It's All Relative by Jordan Castillo Price
Summary:The ABCs of Spellcraft #14
If Spellcrafters value anything, it’s family. (And a good deal from the clearance rack, and an exceptional hand of poker. But mainly family.)
So, when a long-lost relative surfaces, everyone is absolutely thrilled…until the newcomer challenges Dixon for the title of Hand.
Yuri is perfectly willing to force the usurper back under whatever rock he crawled out from, but Dixon insists on proving himself the best man for the job. A magic string chose him as the Hand, after all. And while Spellcraft can be capricious, surely it would never let Dixon down.
Would it?
To make matters worse, Dixon’s attention is divided. Not only is he scrambling through town on a magical scavenger hunt, but a Handless customer with a sob story has him searching for her lost dog. Because, as Yuri points out, there’s always a dog.
From one end of Pinyin Bay to the other, the whole family pitches in to help Dixon keep his rightful place in the final installment of this heartwarming series.
The ABCs of Spellcraft is a series filled with bad jokes and good magic, where M/M romance meets paranormal cozy. A perky hero, a brooding love interest, and delightfully twisty-turny stories that never end up quite where you’d expect.
Original Review February Book of the Month 2023:
Say it ain't so! The end is here! No more Dixon and Yuri! As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end . . . doesn't mean I have to like it😉.
The ABCs of Spellcraft may be over. No more new adventures for the always over-optimistic and endless ray of sunshine Dixon and his stern but never not supportive man-friend Yuri, and the incredibly intriguing cast of wacky family, friends, and occasionally not-quite friendly characters. Yes, that's sad to hear but their adventures will live on in re-reads and re-listens and they will never get old, I will never tire of re-visiting Pinyon Bay for a ride-along. For me, that statement alone is the best way to explain how much I enjoy this series and characters. I have a list of books that I re-read/re-listen to every summer, it's not that long but the year would never be complete without them and I am 99.999% certain Spellcraft has just hitched a ride on that list.
Now, as for the final entry, It's All Relative, itself.
What can be said that hasn't already been mentioned in my previous entries reviews?
Jordan Castillo Price has a unique and creative way to bring the world of magic to life, to make it real, to make one look up and expect to see a crafting, or the result of a crafting, float by your front window. Frankly I don't know how Yuri stays so calm. If my significant other had the never-ending energy that Dixon lives life by I would be off my rocker. My mother always looks at life postiviely but her views on "it's going to be okay" has nothing compared to Dixon, so I don't know how Yuri does it but he manages to not only stand by his man sanely but he does so with Dixon's family as well. His desire in Relative to see Dixon keep his place as the Hand probably tests his control more than any other obstacle the couple has tackled but he maintains his voice of calm and focus.
I've probably given away more than I intended to so I won't say more but know it's brilliant and if this series had to end, I can't think of a better way to do so. This series is simply put: FUN! FUN! FUN! FUN! and what's the word I'm looking for? Oh yeah: FUN!!!!!
Now I realize that for some 15 books, even novellas, can seem daunting if you haven't been reading as they've been released. That's a lot of zany, madcappery magic to digest but trust me, you won't regret it. Dixon and Yuri and the whole Spellcraft gang is so enjoyable the time will fly by and before you know it you will be where I am right now, the end with no more new coming and you'll be a little sad but also happy for having discovered such a crazy, fun, romantic, entertaining universe.
Summary:
Tit For Tat #2
Although college senior Greg has sworn off entanglements to focus on his grades, he can’t ignore the lure of a Halloween-themed escape room. The hot guy behind the counter turns out to be a far more interesting mystery than the puzzle his friends picked.
Prince Alaric has to be careful who he chooses for a partner. The fairy realm he will one day rule can be influenced. Someone like his ex-boyfriend, the Lord of Spiders, could push the balance of the kingdom's magic toward malice. But someone like the enticing, imaginative young man who just walked into Halloween Escapes might be exactly who Alaric has been searching for.
After a tantalizing kiss in a secret hallway, Greg stumbles into Alaric’s kingdom. Alaric is quick to follow, but before he can return Greg to the mortal world, the fairy land decides to test Alaric and disables his magic. Now, they’ll have to journey to the castle to find Greg’s way home. Or maybe Greg is right where he belongs…
His Fairy Prince is a stand-alone novel that features a guy who's never fit in, a prince who longs for true love, the occasional spider, and a sentient kingdom that's decided to smoosh the lovebirds together. With hints of spiciness, this book is 60k words of autumnal, spooky adventure.
Prisoner of Shadows by Sam Burns & WM Fawkes
Summary:Lords of the Underworld #2
For more than five thousand years, Prometheus has been chained in the underworld. Every day, an eagle tears out his liver. Every night, he heals. When Hermes releases him in a gambit to save himself from his father’s wrath, Prometheus must adjust to a world that’s forgotten him. Hunted by the twins, Artemis and Apollo, he finds help in an unexpected place.
Julian Bell is a vampire lost. He left his Louisiana home in 1936 and hasn’t settled since. Ten years ago he followed his best friend to New York, but the country they came to wasn’t the America he left. After losing his friend, he found himself unmoored in a strange land. As he nears his hundredth birthday, he’s realizing how truly alone he is.
When Prometheus and Julian’s paths cross one fateful night, they find in each other a safe path through the shadows.
Julian Bell is a vampire lost. He left his Louisiana home in 1936 and hasn’t settled since. Ten years ago he followed his best friend to New York, but the country they came to wasn’t the America he left. After losing his friend, he found himself unmoored in a strange land. As he nears his hundredth birthday, he’s realizing how truly alone he is.
When Prometheus and Julian’s paths cross one fateful night, they find in each other a safe path through the shadows.
Summary:
Princes of Mayhem #1
Disaster #1: Fun With Family
Nolan is the hot but grumpy goth boy who lives across the street from perpetually sunny necromancer Sky.
Nolan wants nothing to do with Sky.
That is until his older brother is on the run from a local vampire clan after he failed to deliver on a promise.
Nolan is about to learn that vampires, shifters, witches, and magic are very real. He needs an expert to guide him through this dangerous world.
It's Sky's time to shine!
And just maybe he can win the heart of a grumpy introvert. (Assuming he doesn't scare the man to death first.)
How the Necromancer in the Gold Vest Saved My Life is a serial comprising four novellas that follow the insane adventures of necromancer Skylar Wallace and his next-door neighbor Nolan Banks. This book contains vampires, werewolves, witches, underworld minions, danger, surprises, sassy corpses, and some pretty amazing sandwiches.
Summary:
Breaking Free #7
University student Demir Higgs is on the fast-track to graduate with honors and dive straight into medical school. His career plan leaves little time for dating, so after he catches his casual boyfriend cheating, Demir attends an anonymous sex party, determined to finally lose his virginity. He chooses an older alpha in a red mask and the man takes Demir apart piece by glorious piece, worshiping his body in ways Demir never imagined. Too bad he’ll never see the man again.
After his bondmate disappeared eleven years ago, Senior Constable Brandt Lars fell into his work and avoided dating, disinterested in relationships. Not until the boy in the blue mask. Introducing the young beta to the wonders of sex was Brandt’s absolute pleasure, and he can’t stop thinking about him—until Brandt comes face to face with Blue in the form of Demir Higgs, the middle son of a work colleague. Demir is equally drawn to Brandt and their chemistry is through the roof. The age difference is an issue, but their attraction is real, and stolen moments turn into a secret relationship they both enjoy…but something is still missing.
Years ago, Oliver Strand lost all his memories in a horrible car wreck that left his face scarred and his sense of smell obliterated. But he built a new life for himself and his son, and now he’s visiting Sansbury Province as a guest speaker at a territory-wide anti-sex-trafficking conference. What he does not expect to find at the conference is an alpha he doesn’t know, but who insists Oliver is his missing mate Ollie Lars, who disappeared the same week as Oliver’s accident.
Brandt is overjoyed to discover his bondmate is alive, despite Oliver having no memory of his old life in Sansbury, and he’s determined to keep both mate and son in his life. But he’s also in love with Demir and doesn’t want to lose him. Demir is ready to be the bigger person and step aside so the Lars family can be together again—until Demir realizes he and Oliver have unique chemistry of their own. And they’ve also both been claimed by the same alpha.
Can a grumpy alpha in love with two men, an omega with no memory of his mate, and a beta determined to chart his own course find a way to navigate the complicated waters of a poly relationship? Or will all three men end up stranded alone with broken hearts?
