Chapter Eight

 

I knew I needed to talk to Emma. But first, I decided to finally get that shower—alone—and reassemble myself into my own clothes. By the time I did that, and found where Jorge had plugged in my phone, I saw that its battery was at a hundred percent…and that there were four increasingly desperate messages from Emma Foster.

I sat alone on the bed in Jorge’s bedroom, listening to the messages. My heart pounded, and not from lust this time.

In the last one, she sounded nearly panicked: “Grace, please, call me! I need to know you’re all right.”

I punched her number; she answered before the first ring had stopped. “Grace, thank god.”  Her voice was heavy with relief. “Are you okay?”

“Yes—no—I’m not sure,” I said. “I…everything’s been weird, pretty much since we had coffee on Monday.”

She exhaled. “I knew it. Oh, god. Where are you?”

I told her the neighborhood. “I’m not sure the exact address,” I added. “Why?”

“We need to talk, and it sounds like you’re not far. You need to get back here to the mansion, you and—whoever you’re with.”

“What? Why?”

“You’re in danger. We all are.”

I glanced around this well-kept, peaceful room, and the bright studio beyond it. “Danger? How?”

“I don’t think we should talk about it over the phone. Do you remember where the mansion is?”

“I do. At least, my phone does.”

“Good. Get here as fast as you can. Promise me you’re coming.”

“I promise,” I said, feeling a cold pit of fear in my belly. And, oddly, a hint of the magenta fire, wrapping around it.

Downstairs, I found all three men in the kitchen, trying to look all busy and occupied and not like they had been having a worried conversation about me. “Well?” Jorge asked. A pile of sandwiches was stacked on the island in front of him.

“Emma wants us all to go to Lady Periwinkle’s mansion—as soon as possible.”

“What’s going on?” Mahlen said. He came and pulled me into his arms.

I leaned into him, breathing his sweet scent, enjoying the sense of safety and rightness that came with being here. Why wasn’t this one amazing man enough for me? What was going on?

“I don’t know—she doesn’t want to talk about it on the phone. But she sounds very worried, she says we’re in danger and that we should all go there, fast. What do you guys think?”

Mahlen kissed the top of my head and released me. “Jorge made sandwiches.”

“No sense running into danger on an empty stomach,” Jorge quipped, but again, he sounded troubled.

I started to protest that I was still full from the ample breakfast, but then realized I wasn’t. It had been some hours, and I’d had, er, quite a bit of exercise in the interim. “Okay,” I relented. “But quickly.”

Jorge leapt into action, grabbing plates and handing around tall turkey-and-avocado sandwiches, with sides of dill pickle and curled radish slices, less than a minute later. “And if anyone wants more, I’ve got potato salad, and oranges, and…”

“This is perfect, thanks.” I took a quick bite. “This is amazing, actually, but we need to eat and go.” Emma’s concern, coupled with the bad feeling I had, worried me.

~*~*~*~

Minutes after that, we all piled into Javier’s fancy car. From the front seat, I pulled up the directions on my phone and told him where to go.

We were heading to the mansion where this had all began.

It looked different in the daylight, but we had no trouble finding the place. Javier pulled into the round driveway; a uniformed attendant stepped out and opened the passenger door. “Ms. French?”

“Yes.”

“Just leave the keys; Ms. Foster is waiting for you all just inside.”

“Thank you.”

The mansion’s grand front door was open. I walked in, followed by my three men. Emma grabbed my arm just as we got inside. “Thank god,” she said again, closing the heavy door behind us. “Come this way.”

We followed her into the ballroom…or what I had thought was the ballroom. It looked entirely different than it had the night of the costume party: much smaller, with groupings of cozy furniture placed here and there. Had they moved walls or something? I paused in the doorway, confused.

“Come on,” said Emma, pulling on my arm. “Away from the front door is safer.”

I stopped, not liking being tugged at. “Emma, what’s going on?”

“I might ask you the same thing. But over here.” She let go of my arm and stalked over to a cluster of chairs by a small fireplace I didn’t remember from the party.

I turned and looked at Mahlen, Javier, and Jorge; their confusion reflected mine, though theirs wasn’t about the arrangement of furniture. I shrugged and followed Emma.

“Have a seat,” she said, motioning us all to chairs, though she remained standing—pacing, actually. I sat down, but then her nervous energy unnerved me and I got up again. My men took seats, watching me for direction.

