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Chapter One
Rose
Naomi had thought of everything. My stomach was full of seafood linguine that had included crab she’d ordered straight from the coast. The cherry-and-chocolate sweetness of the cake she’d arranged lingered in my mouth. Some of the best wine I’d ever drunk had been flowing from the bottles still at the ready on one of the side tables in the Hallowell manor’s huge great room, and the playlist carrying through the speakers set up with her phone was the perfect mix of peppy and groovy. She’d even put up streamers, gold and silver twinkling where they crisscrossed overhead.
And all that didn’t even include the fact that she’d come all the way from New York just to throw this party. Taking it all in from where I’d ended up standing next to her as I took a few minutes’ breather, I couldn’t help saying, “You know you really didn’t need to do this.”
My cousin shrugged with a smile and a bob of her chestnut ponytail. “A witch’s twenty-fifth birthday is supposed to be the biggest deal in your whole life. I couldn’t let you spend it like any other day. Besides, you deserve the chance to make some more good memories after everything you’ve been through.”
I couldn’t really argue with that. The last few months since I’d moved back to my family’s country estate, the one where I’d spent my childhood, had been a roller coaster. The kind where you spend most of it clinging to the safety bar for dear life afraid that the next jolt will toss you right out of the car.
Naomi nodded to the two young women on our temporary dance floor. “Also I figured I really should check in after I started sending witches in need your way. How are they doing?”
I considered the estate’s newest residents. Lesley—twenty-six and recently widowed, prone to hiding behind her fawn-brown hair and rectangular glasses—had turned up at the gate first, about three weeks ago. Imogen—twenty-two and unconsorted, with an almost hyper energy that matched her bright red curls—had shown up a couple weeks later.
“I think it’s going okay,” I said. “It’s awkward, not being able to ask all the questions I’d like to or tell them everything I know, but they were both scared when they got here and they’ve relaxed a lot since then.”
“Have they told you much about why they came running?”
“Some. Lesley’s family started putting a lot of weirdly insistent pressure on her to marry some new guy just a few months after her first consort was in that accident. Which makes me wonder if the accident was even accidental. Imogen lost her parents when she was a kid and ended up with an aunt and uncle. They’ve put a bunch of suitors in front of her in the last year, and she’s gotten a really bad vibe about all of them. I think they just needed some space, somewhere no one would try to force a consorting on them, for them to start to figure things out.”
I rubbed my mouth against the itch to tell her more and the knowledge that if I tried, the oath I’d been forced to take would stop me. Last month, I’d discovered that Charles and Helen Frankford, high ranking witching folk with positions in the Witching Assembly that governed all our society, were the leads of a faction that had been essentially enslaving young witches for their own dark purposes. Dark purposes that had something to do with immense, terrifying creatures they called demons, living in a world the Frankfords had accessed through a portal in a seaside cave.
My own father and stepmother had tried to arrange a consorting for me within that circle—one that would have left me unable to deny their chosen consort’s requests or to use my magic in any way he didn’t approve of. I’d escaped that trap only through luck, a lot of struggle, and the love of the men who’d been my beloved childhood friends. But so many more witches might be caught up in their schemes or about to be.
We’d found plenty of proof. We’d stolen a hard drive from the Frankfords’ estate. Unfortunately they and their allies had caught us before we’d been able to leave with it. I’d been forced to make a deal to save my consorts’ lives. They’d sworn an oath not to do or order harm to our lives, freedom, or happiness—and I’d sworn that none of us would speak of the files we’d discovered or the crimes we’d recently uncovered. The fact that we’d managed to copy over those files before they’d destroyed that hard drive didn’t help with that. I couldn’t mention their contents even to my own cousin.
Lesley’s father and Imogen’s aunt and uncle were named in those files. Only a few times, as minor supporters, but that was damning enough. It was a good thing they’d come to me.
“Do you know if their families were involved with the Frankfords?” Naomi asked. She knew the basics of what had gone on—she’d been with me when I’d gotten the lead that brought us to the Frankfords—but nowhere near the full picture.
“I can’t talk about that,” I said, my stomach tightening.
“Ah.” She grimaced. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked about that tonight. This isn’t the time for thinking about that stuff. I know how hard you’ve been working from all the time you’ve spent holed up with your computer since I got here yesterday. Between you and those guys, I’m sure you’ll figure something out. And at least you’re keeping some of the potential victims safe until then.”
“That’s what I keep telling myself,” I said. The pressure in my gut didn’t totally lift.
A mischievous glint came into Naomi’s eyes. “So howhasconsorted life been treating you now that you can finally settle in without worrying about getting arrested or worse?”
A smile crossed my face automatically as I looked at my five consorts. None of them were witching men, which was bad enough in the Assembly’s eyes, but it was also unheard of these days for any witch to take more than one. I hadn’t been sure it was even possible until I’d managed it. For most of our relationship so far, I’d had to keep our love and our consorting secret.
“It’s nice,” I said. “Just being able tobewith them, like normal consorts can.”
“Just ‘nice’?” Naomi said, arching her eyebrows. She’d been alternately amused and fascinated by my expanded consorting since I’d first revealed that secret to her and the rest of my long-dead mother’s family, even though she seemed very happy with her own consort, Gregg.
My smile twitched wider. “Okay, amazing.”
At that moment, my gaze met Gabriel’s across the room. My newest consort grinned back at me from where he was dancing with Imogen. The redheaded girl was boogying down with abandon, but I suspected from the avid glances she kept shooting Gabriel’s way that she might be developing a bit of a crush. He kept a friendly distance between them, his smiles for her warm but mild.
I couldn’t really blame anyone for crushing on him. Gabriel had always been the leader of our little group when we were kids, and he still exuded that confident charisma. The striking combo of dark red hair and bright blue eyes with his handsome face didn’t hurt either.
Kyler, my tech-fanatic, had managed to get reserved Lesley dancing too. The slim guy laughed as he tried to pull off an ambitious spin, his tawny curls swaying as he had to catch himself. His playfulness had gotten Lesley smiling, so I figured that was a win.
Not far from them, Jin, my artist, had managed to drag Kyler’s more stoic and more brawny twin Seth away from where he’d been watching the festivities from the sidelines. Jin obviously knew his moves. He whipped around in time with the beat, so gracefully it was difficult not to watch. The blue streaks in his smooth black hair glinted under the chandelier’s light.
Seth stepped and dipped with the music, his movements a lot more awkward, but the expression in his gray-green eyes was amused. As long as my consorts were all having a good time, I was happy.
It was hard to tell with one of them. Damon was skulking near the wine table, nursing a beer he’d grabbed from the fridge rather than bother with fancy glasses and vintages. His jagged dark brown hair shaded his eyes, and the set of his shoulders suggested he was missing the protective shield of his leather jacket.
