Fox
Elsbeth refuses to speak to me. If I didn’t know any better, I would think it was embarrassment.
I shouldn’t know anything about this woman’s mannerisms. I shouldn’t be able to step into her room and dress her wound and instantly feel the shift of tension between us.
Because there shouldn’t be tension—or anything for that matter—between us.
So why am I fighting the urge to march upstairs and demand her attention?
“I think I liked it better when we didn’t know what we were up against.” Maddox sighs from where he’s been planted for the last hour.
“She can’t be a Noyce. They died out fifty years ago.
” He’s standing in the doorway of the solarium as vines of ivy and jasmine stretch down from the ladder that arches over his head.
Thorne and Mads made it back to the manor moments after Asher had taken Elsbeth upstairs to bathe .
. . and from the sound of it echoing off the hall, a lot more.
Though, when Asher joined us for dinner, he sulked until we were finished eating.
Apparently, the news he carried needed to be delivered on full stomachs.
Thorne has been switching between pacing the kitchen floor, sitting on the island counter, and storming halfway up the stairs before returning to count the tiles once more.
“People have secret affairs all the time. Alric is proof of that,” Thorne counters, but that’s the broadest stroke over the truth.
Alric’s origin would send most American literary historians into a frenzy. Being the secret lovechild between two of our most powerful and public legacy families would earn the coven prime-time coverage on CNN or Dateline.
“Can we please stop saying that atrocity’s name?
He’s going to appear from the shadows like the demon he is.
” I pick my plate up and take it over to Asher at the sink.
He rinses it before putting it into the dishwasher.
Nothing like domesticity to balance the otherworldly chaos knocking at our door.
“Demons have more respect than that,” Maddox says, lifting his hand up to meet the tendrils weaving themselves into his hair. Their light green threads hug the golden strands as fresh white petals burst from their buds and decorate him with a grateful crown of jasmine flowers.
“No,” Asher chimes in. “Demons have restraint and someone to answer to for their misuse of power. Alr—that vermin doesn’t have a fearful bone in his body.”
“I told you we should pit them against each other and deal with the winner after.” When I repeat my intoxicated idea, this time a gnawing sensation in my gut bellows. “Maybe she’s the answer to our Alric quandary after all.”
“We aren’t that desperate with either opponent,” Thorne dismisses. “The last thing we need, especially now, is for my great-great-great-uncle to feel as if he has an open invitation to the legacy manor.”
Alric isn’t a stranger to these halls. All legacy families are invited to the feast the coven orchestrates in honor of the new generation moving in.
It’s supposed to be a way for our lineages to reconnect with the magic that breathes through the walls, soil, and foundation.
A show of good faith that the torch being passed will come with watchful eyes.
But once the pageantry tradition is completed, only reigning legacies are permitted freely without an escort.
“You’re sure the Noyce line ended?” I direct to Maddox, who has allowed the ivy to wrap itself around his arm. “It’s hard to refute her claim from memory.”
“It would be if my line hadn’t merged with the remaining Noyces two hundred years ago. The last daughter was married to the Elwell spare over a hundred years ago, before they were consumed by the same fire that took out the east wing.”
“What are you talking about?” Thorne stops his pacing. “That fire didn’t claim a legacy.”
Maddox delicately untangles himself from his persistent friends.
“You’re right. It didn’t claim a legacy, but it did devour the last of the Noyce blood in our coven.
” He starts walking down the hall toward the study with a wave of his hand for us to follow.
“After the Hales broke from the Noyces in the 1700s, the Noyce line was forbidden to contribute a sacrifice to the harvest by the coven elders. Something about the magic being tainted by traitorous intentions.”
Maddox continues to recount the lore as we follow him through the house to the east wing.
Though the ritual space has never been touched by modern tools, the rest of the manor had routine reconstruction and rehabilitation from floods, fire, and time.
While there are bits of the original structure at the core of the house, the east and west wings were added in the late 1800s.
The 1900s brought about modern conveniences and entertainment such as the pool, media room, and updated indoor plumbing.
“That changed in the early 1900s due to a drought. The elders in the Noyce and Elwell families swore that the Noyce line had been wrongly silenced and the old gods demanded they remerge. And for two harvests, it seemed to do the trick.” Maddox makes a beeline to the Elwell legacy diaries, expertly extracting a volume and flipping through its pages.
