Chapter Seven

 

“Okay, that deejay thing was humiliating. I just love it when hundreds of people are staring at you as someone with a microphone announces you’ve just had sex.” She was trying to fill the silence. Neither man was looking at her, talking to her. She deserved it, she knew. But still. They were a team for the moment. “So do you think he’ll try to catch us before we get to the Proxenos? Try to separate me from the two of you? Anybody want to clue me in on the rest of the plan? Seeing as I’m bait and all?”

Tucker sighed, turning to face her in the quiet, empty hallway they’d been directed to. “We have to follow this through, as though we don’t know any better. At least I know now why it’s been so hard for anyone to see the victims’ last actions before the attack. This hallway has a powerful blocking enchantment. Can you feel it, Tyghe?”

His brother nodded. “Kind of unusual for a simple Triune judging, I’m thinking. Someone around here doesn’t want anyone to know what’s going on.”

“This way, all of you.” A man in a long green robe bowed his head, turning to guide them further down the seemingly endless red hallway. “Congratulations on your matching. I haven’t seen such a strong glow for years. A sure sign of a true and joyous match.”

Callie grimaced behind him. Sure sign, huh? They must say that to every trio, because she knew better. Knew it was fake. Tucker reached back to take her hand and squeeze, and she felt herself softening. He was a good man, reassuring her even after she’d been so rude. He was going to make some Magian female really happy someday. Callie would try not to hate her too vehemently.

“Here we are. Each of you are to go into one of these three doors. The Proxenos will question you separately, and then you will be questioned together before they can sanction your union officially. Good luck.”

The man disappeared as quickly as he’d come, and Tyghe raised his brow. “This is new. Separate questions? Tuck, I don’t know about you, but this feels wrong.”

Tucker nodded, and Callie silently agreed. Her senses were tingling, the tickling along her spine going crazy. Something was off. Something was a lie. She could feel it. But they had to do it. They were here for the truth, and they had to get it. She reached for her doorknob. “In for a penny…” She looked at her two men and smiled brightly. “Wish me luck.”

It looked like an ordinary office. A judge’s chamber. There was even a set of golden scales sitting on the long oak desk in front of her. But she didn’t see anyone inside. She looked around, noticing the strange scrollwork and symbols painted along the top of the wall, the glass case filled with an unusual collection of small figurines, all of blonde females, their little faces contorted in various degrees of agony. “Lovely.”

“You like my collection? I have a fondness for the artist. He knows what I like. You must be the Abbotts’s match. Callie, is it?”

Callie whirled around in surprise. An elegant, elderly woman was sitting behind the desk, as if she’d been there from the very beginning. She wore a feminine business suit, and her hair was perfectly coiffed. She’d imagined a dark cloaked figure, someone ominous, but this woman didn’t look as though she’d hurt a fly.

Still, the tickle up her spine was going crazy. “Yes, I’m Callie.”

“What makes you think you are good enough for two Abbotts, Callie? They are the most prestigious family in North America. Their lineage is made up of powerful Magians dating back since the discovery of the continent.”

Callie hesitated, and the woman shook her head. “That was unfair of me. Especially since I can see for myself that you are powerful in your own right. Your energy is strong. Was your mother as powerful as you?”

Callie shrugged, feeling she was safe enough to tell the truth. “My mother died when I was just a baby. I don’t know that much about her.”

The older woman’s eyes narrowed. “What is your compelling power? Show me. Try to use it. Now.”

Okay, this was more like it. The woman was pushing all her warning buttons. Still, she had to see this thing through. She reached inside herself, focusing her energy. “Stand up.”

The woman shifted in her seat, her hands curling on the top of the desk as she resisted the order. “Good. Again. With all your might.”

“Stand up.” She was really trying, but apart from a moment of hesitation, a moment when the woman frowned as she again looked as though she might stand up, it didn’t work.

She smiled at Callie. It wasn’t a pretty smile. “Don’t feel bad. I’ve spent a lot of time on this room. It is full of charms to counter compelling magic. You can never be too careful, now can you?”

This woman did not like her. Or compelling magic. “I suppose not. Is that all, ma’am?”

