The Witching Hour: 11 Enchanting Novels Featuring Witches, Wizards, Vampires, Shifters, Ghosts, Fae, and More!, page 27
“Do I clean up well?” he asked, tapping my nose with his finger.
“You clean up so yummy that I’d yank you back into bed if we had time.” Satisfied that he was ready, I stepped back and patted his chest. “You’re good to go, gorgeous. Remember, we’re having the after-show party here. We may not have much furniture, but we’ve got the space and it’s the first time…”
I paused. I had been about to say it was the first time we had planned a party together, but that sounded way too clingy, considering we had only been together six weeks. But he understood.
“I’m excited too. The boys in the band know you, but now I get to show you off. And maybe this will help the neighbors quit being so prissy about having a vampire for a neighbor.” He laughed, then zipped up his coat and headed for the bedroom door. “You’ll have everything ready when we get back?”
I nodded. “Sandy’s coming over to help.” Sandy and I had seen the bottom of way too many wine bottles together. She was the friend who would help me hide the bodies in the middle of the night.
“Don’t start the party early, please.” He wiggled his eyebrows at me.
Laughing, I threw a pillow at him. “Get out of here. I’m going to shower and dress and then start setting up.”
As Aegis darted away from the pillow and slipped around the door, I padded into the bathroom for a shower. The first thing on my renovation list for the mansion had been to hire the Alpha-Pack—the local werewolf pack that owned the main contracting company on the island—to revamp the bathrooms. They had reno’d all six of them first thing after I moved in. Now, in my en suite, I had a huge spa tub, a walk-in shower, and a two-sink vanity.
I turned the water in the shower and slipped beneath the rainshower showerhead as the pulsing side jets beat a welcome tattoo on my body. Leaning my head back, I settled in as the warm water washed over me. The day had been long and chilly, sex had been sweaty, and there was nothing like a shower of warm water and amber-scented soap.
As I loofahed my arms and legs, exfoliating everything I could reach, a faint click caught my attention. The bathroom door had just opened.
What the hell? Had Aegis forgotten something? Bubba couldn’t open doors, at least not that I knew of. I cautiously wiped away a patch of condensation from the shower door and cupped my eyes to peer out. Sure enough, there was somebody in the bathroom with me, and it wasn’t Bubba. No, whoever this was was bipedal, at least.
I considered my options. I was stark nekkid, but I didn’t need clothes to use my powers. I could attack first—send out a nasty ball of energy to whap whoever it was, or I could try a paralyzing charm.
The former would hurt anybody who wasn’t immune to fire and lightning, but if it was a friend, they’d be fried. Not that most of my friends came creeping into my bathroom, but I wouldn’t put it past a few of them. The latter would only work on humans, and there just weren’t many humans on Bedlam. As I squinted, trying to figure out my uninvited guest’s motives, I detected the scent of musk and wine beneath the lingering fragrance of the amber bath gel I was using.
Hell. Musk? Wine? Those scents were all too familiar. I slammed open the shower door, almost breaking the glass, as I managed to startle the satyr. Standing there large as life, his denim shorts sporting a tent pole that would do any male proud, Ralph Greyhoof was holding my hairbrush in one hand, a plastic baggie in the other.
I stepped out of the shower, planted my hands on my hips, and barked out, “What the hell do you want in my house, Ralph? And what are you doing with my hairbrush? You have ten seconds to answer before I fry your freaking ass right into the hospital.”
2
Ralph dropped the brush. His erection deflated immediately. With satyrs, everybody knew when their cocks were crowing a wake-up call—the scent alone was enough to floor you. Being around a horny satyr was like hanging out with an elk herd during rutting season.
I’d dated one many years ago—a satyr, not an elk—and I’d had one of the sorest pussies around. Satisfied, but sore. Satyrs were huge—they couldn’t help it, but not a lot of women dared take them on. There were times when I looked back on that relationship and wondered why I had left him. After the vampires caught my sweet Tom and turned him, I’d let myself off the leash. And when my friends and I finally walked away from the carnage, we had thrown ourselves into playing wild and free, taking multiple lovers and paramours. The wine and magic had run rampant. But after a while, the madness diminished and Sandy, Fata, and I had moved on.
