Roses and Revenants: A Dark Paranormal Reverse Harem Romance (The House of Mirrors Book 1)

by Cate Corvin

  “I don’t,” he said, his skin catching the light like burnished bronze. “That’s the problem with kickass exorcist chicks. Why do you think I’ve waited so long to make my move? I needed to be a master of something before I tried to capture you.”

  My eyebrows rose. “You’re a terrible flirt,” I told him, rising from the couch.

  “Don’t go yet.” He pulled me back down. “I brought you something.” I nearly landed in his lap, my cheeks burning. How had I ended up here in Bellhallow, with Joss Thorne of all people bringing me peanut butter sandwiches and trying to flirt with me?

  The universe seemed to be playing a twisted joke at my expense.

  A low rumble vibrated against my legs, along with a silky swath of cream fur. I buried my fingers in the mountain lion’s fur despite my surprise, scratching behind his ears.

  “Good Kitty! Holy shit! Hey, you big gorgeous beastie...” Then a horrible thought occurred to me. The last thing I needed while I was worn out was a wolf among the sheep. “Joss, he could be anyone’s familiar. He shouldn’t be here.”

  Joss reached out and booped the mountain lion’s nose. It gave him a disdainful look. “Oh, but he’s not anyone’s familiar.”

  A chill washed down my spine. “And just how do you know that?”

  The beast placed a gigantic paw in my lap, exposing some of the underside of his paw and leg… and the silvery, knotted scar that looked exactly like the one on Joss’s wrist. “Joss…”

  “He’s a friend.” Joss gripped my thigh just above my knee. “I promise he’s fine, Mor.”

  I stared into the beast’s indigo eyes, disquiet prickling my veins. “You already knew him.”

  Joss nodded from the corner of my eye. “Yeah. I’m blood-bound to him, in fact, so I’d bet my left nut that he won’t tell anyone he was here with you or what he’s seen.”

  “Your left nut? Feeling a little attached to the right?” A laugh bubbled on my lips. I was suddenly quite sure Good Kitty was a therianthrope, one of those witches or warlocks who could become an animal at will… and unless I totally missed my mark, he was Adrian Wolfe, Joss’s new best friend.

  I’d called him Good Kitty. I was scratching behind a fucking therianthrope’s ears and telling him what a nice boy he was. I was lucky he hadn’t ripped my hand off.

  “And you told me not to believe the rumors about Fellwolfe.” I kept my voice quiet. “But that’s you, right, Adrian? Therianthropy is…”

  “A perfectly legitimate branch of magic.”

  “It’s taboo.” Not illegal, no, but the Tribunal had discussed outlawing it, alongside necromancy, more times than I could count. Somehow the motion never got passed, but still, a wise witch stayed far the fuck away from warlocks who could shift into predators with a thought.

  Joss tilted his arm, exposing the knotted scar that matched the one on Adrian’s leg. “Times change, Mor. There’s a whole coven out there that takes in therianthropes now, you know that? They practice it openly. As long as someone has a good teacher and room to practice, it’s not as dangerous as everyone thinks it is.”

  “Born or made?” Despite the trepidation twisting my stomach, I somehow couldn’t pull my fingers away from Adrian’s velvety, black-tipped ears.

  Joss paused before answering. “Made. He learned while I was in Emberfire.”

  “And you’re… blood-bound.” Therianthropy and blood magic. What the fuck kind of bad influence had Adrian been on Joss while I’d been gone?

  “Don’t get on a high horse, Mor.” There was a hint of Joss’s prickly namesake thorns to his tone. “It’s not like you haven’t pushed the limits, either.”

  Fair enough. And Adrian hadn’t yet mauled me or tried to bite off a hand.

  “I suppose you can stay… as long as you stick with Joss.” Adrian flicked an ear. Hecate, it was going to be so hard not to think of him as Good Kitty. “But you are not in the running for a handfasting, so don’t let Vivienne get excited. I’ve met you as a human once, and it barely qualified as a real conversation.”

  “Does it matter? You’re seeing his soul,” Joss asked, his blue eyes serious. “That’s what therianthropes are- they shed their human skin to match the beast that matches their inner self. You already know what he is on the inside.”

