by Lana Ames
“Emma?” came a man’s voice from the doorway. “Oh, Emma, you found her, thank god.”
I stood, stunned and confused, looking between Emma, the bloodstain, and this new, utterly gorgeous hunk of a man.
“Stefano,” Emma snapped. “Get in here.”
He came in and pulled the door shut behind him, then turned and saw the bloodstain, and the empty bed. “For the love of all that is holy…” he breathed.
Emma ran to him and clutched his arm. “I’m afraid that’s just the opposite of what we’re dealing with here. Where are the others, the rest of your cohort?”
Stefano shook his head. “They are helping the lady’s newest men. They all suddenly, about ten minutes ago, took a turn for the worse.”
“Meaning?”
“All four are unconscious now.”
Emma let go of him and paced the room. “That must have been when Mundon attacked. He must have somehow gotten through our defenses and knocked the men out…they were shielding her.” She glanced at the mess on the floor. “Looks like she gave him a fight, at least. Now we need to find where he’s taken her.”
I stood between them, also staring at the floor. It looked like a lot of blood, but it was hard to tell with the carpet. “You don’t think she’s…”
“Dead?” Emma said, looking back at me and shaking her head. “No. I still feel a thread of her life force,” she put a hand on her chest, “but she’s struggling. That’s why I needed to get you up here, but we were too late.” She paced over to the window, then turned around and paced back, her mind clearly racing. “Damn it! I was only downstairs for a few minutes.”
“He might have gotten you too, if you had been here,” said Stefano.
“We’ve got to get to her men,” Emma said, suddenly decisive. “Come on.”
She led us out of the lady’s bed chamber and back down the hall into another room, smaller and more crowded. It took me a moment to figure out what I was seeing, in the dimness.
Four men were laid out on cots, indeed unconscious. Very attractive men; was there some sort of relationship between gorgeousness and magical capacity? Three men tended them—also ridiculously good-looking. I noticed, though, that none of the men triggered anything deeper in me. They looked good, yes; but they were clearly not for me.
Despite what Emma might have planned.
Stefano went at once to a tall blond man standing over the first cot, where a redheaded man lay deathly still. “Owen, have you found the breach yet?”
Owen glanced at Emma, then leaned in to whisper something in Stefano’s ear. The dark-haired man’s eyes widened, then he too looked at Emma.
“All right, cut it out, you guys,” Emma snapped. “What is it?”
Stefano cleared his throat. “Owen thinks…it may have come through Aiden.”
The room seemed to hush as Emma stared back at the two men. Then she shook her head. “Impossible. He’s a wild card, but I have him utterly under my control. We established that on day one. It has to be through Grace, here.”
Owen cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable. “Aiden is…a strong personality. He may still be harboring, ah, resentments about your growing power. Resentment can make any of us vulnerable. It is what demons feed on—any kind of negative emotion.”
Emma bit her lip. “We’ve been forced to do this all far too fast. There hasn’t been time to build the trust necessary to make a solid bond. We’ve had to speed the process with too much magic.”
“Um,” I put in. I only understood bits and pieces of what was going on here, but that part made sense to me, at least. “Is it magic that’s been pushing me the last couple of days? Because clearly something that isn’t exactly me has been kind of in charge.”
“I worry what that is, exactly,” Emma said darkly. “I brought you here because I needed to see what you’re drawing on to build your cohort…and what is drawing on you.”
She closed her eyes before I could respond—as if I had any idea what I should say to that. This whole business was so…improbable?
“They’re on their way up here,” she said, opening her eyes again.
“Did you just communicate telepathically with someone?” I asked.
A brief smile flashed across Emma’s face, and was quickly gone again. “Not exactly. But it amounts to the same thing. I’m bonded with my cohort, and they can sense when I want them near.” She gave me a hard look. “You can probably already do that with your men, incomplete though the bond may be.”
