Phoenixlost Read online

  Phoenixlost

  #9 in The Rogue Witch: A Reverse Harem Romance

  K.T. Strange

  Copyright © 2020 by KT Strange

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  For more information:

  http://kstrange.com

  [email protected]

  Book Design: Heart Candies Publishing

  Cover design: Ciaran Strange

  Photography: Curtis Noble curtisnoblephotography.com

  Model: Becca Briggs beccabriggs.com

  Phoenixcry Drawings: Susan Went

  To you.

  Thank you.

  Contents

  Stay in touch!

  Warning

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  31. Epilogue

  Thank you, and you, and you…

  Stay in touch!

  About the Author

  Stay in touch!

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  Warning

  Hang onto your Kindles, Beauty,

  this book is happening.

  One

  I wish everything didn’t always feel like failing. I sat on the edge of the couch, the whole apartment quiet in the early morning hours. Light filtered in as I watched Seattle wake up, a tremble inside of me that echoed the shivering clouds up above as they shifted with the wind.

  We were home, as much as any place could be home to us. For now, I was wrapped up in the pack, insulated and kept apart from all the things in the world that wanted to hurt me. I struggled with it. Part of me felt it wasn’t fair on the guys to bear the brunt of my problems. That I should be the reason that they were being held back from their dreams, again. Over and over, the reality was this: who I was and where I came from would haunt us forever and make sure that none of us ever saw a ripe old age or a dream come true.

  The shift of clothes behind me, the soft rustle of sleep clinging to someone’s skin, had me sitting up. Charlie slipped onto the seat next to me, and I turned into his warmth like a sunflower to the burning sky.

  His hand curled around my waist, and he pulled me against him, his lips pressing to my temple.

  “Morning,” he croaked and then cleared his throat with a rusty laugh.

  “Sounds like you need coffee,” I replied. My eyes scanned his face for any sign of exhaustion or the wear-down of the tour that seemed to linger on all of us.

  “All I need is right here,” came his quick response, his eyes half-closed as he nuzzled his face into the side of my head, inhaling my scent deep.

  “Did I wake you getting out of bed?” I let him hold me, trying to remain in that moment and not go wandering to my past mistakes and the terror of the future. All we ever had was where we were, and even as much as what we were about to do was making me sick, I had to cling to the present as my life depended on it.

  Because in some ways, it did.

  Charlie’s mouth found the shell of my ear, lips soft against my skin as he kissed me there.

  “A little. The rest of those fuckers are knocked out.”

  “Is that any way to talk about your pack?” Cash teased, his footsteps light as he joined us by the windows. He stretched out, acres of smooth skin, the pebbled line of his spine, cutting through the muscles of his back. He was naked like the day he was born, not even bothering with the modest t-shirt and boxers Charlie wore. Charlie rolled his eyes, gaze flickering from the curve of Cash’s tight ass, back to me.

  “Don’t let the old guy distract you. He’s got no stamina, sweetheart. The staying power of youth can’t be underestimated.” Charlie’s words made me laugh, and Cash swung around. I found it hard not to blush, averting my gaze.

  “Young bucks always talk a big game,” Cash said, “but having experience is everything.” He stepped toward me, and I held my breath, glancing upward so I couldn’t see the semi of morning-wood he was packing. “You left me all alone,” he complained, although his lips were curled, and there was no whine in his voice as he offered me his hand. I got to my feet, leaving Charlie to bitch under his breath, and leaned up and gave Cash a slow, good-morning kiss. He pulled me in close, our bellies pressing together, and I could feel the catch of his erection hot against my stomach. “I like this,” Cash breathed out, “what’s this you’re wearing?”

  “My goddamn shirt,” Eli broke in, sounding smug. “You pretending to be feeling me up, there Cash ol’ boy?”

  Cash grunted, and I felt him shift his arm lifting. I turned my head. He was flipping Eli the middle finger.

  “Are we sexing?” Ace was right behind Eli, Finn rounding up the rear. All three looked exhausted. Sleep hadn’t done any of us enough good. I was feeling rough around the edges too. “Cause if we are, seriously, I need some bacon in my face before I do anything strenuous.” He patted his stomach for emphasis, making the rest of us laugh. Cash let me go, and I went to each of my guys, tip-toeing for a kiss from them.

  “Morning,” Finn said, his voice rough and sleepy. He tousled his fingers in my hair and held me close for a second. “You sleep okay?”