NOTE: This is a non-shifter, M/M/M Omegaverse story with alpha/omega/beta dynamics, heats, knotting, and mpreg. In this world, omegas are second-class citizens, but they are working toward gaining more civil rights and protections under the law. Series warnings for mentions of past physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. Additional warnings for extremely kinky sex, including dirty talk, light spanking, biting, edging, roughhousing, come-swapping, and threesomes. This series is best read in numerical order.
It's All Relative by Jordan Castillo Price
1
DIXON
The Practical Penn Spellcraft shop has been in my family for years. My folks partnered with Uncle Fonzo to start the business while I was still in diapers—and, for the record, I was very easy to potty train, unlike Tuesday. Probably because even at that tender young age I was so concerned about disappointing anyone—while Tuesday is probably the least motivated baby I’ve ever known. Though she’s so utterly adorable, no one really minds.
I’d spent my childhood at Practical Penn playing hide-and-seek with my cousin in the various offices. My school years doing homework on a desk where enchantments were Scribed. And, more recently, the occasional weekend helping clean out the cages of the various small animals we’d inherited from Precious Greetings.
But as for actually working there as a Spellcrafter? Between my walkabout after college and the span of time I’d endured as an unquilled WheelMeal driver, the hours I’d clocked in the family business were surprisingly few.
I plucked a curved piece of metal from the supply cabinet and held it up for inspection. While my inventory list did contain some pretty obscure items, we Scriveners do know our stationery well. Surely it was just a matter of eliminating the various tools I recognized, and whatever was left would cause recognition to dawn.
I was debating whether the object seemed more like a distance page-turner or a rubber band stretcher when I realized a shadow had fallen across the curve of the metal. I turned and found my mother filling the doorway to the supply room, hands on hips, looking very businesslike indeed. She knew this office inside and out, so surely she’d know what it was. The trick was in not letting on that I didn’t. I smiled my winningest smile and said, “So, if one were looking to loosen up his rubber bands….”
“Give me that.” Mom snatched the mystery object out of my hands and tucked it into her cardigan. Either she has extra pockets in there or she’d just developed the ability to hold onto various small items with her body mass—a handy trick to be sure. “It’s the arm that holds a globe on its stand, but the globe shattered years ago and the stand turned to rust. I’d better get rid of it while your father’s off running errands.”
I turned to the list in my hands and added the words Globe Holder…then dutifully crossed them off.
Mom blinked in that way she does when she’s counting to ten. “Dixon, is this really necessary?”
“The Annual Reckoning must be completed in an orderly manner,” I said brightly, quoting a pamphlet I found stuck to the back of a desk drawer in Shirque Mansion. It was printed in 1948, so all the men in the photos are wearing hats and smoking cigarettes—but fortunately, Spellcraft traditions themselves are pretty timeless.
“Everything’s there in black and white on the spreadsheet I printed out,” Mom said. “All you need to do is sign it.”
“If I wanted to scrape by doing the bare minimum, then sure. I could read through the spreadsheet, ink my very fetching signature at the bottom of that form, and be done with it.”
“You think that’s the bare minimum? Your uncle never even bothered to sign the darned thing himself, let alone read it. Look, I get that you take pride in being the Hand of the family. None of us can argue with that. But no Hand in their right mind would do all this manual bean-counting unless they were planning to Fold.”
Obviously, the last thing I wanted to do was liquidate the business and leave everyone in my family unemployed. Not to mention invalidating the work order that kept Yuri in the country.
However….
“These beans you’ve just referenced—I’m not seeing them on the spreadsheet.”
The chime of a customer coming through the door interrupted our lively debate, and Mom threw her hands in the air and bustled off to go see what they wanted. And since the tallying of staples, pencils and paperclips had indeed grown truly tedious, I followed her out to the front counter.
A red-haired woman in her mid-thirties stood in the lobby, visibly fretting. There was a nylon strap of some kind in her hands, and she twisted and re-twisted it nervously as she rocked from foot to foot, scanning all the various signage, from the jaunty “Got Problems? Spellcraft is the solution!” to the stern, “No Bad Checks…Or Else.”
“Can I help you?” Mom asked the woman, in a brusque, no-nonsense way most Handless find oddly comforting.
“Gosh, I sure hope so. I was told that—”
Outside, a car horn blared. Not just a polite toot-toot, either, but a long and weirdly loud bellow that went on and on. I hurried around the counter and pressed my face up against the glass to see what such a beepable offense might be, only to find a little old lady pawing desperately at her steering column trying to get her horn unstuck. A truck driver had stopped to help her, but despite his intervention, the honk just kept right on honking. Eventually, he gestured in the direction of the nearest mechanic, and the old woman hastily drove off, the beep fading behind her as she turned a corner and was gone.
“Wow,” I said, “that must’ve been painfully loud from inside the car. I’d hate to have all that beepage blasting right in my face. Good thing the horn on our truck stopped working ages ago.” I turned toward the customer. “Now, how can we help?”
“This is a prime example!” she said. “Every time I—”
A raucous clatter cut her off. I whirled around and saw the truck that belonged to the helpful driver had opened up, and hundreds upon hundreds of cans had fallen out the back. I was excited for a split second there, imagining such syrupy delights as fruit cocktail and cherry pie filling up for grabs, distributed throughout the neighborhood like tiny treasures waiting to be stumbled upon later. But then the vegetables painted on the side of the truck quashed my nascent fruity fantasies.
Still, the spill was entertaining. Those cans could really roll! Though why they were just loose in the back of the truck to begin with was anyone’s guess.
Eventually, the cacophony ebbed long enough for the red-haired customer to say, “I can’t take much more of this. I need someone to—”
Suddenly, we were enveloped by the rousing sound of a marching band. Through every speaker in the building, from the stereo that usually piped in Musak to the intercom no one ever used (as it was a lot quicker to just yell) some vaguely patriotic parade music blasted forth. Rufus Clahd reeled out of his office with an empty CD case in his hand—the title of which was March! March! March! He waved it around a few times, then stumbled back in.
Mom held up a Just-a-Sec index finger and bustled off to help our Seer with his musical selection. That left me standing there in the lobby with the customer—not usually a problem, but the fact that we couldn’t talk was surprisingly awkward for me. I offered her an encouraging smile and she tried her best to smile back, though really, it came out as more of a wince.
Banging and clanging ensued, and the rousing march went skip-skip-skip, sounding oddly techno as it stuttered over the end of a cymbal crash replaying the blat of a trumpet. Several bangs later, the march fell silent, and my mother stomped out of Mr. Clahd’s office, muttering, “Why we let him have access to the sound system, I’ll never know.”
The customer was just about to try again when Mom cut her off with, “Not one more word, young lady. Not until I get a look at that piece of Spellcraft in your pocket.”
The customer sagged all over with relief, pulled out the paper, and slid it across the desk.
The Seen was adorable—something right out of a children’s book, with a poodle frolicking in a green field of grass dotted with pastel wildflowers, puffy clouds overhead, and a butterfly circling lazily in the sky.
But the Scribing overlaid on the clouds was downright puzzling.
Nobody listens to me.
“I see the problem,” Mom said, as the customer nodded so vigorously I was worried she’d make herself dizzy enough to keel over. Not that that’s ever happened to me. Lately. “Crafting a Spell is challenging enough. It’s part discipline, part innate ability, and part luck. Most people who discovered a Crafting like this on their person would just tear it up, and it’s a good thing you didn’t. That might only make things worse. If you figure out who saddled you with this thing, you’d have a good case against them—though bringing it to the authorities would be a challenge in the state you’re currently in.”
The customer shook her head no.
“That’s good. I don’t recommend involving the law where something like this is concerned. Litigation and Spellcraft are an unpredictable combination. My advice would be to neutralize the Crafting—which just so happens to be my son’s specialty. But it doesn’t come cheap.”
The customer whipped out a credit card and flapped it up and down.
“Fine. Dixon?” Mom gestured at the Crafting. “It’s in your capable hands.”
Bursting with pride over my mother’s genuine praise, I gingerly picked up the Crafting and took it back to my office. It was the smallest office with the worst view—and it smelled like burnt mozzarella—but now it was so much more than a place to keep the nocturnal animals no one wanted in their house. Don’t get me wrong, the super loud toad was still there…but he was currently asleep, so he made a perfectly acceptable office mate.
Aside from the cages and tanks, there were now various Spellcrafty things a Hand might need. Copies of all the contracts and forms involved with the business. A giant box of dubious receipts. Contact info for the other local families, as well as a pile of generic gifts I might give if a social obligation cropped up…though someone had broken into the chocolates and taken a bite out of them. The fancy soaps, too.
