The Banning of Bath Bombs

Chapter 1

Declan

All Declan wanted was to read his newly acquired fifteenth-century grimoire in peace. Preferably while soaking in a fizzy, bubbly, fragrant bath. Alas, his boisterous family was doing their best to keep him from his hot, soapy slice of heaven.

Not to mention he had just walked into a book. Not a bookshelf. Oh, no. Kassandra—his beloved child, his sentient library—had decided to play a prank, interrupting his walk by hovering a book that hit him smack in the face and bruised his poor, pretty nose!

Why, yes, he was walking while reading, but that was no excuse! He shouldn’t need to worry about being accosted in his own home by his sentient library!

Even now, he could hear her bookshelves rumbling as Kassandra giggled, the cruel lass. It was fortunate she loved him, or he might have perished centuries ago from her so-called revenge pranks.

Right as he entered his room, he received a text from Gunnar, one of his apprentices. He placed his grimoire on the dresser as he checked the message.

Gun: I froze your credit card before Kass brains you with a ten-pound book-shaped brick.

Declan: WHAT?! Why would you do this to your favorite Master?

Gun: lol because Kass would put you in a coma. And Kit and the guys would die laughing.

Declan: Why is everyone so cruel to me?

Ezra: Love is pain.

Ugh. How many times must he apply for a new credit card? At least Gunnar hadn’t tanked his credit score and credit history like Kit had when he’d been truly fucked off about his book buying habits.

Gun: You know, if you find a bigger warehouse…

Kit: DO NOT GIVE HIM IDEAS!

Gun: Sorry, boo. The space either needs to get bigger, or we need to induce a coma so he can’t keep slipping around our barriers and finding booksellers who deliver. It’s your fault, Kit, for teaching him how to use a computer.

Kit: It was, wasn’t it? My bad.

Declan: You are both terrible people and should be ashamed of yourselves. What’s that newish expression? ‘You did a bad, and you should feel bad.’ Yes, that’s it.

Kit: Delaine has been teaching you current lingo, I see.

Gun: She’s great at being a bad influence.

Declan: Why is no one giving this as much gravitas as it warrants? I can’t just not buy books!

Kit: You really can.

Gun: Absolutely.

Ivy: They’re not wrong. You *can* just not buy books.

Finn: If another book avalanche nearly kills me because you’re trying to stuff a new one where Kassandra doesn’t want it, I may punch you into that coma. No meds needed.

Declan: Why must you all wound me so?

Delaine: Because we love you and would like Kassandra not to ask us to bury you under the library so she can sit on you for eternity.

Declan: She would never!

Kit is typing…

Delaine is typing…

Finn is typing…

Roman is typing…

Ivy is typing…

Ezra is typing…

Kit: We’ll let you keep thinking that.

Everyone stopped typing.

Declan: I hate all of you.

Delaine: You know you love us.

Declan: Regrettably.

Kit: *Snicker*

Declan: I’m not feeling the love. Leave me be while I take a bubble bath to soak away the stench of betrayal.

Roman: Awww. Don’t be like that…

Declan: I be like that, Roman. I be like that until my bath is over.

Declan smirked as he heard Roman’s laughter from down the hall. A warm, pleasant sound, even if it was at Declan’s expense. Sighing, Declan picked up the grimoire and continued toward his bathroom, muttering as he worked himself up into a proper tizzy.

“I mean, the utter nerve of Gunnar!” Declan cried, his voice echoing in the spacious, tiled bathroom. He then realized that in his despair, he’d forgotten a few pre-bath steps.

He resumed muttering as he turned and plodded back toward his room.

He connected his phone to the charger on his nightstand before disrobing and carrying his new, pretty grimoire into the bathroom.

Getting things ready for his bath, he pulled out his new bath bomb and set it on the counter next to his towel.

“How dare he keep me from my Amazon account?” Declan puffed up his chest, indignation rising with every item he set on the counter—wide-toothed comb, sanitized loofah, sangria from the decanter he had set with a chilling spell when Ivy had postponed his bath nearly an hour ago.

