by Lissa Kasey
“But you’re not jealous of Con,” I said, pointing toward the backseat.
“No. He doesn’t get to feed you. Only I do.”
“For now,” I allowed. Max had suggested that even Luca wouldn’t be enough on his own forever. Would I have to hide others from him? I hoped not. I really just wanted it to be the three of us for a while.
“I’ll work on it,” Luca said. “Some of it is instinctive.” He used the GPS on his phone to navigate us to the new address Seiran had sent me. It was actually outside of the cities a good way.
“How well did you know that guy at the club?” I asked Luca. “Kenrick, I think his name was.”
“Not well.”
“How long has your dad been sleeping with him?” I clarified.
He glanced at me and growled.
“Thought you said I was what you need now?”
“He says he doesn’t sleep with Kenrick. Just feeds on him. And um, gross, thinking of my dad with anyone.”
“Your dad is hot,” Con said.
“Truth,” I pointed out. “If you like the tall, dark, and dangerous businessman sort. Total daddy kink.”
Luca narrowed his eyes at us. “Really? What the fuck is wrong with you two?”
“You look like your dad,” Con amended.
“Just not as big and dangerous,” I agreed.
“I hate you both,” Luca said without heat.
Con and I laughed.
“He doesn’t talk about anyone. Never has. Not in a relationship sort of way. He’s all business,” Luca said. Max did have a very black and white view of food so maybe that was true.
“Is that why you went off your rocker? ‘Cause you thought Kenrick had taken your dad’s attention and was trying for mine?” I asked.
“You make it sound like I was screwing my dad. It’s just instinct to protect those I’m feeding on. Don’t you have an instinct to protect me?”
I laughed. “My instinct to protect you has nothing to do with the fact that I occasionally munch on you.”
“Is it ‘cause I’m hot?” Luca asked.
“You are hot,” Con agreed.
“Stop fishing,” I told him. “I’ll be all over you like Donkey Kong later. I protect you because I like you,” I admitted.
“That’s a rousing endorsement,” Luca gripped.
“He like likes you,” Con said laughing.
“This is not high school,” I said. “I’m not in love with you yet, but it’s more than just plain like. Is that good enough for now?” No more bullshit. It wasn’t likely they were walking away now. Not with all the super vamps trying to rule the world and the Pillar of earth falling apart. I loved Con. Had for a while now, and Luca wasn’t there yet, but he also wasn’t far out of that zone.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You’re more than a blood bag with a hole to me,” I said with a straight face.
“Another rousing endorsement.”
“I like all his holes,” Con pointed out. “Can’t wait to explore more of them.”
“That sounded kind of creepy,” I said, but the idea still made me hard. “Like you could be cleaning wax out of his ears or something.”
“Or fucking his boy pussy,” Con said.
“You can fuck my boy pussy anytime,” Luca promised. “Either of you.”
Okay, totally hard. Fuckers. “You both realize I have to do magic shit with the witch, right? So we can’t show up at his house and fuck like bunnies?”
Luca shrugged. “He said we could have a whole wing. Once he’s got his little magic shindig done, we can go play. I brought lube.”
“Is that all that’s on your mind?” I wanted to know.
“No, but it sure makes life worth living sometimes. You still need to sleep some today and then get started at my dad’s business tonight. He wasn’t kidding about you being busy. You’ll be begging me for a blow job in the bathroom just to get your mind off contracts for five minutes.”
“Okay, now I want a job with you guys. As long as I get blow jobs during the work day,” Con said. We all laughed.
The drive was long. I began to wonder if the GPS had sent us to the wrong place or if we were moving to Wisconsin or something, but finally we pulled onto a street lined with a massive brick fence and in the distance a giant house.
“Boonies…” Con grumbled.
“Better have Wi-Fi,” Luca agreed.
