Tempted by Demons_A Reverse Harem Paranormal

by Lidiya Foxglove

  I gave Dante and Alister both a serious look. “If neither of you can behave, then you’ll both just have to play the part of guys fighting to win me. I am not telling anyone about this ‘three husbands’ arrangement. After all, you are fighting to win me.”

  “Mmhm,” Dante said, in a way that did worry me a little.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Edie

  I barely slept that night as the train made its way down the east coast. I had so much business to catch up on, posting about the trip and the very few photos I had managed to take in the house. And then there was the barrage of messages from my housemates. I had to tell them as much as I could about the trip and the guys and then Nicole caught me up on the drama going on with some other friends of others at Board Game Night, and Dakota sent me some pictures of designer clothes she found at the thrift store and told me about this hilariously bad date she went on.

  I really would miss this if I moved to the island…

  But there was also SwordGuru, now posting as WarGuru5, popping up on my latest post about how train food sucked.

  missed your posts, not enoguh stupid bitches in my life lol

  It wasn’t even creative or clever, so why did it produce such a horrible clenching of misery inside my gut?

  The guys had fallen asleep. It was three o’ clock in the morning, I realized, and nearly everyone on the train was sleeping. I lifted my head. My neck was killing me. I didn’t know when I had last moved.

  I groaned. Yeah, this really wasn’t healthy. I felt so powerless. Was it any wonder I had been so quick to fight the serpents before? That was something I could really go after. But I hated that this guy was still the original reason I had gone to the island in the first place. I wanted to choose something better but not just run away from something uncomfortable.

  I guess I finally fell asleep, because I felt Alister nudge my shoulder and the sun flooded my eyes as I blinked them open. “Edie…I think they said we’re almost here.”

  “You think? I don’t want to get off and end up in Delaware.”

  “Well, the intercom leaves much to be desired.”

  In a few more minutes we were outside grabbing a taxi.

  “What now?” Dante asked. “You wanted us to see your world.”

  “Well…yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “I take it you’re not impressed. But, I mean, most people don’t love sixteen hour train trips.”

  “It’s noisy and dirty and it stinks.”

  “It’s fascinating,” Alister said. “Although I feel ill at ease.”

  The cab driver looked at him. I guess ‘ill at ease’ was not a phrase he heard often.

  “We’re not meant to be in this world,” Dante said. “I can feel that down to my bones. What do you like about it? Besides your friends?”

  “It’s normal… I like that it’s normal. And I like my friends. You guys don’t really seem to have friends.”

  “We have friends in the Sinistral Realm,” Dante said. “Even if we rarely see them.”

  Well, I decided. This cab driver has probably heard strange conversations before. “Guys, I didn’t bring you here to fall in love with my world. I brought you here to see you under the harsh glare of the real world, as much as anything. If I’m really going to care for you and you’re really going to care for me, we need to know what we’re getting into. So I’m not taking you to parks or museums or monuments. I’m taking you to a grocery store. And we’re going to come back to my place and microwave some shit. And then we’ll see if we still like each other.”

  I took them to Wegman’s, even though it was out of the way, because I wanted to impress Dante and this was definitely one of the more impressive stores around, with a big hot bar and sushi and fresh juice and they carried my favorite chocolate, etcetera. (#ilovewegmans #pleasesendmecoupons)

  As soon as we walked in the door, I saw Dante’s eyes widen. “They have the little—” He reached for a mango—the smaller, yellow kind, which I guessed was what he was about to say—and then stopped himself. “I mean, those must come from so far away. All the life will have drained out of them.”

  “I got a picture of you,” I said, giggling. “Look.” I showed him the phone. He was reaching for the mango with an expression like he had seen the heavens part (although maybe that was a bad metaphor for a demon, even one with an only slightly Biblical back story). “You can’t lie to me now. You love the grocery store.”

  “How do I erase this?”

  I couldn’t stop laughing. I was almost doubled over, seeing his face puzzling over the phone, trying to figure out how to get rid of the picture. Maybe it was just all the built up stress, but it was also just fun to be here with them, surrounded by displays of pre-made zucchini noodles and bags of avocados, in the epitome of a place that was both enjoyable and frustratingly ordinary. We had already lost Alister a short distance away in the bread department.

  “What is this?” Dante asked, in a completely different tone. One that was truly angry and not just his usual level of irascible.

  “What? Are you actually snooping around on there?”

  Somehow he had managed to find the last post from Sword/WarGuru. I guess I had left that open on the app.

  “Who wrote this to you?” he asked.

  “A troll.”

  “A troll? What does that mean?”

  “It’s what we call random online people who harass other people. Usually anonymous. It’s really common. He’s messaged me a bunch of times.”

  I shouldn’t have said that. “A bunch of times?”

  Alister came over, alerted by Dante’s loud voice I’m sure. He was cradling a loaf of olive bread in one arm like he intended to take it home and raise it as a foster child, but he said, “What’s going on?”

  “Look at this. Edie says it’s called a troll and it’s common. Some asshole calling her names. She says he’s done it more than once. What else has he said to you?”

