Wicked Destiny_A Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy Series

by L. C. Hibbett

  “I thought you’d already know, Mr. Joyce,” Snow said. Her eyes were bright and her lips tilted upward.

  Patrick shrugged his shoulders. “Trying to get me to do your job again, Snow? Are the guild grooming me for general after that fateful day when you—” He stopped suddenly and held his hands up. “I’ve said too much.”

  Snow’s soldiers glowered at Patrick with clenched fists but the raven-haired beauty chuckled. “I knew there was a reason I didn’t send you to Hades, Trick Joyce.” I twisted my neck to stare into Patrick’s face. Hades? What the hell had the human found down that infamous rabbit hole? Patrick avoided my glare and stared at Snow as she turned to Markus again. “What’s the routine down here? Guards? Other holding cells? Charms?”

  “Guards. Twenty-four hours a day, every day. There’s another cell, but it’s not occupied.” Markus frowned. “At least, it wasn’t occupied when I was taken out of here and sent to Galway three nights ago.”

  Snow frowned and exchanged glances with her soldiers. “A lot can change in three days.” She tapped Markus’ shoulder. “The guards, are they here to ensure you don’t escape?”

  Markus gave a rueful smile. “No. They don’t need to worry about me trying to escape anymore. I gave that up a long time ago.” As if they could sense my horror at the black rot chewing on my innards, Nick and Patrick moved closer to me. “The guards protect the Morrigan’s crypt.”

  “So, there will be guards outside the door, even though they believe you’re still in Galway?” Snow asked.

  Markus nodded. “The individual crypts are arranged in a square around a sacrificial altar. The guards are posted at the top of the stairs, on the other side of the charmed doors. If you want to explore the house, you’ll have to get past the charms and then past the guards.”

  Snow’s lips twisted into a grin. “Don’t worry about that, my men will handle the charms and I’ll handle the guards and anyone else we run into.” She turned to the others and fired rapid orders around the room. “Isabelle, Alexander, Theodore, Nikolai—take the lower level. Have you mastered the familiarity rune, Agent O’Neill? We’ll charm Balor’s clan into believing we’re legitimate visitors for as long as we possibly can, we’ll be able to search the house more thoroughly if we aren’t fending off attackers. ”

  Izzy appeared to have remembered her place in the Guild and she dipped her head respectfully. “Yes, ma’am. Ready, ma’am.”

  “Good. Patrick and the hunters will take the upper floors. If anything is uncovered or the mission is compromised we move to evacuate immediately—understood?” Snow glared at each of her team members in turn before reaching for the door.

  I darted in front of her. “What about us?” I flicked my hand toward Markus. “What are we supposed to do?”

  “You’ll wait here. The Guild’s familiarity rune is one of the best in the world, but the clan would recognize you both on instinct. It’s safer for everyone if you wait here.” Snow tried to step past me but I blocked her path. Black threads swirled at the back of my mind.

  “Why the fuck did you bring me here?” My voice was colder than a Baltic sea. “What happens to Markus and me if something goes wrong and you have to bolt? Is this a convenient way of getting rid of the problem of the black witch running wild and free? Send her back to her father and let him punish her?”

  Snow met my glare with pitch black eyes. “We will come back for both of you. You have my word.”

  The older woman’s words seemed to burst from her eyes and penetrate my skull, and I stumbled backward and let her pass. I stared after her in confusion as she blew on the locked door and pulled it open with ease. Izzy gave my arm a squeeze as she passed and Patrick paused for a moment and met my eye before leaving without a sound. Nick stopped beside me and bent down to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. His warm breath caressed my neck. “No matter what happens, I’ll get you home to Saoirse. You hear me?” I bit my lip and he nodded. “Just hold tight. I know who you are.”

  “That makes one of us,” I whispered. Nick brow creased and he placed a feather light kiss on my hairline before closing the door behind himself. I heard the sizzle of magic as the locking charm reignited, trapping me inside the cell with my past.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Make yourself at home, I’d offer you a gin or a cocktail but…” Markus spread his fingers wide and gestured around the bare cell with the hint of a sardonic smile on his full lips. I opened my mouth but Markus cut me off. “Forget it, Destiny. You told me you wanted to escape the clan, I didn’t think you were serious. C’est la vie.”

