Phoenixburn: A Reverse Harem Romance (The Rogue Witch Book 3)

by KT Strange

  “C’mon,” he said, motioning to Ace and grabbing Charlie by the sleeve of his shirt.

  “Hey, watch the cloth, this is—”

  “I don’t care what brand name you’re wearing, let’s go, give ‘em a minute.” Cash manhandled Charlie out of the room, Ace following without another look at us. My cheeks were red-hot and painful, but I had no reason to be embarrassed. Finn was the one exposing all the soft spots of my heart, for the world to see. I’d been hiding for so long, and he just had let everyone, everyone know that we were a thing.

  Eli was still in the room, but he was quiet, watching us. It didn’t feel wrong having him there, and maybe he’d even back me up. He usually was the voice of reason, anyway.

  Finn’s next words nearly broke my heart. They did fracture what was left of my temper.

  “You ashamed of being with me?” His eyes were dark, shadowed.

  “What? No! What—why would you even think that?” I glared at him. “Really?”

  “Yeah, really,” he growled, “Maybe the world doesn’t know what we really are, but you do, and maybe a small part of you is ashamed you’re shacking up with a pack of werewolves.”

  “That’s the biggest load of shit I have heard in a long fucking time.” I spat out the curse words. How had we gotten so heated so quickly? I had no idea how to dial back the venom, but the things he was saying about me made my stomach clench and acid bite in the back of my throat.

  “You two done being idiots?” Elias’s voice cut through the heat. Finn whipped his head around and a low, angry rumble emanated from his chest.

  “Don’t you talk about her like that!” Finn slid in front of me, although I could still see enough of Eli to watch him roll his eyes at his twin’s aggression.

  “Calm down,” Eli said, the picture of reason and sanity. He set his book down and propped his arms behind his head, grabbing onto the back of the couch he was lounging on. Not surprisingly, his demand that Finn settle himself didn’t work.

  “Maybe first you should apologize for calling Darcy names.” Finn set his shoulders, and that low growl coming from him increased a step in pitch and volume. With a sigh, Eli got to his feet and walked to his brother, wrapping one hand around Finn’s bicep. He looked steadily into Finn’s eyes. Finn glared back at his twin. Tension was ratcheting up inside of me, as the two of them squared off, silent mirrored images of each other.

  “What?” Finn snapped after a long moment that felt like it would never break. Eli looked at me with a smile tugging at his lips that he was trying to suppress.

  “You, uh, feeling alright Darcy?” Eli asked me.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Finn asked, rounding on him.

  “Seriously, stop.” Eli threw up a hand to push Finn aside. “Darcy, when was the last time you were on your cycle?”

  Immediately my face went hot.

  “What!” I pulled back. That was not something I was prepared to discuss with anybody. “You don’t seriously mean—”

  “It was at the beginning of tour, I think, right?” Eli asked as Finn cursed and turned to look at me properly. The Gunner twins were staring at me and I squirmed under the scrutiny.

  “Can we not talk about my personal body stuff?” It was none of their business, and I wasn’t late or anything, so it wasn’t like I was pregnant. “Can we go back to fighting?” I shot Finn an angry glare. “I think you’ve got some serious apologizing to do.”

  Eli clapped his brother on the shoulder. “Go have a shower.”

  “What?” I asked. Finn grunted and pulled away from Eli, before glancing at me once and marching straight for the green room bathroom. He disappeared inside of it without another word to me.

  After a moment we could hear the shower turn on, water hitting tile.

  Eli let out a slow, noisy breath.

  “Let me—”

  “You better explain.”

  “I’m going to. Sit?” Eli pointed at the couch behind me as he relaxed onto the seat across from me. “He’s in rut.”

  My ass hit the cushion and I stared at him.

  “He’s in what?”

  “Rut. It’s a thing—”

  “Yeah, for deer!” My hands gripped the edge of the cushion and I looked at the door to the bathroom. Eli snorted, pulling my attention back to him.

  “Y’know sometimes I like your know-it-all attitude, and sometimes it just pisses me the fuck off.” Eli’s tone was mild despite his word choice. “Humans and werewolves have cycles, and when a woman’s, ahem, when she’s ready so to speak, that can send her mate into a bit of a. . .” He cleared his throat and gestured to the bathroom door.

