Love Charms

by Multiple

  Her true face, the one she hid so well behind beauty and innocence, festered and slithered. Her violet eyes took up half her face and were wide and bloodshot. There were only two slits where her button nose used to be. When she let out another laugh, her mouth was cavernous, filled with row after row of razor sharp teeth.

  Chapter Thirty

  The Truth

  She had her talons wrapped around what was left of some guy’s head. She chucked it away like garbage and stretched out her tar black wings, shuddering as they extended to the ceiling. She inhaled deep and I could see the auras, the energy from the dozens she’d massacred, flowing to her like magnetism. When she exhaled, her glamour returned. She picked up a scrap of a shirt from the floor and wiped her mouth.

  “I hope you guys haven’t eaten.” She gestured at the carnage. “I’ve left a feast for you.”

  She held out her hands and invisible binds locked my hands and feet together. I looked over at Jack and saw he was similarly bound. I fought against her spell, but it was no use. She walked towards the back, dragging us toward the basement.

  I’d never ventured downstairs to InK’s BDSM-themed dungeon, but I’d always imagined it as a place with imitation treats. A rack with furry handcuffs. A pink paddle. An exotic cage more luxurious than terrifying.

  But the dungeon was like something straight out of medieval Europe. There was a triangular shaped seat where some unlucky person could be slowly, painstakingly impaled. There was another pear shaped instrument that I swear had dried blood and hair in the cracks of wood. I saw a rack with alarming straps and metal glittering in the corner.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting my imagination to think up anything more. Reality was terrifying enough. I let out a sob as Jack let out another moan.

  Sia had him strapped to a rack and was binding him with silver. I could hear his skin sizzle and boil like bacon on a hot skillet. Each of his cries cut me to the bone.

  “What do you want, Sia?” I sobbed, yanking at my shackles.

  She applied the last strand of silver then turned to face me, pure hatred written all over her face. It must have been so hard for her, all these months pretending she cared about me. Pretending we were friends.

  “I’d think it was pretty obvious at this point,” she said, tucking a blood-soaked strand behind an ear. “I want you dead.”

  I looked at her strangely. “You’ve had hundreds of opportunities to off me.”

  “True,” she nodded. “But he-” she tightened a chain, soliciting a growl of pain from Jack. “-would have just found a way to bring you back. If The Watchers had condemned you, no supernatural could free you from death’s cold clutches.”

  “You killed them,” I said hoarsely. “Kenny and Amy. You murdered them just to frame me.”

  “Mmhm.”

  “You crazy bitch!” I said, fighting with renewed vigor. “You’re insane!”

  “No,” she snapped, holding up her hand. I felt my voice catch in my throat. I moved my lips but no words came out.

  “I’m not crazy, Jade,” she continued. She turned back to Jack, stroking his cheek with her stained hand. “I’m in love.”

  Jack squirmed away from her touch, but it was like the more he fought, the more enamored she became.

  “You don’t remember me, do you, Jacques?”

  Jack stopped moving, looking at her with new eyes. “I’ve never met you before, fairy.”

  “I’m almost offended,” she pouted, her face almost youthful and innocent.

  “My hair was golden back then. I wore it in thick, long curls. I was the most eligible lady in the queen’s court.” She let out a chuckle. “I did have a penchant for scandal in the old days. Trysts with the King, the Bishop, even the queen and a couple of her handmaidens.”

  Jack’s face went pale. “My gods. Mademoiselle Symonne. Symonne d’Albret!”

  Sia grinned.

  I leaned forward, looking between the two of them. “You knew her?”

  Jack nodded slowly. “When I gave up my status, the King saw it as a personal affront. He wanted my head on a silver platter. “

  “But I spoke for him,” Sia said softly, tucking a tuft of gold behind his ear.

  “She saved my life,” Jack said hoarsely. “She convinced the King to send me to the Americas.”