  I resisted the urge to ask “Cuddly?”

  Still, therianthropy was very dark magic. Like mirrorwalking without rules, many witches who attempted to learn the art of it became stuck as their inner beast, slowly losing their human minds and wills.

  He helped me rise on stiff knees, and Good Ki- Adrian leaned against me, stabilizing me from the other side. Not even a hundred peanut butter sandwiches and a day-long nap could wipe away the bone-deep exhaustion.

  And, after being told that Joss was blood-bound to a therianthrope who became a giant predator, I didn’t think the spirit of my mother stalking me really sounded all that crazy and dangerous anymore.

  I stumbled out into the library with a groan, blinking against the light of the chandelier. The tables in the center of the library were already piled with books, and Eric leaned over them studiously, several of them open before him.

  “Need help with your multi-tasking?” I asked, walking carefully down the spiral staircase towards him, with Joss behind me and Adrian flowing at my side like water. I lowered myself into a chair, a headache already throbbing behind my right eye. I was still in shock.

  Wolfe was Good Kitty. I would never be able to look him in the eye again.

  Eric looked up, his expression distant. I could tell his mind was a thousand miles away and tried to ignore that I could see the gold flecks in his dark eyes this close.

  Those eyes flicked to Joss, his emotions hidden in their depths. I thought I read enmity in the set of his mouth- but maybe that was for me and my flippant questions.

  “I haven’t found a damn thing,” he said grumpily. “Entire bestiaries of spirits, but none quite like this. It doesn’t seem possible.”

  Poor Eric. Sometimes I felt I didn’t appreciate enough how much he did for me. Wasn’t that the way of all covens with their servitors? They existed to serve and protect. That was their purpose.

  I knew I couldn’t make myself feel that way. I didn’t understand how any coven could simply not appreciate their servitors. I wouldn’t be alive and well if not for Eric. We were simply too intertwined.

  Even if he wasn’t going to apologize for being an ass.

  “Take a break,” I said, my voice still raspy even though I’d drunk an entire bottle of water. “We can take it from here.”

  Eric gave me a sharp glance as he shoved away a bestiary and opened another. “You need to take it easy. You’ve been unconscious for three hours, and- what the hell is that?”

  “A mountain lion,” I said cheerfully. “But I had a nap and you didn’t, so I still think you should take a break.”

  “Why is there a mountain lion in here?” Eric looked calm, which was a deceptive front for much stormier emotions.

  “Um. Well. This is actually… Adrian Wolfe. I know, I was shocked too, but you have to admit having an entire freaking mountain lion around might be helpful.”

  Eric and Adrian stared at each other. Then, to my intense surprise, Eric jerked his chin in a quick nod. “As long as he keeps his claws off you.”

  “You’re… okay with this?” I felt momentarily dazzled. When had my entire world decided to turn itself upside down? A month ago, Eric would’ve been on the warpath to annihilate any therianthrope who got within ten miles of me.

  He gazed at me levelly across the table. “As far as I’m concerned, this named spirit wants you dead. There is nothing I wouldn’t use to prevent that.” Eric’s gaze flicked to Adrian again. “Even a therianthrope, so long as you want him here.”

  “You mean Vag Hands.” I pointed at him. “I named it. It’s her proper name now.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Tell me what I can do, Eric,” Joss said, cutting across us. For once he
left the smirks and dimples, matching my servitor’s gravity.

  Eric shook his head, his face drawn. Was he hiding something from me? Eric was overprotective to a fault, but I hadn’t seen him this distant and strained in years. His worrisome nature was starting to rub off on me.

  I chewed my lip, pulling a grimoire towards myself and flipping through it. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Skimming was not the best solution, but it would take several lifetimes to finely comb through this library.

  Joss gamely opened several bestiaries. “Give me an idea of what we’re searching for?”

  I thought for a second. “Spirits who have come back from a full exorcism and bring someone further into Death. Anomalies on the deadside.”

  He met my eyes over the books, brow knit. “What kind of shit have you found yourself in, Morena?”

  I closed a book and put it aside. “I won’t know until we find something, which is kind of the problem. I’ve got nothing.”