  My eyebrows were making friends with my hairline.

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Dead serious.” Eli’s face was blank, carefully so. He was serious.

  “So he’s what, overwhelmed with—”

  “Irritation, hormones, sex drive, and probably a healthy desire to tear the throat out of a passing elk.” Eli’s lips twitched again. Right. Animal stuff.

  “But Ace isn't acting all twitchy and like an asshole has consumed his brain.”

  Eli shrugged and cut me off, although I didn’t mind. I was too surprised to mind.

  “Ace isn’t as old as Finn, isn’t as hormonally-driven, and hasn’t been mated to you as long. He’ll probably get a little squirrelly, but his personality is different.”

  I listened to Eli and reached up to feel the soft spot on the side of my neck where Ace had bitten me, the thin line where the mark was slowly fading.

  “So when I’m, what, ovulating, Finn’s going to be grouchy and horny?” I felt the time for delicate words had passed. Eli chuckled and rubbed a hand over his jaw and the back of his neck. I realized he was nervous, talking about this. Like he was uncomfortable. A sudden thought came to me and I made a face. “You said that I got my period at the beginning of tour. . .” I trailed off with a feeling of dawning horror. “Oh my god.”

  Eli looked to the ceiling.

  “We’re wolves, Darcy, just because we’re in our human form doesn’t mean we don’t have an excellent sense of smell—”

  “Oh my god.”

  “It’s not a bad thing.”

  “You guys know when I get my—” I shook my head. That was so private and personal, and not just for any mundane reason like when Max freaked out about spotting on her jeans. A female witch’s cycle, well we called it a lunar week, often meant our powers were weakened which meant we were weakened. It was more than a little taboo to talk about when we were on the bleed. I took a deep breath and tried to not think about it. Sometimes it was hard to not have those old witch-world sensibilities creep up on me. It kept happening when I least expected it.

  “Darcy, it’s really not—it isn’t something you should feel self conscious about. Everybody has a scent, everybody, of some kind, and it was a little off putting at first simply because we’d thought you’d injured yourself.”

  My face was going to fall right off. It was going to explode into flames. I took a calming, cooling breath and tried to remember that they weren’t witches, and they definitely weren’t going to judge me for being even weaker than I already was with my powers.

  “I’m calm,” I squeaked. Eli gave me a long, measuring glance.

  “Uh huh.” He stood and walked to me, reaching for my hand. I hesitated for a moment but let him take it. His fingers were warm, big, like Finn’s, and rough from playing the guitar. I could feel the callouses as his skin rasped over mine. A totally inappropriate thought traveled through my mind at light-speed about those rough fingers and my—damn, maybe I was ovulating. “Everything about you has my brother going crazy, all the time. This just makes him a little crazier. Cut him some slack.” Eli interrupted my rebellious mind as he helped me to my feet. “I’ll talk to him about his growly attitude, alright? It’s the first time he’s been around his own mate, when she's all, y'know, and. . .”

  I swallowed hard as Eli’s eyes, usuall
y so cool and calm, half-lidded with affection when he talked about his twin. He was right. Finn wasn’t an asshole, and his explosion just a few minutes before had been out of character for him.

  “It’s fine, I forgive him. I’ll go tell him,” I said, tugging my hand out of Eli’s grip and moving toward the bathroom door.

  “I’d leave him alone if I were you,” Eli called out behind me. I stopped in my tracks.

  “Why?”

  “You like those jeans in one piece?” There was a definite snicker in his voice. “Besides, as much as I know it’d make him feel better, we need to get to that meet ’n’ greet and it’ll only fuel rumors if you have wet shower-sex hair, alright?”

  I wavered for a moment, the urge to go soothe Finn’s rumpled feelings and the curiosity over what a werewolf’s, ummm, ‘rut’ really meant almost overtaking my duties as tour manager.

  I pressed my lips together and steeled myself. I was a professional.

  “Coming,” I said with a sigh, “but please just tell him to stop tweeting about me, okay?”

  Eli opened the door to the green room, holding it for me.