In short, my office was a real office. And while I had once balked at the thought of joining my family business, now that I was actually rolling up my sleeves and getting down to work, I found it surprisingly empowering.
Though I had to admit, it was a lot more fun now that I was technically in charge.
I cleared my desk, drew my quill from its case, and lay the Spellcraft on the blotter. It wasn’t a curse—curses are in a horrific category all their own, and I’d be just as glad to never see one again—but it was definitely a hindrance. I would have expected the vibe it gave off to feel negative somehow. But when I turned it this way and that and tried to get a sense of the telltale tingle, it just felt…tingly. Nothing more.
If it weren’t for the actual words, I would’ve taken it for a perfectly benign Crafting. Maybe it was meant to teach someone a lesson. Or maybe it was just a poorly thought out practical joke. Whatever the reason, the only thing that mattered now was how to Uncraft the Spell.
His Fairy Prince by JS Harker
Alaric shrugged and mimicked Greg’s posture, hooking his fingers into his belt loops and leaning against the wall. “What if I genuinely want to know you?”
“Knowing people generally starts with names, not kisses.”
“My name is Alaric. Yours is Greg—I overheard that in the lobby. There, now we aren’t strangers.”
Greg rolled his eyes. “As if I haven’t heard that line a dozen times. I’m still not getting naked for you.”
Oh, he had a sharp tongue as playful with words as he was with kisses. Alaric suppressed a grin, not wanting to upset Greg with his amusement. “What if I brought you here to invite you to dinner?”
“Uh-huh. That’s what the secret hallway conversation with the slow kiss and special glow lights is definitely about.”
“I’m adaptable,” Alaric purred.
Greg shivered and bit his bottom lip. A blush brightened his cheeks and crept down his neck. “I’m not dating either.”
Normally a smile and a few whispered words were enough for Alaric to get what he wanted. Rejection was new and made Alaric curious. “May I ask why not?”
Greg hesitated long enough that Alaric didn’t think he would ever get an answer. Then he let out a long, deep, suffering sigh, one that seemed to come up from his soul. “Because I have a bad habit of getting into a relationship, running into someone who gives me the kind of look you’re giving me, and wham, I’m cheating. And then I try to make up for it, only that doesn’t work because my cheating winds up being this cloud hanging over a doomed relationship. So I try to be single, but then I get lonely, so I try a relationship again, and it just keeps cycling between drama and bullshit, and apparently I’m too much of an asshole to stop from making the same mistake. I can’t keep screwing up my life, so as much as I’m going to hate myself in the morning—because you are completely my type—I have to say no.”
“To stop yourself from getting hurt?” Alaric said.
“To stop me from hurting you. Ask anyone. I’m slutty damaged goods.” Greg sounded incredibly lonely, as if he didn’t know how to be friends with himself. He quickly looked away from Alaric, staring at the floor instead.
Fey had a different morality when it came to sex than humans. Alaric only knew the number of his sexual partners because of an obsessive need to keep count, another curse of the fairy. Cheating on a relationship was more problematic, but Alaric had witnessed politics at Court for a long time. There was always a motive to any action, which made Greg’s past more of a mystery to solve than a reason to judge him.
Greg lightly thumped his head against the wall. “I don’t know why I spewed all of that at you except you’re the first person who actually looks like he’s listening to me. I’m obviously not dateworthy material. Can’t be trusted. I’m going to hate turning you down, because have you seen you? You’re gorgeous. Freaking going-to-be-in-my-dreams-forever kind of hot. How did you bottle sex into a cologne? And this is the point where you say something because I can’t shut up. Especially since all you probably wanted was a quick screw and not for some random stranger to dump all their crap on you.”
When Greg turned his gaze toward Alaric this time, there was a deeper fear in his eyes that ran to his core. A forming terror that isolation was his only way forward, a fear Alaric knew well. He itched to ease Greg’s pain, to wrap his arms around his skinny shoulders and hold him close.
Alaric put his hand on Greg’s shoulder and squeezed him comfortingly. “I understand.”
“I don’t understand half of what is coming out of my mouth. How do you get it?”
“I’ve been where you are,” Alaric replied. “It’s hard to find the right partner when you don’t know what you want.” Greg frowned, but he relaxed, no longer stretched as tight as a wire. “I think I know what I want. Just no one cares that I want it.”
“And what is that?” Alaric asked.
The barest hint of a smile tugged on Greg’s lips. “Maybe I’ll tell you over dinner. If you still want to go.”
Prisoner of Shadows by Sam Burns & WM Fawkes
Swift Escape
As soon as night fell, the eagle flew back to its nest, the torches flickered out, and Prometheus began the long process of healing.
Even for a titan, regrowing an organ was no mean feat. On good days, when the sport of tearing into his flesh was less enticing and the eagle’s talons weren’t as vicious, he could recover quickly and steal a few hours’ reprieve before Helios took to his chariot and it all started again.
This had been a good day, so as his flesh knit back together, as his new liver grew from nothing, he was aware enough of his surroundings to hear the skittering of a stone across the floor. Something moved in the dark.
After millennia, Prometheus’s eyes still hadn’t adapted to Tartarus’s shadows. Despite what he could withstand, he hadn’t been built to thrive there. As he strained forward, squinting into the shadows, the chains that bound him scraped against the boulder at his back.
“Hello?”
Silence. Despite sense and reason, his heart sank. He should’ve been used to his isolation, but it’d only been a handful of weeks, counted in the cycle of pain and recovery, since Hades’s son had come to visit. They hadn’t spoken. As he had gritted his teeth against a scream, Prometheus had felt the anger rolling off of the young god in waves. It did not matter; Hades’s son had kept him company. His black, scowling eyes had seen Prometheus, and even that made him feel better. He looked forward to another visit—from him, from anyone. Thanatos always brought stories from the world above.
Prometheus sagged in his chains again, testing the strength of his shoulders’ tendons to bear his weight. It did not matter if they ripped—he’d heal. He always healed.
Before he could lose himself to desolation, a soft wind—the only he’d felt in the underworld—touched his skin. Suddenly someone was there, appeared from nothing. In the dark, Prometheus couldn’t make out any more than the shape of them.
They smelled of sharp, fresh air and things that grew. It was the smell of clouds and rain and living things. Desperate for a better look, he stared with wide eyes.
There was a click, and a little flame flickered to life in the man’s hand. Prometheus flinched. That small light was too bright in the dark.
“Prometheus, darling, you don’t look well at all.”
He squinted through his eyelashes while his eyes adjusted. Before him, Hermes held a small rectangle in his hand. At the end was a tiny flame. It was hardly light enough to see, but the man stepped back to light a torch nearby.
Hermes, short and quick with golden curls and bright eyes, grinned, and Prometheus drank in the sight of him, his curved brows and the cupid’s bow of his plump lips. He’d hardly known Hermes before Zeus had locked him away, but rumor of his silver tongue and cunning mouth preceded him. The smile the god shot him was among the best things that Prometheus had ever seen.
“No? I feel wonderful.” The faint sarcasm in his voice won him a broader smile from the fleet-footed Olympian.
“I hope you feel well enough to get out of here.”
Hermes produced a thin metal key that caught and glinted in the torchlight. He leaned in close to release the locks on the cuffs that held Prometheus’s arms. While Prometheus rubbed feeling back into his wrists and flexed his shoulders, Hermes crouched to release his ankles. For the first time in an age, Prometheus was free.
He lifted his legs, moved his arms, and while he was still testing the weight of his own limbs, Hermes shoved a bundle of cloth at him.
“Put those on. You’d have to be going to a special kind of party to show up naked and covered in ichor, and we’re shooting for low profile here.”
At least the shirt was soft. After so long without even a chiton to wear, the fabric of the trousers was coarse and uncomfortable. He’d seen the way Thanatos dressed, but nothing could prepare him for the wicked contraption covering his crotch.
He fumbled with it, and Hermes batted his hands out of the way. That sharp brush of his fingers was the first contact he’d had with another person in so long that it shocked him. With a hasty jerk, Hermes pulled his pants together and zipped up the ungodly metal.
“Don’t mean to rush you, Prometheus, but we don’t have a lot of time to mess around.” Hermes passed him a pair of shoes that laced up and looked over his shoulder.
It was only then that Prometheus got over the shock of seeing Hermes there. He’d never come to see Prometheus before.
“Did Zeus send for me?”
Rome had still ruled the western world the last time that Zeus had come to visit Prometheus. Every time, he’d demanded to know which of his sons would kill him. Every time, Prometheus refused to speak, ignoring the lure of freedom Zeus dangled in front of him. He wanted to believe that even if Zeus had not given up, he would have continued to refuse, but it’d been so long since his strength was tested that he couldn’t be certain.