  I buried my fingernails in the crumbling cement holding the wall together. “I didn’t know, Markus. About any of this.” I stared at the mildew stained excuse for a mattress. “I’m sorry. I was selfish and stupid. I never thought my father would question you guys, not for long. I was mad at you and Willow, and we’d been drifting apart, but I should have sent a letter. I should have checked. I didn’t know.”

  “Whatever.” Markus kicked at a lump of dirt on the ground, twisting his body away from me. I stared at the nape of his neck and my heart twisted at the sight of the silver scars that ran like tracks over his once golden skin. He drew his brows together. “Did you even think about me?”

  I thought of the letter tucked inside my dresser in the cramped apartment in Spanish Arch and wondered had Murphy and his men found our home and rummaged through all our things—the shreds of Soairse’s short life. I avoided Markus’ question with another limp apology. “I didn’t think he’d punish you, Mark. I’m sorry.”

  “You think that’s what hurt me the most? Your father’s punishment?” Markus stared into my face and I swallowed hard. “The beatings, the imprisonment, the humiliation, my parents disowning me—none of it compared to knowing you’d left me without a backward glance and the years wondering if you were okay.”

  “You didn’t want to leave, Markus. You said we’d hate life outside the clan—we’d be broke and bored. You wouldn’t have come with me even if I’d told you I was going.” I released my breath in a sharp burst and shoved my hair off my forehead. “It wasn’t planned. I didn’t know I was going to run until Patrick showed up at the cemetery with a message from Aoife saying she’d found somewhere we could live. Somewhere safe. It was a split second decision and once I’d decided to run…”

  “Yeah. There are no second chances with Balor. I know.” Markus beat his heel against the wall. “And you’re still hanging around with the freaky human boy who brought the letter to the graveyard. Nice. He must be better in bed than he is at fighting.”

  “Oh wow, you’re still a fucking sore loser, Mark,” I said.

  Markus narrowed his eyes. “Sensitive subject? Trouble in paradise for the lovebirds?”

  “Screw you. I hadn’t even seen Patrick since the night at the cemetery until a couple of days ago. Until the day you and your little friends cornered me in the parking lot, actually.” I crossed my arms and matched his glare. “Funny that daddy dearest sent his prisoner on a mission, isn’t it?” I took a step closer to Markus. “I mean, he keeps you locked in a crypt for nearly three years, but he lets you out just in time to lead my friends and me back to his home? Peculiar, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Oh, it’s not the first time he’s dragged me out, Destiny. See, your daddy can’t bring himself to believe his little girl is a total heartless bitch, so every time he gets a whiff of your trail he hauls me out of the crypt, dusts me off, and sends me out with the retrieval unit like bait on a hook. No matter how many times I tell him you don’t give a shit whether I live or die, the sentimental bastard still clings to the hope you’ll come back for me.” Markus attempted a half-hearted sneer.

  I gritted my teeth. “Sentimental doesn’t exactly fit any recognizable description of my father.”

  “There are lots of things about your father we didn’t know,” Markus muttered. He leaned his back against the wall and dug his hands into the pockets of his jeans. My pulse quickened
and felt like I was sixteen again. Even with the shadows under his eyes and the angry grimace, Markus was beautiful. Maybe even more beautiful than he had been before. Darker. Rougher. His eyes flashed dangerously as his gaze ran from my head to my toes and I held my breath. He glanced at the wall behind me. “There’s another cell in there. All the times we snuck down to the crypt looking for clues about your mom, we never knew there were prisoners behind these walls.”

  “What prisoners?” My tongue was dry and heavy with dread. “The vanished?”

  “No. Not your mom.” Markus tugged one of his hands out of his pocket and ran his palm over his close-cropped dark hair, watching me. “Somebody who knew her though. An old friend.”

  “A friend of my mother’s?” I took a step closer and my breath came in shallow bursts.