  “I’ll try.”

  Ten

  Cash

  There were a lot of fans that night, way more than I had expected. The photo-op was in a side room of the venue, the lineup out the door. Black-painted walls and a cement floor had the sound of a hundred excited fans bouncing off of them, while me and the guys hung awkwardly at the far end of the room. We were waiting for the first of meet 'n' greet fans to be brought through to say hi to us. It was more organized than anything we'd ever done, with security guards at the door and a girl whose clipboard appeared to have a list of names. I kept inhaling every few minutes, trying to catch the scent of hunter clinging in the air, but I just smelt clean laundry, the fog of the smoke machine out in the concert hall, and the trembling emotions of a bunch of kids.

  When Darcy and Eli came in, a few minutes after the meet 'n' greet started, I eyed them both up. Darcy's eyes weren't red with tears, which was a good sign, but they were missing Finn, which wasn’t a good sign.

  "Hey, where's Finn?" I muttered to Eli when he squeezed between me and Charlie to take his place in front of the photo wall. Troy was really going all out with us, which was both weird and cool at the same time. He'd sprung for a custom photo wall for us, with the PHOENIXCRY and the XOhX logos all over it.

  "Showering." Eli looked up and plastered a grin on his face as a pair of giggling girls ran toward us for their photo op. "We'll talk later. Hey ladies." Eli turned on the charm as Charlie winked at me over the head of a third girl who'd enveloped him in a hug.

  "Whoa there," Charlie said, patting her on the shoulder. Ace looked like he was about to snicker, but had the good sense not to.

  "Let's take that photo," Darcy interrupted, a warm smile on her face. "Whose phone do you want me to use?" She held out her hand. The girls giggled, argued for a moment, and then we were all smiling as Darcy took the picture.

  Darcy eyed us up and nodded, going to collect the next group of friends that wanted to take a photo with us.

  "I thought it was going to be only autographs people wanted. Not this photo-op schtick," Charlie said, sounding wistful. I rolled my eyes.

  "Autographs were for the Beatles. We're Phoenixcry. It's a different era." I grinned when he glared at me. His eyes widened as his gaze switched from me to something behind me. I glanced over my shoulder. Finn, his hair towel-dry, the skin of his neck and ears still pink from a shower, stalked over to us.

  "Better?" I asked. He gave a short nod.

  "Feeling less like I'm gonna jump out of my own skin." His eyes were stuck on Darcy, following her as she spoke to a few small clumps of fans. It wasn't like I didn't want to follow her either with my gaze too. She was easy on the eyes, all curves and her wild, waving hair that cascaded over her shoulders. She looked like one of those pin-up drawings that we'd traded our cigarette packs for when we were over in France, fighting for freedom. I wanted to trace my hands around the curve of her back, feel the dip of her spine, inhale the soft scent of soap and woman that lingered in that spot right behind her ear. Most of all, I wanted the sharp tang of power that emanated from her, to taste the electricity as it crackled along her skin. She was addictive, calling to me even though she didn't know it. Every inch of her screamed with power, and the wolf in me was snarling and growling, demanding I take her as my own.

  In short, I understood why Finn was so obsessed. I hadn't mated her yet, hadn't made her mine, yet I was still hungry for her.

  "Hey, are you two going to stand and drool, or actually work for your supper?" Charlie's low voice cut through the haze of my intense focus. His words yanked me back to the present, and I elbowed Finn to make him snap out of it too.

  "Sorry." Finn looked the least apologetic I'd ever seen him, but Charlie must've read that he wasn’t the mood to be teased about his mooning over our mate. There were no smart-ass comments, which was a good thing. Finn was tense every time there weren't fans taking photos with us, relaxing only long enough to put on a good event for the people who'd gotten tickets to our meet 'n' greet.

  Any time a guy got too close to Darcy, though? It didn't matter if that person was a fan or a crew member, Finn immediately stiffened up, glaring at all and sundry.

  Fuck, the guy was obvious. If he hadn't gone totally sappy on our Twitter account, there would have been rumors from his behavior alone.