Hermes laughed. “Uh, no. You’re not high on his priority list at the moment. He’s perfectly happy to let you rot down here.”
Though gods were not encumbered by the movement of time the way that mortals were, in five thousand years, perhaps Zeus’s fear of his own death had grown less pressing.
“Then why are you here?”
“Because I need your help.”
Prometheus arched a brow. Whatever Hermes wanted, Prometheus doubted it’d be to his benefit. “With?”
Hermes smirked at him. “How about we figure out how to get you out of here before we worry about particulars, huh? Shoes, Prometheus. Eyes on the prize.”
With sore legs and numb fingers, Prometheus had to sit to tie his laces. As soon as he was done, Hermes grabbed the top of his arm and jerked him to his feet.
“Come on,” Hermes snapped. He grabbed the torch in one hand and, with the other still gripping Prometheus’s arm, pulled him out of the chamber.
The winding paths of Tartarus were enough to befuddle anyone. Prometheus knew every nook and shadow of his own chamber but hadn’t seen the rest of the underworld. He’d been isolated—not because everyone who faced punishment was, but because Prometheus, in particular, hated being alone.
Hermes moved too fast for Prometheus to pay much attention to where they were going. Instead, he spent his time staring at the corner of Hermes’s jaw, the twitch of the muscle there, the nervous way he licked his lips.
“Are you all right?”
The short breath of air that escaped Hermes’s lips was something like a laugh. It was a marvel how easily laughter came to the god. Prometheus remembered in a rush what genuine laughter sounded like, the way a smile felt on his own face. He had forgotten. He forced the corners of his mouth up, but it didn’t feel genuine.
“Ridiculous question. No. Are you?”
No. There wasn’t a good way to answer that, though, so Prometheus kept his mouth shut.
The farther they moved, the lighter the air got. Hermes abandoned the torch when they cleared Tartarus, and the ambient gray light of the underworld shone enough to see on their own. There was something in the fields of punishment that was heavy and forbidding. It wasn’t so in the rest of the underworld, where mortals found peace.
But peace was not for titans or gods. They didn’t linger there. Hermes pulled him behind sparse hedgerows, down a garden path that cut past Hades’s crystal palace.
They stopped. Throwing out an arm, Hermes held him back against the brush, and Prometheus heard people talking.
“We should invite Theo’s mothers to the palace for the holiday.” Persephone’s voice sounded like dewdrops on flower petals, cool and soft. She’d overseen punishments for as long as he’d been there, but he’d never heard her sound so sweet. “Lysandros said he got a promotion at work. We can celebrate.”
Prometheus turned and stared through the branches to see Hades and Persephone strolling on the other side. Even in this bloodless place, Persephone was hale and bright. Hades was clad in black and as scowling and serious as ever.
“If you’d like,” Hades agreed in a low rumble.
Persephone beamed. “It’ll be so nice to have them home again.”
Hades hummed and looked past her. Like a magnet, his gaze caught Prometheus’s, and Prometheus could’ve sworn that Hades gave him the smallest of nods, but Hermes pulled them on before he could be sure.
They moved through stone tunnels, around bends and upward, then past Cerberus.
“Hey, boy.” Hermes threw up his hand. Cerberus pressed one of his glistening wet noses into it, apparently familiar enough with the Olympian to let him near.
Hermes distracted the beast with a paper-wrapped package he pulled from inside his hoodie. Cerberus tore into it, and Prometheus only had a moment to be horrified by the shock of bloody red meat before Hermes pulled him onward.
He’d eaten plenty of meat before, but he wasn’t prepared for how such a sight would affect him after he’d seen his own liver in the beak of an eagle hundreds of thousands of times. If it weren’t for Hermes’s insistent tugging, Prometheus would’ve stopped to expel the stinging, sour bile that crept up the back of his throat.
Walking onto the platform was like entering a different world—one that was comfortingly sterile. He followed Hermes through the open gates. Prometheus lingered on the other side. The lights here were different, buzzing faintly with a hum in the air.
“Come on,” Hermes pressed. “We can’t miss the train.”
“Sorry?”
A great steel python whizzed to a stop on the opposite side of the platform as they approached, like Hermes had timed it. It must be the train. Thanatos had told him about it—the mechanical wonder that made his brother’s job so much easier than in ages past. As they approached, the doors slid open.
Hermes tossed a jingling bag to Charon, who caught it in the air. “New York, if you would.”
“Sure thing,” Charon replied. He was sitting a few rows from the door, his feet propped up on the back of the seat in front of him. “Who doesn’t love a night on the town with the incarcerated and luckless?”
Prometheus stared. Surely he couldn’t walk out. Tricking Cerberus was one thing, but Charon wouldn’t let him go.
“Chill.” Hermes clapped Prometheus on the shoulder. “Charon’s cool. Aren’t you, Charon?”
Charon jingled the bag by his ear. “For a price, my lips are sealed.”
Hermes dropped onto one of the empty benches and spread out. The train began to move, and Prometheus stumbled. He caught himself on a metal rod and eased down into the seat beside him.
For a few moments, they rode in silence. There was nothing to do but sit. The immediate danger of their escape had passed, and Prometheus had questions.
“Now can we talk about why you’re helping me?”
Hermes stuck out his lips as he considered. “Sure.”
“You should know that Zeus had Hecate bind my magic. I won’t be able to—”
Hermes snorted. “I don’t need you for magic, Prometheus.”
But there wasn’t another reason Prometheus could see. He was good at precisely one thing; in fact, he was the best at it. Why else would Hermes take the risk of helping him against Zeus’s wishes?
Hermes dug in his pockets and came up with a slip of something, which he passed to Prometheus. It was bendy, like nothing Prometheus had ever held before, and shone faintly in the blue light of the train. Hermes snatched it back.
“Don’t break it. That’s your money.”
“My money?”
“Yeah. A prepaid card. You can use it to buy things. Like better clothes, a place to stay, a ticket the hell out of there. Should have plenty on it to get you started.”
“Started doing what?”
“Dude, I really don’t care.”
The train pulled to a stop. When the doors opened, the air did not smell clean anymore. It smelled like sweat and piss and the press of bodies. It was unpleasant and wonderful at once—he’d missed the fragrant reminders of life—and as they left their platform, they joined the throng walking through the cavernous tunnel.
Prometheus gaped. In a crowd like this, he was one of many. One of hundreds.
Awestricken, his next words escaped on a breath. “There are so many people.”
“Oh, yeah. More than you realize. There are more than seven billion of them now.”
A mixture of pride and horror swirled in Prometheus’s chest. “Seven billion.”
“Uh huh. It’s actually kind of a problem. They’re wrecking the planet, dying in droves, killing off everything. You didn’t have to make them so capricious.”
“They’re like us.”
“Yeah, so an all-around bad situation then. We fucking suck.”
That wasn’t true. Immortals could be kind and vicious in turn. Humans could do the same, but their mortality saddled them with consequence. It had been a cruel addition, but one that made their lives matter. And one, apparently, that had inspired them to multiply beyond anything Prometheus had imagined.
Prometheus’s crime hadn’t been the creation of human beings but emboldening them. After Zeus had flooded the world, Prometheus had given his son Deucalion magic so that humans could protect themselves from the sharp sting of gods’ wraths. He’d borne Aidos to give Deucalion’s descendants the decency to manage their new power.
“But if there are seven billion of them, surely we are powerful enough to set things back on course.”
Hermes scoffed. “No dice, my dude. They don’t believe in us anymore. We’re stories at best. Hell, Aidos has started fading out of existence.”
Ice chilled Prometheus’s limbs. The power of immortals was tied directly to how they were worshipped. When Prometheus had last walked the earth, titans and gods had been able to go almost anywhere, do almost anything, all with little more than a thought. That one of them—Prometheus’s own daughter—could fade was horrifying.
“They’ve taken over like roaches,” Hermes continued. “None of us can do shit.”
“None of you have done shit, you mean.”
The set of stairs they stepped onto was full of people, and it moved. By some clever magic, it carried them toward the surface. They stepped out into the night. The air was fresher here, but only just. The sounds were deafening, and though it was night, he could not see the stars behind the dim red glow of the sky. Instead, the lights had fallen to earth, where they shone in bright and blinding colors, offering music, entertainment, and cell phone upgrades—whatever those were. As the people scurried around each other, Prometheus did not see roaches, but a seething mass of potential.
People. There were people, and he could not keep the smile from his face. This one felt real.
“Am I here to fix that?” Prometheus asked.
