I stood and looked at Nicole, getting ready to let her know she could come back to Woodhurst with me, and froze. The confidence I’d felt during Albert and my confrontation fled at the sight of her. She’d pulled her knees up into her chest, curling into a ball on her chair, and refused to look at anyone.

  Everything that had pulled the strong and capable woman I’d known out of her shell that afternoon had been undone and she was back to this, the state I’d first found her in. What on earth was going on? She hiccupped, then began to cry.

  Albert stood up. “Get. Out.”

  I did. But I didn’t leave once I was out. I walked and thought about what I’d seen. There was no way I was leaving Nicole here, alone with that man. Something was off. Maybe something always had been, but it was somehow more obvious to me now because of the situation. Woodhurst would have to wait. My phone was almost dead when I pulled it out to text the girls where I was and that I’d be staying another night. Almost as soon as the text went off, the screen went dark. Figured.

  I had no charger, and no other means of charging it, and after all that I’d paid to get here and take care of Nicole, I really couldn’t afford a hotel or to buy a spare. That was alright, I had a place in mind that would solve my problems nicely.

  Once dark had settled in, I snuck into the backyard and made my way to the shed in the back. It had started its life out as a storage shed and tornado shelter, but the shelter had been filled in and the shed renovated into a home office, complete with Wi-Fi and air conditioning.

  Albert didn’t like anyone going in here. Too many of his client’s confidential files were here and he didn’t want anyone to see them. He didn’t know that I’d found the hiding spot for the key to the shed years ago. I didn’t like coming out here, but there was no way he’d be using his office-shed before heading into work in the morning. The shed was always an after work stop, not a before.

  Key in hand, I slipped inside. The place hadn’t changed. A carpet to add warmth and bookshelves lining every wall except for the one where he’d set up a work desk with a computer and filing cabinets on either side. I checked the desk drawers and found a spare key to something, a pad of paper, a flash drive, more pens than I could count, and several notes that I ignored—no phone charger though, which was unfortunate, and the computer was passcode protected. I tried a few different things but eventually gave up.

  The hard floor wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it was better than sleeping outside or under a bridge. I’d only done the latter once on a dare because some asshole had said my antlers made me a pussy. Something about deer being afraid of everything. I couldn’t even remember his name.

  I glanced once more at my dead phone and hoped the girls were okay and wouldn’t panic too hard. Considering everything we’d been through together, not hearing from me would probably scare them. I’d have to find a way to get in touch in the morning.

  I settled in and fell asleep.

  Chapter Three

  I awoke to the slight whisper-crush of grass—soft footsteps outside. I shouldn’t have been able to hear them. My ears were not nearly keen enough to register that kind of sound. I certainly shouldn’t have been able to tell that the footsteps were familiar. I had absolutely no basis for comparison! I didn’t lay around in fields listening to people walk around. I should not have been able to recognize Absinthe and Scarlett—but I did.

  I sat upright, surging to the door in an awkward scramble, and threw it open.

  Scarlett threw herself into me, knocking me off my precarious balance so that we toppled over onto the carpeted floor of the shed in a tangle of limbs.

  Absinthe calmly stepped through the door and over us, closing the door behind her. She looked down and raised her eyebrow, a bemused expression on her face as Scarlett burrowed her face into my neck.

  I hadn’t showered since before leaving Woodhurst so I couldn’t imagine I smelled all that good. Maybe it was a werewolf or cu sith thing. Or maybe it had to do with everything we’d been through over the last few weeks. Her stepfather had come to town with at least one, possibly two, poltergeists and a glowing African vampire called an adze that had raped her mother and forced the pair of us to have sex. I was still confused about how I felt about the whole thing. But Scarlett had become very clingy since. I didn’t blame her.

  I offered Absinthe a “what are you going to do?” grin from my position and wrapped an arm securely around Scarlett. Her body melted, as if someone had been running a current of electricity through her and had just turned it off. She draped over me, melding to my form, and breathed out a contented sigh.

  She lifted her head and gave me a grimace. “This is kind of pathetic, isn’t it?”

  Absinthe nodded and held up her thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. “Just a little.”

  Scarlett let out another sigh and pulled back but didn’t break contact with me. “I’m not apologizing for it.”

  “I’m not asking you too,” I said, and kissed her forehead. When had I fallen in love with her? I admired the green of her eyes for a moment, a stupid look on my face, before turning my dopey gaze on Absinthe. I loved her too and felt a powerful kinship with her. And we both loved Scarlett, who loved both of us. So, that was our weird loving little triangle.