“I’m not doing anything.” Ralph Greyhoof shifted his eyes. He was lying, of course. I knew him from way back and I knew that he wasn’t prone to telling the truth. Satyrs were smart and they were sneaky. Underhanded? Not necessarily. Sneaky? Always.
He leaned against the vanity, eyeing me the way a hungry kid eyes a candy dish. It suddenly dawned on me that wandering around naked in front of a satyr might not be the best idea. I reached for my robe and slipped it on, belting it tightly.
“Then you tell me what the hell you’re doing in my bathroom.”
“You didn’t answer the door.” Ralph frowned, staring at my boobs. Well, at the chest of my bathrobe.
“Eyes on my face, Ralph!”
He grumbled, but met my gaze.
“I didn’t answer the door because I was taking a shower. You don’t just walk into someone’s house if they don’t answer their door, you idiot.”
“Sorry.” He didn’t mean it, of course. “I’ll go now.” He started to backtrack toward the door.
“Hold it right there.” I leaned down to pick up my brush and place it back on the vanity. As I saw the hair in the bristles, it dawned on me just what he had been doing. “You were after some of my hair, weren’t you? What are you up to, Ralph?” I shook the brush at him. “And don’t you try to bullshit me. I’m one of the most powerful witches on the island and you know better than to fuck with me, Greyhoof. Why were you stealing hair from my brush?”
He froze in his tracks, letting out a sigh that sounded more like a snort. He was tall and imposing, but he was afraid of me and that’s the way I wanted to keep it.
Around six-three, his biceps gleamed, and the fur that clung to his goat-like legs was silky, brown, and plush. Ralph was a fairly handsome guy. His eyes were wide and slanted ever so slightly. A rich, dark topaz, they gleamed with Otherkin light. His braid hung down to his butt. He was wearing a pair of khaki shorts and a muscle tank.
“Somebody asked me to.” He spread his hands. “Honest. Business has been slow and I figured it couldn’t hurt to take a side job.”
I tapped my foot. “I don’t believe you. You’re up to something, Ralph Greyhoof, and I plan on finding out what. But for now, just get out of my house and don’t you ever come in again without permission.”
He shuffled his hooves, his pretense at innocence falling away. He pressed his lips together but then bluster took over. “Yeah, well quit trying to pinch my customers! We were here before you. You just saunter over here to the island, take up with a vampire, and then try to put us out of business? You’re a leech, Maddy Gallowglass. A leech!”
“Oh for fuck’s sake. Not this again.”
Ralph Greyhoof and two of his brothers—George and William—ran a B&B a few miles away. Or rather, a bed-and-brothel, I liked to call it. The satyrs offered more than just a nice room and muffins for breakfast. They catered mostly to women, mostly, and their weekend specials came with a smile and a little sumthin’-sumthin’ extra. We weren’t really competition, but the Greyhoofs didn’t believe it and they were convinced we were aiming to put them out of business, even though the Bewitching Bedlam B&B was a lot more innocuous than the Heart’s Desire Inn.
I confiscated his plastic bag and motioned to the door. “Out of my bathroom. Get your ass downstairs to the kitchen and we’ll talk.”
He gulped—I saw his Adam’s apple move—and, after a brief stare down, turned tail and headed downstairs. I followed, deciding I’d better search him for stray strands of my hair before he left. Hair made for powerful magic. Blood was better, but hair worked just fine when you wanted to cast a spell on someone. Which is why I still had a plastic sandwich bag full of hair and bloody tissue from my ex, Craig. While we were married, every time he cut himself shaving, I fished a few of the toilet paper shreds out of the garbage and tucked them away for insurance.
In the kitchen, I put the kettle on for tea and handed Ralph a plate of cookies. “Sit your ass down for a moment. You do realize what my boyfriend would think if he found out a satyr crashed my shower in the middle of the night? And what he might do for payback?” I was feeling particularly snarky. Might as well make him sweat.