  Markus lifted his jaw and stared down at me. “You know, I swore to myself I’d never tell you anything I learned down here. I wanted you to suffer like I had.” He kicked the thin mattress. “You know how many nights I lay on that floor, thinking this had to be a sick joke? Some crazy trip from a bad batch of pills?”

  I bit down on my lip as Marcus let his head fall back against the wall. “You were my girlfriend, Destiny. We were best friends since the first day of junior infants—since we were four-years-old. And you just walked away.” He fixed me with a stare so full of pain that I thought my ribs might crack. “I thought we were in this together, Des. Even with all the clan’s bullshit and lies—I thought we were real.”

  “We were real.” My eyes burned and my throat constricted. “But shit, Mark, we were kids. Terrible kids. Spoiled, drunken, selfish, privileged kids. When I found out—when I tried to change my life, you didn’t want any part of it. You avoided me and didn’t answer my calls.” I threw my hands in the air. “You kissed goddamn Willow, Mark. I’m so sorry it ended like this for you.” I met his eye. “I really am. But don’t fool yourself into thinking we were Romeo and Juliet. You didn’t sacrifice yourself for me; I couldn’t even get you to give up one party so I could talk to you alone. So if you know something about my mother, if her friend told you something—”

  Both of us froze as the sound of slamming doors and hurried footfall rang out above us. I raised my hands and stared at the door. Whatever happened, I wasn’t going to become my father’s prisoner. I’d promised my little girl I’d be home. I clenched my teeth and listened to the footsteps moving closer.

  Markus threw himself in front of the door and held his back against it as if he could protect me from the clan. His green eyes were dark with intensity and his whisper was hurried. “The man told me he was your mother’s friend. Said they were from the same village and they both got scholarships to Dagda the same year. He’d burrowed this tiny hole in the wall, just big enough to see his eye through. The first night your father went to work on me, he told me the guy had been down here for over twenty years—that I’d be the same if I didn’t tell him where you were.”

  I braced myself as the muffled voices came closer, hurrying toward the cell, but Markus didn’t cease his rushed confession. “They came for him almost every night, asking him over and over what he’d done with the baby.”

  “The baby?” I stared at Markus as the pounding on the other side of the door increased in intensity.

  Markus strained against the door. “Your parents’ baby, Des. They had another child. A few years before you were born. Your mom said it died, but it didn’t. She got it smuggled out. Your brother or sister.”

  “I have a brother or sister? The prisoner, Markus, I need to talk to him.” I ran for the door but Markus caught me in his arms.

  His face was inches from mine. “Destiny, you can’t. He disappeared a few months ago. Your father lost his shit when they found the cell empty, he interrogated the entire guard and had their memories wiped by the dark fae afterward—it was a bloodbath.”

  “Disappeared? From the crypt? That’s not possible, Mark,” I whispered. “Did he find another door? Like your one?”

  Markus spread his hands wide. “No idea, but the next time I was taken from the cell, the man’s name had been added to the list of the vanished.”

  “But my father didn’t vanish him? You said he didn’t know what happened to him?” I glared at Markus.

  “Stand clear.” Snow’s voice penetrated the steel and stone and I dragged Markus clear of the door just before it flew off its hinges. The full team poured back into the cell and I breathed an internal sigh of relief as I caught sight of Nick and Patrick amongst them.

  I grabbed hold of Izzy’s sleeve. “What happened? The kids?”

  Snow stomped between us. “There are no children here.” Her eyes glittered like diamonds, hard and cold as she turned to Markus. “The passage, can it be opened with a rune coin?”

  “No.” Markus shook his head. “I opened it accidentally a few months ago. It can only be revealed with witch’s blood.”

  I flinched, unwillingly conjuring a mental image of how Markus might have discovered the charmed passage, and held out my wrist. “Use my blood. Izzy’s a gold, she can heal me.”

  “No, use mine. Destiny’s more important.” Izzy shoved in front of me and thrust her arm into Snow’s face.