“Nah. I told you—I really don’t care what you do.”
“Then why did you help me?”
“I didn’t. I helped me. Hera’s chained to the bottom of the clouds, and I don’t want to join her. I signed up for mai tais and sandy beaches. I’ve been Dad’s errand boy for way too long to have him go all corporal punishment on me now. You’d think a few millennia running all the fuck everywhere for him would buy a guy a little slack, but no.” Hermes turned toward him for an inspection and pulled down the hem of Prometheus’s shirt to straighten out the wrinkles. It was gray and nondescript, except that it wouldn’t have been warm enough in the December chill for a mortal who was sensitive to temperatures. “All I need you to do is be around for him to hate. There aren’t that many people he dislikes more than me right now, but you”—Hermes’s bright gaze raked over him—“you fit the bill.”
Prometheus pursed his lips.
“Watch out for cars,” Hermes warned, jerking his head to the street where a horde of yellow contraptions idled by the sidewalk. “And stay out of the sunlight. Helios is still in Dad’s pocket, so he’ll chuck you under the bus the second he sees you. You’ll last longer if you can keep a low profile, and Prometheus, I really hope you make it.”
“Watch out, fella!” A few feet away, a guy holding a bright glowing rectangle in front of his face bumped into an older man in a suit. Prometheus turned away from the smirking messenger god to look. The older man was still scowling; the younger threw up his hand and middle finger.
When he turned back, Hermes was gone, and Prometheus was left alone to find out what humankind had made of this world in his absence.
How the Necromancer in the Gold Vest Saved My Life: Disaster #1 by Jocelynn Drake
Chapter 1
Skylar Wallace
“There’s your problem right there!” Maddox declared, his deep, rough voice rising above the deafening beat from the DJ’s speakers. “I can’t believe you’re still cleaning your equipment with rain-barrel water. If I’ve told you once, I swear I’ve said it a thousand times: distilled water is the only way to go.”
Redstone made a noise, and Skylar swore he could feel Red’s eyes roll. “And distilled sucks all the positive energy out of the water. You’re left with something utterly soulless that a series of machines processed. Do you hear me, Mad? Machines.”
Maddox wrinkled his nose at him, the corners of his brown eyes crinkling. “Two hundred years ago, you could get away with rainwater, but human pollution has ended those days. You’re introducing too many contaminants into your spells. That’s why your binding spell is so fucking weak.”
Blue eyes shot wide open, and Red’s naturally pale face instantly flushed almost as red as his auburn hair. “Fuck you! I’ll show you a binding spell that’ll keep you clogged for weeks. You’ll come to me begging—”
“Hey! Hey! Hey! Let’s keep this civil. No shoptalk. We’re supposed to be out having a relaxing night. Drinks between friends,” Sky interceded. He placed his hands on Red’s taut shoulders and squeezed while the two companions continued to glare at each other over the tall pub table.
This happened almost every time they went out for adult beverages together or hung out and binged TV. Talk would eventually wander over to what they were working on, and there wasn’t a witch alive who didn’t have their own specific way of doing things. Ninety percent of them would never listen to another’s opinion. They were right, and everyone else was wrong. His best friends, Redstone and Maddox, were no different.
It was one of the good things about being a necromancer. Sky had some spells that overlapped with his companions’, but he did things a different way because of his unique magic. His friends couldn’t offer comment, saving him from headaches.
But Red and Mad were nature-based witches, which meant there was a shit-ton of overlap and so much room for argument. Thankfully, the two men had known each other since grade school and were good at brushing off each other’s harsh words.
“Are you taking his side?” Mad demanded, his narrowed eyes jumping to Sky.
“No, I’m not. I’m saying you’re both assholes for trying to ruin a perfectly good Friday night,” Sky snapped. “I got a new vest to try out. My favorite bartender still hasn’t learned to make a sea breeze, which I love him for. And I’m here to enjoy some delicious eye candy.”
As he spoke, Sky released his hold on Red and picked up his drink. His very blue drink. A sea breeze cocktail was simply vodka with grapefruit juice and cranberry juice, resulting in it being red. Whatever drink the adorable bartender kept whipping up and calling a sea breeze was curaçao blue and mostly alcohol. One promised to make him pleasantly tipsy. Three would put him on his ass.
He took a sip and sighed. It was worth the fifteen bucks if it helped to wash away the stress of the week.
“How can you be happy with just eye candy? Go hit on someone, Mr. Shiny Vest,” Mad teased.
Sky was about to give Mad the evil eye when Red chimed in. “You know Sky is a ‘one target at a time’ guy, and right now he’s busy eye-fucking his neighbor every chance he gets.”
Sky pointed his finger at Mad and then Red. “Screw you both.”
Red batted at his hand. “Put that away. We don’t know where it’s been.”
Mad snickered and took a drink of his beer.
“Oh, have you pissed off Sky enough that he’s started hexing you?” a cheerful voice from behind Sky inquired. “That’s got to be a record. He’s usually on his second drink when that happens.”
“Fuck you, Moon,” Sky grumbled as the fourth member of their coven joined them around the table.
Moon put a fresh beer in front of Mad, a rum and coke in front of Red, and lifted his own beer bottle. “Here’s to Friday night drinks with friends.”
They clinked their bottles and glasses together, and for a heartbeat, Sky smiled, sure that his companions had forgotten Red’s comment and they’d moved on.
But Red had to prove him wrong. “We were asking if Sky has made any progress with the troll that lives across the street from him.”
Sky flicked his friend in the ear. “He’s not a troll. He’s a grungy little goth boy who needs someone to take care of him.” His bottom lip jutted out as he thought about his poor sexy neighbor with the black hair and pale skin. “Did I tell you I saw him the other day? I was walking a new client out to her car, and he’d just gotten home. Probably from running errands. He was carrying another fast-food bag. That man needs vegetables. Maybe I should try gardening again this spring.”
“Not a good idea,” Mad interjected.
Sky lifted his gaze to his friends to see them wincing and shaking their heads.
“The last time you tried, the carrots crawled out of the ground themselves,” Red pointed out.
“Your potatoes had eyes and teeth.” Moon held up one of his fingers. Sky could barely make out a faint white scar along the knuckle. “One of them bit me!”
“You kept talking about all the ways to cook him. My spuds were sensitive.” But they were likely right. His skills lay in raising the dead from the earth, not vegetables.
“No gardening for your troll,” Red stated.
“Quit calling him a troll. He’s not a troll. He’s one of those people who works from home and doesn’t enjoy going out in the sun much.”
“Oh, you mean he’s a…” Mad held up two fingers as if making a peace sign, but really, he was making a “V” for vampire. None of them used that word while in Phoenix. The trendy nightclub wasn’t technically a bar for vampires, but at least a dozen of them were mingling through the crowds of unsuspecting humans, searching for a good time and possibly a meal.
But that was what you got when the owner and operator of Phoenix was a vampire.
They didn’t use the “V” word because there was no telling who was listening, and they didn’t want to capture the attention of fanged fiends. All in all, it was a safe place to hang out. Much more than a lot of the purely human clubs around Hartford. Everyone behaved themselves and had a good time because no one wanted to get blacklisted from Rafe Varik’s nightclub.
Lights throughout the club dimmed, and a spotlight hit the golden cage that was being lifted from beside the DJ booth. Inside was the most adorable blond twink vampire in all of existence: Gideon Varik. With a laugh, Sky raised his hand above his head and waved wildly at Gideon. He didn’t expect Gideon to actually see him, let alone give him a small wave in return when an entire sea of people were shouting and cheering as his dancing cage rose.
Gideon dancing in a go-go cage that dangled above the masses was one of the bigger draws to Phoenix. His movements were so provocative, Sky struggled to tear his eyes away. Gideon helped to keep the scintillating vibe of the place going. Of course, there was also the amazing hellfire decor, sexy bartenders, killer music, and excellent drinks. Not to mention, many people came hoping to see the insanely gorgeous owner.
Rafe Varik was born to be a vampire. He had Hollywood good looks, oozed charm, and had an edge of danger that left most people drooling.
Sky had caught sight of Rafe once from afar while he’d been chatting with Gideon. He would never be brave enough to talk to the powerful vampire, and that was just fine with him.
“I still can’t believe you two met Gideon,” Red muttered.
“And you didn’t think to invite us along!” Moon cut in.
Mad chuckled. “We were more than enough for him and his boyfriend to handle. I don’t think he wanted to meet with an entire table full of witches.”
“Still, I would have liked to have met him or at least gotten his autograph.” Moon pouted.
Red snorted, almost choking on his drink. “Yeah, ’cause who doesn’t want to hand their signature over to a fucking witch?”