  Absinthe was older than both of us by several years and had had a rough life. I didn’t know all the details, but when we’d met, she and her brother had been a part of a werewolf pack that doubled as a biker gang called The Road Wolves. Real cuddly types. Guys who crushed your ribs and pulped your innards when they hugged you and then used your skull for a beer stein. They’d nearly killed me when she’d mated to me for standing up to their alpha and then gotten boun
d to both Scarlett and me through my own weird magic.

  My magic had transformed Scarlett, or enabled her to transform, into a cu sith, a type of badass fae hound. Absinthe had mated to me, attacked Scarlett and me in a fit of jealousy-fueled werewolf rage, infecting the two of us with the werewolf virus. I had not become a werewolf, for reasons unknown, but Scarlett had. Sort of. And then my magic had done the same thing to Absinthe that it had done to Scarlett. Now they were a sort of werewolf-cu sith hybrid and far more dangerous than they had been before encountering me.

  Whether that was better for them or not was something I was torn up inside about. My magic bound them to me—which was probably how I’d recognized them as they’d drawn near—and maybe, just maybe, it was responsible for the feelings between us. I had no way to measure if it was real or if I had somehow manipulated them, deliberately or not, into our current scenario.

  Not that I had any right to complain—and really, I wasn’t!—because any guy would be lucky to be with just one of these two beauties, but both of them? I worried though that I may have robbed them of some vital part of themselves, stolen their free will and independence. Neither seemed capable of leaving me or even expressing any desire to do so.

  Lucky me, right? Maybe less lucky for them. But until I knew how to break my magical hold over them and offer them a choice, the only thing I could do was give them the best possible life I could. At the moment that really didn’t amount to much.

  Absinthe crossed her arms. “Really? You’re going to turn that sappy expression on me?”

  But she was smiling as she said it. She reached over and closed the door to the shed. I appreciated that. Texas mosquitos were nothing to mess around with and all the air conditioning had been blowing out. The shed didn’t exactly have the best insulation.

  “Not that I’m not glad you’re here,” I said. “But why are you here?”

  Absinthe shrugged and would have come across completely nonchalant if it weren’t for the shit eating grin on her face.

  Scarlett giggled. “Can I tell him? Please can I tell him?”

  I looked between them. “Tell me what?”

  Absinthe rolled her eyes and gestured for Scarlett to go ahead.

  Scarlett reached into her back pocket and pulled out a bent envelope. It was a little ripped at the top and Scarlett blushed when she saw it. “I stopped myself from opening it even though I want to know just as much as you do.”

  I took a closer look at the envelope. It looked all kinds of official. Recognition dawned.

  “The DNA test,” I said. It was here. It was finally here. I couldn’t believe it.

  “Eleanor got it yesterday while you were on the way here,” Scarlett said. “She wanted to call and read you the results but that didn’t seem right. She’s dying to know what you are.”

  Absinthe barked out a laugh. “Yeah, you were so much more patient.”

  Scarlett stuck out her tongue at her.

  Absinthe laughed again and settled down on the floor next to me. My eyes left the torn envelope and went to her own eyes. They were fiery emerald green. So were Scarlett’s. My magic had changed them.

  “You’ve finally got your answers,” Scarlett said.

  I looked back and forth between the girls. They had come all the way down from Woodhurst so that they could share this news in person. They didn’t even seem to care about how it affected them, just that it was important to me. Something inside my chest warmed and swelled, expanding beyond the confines of my ribcage.

  “Are you about to cry?” Absinthe asked. “I swear, you are not—”

  I cut her off by once again surging up and capturing her mouth in a kiss.

  Scarlett had instinctively rolled off of me so that I could move, and I swear I could feel her grinning as she watched us kiss. Absinthe grabbed my head, clutching me to her as we kissed. Our tongues dueled and danced and wrestled until we broke apart, gasping for air. I didn’t stop though.

  When the kiss broke, I rolled over and pinned Scarlett to the floor, smothering her sudden burst of giggles with another kiss. Her giggles quickly turned into moans and her hands slid over my back. This kiss was gentler. Normally kissing or making love with Scarlett was something hot and wild—not so today. Our kiss was gentle, a stark contrast to the experience I’d just shared with Absinthe. Our lips and tongues caressed one another in slow, sensual motions that sent little tingles through my mouth.

  When we broke, she was breathing hard. She bit her lower lip, blushing, and trembling, held up the envelope with the DNA test results. “Don’t you want to know what it says?”

  I shifted myself so that I was positioned over her, pinning her to the floor. “I want you two more.”

  I turned to grin at Absinthe.

  She shook her head with a smirk. “I’m not sure if I’m surprised by this or not. I swear you are some kind of sex monster.”

  My grin widened. “Is that a complaint?”