  Blackwood and Teddy both grabbed Izzy by the shoulder and began to protest but Markus silenced them all with a whistle. “Stop. It won’t work. You can slaughter twenty covens, but the door only opens once a day. Either we hide here until morning and hope we aren’t discovered, or we find another way out.” He glanced at the door lying on the floor of the cell. “But I’m guessing there wasn’t enough discretion exercised to allow us to remain undiscovered until morning.”

  Snow pursed her lips coolly but her cheeks flushed. “I may have been somewhat heavier handed than intended when we were unable to trace the children.”

  Snow’s soldiers exchanged glances that indicated she might be downplaying the level of damage in question. I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “So, we’ve got to go out the front door. And we didn’t find the kids. But we know my father is caught up in this sick shit, one way or another. Because he’s tangled up in everything that’s rotten in this country. And it won’t ever stop. He won’t ever stop.” Snow nodded and Nick watched me with his arms folded over his chest. A thousand thoughts spun through my mind, swirling and whirling like a tornado. I clenched my fists. “I want to see my father.”

  Izzy shook her head violently. “Destiny, no. Snow’s incapacitated all his guards, we’ve torn his home apart, and the Guild charm will only contain your father for another few minutes at best. You can’t talk to him. The Guild is already facing a tonne of shit from the Celtic gods for this stunt—don’t risk your freedom too.”

  I stared at the cell walls. “I’m tired of running. I’m tired of living in fear. I’m tired of him getting away with spiriting people away—the vanished witches, now stealing children?” Anger began to boil in my stomach. “What’s the point of me joining the goddamn Free Witches if he can just snatch their kids out of their beds without being challenged for it? I’m tired of being the coward he made me. I’m done.”

  All around me, voices and hands reached for my attention but I shrugged them off as I marched up the stairs and across the foyer of my father’s Palladian mansion. Izzy hadn’t been exaggerating when she said Snow had taken care of the guards and I gazed at the pale-faced bodies. Snow’s magic looked—useful. Nick and Markus both overtook me as I reached the ballroom door and they’d eyed each other in an uneasy truce, united in their efforts to keep me from being a total idiot. Patrick stood back and watched them with a bemused smile. Clearly, the future had already told him I was a lost cause.

  Nick blocked my path. “Destiny, he’s a god. We can’t take him on and win.” He dropped his voice. “Please don’t do this.”

  “What if it was Maya still missing, Nick? Or Saoirse?” I pressed my hand against Nick’s shirt and turned to Markus. “This isn’t living. Running and hiding, always afraid the people you love can b
e snatched away on a whim.” I raised my eyebrows. “If you care about me at all, you’ll respect my right to do this.”

  Both men relented and stood back to let me pass. Snow caught my arm. “Destiny, we need to get out before the charm on the ballroom falls.” She tipped her head toward the haze of metallic smoke seeping around the door. “You’ve got a few minutes, but when the charm is gone—”

  “I understand.” I gave the older woman a tight smile and squared my shoulders, refusing to look at anyone else. Love and compassion were weapons my father was impervious to, and this time, I wouldn’t let him pierce my armor. I raised my hands and struck the door with a rune powerful enough to rip the doors off their hinges. They sailed through the air and splintered against the wall above my father’s head. I felt a shudder of revulsion as I glared at the jewel-encrusted throne and the flame-haired man sitting on it, but the look of shock on my father’s face was like a shot of adrenalin. I opened my heart and let the darkness I’d been concealing for three years slither through my veins as I strode into the ballroom with a swagger I hadn’t practiced in years. “Hello, Daddy. Miss me?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Destiny.” My father leaned forward on his throne but he didn’t make any sudden moves. He eyed the motley crew surrounding me with calculating coldness. His glare honed in on Snow and he clicked his tongue. “Amelia Snow, isn’t this an interesting turn of events? The great and valiant Snow and her soldiers—gone rogue. Does the Guild know you’ve turned vigilante again, Amelia? Attacking gods and their families in their own homes.” His grin widened. “No, I can’t imagine they do. Mark my words, little lady, you’ll rue the day you—”