Twisted Fate: A Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy (The Harlequin's Harem Book 1) Read online

  Lucia’s phone rang, snapping the tension in half like a brittle twig. She checked the screen, then excused herself to take the phone call. Damon had to get out of the seat first to allow her to slide out. I furrowed my eyebrows at her, and she waved me off with an ‘it’s fine’ gesture. It was probably her ex-boyfriend calling, looking for a booty call. He called often, said he wasn’t over her, wasn’t finished, and she occasionally indulged him even though she had no intention of getting back together.

  It was a little shady, but hey, who was I to judge? My romantic situation isn’t exactly perfect; that is to say, it’s non-existent.

  Damon’s slightly wide-set eyes narrowed, his attention focusing on me again. “So, Andi,” he said, “Besides knowing that you’re a local, and that you work at Duke’s, we don’t know a great deal about you. Do you mean to keep your cards so close to your chest, or are you just not used to sharing?”

  “Don’t be so hard on her,” Eli said, “She’s just not much of a talker. I can tell.”

  Blood rushed to my cheeks again. “You’re right, I’m not much of a talker, and I apologize.”

  “Never apologize for who you are, Andi,” Damon said, “Other people won’t apologize for who they are.”

  “I, um, there’s not much to know about me, really.”

  “There has to be something,” Eli said, “Hobbies? Favorite shows? Music?”

  “Oh, I mean, I could go down that road, I guess, I just didn’t think y’all were interested.”

  “We’re interested,” Damon said, “So, how about you start with an easy question?”

  “Okay, shoot.”

  “Favorite band?”

  “The Foo Fighters.”

  Damon nodded, though I couldn’t tell if he was sharing my love of Dave Grohl’s gravelly voice and showmanship, or if he was just acknowledging that I’d answered him. “Favorite movie?”

  “That’s a hard one… Pretty in Pink.”

  “Let me guess,” Eli said, “That was one of your folks’ favorite movies too?”

  I laughed. “Because my name is Andi? Nah, its short for Andrea. I don’t know why my parents chose that. Although, you’ve watched Pretty in Pink—that’s good for me to know.”

  Eli flashed a pearly white smile. “And why’s that?”

  “Because now I know you’re a big softie.” A really, really big softie.

  He pushed a finger against my lips and made a schhhh sound. “Don’t tell anyone, okay? A brother’s got a reputation to maintain.”

  My entire body trembled from the feel of his finger against my mouth. It was such a simple thing, such an innocuous, harmless moment of contact, but it had me quaking in my cheap, off-brand sneakers. He pulled his hand away from my face, and I could have sworn it took a second for me to recover before I could speak again.

  “I… won’t. I promise.”

  “The Breakfast Club was a good one,” Logan said. He had a hint of a smile on his face, but he wasn’t exactly looking at me. It was almost as if he were staring at a projection of the movie playing out in the space in front of him, maybe the part where Judd Nelson’s hand goes up at the end. That was a damn good movie.

  “Is that your favorite?” I asked.

  Logan shook his head. “Rocky. I like an underdog.”

  “You know, I never watched any of them.”

  He nodded. “You should. They aren’t just about fighting; they’re about surviving.”

  I felt Damon’s eyes pull me toward him again, and I turned, powerless to resist his silent—psychic?—demand for my attention. “So, we know what movies you like,” he said, “Tell me a little bit about yourself.”

  “About myself? Like what?”

  “Simply, I’d like to know a little more about you. Otherwise I’m going to have to make it all up, or worse, start speaking and get it all right without you having said a word.”

  “Bullshit, you can’t do that.”

  Damon grinned slightly. “This sounds like a chance for a bet. I’ll bet you five dollars I can tell you something about yourself I couldn’t possibly know.”

  “Five dollars? How about we make it twenty?”

  He reached across the table with his hand and waited for me to shake it. Eli shook his head but didn’t say anything. Logan watched me, waiting to see what I would do. I got the distinct impression there was something these two weren’t telling me, but I wasn’t about to back down from a bet, so I took Damon’s hand and shook firmly. I’d just made those twenty dollars on a single tip—I was feeling bold.