And sweat he did. Ralph turned an ugly shade of green. “You wouldn’t really do that, would you, Maddy? Come on. We go back too far for that sort of torment.” He fiddled with one of the cookies before setting it down with a grumpy sigh. “Listen. I really don’t know who the chick was, but she offered me five hundred for some of your hair. I wasn’t going to lay a whammy on you—I know better than that. But it’s the off-season. And this old decaying hunk of house is looking mighty nice now. Too good to ignore for tourists. You’re going to ruin our business.”
“I am not. We have two entirely different types of clientele.” I pursed my lips, not wanting to feel sorry for the lecher, but I couldn’t help it. Ralph and his brothers had dreamed big since the day I met them, which was shortly after I joined the Moonrise Coven. They never quite reached those dreams. They were always looking for the next big thing, the next get-rich-quick scheme. Their inn was the most practical thing they had ever done in their lives.
Relenting, I shrugged. “Fine, I’ll have mercy on you. But dude, you knock next time you come over. Or ring the bell. And if there’s no answer and it’s unlocked, stay out. And I swear, if you find out the name of whoever paid you to fetch my hair and you don’t tell me, I’ll turn you into a hamster and give you to Bubba as a chew toy. Get the idea?” I poured our tea.
“Yeah, I get it. If it helps, the woman who hired me is a blond bombshell. I swear, if somebody had figured out cloning, this dame could be a duplicate of Marilyn.” He arched his eyebrows and the scent of musk rose again.
“Monroe or Manson?” I knew just how to bait him.
Ralph let out a sputter, but then relaxed and laughed. “Either, for my tastes. But no, Monroe. She’s tall, has some sort of allure about her.” He leaned forward. “I think she’s a vampire, Maddy.”
Vampire? That was new. Aegis was the newest to come out of the coffin about his existence. There were probably fewer than thirty vampires on the island, and most of them belonged to Essie Vanderbilt’s nest. She just happened to be one of the regional vampire queens, and kept aloof, though cordial, relations with the community.
“New?”
He nodded. “I don’t remember seeing her around. She wasn’t wearing the mark of the local nest, and most of the loners are well-known. I don’t remember her name. You’d think she would have told me, but I can’t recall. But she’s got everything that counts.”
I snorted. To a satyr, that meant readily available sex organs. “Dude, you already slept with her?”
Ralph threw half of his cookie at me. “Stereotypes, always with the stereotypes. No, I did not sleep with her. I draw the line with vampires. Unlike some witches I know.” He touched his finger to his nose, nodding at me.
“Leave my sex life out of this. Aegis is a wonderful man, even if he’s dead.”
“He’s a vampire. They’re all the same, in the end—dead and clammy. But no, I didn’t mean I slept with her. She has money and isn’t afraid to use it.” He shrugged. “This is going to sound silly to you, but the woman can carry a tune. We sang together for a good two hours. I think she was bored, but she humored me. Not very many people around here will take the time to sing with us. Including that boyfriend of yours.”
The only thing satyrs liked as much as sex was music. Money was good, but they loved their music. And then it hit me. Aegis had been a servant of Apollo, who had been in a major fracas with Pan, the god of the satyrs. They’d basically created the first Olympian Idol contest, so to speak, and Apollo won. Pan had never forgotten the slight. It made sense that Ralph wouldn’t like Aegis, even if Aegis hadn’t become one of the Fallen.
It was hard to fault Ralph for being suckered in. Music to a satyr was like gold to a leprechaun or a big fat juicy steak to a werewolf.
I let out a long sigh. “Empty your pockets before you go.”
“Damn it, Maddy. Oh, all right.” Ralph emptied his pockets. A switchblade, a couple grape lollipops, three condoms, twenty-five dollars and some change, and a set of lock picks.
“Pull up your shirt.”
As he flashed me, I realized that Ralph had put on about twenty pounds since I’d last seen him. He was still incredibly built, but with a little padding around the edges. But nothing there to say he’d managed to actually get my hair out of the brush. I had no intention of patting him down. I knew where that would lead. For him. Not for me.
