Realms and Rebels: A Paranormal and Fantasy Reverse Harem Collection

by C. M. Stunich

  7

  “Tell us about your grandma,” Nelson said a while later, watching me from across the fire.

  “She’s the sweetest lady you’ll ever meet,” I said. “When I was a kid, my parents would bring me and my sisters over there and drop us off for a few days to help out. She’d put us up on stools at the counter with her and teach us how to make pie crust, or pickles, or jam…whatever she was making. She’d let us stay up as late as we wanted, and wherever we fell asleep, she’d find us and lay a blanket over us instead of disturbing us and making us go to bed. And when I find the wolves who took her, they’re going to learn just what a bad idea it is to cross a witch.”

  I could feel my eyes burning as my resolve hardened—the rare kind of heat that meant my eyes were glowing with stored magic ready to be unleashed on someone.

  “Damn,” Efrain said, crushing his beer can in his bare hand. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re kind of scary?”

  “You have no idea,” I said with a grin.

  All my life I’d been warned about how strangers were dangerous and potentially evil, but it turned out, they were super friendly…and easily impressed.

  “Who needs another beer?” Efrain asked, heaving himself out of his chair, his biceps bulging deliciously.

  “Sure, why not?” I said, tearing my eyes from his muscles. “You only run away from home once, right?”

  “You ran away from home?” Oral asked.

  “Not technically,” I said. “But I probably should have gone back when I found out my grandma was gone.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Nelson asked. There was no judgment in his voice, only curiosity as he waited for my answer.

  “I…I don’t know, really,” I said, squirming under his scrutiny. “It was night, I guess, and I didn’t want to walk home in the dark. It would take a couple hours to get back. And then you showed up and offered to help.” I looked up at Efrain, who was hovering, listening to me instead of going to get the beers.

  “And?” he asked, his eyes riveted on mine.

  “And maybe I’m a little tired of being the good little witch who does what she’s told, helps her granny, and doesn’t talk to strangers.”

  “We’ve been known to turn a few good girls bad,” Oral said, grinning when our eyes met.

  “I don’t think going to save my granny counts as being a bad girl.”

  Efrain bent and whispered in my ear, “It’s what you do on the way.”

  A wonderful tingling spread through my body, and I closed my eyes and savored it.

  With a chuckle, he straightened and jogged to the trailer, disappearing inside.

  “I just don’t want my parents to worry,” I said, hearing how much that sounded like an excuse even as I said it to the others. “If I tell them about Granny, they’ll freak out. I have enough magic to get her back without anyone else getting involved.”

  “Or maybe you wanted to run away and drink beer around a bonfire at three in the morning with three hot brothers,” Oral said, wiggling his eyebrows at me.

  I laughed, my brain feeling loopy and my body buzzing from the beer. “Maybe a little,” I said. “It’s just…I’ve gone on trips. It’s not like I’ve never been out of Arkansas. But I’ve never had an adventure, you know? One that didn’t involve a caravan of parents and siblings. Maybe I wanted a different kind of adventure.”

  “You came to the right place for that,” Nelson said.

  Just then, a howl ripped the fabric of the night, echoing through the forest around us and across the valley. It was so close that it yanked every hair on my body straight up, and I jumped to my feet.

  “Shit,” Nelson said, already on his feet. “I knew I heard something outside earlier.” He ripped off his shirt, his muscles tensed to spring, and for the second time that night, I found myself staring at a man’s nipples. The firelight glanced off the ridges of his muscles as he unbuttoned his jeans.

  I gulped in anticipation.

  “Let’s get inside,” Oral said, scooting around the fire and scooping me into his arms like he was going to carry me across the threshold of his trailer.

  “Um, excuse me?” I said. “I can put a shield around us that will protect us a lot better than your trailer. And I can certainly walk.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked. “You sound a little tipsy.”

  Another howl tore into the night around us, lonesome and tortured as it came even closer. The firelight glimmered off a pair of eyes in the trees, and I gripped Oral’s neck involuntarily.

  “Besides, it’s not every day that I get to sweep a beautiful woman off her feet.”