  “About as well as you,” I said, as the guys moved into the kitchen area of Wolfe’s fancy penthouse apartment. We had cool things now, like a person that the label had sent over to our place before we’d gotten home to fill up the fridge and pantry. It felt weird to have… people. Helpers, hired staff, or whatever, that did things for us. But Phoenixcry’s financial and musical success wasn’t a joke. I’d seen the streaming royalty statements and the merch sale sheets. Even if the band stopped making music tomorrow, they’d have enough money to last them for the rest of their lives if they invested it right.

  And werewolves could live a long time.

  Just like witches.

  My heart warmed, glowing in my chest as I watched them move around the kitchen, pulling out the breakfast fixings. I needed to be more optimistic about our future. If we faced our next few hurdles, as big as they were, I’d have a long time to love my guys. That was something that had maybe kept me from dating any mundanes back before I’d met the pack.

  I hadn’t wanted to fall in love, just to stay young while my husband grew grey and passed away. Never mind what ever
yone would say to me and my apparent eternal youth, but the pain of losing him? It would have crushed me.

  But now, I didn’t have to worry about that reality. My future, our future, was written in stone and nothing, not hunters, not the world at large, not my father in all his impossible ability to survive the worst I could throw at him, were going to stop us.

  The guys moved through the kitchen, laughing and joking. Rare sunlight in Seattle pierced the haze of our apartment, falling on them until they glowed with it. I held my breath. I wanted to freeze that moment, keep it locked in my heart, and never let it go.

  I had to believe in us. I had to believe in our future. Being gloomy and depressed hadn’t gotten me anywhere. I forced a smile onto my face, feeling like my heart was cracking apart under my breast bone, and wrapped my arms around Ace from behind.

  “Pancakes?” I asked as his arm stilled, the whisk splashing in the bowl.

  “Mmm,” he said, reaching back to pull me around the front of him. I felt the strength of his chest against my back as I settled against his well-muscled upper body. There was safety in every inch of him, and I leaned on it, taking comfort from his closeness. I needed all of the comforts I could get.

  The next few days, weeks, and months would determine… everything. It was everything. Ace seemed to realize that something wasn’t right about me because he abandoned his pancakes and turned, pulling me in for a close, comforting hug.

  “What’s in that head of yours, sleepy?” He murmured into the shell of my ear, and I let my eyes drift shut slowly.

  “Worried about everything,” I whispered back. His thumb grazed my lower lip, and he kissed me before blinking down at me sleepily.

  “Don’t,” he said, “don’t waste time worrying about a tomorrow that might not even happen.” He was right, and that made me grumpy.

  “Don’t burn the pancakes,” I muttered.

  “They’re not even in the pan yet!” He looked offended and got back to whisking, grumbling under his breath as he did about ungrateful mates that deserved spankings. Eli shot me a sly look.

  “You are gonna bring out the dom in him, and then what’ll you need me for?” He teased. I bumped his hip with mine and snorted.

  “Oh, come on, as if we’d be anything without you.” I was chewing on my lower lip as I finished speaking and felt the weight of all their eyes on me. “What?”

  “You’re freaking out,” Cash said.

  “And we’re gonna get it out of you one way or another,” Charlie added. Finn nodded. I sighed.

  “You guys are pains in my ass,” I replied.

  “Not nearly often enough,” Eli coughed and then reached for the coffee that somebody at some point made. He poured himself a cup. “So, spill.”

  “I want… this sounds so stupid, but like, I want some normalcy. I think it was a mistake to half-bail on my internship and on my degree,” the truth pours out of me as if I could stop it even if I wanted to. These are my true loves. I can tell them anything, it feels like. I hope I can. Five sets of eyes flit from me to glance at one another.

  “Yeah, I’m not surprised,” Finn says with a handsome shrug of his shoulders because he’s not able to do anything in a manner that isn’t handsome. Except sneezing. He’s kinda uh, weird-looking when he does that, with one eye half-shut, and the other totally squinted. Don’t kill me for secretly laughing about it whenever it happens.

  “Oh yeah?” I challenge. “You guys mind readers now?”

  Charlie laughed, and Finn smirked.

  “Not really, just… before we came along, your life was pretty predictable. Sure, you were a witch, but you hadn’t tapped into that in a while, then we popped up, your powers went haywire-”

  “Everything got dumped ass over ankles,” Cash said gently, coming to me and taking my hands in his. He kissed me gently. “So what is it you want to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You need to talk to Willa,” Eli said as Cash left my side, walking toward the bedroom. I’m assuming he was going to get dressed since there was bacon about to be sizzling, and even though he had superior healing powers, I was prettttttty sure he didn’t want spattering bacon grease anywhere near his man-wolf bits.

  I sighed and looked at my phone on the counter, the uneasy feelings spooling inside of me. Yeah. I needed to make a few calls. That much was obvious. But fuck, why did owning up to my mistakes feel a little bit like dying? And I’d almost died at least a few times. I knew what that felt like. It should’ve made doing what I was about to do that much easier.