“I…” I started to protest that I didn’t know how, but then I was flooded with the sense that I wanted my men near me—the power of Emma’s suggestion was that strong. Or had she put some of her own magic into me somehow, just then? I closed my own eyes, without even deciding to, and thought about Mahlen. His sweet comfort, how good it felt to have his body near me. About Javier, wild and strong, how he had felt inside me. And about Jorge, our powerful connection, and how it had all kind of scared us both…
There was a knock on the door. Stefano answered it, and there were my men, along with three other men just behind them, who immediately went to Emma, all of them putting their hands gently on her somewhere—shoulder, arm, waist. Mahlen, Javier, and Jorge came straight to me. I reached for them, touching each of them, letting their strong comfort ease me.
I had called to them, and they had come.
Was I beginning to believe in magic?
“Where is Aiden?” Emma asked, in a low voice.
One of her men—the vampire I’d danced with at the costume party, Finley—said, “He went out, briefly, he said. Once we talked to Grace’s men, we realized the cohort you selected for her wasn’t viable, not for her. He said he knew just the person to complete the enchantment.”
Emma glared back at him. I couldn’t tell if she looked more angry, or more frightened. “He was not to take charge that way,” she said. “This is completely out of control.” She pulled away from her men and came and took my hand.
Startled, I stepped away from my men, though the room was crowded; Emma and I did not have much space to do—well, anything.
She glanced around, clearly with the same thought in her mind, then clung harder to my hand. “Too much of a sausage party in here,” she muttered. “And while I like sausage…”
Emma grabbed my other hand, squeezing it as hard as the first. It was almost painful; startled, I tried to pull away without thinking—
—and then the room swirled, and purple mist filled my vision—
—and then we were somewhere else.
Mostly. A distant part of an edge of my awareness still felt my feet on the floor, and still felt the shadowy presences of all the men around us…but mostly I was clinging to Emma, because the swirling purple mist threatened to engulf us both.
“What…what’s happening?” I stammered. My voice came out thready and half-there. “What is this place?”
“We have to find the lady,” Emma said, and her words drifted on the mist, I could almost hear them more in my heart than with my ears. I could feel her magic, strong and fiery in her veins, and then I could actually see it. It was centered in the core of her, just below her belly…just where my magic was centered.
Yes, I was, in fact, believing in magic now.
I gasped and tried to look around this strange, inside-out space, where the power was far more substantial than the walls and floors and furniture…if those things were even truly here. Some of the men around us burned fierce and strong. I saw the four who had been struck down, lying on their cots. Their reserves of magic were pale and thin, almost shredding at the edges.
I saw the strong streams of magic that led out of Emma to each of her three men in the room, and then two other threads. One to her fourth man…and one to the lady? They went out, away, farther than I could follow them.
And there was a thread connecting her to me.
I perceived this all in an instant, and it was like my mind opening up—like I was standing at the prec
ipice of something, something so huge and overwhelming…something that had been there all the time, but that I had never seen, because I hadn’t known how to open my eyes to it.
Now that I had, I would never be able to close them again.
In the next instant, my memories returned. With a gasp, I remembered coming back to this mansion several days after the costume party. I’d forgotten something here—I still couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was—but it had seemed utterly urgent that I return at once for it.
It was the demon’s compulsion, Emma said, and now her words were not spoken, they were in my mind with me. He brought you back here so he could destroy you, and steal your magic.
You saved me, I ghost-whispered, because now I saw the rest of it: my unconscious body on the floor; the demon’s human vessel, Edwin, standing over me, then turning his deadly attention to Lady Periwinkle. Emma and her fourth man—Aiden, I now knew him, though I had never met him before in the real world—made frantic love in the room amid the battle, sealing their bond, creating their cohort; and then her whole cohort defeated the demon and Edwin fell to ashes while the demon fled back to his realm.
The lady had sealed all this away from my mind, but now it was back.
It’s too late, came a terrible voice, from everywhere and nowhere. I have your precious lady, and now I have the two of you as well.