  “Take these,” Eric said to Joss, dividing two stacks of books between himself and the Thorne. The other witch took them from him, without a peep of dissent about taking orders from a servitor.

  An hour later I traipsed back to the guest wing alone, my eyes smarting after poring over the tiniest text I’d ever seen. Joss’s insane ideas and cocky smile wouldn’t stop picking at my brain, I was more than slightly disturbed by having a mountain lion literally reading over my shoulder, and having Eric so close, and yet so far away, was like a form of exquisite torture.

  I needed a moment to collect myself away from them. The more I considered it, the more I was beginning to believe that Vag Hands wasn’t the mastermind. Rosalind was. But why? She’d loved me. How had her servant dragged me through the second mirror?

  We would be trapped in Bellhallow forever at this rate.

  But I’d grown up knowing the manor would always provide. I stood outside my room and closed my eyes, ignoring the exhaustion prickling in my skull as I reached out to the wards. I asked for books and knowledge, feeding it my alarm and confusion, memories of the many-handed spirit I’d given a joke of a name to.

  I wasn’t going to tell Eric, but I’d given her a stupid name because she scared me with a marrow-deep terror, and I hated feeling like I was in over my head and out of control.

  Bellhallow’s alarm at my memories flared in the wards around me.

  The doors along the hallway flew open and slammed shut over and over, the sharp bark of wood on wood echoing through the quiet halls. Windows rattled in their panes, the vibration of the floor bringing me to my knees as the wards drew around me in a protective cocoon, smothering my senses even as they guarded me. I reached out blindly, unable to breathe beneath Bellhallow’s protective, smothering shield.

  “Morena!” Eric and Joss ran down the hall towards me, Adrian at their side like a pale shadow. “What happened?”

  Eric skidded to a halt in front of me, gripping my shoulders and forcing me to look up at him. I took a deep breath and collapsed, my head full of cotton and fog.

  Joss’s hands were warm on my shoulders. I was safe. They had me.

  I couldn’t even appreciate Eric’s warmth or the hardness of his chest as he held me up. The doors had all slammed shut at once, my ears still ringing from it, but I still heard it in the upper reaches above us, echoing down through the silent drafty halls.

  Boom. Boom. Boom.

  The study door, rattling on its hinges as Bellhallow told me where my knowledge could be found.

  “I need to get out of here,” I muttered as nausea surged through me, stumbling away from them and down the hall. My servitor supported me through the dusty foyer and onto the front lawn. I broke into a jog as I passed the columns, which quickly became a sprint all the way down to the van outside the gate.

  I ran my hand over the lock before I climbed in, promising to return, but another surge in the wards made my stomach flip. The wards were screaming inside my mind.

  Eric opened the door and lifted me inside, and Joss sat next to me, his arm wrapped around my shivering shoulders. Adrian curled around my legs.

  We drove down the mountain, away from the swirling chaos of the wards.

  “Whatever we need, it’s in the study,” I said. My voice was flat, inflectionless. I leaned heavily on Joss, resting my head on his shoulder. The four of us sat in the back of the van, the doors opened wide to let fresh air in as my stomach slowly settled. “I asked Bellhallow to help me find what we needed. Of course it would be there, the only damn room in that place I can barely think about without wanting to throw up.”

  “John always did want the darkest knowledge close at hand.” Eric’s tone was grim. “And well out of your reach.”

  What little there was of Woodhill stretched before us, a quaint little mountain town nestled in the trees. I focused on a neon blue sign promising cold beers. Eric had parked in front of a small bodega.

  I could be back in Ashville as soon as tomorrow. I’d just have to man up for a few minutes and go back into Bellhallow… into Dad’s study. Get what I needed, get out without looking at anything. Simple enough. “I guess I’ll just grab it and we’ll go. We can leave again for a while. We’ve got four more months until the abandonment statute kicks in.”

  “Mor… I felt Bellhallow wake up.” Joss squeezed my hand. “Everyone will know you came back.”

  I held back a sigh. If Joss had felt Bellhallow awaken, then so had Melinda. Despite the general goodwill between our covens, she was domineering and overbearing, and she’d already showed her cards to me by sending one of her sons. She was desperate to forge a coven alliance through handfasting.