  “And I tried to forget him,” Sia mused, her feet leaving bloody footprints in her wake as she paced back and forth. “But I couldn’t. The one man who refused my advances out of some misguided sense of decency. Jacques was good.” She paused, her fluorescent eyes glimmering. “Smart, dashing. Oh, and handsome. A beautiful man.

  So I followed him to the Americas. All the way to gloomy old Massachusetts.” She stopped, her face going ice cold. “I had a different name then as well. Mary Goode.”

  The sound that erupted from Jack’s mouth made my heart stop. It was a cry full of hatred, anguish, and loss. It tore into me and rang into my ears over and over. I felt his pain. It made tears fill my eyes.

  “Who are you?” I screeched. “What did you do to Jack?”

  “I didn’t do anything to him. I merely had my pulse on current affairs. The Puritans were going ape shit over witchcraft. Your Romeo just happened to be married to the town witch. Isabel Cuartes.”

  My heart ached as I watched blood red tears course down Jack’s face. “She was a good person. She used the craft to heal the sick and help those who’d lost loved ones find peace!”

  “She was a necromancer?” I said, my eyes going wide.

  “And she was beautiful,” Sia said, her mouth twisted with disgust. “A Spanish father and a white mother, so her skin was the color of caramel. Long, beautiful ebony hair. Wide brown eyes.”

  I swallowed, my lips trembling as I glanced at Jack. I dyed my hair since I was old enough to pay for Manic Panic, but my natural hair was jet black like my mother’s. My skin was a caramel brown, unless I was beneath the moon. Right down to being a practitioner of the craft, Isabel sounded like me in another life.

  Jack gnashed his teeth, his skin making sickening sounds as he tried to free himself from his silver chains. “She trusted you! You said you’d help her!”

  “Like you said you’d help me,” I spat at her, my voice rising.

  “Like you, she was so goddamn gullible.” Sia turned her violet eyes back to Jack, a wild, insane look on her face. “I let her give you one last kiss, Jacques. I am kind.”

  “Before she was ripped from my arms,” he sobbed. He finally stopped moving, succumbing to the silver. I could smell his skin bubbling and cooking and it made my stomach roll.

  “When they burned her alive,” Sia said, recounting her horrible tale. “I thought maybe I could bring him comfort. But in the bowels of darkness after he took vengeance on the town, killing men, women, and children, it was Athanasia who held him to her bosom and gave him the eternal kiss.” She crossed her arms. “And then I found him again, hundreds of years later, in love with another witch. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so fucking tragic.”

  I raised my eyes to her. “What are you going to do now?”

  Her face crumbled and I cringed as sobs rocked her body. She was truly insane, going from cool and calculating to inconsolable in the blink of an eye. “A fairy loves for a lifetime. I’ll love Jacques until one of our hearts stops beating. And since I have no intention of dying…” Her voice trailed off as she made a decapitating sign with her finger. “He’ll meet the sun, and I’ll burn you alive. Easy peasy.”

  She advanced toward me, her petite fingers outstretched. I let out a gasp of terror as white-hot pain echoed through my body. I felt her influence sink into my bones. I needed no medieval torture device. Every fiber of my being called out in agony.

  There was a sad irony in all of this. The irony of my life. Sure, I’d become a full time necromancer. I’d seen and done amazing and terrible things. I wondered what my life would have been like if I’d chosen a different path. Hell, befriending Sia came from my need for a frien
d, some kind of normalcy and a confidante. And it was my human conscience that pushed me to seek out Kenny and Amy. Their deaths and my trial proved the fragility of humanity and life. Because Jack loved a woman, it had cost her life and started a chain reaction that led us to this moment.

  I blinked through the pain and saw Sia, her true colors rippling beneath her flesh like stones dancing on water.

  I was literally staring into a loaded gun just a few hours ago. But if The Watchers decided on my guilt and I had been beheaded, I would have gone to the All knowing that I’d tried to help people. I’d used magic, the supernatural, to bring closure. Dying for the truth was honorable, noble even.

  But dying because some psychotic fairy was spurned? Hell no.

