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

  Looking at these guys, at the seriousness in their faces, yes, it could have all been real. Maybe it all was, but what did that mean? Magic? Come on. There had to be another explanation. There always was to stuff like this. UFO’s, ghosts, sasquatch—people wanted to believe in stuff like this, but no one had ever shown up any concrete, irrefutable proof that these things exist.

  Magic was no exception.

  “Okay,” I said, tentative eyes scanning both men; Eli with his strong, athletic features, his perfect teeth, his kind, caring eyes, and Damon with his razor-sharp intelligence, his almost unearthly confidence, and those high cheekbones of his. “Maybe I believe you.”

  “Good—” Eli started to say, but I interrupted.

  “—but that doesn’t mean I actually believe you.”

  He tilted his head, frowning. “What do you mean?”

  “It means I believe you aren’t bullshitting me about everything, but I think there’s stuff you’re leaving out because you think it’s too much for me to take in.” An inappropriate thought invaded my mind like an unwanted guest, and my cheeks flushed hard, forcing me to look away from Eli.

  “Maybe we are,” Damon said, “I believe there are things you aren’t ready to hear, not because you won’t understand them, but some, at least, because I believe you won’t believe them if I told you.”

  “And the others?”

  “The others I’m keeping to myself because I’m not sure about the answers.”

  “Tell me one you aren’t sure about.”

  Damon stared at me, sizing me up without a single one of his muscles twitching. “What you are.”

  “What I am? I thought you said I was a Mage.”

  “That much I’ve figured out, but what bloodline you come from, I don’t know yet.”

  I licked my lips, swallowed what saliva I had in my mouth—it wasn’t much—and immediately regretted doing so. That awful, bitter taste, the taste of the worm that had been inside of my throat, came rushing up. I gagged but managed to compose myself quickly. Eli, seeing my discomfort, stood bolt upright and rushed out of the room. A moment later he came back with a bottle of soda, which he handed to me with the cap off.

  “Here,” he said, “Drink.”

  I took the bottle and gladly drank half of it, but the fouler taste fought against the sweet, orangey bubbles working their way past my tongue, and won. “That is the worst thing in the world.”

  “I wish I could tell you it goes away quickly, but it won’t.”

  “Oh God… how long?”

  He shook his head. “It depends on the Hexer, but maybe… a week?”

  “A week!” I cringed, then drank more. The sugar and the bubbles kept the taste at bay but didn’t quite wash it all down.

  Eli then turned to face the front door as if some inaudible, imperceptible sound had triggered some kind of silent alarm inside of him. Outside, somewhere, a big dog started barking. Eli then moved toward the door and opened it just as Logan strode inside. He hadn’t even had to knock or ring the doorbell—Eli had known Logan was there, as had the dog.

  I set the drink down and stood, hoping he had news about Lucia, but all thoughts about her, about Damon, and about Eli went hurtling out the window the instant I saw Logan. He was drenched head to toe in sweat, his hair matted and sticking to his forehead, shoulders and powerful muscles glistening, chest heaving, and he was completely naked.

  Even though I knew staring was wrong, my eyes couldn’t get enough of him. I had never seen someone quite as well built as him, not in the flesh anyway. His incredibly defined abs, his exquisite obliques, his powerful thighs, and of course, his well above average… “Holy-shit,” I blurted out as if it were one word instead of two.

  Logan made no attempt at covering up, although when he turned his attention on me, his entire body seemed to tense; maybe he hadn’t been expecting to see me in the lounge. “I should get some clothes,” he said.

  I realized I had been staring unashamedly for way too long, I averted my eyes making way too much of a show of it, trying to feign some remorse at least.

  “Did you find anything?” Damon asked.

  “I lost them in the Seventh Ward, then I ran back here.”

  “You… ran?” I asked, not looking at him. “Where are your, uh, clothes?”

  “In a trash can somewhere. Don’t worry about it.”

  “What about Lucia? Did you catch a scent?” Damon asked.

  Logan shook his head. “Whoever has her is trying to hide her. It’ll take more than tracking her by scent to find her.”

  “Alright. Get some clothes on.”

  When I turned my eyes up again, Logan was gone. Eli shut the front door and stepped back into the lounge, but he didn’t sit down again, not immediately. Both he and Damon were now giving off concerned, unsettled vibes. I didn’t know either men really well, but I knew enough about people to know they’d been expecting better news from Logan.

  “So?” I said, when the silence became too much. “What happens now?”

  Eli glanced at Damon, then Damon looked at me. “Now, we wait here.”

  “Wait? For what?”

  “We need to come up with a plan if we’re going to find your friend. Until then, staying here is the best option; it’s for your own protection.”

  “My protection? You told me we’d go to the police when this was all done.”

  “I don’t think I said that,” Eli said, “What I said was, after we explained everything, you’d have the choice of going to the police.”

  “And have you explained everything?”

  “We haven’t even begun,” Damon said, “There’s a lot of ground to cover.”

  “Well, while you’re explaining what you’re explaining to me, my friend is somewhere, missing. Who knows what’s happening to her?”