No, Mundon! Emma shrieked, but not in fear: no, her voice was mighty, almost as powerful as the demon’s. I simply clung to her, holding on for dear life. You shall not destroy us. The lady is not defeated, and Grace is far stronger than you gave her credit for.
I am? I thought, but Emma’s will crushed over mine before I could hardly form the thought.
YOU MUST BE, she ordered.
I felt her power roll into me, soaring into me, crushing and smothering and too huge…and then something in me pushed back.
I am, I roared, silent as the grave, louder than a jet engine. I AM!
Yes! Emma exulted, and suddenly our separate magics wrapped around each other. Though it didn’t just happen—we were somehow doing it, and I had no idea how, I just—it was a muscle I never knew I had. I PUSHED, and I PULLED, and the magic flowed, seething together, braiding, intertwining…Emma’s magic was more purple and mine was more red, though really color had nothing to do with it, it was more the feel of it…
Foolish children, the demon seethed, but I sensed weakness in his voice.
Show yourself! I commanded. Let us see you, Mundon, and let us see our lady.
You do not command me!
I clutched Emma’s hands tighter, feeling her encouragement, her strength. She was letting me lead this battle; she had my back. I think you do not have our lady at all, I ventured. I did not know how I knew this…I could just tell that the demon hid something he did not want us to see. And that he would not want to be mocked for it.
Behind us, behind both Emma and me, the men in the room our physical bodies inhabited were also now with us, sending us their strength, their power…I felt Mahlen particularly, all the love that Mahlen had held for me over the past year; I suddenly felt the day we’d first met, when we’d noticed each other, when the spark had kindled, though we’d both crushed it down, hiding it away from ourselves, in our awkward shyness.
I felt Jorge and Javier, the power of their bond as twins and the power of their lust for me, mixed with their caring for me—it was such a tangle, we were nearly perfect strangers to each other, and yet in a more important sense, they knew me so deeply.
Emma’s hands in mine faltered and then clutched harder, and I knew—I could see—that she was having the same contact with her men. With only three of her men…I felt her deep unease and worry about Aiden, her fourth, her difficult, willful, dominant man.
And around all this I felt the other men, the cohort without a center, four men who were already somewhat bonded but unmoored, like open hearts, wounded and alone, seeking. Incomplete.
I shook my head gently, trying not to be flooded with all this knowledge, all this bewildering emotion. The demon was fighting all of us, scouring our minds and hearts in his search for weaknesses, cracks, for the wounds and heartbreak and doubt and sorrow.
Ahh, I see you now. And I shrieked as the demon found the weakness in me, the unease I’d felt when I feared my emotions were not my own, when Jorge and I had fucked so astonishingly, so earth-shatteringly, when the orgasm had drained away my very essence…
OH MY GOD GRACE Emma shrieked wordlessly, and I felt my heart fill with her power, her reassurance, her—remorse? This is my doing, I thought it was the right thing…
Then Emma and I were both incandescent with power, and it was working together—she’d seen the crack, the weakness, and she’d slathered so much magic over it, it was just gone in a heartbeat, spackled over—but this magical drain was costing us both, so I PUSHED my magic out again, following her lead, then leading her; we both surrounded ourselves with so much confidence and righteous anger, so much might—
And suddenly Lady Periwinkle’s essence was with us as well, fighting, her braid of power wrapping around Emma’s and mine, filling in all the rest of its cracks, sealing it up tight and flinging it at the demonic essence that had tried to trap us all.
And failed.
I shrieked—it hurt, it was like an orgasm but painful, like fire that was wrong, like acid—
It was gone as quickly as it had come, and I let go of Emma’s hands and fell to the floor in a crumpled heap.
We were suddenly back in the very crowded room, and I had lost my breath entirely. Emma lay on the floor beside me, also panting, gasping. Lady Periwinkle sat beside us, in way better shape than we were but still clearly shaken.