  As the pain became a dull, white sting, I melted and remembered what my mother said about the dress and magic. I let myself feel the fabrics. I could almost see Grandma Proctor running her fingers over the fabric, imagining the feel of it on her skin. But instead of wearing it for pleasure, she’d worn it on the night that her friends and the man she loved turned their backs on her. I let her anger and raw power wash over me in waves. I let myself get lost in it, drown in it. I could feel the iron shackles turn into molten metal as I focused my power on Sia.

  Her face registered surprise. “H-how-”

  “Ego mos ust vos sentio poena vas paciscor,” I said, feeling the energy in my bones. As the last word fell from my lips, Sia’s face changed. She was the one who was afraid.

  “The fire!” she screeched, her eyes bulging from her head. She let out a screech as she sank to her knees. “I’m on FIRE!”

  I watched as no fire licked her flesh, but the dark, charred fingers of my spell crept across her body.

  When it reached her face, I turned away.

  The room was quiet.

  When I turned back, the spot where she stood was just a charred pile of ash.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  A Revelation

  I roped Jack’s arms around my neck as we hobbled out the back door of InK. The bodies were starting to smell, but I steeled myself. They were gone and Sia’s death brought a bit of justice.

  Once we hit the night air, Jack pulled away.

  “Before we go any further, let me explain. About my wife Isabel.” He winced as he touched his wrists, still raw from the silver. “I don’t want you to think that we…that I-”

  I held my fingers to his lips. “We don’t have to do this. Not tonight.” A flicker of pain went through me. “Not right now.”

  After I settled him in his car, I swiped my phone and punched in B’s number.

  “Shouldn’t you be ten sheets to the wind or screwing your vampire’s brains out?” B said grumpily once he picked up the other end.

  I smiled in spite of myself. “Thank you for trying to speak up for me, B.”

  “Don’t mention it.” He cleared his throat. “Really.”

  I nodded. “Duly noted.”

  “So what can I do for you? Ready to come back to work?”

  I told him about Sia and the major issue we had with the tattoo shop of horrors. If they were worried about exposure with me, they’d have a conniption if they saw the carnage Sia left behind.

  I hung up and leaned over, planting a kiss on Jack’s cheek. “B is sending over some cleaners. You should sleep it off at my place. I’ve got a couple of gallons of blood in the fridge.” I flashed him a look. “Or if you want to run back in…”

  “Not funny,” but he laughed, then clutched his stomach like even that brought him pain.

  I thanked my lucky stars that my apartment was only a few blocks away. Everything was hitting me – the murders, the trial, Sia – I just wanted Jack to hold me until dawn.

  We shuffled through the lobby, ignoring the interested look the security guard shot us. A drunk businessman stumbled into the elevator after us and I tightened my grip on Jack’s hand. I knew an injured vampires’ hunger was overwhelming, and some lit guy stumbling about would be like dangling steak in front of a carnivore that hasn’t eaten in days.

  I let out a sigh of relief when the drunk got off on the second floor. We got out of the elevator and Jack slumped against the wall as I fumbled for my keys. Once we were inside, I made a beeline for the fridge.

  “Stretch out on the couch, babe,” I said gently.

  I pulled out a gallon of blood and poured it into a ‘something wicca this way comes’ mug, then warmed it up for twenty seconds before handing to him.

  Jack downed it in one gulp. “Dawn is near.”

  I took the mug. “You should go into the bedroom.”

  “I want to explain,” he said again, his eyes searching mine.

  “Later,” I insisted. “You need to-”

  I heard a clatter in the bedroom. Jack and I exchanged looks. This night just kept getting better and better. Almost executed, then murdered, and now someone was trying to rob me.

  Jack pushed off the couch and bared his fangs as he threw open the door.

  He lurched back into the living room instantly, his pale face turning beet red. “I…uh-”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Is something wrong? Who is it?”

  “It’s um…” He cleared his throat. “It’s your mom.”

  I made a face at him. “What? Is she…naked or something?”