The woman stood and walked closer to Callie, studying her features with hawk-like intensity. “You look familiar. Don’t lie and tell me you are a distant Abbott cousin. I know every family in existence. You look very similar to a line that died out nearly twenty six years ago.”

She was twenty-six. A shiver of foreboding ran through her limbs. “Oh?”

A nod and smirk was her answer. “The Fairbanks family. The last of them, Euterpe, was the most beautiful of her generation. But like all the spoiled children of powerful families, she believed she could do whatever she wanted. Hurt whomever she wanted. She had compelling power as well. The power to make people want her, the power to make them want to die without her.” She took another step toward Callie, smiling politely, though her eyes were hard. “All the Fairbanks had the strangest tendency. They loved to name their female children after figures in Greek mythology. Especially the muses. Tell me, dear. Is Callie your true name? Or is it short for something else?”

Her mind reeling, Callie answered thoughtlessly. “Calliope. My name is Calliope.”

The woman gripped her wrist, hard, the strength surprising in one who looked so frail. “It’s you, isn’t it? There were glimmers of potential in the others, they were the right age, distantly connected to your lineage with traces of that evil power, but it is really you. Euterpe’s bastard daughter. The last of the Fairbanks’s line.”

She was the killer. There was no doubt in Callie’s mind. Now in some insane twist, she believed Callie was her true target. The child of a Magian. It was impossible. She knew it was. But she needed to play along. Needed answers. “I told you I never knew my mother. Even if I am the child of Euterpe, what could you want from me?”

“Oh you are her child, all right. You have no respect for authority either.” She dragged Callie closer to the desk, a pull she could not resist, despite her efforts. “When I first became Proxenos, it was an honor to my family. I had the wisdom to be the best, and everyone knew it. I could have no match of my own, but it was worth it. My family would benefit from my service.” The woman’s eyes glazed with memory. “Euterpe was my only failure. She loved two men from a questionable family. Two men who were not worthy to continue the Fairbanks line. To make matters worse, my brothers loved her. She had flirted with them at her first Triune, and they had sworn to me their magic reacted to her touch.” She shook Callie’s wrist, bruising it in her vehemence. “She was meant for them. But she fell for physical beauty over the magical law. My law. Came in here and demanded I give my approval, glowing from her recent whorish escapade.”

Callie listened, feeling suddenly sorry for the young Euterpe. “You denied her match.”

She nodded proudly. “I used my full authority to ensure there could be no further copulation between them. It couldn’t be true, don’t you see? She must have woven a spell to get her way. My brothers wouldn’t lie to me.” She took a breath. “It seemed to be working for a time until I realized she’d defied my edict and gone through another to join with her matches.” The woman looked indignant, astounded at the memory. “We got rid of the two men, of course, which wouldn’t have happened if she’d just accepted the truth. I knew my brothers would never be happy without her. I had to do it. When they left her house after the funeral, where I know she denied them yet again, they were convinced they had to fight a duel to the death to win her. That only one of them could have her. I couldn’t stop them. They killed each other in cold blood. I knew then. She had compelled them to do it. There was no other explanation. She had to die.”

Her grip twisted Callie’s wrist until it felt as though it would break, but she pushed with her energy, seeking more. “What makes you think there was a child?”

“When I killed her I noticed the children’s clothing folded neatly at the foot of the bed. I searched the house and found a crib, recently used, and I realized she’d had a child with her dead lovers. The only proper course was to find it and put it to death to restore balance.”

“Isn’t that a little over the top?”

She watched the woman lose all her composure. “Blood for blood. I had no family left, neither would she. I could have had romance, fancy dresses and gay parties, but I followed my calling. Followed the rules. She should have followed the rules. When a seer told me her offspring would appear during this Triune, I knew I’d have my chance. A Magian is forced by instinct to seek out their matches. All I needed to do was find a compeller, someone who fit the profile. I was disappointed with all my near misses, but careful. I could have sworn the last girl was the one. She tried to attack me, if you can believe it. But now I know I was wrong. It’s you. The orphan Calliope. You even look like her. It all fits.”

It did fit. That was the scariest part of all of this. Callie was the right age, an orphan. Her name, Calliope, a name that she was adamantly given before she’d been abandoned. But she’d had no powers until Harrison had used her glamour. How could it be true?

