The Rise of the Dark Lord Read online

  Serious enough that I decided I didn’t want to know.

  So, in the end, flew all the way to Washington, dragged out my kickass suit and all that came of it was finding out Ash was Sir Sebastian Wilding.

  Guess that was worth it.

  16 December

  Get this.

  Got call this morning from Aidan, first call since he left.

  This was the conversation:

  Ring a ding-ding (middle of the flipping night).

  “Hello.” (Me, sounding sleepy, because I was, because it’s the middle of the flipping night)

  “Matty.” (Aidan)

  “Aidan!” (Me)

  (Ash moves beside me on the bed, and I can tell he’s up on his elbow, listening.)

  “Is Wilding there?” (Aidan)

  “Why haven’t you called me in six days?” (Me, avoiding the question)

  Pause, then, “You’re counting the days?” (Aidan)

  “Damn straight. When are you coming home?” (Me)

  Pause, then, “That’s why I’m calling.” (Aidan)

  Trust me, I didn’t forget the look on his face the last time I saw him.

  In other words…

  Me…no…likey!

  “Why don’t I like the sound of this?” (Me)

  “I’m stuck here, another week, maybe two.” (Aidan)

  Two more weeks!

  “Why?” (Me)

  “I can’t say.” (Aidan)

  “Oh no you don’t, we’re not starting this again. No more secrets. What’s going on?” (Me)

  “Matty…you’ve got to—” (Aidan)

  Then phone plucked out of my hand by Ash.

  “Seymour.” (Ash)

  I lay in bed, staring at hulking Ash shadow up on his elbow, thinking maybe I had entered an alternate universe where it was okay for one of your boyfriends to pluck the phone out of your hand in the middle of the night while you were talking to your other boyfriend for the first time in six days.

  Then I lunged for the phone.

  “Yes…yes, fine. I’ll tell her.” (Ash, while wrestling me while I tried to get phone, and winning, by the way).

  Beep!

  Ash disconnected.

  “He’s got some business.” (Ash)

  I stared at Ash’s shadow for a second, waiting for fire to shoot out of my eyes.

  It didn’t.

  “That’s it. I want two other A-named men who’re destined to die for me…or not. You two are out.” (Me, rolling over and turning my back to Ash)

  “Mathilda.” (Ash)

  “Nope. Done talking.” (Me)

  His arm slid around my waist, his mouth came to the back of my neck. “Sweetheart.”

  Ha!

  The “sweetheart” gig wasn’t going to work this time!

  I kept my silence.

  “Mathilda, he has something he needs to do,” Ash explained.

  I remained silent.

  Okay, seriously, I have tons of powerful magic, am prophesied to save the world, am sleeping with (but not getting laid by) a knight of the realm, and my other boyfriend is a bona fide genius with a doctorate, and still, do you want to be me?

  No?

  I thought not.

  He sighed and settled behind me, close behind me, cocking his knees into mine until we were spooning.

  This felt nice.

  It always felt nice when Ash went into The Spoon.

  He was, overall, a really good cuddler.

  Even so.

  I still kept my silence.

  He kept his.

  For a while.

  Then he broke it.

  “Mathilda, you have to trust us.”

  Silent. (Me)

  “Do you remember, not too long ago, you didn’t trust us? You thought we’d betrayed you.” (Ash)

  Now uncomfortable silence (because this was true, I’d never really processed it with Ash or Aidan, I didn’t intend to (ever) and I still felt badly about it).

  “And we had your back the whole time.” (Ash)

  This was true too.

  I still kept silent.

  Ash fell silent too.

  After a long time of this, even though I knew he wasn’t asleep (so doing what I was going to do would be safe, since he wouldn’t hear it), I admitted, “I’m worried about him.”

  “Don’t be.”

  Yeah.

  Right.

  “Do you remember, not too long ago, you didn’t have my back, you had my front, throwing yourself in front of a bullet for me?”

  “Mathilda.”

  “I saw you get shot.”

  His lips came back to my neck and he muttered, “Matty.”

  “Then you died in my arms.”

  His arm around my waist went tight.

  This time, he was silent.

  “That freaked me out so much I can’t sleep alone at night.” I reminded him.

  He gave me another squeeze and another lips-to-neck nuzzle.

  “Hate to say it but I take that as a good thing,” he told me.

  “I don’t think this is funny,” I whispered.

  He shifted deeper into The Spoon, his other arm coming around my upper chest and holding on tight.

  “I’m asking you to trust us,” he said into my hair.

  “Ash…”

  “Trust us.”

  I tried to turn but his arms locked.

  “Ash!”

  “Sweetheart. Please.”

  Holy crap!

  He said “please.”

  I’d known him for over a year and he’d never said please!

  He was bossy.

  He was broody.

  He was macho.

  Truth be told, he usually didn’t say much at all (though, he had been slightly more verbose after getting shot, however I would have preferred some other tactic to get Ash to be more communicative).

  “I don’t like it,” I declared then I gave in, “But I’ll do it.”