  “I don’t want you to mistake what we’re doing here for inaction. Your friend wasn’t just kidnapped, she isn’t another statistic. The people who took her…”

  “What? What about the people who took her?”

  Damon shook his head. “I can’t go into it.”

  “Wait a second, are you telling me you know something about them?”

  “We know something,” Eli said.

  “It’s not for you to say,” Damon cut in.

  “We have to tell her something.”

  “And what exactly should we say to help put her mind at ease?”

  “How about you guys stop talking about me like I’m not here?” I asked.

  Both men looked at me. “Look,” Eli said, approaching, “There’s… things going on in New Orleans. I don’t want you to worry, but what happened to your friend… it’s happened before.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Lucia’s abduction is the kind of thing Damon and Logan have been called down here to investigate.”

  “Investigate… so, you guys are, what, wizard detectives?”

  Damon’s jaw clenched like I’d just offended him. “Magical investigator,” he said, clearly correcting me, “And Eli is right, we have come down here to investigate a string of disappearances, Lucia is now the most recent one.”

  I shook my head in disbelief.” So… wait, you knew she was going to be abducted? Is that why you came to our restaurant?”

  “No, stopped at your restaurant because it looked good,” Eli said, “We had no idea who you were, who Lucia was, or that she’d get mixed up in exactly the kind of thing we’re trying to investigate.”

  “That’s one massive coincidence, isn’t it?”

  Damon folded his arms in front of his chest. “I don’t think it’s coincidence at all,” he said, “In fact, I think you are the reason why we came to your restaurant, why we were around when Lucia was taken, and why we are having this conversation now.”

  “I… don’t get it,” I said, staring at both men in turn.

  “I’m going to be frank with you, and I want you to listen to me and believe the words I’m saying�
�� can you do that?”

  I sensed a vibration in the air reaching out to me from where he stood, and the hairs on my arms stood on end. The vibration touched me, and my body seemed to react to it, to resist it. I felt pressure build around my chest, my neck, my temples, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Damon’s, and this time, when the flash of light passed in front of them, it stayed, giving his eyes a kind of eerie illumination.

  “What… are you doing to me?” I asked.

  “You can feel it?”

  The tightening around my chest intensified. “Seriously, stop.”

  The pressure released, and the light faded from Damon’s eyes. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I said. I wasn’t, but I also wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of knowing that. “What did you just do?”

  “I just tried to use magic on you, and you resisted me in the same way that you resisted the Hexer’s curse. The only way you could do that, is if you were a Mage, which you are. That being the case, I think you’ve been using magic your whole life, you just haven’t known to recognize it as magic. Tonight, I think you used magic to summon us, or to give yourself enough good luck that we would be passing down your street and choose to stop at your restaurant.”

  Wrap myself in good luck—I’d had that thought before.

  “So, what is it you’re saying? I somehow knew what was going to happen to Lucia so I used magic to pull you guys to me?”

  Eli shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the craziest thing I’ve ever heard, not even the craziest thing that’s happened today.”

  “What’s the craziest?”

  Another conspiratorial look passed between them, where neither man said a word.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “I’m sick of hearing that. Could you just tell me and let me make up my own mind?”

  Damon nodded. “Go ahead.”

  Eli licked his lips. “Remember when you headed into the park?” he asked, “Which way did you go?”

  “Which way did I… I ran across the bridge to where the music was playing.”

  “And did you… hesitate? Think about it?”

  I summoned the memory up, calling it from wherever those moving pictures of the mind went to sleep. It was still fresh enough that I remembered, with clarity. I also remembered turning into the park and running past Congo Square and… yeah, I had hesitated. I’d thought about making a left, through the square, and coming out on Saint Peter’s street, then making a mad dash for it. I could have also kept running in a straight line, but I didn’t think my lungs could take much more sprinting, so I’d decided to move into the park and follow the jazz.

  “I did,” I said, “But I don’t see how—”

  “You did something I haven’t, and in fact, no one has seen, in a very long time,” Damon said, interrupting me.

  I took a breath. “What’s that?”

  “You created what’s called a phantasm.”

  “A phantasm?”

  “You split yourself into three copies of yourself. Two of them made the other two choices you could have made, while the real you moved into the park.”

  “I… what? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Doesn’t it?”

  You go after that one, I’ll go after that one. The voice shot up from within the memory playing in my mind, I had almost forgotten I’d heard it, but it was there. It did seem like I had confused them, and only one of them had come after me; I wasn’t sure where the other had gone.

  “But, what do you mean exactly? How did I split myself?”

  “A phantasm is just another word for an illusion that’s so real,” Eli said, “It may as well be real.”

  “And is that… something all Mages can do?”

  “Not all Mages. In fact, not even most Mages. It’s a really advanced, unique, kind of magic, one I’ve never seen anyone do in the flesh before.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means nothing,” Damon said, speaking a little too sharply, a little too abruptly; almost like he had something to hide. “What’s important now is that you believe me when I tell you, we’re telling you the truth. Everything that’s happened tonight is the truth, and what I just did to you—that’s proof. All you need to do now is believe.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “I don’t think you have a choice,” Eli said, “Andi, what happened to your friend is bigger than the police. They can’t be involved because, at best, they won’t have a clue what to do, and at worst, they’re in on it.”