“All right. You’re clean, as far as I can tell. But I’m warning you, Ralph. If this woman actually does get hold of my hair—or any other anchor—I’ll know where to look. And I’ll bring Aegis with me and he’ll take it out of you in blood, and after that, I will turn you into a nanny goat who’s constantly in heat. Got it?”
Ralph nodded, eyes wide. All pretense was gone and he just looked grateful to be escaping with his skin intact. “I’ll go now.”
“You do that.” I saw him to the door and locked it, considering putting a reinforcement spell on the lock. But that would make it harder for Aegis when he came home. I glanced at the clock. I still had to get ready for the after-party.
After-party! Crap. I raced back upstairs to get dressed.
By the time I decided on what I wanted to wear—a black Bohemian gauze skirt with a skull-patterned corset, a silver-colored belt, and black lace-up leather boots—Sandy had arrived. Franny peeked around the corner of the door to my bedroom. I’d warded it heavily so she could only get in if there was an emergency, and she knew better than to fake one.
“Your friend is here. The blonde.” She sniffed, affecting a long-suffering tone.
“You don’t like Aegis because he’s a vampire. What the hell is wrong with Sandy?”
“She’s not very lady-like.”
“Neither am I. Go bother Bubba. He’s always up for a good spar.” I shooed her away. Then, wrapping a silver and black shawl around my shoulders, I headed downstairs.
Franny was nowhere to be seen, but Sandy was petting Bubba, taking care to steer clear of his belly. Cjinns were sneaky. While they were all cat on the outside, in their heart and soul they were djinns and they granted wishes based on belly-rubs and how persnickety their mood was.
A happy and purring cjinn? Might be magnanimous. An irritated cjinn would twist your words into the worst possible meaning. Trouble was, they could read emotions and—I suspected—thoughts, to a degree. If you offhandedly were talking to a friend while petting a cjinn’s belly and you happened to say, “I wish I had a million bucks,” you might very well find yourself the owner of a very large herd of elk. Mostly, it was safest to avoid the stomach area, especially when Bubba offered his fuzzy tum-tum up for adoration.
“You look good.” Sandy gathered up Bubba, kissed him on the nose, and gently tossed him on the sofa. He gave her the stink-eye and wandered off. “In fact, you look good enough to eat. Hope Aegis has been topping off the tank at the blood bank lately.”
I snorted. The local blood bank also took donations for vampires who didn’t want to drink from humans. Aegis used it more often now, given how I felt about him dining on our friends. “Yeah, he has. And you look good, too.”
Sandy Clauson was five-nine, thin, blond, and seldom showed up for anything other than parties in yoga pants and a crop top. She had the abs for it but despite the new-age getup, she was as experienced a witch as I was. We had been in the same coven for years, and friends for what seemed like forever.
The Moonrise Coven had been around since 1950. I had been one of the founding members, along with Sandy, and Linda Realmwood, whom we agreed would take the role of High Priestess, given neither Sandy nor I wanted the responsibility. Linda had the power to hold the title and the wisdom to wield it.
Linda’s great-great-grandmother had originally been from Norway before arriving in Newfoundland around 1000 CE. Over the years, her descendants moved southwestward into what was now the United States, long before Columbus ever set foot on native soil. The family intermarried with Native Americans, and eventually, Linda’s mother-to-be, Greta, married Mohe, a Cherokee brave from the AniWaya Clan. Mohe brought Greta into the tribe as his wife and in 1797, Greta gave birth to a daughter, Linda, and gave her her own family name—Realmwood—as was her family’s custom. Linda took on the wolf spirit for her animal guardian, given her father’s tribe was the Wolf tribe, and she learned her mother’s magic.
Linda had also been elected mayor of Bedlam in 1995 and nobody would let her even think of retiring. She did a good job and everybody trusted her.
“So what’s the theme of this shindig?” Sandy wandered over to the bar and poured herself a snifter of brandy. “Want one?”
“You have to ask? Of course I want one. And tonight is a pre-Solstice party for the band and their families. I’m making eggnog, so let the brandy flow.” As I accepted the drink and gently swished the drink, warming the glass in my hand, Sandy glanced around.