  Instead, I was filled with dread.

  “Hey,” Charlie said, from across the kitchen island. My head jerked up. He had an apple in his hands, and he was tossing it back and forth. “Remember, kiddo, you’ve already survived your hardest days.”

  I rolled my eyes and gave him the middle finger before swiping my phone up in my hand.

  “I’m going to talk to Willa,” I called over my shoulder as I stalked out of the room. “And none of you assholes better eavesdrop!”

  Two

  I tapped my fingers on my notebook, taking a deep breath in. Calm. Calm was the plan. The most important thing I needed to do was talk to Willa, honestly, and sort out my future. Enough of going back and forth. I’d spent so much time mourning and being sad that life was passing me by without my even realizing it.

  Knowing that our world was sort of maybe ending was beginning to put things in perspective for me. Coming to terms with the fact my father was still alive and willing to throw everything at me to destroy my life and snuff out the lives of the guys I loved? It made me more determined than ever to focus on living my fullest life, my best life.

  Even if that meant walking back on individual decisions I’d made in the past.

  Willa sipped her decaf coffee and smiled at me from across her desk.

  “You,” she said delicately, “are the biggest shit-stirrer I know.” She startled me into laughter because I had no idea she would come out with that.

  “What a great way to start a meeting,” I said, and she rolled her eyes with a grin. It was easy with her now, comfortable. Like sisters… almost.

  Nobody would replace Max for me, not ever, but Willa was cozying her way into my heart. I hoped she felt that too. Everybody needs a gal pal. Joey needed his Rachel. I needed my Max… and since I couldn’t have her… well, Willa was something I hoped I could be a good friend too. She’d been a very, very kind friend to me when I hadn’t deserved it at all.

  “Alright, so, I figured it was serious since you decided to be all dramatic and call this meeting when I swear to God you were supposed to be resting up in your fancy penthouse with those sex-gods formerly known as the band Phoenixcry,” Willa smirked as she spoke. “I should be mad at you for breaking every rule known to man about not taking a dump where you eat, but your brass balls have got me a bit jealous.” She rubbed the side of her belly, slowly swelling under her shirt. “Besides, I’d be one to talk, huh?” Sadness crept into her voice.

  “Hey, you know if you need anything, me and the guys are here for you. They would walk over glass, run through fire, for you, and that baby,” I said, trying to find ways of reassuring her without flat-out telling her ps the father is totally dead and he exploded from the inside cause magic. Willa was open-minded.

  I didn’t think she was witches-and-werewolves open-minded. At least her think with Jake had seemed to be more of the animal-lust variety and she was more pining for any sort of helpful male companion to raise her kid with, and not him specifically.

  Which was good. Because Jake was a Grade-A asshole, and part of me, a weird small mean part, was glad he was dead and not around to make her life, or his child’s life, difficult. If he was willing to get handsy and half-assault women… what would he have done to his kid?

  The thought made me nauseous.

  “Troy is throwing me a baby shower,” she said and smiled when my eyes popped wide. “I know. Don’t worry. His secretary is making sure
it’s not like, guns and guitars or something stupid like that for a theme. It’ll be nice. Tasteful. With paper flowers hanging from the ceiling, maybe even… I hope.” She grimaced. “But enough about me. What the hell is going on in Darcy Llewellyn’s head right now?”

  “If you ask the gossip papers-”

  “Cock, cock, cock,” she finished for me, pulling out a folder and opening it. Inside were printed side after side of articles about my torrid sex-affair with five guys. “That’s all you think about, apparently. Oh, my pardon. Cock, and cock. Five of them. Maybe with an extra cock for good measure, because really, after three, who’s counting.” She folded her fingers together and grinned at me. “How’s it feel to be the world’s biggest groupie and slut-bag?”

  “Hot,” I said, flicking my hair over my shoulders, my curls tangling and annoying the eff out of me. I really should’ve either cut them off or committed to being a bun-head for the rest of my life.

  “You’re not even ashamed,” Willa said-asked-giggled all at once before leaning forward on her desk with a sigh. “You are alright, though?”

  “I’m… figuring myself out,” I said, “which with five guys around me all the time, is a little harder than I imagined it would be… but I am. Figuring it out, that is. Who I am, and who I want to be… and I really feel like I’m ready to put myself completely into the shoes of someone who does this full time, and maybe not just for Phoenixcry.” After I finished speaking, I observed her face, waiting for her to laugh at me or tell me I was stupid. That I was really the worst at my job, and the only reason I was still around was that the guys wouldn’t let them fire me.