“How dare he deprive me of an entire empire worth billions of dollars selling millions of books I’ve never heard of, let alone read? There are more produced every day, and I am, what? Supposed to stay in my library and pretend they don’t exist?”

He set his new grimoire on the edge of the tub and disrobed, eager to indulge in a soak while reading.

Turning around, Declan carefully unwrapped the bath bomb, only to receive a face full of fragrant powder.

He sneezed several times, accidentally dropping the bath bomb, but thank all the gods it actually landed in the bathtub.

He did not want to clean up another mess this afternoon.

Why, no, he had not shoved that shelf full of books to the floor. Kassandra had framed him!

He grumbled while eyeing the bathtub full of now murky green water. Why was there color but no fizz? No bubbles? What was the world coming to where a man couldn’t enjoy a bubble bath that smelled like sweet pea and sugar and had actual fizz and bubbles?

His day could be summed up by disappointing froths that looked more like dirty seafoam.

Declan muttered to the empty air, “Now, I’m not normally the type to throw down over bubbles, but I have standards. In regard to bubble baths, I am judge, jury, and that bitch.”

He eyed the tub warily before looking around the bathroom.

What could he add to his poor, neglected bath water to make it fizz and bubble?

He looked at the bath bomb’s label again and sneered—effervescent his ass.

With a put-upon sigh, he wandered back out of his bathroom and glanced about his room. Surely he had something tucked away in his bedroom or—

Mother Hecate. Alka-Seltzer!

With glee, Declan rushed around the bed for his apothecary chest and pulled out two unopened boxes of Alka-Seltzer, leaving the opened one and another full box behind.

What? A man gets heartburn after a night of Tex-Mex with his family. Kit always tried to kill him with extra spice, but it was so tasty .

What was he doing again?

He glanced down at the two boxes of Alka-Seltzer and grinned like a naughty schoolboy getting away with mischief. Fizzy bath time! This would surely be epic.

He kept the thought in his head as he unwrapped every tablet in those boxes and tossed the two fistfuls into the water, watching as the tablets erupted with the long-awaited fzzzzz . Satisfied, he heated the water again as it had significantly cooled, and then finally placed a foot into the water—

—only to bump into his beloved ancient grimoire that had been sitting on the edge, sending it into the bath water.

“Noooo!” He lunged after the book to scoop it up.

The moment he fully stepped into the tub, he didn’t even have a chance to mutter a curse when bursts of light and color shrouded his vision for half a heartbeat before slowly dissipating.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

Looking up from the bath water as he slowly straightened, Declan peered around…another bathroom.

Had he teleported himself to another bathroom? Or had he changed his bathroom? Or was something else at play here?

While he stood there trying to reason out how he’d managed to swap bathrooms, he turned in the water and inspected the tile.

It did not appear there was a camouflage spell on the walls or tub. Nor were there any on the bathroom fixtures. So while the bathroom was beautiful, it wasn’t his .

Or was it?

His feet and calves were tingly, and he looked down to see the murky green water still merrily fizzing away. He stared down at the little jets of water as the sensation tickled his skin.

Something also tickled his brain, an important detail he’d glossed over, and he gasped.

Oh. Oh dear.

He glanced down at the sodden book still in his hands, and shrieked. “My tome! Noooo, my poor grimoire!”

He mentally went through his Rolodex of spells and found one that should dry the tome in moments, but it might react poorly with Declan standing calf-deep in water.

A risk he was willing to take!

As he performed the spell, the fizzing increased, the water almost burbling now as it grew even warmer. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation, but despite the spell, the book in his hand remained damp.

How could he save his precious book? Perhaps there was a useful spell inside?

Declan scanned the semi-dyed pages clinging to one another and blinked at the muddled words. Wait. This word seemed familiar. A spell…to de-coat…cats? Or a spell to shave cats? Or taxidermy?

Declan lifted the book and wrinkled his nose at the page before him.

