Maddox
Being possessed by my grandfather wasn’t on my fucked-up BINGO card for this week. Jonathan Elwell vacated my body after he’d given Thorne a warning, but the words he left me with were just as cryptic. Your fear is not cowardice. It is rage. Feed it.
Visits from our ancestors outside the ritual chamber are rare, but not rare enough. Papa Jon never was one for peace, and his last words were: “May all those who mourn me carry my ill will to their own graves.”
Thorne sits rigidly in the driver’s seat, his knuckles showing the tension still brewing in his head. I could relieve him of it, ask him his thoughts and let his vitriol pour out until we get back to the manor, but the lull of the engine and sound of tires on the asphalt highway are more appealing.
When the familiar, dark, pebbled driveway comes into view, my muscles ease.
Though, the storm clouds looming over the dark shingles don’t bode well for my plan to lock myself in my room for the rest of the evening.
The fall weather is unpredictable this late in the season, but I know those clouds are congregating because of Fox.
“Well, looks like we missed something while we were away,” Thorne says, parking his car and getting out as soon as the engine dies.
He’s through the front door before I can step outside into the blistering wind.
It doesn’t feel like a warning, but a welcome.
Like the atmosphere around the manor is telling me to go inside, sit by the fire, and sink into its warmth.
But when I walk inside, Fox and Thorne are whisper-yelling at each other in the drawing room.
“How could you let that happen?” Thorne asks, looking over his shoulder at me and waving me over to bring me into their conversation. “You’re not going to believe what fuckery we’ve come home to.”
Fox digs circles into his temples with his fingers, the nerves getting to him. “I don’t think she meant for it to happen, but it’s like whatever magic she does possess is trying to connect with ours. We need to—”
“What do you want us to do? All take turns fucking her until she drains one of us dry just to prove you right?” Thorne’s voice rises. His silence about Elsbeth during our outing break like a dam. “You shouldn’t have let her touch you. What were you thinking?”
“Obviously, I wasn’t,” Fox retorts.
“A heads-up would have been nice. We wouldn’t have taken so long if you had called or texted or something, Fox. What the fuck?” Thorn pinches the bridge of his nose, frustration mounting to a boiling point.
I should be surprised by the context of the disagreement, but I’m not. I haven’t stopped thinking about what it would be like to kiss, touch, and worship that woman since the second I saw her. Whatever her magic, it’s more powerful than any siren.
“She tried to seduce me,” Fox admits, defeat and embarrassment marring his features.
“Tried?” Thorne yells. “You fingered her in the library!”
I have to stifle a laugh. “That’s all?”
“Maddox, what the fuck?” Thorne rounds on me.
“He had all day alone with her.” I shrug. “If she wanted more than that, she would have gotten it.”
Both Fox and Thorne’s faces go red for very different reasons.
Thorne walks over to the coatrack, finally depositing his jacket but pocketing his keys. It’s the first time I realize that all of our rings are missing from the hooks on the wall. Is that because Thorne is worried that Elsbeth will try to escape or because I might?
After what happened at Edmund’s estate, I have to admit to myself that this precaution is valid. But there’s something more pressing keeping me within our hallowed walls.
There’s a flash of auburn hair that disappears around the corner. We should have known she’d be somewhere listening.
“Don’t lecture me about what I should and shouldn’t do unless you want to hand over your little keepsake.” Fox holds out his palm expectantly. My mind goes back to Asher’s family home and the chain hanging from Thorne’s pocket.
“It’s carrying magic,” he shouts. “I’m trying to figure out how to open it.”
If there is truth in his statement, he’s been working tirelessly on the task all day.
On the ride into Boston, he kept his hand in his pocket, concealing it until we were driving back from Edmund’s.
Whether he thought I was too distracted to notice or he needed more than just to touch the locket to soothe himself, he held it the entire drive home.
The floor creaks behind me, and I turn just enough to see Elsbeth out of the corner of my eye.
I step backwards into the hallway and see that she’s plastered her back to the wall.
She raises one finger to her lips in a hush.
I nod, pointing my chin to the end of the hall toward the kitchen.
She obeys the silent request, and I follow her into the twilight that’s washing the room in pale orange light.