And the men, so many men. My men came to me, lifted me up, brushed off my clothes, straightened my hair, touched and kissed and comforted me. Emma’s men did the same with her, after a fashion. The four centerless men helped the lady to her feet, yet stood a wary distance back from her. I could still feel their woundedness, I was still weirdly open to them.
Emma took my hand again, pushing away from her cohort and pulling me from mine, taking me to stand before the lady. Emma gave a short bow, maybe a half-curtsey, before the lady. “You are wounded?” she asked. “We saw blood, so much blood.”
Lady Periwinkle put a hand to the back of her head, almost absently. “Scalp wounds are the worst for blood. It was just a scratch, and I have healed it.” She huffed out a short breath. “Not that I had the energy to spare for that.”
“How—what happened?” Emma asked. “How did that creature get in here?”
The lady looked around the room, at all these concerned men. Her cohort was waking up, on their cots, blinking their eyes in confusion and mental fog. Then she looked back at Emma. “I think you know how.”
Emma looked at the floor, her face a study in anger and regret.
“But I thank you for coming after me,” the lady said, with a gentle smile. Then she turned to the first stricken man, leaning over his cot, putting a hand to his forehead, whispering a few soft words in his ear.
Emma and I watched as the lady visited all four of her men. They looked stronger every minute, drinking in the lady’s touch, her attentions.
At long last, the lady rose from the fourth cot and returned to Emma and me. “Now let us leave these men to their recovery and find a quiet corner to discuss strategy.”
Chapter Nine
Somehow the lady made it seem the most natural thing in the world that she, Emma, and I should go off to a small sitting room, leaving all the men behind.
“Men are marvelous creatures,” the lady said, sitting elegantly on a small cushioned chair, “but when it comes to strategy, I’m afraid it’s up to us. They are such emotional beings, it’s hard to get any logical thinking done with them around.”
Both Emma and I suppressed smiles, neither of us very well, I’m afraid.
Lady Periwinkle cocked an eyebrow at us both. “Do you disagree?”
“No, no,” Emma hurried to say. “It’s just…well, that’s not our current cultural narrative. Women are supposed to be the emotional ones, and men the rational.”
“Pfft,” the lady snorted. “How many life-changing decisions do men make in anger and in pride?” She waved a dismissing hand. “Never mind, don’t answer that, it’s not important now. Our most pressing tasks right now are twofold, I believe: finding your Aiden, and completing Grace’s cohort.”
“We might be able to do those two things at once,” Emma said, her words dragging out of her with some reluctance. “I think Aiden had it in his mind that he was going to go find Grace’s fourth man for her.”
The lady looked at me, then back at Emma. “Because choosing men for her worked so well the first time?”
“Well, now that she knows what’s going on, and has actually seen the demon, sort of—”
“Guys, I’m right here,” I cut in, talking over Emma. “You don’t need to talk about me as if I’m not.”
“My apologies,” the lady said smoothly. “Grace, do you have a fourth man chosen?”
“I don’t,” I said, frustrated. “None of this has happened by my choice—I know Emma was worried that somehow, I don’t know, the demon might have been driving me?”
Emma shook her head. “I don’t know what to think, honestly. When we wrapped our magic together, I could feel only strength and purity, goodness. It was not evil magic, not demon taint.” She looked at the lady for confirmation.
“Yes, I agree,” the lady said thoughtfully. “I don’t believe Mundon forced you into building a cohort, to use for his own ends, if that’s what you’re worried about.” She frowned at Emma. “I believe that is likely your doing, my dear.”
“Mine?” Emma asked the lady.
“Did you or did you not try to persuade Grace rather more…subtly…when she turned down your direct appeal?”
Emma looked chagrined. “Not…well, kinda. Not intentionally, I mean, I just thought I was giving her a suggestion, that this would be a good idea. Just trying to open her mind to the possibilities.” She looked at me. “I wanted you to bind with Stefano and the rest of them, though. I don’t know how your guys got caught up in this.”