Realms and Rebels: A Paranormal and Fantasy Reverse Harem Collection

by C. M. Stunich

  “I was prepared to save you.”

  “I never want you to do that. You, H, Marcus…you’re more than just my protectors. You’re three parts of my world and I can’t live without any of you.”

  Keti stood. “I want the three of you in the kitchen, pronto.”

  She stormed away and never looked back.

  10

  Keti

  The fact my guys had made a pact to sacrifice themselves to Selene for the sake of the Cat’Hu was endearing. The fact they hadn’t let me in on said pact, not so much. Add in the way they went about revealing their little secret, and it was like dealing with three toddlers who’d all been caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Only in this instance, magick was the cookie jar, and it could have killed them. I needed them to understand they could never put themselves in that position again. They deserved more for all they’d done for me, for the Cat’Hu.

  Marcus set a dish of fried eggs, bacon and rye toast in front of me.

  I licked my lips, though the cat in me would have preferred to be licking Marcus. He’d cooked all my favorites which came as a surprise because he hated eating breakfast for lunch, especially when lunch was at two in the afternoon. He’d made great strides at trying to smooth things over with me. And he was winning on that end, but I wasn’t about to let him off the hook yet because if a similar event took place again, he’d be stupid enough to attempt to sacrifice himself all over again. I couldn’t have that. Not from any of my guys. “I can’t believe the three of you kept something this serious from me. What else have you not told me?”

  I folded my arms, my nostrils flaring. Whiffs of smoked bacon lifted from the plate and tempted me to the point my stomach growled, but pissed as I was, I refused to look at the dish. I needed to make my point, despite it killing me to be angry at the three most magnificent men ever to grace this earth.

  Horatio lifted the pitcher of cranberry juice from the center of the table and poured me a glass. “We thought it best not to tell you because we didn’t want you worrying or going off and doing something….”

  “Something what?”

  H wouldn’t say, he just lowered his brilliant blue eyes and returned the pitcher to the table.

  “Stupid,” Marcus finished.

  Well, at least one of my guys had the balls to be upfront with me. “I’ve had vicious gods breathing down my neck since birth. Worrying and having to do stupid things are staples in my life.”

  “We didn’t care to add to those issues.” H grabbed a plate of ham and eggs off the island and placed it on the table. A pair of black dress slacks and a black wool sweater now graced his previously naked body. His favorite leather cuff once again wrapped his right wrist. Pulling out the chair next to me, he sat and then unfolded the napkin at his place setting.

  He obviously hadn’t realized how dangerous it was being so close to me when I was about to blow my top.

  One wrong word and the cat from hell would come out in me. With all my efforts focused on stealing the dagger last night, I never shifted. Kitty wasn’t happy about not rising to the surface, she hadn’t gotten her friskiness on in months.

  I pulled down the rolled-up sleeves of my blue sweater as a chill cooled me.

  A hint of lime floated my way.

  Gods, but it was hard to stay mad at a man that smelled so good. But I had to stand firm and not just with H, but with the other two also. My guys could never do a foolish thing like this again if we had any chance at defeating Selene.

  The cat in me protested. Even gave off a low purr. I knew she was upset at not having been allowed to morph last night, but I needed the dagger more than I’d needed a shift.

  My nose twitched.

  Kitty just couldn’t let it rest. We are not going to sniff H.

  She forced me to dig my nails into the tablecloth. Stop it.

  If that Praetorian didn’t show up soon, the caged-in energy flowing through my veins was going to unleash one feral feline.

  Horatio reached for his fork, his hand brushing mine.

  A shock kissed my fingers.

  “And you…” I turned away from H and stared out the window, kept my gaze focused on the rising snow. I didn’t trust myself not to cave at the moment. Between the cat in me wanting to sniff Horatio and lick Marcus, who the hell knew how long I could keep up being pissed at my guys. And I hadn’t even gotten back to finish up all I wanted to say to Lucius. “I can’t believe all that we did last night was pre-planned amongst the three of you.”