  I frowned. “I deleted those messages. I don’t know. He just insults my hair and taste and music and stuff. It’s what they do.”

  Alister’s rather regal face took on a look of such horror on my behalf that I was almost getting turned on again. They both looked like they would draw swords if they had them and spear my phone. “This will not stand,” he said. “I don’t care if you decide not to become our bride. We should avenge your honor.”

  “You can’t, even if you wanted to,” I said. “He’s anonymous. All I know about him is the name on the screen. I don’t know where he lives or his real name or anything.”

  “What a coward,” Dante said.

  “Yes.”

  “Why would this be common?”

  I sighed and finally managed to wrest my phone from his hand. I had no idea how to even begin to explain the idea of being harassed by random anonymous people, sort of knowing the psychology behind why someone would troll and that it happened to everyone, and yet still being upset. “Guys, let’s forget about it. Everyone’s staring. We should get something fun for dinner.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Dante

  I hoped Edie never knew what I really thought of this grocery store.

  It was fucking amazing.

  Sure, the Parkers bought groceries for us from the mainland. It wasn’t like we grew wheat or made soda on the island, for example, and sometimes I requested products I saw in advertisements. But I realized how uncreative I had been. Every food I had ever dreamed of was here. The variety was staggering. The cheeses! I couldn’t let Edie see my face when I saw the cheeses. The entirety of Europe was here. I quietly threw three wedges in the cart before she caught me at it and gave me a knowing smile.

  “Oof! You have expensive taste, Dante.”

  “It’s all right. We have plenty of money.”

  “How? How are hot supernatural guys always super rich?”

  “I didn’t say we were super rich, but I’m pretty sure I can swing twenty bucks for cheese.”


  “We do well, though,” Alister said. He would want Edie to know we would be good providers. “We sell ingredients to Sinistral witches. Some rare things are grown on the island and there’s always a demand for powdered horn, which grows back… Witches always need so many things to do magic.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Witches. Where do the witches come from?”

  “In October, when girls stop coming to the island, the witches come to trade,” I said. “I told you that we have some friends.”

  Despite the banter and the cheeses, I was seeing red. I couldn’t scrub the messages from the ‘troll’ out of my head. It was certainly an appropriate name for a cowardly little shit that would call Edie a stupid bitch and who knew what else. I wanted to take her phone and stomp it into the pavement so she never had to see that trash again.

  She must have noticed that I looked lost in thought as we were trying to select some meat. “Dante? What’s wrong?”

  “I really hope you’ll stay with us. You deserve to be with people who treat you well.”

  She sighed, but she wasn’t fooling me. I could see the words bothered her. I knew she didn’t forget them easily either. “You can’t protect me from something like that. If I come with you, it has nothing to do with him, okay, so I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Of course I can protect you from something like that. That guy is never coming to our island.”

  “That’s just running away from a problem.”

  “So you want to confront the problem?”

  She sighed again, more deeply, and whisked her blonde hair back off her shoulders before turning away from me and picking up a bag of peanut butter cups. She looked irritated at me, and I had to shove my hands in my pockets to keep from pushing her against the shelf of chocolate, coiling that beautiful hair around my hand, and kissing that look right off her face. You belong to me, Edie. You belong to us. And anyone who causes you pain should answer to me…

  Anonymous little asshole.

  “Have you guys tried junk food?” Edie said, addressing Alister more than me. “I kind of want to just splurge and buy all the crap. I never buy it because I don’t want my followers to know how much I love MSG, but…I’m not posting tonight to Instagram.”

  “Just don’t make yourself sick,” Alister said, glancing at me. “It might be a long night.”

  We were on the same page, Alister and I. We had come too far to erase Edie’s memories. We might be able to clear out some of the magical details, but neither of us could bring ourselves to make her forget us after this.

  Which meant we could give her what we all knew we wanted.

  Poor Van, getting left out again. If she stayed, she could make it up to him later. And if she didn’t…I guess I might be generous enough to splurge on a night with a naughty faery.

  She bit her lip, suspecting immediately what he meant. “Um…so I think I should go back and grab the healthy organic peanut butter cups. Wait here.”

  As soon as she left the aisle, Alister leaned in and said, “You know, I think I might be able to trace that ‘troll’ with my spells.”

  “Magic doesn’t work here.”

  “No, but I could call Van on the house phone and walk him through it. It’s worth a shot. You saw the way that little bastard thinks he can talk to our girl. Of course, he could be halfway across the world.”

  I tried to hold back a wicked grin. This was why Alister had been my best friend since forever. We couldn’t have been more different in our interests; he preferred books to playing with fires, but we were always on the same page where it counted.

  “By all means,” I said.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Edie

  By the time I came back with my arms laden with ‘healthy’ junk food, the guys had added a few items to the cart. Besides the bag of tangerines (I mean, really, way to make me look bad) there was also a box of condoms and some lube.

  “Um…I’m on the pill,” I said. “So we don’t need…”

  “Better yet,” Dante said, tossing it aside.

  I was quivering with nervous anticipation. “This means you don’t want me to forget you?”

  Alister slipped a hand around my waist and gave my ear a quick nip. “We’ve decided it’s too late for that.”