  Damon settled back into his booth, took a swig of his beer, a breath. There’s that flash of light again. It danced in front of his eyes for only a fraction of a second, but long enough for me to notice it. “Okay,” he said, tilting his head to the side, “You’re a reserved person, relatively unadventurous. You’re the kind of person who prefers her own company over the company of others, and you have a real issue with authority, although you do play by the rules. This is likely because you were raised by overly protective parents, perhaps religious parents. Yes, religion was big in your house. You may have been the kind of girl to walk around with a cross pendant hanging from your neck. The kind who wanted to save herself until marriage because that’s what her parents told her to do. But then one night, maybe at fifteen, maybe at sixteen, there was a party and—”

  “Stop,” I said, my voice sharp and curt. An angry heat had risen into my chest and settled there the more Damon spoke, and now that anger was forcing me to take short, rapid breaths.

  “Stop?” Damon asked. “Did I say something wrong?”

  “How the fuck could you know any of that just by looking at me?”

  “I have a gift.”

  “Bullshit. Are you some kind of stalker?”

  “Andi, he isn’t,” Eli said, “Look, this went too far. Damon, shut it down and stop showing off, man.”

  “Showing off?” I said, my voice shaking slightly, “What the fuck is going on here.”

  “Was I right?” Damon asked, not once taking his eyes off me.

  I frowned. “Were you right?”

  “Yes. About the party. You don’t have to give me the details of how you decided to get back at your overly restrictive parents, you just have to tell me if I was right or not. We had a bet.”

  “Damon, really?” Eli asked, “Is that necessary?”

  “Yes. We made a deal, and I expect her to honor it even if her feelings were hurt.”

  I chewed the inside of my cheek but said nothing. Instead I reached into my pocket, pulled out my wallet, and handed over the twenty-dollar bill I’d made tonight. Damon took it, then handed the money over to Logan, who accepted the bill and stuffed it into his pocket without thinking too much about it.

  “That wasn’t cool,” Eli said, shaking his head.

  Damon shrugged. “From one scammer to another.”

  The moment, the anger, passed, and I found myself able to breathe comfortably again. “How did you know all of that?”

  “I’m good at observing people and making my mind up about them.”

  “That can’t be it… can it?”

  “It is if I’m telling you it is.”

  Another shiver ran through me, only this time it wasn’t anger I was feeling—or maybe it was—but a kind of excitement. This man wasn’t afraid to put me in my place, and that was something… something I could appreciate, even if I also hated his arrogance. Like, truly hated it. This was the kind of man I would stay away from, the reason why I would rather stay home and watch TV than go out after work.

  “Where’s your friend?” Logan asked.

  I looked at him, then glanced at the space where Lucia should have been sitting. Empty. Craning my neck around, I searched for her at the bar, thinking she may have gotten caught up talking to a friend of hers—she was pretty popular—but she wasn’t there either. In fact, she wasn’t inside Wake at all.

  “Bathroom?” Eli said.

  A cold feeling pushed throug
h my insides. “I’ll check,” I said, and without feeling the need for more explanation, I slipped out of the booth and headed toward the bathroom, but it was empty. I fished my phone out of my pocket as I headed outside, and when I didn’t immediately catch her on the sidewalk, still talking to her ex on the phone, I called her, but she didn’t answer after three rings, four rings, five rings, then it went to voicemail.

  “Hey, you’ve reached Lucy, you know what to do.”

  I was about to leave a message, when I spotted her—or someone I thought looked like her—only she was on the other side of the block, standing on the next street corner down and… about to get into a car. I walked over, picking the pace up as I realized that, yes, that was Lucia, and yes, she was about to get into an unmarked black car.

  “Lucia!” I yelled, but she didn’t hear me. I yelled a second time, but again I got no response. She disappeared into the car, and the door shut behind her. I started to walk fast, moving into the street, yelling out to her like a lunatic, receiving looks from the pair of smokers hanging out on the sidewalk, but no response from Lucia.