  “Hell no.” She leapt at me, rolling me from Scarlett until I was on my back.

  We hit the bookshelf against the wall and knocked something over. I didn’t care. I was suddenly pinned down between to incredibly hot women. Absinthe engaged my mouth in another fiery kiss while Scarlett deft fingers found the buttons on my shirt. Unfortunately, with my antlers t-shirts or anything that has to be pulled over my head aren’t viable options.

  As she undressed me, her fingers teased my skin, going low over my chest and down my belly until they caressed the skin just above the waistline of my pants. I moaned into Absinthe’s mouth. She pulled back, eyes brimming with mischief, and pulled Scarlett to her over me, locking their lips together in a kiss.

  I grew hard as I watched. Both girls were athletic and physically impressive, but in very different ways. Scarlett was a runner, all lean corded muscle with tight breasts and a high bubble butt. She reminded me of a cheetah with her feline features and hint of freckles.

  Absinthe was more curvaceous, though not abundantly so. Her body was less lean than Scarlett’s but more sturdy. Her breasts were slightly larger, her hips a little more prominent. She’d had her werewolf metabolism for a long time and her muscles had been built up by years of fighting and travelling.

  Their bodies writhed together as they kissed, and I was really able to appreciate their contrasts. Especially as they began peeling off each other’s shirts and bras. I didn’t usually pay attention to the difference in their skin colors, but I did then as they pressed their torsos together, breasts mashing into each other in a picture of pillowy bliss. Scarlett was Latina with hazelnut and cream-colored skin, while Absinthe was one quarter Black Foot American Indian and a lifetime of outdoors had made her body seem like it was sculpted of honey.

  They were gorgeous.

  When their kiss ended, they stared into each other’s eyes for a moment before moving at the same time, each placing a hand on my chest and turning to look down at me, matching grins of pure girlish delight and mischief on their faces. They leaned down and we engaged in a three-way kiss.

  It should have been awkward. It wasn’t.

  Somehow our lips and tongues instinctively navigated each other, correcting for pace and distance reflexively. I’d never experienced a hotter kiss and couldn’t hold back a moan. My member throbbed, straining against my pants and boxers. I had to have them. Had to be inside of them.

  Someone slipped their hand into my pants and caressed the length of my erection with soft fingers. Scarlett. Absinthe’s fingers were stronger and had slight callouses from so much time gripping her bike’s handles.

  Another hand unsnapped my pants and began sliding them down. That had to be Absinthe. Or maybe both girls working together. With all of our mouths pressed together in the most intricate kiss I had ever participated in I couldn’t tell what was happening south of the border. I only knew that I liked it.

  My own hands weren’t idle as the girls steadily undressed me. They roamed their bare backs, slid down to cup their butts, and pulled them
tighter to me. I swallowed their moans and we came apart. A strand of saliva momentarily connected my tongue to Absinthe’s before snapping. We grinned and I was forced to catch my breath.

  They took a moment to recover as well and that moment stretched on a little longer than mine. I went on the offensive. I rolled Absinthe over and yanked her pants and panties off, or at least down to her knees. At which point I realized that she still had on her motorcycle boots. It was actually kind of hot, her legs bound up by her stripped clothes. I grinned down at her and bent her in half, lifting her bound legs up over my shoulder.

  Scarlett pressed up against me from behind, suddenly and completely naked, and freed my erection. She wrapped her soft fingers around it and rubbed the head up and down Absinthe’s entrance. Heat radiated from her sex and each little touch coated the head of my shaft with a little more of her fluids. Scarlett’s hand slipped from me to rub at Absinthe’s clit and I thrust inside of her.

  The combination of clitoral stimulation and penetration made Absinthe’s entire body seize up. Her passage clamped down on me. If she hadn’t been so wet, pressing myself further into her would have been painful for both of us. Instead she let out a series of ecstatic whimpers, her entire body quivering as I buried my full length inside of her.

  Scarlett pulled her hand away as I began thrusting in and out of Absinthe’s hot channel, repositioning herself but staying behind me. I could feel her doing something to Absinthe’s legs as we made love but couldn’t tell what until she made me stop moving, my erection buried to the root, so that she could slide Absinthe’s pants and panties the rest of the way off of her legs. She tossed them aside so that they fell atop the boots she’d undone and discarded. Now we were all naked.

  Scarlett gently pulled on my shoulders, making me shuffle backward. My member slipped from Absinthe with a little pop to bob before me, glistening with her fluids. Absinthe let out an unhappy moan that quickly changed its tone when Scarlett crawled around me and on top of her. She bent down and kissed our girlfriend, then glanced back over her shoulder at me.