Emma paced past the fireplace, then stopped and looked me in the eye, deeply, keenly.

I stared back at her, wondering what she was looking for—what she was seeing. At last, she leaned back a bit, frowning. “What is it?” I asked.

“It’s clear you’re building your own harem,” she said, giving the men a mere glance before returning her dark gaze to me. “When you told me you had no intention of doing so.”

I shook my head, though not in denial, it was obvious enough. “It was true, I didn’t intend to. But it’s been really weird…I’m not myself. I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t seem to have a lot of control over things.” I paused. “None of us seem to.”

Her expression grew even more grim. “Tell me everything. From the beginning.”

“All right.” I bit my lip, trying to figure out how to begin—though it wasn’t as if I was going to shock her. As far as I could tell, this whole crazy thing had been her doing…somehow. So why was she so upset now? Wasn’t this what she’d wanted? “But…can we maybe talk just the two of us?”

“Actually, yes,” Emma said, taking my arm again. “I need you with me…and with the lady. I’ll send my men down to start talking with yours. We need everyone up to speed as fast as possible.”

I looked back at ‘my men’ as Emma began hauling me out of the room. “I’ll find you guys later,” I said. Mahlen nodded, looking dumbstruck; the twins followed suit, and then we were gone.

Emma brought me through the big room and out into a hallway, then up a lovely wide staircase. This led to another long hallway. “Start talking,” she ordered.

As we hurried down this hallway, I told her as quickly as I could about Mahlen, and about meeting his good friends the twins while we were out at dinner on our date. And then about…the next night. Last night. And this morning.

“So I suddenly have three guys, with whom I’ve had super-hot, like insanely hot, sex with. And they’re all totally not weirded out or jealous about it. I mean, Jorge seemed a bit weirded out at the intensity of our sex, and the timing caught us a little by surprise, but everyone seems just fine about the sharing. But I have…just this bad feeling about things. Above and beyond the fact that this is just completely not like me.”

She nodded, looking even more worried than before. “You’ve slept with three guys on three subsequent days,” she said. We were approaching the end of the hall, where there was a set of ornate, gold-leafed double doors.

“Yeah—I guess so.”

“That’s good, at least.” She got to the door and paused, stopping to look at me again. “So your harem is three-quarters built. Who have you picked for your fourth man?”

“What? No, you’re not hearing me. I don’t want a harem, and I certainly don’t want a fourth man!”

Emma gave me a grim look. “Grace. Listen to me. You’ve set the enchantment in motion—I don’t know how, or how the men found you so quickly—but you cannot, can not, stop it now. With only three men, the cohort is at its most unstable. You’re all vulnerable to Mundon—the demon…” Her eyes widened as her voice trailed off. “Oh my god,” she whispered. “Oh my god. No.” She knocked on the door. There was no response; she knocked again, louder, almost frantic. “No!”

“What?”

She shook her head. “Oh, this is bad, Grace. Very bad.”

Before I could respond, she flung open the ornate doors and rushed inside. And screamed.

I ran into the room behind her. “Emma! What is it?” Then I stopped, and gasped.

The room was huge, and furnished entirely in purple—periwinkle. Carpet, wallpaper, rumpled up bedspread, even pictures on the wall.

The only thing that marred the effect was the big bloodstain on the floor.

Emma wheeled back and faced me, her face pale, her lips trembling. “Oh fuck. This is bad. Lady Periwinkle has been struck down—like the demon did to you—she’s been unconscious here. We’ve been keeping her safe. We thought.”

“What…?” I could only gape at the bloodstain. The very rumpled bed. My gaze rushed to the windows, looking for signs of a break-in, but they were closed, the purple curtains hanging neatly by their sides.

“Where is she?” Emma said, her voice panicked. She went to the bed and pushed the covers aside. As though Lady Periwinkle were somehow hiding under a scrap of sheet. As though that was not her blood on the floor… Emma turned slowly back around to face me. “Mundon must have her. Oh my god. He came right into her bedroom, her inner sanctum, and stole her away. I have no idea how he managed it…”

“How could this be possible?” My heart pounded; surely it would burst from all this stress.

Emma’s gaze bored into mine. “He must already be using you.”

~*~*~*~

“Emma?” came a man’s voice from the doorway. “Oh, Emma, you found her, thank god.”