  My stomach went cold. “In on it?”

  Damon nodded. “The organization that’s abducting people, we think they have some government officials and services on their side. We can’t take any chances that talking to the police will relay information back to the people who took your friend.”

  “So, I’m supposed to just sit here and wait for… what? You guys to come up with some kind of plan of action?”

  “That’s what we’re saying,” Eli said, “But you’re safe here, you’ve got us, no one’s going to find you in this house. As long as you’re with us, the people who chased you won’t find you.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel a whole lot better.”

  “Well, the way I see it, we can’t prevent one woman from being abducted, but we may be able to prevent two, assuming you choose to stay here.”

  I glanced at Damon and at Eli, trying my best to read each of them in turn, but coming up blank. “Alright,” I said, “Fine, I’ll stay. For now. But I really don’t like being in the dark. You guys are going to have to involve me in this; I don’t want to be coddled.”

  “I’m not the coddling type,” Damon said, “But until we figure out what exactly you are and determine how we can best use your abilities—if at all—you’re going to have to be patient with us, and more importantly, stay here.”

  “And if I don’t want to?”

  “You aren’t a prisoner,” Eli said, approaching. “But what we’re telling you is true. You aren’t safe out there, and that’s not only because there are people who tried to chase you down tonight. You could be a danger to yourself and other people. We need to figure out what you are and find a way to help you with it before you do something that hurts other people.”

  I shook my head slowly, staring at him as if he’d just dropped a massive bomb on me; the you’re actually adopted, kind of bomb. “You think I might hurt someone…” I said.

  “Not intentionally,” Damon said, “But it’ll be better for you and for everyone else if you stay put for a while. I don’t want to have to ask again, we’re going around in circles.”

  By the stern look on his face, I could tell Damon’s patience was getting thin, but mine was too, dammit. My friend had been taken, I was still hurt, and I was being told a whole lot of stuff that didn’t make a lot of sense—even if, on some level, it did. I was also in desperate need of a shower and some clean clothes, and their suggestion that I stay in their house meant I wouldn’t be going home to grab any of my clothes.

  Maybe they’ll lend you some of theirs.

  I shook the thought away. “Alright, look, it’s not that I’m trying to sound ungrateful or anything, I’m really not. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, even though this all feels like a dream I’m going to wake up from at any moment.”

  “It did for me too, at the start,” Eli said, “It gets… better, even if it doesn’t get easier.”

  A tired sigh escaped my lips. “I’ll stay… I mean, I don’t want to sit on my hands, I’ve never been good at that, but I’m clearly out of my depth here and… I just want to help my friend.”

  Eli approached and placed a hand on my shoulder, his touch sending warm delightful tingles pulsing through me. He had a kind, warm, inviting air about him. He was exactly the kind of person who could wrap me up and keep the assholes and monsters at bay, but he also looked like the kind of person I could spend hours talking to about anything; life, the univers
e, romance. Eli was a heartbreaker, I could see it plain as day.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he said, “I promise.”

  I nodded. “Thank you… really, both of you. Logan, too.”

  As if by magic, Logan had entered the lounge at that exact moment a lot more clothed than he had been when he left. “You’re welcome,” he said.

  “We should get you some clothes and show you to your room,” Damon said. “Eli, take care of the room. I’ll make sure she has clothes to wear.”

  “Wait, you’ll do that?” I asked, “How?”

  “I’ll see if I can find a store.” He excused himself, leaving the house without saying another word. Eli, who still had his hand on my shoulder, drew me in to a half hug and squeezed me against his side. “You’re going to like it there,” he said, “I’ll give you the best room in the house.”

  “You really don’t have to do that…”

  “I insist. You’re my guest.”

  “I’m your guest, too,” Logan said, “Why didn’t I get the best room?”

  Eli passed him and clasped him on the shoulder. “Adorable as I think you are,” he said, “She’s cuter; sorry.”

  A flush of blood flooded my cheeks, and for the second time I found myself unable to meet Logan’s eyes. Still, I walked by him smiling, for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, genuinely… content? Maybe not content but satisfied, satisfied that I was no longer in danger of being chased down by freaks who could put worms in people’s throats.

  That sounds wrong, but it’s also exactly what happened to me.

  I had apparently also split myself into three. That I couldn’t wrap my head around. I had an ex-boyfriend would have both loved and hated the idea that I could do that, but personally I wasn’t entirely sure of how I felt. I also wasn’t sure if I believed them when they had told me. I hadn’t exactly seen it happen, so I only had their word to go on. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust them, there had just been too much going on tonight, too much information to process. I didn’t think I could take much more of it.

  A shower and a lie down were what I needed… correction; a shower, a lie down, and maybe a good lay was what I needed, something to vent the frustration. Only problem was, there were three guys in this house, each of them I thought I would take to my bed in a heartbeat, even if one of them was a bit of an asshole