  The car started to peel out and turned left. I sprinted after it, taking the corner at the end of the block so hard I almost slipped and smashed into a group of people heading past me. But the car was still in my sights, so I ran into the middle of the street, following it, and yelled, only this time the car’s brake lights flashed, and it stopped.

  One of the back doors opened, and someone—not Lucia—stepped out. A gaunt looking man, tall, thin, almost bony, with jaundiced, yellowing skin and thin, greasy black hair. I stopped dead in my tracks, heart pounding not only from the run, but also from the fright of seeing this freak show of a man staring at me from the side of a car which I shouldn’t have been able to catch up to considering I had started my run from the other side of the block only seconds before.

  The man’s lips parted, revealing a set of near black teeth. He pointed a long, bony finger at me, there was a flash of green light, and then something invisible hit me square in the chest, sending me sprawling to the floor.

  The world around me turned black.

  CHAPTER THREE

  He’s sleeping. No… not he, It. It’s sleeping, and I can hear it dreaming… dreaming… dreaming of… what? I need to swim closer, maybe if I get closer, I’ll know what It’s dreaming about. But it’s dark down there, too dark. I don’t know if my light will be strong enough, and if my mask breaks… It’ll see me.

  My eyes snapped open. I sucked in a breath of air and writhed on the floor, pain pushing through me in hot, unforgiving waves radiating out from my chest and into every nerve in my body. Hacking, coughing, grabbing at my chest like I wanted to rip it off, anything to stop the pain trying to shut my body down, trying to take control, I rolled onto my front, then onto my back again, desperately reaching for a decent breath, but failing miserably.

  What the fuck was that? That guy had… zapped me. Maybe my brain was hazy, the fog stopping me from remembering what had really happened, but no matter how ludicrous the memory was, it was there. He had grinned at me, had pointed one of his fingers at me, and he had zapped me from a distance, and whatever had hit me had hurt like an absolute bitch.

  The sound of footsteps tapping against the asphalt suddenly drew my attention. Someone coming to help? I turned my head up to look, praying the group of people I had passed had seen me fall, but it wasn’t them—it was the jaundiced man running at me at full pelt, closing the gap between the car and the spot where I lay. Beside him, gaining on him, was a second man. Both were wearing charcoal grey suits covered in fine, grey dust.

  I rolled onto my front, this time trying to find enough strength in my arms to pull myself up, or maybe enough fight in my voice to scream for help, only I was too far from the bar for anyone inside to hear me, and the smokers were no longer outside. It was up to me to get up, to get away, but the footsteps were drawing closer; any second and they would be on me.

  Fighting through the pain, I pulled one of my knees up to my chest, dug my foot against the floor, and tried to stand, but my arms started to tremble like they were made of jelly. I felt a hand clasp around my ankle, and this time I did scream, or at least, I opened my mouth to scream, only my throat wasn’t working except to suck in air.

  My entire body went cold at the feel of the hand around my ankle, a hand that may as well have been a snake by how wet and clammy it was. The man at my foot tugged hard, but I bucked my hips, my legs, and managed to shake him loose. Adrenaline kicked in, or maybe terror, possibly both, and then my entire body was buzzing, vibrating, moving. There was no pain anymore, only the whoosh of the wind passing by my ears and this strange energy in my bones, my muscles.

  I got to my feet and started running like I’d never run before, but the second man that had jumped out of the car was on me before I could put more than a few paces between us. He reached for me, hand stretching to grab my collar. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him, his face twisted with anger, maybe even hatred—hatred; what had I done to deserve that?

  The buzzing inside of me intensified as his fingers touched the fabric of my shirt, but he slipped on a dislodged piece of tarmac and went crashing and rolling to the floor before he could get a firm grip on me. I didn’t stop to examine his fall, I was still being chased by a second guy. Again, I yelled as I reached the edge of Dumaine Street, hoping my voice would carry across the block to the bar where the guys were, but I couldn’t scream; it was like being stuck in a nightmare, my voice just wouldn’t work.