I laughed. What better place for a bunch of crazy powerful witches and a vampire who just happened to amplify their power than the middle of fucking nowhere? “It looks more modern than I was expecting,” I admitted when we pulled through an open metal gate and onto a long circular drive.
“McMansion is right,” Con said.
The towering building was easily four stories high, though it didn’t seem to have enough windows to accommodate that many floors. It was painted a pale shade of green, almost so pale it looked white in the dark, but when we stepped out of the Hummer and up to the entry, I could tell it wasn’t white. There was a huge double door entry, columns on each side and an awning overhead. I expected something with gargoyles on the top, or turrets, but it looked like a normal house from the front. Just huge. There was a wraparound porch, but no furniture or adornments outside.
The wall encased the house and what appeared to be a couple acres. There were already gardens planted in the front and trees around each side. I had to admit, that despite the giant, starkly new feeling of the house, the grounds pulsed with warmth and life. I’d have to walk the grounds to know for sure, but I could almost feel the pulsing of ley lines. Seiran’s father’s estate had intersecting ley lines that blew power out of the universe. It didn’t feel quite that level here, but still strong. Perhaps not intersecting. Or maybe the intersection just wasn’t through the middle of the house, which I thought could only be a good thing. No one needed to live in that constant buzz of energy.
Before we even got to the doorbell the door opened and Seiran stepped out. He was in full Father Earth form, green hair, flowers and ivy woven around his clothes and hair, and glowing eyes that swirled with shades of the planet. It was both creepy and awe-inspiring because my mind instantly thought God with a capital G, and he sort of was one, and yet not. The earth had chosen him as her husband, and her voice. She was also a fickle thing that could take all that away in seconds.
He smiled at us. “Glad you’re here. I’m finished with the upper floors, just have to link it all to the lower floor and hopefully add a bit of your strength in to tie it all together. I’ll work on the grounds tomorrow.”
“How many acres?” I wanted to know.
“The yard or beyond the gate?” Seiran asked.
“Yard.”
“Two. Not as big as my father’s estate.”
But still huge. “You inviting your fairy friends to take care of the yard? I’m calling ‘not it’ on lawn duty.”
“Bryar is working on it. Until then my mother has a crew of gardeners on the schedule.”
“Okay, Ronnie. Tell me what you need.” I didn’t know much about spells that weren’t words of power. Seiran was power, so he didn’t use words much, though I knew he had a handful of spells he’d written. He could make other people’s spells work because he just had that much power. It was also why spells often worked when other people used them around me, since Andrew Roman had used spells that weren’t his, and Maxwell Hart stated that magic was individual.
Seiran held out a hand. “It requires you to plug in to my power and walk the floor with me.”
“You mean tune into the psychic network? Lightning-is-us? Jerk.” I said to him knowing the buzzing of his energy was going to hurt, especially since my senses were still so raw from the revenant thing.
“Bastard,” he replied in a teasing tone. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t necessary, but the twins are upstairs.” And he had to protect his kids. He glanced at Luca and Con. “You guys both have an official invite already, but if you could wait in the entry
until Sam and I are done linking the wards? Too much movement in the house makes it hard to layer them properly.” And he was trying to keep a vampire linked to him, out, and away from his family.
“Sure,” Luca agreed.
“Okay,” Con said.
“Movers will arrive a little later to get everything from the old apartment moved over. But your game console and games are here. I had Jamie grab that stuff and a bunch of you guys’ clothes. My mom will be here to oversee the movers. The windows all have that UV safe glass, but you’ll probably want to add curtains or blinds or something. Right now I’ve got a handful of sheets we can hang for a few hours of sleep. Once this ward is done.” Seiran reached out a hand for me.
I took it and felt the blast of his power, let it roll through me like a wave of fire and electricity. It didn’t hurt this time. Not really. More the sensation of having too much energy at once. It was almost the buzz of anxiety rising up from a well deep in my gut, a vibration of power. Feeding on Galloway had been similar, only I had no temptation to take from Seiran. My inner power, or whatever the fuck it was, must have realized that we could drink him down forever and never stop. Self-destruction. And we weren’t on board with that anymore.