I stood, stunned and confused, looking between Emma, the bloodstain, and this new, utterly gorgeous hunk of a man.

“Stefano,” Emma snapped. “Get in here.”

He came in and pulled the door shut behind him, then turned and saw the bloodstain, and the empty bed. “For the love of all that is holy…” he breathed.

Emma ran to him and clutched his arm. “I’m afraid that’s just the opposite of what we’re dealing with here. Where are the others, the rest of your cohort?”

Stefano shook his head. “They are helping the lady’s newest men. They all suddenly, about ten minutes ago, took a turn for the worse.”

“Meaning?”

“All four are unconscious now.”

Emma let go of him and paced the room. “That must have been when Mundon attacked. He must have somehow gotten through our defenses and knocked the men out…they were shielding her.” She glanced at the mess on the floor. “Looks like she gave him a fight, at least. Now we need to find where he’s taken her.”

I stood between them, also staring at the floor. It looked like a lot of blood, but it was hard to tell with the carpet. “You don’t think she’s…”

“Dead?” Emma said, looking back at me and shaking her head. “No. I still feel a thread of her life force,” she put a hand on her chest, “but she’s struggling. That’s why I needed to get you up here, but we were too late.” She paced over to the window, then turned around and paced back, her mind clearly racing. “Damn it! I was only downstairs for a few minutes.”

“He might have gotten you too, if you had been here,” said Stefano.

“We’ve got to get to her men,” Emma said, suddenly decisive. “Come on.”

She led us out of the lady’s bed chamber and back down the hall into another room, smaller and more crowded. It took me a moment to figure out what I was seeing, in the dimness.

Four men were laid out on cots, indeed unconscious. Very attractive men; was there some sort of relationship between gorgeousness and magical capacity? Three men tended them—also ridiculously good-looking. I noticed, though, that none of the men triggered anything deeper in me. They looked good, yes; but they were clearly not for me.

Despite what Emma might have planned.

Stefano went at once to a tall blond man standing over the first cot, where a redheaded man lay deathly still. “Owen, have you found the breach yet?”

Owen glanced at Emma, then leaned in to whisper something in Stefano’s ear. The dark-haired man’s eyes widened, then he too looked at Emma.

“All right, cut it out, you guys,” Emma snapped. “What is it?”

Stefano cleared his throat. “Owen thinks…it may have come through Aiden.”

The room seemed to hush as Emma stared back at the two men. Then she shook her head. “Impossible. He’s a wild card, but I have him utterly under my control. We established that on day one. It has to be through Grace, here.”

Owen cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable. “Aiden is…a strong personality. He may still be harboring, ah, resentments about your growing power. Resentment can make any of us vulnerable. It is what demons feed on—any kind of negative emotion.”

Emma bit her lip. “We’ve been forced to do this all far too fast. There hasn’t been time to build the trust necessary to make a solid bond. We’ve had to speed the process with too much magic.”

“Um,” I put in. I only understood bits and pieces of what was going on here, but that part made sense to me, at least. “Is it magic that’s been pushing me the last couple of days? Because clearly something that isn’t exactly me has been kind of in charge.”

“I worry what that is, exactly,” Emma said darkly. “I brought you here because I needed to see what you’re drawing on to build your cohort…and what is drawing on you.”

She closed her eyes before I could respond—as if I had any idea what I should say to that. This whole business was so…improbable?

“They’re on their way up here,” she said, opening her eyes again.

“Did you just communicate telepathically with someone?” I asked.

A brief smile flashed across Emma’s face, and was quickly gone again. “Not exactly. But it amounts to the same thing. I’m bonded with my cohort, and they can sense when I want them near.” She gave me a hard look. “You can probably already do that with your men, incomplete though the bond may be.”

“I…” I started to protest that I didn’t know how, but then I was flooded with the sense that I wanted my men near me—the power of Emma’s suggestion was that strong. Or had she put some of her own magic into me somehow, just then? I closed my own eyes, without even deciding to, and thought about Mahlen. His sweet comfort, how good it felt to have his body near me. About Javier, wild and strong, how he had felt inside me. And about Jorge, our powerful connection, and how it had all kind of scared us both…

There was a knock on the door. Stefano answered it, and there were my men, along with three other men just behind them, who immediately went to Emma, all of them putting their hands gently on her somewhere—shoulder, arm, waist. Mahlen, Javier, and Jorge came straight to me. I reached for them, touching each of them, letting their strong comfort ease me.