Fox and Thorne are still talking, but their tones sound more defeated than angry now. Elsbeth stops at the edge of the kitchen island and presses her back to its marble edge. She wraps her arms around herself, and I can feel the verbal self-defense tensing in the air between us.
“Do you want to tell me your side of that story?” I start, finding confidence in her vulnerability.
She nods then sighs. “There’s no magic in my necklace. It’s a family heirloom, that’s all.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
She shifts on her feet. “I found Fox in the study.” A blush spreads over her exposed skin, from head to bare toes. “Things got heated.”
“He hurt you?” Fox can be rough but it’s always been consensual, but with the way her presence has affected us, my stomach sinks as I home in on the bruises on her arms. They look too dark to be fresh, and relief sweeps over me when she confirms.
“No,” she snaps, but is that a hint of disappointment? “I asked him a few questions and one thing led to another.”
Heat floods my chest. I’ve seen Fox with women dozens of times, but I can’t remember the last hookup he had outside of the rituals. And something about that fact gives me cause to worry.
“I don’t know what I did to freak him out but he . . . Well, he won’t look at me now.”
What she’s refusing to admit is that she sees Fox as her lifeline.
There’s an unspoken promise between them that gave her faith that we wouldn’t hurt her, but after their tryst in the library, that thread between them is frayed.
I don’t blame her for expecting Thorne or Asher to kill her.
In vain, I’ve been keeping my distance more for the sake of her life, not mine.
“It’s not like I want to be pen pals after this, but he was the only one of you that didn’t hate me.”
“Fox is terrible at keeping up with correspondence. But I think we both know that no one in this house hates you,” I admit, letting my shoulders relax just a little.
“You don’t?”
I shake my head slowly. “It’s not the first time a woman has shown interest in me but preferred one of the others. You get used to it.”
That admission is one I haven’t said out loud to anyone and I immediately regret it.
“It’s not like that. You just seemed . . .”
“Scared?”
“Upset,” she corrects. “But you’re not now.”
“Far from it.”
Letting off some magic pressure has calmed me, but the surge of something darker is filling that void.
When we first met, she had the unfair advantage.
Unfortunately for her, this time I do. The loud chorus of my anxiety and fear subsided when I surrendered to my nature at the Moreys’ manor.
And the temptation to unleash my full power onto Elsbeth is lurking in a shadowed recess of my soul—a threat of liberation that I’ve never let myself indulge in.
“Why did you use that charm at the coffee shop?” I take a step closer, then another when I realize I can. “Why not try to seduce me like you did Thorne?”
“You and Fox were the hardest to nail down. Fox rarely leaves here.” She lowers her eyes to the floor and kicks at a small clump of dust with a bare foot. “And I didn’t think you’d notice me otherwise.”
She’s lying. I can feel it in the cadence of her voice. Tendrils of mockery and flirtation wind together to mask the fire she had for us last night. It makes my skin crawl to hear her faux fawning.
“What did Fox tell you about us?” I continue, taking another gobbling step and boxing her into the counter with my torso. “It must have been good if you decided to rub one out on his knee. Or was it his thigh?”
Her teeth click as her jaw shuts tight. The rage in her eyes comes back to life and I’m rewarded with, “Fuck you.”
I lean down, plant my hands on either side of her on the counter, and level my eyes with hers. “That’s part of your plan, right? Fuck us all in turn? Pitch us against each other until we fight for your honor?”
She doesn’t answer but her body tenses.
“I can see it now.” I straighten my spine without removing my hands from her cage. “The four of us lust drunk, beating the living shit out of each other as you watch. Waiting for the last of us to fall at your feet. Then what? You’ll finally show what you can really do?”
“I don’t—”
“Know what I’m talking about?” I finish for her.
“Asher texted to tell me that you’d made eyes at him in the pool.
Now Fox and Thorne are fighting.” I could feel my temper rising.
“And we both know that your spell the other day was to get under my skin or else you would have hidden that charm. I am not so broken that I can’t see when I’m being manipulated. ”
My stomach churns as she pushes at my unwavering chest. But she meets my fury with her own. “You’re just as bad as Thorne. Jealous that I didn’t offer my pussy up to you the second you looked at me.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. Because it’s her own magic that has driven me to this point. It’s because of her charm that I feel crazed. She’s here because she wants to be. She’s with us because she willed it.