  “Last night wasn’t exactly pre-planned.” Horatio toyed with the food on his plate. “We only made the pact because we knew one day you would have to choose between us and the Cat’Hu as a whole.”

  “There was no other choice for us, Keti,” Marcus said from the opposite end of the table. “We had to keep this from you.”

  Peeling my gaze away from the window, I shot Marcus a glare. “Was the fuck in the vestibule just a round of foreplay to get me wet for H?”

  Marcus didn’t answer. He simply adjusted the collar of his denim shirt, and then shoved a forkful of food into his mouth.

  Lucius on the other hand, sighed, his exasperated breath gaining my attention. The dark circles under his eyes grew deeper.

  Crap. I should have just ordered him to go to bed and get some rest rather than insisting he meet me in the kitchen. Of course had we forgone this conversation, who the hell knew how many more times he’d be willing to put himself in danger by draining all his energy keeping an eye on me in the Otherworld. He needed to know that could not happen again. Stupid man.

  I gave Lucius my full attention. “Have anything to add, oh master of my swords?”

  His shoulders slumped. “No. I said it all. I think.”

  Gods, but this was difficult. I loved the three of my guys to the point I’d give up everything for them. And now they knew it.

  Lucius yawned.

  My concern for him grew. I’d never rode another’s dream or even attached myself to someone else’s dream-like state, and from what I’d read about the dangerous act, one could very well lose all supernatural powers for days. Maybe even permanently. The risk always outweighed the reason.

  Lucius hunched over and propped himself up on his barely steady elbows. “We love you, Keti.”

  I grabbed a piece of toast from the plate and chomped off a corner. “I’m well aware of that.” I almost never spoke with a full mouth, but manners were out the window in my present mood.

  I sat back. “You three are the stupidest, dumbest, most ignorant immortals this world must have. But you’re also the three most loving, caring, strongest, honest…well, maybe not exactly honest in this case, but I’ll save that lecture for another day…incredible men I have ever known.”

  I reached for the glass of cranberry juice next to my plate and downed a gulp, then returned it to the table. “Since it seems we’ve all sacrificed for each other, it also seems we are now in a serious pickle.”

  “We still have the rest of today and tomorrow,” Marcus said. “And I did find a spell that will raise Selene’s Praetorian without her having a say in the matter. Plus another text that I believe was meant to accompany the spell, but I’m not positive.”

  At least there was that.

  I eyed Lucius who was about to fall into his dish of scrambled eggs and corned beef hash. I tapped him on the arm. “Go upstairs and get some sleep. We’re all going to have to be at our best tomorrow.”

  “I’ll just sleep here.”

  “No. A bed is what you need.”

  Horatio pushed his chair back and stood. “I’ll get his ass upstairs.” He walked behind me and rounded the table.

  “You should get more sleep as well,” I added.

  “I’m fine.” H hoisted Lucius, who by this time wasn’t even capable of protesting, his energies so drained.

  I sincerely hoped he’d recover. I loved all three of my guys. Seeing any one of them suffering killed a part of me.

  Marcus remained m
y sole company at the table, though he was unusually quiet.

  “Do you really think the spell will work?” I didn’t truly want to know the answer, but I hated silence.

  “I can’t say for sure. It’s one of the most ancient hexes in the stack of papyri. It was used in the earliest days of the kingdom, when prepping a body for Duat involved storing innards in canopic jars. So, who knows. But it’s all we have. Bastet didn’t keep many records about the Selenian dead, once her moon-worshiping felines started to stray.”

  My mother never accepted her oldest colony of felines falling to the Titan. Sometimes I thought that was why she’d kept secrets from me, because I’d imagine in those specific texts that she hadn’t given me to read, there were notes and stories about her anger over losing an entire colony of cats. But I never could prove it. My mother and I had an understanding between the two of us that there was a certain amount of magick I had to learn on my own. She couldn’t just hand me everything. But neither one of us thought Ra would confiscate the bulk of her teachings and turn them over to Maahes. I needed those secrets now. And I had no way of getting them. “I guess we’ll just have to go with the spell you found and pray it works.”