“Mm-hmm, yeah, right here: ‘Lottie Noyce’s bountiful bosom heaved a powerful blessing onto the coven this moon. My betrothed is a powerful witch, commanding all manner of forces onto her vessel.’ And by the next ritual, a mysterious fire had taken Lottie’s life and half the house. ”
He holds the book open to his chest and takes two more volumes down before crossing the room to the oversized, solid oak desk that none of us have ever claimed. It’s one of the only pieces of furniture that survived that fire all those years ago.
The long top drawer screeches open as he yanks at the brass handle. With a thud, he drops the thick, black leather-bound portfolio out onto the desk. He flicks open the heavy cover and starts thumbing through the brittle yellow pages.
“Why are you looking through that?” I ask him but meet Thorne’s worried gaze.
The ledgers go back hundreds of years, each name and family lineage carefully documented by the past legacies during their time.
“If she died in the fire, why are you looking through the family trees?” Thorne adds, crossing the room to stand across the desk from Maddox.
“Apples and all that,” he answers, not lifting his eyes from where his finger trails down the contents page.
“Who’s to say that she didn’t just give me a useless name to throw us off her scent?” Asher sidles into the room at last.
He shoves his fists into his pockets, looking all too much like a scolded toddler.
“She finally got under your skin,” Thorne states. “Welcome to hell.”
“Fuck off,” Asher says under his breath and kicks at the tattered edge of the rug. “She would have remained a surface-level annoyance if you had just fucked her properly.”
Anger whiplashes through me. We don’t attack one another; we haven’t since we were rowdy teenagers fueled only by our hormones and newly found abilities.
Back then, we were clumsy and green. A heated argument wouldn’t level an entire city block.
Once we gained more control over our magic, we put our responsibilities ahead of our egos, meaning killing each other over petty bullshit like this is not an option.
So why am I suddenly overly aware of the humidity gathering in the room?
“An annoyance?” I can’t help but single that word out. “Which was more bothersome: the fact that she chose to keep her distance from you and go after Thorne first, or that she only looked in your direction after she’d already taken the rest of us in turn?”
Before I can regret my words, Asher is across the room with his hands around my throat and my body is lifted into the air. My feet kick out, looking for purchase, but only find the hard wall of his torso.
“Asher!” Thorne’s voice pierces through the study, and I see the top of his head at my side a second later.
Asher flicks Thorne away easily and something behind me cracks.
Thorne groans in pain. When Asher refocuses on my red face, I smile.
Magic tingles at my spine, and when I don’t send it back to where it erupted from, it rushes to my hands.
Water vapor collects and fills the spaces between my clutching fingers on Asher’s wrist.
“Come on, you big baby,” I taunt, willing my lifeline to build into a thick layer of defense. “Is that all you’ve got?”
My magic molds to his body, trapping him in a barrier.
He takes a deep breath as it swallows him whole, covering his nose and mouth but leaving his eyes unobstructed.
If he’s going to kill me, he’ll be forced to live with the vision of my dying breath forever.
His oxygen-deprived face reddens and the veins in his neck start to bulge.
“Fuck! You’re killing him!” Thorne returns to our sides but keeps his distance. “Don’t make me fucking do it, Fox.”
“Don’t get between them, Thorne,” Maddox deadpans. “You remember what happened last time.”
“Sure, Mads,” Thorne calls over his shoulder, his voice rising over the pounding of blood in my ears. “Then you can answer to the coven if they ask why I just stood back and watched two of the most powerful legacies in three hundred years kill each other over a woman who wants us all dead!”
“I’ll have the script written if it comes to it,” Maddox volleys. “Jealousy is a poison they have to bleed out.”
I chuckle at the flash of anger Maddox ignites in Asher’s eyes.
“Do you think I’m jealous of you, Asher?” I grit out. “Do you think I wish I were the last person she cared to touch?”
Asher’s grip has already eased, but he still has me suspended in midair by my now soaked hoodie. But I’m not going to be the first to relent. I don’t need the defeat like Asher does, even if I do deserve it.