  “Your trailer looks like the next gust of wind could sweep it off its feet,” I said. “Or wheels.”

  Instead of laughing, his nostrils flared as he scented the air. “Quick, get on Nelson’s back and he’ll get you out of here,” he said. “We’ll distract them.”

  Before I could ask, a gigantic, hideous boar appeared beside us. I screamed.

  “It’s Nelson,” Oral said urgently, depositing me on its bristly back. He started forward, and I lurched, throwing myself flat on his back and wrapping my arms around his neck. I clung to him as I’d clung to Efrain on the ride here, and he took off, streaking onto the road and charging along at breakneck speed.

  Unlike when I’d ridden Efrain, riding a pig wasn’t exhilarating and a little bit exciting, knowing I was literally riding a man. Nelson’s spiny bristles poked through my dress, rubbing me raw as he ran. The beer sloshed in my belly, making me feel a little sick. The pavement blurred by beneath his feet and barren trees whipped by overhead. Cold wind tore my hood off, but I didn’t dare to let go and pull it back on, even as my cheeks and ears ached with the icy air streaming across my face and through my hair.

  At last, we turned onto a narrow gravel driveway. When Nelson came to a stop, I gingerly lifted myself from his back, tugging my dress away from the raw skin of my thighs.

  Looking up at the large rectangular stone house, I was comforted in a way I hadn’t been at Oral’s trailer. It was a simple two-story structure with windows along the top and bottom floors but no other features whatsoever, like it was modeled after a giant box. The red and tan stone looked solid enough that it might have stood in that spot for a few centuries.

  I could blast it apart in seconds if I tried.

  The boar swiftly turned into a man before my eyes, and even though I’d known it was Nelson, I still gasped in shock and took a step back. Controlling the elements was one thing. Changing your entire body from one thing to another in three seconds flat was another.

  “Wow,” I said. “Color me impressed.”

  Nelson grinned. “I tend to have that effect on women.”

  “Do you also have the effect of making them bleed?” I asked.

  “Depends on what we’re doing.”

  A wolf’s howl cut through the night, interrupting us.

  “Shit,” he said, his eyes going wide. “They must have followed our scent. Let’s get inside.”

  Behind us, a snarl sounded, and I spun to find myself face to face with a charging wolf. I threw up my hands, and a stone shot out of the earth and slammed into the wolf’s face just as Nelson’s arm circled my waist and he swept me into the house. The door slammed, and I heard the wolf hit it with a thud. Nelson leaned back against the door, breathing hard, his arm still around me.

  For a minute, we stood in silence. I could feel every inch of my body pressing against Nelson’s, could feel his heart thundering against my back. Robin fluttered a wing fitfully against my neck, and I realized with a start that my magic was suppressed here. I could feel the safety of the house, the magic in it, but it had overridden my own magic. My pulse sped at the realization. Without my magic I was unarmed, defenseless.

  A wolf howled outside again, and Nelson’s arm tightened around me, pulling me tighter to him. His free hand stroked my hair back, then grazed my shoulder and down my arm. A chill went through me and I melted against him, my anxi
ety fading.

  “That was a pretty cool trick you did out there,” Nelson said quietly.

  “It wasn’t a trick,” I said, my eyes opening. “It’s elemental magic. Why can’t I use it in here?”

  “It’s protected.” A light flared, and the acrid smell of matches filled the air as he lit a candle. Warm light glimmered along the lines of his naked body, and I made out a snake tattoo winding around his bicep.

  “Whose house is this?” I asked. “And again, what’s with the magic block?”

  “Mine,” Nelson said, ushering me to follow him down a hall. “When our dad died, he gave us each something. My brothers got money, but I wanted the house.”

  “Your brothers have money?” I asked, following close as another wolf howl ripped through the night. I looked down and realized how close to his muscular backside I was. “Not that I care. Witches don’t really care about that kind of thing. It’s just that if they had money, I wouldn’t have expected them to live in a trailer.”

  “I said they had money,” Nelson said. “Not that they still have it. They made some bad investments. Now, let’s get you cleaned up.”

  “Like a lot of tattoos?” I asked.