  In that horrified instant, as I realized that not only would I be unable to call for help, but I may not even be able to speak to the help when it arrived, I decided to keep running, keep moving. I thought about going back to the bar, but the car Lucia had gotten into had backed up and was turning into Dumaine Street, engine growling as it came speeding toward me. Turning left and heading for the bar was a much longer run than crossing North Rampart Street and heading for the park.

  Carelessly I threw myself at the busy road, acting only on instinct, ducking and dodging the honking cars as they passed me, then speeding across the streetcar line, and taking to the next street. A Dodge Challenger blared its horn, wheels screeching, as I started to cross, and I turned to stare at it, wide-eyed, as I realized it was moving too quickly to stop, or for me to make it to the other side of the street before getting hit.

  Instinct took over, my body buzzed again, sending a shudder through my spine and into my legs. I leapt, vaulting over the hood of the Dodge Challenger, my feet only lightly touching the hood, the roof, as the car continued to screech beneath me, brakes struggling to bring it to a complete stop. I hit the floor on the other side of the car, heart pounding from the adrenaline, the buzzing in my bones—no, in my blood—but still very much alive and in one piece.

  The car had come to a stop by the time I turned around to look at it, brake lights bright red, but the driver didn’t get out of the car; I could see his face in the rearview, stunned, horrified, paralyzed. Tiny pinpricks raced along my forearm, and I stared in stark disbelief as ghostly symbols seemed to be shimmering faintly, as if they were trying to come up from under my skin. Then I heard the tapping of rapid footsteps heading my way again, and I saw both of the men that had been chasing me crossing the streetcar line, only a few feet away from me.

  People were watching now, but they weren’t doing anything else; just silently spectating from a safe distance, and I still couldn’t use my voice.

  Instead of waiting to be caught, or trying to call for help, I ran again, dashing across the street, sprinting down the sidewalk, and pushing into Louis Armstrong Park, through the wrought-iron arch, and past Congo Square. Behind me, the two men were still chasing, the gap between us now a little bit bigger.

  I had a choice to keep running along the path that cut a straight line through the park, take a left turn and make for Saint Peter’s street, or take a right and go into the park itself, over the bridge, and toward the sound of
jazz and people. I felt the buzzing again, only this time it was different; the sensation wasn’t disorienting in its intensity, it was almost as if the buzzing was getting more comfortable, bringing with it the feeling of something settling.

  I decided to head into the park and follow the sound of music. There would be people there too, and maybe none of them would act in my defense, but maybe I’d be able to lose my pursuers in the crowd, and that choice beat running for the foreseeable future. So, I made the turn into the park, and as I did so, I felt a kind of release rush through me, like an elastic band that had snapped back into shape after having been stretched and let go of.

  There was nobody on the bridge connecting the path I was on to the small section of the park where the band was playing and the people were gathered. My pursuers were hot on my heels, but I didn’t stop to look at them, or for them, I just kept my head down and kept running, kept breathing, my lungs burning from the effort, but something was wrong.

  “God-dammit!” one of the men yelled, “You go after that one, I’ll go after that one.”

  That one?

  I wanted to look, but more pressingly, I had to focus on taking any steps two at a time, flying across the bridge, and pushing through to the people, to safety. I was moving so fast, one misstep and I would be scraping my teeth off the floor, but this intense concentration allowed me to gain a good lead on the people—no person, there was only one now—behind me.

  Cutting across the grass and pushing through a small section of trees, I made it into the opening where a band was playing Hello Dolly, one of Louis Armstrong’s classics. Without thinking too much about it, I moved into the audience, slowing down and slipping deep enough into it that I could have been mistaken for anyone, if I could only make it look like I hadn’t just run half a marathon.

  Luckily, no one around me seemed to care that I was pushing through them, slowly making my way from one side of the crowd to the other. Where the audience ended there were trees, and it was dark. I headed for it cautiously, carefully, watching to make sure I wouldn’t catch the attention of the man looking for me. He’d reached the edge of the crowd now, and he was scanning it like a bloodhound trying to catch a scent.