Sky rolled his eyes and turned partially away from the table to gaze out at the Friday-night crowd. It was full of all the regular clubbers in skimpy, clingy clothing. The main bar was already packed with people waiting to be served, and it wasn’t even midnight yet. Well, he wasn’t planning on having another drink, anyway. He’d driven into Hartford rather than taking a rideshare. That shit was too expensive.
Moon could bitch all he wanted, but Sky’d never expected to meet Gideon. It just so happened that the vampire had gotten his hands on a haunted trunk and had needed to get it unhaunted, fast. The job had been easy and had given him the chance to meet some of the Variks—not something he’d ever thought possible. The Varik Clan was the ruling vampire clan. Not only of Hartford and Connecticut, but freaking North America.
The paranormal world could be boiled down to a few simple rules:
Vampires stick to the vampires.
Shifters stick to the shifters.
Witches stick to the witches.
Nobody trust the necromancers.
Whatever. Losers feared a little death. No big deal.
The important thing was that he had his core group of close friends who weren’t afraid of what he could do and would always have his back. It was better to not be in the middle of all the power struggles and politics that seemed to consume the vampire world. He liked his quiet life, which included drinks with friends and helping people resolve issues they had with the dead.
“Shit! Somebody’s about to get kicked out,” Mad muttered.
Red snorted. “And it’s still early. Drunk idiot.”
Sky followed his friends’ stares toward the small knot of people standing near the round banquette booths along the far wall. A man was shouting at someone seated in the booth. He lunged forward, making a grab for the seated person, but a bouncer stopped him at the last second, pulling him a safe distance away from the table. Ryder—the large, scary bouncer he’d met through Gideon—was wading through the crowd to help.
The first bouncer was still trying to drag the angry man away, but the pissed customer shrugged him off. That little twist gave Sky the perfect view of the would-be brawler’s profile.
Sexy neighbor Nolan!
He would know that man’s perfect face anywhere, even distorted in rage.
“That’s my neighbor!” Sky shouted before plunging into the crowd of people. He had to get to him.
This didn’t make any sense. Okay, so maybe he could count on one hand the number of times he’d talked to Nolan, but he’d given no sign that he was prone to drunken outbursts or starting fights. He was a quiet recluse. Fuck. It was insane to see him in a nightclub in the first place.
But fighting here was a bad idea.
Nolan Banks was one hundred percent human. There was nothing paranormal or magical about him, and that meant there was a damn good chance he didn’t know there were such things as vampires.
As Sky shoved his way through the crowd vying for a good view of the argument, he prayed Nolan hadn’t picked a fight with a vampire. And he really fucking prayed that Nolan wasn’t swinging his fists. A bloody lip or minor cut would put the scent of blood in the air. Combined with the excitement of the fight, this would not be a safe place to be for humans.
Plus, he didn’t want to see his neighbor get hurt.
He reached Nolan’s side as the bouncer got him under control. Sky glanced at the black leather banquette for only a second, but that was all he needed to confirm that a pair of vampires sat in the center while scantily-clad human women bracketed them. The female vampire appeared amused by Nolan’s anger while the male vampire seemed to grow more annoyed. Not good.
Sky forced his way in front of Nolan and pressed a hand on his chest. His neighbor’s heart slammed against his fingers. Nolan’s face swung to him and his mouth opened, his face screwing up as if he were going to shout at Sky, but no words came out. His russet-brown eyes widened, and he blinked a few times as if his brain were struggling to register what he was seeing.
“You’re…you’re my neighbor,” Nolan said, his words coming out slurred. His face and the tendrils of black hair hanging in front of his eyes were sweaty. He didn’t look good. How long had he been drinking here?
“Hey, Nolan. That’s right. I’m your next-door neighbor, Sky. How about we get out of here?”
Nolan’s frowned, his scowl darkening all of his features before his gaze snapped to the vampire couple in the banquette. “But…” His argument fell off as if he were trying to remember what had made him angry.
“It’s okay. I can help you get home.”
“No!”
“Sky?”
The necromancer twisted to stare at the speaker while keeping one hand on Nolan’s chest. He offered a weak smile to the scary tall vampire. “Hey, Ryder. Sorry about the disturbance. This is my neighbor. Let me get him out of here. I don’t want him to get hurt.”
Ryder frowned at Nolan first, but then the huge bouncer directed his glare at the couple. Sky watched the two smile back at Ryder so fucking sweetly, as if they were all perfectly innocent in this mess, which convinced Sky that they’d somehow started everything.
Yes, fuck, okay. He was totally biased where Nolan Banks was concerned. He was a hot goth boy who needed someone to take care of him, and Sky really wanted that person to be him. Was that so wrong?
Ryder returned his gaze to Sky. “You’ll make sure he gets home safe?”
“Yep. Totally got it handled,” Sky lied. Nolan had at least four inches in height on him and while Sky just might outweigh him—Shut up, curve haters—Nolan was currently rocking all that lanky, drunk strength. If Nolan fought him, Sky wasn’t entirely sure he could hold on to him.
Ryder’s thin, hard lips twisted a bit as if the scary vampire were fighting the urge to laugh in his face. “I’ll help you get him to your car.” Ryder gave a jerk of his head to the other bouncer and the vampire instantly released Nolan, who swayed on his feet.
Sky slid closer, putting Nolan’s arm across his shoulders and wrapping his own arm around the man’s slender waist. Holy fuck, this boy needs to be fed! Nolan leaned on him and moved with him toward the entrance, but his footsteps felt grudging, as if he wasn’t ready to give up his fight. Ryder took up position on the other side of Nolan, helping to keep him steady while urging all the gawkers out of their way. People murmured to each other, but Sky ignored them. This was none of their business.
“Sky! Sky!” Moon called as he slid through the crowd to come up on his right. “Do you need help? Are you leaving?”
“No, I’m good. I’m going to take Nolan home. You and the others stay, have a good time. Drink my drink! Don’t let that alcohol go to waste!”
His tiny inner party girl gave a whimper. More than half of his yummy beverage was still untouched. That sucked.
But he didn’t feel too bad. Helping Nolan safely escape Phoenix and getting him home was far more important. It might also give him an excuse to check up on Nolan tomorrow when he was sober and in need of some recovery TLC.
Sky had gotten stuck parking his powder-blue electric sedan over two blocks away in a lot, and Ryder surprised him by walking them all the way to Sky’s car and helping to settle Nolan in the front seat. He’d thought Ryder would be content with just getting them out of the club, so Nolan couldn’t stir up more trouble.
“Sky? You’re okay with him?” Ryder asked as Sky closed the passenger door.
Sky squeezed his key ring in his fist and grinned up at Ryder’s worried expression. “Oh, yeah. He lives across the street from me. I mean, we’re not close, but we’ve talked some. He’s normally a nice, quiet guy. I don’t know what happened tonight.”
“When he’s sober, tell him not to return to Phoenix.”
A chill ran through Sky that had nothing to do with the early spring air. This didn’t sound like a “he’s banned” talk, but more of a “for his own safety” warning. Sky swallowed hard. “Do I want to know who was sitting in that booth?”
“No.” Ryder turned on his heel and marched to Phoenix without a glance back.
Sky didn’t know whether to feel annoyed or afraid or relieved that he’d gotten out of there. Phoenix was a safe place, but there was a hidden edge to it that was a siren song. Who didn’t want to have a tiny taste of danger with their wild night out?
The problem was when danger caught you looking and smiled.
Silence dominated the entire forty-minute drive to their small, forgotten town outside of Hartford. Nolan appeared to have passed out with his head resting on the window the moment Sky started the engine. His breath fogging the glass was proof that he was still alive. Sky turned some K-pop on low and hummed along to the music while his brain turned over the strange event.
It didn’t make sense.
First off, Nolan didn’t seem like the clubbing type. And even if the man decided to go out for a drink, Phoenix didn’t strike Sky as his type of place. Besides, where were his besties? His ride or die? Nolan should never have been in Phoenix alone.
Second, what had happened with those vampires to piss Nolan off? He hadn’t caught anything Nolan said to them over the music, but it was clear that he’d been willing to climb over the table to get at one or both of them.
No, Nolan was the keep-to-himself type. Sky had invited him over to a barbecue with friends last summer, but Nolan had turned him down. He’d flat-out admitted he was an introvert and not comfortable with strangers. Phoenix should have been one of the lower levels of Hell for him.
Unless he’d been lying in the first place and just didn’t like Sky.
He snorted at that notion. Not likely. They’d barely spoken. And well, Nolan was stuck with him now. At least until he was sure the guy was properly on the mend and safe on his own.