  Darcy didn't seem to notice either, which wasn't helping. Running my fingers through my hair, I sighed and settled into the rhythm of smiling for photos and trying to get between Finn and whatever dude he wanted to disembowel.

  "Stop hovering," he grumbled at me while Darcy chatted up a blogger who was out to review our show.

  "Stop glowering. You're scaring everyone off."

  Finn gave me a big, fake smile.

  "That better, asshole?"

  "Yeah, so much better," I said with a sigh. "Just fake it, all right?"

  "I just wanna be with her right now, not out here." Finn's face was pained as he turned around from the waiting lineup to take a breather. My best friend was aching for our girl and I couldn't hold it against him.

  "Just keep it together." I reached out and squeezed his shoulder. He nodded and took a shuddering, deep breath. "What's going on with you?"

  "Rut," his voice broke.

  Fuck. Right. I'd seen plenty of those in my day, although never had one.

  "Really. So, huh. That's new. For you. What's it—what's it like?"

  Finn gave me an incredulous look and growled.

  "Do you really want me to explain what it's like to want to rip off my girl's clothes and show everyone in this room exactly who she belongs to?" He looked like he wanted to maybe rip my face off at the same time as Darcy's clothes. I swallowed hard.

  "Nah, I'm good. I think you just made it pretty clear what it’s like." I made a mental note to talk to Charlie later about how we had to figure out our scheduling, maybe, around Darcy's uh, cycle. Shit, that was going to be an awkward talk. I patted Finn on the shoulder and he rumbled softly.

  "I hate life," he groaned as Darcy walked up toward us, a huge smile on her face and blogger in tow.

  "Hey guys." Darcy grinned at the blogger. "Kenneth here has been doing really good with his blog, and has been following your career for a long time."

  "It's an honor, seriously, I can't wait to see you guys live," Kenneth said, his eyes full of hero-worship. Finn's low rumble turned into a growl and I stepped on his toes, bumping in front of him to hold out my hand for Kenneth to shake.

  Ace was next, slapping Finn on the back harder than necessary, and I knew that the youngest member of our pack was trying to smack Finn back into good behavior.

  "Could we get a picture maybe? For the blog?" Kenneth turned to me since Finn was hanging back and Eli was hovering near his twin, maybe worried that Finn was going to pounce on someone.

  I definitely needed to talk to Charlie
about scheduling. Before Finn could make another grumpy noise at the poor blogger guy, Darcy plucked the cell phone from his hands and gestured for us to get together. I wrapped one arm around Finn's shoulders and Ace crowded in on his other side. Together we'd get through this. He was our pack-mate and we'd take care of him.

  "Thanks guys!" Kenneth, sweating and nervous, gave us a little half-wave and shuffled off. I could practically hear his speedy heart rate as he did.

  Finn took a deep breath and, with a low growl, yanked Darcy in close when she turned to walk over to the line-up for the next group of fans.

  She yelped, thudding into his chest. Eli's head jerked around as he stared at his twin. My breath stopped in my throat, and it felt like every person in the room was staring at us. Well, they were staring at Finn and Darcy.

  To her credit, Darcy laughed and swatted at his hands. Finn's eyes half-closed as he felt his mate close to him and he stopped being so high-strung. Darcy shot a tentative glance at the lineup of fans then reached up, pulling Finn in for a gentle kiss on the corner of his mouth.

  "You be good," I heard her murmur to him. "Let me go now, okay?"

  "He was near you." Finn's voice was just as low as hers. Darcy's smile was heartbreaking and so sweet. Her fingers snuck around to his back and she stroked along his spine gently. A flicker of envy lit up in my gut but I shook it off. Finn needed Darcy like we all needed air, and she was right there, in his space, being exactly the support that he was aching for.

  "I promise as soon as you get done with this meet with the fans, I'll take you back to the bus and make you feel better." Her words were almost a purr, even as her cheeks were flushed pink. Our girl was starting to talk dirty. I filed that information away for later and nudged Ace, who nudged me back.

  "Stop eavesdropping," Ace said. I snorted.

  "Y'mean stop droppin' eaves," I replied.

  "God, you old fucks." Charlie shot me a teasing grin. "Can't miss a chance to remind us how 1940's you are."