Damnit. Or perhaps it was the spellword for travel? None of which were useful to him right now. He carefully turned the page with a whispered spellword. Oh, now this one was intriguing—a spell for eavesdropping from long distances. If he could just remember why that might come in handy…

The door opened, interrupting his thoughts, and a young, handsome man with taupe skin and a buzz cut quickly stepped through. His apple green eyes narrowed as he took in the scene. “What the fuck happ— Wait. Who are you?”

Declan blinked.

The man blinked back.

Declan actually didn’t know what had happened.

He usually sang a little refrain during such moments, something to the tune of da-da-da-da oh fuck, oh shit da da da da dum.

His natural response to I-have-no-clue-how-I-got-here situations, mind.

He tried his most charming grin. “I, my dear boy, am Master Mage Declan of Clan Galdur.”

Another blink, and the poor boy did seem to have been woken out of a sound sleep, so naturally he struggled to reconcile reality in his half-asleep state.

Declan sympathized, as he often had the same trouble, so he smiled winningly at the newcomer, waiting for the realization that a master mage had graced his bathroom like a god on holiday.

Well, he was almost a demigod. Or perhaps he was something else? If he could only remember…

“Sir?” The man waved a hand to regain Declan’s attention. His next blink appeared catlike in its indifference. Was this man not frightened by someone appearing in his bathtub?

Previous spell searching forgotten, Declan carefully closed the grimoire and regarded the young vampire.

How interesting. He was obviously a vampire, as Declan could see the bloodred energy pulsing in his aura like a heartbeat.

He didn’t seem to be a mage as well, so perhaps he had been a mundane human before his turning.

The man smirked. “Call me Ross. Everyone does.”

That’s it? No surname or clan name? How rude. Or perhaps it wasn’t rude in this circumstance? Declan had just ported out of his bathroom and apparently into this man’s home, after all.

Was this Ross’s guest bathroom, or his en suite bathroom? Was a lover in the room beyond?

“Declan?”

Declan looked at him quizzically. “Yes?”

“Your bath water looks more like a kid’s science project. It’s a baking soda and vinegar volcano gone wrong.”

“A baking soda and vinegar volcano? What the blazes does that mean?”

A soft, resigned sigh escaped Ross’s lips before he shook his head and motioned to the tub. “It means it needs to go away before I have to clean the bathtub and floor. Well, I have to clean the tub now anyway.” He said this with aplomb that most would envy.

How fascinating. So fascinating Declan tried to take a step forward to enter a proper conversation, completely forgetting his nude state and about the bathtub he was standing in.

Pain flared in his toes, making him cry out and throw himself backward.

His grimoire launched from his hands, thudding against the tiled wall above his head before dropping straight into the water.

Declan stopped flailing and landed on top of it.

“Fuck! Fuckity fucking fuck!”

He spoke a spellword and poof —the tub was now clean. He had no idea where the water had gone, nor did he care.

All he cared about in this moment was his once-again sodden grimoire. Declan shifted and fished it out from underneath him. He squeezed it to his chest, water squishing out of it like a wrung-out cloth. His breath hitched and his eyes burned.

“Oh, no. No no,” Ross said, hands up in a soothing manner. “Please don’t cry.”

“B-But my grimoire! My precious baby! How could I live knowing I ruined a fifteenth-century relic?!”

Declan sniffled, and Ross’s eyes grew a fraction wider. Then a tear traveled down Declan’s cheek as his lower lip jutted out. His heart hurt.

Declan scrambled to his feet and tried going to Ross to explain just how important this grimoire’s discovery was, but he kicked the side of the tub instead and would’ve fallen back down if not for Ross’s quick reflexes. The vampire steadied Declan and shook his head.

“Stop trying to step out of the tub like it isn’t there.”

Declan looked down and his lip jutted out a little more. “I forgot it was there!”

He played up the sad puppy act a little longer before frowning at the sensation of wet leather against his chest. Oh, right!

His poor grimoire. Something teased at his memory, about the last time he’d gotten a grimoire wet, how things had gotten, er, rather messy.

Explosions and all. He held his breath, but this one didn’t seem intent on exploding, at least?

Well, so long as things didn’t go boom, he could straighten out this mess soon enough. Er, starting with where he was and how he’d ended up here, naturally.