  A scratch sounded at the back door.

  “Who would be crazy enough to be out there in this weather?” I eyed the kitchen window, but didn’t see any tracks in the snow. I rose from the chair and headed to the mud room. As I neared the back of the house, the metallic scent of blood drenched my space. I held my breath.

  Marcus came up behind me and opened the door.

  I gasped.

  A row of at least ten big felines, including cheetahs, tigers, jaguars, and lions—and five house cats, all lay in the snow, their throats slit and their blood oozing.

  They were all Cat’Hu based on the gold auras coming off their fur.

  “Khonsu had to have brought them,” I said to Marcus who was already stepping into the almost knee-deep snow.

  “I’ll bring them inside.” He lifted two of the domesticated felines. “Where do you want them?”

  “My emergency office down the hall. I’ll have to prepare them for Duat here because no way are we going to get to the clinic in this storm.” Thank the gods Khonsu came to the house, but as a god, he probably knew I wouldn’t be getting to the clinic in a blizzard.

  Horatio came down and help Marcus and I bring the remaining big cats into the house. Not one of the dead felines was wearing a scarab, but they all had shown signs of having a collar or chain pulled from their necks.

  And judging by the slight blue shade of energy that was lifting from each cat’s nape, I had no option but to suspect Selene’s warriors of stealing the sacred relics.

  The Titan was harvesting Cat’Hu power.

  And she hadn’t the right.

  Marcus cut up the last of my Egyptian cotton sheet sets as I’d run out of proper linen to finish wrapping the final body. In all we ended up with twelve big cats, not the ten I’d initially thought, and five house cats.

  “These should do it,” Marcus said handing me two lengths of the white fabric.

  I gathered the strips and wrapped the dead tiger’s paw, then tucked the loose end of cotton under the wrapping. “I hope using sheets is not going to make a difference in the eyes of the gods.”

  “You’ve done all you can and that’s more than even the gods can ask of you.”

  I hoped Marcus was right. Though in truth, none of us knew what the gods would think of my hastily worked burial rituals. But with seventeen felines and one blizzard, there was no way I could have taken the bodies to the clinic. And even if by some miracle I could have managed the feat, prepping seventeen felines for Duat was a massive undertaking. I never kept extra supplies on hand except for when the war with Maahes and Selene took one of its turns for the worse.

  Using the last drops of rose, lavender, and thyme oils, I finished blessing the last tiger and then sent him off to Duat.

  The feline body disappeared with a slight puff as it vaporized.

  I prayed to the gods I’d done the cats justice.

  “You need to sleep,” Horatio said, cleaning up the stainless-steel table.

  “I can’t. I’m too wound up.” I glanced at the hunk of scarab sitting on the nearby shelf where I’d earlier placed it next to my dagger. Today should have been spent with me trying to figure out how to properly manifest whatever energy the broken piece of amulet contained, but I couldn’t ignore the dead Cat’Hu.

  Placing the jar of now empty oils on the counter, my thoughts drifted to the spell Marcus had mentioned this afternoon. “Maybe we should look over the hex and see what’s involved in casting it.”

  “It’s in the library.” Marcus dropped the scissors into the drawer and then padded from the room.

  Horatio followed him out the door as I grabbed the dagger and piece of lapis from the shelf, slipping the latter into my jeans pocket.

  The scent of rose and thyme lingered on my hands.

  In all my years, I had never once been bothered by death or the dead as both had been part of my life from day one. Even in Rome, before I’d gone to live with my mother, her visiting priestesses had taught me my trade.

  But knowing that Horatio had interfered with Fate by finding the lost dagger, dread nagged at my soul.

  For the first time in my immortal existence, I feared dying.

  11

  Keti

  Death stared me square in the eyes the second I leaned over Marcus’s desk. Thank the gods it was only on paper.