  If I handfasted Joss, Bellhallow would belong to the Thornes as well. She was probably constructing a message-bird to me at this very moment, dreams of wedding bells and merged bank accounts dancing through her head.

  I sighed and rubbed my temples. When had life become so complicated?

  “What if Eric and I go in alone?” Joss asked. I leaned into the warmth of his arms.

  “No… I can do it. It’s my home, my responsibility.” The word home rolled off my lips, feeling strangely natural after years of trying to forget it existed. “I just need an aspirin before I do this.”

  I ended up with the aspirin, potato chips, and a soda. For once I wasn’t as hungry as usual, my magically-fueled appetite ruined by fear. I ate each chip slowly as I sat in the back of the van, legs dangling as I surveyed the town and allowed the aspirin to do its work.

  Joss stole a chip from me, his fingers playing with my hair idly. Eric seemed oddly fine with the Thorne warlock’s attention towards me, especially given the presence of a silent, watchful therianthrope.

  His sudden change in attitude probably meant I could expect more secrecy and silence from him again. I wasn’t very happy with the idea of losing what little ground I’d gained.

  The locals were staring back at me with open interest. Even though most humans didn’t enjoy being in close proximity to witches, the ones who lived on covenstead land tended to be more open to the possibility of friendship, or at least a good working relationship.

  That was essentially how Eric, from a long line of Shields coven servitors, had met my father, and ended up bonding to him. He’d grown up in Woodhill with his aunt and uncle, who’d passed away while he was young.

  I watched with trepidation as an elderly man was elected by a group of ladies in the café across the street. He walked over ponderously, leaning on a carved rowan cane.

  “Good day,” he said, his voice precise, my curiosity mirrored on his face. My mouth was still stuffed with chips, so Eric stood next to me, nodding politely in reply. “You wouldn’t happen to be Morena Bell, would you?” Straight to the point. My kind of man.

  I swallowed the chips quickly. “Yes, that’s me. This is Eric Shields, Bell coven servitor. Oh, and Joss Thorne. And… Good Kitty.”

  The old man looked me over after his eyes flicked over the guys and mountain lion, his expression impossible to re
ad. “We felt Bellhallow wake up all the way down here.”

  I wasn’t surprised. Woodhill and its people had been steeping on covenstead land for so long that they were a part of its web of energy, whether they liked it or not. They did tend to enjoy the ability to live out their lives with minimal spirit interference, though. There were definite advantages to having a local coven, and many of the humans who were used to the witches’ presence tended to become fiercely protective of them.

  I didn’t think I would be welcomed back after what had happened in Bellhallow.

  “Will you be staying?”

  I wasn’t going to lie to him. I liked his clear, straightforward eyes. “I don’t know yet,” I said, glancing at the ladies across the street. Were they dreading having to deal with a Bell again?

  “There’s been many disturbances since your parents died,” the man said. “Many report seeing lights in the forest, whispering from the trees… the priest has been working overtime and a half these last few years, but it’s a lot of ground to cover. A lot of homes left unprotected.”

  So they did want a witch to return and awaken the coven. Go figure.

  “I’ll think about it.” My stomach started churning. It seemed the universe just wouldn’t rest until it saw me back in Bellhallow for good. “There’s just…”

  I trailed off and the man stepped forward between Eric and Joss to pat my clenched hands with his own wrinkled ones.

  “It was a rough time, Miss Bell,” he said with understanding. The entire town of Woodhill had mourned when Mom and Dad had passed. The rumors had flown thick and fast- everyone knew the way their bodies had been found. It was one of the reasons I’d needed to get out of there, away from the prying questions. “But this old town would like its witches back.”

  I smiled shakily and he hobbled back across the street. For a moment I regretted not catching his name, but it was probably better this way. Forming attachments wouldn’t help me keep a clear head.

  “Quit blaming yourself, Morena. We’ve discussed this.” Eric murmured. His arm moved, like he was going to drape it over my shoulder, but the gesture didn’t complete itself. Joss moved instead, his hand gripping my waist. My heart did a jittery dance in the confines of my ribcage.