I had called to them, and they had come.

Was I beginning to believe in magic?

“Where is Aiden?” Emma asked, in a low voice.

One of her men—the vampire I’d danced with at the costume party, Finley—said, “He went out, briefly, he said. Once we talked to Grace’s men, we realized the cohort you selected for her wasn’t viable, not for her. He said he knew just the person to complete the enchantment.”

Emma glared back at him. I couldn’t tell if she looked more angry, or more frightened. “He was not to take charge that way,” she said. “This is completely out of control.” She pulled away from her men and came and took my hand.

Startled, I stepped away from my men, though the room was crowded; Emma and I did not have much space to do—well, anything.

She glanced around, clearly with the same thought in her mind, then clung harder to my hand. “Too much of a sausage party in here,” she muttered. “And while I like sausage…”

Emma grabbed my other hand, squeezing it as hard as the first. It was almost painful; startled, I tried to pull away without thinking—

—and then the room swirled, and purple mist filled my vision—

—and then we were somewhere else.

Mostly. A distant part of an edge of my awareness still felt my feet on the floor, and still felt the shadowy presences of all the men around us…but mostly I was clinging to Emma, because the swirling purple mist threatened to engulf us both.

“What…what’s happening?” I stammered. My voice came out thready and half-there. “What is this place?”

“We have to find the lady,” Emma said, and her words drifted on the mist, I could almost hear them more in my heart than with my ears. I could feel her magic, strong and fiery in her veins, and then I could actually see it. It was centered in the core of her, just below her belly…just where my magic was centered.

Yes, I was, in fact, believing in magic now.

I gasped and tried to look around this strange, inside-out space, where the power was far more substantial than the walls and floors and furniture…if those things were even truly here. Some of the men around us burned fierce and strong. I saw the four who had been struck down, lying on their cots. Their reserves of magic were pale and thin, almost shredding at the edges.

I saw the strong streams of magic that led out of Emma to each of her three men in the room, and then two other threads. One to her fourth man…and one to the lady? They went out, away, farther than I could follow them.

And there was a thread connecting her to me.

I perceived this all in an instant, and it was like my mind opening up—like I was standing at the precipice of something, something so huge and overwhelming…something that had been there all the time, but that I had never seen, because I hadn’t known how to open my eyes to it.

Now that I had, I would never be able to close them again.

In the next instant, my memories returned. With a gasp, I remembered coming back to this mansion several days after the costume party. I’d forgotten something here—I still couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was—but it had seemed utterly urgent that I return at once for it.

It was the demon’s compulsion, Emma said, and now her words were not spoken, they were in my mind with me. He brought you back here so he could destroy you, and steal your magic.

You saved me, I ghost-whispered, because now I saw the rest of it: my unconscious body on the floor; the demon’s human vessel, Edwin, standing over me, then turning his deadly attention to Lady Periwinkle. Emma and her fourth man—Aiden, I now knew him, though I had never met him before in the real world—made frantic love in the room amid the battle, sealing their bond, creating their cohort; and then her whole cohort defeated the demon and Edwin fell to ashes while the demon fled back to his realm.

The lady had sealed all this away from my mind, but now it was back.

It’s too late, came a terrible voice, from everywhere and nowhere. I have your precious lady, and now I have the two of you as well.

No, Mundon! Emma shrieked, but not in fear: no, her voice was mighty, almost as powerful as the demon’s. I simply clung to her, holding on for dear life. You shall not destroy us. The lady is not defeated, and Grace is far stronger than you gave her credit for.

I am? I thought, but Emma’s will crushed over mine before I could hardly form the thought.

YOU MUST BE, she ordered.

I felt her power roll into me, soaring into me, crushing and smothering and too huge…and then something in me pushed back.

I am, I roared, silent as the grave, louder than a jet engine. I AM!

Yes! Emma exulted, and suddenly our separate magics wrapped around each other. Though it didn’t just happen—we were somehow doing it, and I had no idea how, I just—it was a muscle I never knew I had. I PUSHED, and I PULLED, and the magic flowed, seething together, braiding, intertwining…Emma’s magic was more purple and mine was more red, though really color had nothing to do with it, it was more the feel of it…

Foolish children, the demon seethed, but I sensed weakness in his voice.