Nolan stirred when the tires bumped the curb as Sky turned into his driveway. Sky had bought the cute two-story house with the detached garage about five years ago at a freaking steal because it had been haunted…and maybe a little dilapidated. It had taken him about two weeks to clean out all the troublesome ghosts and another three months to get the place in livable shape, but he loved his sunshine-yellow house with the white trim. All the spring flowers were poking above the ground now and were blooming, adding bursts of color to his tiny front yard.
So, yes, he could do flowers.
With some help from Red and Maddox checking over things and making sure his own natural magic wasn’t leaking into the ground. There were a couple of exceptions, though.
The backyard was another story, but that was because he had a few enormous shade trees and a tall privacy fence to keep his garden hidden within his property bounds.
“Where? How?” Nolan mumbled as he sat up and looked around.
Sky smiled as he turned off the engine and unhooked his seat belt. “Home again. Well, almost home.”
“What? No.” Nolan fumbled with his seat belt and almost fell out of the door when he opened it. “I need to go back.”
Sky sighed and climbed out when Nolan did. The man still wasn’t steady on his feet. He was going to fall over and break something if he wasn’t careful.
“You can’t. They kicked you out of Phoenix for nearly starting a fight,” Sky explained as he reached Nolan’s side. He grabbed his neighbor’s arm as he swayed, standing in the middle of Sky’s yard, seeming utterly confused. Sky swallowed the part where Nolan had almost gotten into a fight with a vampire. It was better if Nolan didn’t know about that part.
“No. I gotta go back. My brother. I need to find my brother,” Nolan argued. He took another step toward the street, but Sky wasn’t sure where he was going. He didn’t see Nolan’s car in his driveway, which meant it was probably in Hartford. That was not good, but hardly Nolan’s biggest problem right now.
“Your brother? He was at the club?” Fuck. Where the hell was the man? Had he been in the bathroom when Nolan was stirring up trouble? Well, his friends were still at Phoenix. Maybe they could locate the man and tell him what was going on.
“At the club?” Nolan shook his head, sending his hair flopping around his face. “No. That…that bloodsucker’s got him. I know it.”
“The man at the table?” Sky asked. Maybe he didn’t mean that word like Sky meant that word. He couldn’t know…
“No. The woman. The vampire.” Nolan leaned close enough to Sky that their noses almost touched. “Don’t laugh at me. I saw their fangs. Both of them. They’re vampires. Real ones. And they have my brother.”
Now the penny dropped.
Tightening his grip on Nolan’s arm, he turned him away from the street and toward his front stairs. This was bigger than getting drunk and kicked out of Phoenix. Nolan had fallen into a secret world he should know nothing about.
And if his brother was missing in that world, he was going to need help to get him out. Insider help.
Claimed by AM Arthur
Prologue
Ollie turned bright eyes onto Brandt Lars, his smile so wide it could light the heavens, and it definitely lit the hospital waiting room. “It’s our turn, I know it,” Ollie said to his bondmate. “I can feel it, Bebe.” His pale hand covered his flat lower belly. “He’s in there. Our little man.”
After almost six years of trying to get pregnant, heat after heat, Brandt was not leaving this moment up to a cheap plastic stick and a home test. No sir. He and Ollie had made an appointment in Obstetrics for a proper test after Ollie’s home test came up positive, and Brandt wasn’t very happy they’d been shunted to a new doctor on staff. Someone named Nero Troi, and yes, Brandt had checked up on the beta man’s record. Only three years out of medical school.
But Ollie was practically vibrating with excitement in his chair as they waited for their appointment. They’d grown up as neighbors and been best friends, which was unusual for young alphas and omegas, but their parents had been close. Brandt had loved watching Ollie grow from a slightly gawky, blond teenager into a beautiful man with sun-kissed hair and a smile that always lit up the room.
“Yes, he is.” Brandt kissed Ollie’s cheek simply because he could, then slid a possessive arm across Ollie’s shoulders—both a reaction to the new couple who’d entered the waiting room and his own need to touch his mate. He’d never tire of touching him. Despite them being only a few months apart in age and feeling the mating bond at sixteen, Ollie’s parents had refused any formal mating agreement for years. Brandt was one of only two children to a mated pair, and Ollie’s parents had feared infertility would run in the family. They also weren’t happy that Brandt planned on joining the Constabulary Academy directly out of secondary school.
Usually the academy required at least two years at university, but Brandt had always been an excellent student, testing ahead of his peers, and he’d aced the entrance exam at only seventeen. And Ollie had waited for him. He also didn’t have his first heat until he was twenty, which was rare, but not worrisome to Brandt. Brandt didn’t care if they had one child or ten, as long as he had them with Ollie.
Still…six years.
Please, let this not be a false positive. Please.
“Brandt and Oliver Lars?” a deep voice said. Kit, the office assistant, beckoned to them with a patient smile.
They followed Kit down a corridor to an exam room, where Ollie was given a paper gown to change into. A few minutes later, the doctor entered. Dr. Troi was a short, average-looking man, but he had an air of peace about him that helped Brandt relax. A little. All doctors who worked in obstetrics were beta, so he wasn’t a threat, but Brandt hated the idea of another man, even a doctor, looking at his mate’s intimate places.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” Dr. Troi said after introductions went around. “I hope you don’t mind the change in your caregiver. Dr. Sorenson had to step back for personal reasons, and for the last two years I’ve worked with couples experiencing fertility problems.”
Brandt resisted the urge to posture and bristle and say they didn’t have fertility problems. But they did. Six years and a lot of knots later, and they were finally—he hoped—pregnant.
“I don’t mind,” Ollie replied. “Unless you don’t have good news. Then I can’t be held responsible for my mate’s actions.”
Dr. Troi smiled. “Well, I do have the results back on your urine sample, and you are, indeed, pregnant. Congratulations.”
Ollie squealed and threw himself off the exam table, right into Brandt’s waiting arms. He hugged Ollie tight, but not too tight, tears of absolute joy making his eyes smart. “We did it,” Ollie said. “We finally did it, my love.”
Brandt laughed and kissed his temple. “Yeah, we did.”
“I need to caution you,” Dr. Troi said, “that a first pregnancy at your age brings health risks. Not only for yourself, Mr. Oliver, but also for the baby.”
“Ollie, please, only my parents call me Oliver anymore.” Ollie cinched his arms around Brandt’s waist and rested his head on his shoulder. “What sort of risks?”
“There’s a much higher chance of miscarriage, so you’ll need to take extra precautions. We can go over all of that in a moment.”
“And the baby?” Brandt asked. He slid one hand down to rest over Ollie’s belly, determined to protect this new life with every bone in his body.
“There could be developmental delays. Your first heat occurred when you were twenty, correct?”
“Yeah, about twenty and a half,” Ollie said. “My family doctor didn’t think that was something to be concerned about.”
“Normally, it isn’t, but you’ve gone through roughly two dozen heats since without conceiving. In your chart, there’s no mention of a fertility test.”
“No,” Brandt said, a bit testy now. “Fertility tests aren’t covered by the province and I can’t afford the expense on my current salary.” Given the fact that without omegas and their unique ability to conceive and carry children, every test and drug available for obstetrics and pregnancy should be available through the general public health care, but it wasn’t. So many things beyond basic health care for a pregnant omega were priced above the average person’s salary.
What if I really am the reason we couldn’t get pregnant for so long?
Unless a lot of credit landed in Brandt’s lap, he’d probably never know.
“An understandable, if frustrating problem,” Dr. Troi replied. “Mr. Ollie, how about you hop up and we do a quick exam?”
Ollie kissed Brandt’s cheek before climbing onto the table. Brandt held his hand, mostly to keep his need to growl at Dr. Troi in check, while the doctor poked at his mate’s private bits. After a few minutes, Dr. Troi declared everything looked good. A quick check of Ollie’s latest blood work proved him healthy and ready to carry a child.
“Now we just need to get through the next nine months,” Brandt said. “And we can finally start decorating the nursery.”
“Shopping!” Ollie laughed. To Dr. Troi he said, “Brandt hates shopping. Really, truly hates it.”
Dr. Troi chuckled. “I’m not fond of it myself. On a medical note, I’d like to see you every couple of weeks, just to keep an eye on your progress. You can make your next appointment with my assistant Kit before you leave.”
“Of course. Thank you so much, Dr. Troi.”
“You are very welcome.”
After the doctor excused himself, Ollie tugged Brandt’s head down and kissed him. A hard, possessive kiss that left his alpha gasping for air and a little hard. “When we get home,” Ollie said, “I want you to fuck my throat.”
