Chapter One
“She’s a royal bitch. Walking around with her nose in the air like she couldn’t be bothered with Triune. Like the men should come to her. Because she’s the special one, right? The Abbott heiress, most powerful Magian in generations, watch her pull a rabbit out of her skinny ass.”
Harrison rolled her eyes at the snide chuckles she heard as soon as she opened the door to the ladies room. Just what she needed. Jealous witches. No safe haven here. She spun on her heels and walked further down the narrow hallway, looking for someplace she could be alone. If only for a moment.
Her first Triune, first taste of the club where Magians gathered a few times a year, drawn to meet their perfect magical compliments, to be matched with their triad and begin a life together. For Harrison, it was just another place for her to stick out like a sore thumb. Where the gossip inevitably turned to her.
Their words no longer had the power to hurt her. She’d spent her life being fawned over in public, and mocked and ridiculed when they thought she couldn’t hear. Besides, they were half right. She had no desire to be at Triune. No desire to become a trophy wife to two Magian peacocks. She already had three brothers and two fathers to boss her around, to keep her from having a life of her own.
The Abbott heiress. What a joke.
Tonight it was her cousin Conway that had been given babysitting duty while her best friend, Callie and her two brothers, Tyghe and Tucker, tried to solve a crime. Leaving her on the sidelines again. Only this time she was in a magical meat market surrounded by Magians looking for their mates…and a reason to sin.
She’d rather be doing laundry like a normal human.
Human. She sighed. Callie wasn’t human. She was a witch. Harrison was still ticked that Jenner hadn’t told her from the start. Who knew the family housekeeper had so many secrets? All these years she’d let Harrison believe her friend was an average human. A girl with no powers whatsoever.
When she and Jenner had performed the spell to glamour Callie so she could sneak into the Triune unnoticed, something else had happened instead. Harrison had discovered that her best friend was a Magian like her. It had been blocked by some powerful magic, but it was there. She’d felt it as she’d drawn the natural magic out of her and realized that Callie’s compelling powers had been suppressed.
Rightly or wrongly, the realization had the bitter taste of betrayal. Not that she loved Callie any less, but her friend had always been Harrison’s only connection to normalcy. To a world where nothing was enchanted. Where everything was real. But it had all been a lie. What she still didn’t know was why.
The hallway came to a dead end that had Harrison narrowing her eyes. The way the dim light hit the brick looked strange. Charmed. Someone had thrown up an illusion, a challenge, distracting her from her private pity party.
Had she stumbled across the secret lair of the person responsible for the Triune attacks? Maybe she could catch him before Tucker and the others had a chance. Perhaps then they’d think twice about leaving her out of their adventures. Again.
The power inside her welled up, familiar and comforting, its electric blue light caressing her fingers with warmth as she touched the brick. It wavered beneath her hand. It was a messy illusion, easy to untangle. There were no obstacles to stop her from stepping through to the other side. The Magian who made this apparently didn’t care if someone found his or her way in.
A few seconds later and she was in a stairwell. Over her shoulder, the brick looked solid, not showing the hallway she’d just stood in. Where did these stairs lead? Where had they come from? She heard a low male groan and held her breath, instantly cloaking herself from view. It was a spell Jenner had taught her when she was very young, and it had served her well when she didn’t want to be seen.
“Is this what you wanted, Ric? Why you’ve been distracting me all bloody night long?”
Another male. This one sounding angry and gruff. She leaned over the railing to look down at the flight of stairs. Her heart began to race at the shockingly forbidden sight. Two male Magians. One dark and one light. One lean and lanky, and one built like a barbarian warrior. Or a rock troll. Two opposite sides of a coin.
They were locked together, not in battle, but in an erotic embrace that stole her breath. The leaner one was bent at the waist, his white knuckled hands braced against the wall and his pants around his ankles showing off his muscular thighs. The other, his broad-shouldered, massive body towering over the man in front of him, was still fully clothed. Mostly. The powerful thrust of his hips made it obvious what they were doing. She swallowed her gasp.
She knew this happened. Just because most of the males she knew in Triunes were related, cousins or brothers, didn’t mean all of them were. But she’d never thought about it one way or the other. She bit her lip. That was a lie, she’d thought about it, but she certainly hadn’t imagined the sight of two men locked in a passionate embrace would stir her so completely. She couldn’t see their faces—the stairs were too shadowed. But that didn’t stop her from leaning closer, her curiosity peaked. Her curiosity…and her arousal.
The man on the bottom let out a chuckling groan. “Have I been distracting you, Jacob? Keeping you from finding the perfect woman? Her Highness would kill me, especially after all the—oh, yes, harder— trouble she went through to get you here.”
The larger man leaned forward, clasping Ric’s hand on the wall, shafting his lover with long hard strokes that had Harrison shaking. Her body reacted as though she were the one being touched. Taken. She squeezed her thighs together, feeling her hard nipples poke against the fabric of her dress.
“Shut up, Ric.”
“Mmm. I love it when you boss me around, babe. Especially when I know I can have you on your knees anytime I choose. Know how much you love it.”
The other man growled. “Who’s the one being fucked here?”
“You are. You’re the one who has to give the family an heir. The one who has to find a sweet, well connected girl who will probably burst into tears once she discovers what you’re really like. Your darker urges. How bad you can be.”
The railing pressed hard against her stomach, keeping her from falling over. This Ric, who she was having a hard time seeing clearly in the shadows, seemed to be taunting the man he called Jacob. And it was working.
“I’ll show you darker urges.” She heard a smack as the palm of Jacob’s hand connected with the tight ass tilting up as though begging for more. “Fuck, we don’t have time for what you’re begging for. She’ll be your match, too, you know. Why are you trying to piss me off?”
Harrison heard their words, loving the gravelly voice of the rough man arguing with his lover, but her gaze was riveted to the spot where their bodies were connected. She wished she could see more. See the larger man, Jacob’s, body.