Show yourself! I commanded. Let us see you, Mundon, and let us see our lady.

You do not command me!

I clutched Emma’s hands tighter, feeling her encouragement, her strength. She was letting me lead this battle; she had my back. I think you do not have our lady at all, I ventured. I did not know how I knew this…I could just tell that the demon hid something he did not want us to see. And that he would not want to be mocked for it.

Behind us, behind both Emma and me, the men in the room our physical bodies inhabited were also now with us, sending us their strength, their power…I felt Mahlen particularly, all the love that Mahlen had held for me over the past year; I suddenly felt the day we’d first met, when we’d noticed each other, when the spark had kindled, though we’d both crushed it down, hiding it away from ourselves, in our awkward shyness.

I felt Jorge and Javier, the power of their bond as twins and the power of their lust for me, mixed with their caring for me—it was such a tangle, we were nearly perfect strangers to each other, and yet in a more important sense, they knew me so deeply.

Emma’s hands in mine faltered and then clutched harder, and I knew—I could see—that she was having the same contact with her men. With only three of her men…I felt her deep unease and worry about Aiden, her fourth, her difficult, willful, dominant man.

And around all this I felt the other men, the cohort without a center, four men who were already somewhat bonded but unmoored, like open hearts, wounded and alone, seeking. Incomplete.

I shook my head gently, trying not to be flooded with all this knowledge, all this bewildering emotion. The demon was fighting all of us, scouring our minds and hearts in his search for weaknesses, cracks, for the wounds and heartbreak and doubt and sorrow.

Ahh, I see you now. And I shrieked as the demon found the weakness in me, the unease I’d felt when I feared my emotions were not my own, when Jorge and I had fucked so astonishingly, so earth-shatteringly, when the orgasm had drained away my very essence…

OH MY GOD GRACE Emma shrieked wordlessly, and I felt my heart fill with her power, her reassurance, her—remorse? This is my doing, I thought it was the right thing…

Then Emma and I were both incandescent with power, and it was working together—she’d seen the crack, the weakness, and she’d slathered so much magic over it, it was just gone in a heartbeat, spackled over—but this magical drain was costing us both, so I PUSHED my magic out again, following her lead, then leading her; we both surrounded ourselves with so much confidence and righteous anger, so much might—

And suddenly Lady Periwinkle’s essence was with us as well, fighting, her braid of power wrapping around Emma’s and mine, filling in all the rest of its cracks, sealing it up tight and flinging it at the demonic essence that had tried to trap us all.

And failed.

I shrieked—it hurt, it was like an orgasm but painful, like fire that was wrong, like acid—

It was gone as quickly as it had come, and I let go of Emma’s hands and fell to the floor in a crumpled heap.

We were suddenly back in the very crowded room, and I had lost my breath entirely. Emma lay on the floor beside me, also panting, gasping. Lady Periwinkle sat beside us, in way better shape than we were but still clearly shaken.

And the men, so many men. My men came to me, lifted me up, brushed off my clothes, straightened my hair, touched and kissed and comforted me. Emma’s men did the same with her, after a fashion. The four centerless men helped the lady to her feet, yet stood a wary distance back from her. I could still feel their woundedness, I was still weirdly open to them.

Emma took my hand again, pushing away from her cohort and pulling me from mine, taking me to stand before the lady. Emma gave a short bow, maybe a half-curtsey, before the lady. “You are wounded?” she asked. “We saw blood, so much blood.”

Lady Periwinkle put a hand to the back of her head, almost absently. “Scalp wounds are the worst for blood. It was just a scratch, and I have healed it.” She huffed out a short breath. “Not that I had the energy to spare for that.”

“How—what happened?” Emma asked. “How did that creature get in here?”

The lady looked around the room, at all these concerned men. Her cohort was waking up, on their cots, blinking their eyes in confusion and mental fog. Then she looked back at Emma. “I think you know how.”

Emma looked at the floor, her face a study in anger and regret.

“But I thank you for coming after me,” the lady said, with a gentle smile. Then she turned to the first stricken man, leaning over his cot, putting a hand to his forehead, whispering a few soft words in his ear.

Emma and I watched as the lady visited all four of her men. They looked stronger every minute, drinking in the lady’s touch, her attentions.

At long last, the lady rose from the fourth cot and returned to Emma and me. “Now let us leave these men to their recovery and find a quiet corner to discuss strategy.”