Luca and Con rushed up the stairs and into the house. Flowers bloomed around Seiran’s feet, while cacti cropped up around mine. He looked at them thoughtfully then dragged me into the house.
It might have looked a little like the gothic monster mansion his father had designed on the outside, but the inside was very modern and clean. No tree in the foyer and instead there was a giant split staircase that curved against both walls, with a walkway in the middle beneath it that appeared to lead to the kitchen. There was also a door on each wall leading to different areas.
Seiran closed the door, then pressed his hand to it. I closed my eyes as the power rolled through us both with all the subtlety of an E5 tornado. Vaguely down the link of our bond I could feel Max who seemed to sense us and perk up, focusing in our direction. He did something, though I wasn’t sure what, and the blast of power suddenly became a gentle rain, the layers of the wards almost visible in the droplets as they fell and spread, covering the door, the windows, the walls. Max had done this before. Perhaps not set wards himself, but helped someone else direct their power.
“Wow,” Seiran whispered. The drops expanded like dough set out to rise, growing along the walls, covering the windows and linking the entire house in one finely woven thread of power. “I didn’t expect it to be that easy. Not after I just spent the last two hours warding the rest of the house.”
We both could feel down the line to Max who withdrew back to virtual non-existence, and shared a look. Could Gabe have done that if he’d been sane? What the hell was Max? Seiran frowned at something he caught in my head.
“Max knew Gabe?”
“Not Gabe,” I said. “Before they were vampires.” Vampires didn’t always take on new names. I think that was more common when so much time passed and they had to change identities to hide. Or maybe they just hated their birth names and changed it like I had.
Seiran took a deep breath and pulled the power back. Father Earth receded into the pretty Asian man with black hair and blue eyes. He let go of my hand and I had to shake mine just to get the feeling back in it. Seiran looked tired. He’d lived on a vampire schedule for a long time. Sleeping during the day and awake at night. Now he had a real job and kids. He’d have to live when the rest of the world was living, which really just translated to him not sleeping much at all.
“Are we safe now, Ronnie?” I teased.
“As safe as we can be, I suppose. Do you need a tour? Or can you guys find a space for yourselves? There are supplies in the kitchen. Food, cleaning stuff, personal products. The twins and I are in rooms over the arboretum. Kelly and Jamie are close to the pool.”
“You have an arboretum?” Con asked.
“And an indoor pool?” Luca said.
“Mom went a little overboard, eh?” I teased him.
He smiled, though it looked forced. “It will be work to make this a home. Feels like a hotel instead of a house. But the kitchen is nice and the kids will love the playset in the backyard.”
“Go get some rest,” I told him. “Well find our own way. Plus Con needs food.”
“Me too,” Luca agreed.
“There’s a French toast bake in the fridge that was leftovers. Just heat in the microwave for a few seconds and it should be good to go.” Seiran headed for the stairs, going up the right side. “If you do your weird boy pussy things try to find a room away from the twins, yeah?”
“Fuck you, Ronnie.”
“You wish, Sammie,” he threw back and disappeared into the doorway and to the right at the top of the stairs.
“Food,” Con said, heading for the kitchen.
“That French toast thing sounds good. Where’s that?” Luca followed.
“Typical men,” I grumbled after them. “Thinking with your stomachs first.”
“Sure,” Luca agreed. “I plan to feed my tummy then feed one of you my cock. Pretty sure we all can find an appetite for that.”
Con laughed. “You are such a horndog.”
Chapter 23
Our brief exploration of the house proved it to not be as large as we originally thought. The pool and arboretum, both on the first floor took up the entire back of the house. There was a den, a small library, a large family room, a small receiving room, and a huge kitchen with an attached dining room on the first floor. The second floor was a network of bedrooms. From what I could tell there were only eight, which was a lot, but not the dozens I’d been picturing from the outside.