  “Tattoos are a measure of our shifting abilities and a symbol of our respect for our animal natures,” he said. “It’s said that if you show respect to the animal spirit after shifting into that form for the first time, it will allow you to summon that form easily the next time you need it.”

  “And tattooing it on your skin is how you show respect.”

  Nelson nodded and set the candle on the sink in a small bathroom and opened a cabinet, pulling out a wash rag. “As for how you spend an inheritance, you can guess. Tattoos, booze, gambling, women, bribery, you name it,” he said, running water over the cloth. “I’m not into all that. My granddad built this house with his own hands. This is all I wanted.”

  “Was he a warlock?”

  “No. He had an enchantment put on it to protect it. Which means you’re safe here, with or without your magic.”

  “Safe is a relative term,” I said, watching his every move. I felt naked and vulnerable without my magic. But also, a strange freedom in putting my trust in him more completely than I’d ever had to do before.

  “Sit over there and I’ll fix you up.”

  “I can heal myself,” I said, realizing his intent. I wasn’t prudish—witches didn’t have many hang-ups—but I’d just met Nelson. And now my life, my safety, my body, was completely in his hands and at his mercy.

  “Yeah, but this is more fun,” he said, turning from the sink. He picked me up around the middle and stepped to the tub while I protested, my toes skimming the floor. My heart thudded as Nelson sat me on the edge of the tub and knelt before me. “Okay, show me where I pricked you.”

  I hesitated, my breath coming faster in the too-small room. Candlelight flickered off Nelson’s hair, spinning it to gold. I couldn’t see his eyes clearly with the light behind him, but the hunger in them was clear and irresistible. He was waiting for me, wanting to tend to me. Wanting me for something that had nothing to do with my magic.

  “If you won’t show me, I can’t be held responsible for my boar’s bristles and what they did to you on the way here,” he said. A smile quirked the corner of his mouth, but his eyes betrayed him. The longing I saw there was so deep, so fierce, it hurt to look at him.

  Holding my breath, I curled my hands into the fabric of my skirt, drawing it slowly up my calves to my knees. Nelson swallowed so hard I could hear it in the little stone bathroom. I drew the skirt up higher, over my thighs, watching Nelson watching me. A new kind of power was stirring inside me, one I’d never known I had. Not witch magic, but something like it. My own power, as a woman.

  Nelson slowly reached out, his cold hands closing around my knees. He eased them open, drawing a long, slow breath. I looked down to see little red pinpricks dotting my fair skin like a rash from my knees to the apex of my thighs. Nelson licked his lips quickly, then picked up the wash cloth. Balling it between his fingers, he dabbed gently at the redness. The water was warm, soothing the raw skin. I swallowed hard, watching him work his way from inside my knee to the curve of my thigh.

  As his fingers brushed my skin, shivers climbed my body, from the spot that he touched to my center, straight up through my belly and my chest, spreading out along my arms and up to the crown of my head. A trembling uncertainty built in my stomach, a nervousness that I’d never felt before.

  This wasn’t like me. I was sure and strong. I’d never doubted myself before, had never doubted Malik. But Malik had never set my body on fire with a thousand pinpricks. He had never touched me so slowly that I could hardly breathe with the anticipation of the next inch of my skin he’d cross.

  Nelson had opened my skin, wounded me. Now he healed me with his touch, with the cauterizing heat of his desire. Each miniscule drop of blood was turned to flame by a kind of magic I didn’t understand. Sparks rose through my body like they had from the bonfire, but these ones grew and multiplied inside me, cascading along the underside of my skin like a thousand falling stars. His fingers slowed, kneading my flesh, the washcloth dropping to the floor.

  He hesitated, his eyes flicking up to mine. Every nerve in my body was alive, hungry. Ready. Nelson’s fingers shook as they skimmed across the last inch of my thigh.

  8

  The front door burst open a minute later, followed by cursing and a flurry of movement that sent Nelson shooting to his feet. A growl of frustration built in my throat. We’d barely started, and now it was over.

  “Nelson, are you in here?” Oral called. “I think Efrain’s hurt. He was attacked.”