Brandt growled possessively. For all Ollie had been a quiet, timid teenager, the first time they’d fucked at seventeen? Ollie had a dirty streak as long as the province itself, and he adored sex outside of heat. So much that they had quite the collection of sex toys in their bedroom drawer, and while they’d have to be careful with what they put up Ollie’s ass for the next nine months, Brandt couldn’t think of a better reason why.
“Should I tie you up first?” Brandt whispered, then licked the shell of Ollie’s ear.
“Goddess, yes. Please.”
As much as Brandt wanted to whisk his mate home and shove his cock down Ollie’s throat, he was too excited and eager to pamper the man. So they had an early dinner at Petrova’s, their favorite place to eat, splurging on more food than they could possibly consume and a few too many margaritas—virgin for his omega. He bought Ollie’s favorite chocolates from a sweets shop down the block, delicious little squares of dark chocolate and mint that he fed to Ollie with his own mouth after they got home.
Once they were both full of good food and chocolates, they worshipped each other’s body. Brandt didn’t leave an inch of Ollie’s skin untouched, unlicked, unloved. He worshipped Ollie’s entrance for ages, then sucked his balls. His dick. He made sweet love to his mate, until Ollie cried for him to be rougher, to give him what he wanted.
So Brandt tied Ollie spread-eagle on the bed, exactly how Ollie loved it, and then took his time fucking Ollie’s mouth. Teasing, only giving Ollie a taste, before pushing in deep enough to choke. It was his sweet, beautiful Ollie’s favorite game, and they played until Brandt couldn’t hold it in any longer. He pumped his load down Ollie’s throat before sliding down his mate’s body to suck him dry.
Happy and sated, Brandt untied his omega and cuddled him close. Ollie combed deft fingers through his chest hair, then licked the damp skin of his pecs. “Careful,” Brandt teased. “You might find yourself with a mouthful of cock again, if you keep licking me like that.”
Ollie sucked on his nipple, and a few minutes later, hard and leaking for his bondmate, Brandt took his revenge.
The next three weeks passed in a kind of blur for Brandt. Between working as a patrolman, studying for his constable exam, and helping Ollie with the nursery, he barely had time to eat or sleep. And that was okay. This was the life he’d always wanted with Ollie.
Ollie picked out paint colors, and Brandt came home one day to find the nursery a lovely shade of green. They shopped for the crib and changing table together, as well as toys, diapers and bottles. Everything was arranged exactly how Ollie wanted it, and Brandt loved watching him nest. He also went to bed each night with a prayer in his heart that both his mate and baby would be okay.
Ollie’s second appointment with Dr. Troi approached far too quickly, and it coincided with a flu outbreak at work, giving Brandt no time off to go with him.
“I’ll be fine,” Ollie said that morning as they shared pancakes for breakfast. “I’ll drop you off at division, and then go to the appointment at nine. It’s a routine checkup.”
Brandt didn’t like it, but Ollie was right. He’d allowed his mate to get a driver’s license years ago, even though Ollie rarely drove alone. Their house wasn’t in the best neighborhood, but it was home and Ollie loved being there, waiting for his bondmate to return to him.
“Okay,” Brandt said. “But you call me as soon as it’s over. Have dispatch patch you through to my car radio.”
“I will, you overprotective nut.”
Brandt blew him a kiss.
They left the house ten minutes later, and Brandt kissed Ollie thoroughly before getting out of the car. He hated watching his mate drive away, but they’d see each other again at the end of his shift.
A shift that passed slowly, despite them being shorthanded. Not much was happening across Sansbury Province today, and as the morning eased closer to lunch with no word from Ollie, Brandt began to wonder. He didn’t worry until after one o’clock and nothing. Then he called the hospital and asked to be directed to Dr. Troi’s office.
“Mr. Ollie didn’t show up for his nine o’clock appointment,” Kit said.
Brandt’s blood ran cold. “He had to have shown. He dropped me off at work and then went straight there.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but he never signed in. Are you sure he didn’t have an appointment in another department?”
Yes, Brandt was damned well good and sure Ollie didn’t have an appointment anywhere else today. He made several calls but no one had seen Ollie. The house phone went unanswered. As panic set in, Brandt called his supervisor, who gave him permission to leave and look for Ollie.
But Ollie wasn’t home and neither was their car.
Hours passed into days. Days into weeks. Weeks into months. The house became chilly and dark. The nursery lay empty and barren. And as months morphed into years, bitterness replaced joy. Grief replaced love.
And Ollie Lars never came home.
Author and artist Jordan Castillo Price is the owner of JCP Books LLC. Her paranormal thrillers are colored by her time in the midwest, from inner city Chicago, to small town Wisconsin, to liberal Madison.
Jordan is best known as the author of the PsyCop series, an unfolding tale of paranormal mystery and suspense starring Victor Bayne, a gay medium who's plagued by ghostly visitations. Also check out her new series, Mnevermind, where memories are made...one client at a time.
With her education in fine arts and practical experience as a graphic designer, Jordan set out to create high quality ebooks with lavish cover art, quality editing and gripping content. The result is JCP Books, offering stories you'll want to read again and again.
JS Harker loves stories. She was one of those kids who constantly had a book in her hands and spent countless hours adventuring with her siblings. These days she wanders into her imaginary worlds and conjures up tales of magic, passion, and happily-ever-afters. She currently lives in the part of the Midwest that makes Tatooine look interesting by comparison (not that she’s ever obsessively thought about becoming a Jedi or anything).
Sam lives in the Midwest with husband and cat, which is even less exciting than it sounds, so she's not sure why you're still reading this.
She specializes in LGBTQIA+ fiction, usually with a romantic element. There's sometimes intrigue and violence, usually a little sex, and almost always some swearing in her work. Her writing is light and happy, though, so if you're looking for a dark gritty reality, you've come to the wrong author.
W.M. Fawkes is an author of LGBTQ+ urban fantasy and paranormal romance. With coauthor Sam Burns, she writes feisty Greek gods, men, and monsters in the Lords of the Underworld series. She lives with her partner in a house owned by three halloween-hued felines that dabble regularly in shadow walking.
New York Times Bestselling author Jocelynn Drake loves a good story, whether she is reading it or writing one of her own. Over the years, her stories have allowed her to explore space, talk to dragons, dodge bullets with assassins, hang with vampires, and fall in love again and again.
This former Kentucky girl has moved up, down, and across the U.S. with her husband. Recently, they’ve settled near the Rockies.
When she is not hammering away at her keyboard or curled up with a book, she can be found walking her dog Ace, or playing video games. She loves Bruce Wayne, Ezio Auditore, travel, tattoos, explosions, and fast cars.
She is the author of the urban fantasy series: The Dark Days series and the Asylum Tales. She has recently completed a gay romantic suspense series called The Exit Strategy about two assassins falling in love and trying to create a life together, as well as a MM paranormal romance series featuring a family of vampires.
She has co-authored with Rinda Elliot the following series: Unbreakable Bonds, Ward Security, Pineapple Grove, and the Weavers Circle. She has also co-authored with AJ Sherwood the Scales 'N Spells dragon series.
A.M. Arthur was born and raised in the same kind of small town that she likes to write about, a stone's throw from both beach resorts and generational farmland. She's been creating stories in her head since she was a child and scribbling them down nearly as long, in a losing battle to make the fictional voices stop. She credits an early fascination with male friendships (bromance hadn't been coined yet back then) with her later discovery of and subsequent love affair with m/m romance stories. A.M. Arthur's work is available from Carina Press, SMP Swerve, and Briggs-King Books.
When not exorcising the voices in her head, she toils away in a retail job that tests her patience and gives her lots of story fodder. She can also be found in her kitchen, pretending she's an amateur chef and trying to not poison herself or others with her cuisine experiments.
Jordan Castillo Price
JS Harker
WEBSITE / NEWSLETTER / B&N
EMAIL: JSHarkerWrites@gmail.com
Sam Burns
EMAIL: sam@burnswrites.com
WM Fawkes
Jocelynn Drake
WEBSITE / NEWSLETTER / KOBO
iTUNES / AUDIBLE / AUDIOBOOKS
GOOGLE PLAY / INSTAGRAM / B&N
EMAIL: jocelynn.drake@gmail.com
AM Arthur
It's All Relative by Jordan Castillo Price
His Fairy Prince by JS Harker
Prisoner of Shadows by Sam Burns & WM Fawkes
How the Necromancer in the Gold Vest Saved My Life: Disaster #1 by Jocelynn Drake
Claimed by AM Arthur
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