  “Do I need to get a hotel? I can’t tip my roommates off to this…”

  Dante put a hand around the other side of my waist, pinning me between two solid pillars of demon. “Let’s see how the trip unfolds, Bright Eyes.”

  It was starting to take a lot of willpower to push them away. “Not in the store!”

  “We’re alone in the aisle.”

  “There might be security cameras!”

  “Do you know the security personnel?”

  “Well, no—but—“

  Man, they were going to be trouble when I brought them home.

  But I was committed now. We checked out, Alister paid for the whole thing in cash, and I thanked my lucky stars that I hadn’t run into any coworkers or friends in the store. I was forced to call Nicole to pick us up, and her car was waiting for us on the curb when we walked out.

  I could see her face gaping through the windshield. Oh my god, her face, I missed it so much. I climbed in next to her and gave her a hug while the guys squeezed in the back.

  “So, this is Dante and Alister,” I said. “They, uh, they run Marchcliff Manor and we just, we kinda hit it off, and they had never been to DC before, so…”

  “Wow,” Nicole said. She looked speechless. Nicole was never speechless. This meant, by the law of proportions, that Dakota would completely spazz.

  “Hello. You must be Nicole. Edie has told us a lot about you,” Alister said.

  “Oh yeah? Wow. Cool.” Nicole slammed on the brakes before hitting a pedestrian. “Sorry.” She poked her head out the window. “Sorry!”

  “Yeah, they have that effect,” I said under my breath.

  “How much was that trip again? Maybe I don’t need to go to London after all.”

  Weirdly, I felt protective of Nicole when I heard this. Almost like I didn’t want her to go through all of this. It was good for me, I think. Maybe it was what I needed. But knowledge came with a burden. I wished I knew how to tell her the truth about what had happened, but I already knew she wouldn’t believe me here. She would have to visit me on the island.

  I mean, if I stay.

  I’m not really going to go with them, am I?

  And yet…

  “I’ve missed you so much,” I said.

  “Aw, right, you mean you missed social media!” Nicole said.

  “No,” I said, quite seriously. “I missed you.”

  She looked a little abashed. “Aw, well, it's only been a week.”

  As predicted, Dakota completely lost it when she saw Alister and Dante get out of the car. She stood at the door clutching her chest like she was hyperventilating at a distance as they unloaded the groceries. I had to admit, I had gotten slightly used to their hotness, but putting them in my world made them seem even more impossible. Like, you could just tell they were not of this world, even in human forms. At the very least, they looked like they must be celebrities or something.

  “What the fuuuck,” she gasped. “Are you Alister Thorne?”

  “Yes.”

  “I knew it! I knew that name belonged to a hot guy. Didn’t I tell you?”

  “She did,” I said.

  “You ladies are wonderful for a man’s self esteem,” Alister said, as if he needed it. I hadn’t seen evidence any of the guys lacked confidence.

  “Well—come in! Sorry it’s—we didn’t quite have time to clean it. I hope you’re not allergic to cats.”

  “Edie, you bought Cheetos!” Nicole cried as we unpacked the groceries. “I’m impressed. What happened to you? There’s no way you’re putting this mess on Instagram.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Living on an island, the guys pretty much make everything from scratch. I thought it might be
fun to give them a tour of the best American crap. I tried not to go totally Heartburn City, but…”

  “Ohh, ’the guys’?” Nicole elbowed me.

  “There’s actually a third guy,” Alister said. “But he had to stay home and tend the island, unfortunately. Speaking of which, I should give him a call and check in.”

  “Third guy?” Nicole looked at me. “Are you holding out on us?”

  “You can use my phone!” Dakota said, like she was eager to impress them. Man, I felt absolutely terrible that they thought there might be enough guys to go around. One woman, three men? It felt awfully selfish. (And yet, I just wasn’t that sorry either…)

  While Alister stepped out into the backyard to talk to Van, I tore open a couple of the better frozen pizzas money could buy. “I want to note that I’ve made really awesome food in this kitchen,” I told Dante. “But at some point, I think it stopped being fun and became more about impressing people. So I wanted tonight to just be fun and not about impressing you. But I could impress you if I wanted to.”

  “What did you do to Edie?” Nicole asked. “Edie, are you really cured?”

  “I’m not sure she’s cured,” Dante said. “She spent all night on her phone instead of sleeping. You think I didn’t notice that, Bright Eyes?”

  Dakota gasped at the nickname. “Are you two…?”

  I fumbled with the pizza wrapper. “Well, not exactly…”

  “Yeah, right, it is written all over your face. Come on, don’t hide it, that is so exciting!”

  Dante smirked at me. I shot him a look of aggravation. I’m not sure this made things any better.

  Alister came back inside. “Everything is in order back home,” he told Dante.

  “Great.”

  “This food looks wonderful, Edie,” Alister said walking close to me. He had missed the moment with Dante. I tried to back up but crashed into Dante instead. Between the oven and the kitchen island, there wasn’t much room to maneuver. “Frankly, it’s nice to have something different. Dante could never make a peanut butter cup.”