  “In hieroglyphics, a mummy lying down is a symbol of either death or the dead,” I said, studying the sheet of papyrus I’d pulled from the sacred texts Marcus had been researching. As I read the rest of the signs on the page, concern edged my nerves. The symbols lacked order, almost as if written in code and only a few formed actual words, like the drawings representing the sounds of the syllables of my mother’s name. The rest were just scattered on the page in a haphazard way.

  I ran my hands over my jeans, tried to wipe away the clamminess now settling into my palms. I wouldn’t say I was completely nervous realizing what chaos was to come, not for myself at least, but I was starting to fear failing my people.

  Returning to concentrate on the papyrus, I gave the page another read.

  “For the most part,” I said, “these symbols are not forming sentences or even letters for specific sounds. But if I take in the whole of what is here by looking at the individual meanings of each hieroglyphic, then I can only assume my mother was writing a warning that somewhere in time a dead warrior would rise, strike out or attempt to kill me, and then claim my scarab. That’s probably why she also wrote the spell to raise the Praetorian. She must have known one day all this would happen and we’d have to fight the Selenian responsible for taking her mortal life.” I shifted the page so both Marcus and H could better see the inked images.

  Grabbing a second document from the pile on his desk, Marcus placed a matching papyrus next to the first. “Many of the hieroglyphics are the same on the spell page.”

  I agreed. “And if you hook here,” I pointed to the drawings in the center of the new papyri. “These symbols represent many important factors that are part of our lives. The moon—possibly also representing Selene and not just the moon energy within me. A woman—I’m guessing she represents me as she’s clearly not a goddess. Then a drawing definitely depicting a goddess—again possibly Selene. A man attacking the woman—this could be the Praetorian coming after me. And even three big cats.”

  “Those are a leopard, a lion, and a tiger,” H added, leaning forward from one of the black chairs in front of Marcus’s desk. “The leopard could translate to a panther. They’re images representing our feline selves.”

  Of all my guys, Horatio was the one most fluent in hieroglyphics and it was all thanks to his mother’s teachings. Lucius and Marcus had some knowledge, as their mothers, too, had been priestesses of Bastet, but H kept up his links to the past in ways the othe
r two hadn’t.

  I lifted my gaze from the paper and eyed Horatio. “If you take those specific images and find ways to relate them to the other drawings on the page, then we definitely have a written document that refers to our lives and what is going on in our world.” I still wanted to know why it was all happening now. H had mentioned having initially located the dagger about a month ago, but I wondered about the battle last night. “When did the dagger fully materialize in the museum?”

  “Approximately two hours before I came home last night,” Horatio said.

  Marcus rolled up his desk chair. “That works into the timeline of when the Praetorian appeared in the parking lot.”

  Everything was coming together now, and I couldn’t fail. “If I don’t get my scarab back by midnight, then all the souls I’ve sent off to Duat over the last two thousand years, will go to Ammit. And once that crocodilian demoness eats those hearts, the energies stored in the souls of those dead Cat’Hu will be withdrawn from my people. And if Selene absorbs the energy, since I won’t be allowed to, she’ll have the power to kill me. And once I’m gone, the Cat’Hu will cease to exist. I have to get my scarab back. Selene was counting on me never reclaiming the amulet, but once Horatio found the dagger, that all changed. I can’t get the scarab without killing the Praetorian because technically, I did abandon it, but I didn’t have a choice at the time. I think that’s why Selene hasn’t been able to access the energy inside it. It’s a gray area type of thing. She needs me dead to harness the powers of my scarab.”

  “We won’t let that happen.” Marcus blew out a deep breath and leaned back in his chair, his arms folded behind his head.

  I turned to Horatio. “You were right about the dagger. Because it’s cursed with my mother’s blood, it is the only weapon that will bring down the Praetorian. It will turn against him, if we’re successful in calling him over to this plane again. I may not be a goddess, but I finally feel capable of killing that beast. The gods can’t always win.”