  Jack shook his head. “Maybe we should go for a walk. Get some air.” He walked over to me and steered me toward the door.

  I pulled away from him. “It’s damn near dawn and I just want to go to bed. Why are you acting so weird?”

  He gave me a look of embarrassment. “Just don’t go back there.”

  That settled it. I couldn’t control a psycho fairy trying to frame me or being forced to stand a bloody Trial in the Great House. I couldn’t control the feeling of worry that what Jack and I had could be residual love he felt for his dead wife. But this was my house and I’d be damned if I couldn’t go into my own bedroom.

  I breezed toward the bedroom door, but Jack blocked my way. I could see the top of my mother’s head and no more.

  “She’s indisposed, Jade.”

  “Get out of my way!” I screeched, pushing him aside.

  I gasped and covered my eyes. Too late. It was already branded on my brain. She was stark naked, tangled up in my sheets. And she wasn’t alone.

  The demon…The Watcher from the Trial, stood beside her…in all his glory. I didn’t mean to gawk, but he was packing down south.

  I forced my gaze on Mom. “What the hell is going on here?! And why are you naked and hooking up with a demon?”

  “Jade,” she said hoarsely, clutching the sheet to her bare chest. “I need to tell you something.”

  I took a step forward, glancing back and forth between them.

  Mom exchanged glances with the demon. “We were supposed to do this together. When she was older.”

  The demon rolled his wide black eyes. “Good lord. I’ll do it.” He took a step forward, his demonic glory swaying side to side. “You’re my kid.”

  My eyes went round. I couldn’t have heard that right. “W-what?”

  “Jade,” he said, giving me a cold smile that made me shudder. “I’m your father.”

  ###

  About the Author

  Charisma Cole is a reader, a writer, and a devourer of Lifetime movies. Connect with her online at charismacoleerotica@gmail.com and follow her Scandal obsessed ramblings and book updates/releases at charismam.tumblr.com.

  THE WARLORD’S CONCUBINE

  J.E. AND M. KEEP

  This book is intended for sale to Adult Audiences only. It contains sexually explicit scenes and graphic language. All sexually active characters in this work are of legal age. Over 43,000 words.

  If you require content warnings: this particular story contains dubious consent, pregnancy, cock worship, and dark fantasy elements.

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k you!

  To our friends who didn’t judge, readers of The Keep back when we were first starting out, and Darknest Fantasy Erotica who encouraged us to keep going.

  BOOK DESCRIPTION

  Mirella often wonders what her life would’ve been like had she been born a princess, rather than the property of one.

  When a dark warlord from the north conquers her princess’ kingdom, however, he has plans for the dainty young future-queen. It makes the question all the more poignant, because now, more is at stake than just her rough treatment, but love and lust as well.

  The Warlord’s Concubine is the tale of two women and the dark warlord that dictates their fate.

  As an indentured servant and handmaiden to the princess for much of her life, the middle-aged Mirella sees the conquest of the land as an opportunity to elevate herself. Though as she earns the trust of their conquerors, she finds her own nature challenged as well. A life of callous disregard has made her hard, but as she battles the princess’ will for the first time and finds new allies and friends, does she have what it takes to win the love and favour of the brutal warlord? Will love and friendship be her downfall? Or will her station in life yet again be her undoing?

  Caution: The Warlord’s Concubine is a dark fantasy novel that contains explicit scenes, and a twisted romance between a handmaiden and a God.

  Chapter 1

  Never had the two women seen the city so lit up at night. Not even during the harvest festival when the alchemists set off their fireworks would the great spires and steeples of Ariste City be so illuminated in the pitch black of night.

  The city of Ariste was like a semi-circle at the base of a mountain. The grace and majesty of the capital was unsurpassed, even in the southern empire that stretched so far and wide. The buildings were made from great white stones harvested from the northern desert, marble from the Quelan Empire and rich wood from the forests of the Ariste mountains southern slopes. Each tall spire was a stunning monument to decadence and ingenuity.