“You toyed with Thorne’s heart for fun. I don’t blame him for acting rash now that he knows it was all a lie.”
“It wasn’t a lie,” she shouts then pulls her anger back, surprising both of us.
“Nothing about you is real, Elsbeth. Not your name. Not your academic record. Not your intentions.” I stare down at her. Embarrassment has emblazoned the cascade of freckles across her cheeks, but she refuses to back down. “That can all end now.”
Her brow ticks.
“You could run.” I turn my head to the door that leads to the back patio, her gaze following.
“You’ll kill me.”
“No,” I say simply and release my grip on the countertop, leaving her a path. “I won’t.”
She takes a tentative step toward the door but looks back into the all-glass room on our other side. “You’re bluffing.”
“I’m calling yours,” I retort. “I don’t think you’ll run because whoever is waiting for you outside the protection of this house is more of a threat to you than we are.”
I’ve thought it through for hours. It’s no secret that she was able to rip through our wards without breaking a sweat. She could have run any time. But she didn’t try any of the doors that led outside or to our rooms. She’s lying in wait.
“Is this another one of your games?” She takes another step and pauses. “You’re going to stop me as soon as I step foot outside.”
I wave my hand through the air and the back door opens at my command. She eyes me for a long moment before her foot lifts for another step. One more.
“You won’t follow me?” I hear that trace of disappointment in her voice again.
“I didn’t say that.” I smile and slip my hands in my pockets.
“So, it is a game. Some sick version of tag.”
I cross the distance she put between us, towering over her once again. She stands her ground.
“More like finders keepers.”
“You want to keep me?”
There’s a lightness in her question. Dissecting the meanings to anything she’s said has kept me locked within myself.
Reminding myself over and over that she’s dangerous and here for a reason had me close to a breaking point I haven’t seen in over a year.
But looking at her now, with her nipples pebbled under her shirt and a daring grin on her lips, I don’t feel like I have to hide away anymore.
Footsteps from the hall behind us get louder then stop. “What the fuck are you doing?” Thorne’s presence makes her hike her shoulders, but she still doesn’t budge.
“Up for a little run around the orchard?” I ask him, holding Elsbeth’s gaze, and I see the exact moment that the thrill of what I’ve just implied crosses her mind.
She slowly takes another step back, and I hold out my arm to stop Thorne as he tries to follow her.
“Mads, what are you doing?” She uses my nickname and it grates on a nerve.
“Maddox,” I correct, and she shivers. “And I’m giving you a ten-second head start before Thorne and I come after you.”
“You’re not serious.” She looks down her body to the only bit of clothing she’s wearing. “I don’t even have shoes.”
“You won’t need them,” Thorne says in defiance. “Because this isn’t happening.”
“This is what she wants,” I counter, stepping to her side and kicking my own shoes off. “Isn’t that right?”
She looks down to my feet then back up at me, confusion then recognition dancing across her eyes.
“No— I mean, yes. I want to leave, but I’ll freeze to death.” She pulls at the hem of her shirt to emphasize the scantiness. “And I can’t outrun both of you.”
“But you want to try, don’t you?” I make a slow circle around her. “You want the two of us to chase you down in the dirt and bring you back filthy.”
I watch as her thighs press tighter together.
“You want to feel the cool earth under your feet, knowing we’re hot on your trail.” Her breath hitches. I lean down to whisper just behind her ear, “Who do you think will come first? Me, Thorne . . .” I pull the hair from her shoulder and let the strands fall down her back. “Or you?”
She takes a sharp inhale. I lock on to Thorne. His shoulders are tense but he’s not stopping me.
“Ten . . . Nine . . . ,” I start.
“Thorne?”
“Eight . . . Seven . . . ,” I continue.
“You don’t have to run,” Thorne answers, giving her a way out that we all know she’s not going to take. “Go back upstairs and this is done.”
“Six . . .”
She turns around to face me, eyes pinging from Thorne to me before she takes a step toward the open door. “Finders keepers. Right?”
I nod. “Five . . .”
She dashes out the door, the last bits of light setting her hair aglow as it whips behind her.