The Magian pushed Callie to her knees, the woman’s strength was unbelievable. She lifted the golden scales from her desk above her head. “After all these years, justice can at last be served.”

Callie felt a blazing heat around her wrist, then shrieked in surprise when the golden snake’s head lifted from her bracelet, opened its fang-filled mouth, biting down on the older woman’s hand with an angry hiss.

“What?” The scales fell to the ground as her attacker reached for the small snake piercing her flesh. “You shouldn’t have been able to bring any enchanted weapons into my office. I have protection.”

“You’re no longer protected, Margaret. You know the rules of magic.” The far wall disappeared, revealing Tucker, Tyghe and three other men, their faces grim. “Let the girl go. You must face your judgment.”

“But I am judgment. I am Proxenos. My laws were broken.”

“No one is above the law. Not even you.” The tall man beside Tucker reached out with his hand, his golden energy leaving his hands like a lasso, wrapping around Margaret’s body and pulling her away from Callie, her clawed hands curling as she screamed in denial.

Tucker ran to Callie’s side, pulling her into his arms and burying his face in her hair. Tyghe joined them, caressing her back protectively as he watched the others take the old woman away in silence. “I’m glad that’s over.”

Callie sighed. “So that’s it? No energy fight? No shoot ’em up?”

Tucker pulled back with a stern frown. “You sound disappointed. If you’d like to bring her in here again so you can have a crazy girl fight to the death, I can ask my supervisor.”

She shook her head. “No. It’s just, well, a little anti-climactic.”

“We’ll try to make the lack of climax up to you later. Once you agree to be officially joined with us…Calliope Fairbanks.”

Callie tugged out of their arms, shaking her head. Despite her doubts, it couldn’t be true. “Don’t you start. She was obviously a lunatic. I’m not even Magian. There’s no way I could…what?” Tucker was looking guilty. “What aren’t you telling me, Tucker Abbott?”

The bracelet snake slid across the floor casually, as if it was perfectly normal for jewelry to come to life, and Callie moved closer to the men, her laughter tinged with hysteria. “And what the hell is that?”

“I never knew Mom made defensive totems. Her jewelry is usually used for healing and luck.” Tucker sounded just as baffled as she was.

The snake began to morph, the gold growing and spreading to form itself into a four-foot-eight woman with a sheepish smile and tear filled eyes. “Jenner?”

“Sorry about that. It was the only way I was sure you could be safe. When I recognized that woman…well, I lost my composure.” She took a step closer to Callie, the tears glinting on her cheeks like diamonds. “It’s true, dear. You are Euterpe’s daughter. I know. I was the one she asked to take you away. To hide in a place no one could find you until you came into your own. I knew she was related to those crazy Magians who were stalking Euterpe, but I had no idea your mother’s killer was Proxenos. She never told me.”

Tyghe rubbed the back of his neck, shaking his head at their housekeeper. “What the hell is going on around here? You’re a morpher?”

Jenner nodded. “Rarer than compelling magic, I know. When your mother asked me to give Harrison the necklace I thought I’d found the perfect way to protect Callie as the matching bracelet”

“So you were on her wrist the whole time? Callie is Magian? Where the hell have I been for the last fifteen years?”

Tucker put his hands on Callie’s shoulders protectively. “What I still want to know is, why did you let her think she was human for so long? Especially after you knew how unhappy she was with her foster family.”

Jenner sobbed, but nodded her acceptance of the censure in both Tyghe’s and Tucker’s eyes. “At first no one could find her. Euterpe and I worked a spell to bury her magic, so she could pass as human. Stay off Magian radar. It worked a little too well. But I had a feeling the day I sent Harrison to the park. And I am the one who suggested she work on the glamour spell. I knew that her power, joined with my own, would be enough to release what was inside you.” She looked pleadingly at Callie. “I took care of you as much as I could. Loved you.”

Callie’s mind was reeling. She turned to Tucker. “When did you know?”

“Last week.” His expression was closed. She couldn’t tell what he was feeling. She turned to Tyghe.

He held up his hands. “Don’t look at me, Callie. I’ve been left in the dark along with you.”

She was Magian? The power she felt, that she’d been feeling, had been hers all along? And Tucker had known. “Is that why you had sex with me?”