Jamie and Kelly’s room was at the end of the hall near the back stairs that led down to the pool. Since we could feel the humidity in the stairwell, we found a place on Seiran’s side instead, choosing a large room in the same wing as he and the twins, added some sheets to the window, and made up the California-king bed within. The room itself was huge, with its own bathroom and a walk-in closet that would make any clothes whore salivate. It was a little overwhelming for me who’d never really had a space of my own bigger than just a twin-size bed. But Luca was all over the room, talking about paint colors, the view from the window, and what furniture he might add to make it more comfortable for the three of us. He whistled at the size of the closet. “This is totally enough room for the three of us as long as you guys don’t have a lot of clothes.”
It was the size of an entire other room. “Um…” I said.
“He is a boy whore,” Con pointed out. “Clothes whore is just another step on that spectrum.”
“Assholes,” Luca griped without heat. “Sam will need some new stuff for work. Suits and the like.” His gaze fell to me, eyes narrowing like he was picturing me naked, or maybe in a suit, though those bedroom eyes said more sex than business. “I bet you’re hot as shit in a suit.”
“I hate this job already,” I said.
They both thought that was funny.
I placed the bottle of grave dirt Seiran had left for me on the bedside table. The sticky note attached to it explained the dirt would help me rest better, and once we picked a room he would have a box made beneath the bed to fill with grave dirt, like Gabe had for years. It sounded weird, but if the witch wasn’t freaked by having dirt in the house, neither was I.
Luca and Con had scarfed down the entire rest of the French toast thing Seiran had made, and then we’d run out of time. The sun didn’t demand I sleep, but I’d had a really long night, so when I laid down, they curled around me and I passed out. Since they didn’t move enough to disturb me, I suspected they did as well. I expected at least a few hours of sleep. And seemed to fall into a deep dream-filled sleep very quickly.
It was hostility that woke me. A rolling energy like a tiger pacing nearby waiting for the moment to pounce. It took a moment to identify the feeling as it wasn’t something I was used to. Anxiety. Fear. Worry. Panic.
The sun was still
high overhead. The feeling of anger alive and whipping like an agitated cat’s tail through the house though it wasn’t actually in the house. I don’t think I’d been asleep long, and I could sense Seiran was awake and anxious. The fear was his. The rage wasn’t. It was downstairs…close but not inside. I was surprised that I could still feel Seiran so clearly, like he had his power layered over me still, but perhaps that was my own abilities again. It wasn’t a drain of power between us, more a link like taffy that could stretch and expand or tighten and contract.
I asked him without words what was happening, but his thoughts were a chaotic mix of anxiety. Panic. A panic attack and the Pillar of earth were not a good thing. I got up, and made my way to the door. Something vibrated in my gut. Almost like someone was pulling on something inside of me, calling for me. Not all that unlike the siren call I’d felt when Galloway had dragged my raven form to his window. This was faint, weak, but still a pulse of energy. Was it Max?
As I made my way into the hall, I tried to trace down that invisible connection between Max and I. He was there in my head, but not physically close. He was also not sleeping. For a second I was layered over him again, seeing his world as if I were him. He was reviewing documents and frowned at the angry presence I felt. He seemed to ask, without saying anything, what was wrong? Since I didn’t yet know, I didn’t answer.
Seiran’s door was open, dark and he wasn’t inside. The babies’ door was closed, and I crossed the hall to check on them. Inside, I glanced at the crib to find both babies awake, eyes glowing. Both quiet, and both focused on the door. Seriously, not normal kids. And fuck, that couldn’t be good.
A small orb of light floated through the room coming through the wall up from below, to beside the crib, changing instantly into a regular size person. His blood-red hair was pulled up on his head into a mass of a curled updo, and clothes, while they looked like a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, had too much texture in their green lines to be anything more than magic.