  “I’m here,” Nelson said, stepping to the door. He turned back, his eyes tumultuous with emotion.

  I threw my dress down over my knees, stumbling to my feet.

  “I have to go,” Nelson said quietly. “You can sleep here if you want…? My bedroom is upstairs.”

  “I’m okay,” I said, pushing past him. I led him down the hall, my mind tumbling with confusion. This wasn’t over. I needed Efrain to be okay so he could help me get Granny. Whatever had happened with Nelson was just a hiccup, something I could deal with later. I put it aside and focused on Efrain’s figure, crumpled on the ground just outside the door.

  “What happened?” I asked, approaching slowly, as if he might wake up and devour me.

  “One of the wolves,” Oral said with a grimace. He was naked, like the other two. Without clothes, his ropey muscles didn’t bulge like Efrain’s but wound around his long, lean frame. A smattering of freckles was strewn across his pale shoulders, and his smiling face was now grim.

  Nelson’s hand grazed my back. “You said you could heal yourself,” he said. “Can you help?”

  “Maybe,” I said, stepping outside. Relief washed over me with the return of my magic, and Robin chirped loudly, even though it was dark out and he should have been sleeping.

  I crouched next to Efrain. “I’m not a water witch. They’re the healers. I only know a little of their magic…”

  “Can you try?” Oral asked, pleading in his eyes that made my heart hurt.

  “Yeah, but…healing a little rash on my legs is one thing. Healing a wolf attack…”

  “Help me roll him over,” Oral said. “I don’t know what happened. I found him like this.”

  I swallowed, feeling sick as Nelson and Oral gently rolled him over. I tried not to stare at his huge, muscular body, the tattoos climbing his arms, spreading across his broad chest and shoulders. I’d seen lots of naked people before—our coven didn’t generally use bathing suits when we swam, since it was just us—but no one who looked quite like Efrain. He was so…big.

  “I don’t see any teeth marks,” Nelson said, grabbing Efrain’s chin and moving it from side to side. “But he definitely took a blow to the head.”

  “One of them must have thrown him,” Oral said, his face going a little green as he eyed the giant lump on Efrain�
�s forehead. The skin had split, and blood had trickled down his forehead on both sides. Dirt was caked into the wound.

  I fought to swallow, panic seizing inside my chest. “Was he…was he in pig form?” I asked, my voice coming out small and shaky like a child. “Or wolf?”

  “He was chasing the wolves,” Oral said. “Why?”

  “In wolf form?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah. Efrain can shift into anything else as easy as he shifts into a boar.”

  I touched Efrain’s forehead, my fingertips shaking. I’d done this. I’d thought he was a bad wolf attacking us, so I’d bashed his head with a rock. He’d just been trying to run inside with us.

  “Efrain, you idiot,” I whispered, my throat tight.

  “Can you fix him?” Oral asked.

  I didn’t want to tell them that I’d done this to their brother. I nodded mutely, vowing to use all the magic I had to keep him alive. He was still breathing. His strong, thick chest rose and fell under the shroud of animal tattoos.

  “I’ll try,” I said, scooting down beside him. I lay my head on his shoulder and snuggled close, closing my eyes. I let my palm slide across his warm skin, finding the heartbeat in the center of his chest.

  “Damn,” Oral said. “If that’s how you heal someone, sign me up for the next attack.”

  “Shut up,” Nelson said. “Let her concentrate.”

  My parents had always told me that healing energy was love energy. I pushed away my guilt and desperation, concentrating instead on the strong, healthy heartbeat inside him. For a minute, I let myself remember all the good things I knew about Efrain—his sense of humor, his kindness to a stranger, his protectiveness and loyalty to his girlfriend.

  Unfortunately, that thought brought some less generous feelings, and I had to start over.

  Once I had only good thoughts in my mind, I wrapped them around Efrain, sliding my arm over his broad chest and hugging him tight. I fed all the love I could into him, moving it into every part of his body that touched mine. All that energy I’d built up in the bathroom with Nelson softened, turning to healing warmth. The sparkles that had built inside my body now mellowed into soft strands wrapping around Efrain’s body with unbearable tenderness.