Tucker glanced quickly at Jenner then away, a flush tingeing his cheeks. He shook his head. “I made love to you because I’ve wanted you since I was old enough to know what wanting was. Because I thought I’d never be allowed to have you. At least, not unless I served my people long enough to earn a commission. Then I could have done whatever I wanted. Including marrying a human. That would be the only way around the rules.”

“Magian rules kind of suck.”

Tyghe looked at the ceiling and agreed with Callie. “Amen to that.”

Tucker pulled her back into his arms, ignoring Jenner. “I love you. I have since the moment you walked, soaking wet, into our kitchen. I tried to get over it. Tried to fight it. But Magian or human, whatever you are, you are the only one I’ll ever want.”

“I would say ditto, but when you first arrived I thought all girls should be turned into frogs. But out of every girl I knew, I wanted to pull your hair the most, so I guess that counts.” Callie and Tucker laughed, turning to a smiling Tyghe. He sobered. “I do love you. More than I thought I could, sweet Callie.”

Suddenly it hit her. Everything she’d ever wanted was hers for the taking. Tucker. Tyghe. She was Magian. The men who had stolen her heart loved her in return.

“Does this mean I’m forgiven? If so I’ll be home waiting for you with some hot tea and your favorite snack.” Jenner wiped the tears from her eyes, beamed at Callie for one speaking moment, and popped out of sight.

Tyghe shuddered. “I think the family housekeeper has been holding out on us. Big time. Get ready, Callie. You know she’s making plates of cucumber sandwiches as we speak.”

Tucker smiled into Callie’s eyes. “Will you be with us? Let us be the matches of your heart?”

Callie looked at the two men. She’d known them all her life. They’d driven her crazy, but they’d always been like family. She didn’t know anything else. Where she was going, what her mother had been like, or how she would be a Magian when she’d thought she was human for all of her adult life. All she knew was that wherever direction her path took her in, she wanted to walk it with them.

“Yes. I will. I do. I love you.”

They both took turns kissing her, and her body grew warm with the memory of their earlier lovemaking. Tyghe groaned when he pulled away from her. “I think we should go back to our room upstairs. To celebrate.”

“Sounds good, but shouldn’t we find Harrison? I bet she’s dying of curiosity.”

Tucker chuckled. “Or boredom. You know she’s going to be mad that she missed all the excitement.”

Callie nodded. “Livid.” She tilted her head playfully. “Maybe she could wait a little while longer.”

“Harrison’s gone?”

Tucker shrugged. “That’s what the bouncer said. Said she ran out in a hurry as soon as she saw the enforcers walking Margaret out through the crowd. Said she looked angry, but not hurt.”

Callie watched him walk closer to where she was lying, bound on the bed. Her body was buzzing from the anticipation, as well as the plug Tyghe had inserted inside her before casually heading for the shower, sticking his fingers in his ears in case she decided to use her ability to bring him back.

She should have, but she couldn’t believe he would leave her here for so long. Now she was on fire, and as Tucker got his first good look at her face, she knew he could see her need.

“So what did your superior say?”

She bit her lip and he tilted his head, a curious expression on his beautiful face. “Sure you want to talk about this now?”

“I need to know. Maybe it will distract me until Tyghe gets back and I can make him dance around the room in a pink tutu.”

Tucker tried to hide his smile, sitting down beside her and placing his hand on her upper thigh. Callie flinched. She was so sensitive, even the air was arousing her.

“Okay, but I think the Proxenos would have reconsidered his quick acceptance of our Triune if he’d known you had such a vengeful streak.” His smile faded. “My boss checked the cold file. Euterpe Fairbanks did have a child, and a Triune match with Harrison and Lawrence Godwin.” He met her gaze, both acknowledging the significance of the names. “She’d also sent several complaints to Magian law enforcement about Margaret’s brothers. But they didn’t believe she was actually in any danger. In fact, Euterpe was under suspicion for the murder of not only our perp’s siblings, but her own Triune matches as well.”

“How horrible.” Callie’s stomach clenched. It was hard to think of the Fairbanks woman as her mother, but what she’d gone through just to be with the men she loved, to protect her child, broke her heart.

He sighed. “After she died there were no leads. Even her childhood governess had disappeared without a trace.”

Callie bit her lip. “Jenner?”