  His arm at my waist became a hand that travelled down my belly toward my flannel pajama bottoms.

  “That deserves a reward,” he murmured to the back of my head as his fingers slid inside my bottoms.

  Then he gave me one.

  And it was a good one.

  In fact, after all the hanky panky of the last few weeks with Ash and Aidan, I was set up for it to be the best one I’d ever had (and it was).

  Aidan was going to be pissed.

  As I lay panting, my head tilted forward, Ash’s hand still in my bottoms cupping me gently, his breath on my neck, his body spooning mine, he said, “I know what I want for Christmas.”

  “What?” I asked, all breathy.

  His hand came out of my pants, his arm wrapped around my hips, his head came up and, in my ear, he whispered what he wanted for Christmas.

  I started panting again.

  “Don’t you want that now?” I asked.

  “You in any shape to give it to me now?”

  I surveyed my systems.

  I was pretty sated.

  It had been a big orgasm.

  “Not with any gusto,” I admitted.

  He settled behind me.

  “I’ll wait.”

  Fucking Ash.

  4 January

  Yes, I know it’s been a long time since I journaled.

  Yes, a lot has happened.

  So much, I haven’t had time to journal.

  Yes, I’m gonna share.

  Buckle up, because it has not been pretty.

  Here we go.

  The morning after Aidan called and Ash took the call, told me my other boyfriend was going to be absent for a (longer) while, talked me into trusting them, and gave me the Big O, Ash was out for a run and I was curled on the sofa in the living room of the Cottage, glaring at my Post-its all over the walls, worried about Aidan, war, and a pimple that seemed to be forming on my chin that heralded my period coming.

  This was when a knock came on the door.

  It was Dad.

 
; Alone.

  No Mom.

  No Marcus.

  No Gabe.

  Just Dad.

  It was then it struck me that my father and I had not once in our lives spent time alone together.

  I felt suddenly shy.

  It was whacked but give me a break.

  I was thirty-four years old, and this was the first time I was alone with my father.

  “Hey,” I muttered, sounding as shy as I was feeling.

  “Good morning, honey,” he said softly.

  Okay, I might not have mentioned this, but my dad is super good-looking.

  He also looked ten years younger than my mom, which meant he looked about ten years older than Gabe, which meant he looked about ten years older than me.

  Yeah.

  This felt weird.

  That said, even though Gabe looked my age, Gabe himself was ten years older than me.

  He was Mom and Dad’s firstborn.

  Which pissed Viv off because it meant she could still be bossy big sister, but she couldn’t be bossy firstborn with all the rights and privileges that Viv thought she should have in that role.

  That said, she pointed out (frequently) that she was still firstborn sister, which continued to afford her said rights and privileges.

  Su and I just didn’t agree.

  Then again, we never did.

  “You want coffee?” I asked my dad.

  He shook his head. “Can I sit?”

  I nodded my head.

  He sat.

  Okay, I mean…

  Well, hell.

  This was weird.

  “I received another call,” he shared. “They’re sending in the A Team.”

  “Well, you know, I do have other things to do,” I reminded him. “A war to plan. Yule presents to buy. Christmas parties to attend. Broomstick maneuvers to master. I can’t be flying back and forth to Washington at the whim of the powers that be. And I shouldn’t have to, considering I am the power that is.”

  All right.

  So I was being snippy and diva-esque.

  Sue me.

  Did I want peace?

  Yes. I absolutely wanted peace.

  Everyone wants peace.

  But money didn’t grow on trees.

  Without Bewitched in full swing, how was I going to afford another killer professional-but-still-chic-and-hot business suit and Yule presents and get my magickal larder up to snuff?

  It took me a whole year to do that last back in England.

  And speaking of England, I missed it.

  And that was just the way, and I was learning I didn’t like a lot of ways in life, including that way.

  When I was in England, I missed America.

  Now that I was in America, I missed England.

  Bah!

  “I know,” Dad said. “I told them if they wanted to meet, they would have to come here.”

  “Fine,” I muttered.

  Dad hesitated a second before he asked, “Do you have something on your mind?”

  I looked right in his eyes. “Which of the seven thousand, six hundred and twenty-three priority somethings would you like me to talk about? And, mind, those are the priority somethings. I have another eighteen thousand, two hundred and ninety-four secondary somethings up there too.”

  “Whatever you want to talk about,” he offered.

  I looked out the window and took a sip of coffee.

  “Matty—”

  “You love each other,” I said to the window.

  “Sorry?” he asked me.

  I looked to him again. “You and Mom. You love each other. Like a lot.”

  “Yes,” he agreed.

  “How did you do it?”

  “My sweet girl,” he whispered.

  Here’s the thing.

  I tried to swear off crying.

  Life was super-freaking-crazy and there were a lot of times when I could lose it.

  But it didn’t do anything but exhaust me, and as you know, I have no room to get exhausted.

  I had shit to do!

  But my dad calling me “my sweet girl.”