“Jenner,” he caught Callie’s gaze, his own troubled with the past. “I remember when she came to us. I found her and my mother crying in the kitchen. Mom was ready to deliver Harrison at any minute, and I remember being worried that something was wrong. Jenner moved in that night and never left. I don’t know what we ever did without her.”

“Why does that make you so sad?” Callie could see the tortured glimmer in his eyes.

“She should have been with you. Taking care of you. You should never have had to spend all those years alone thinking you had no one. That you were abandoned.”

Her heart melted. This was why she loved him. Why she’d always loved him. “She was protecting me, Tucker. The same way you’ve taken care of me since I’ve met you. How can I regret my life, when it’s always had your family in it? And you.”

She felt the ropes that bound her arms loosening, and she glanced at the bed post to watch the knots there unravel by themselves. “Tucker? What are you doing?”

“Taking care of you.”

Her body lifted, hovering over him. His eyes were more blue than grey as he studied her naked flesh. “There won’t be enough time in this life to do everything I want to do to you, for you.”

She felt herself lowering, straddling his lap. The ropes that dangled from her arms pulled her wrists over his shoulders, binding them together around his neck. “You’re just as kinky as your brother, aren’t you?”

He smiled before he kissed her. “You have no idea.”

She couldn’t think after that, lost in the sparkling energy gaining strength between them. Passion, barely dimmed by their sober conversation, flared back to life inside her. She wrapped her legs tightly around him, her tongue sparring with his for control.

He groaned, and she smiled against his lips. She could feel his erection pressing hard through his clothing, could feel the answering pulse in her sex. His hand slid between her legs and she gasped, his knuckled brushing against her clit as he unbuttoned his pants.

His lips lifted from hers and her lids lifted, marveling at the love in his eyes. “Calliope Fairbanks, you are mine. Finally mine.”

She inhaled sharply as he entered her, the plug filling her from behind making the fit deliciously, unbearably snug. Tucker noticed, his jaw clenching as his hands cupped the cheeks of her ass, pulling her closer. God, it was heaven.

“Get used to this, baby. To being filled like this every night and day for the rest of your life. I’m not letting you out of my sight again. I have a hunch Tyghe feels the same way.”

“Sounds, mmm, sounds good to me.” Callie arched her back, desperate to take more, to take all of him. She rocked her hips against him, slowly, sensually, loving each and every sensation.

Violet and darker shades of purple swirled around them, enclosing them in a cocoon of light. It felt as though she were merging with everything he was. Like magic.

His fingers tightened on her skin, marking her, she knew, as he took control. He buried his face in her hair, his teeth closing on the sensitive curve of her neck. He set a new rhythm. A primal beat that her heart raced to match.

A fuse had been lit inside her. Electricity arcing through her body in a way she was growing addicted to. Yes. So close. So… “Tucker.”

He stood up with her in his arms, his muscles bunching and rippling against her skin as he pumped inside her, hard and fast and achingly deep. She cried out, feeling her body dissolve into a blinding light.

“Tell me, Callie.”

“Love you. I love you. Oh, yes.”

He came with a shout, dropping to his knees with her in his arms as the power of it felled him. Callie felt the fine tremor in his limbs as he held her, crushingly close, and she kissed his damp forehead soothingly.

“I don’t know if I should be worried or if I need therapy, but that totally turned me on.”

Tucker huffed out a ragged laugh against Callie’s chest and she looked up with a satisfied smile. Tyghe stood in the bathroom doorway, his damp skin bare but for one small, obviously tented towel around his waist.

He strode toward them, attempting to look put out. “I can’t believe you didn’t wait for me.”

Tucker stood with Callie in his arms, holding her as easily as if she weighed nothing at all. “That was one long, damn shower for a man with a naked woman tied to his bed to take, Tyghe. You must have more willpower than I do.”

Callie noticed his reddening cheeks, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Why were you in there so long?”

He held up his hands. “I couldn’t help it. This is a fantasy reading room after all. Not my fantasy, mind you. I never imagined anything like that.”

Callie glanced at Tucker and they both smiled, thinking the same thing. She heard Tyghe let out a surprised laugh as his brother took off toward the shower at a run, with her bouncing in his arms. She knew he’d be right behind them. Beside them.

Always.