  The dad I always wanted (okay, so maybe I’d want him to be a silver fox instead of looking like someone I could date, but still, it had not been lost on me in the last few months that I knew he was my dad, and even before, when I just thought he was Senator Addison and he’d always acted like he was super honored to be in my presence, that he loved me…a whole lot) calling me “my sweet girl.”

  Damn.

  He said that.

  I started crying.

  Then my coffee mug was on a table and I was in his arms.

  Man, oh man.

  My dad holding me.

  My dad was holding me!

  Wow.

  That felt so freaking nice.

  So much so, to keep feeling it and not get lost in other emotion, it was quiet weeping, not the loud and snotty sobs I usually dissolved into (thank Goddess), so Dad talked to me through them.

  “It wasn’t easy.”

  “I bet.”

  “We found our times to be together.”

  “Good.”

  “We talked to each other every day.”

  “How sweet.”

  “She sent me thousands of pictures of you girls.”

  I hiccupped and put more effort into not getting loud and snotty.

  “And she spent as much time with Gabriel as she could.”

  I believed this because Mom and Gabe seemed cool with each other, totally tight.

  “I’m glad.”

  “You’re worried that will happen to you and Ash,” he surmised.

  Hmm.

  “I’m also worried about Aidan,” I told him.

  “Why?” he asked.

  Uh…

  Wha’?

  I pulled away from him and looked up at his face.

  You see, this was the thing.

  Dad and Gabe were Le Société, so I knew they were on Ash’s side.

  But still, he was my dad, so even though I didn’t have a lot of experience having a dad (huh), I did have a lot of experience thinking if I had one, he should treat me like his little princess, so thought he should be on my side.

  One could say he noted my disappointment in him and he wasn’t a big fan.

  “I can imagine that the change in circumstances would be confusing, and I think everyone involved is handling you with a great deal of patience, but Matty, my beautiful girl, you’re eventually going to have to come to terms with how it is,” he said.

  “How what is?”

  “How…?”

  He stopped.

  He stared at me.

  I didn’t say anything, just stared at him.

  Then he said, “Matty, Ash died for you.”

  I absolutely one hundred percent did not need that reminder.

  “Yeah, I was there.”

  “Matty. The prophesy said that the man who loves you will wed you and give you three children and he will die for you. Ash already did that last part. He died for you.”

  “The prophesy said one would wed me and one would die for me.”

  “Yes, we, all of us misinterpreted it as that considering a man who dies is not a man who can go on to wed you and build a family with you. But no one could foresee your faerie bringing him back to life as the Elfin Lament has not been performed for centuries. Now, we see it as it is. Sebastian sees it as it is.” I bet he did. “Aidan sees it as it is.” He did?! “You’re the only one who hasn’t put it together.”

  Say…

  What?!

  “But they’ve been—”

  “Waiting for you to put it together,” Dad cut me off to say. “They both know you care deeply for them and neither of them wanted you hurt. What they did want was you protected, even when Ash was not at his best. However, now that Ash has returned, and he’s fit, Aidan shared that he felt his continued presence here was confusing you and he was not at one with keeping up the charade. Most especially after y
ou said something that concerned him greatly prior to his departure.”

  Yeah.

  That something I said was that I loved him.

  “He doesn’t need to be in England, Matty,” Dad went on. “He’s staying away so you’ll move on.”

  Right, I’d been crying.

  Now I was pretty certain I was going to throw up.

  Or throw a temper tantrum.

  Or both.

  (Though, temper tantrum was winning.)

  “Are you serious?” I whispered.

  “Sadly, if I’m reading your reaction correctly, yes,” he answered.

  “You’re not just saying that because you want Ash to win?” I pressed.

  “No, because, if you think about it, honey, he already has.”

  Ash had.

  I loved him.

  He died for me.

  I was sleeping by his side every night.

  I’d seen Aidan’s face when Ash came to Denver and again when Aidan left.

  Aidan wasn’t giving up.

  He just wasn’t “the one.”

  And he knew it.

  In fact, he knew it—they both knew it—since BecBec had brought Ash back to life.

  And they kept up the charade, pulling me back and forth, evening things out, and…

  A…

  Bloody…

  Gain...

  NOT BEING HONEST WITH ME!

  (I mean, seriously, if there was a shouty-caps moment, this was it.)

  “You know, they could have just fucking said something,” I snapped.

  “If you cared for a woman, and lived your whole life thinking you’d spend your life with her, or die to protect her, and then you found out that was true, but it also wasn’t, but you knew she’d fallen in love with you, not to mention she had twenty-five thousand, nine hundred and seventeen priority and secondary things on her mind, what would you do?”

  Yeesh.

  He was good at math.

  “You know, I act like a ditz but I’m not really a ditz,” I declared.

  “I know that,” he said sharply.

  I could not get bogged down in how affronted he sounded that I’d think that he’d think I was a ditz, like any dad who thought his daughter was his little princess should.

  “Well, they obviously don’t. I don’t think I’ll share with my dad the games they’ve been playing to keep up this charade,” I announced. “But we’ll just say they were not cool.”

  He took a beat before he suggested, “Maybe I should leave you to work things through.”