Chapter 8

Itookabreath and steadied myself, shaking out the tingles in my hands and feet that came from traveling between realms, adjusting to the smaller amount of ambient magic that was available here on Planum—the non-magical realm. We emerged from the portal in a sheltered spot in my rambling little garden, behind an overgrown trellis where I could be fairly certain my roommate wouldn"t see me just pop in and out of existence.

No one in my mundane life here on Earth knew I was a witch. Sure, I told everyone. I said I was wiccan. That I loved working with herbs and tonics. That I grew my own vegetables and flowers. But no one really believed I would mean anything like real magic. They thought I was just one more hippy-dippy, crystal loving, herb smoking, "special brownies" and rainbows yahoo. And that was exactly how I liked it. The less I had to interact with the actual magical community—here or back in Mageia—the better. It kept the insults, evil eyes, curses, and pleading for me to share my family"s evil secrets to a minimum.

"This is the most pathetic witch"s garden I"ve ever seen," the jinn asshole at my side muttered, glancing around the over-stuffed postage stamp back yard of my rental house with his hands on his hips and a sneer on his absolutely-not-gorgeous face. The jerk had insisted that he accompany me, since he refused to let me sneak off to another realm where I could secretly work some nefarious magic against all the beings in the bestiary or some stupid shit like that. I had protested, but of course that got me nothing but a tension headache.

Technically, it was illegal for me to bring a magical being across realms without a license. If I got caught, it would give the Supernatural Alliance a reason to throw me in jail. And let"s face it, they were probably looking for a reason to put the last Lovell behind bars, even if I hadn"t done anything wrong. Everyone would feel safer knowing there weren"t any more of us out running around, able to cause mischief or start wars that would upset the entire magical community, that sort of thing.

But the jinn-hole didn"t give a damn about my reputation or wellbeing. So, here we were. At least he could somewhat fit in with the humans. A pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and some converse, and he looked almost like any other douchey twenty-year-old playboy. Okay, so…maybe not. He really was just too much. Too pretty, too alluring, too damned not human. But at a glance, he"d do. He didn"t have antlers, he could keep his fangs hidden, and he had even trimmed his claws, so it just looked like he enjoyed black nail polish.

My life was so weird.

I shifted the bestiary under my arm and headed toward the house. "C"mon jackass," I muttered.

Keeping the book with me meant I also had Elijah, for what that was worth. The ghost might not be much help in the physical sense, but sometimes a girl needed moral support. And it seemed like Aahil was at least as interested in tormenting the ghost as he was in making my life difficult, so maybe it would deflect some of his attention away from me.

Poor Niamh had not been happy to be left behind. But what the heck was I supposed to do with a six-foot tall, fanged chick with antlers? She didn"t look even remotely human most of the time, with her angular features and glittering eyes. And she gave absolutely zero fucks about following human societal norms.

So, she was relegated to pet sitter. Bis had been perched on her shoulder, carrying on what looked like an enthralling conversation of squeaks and paw gestures when we left.

"Why in all the realms would you choose to live here?" Aahil asked as he followed me through the screen door and into the house. "I mean, I understand not wanting to live in that den of darkness and rot that you call an ancestral home. But to entirely leave the realm. Very un-Lovell-like."

I pinned him with an unimpressed glare. "That"s the whole point, moron."

He arched a brow at me and crossed his arms over his chest, leaning his butt against the kitchen counter. "Addled in the head. I see."

I rolled my eyes and set the bestiary on the countertop with a thump, then went to get a large Ziplock bag to fill with extra pump supplies and all the various crap I needed in order to not be killed by sugar. "Look," I said tiredly. "I get that you hate my family. But did it ever occur to you that they weren"t my favorite people either? I came here to get away from the magical community in Mageia because everyone there knows who I am. They all hate me. Or want to use me. I think the hate is preferable, honestly."

He was quiet for a few minutes as he watched me pack up my paraphernalia. I pulled vials and pens of insulin out of the fridge and put those in an insulated kid"s lunchbox with ponies on it, then piled all that stuff with the bestiary.

"You are a very confused creature," he said slowly.

I snorted. "I think you mean confusing."

He appeared right beside me without a sound. It was freaking unsettling. And I shuddered to think how my ancestors had probably utilized those powers. "No," he said, lifting an eyebrow. "I didn"t misspeak. I meant you"re confused." He waved a hand to indicate the unimpressive little kitchen with its linoleum floors and laminate countertops. "You have untold wealth moldering away in that horror show you call a mansion. And you are a Lovell witch. You could have everyone cowering at your feet, hoping to stay on your good side, unwilling to displease you because they"d never know what secret evil your wicked mind could have in store for them. And yet…you are this." He wrinkled his nose at me, as if this was something absolutely repugnant. "You are clearly confused."

I shrugged. "Fine. I"m confused. We"ll go with that."

The front door opened and closed, and I heard Amy humming to herself. She walked through the living room and past the kitchen, then froze and backpedaled, her eyes going round for a second before she broke into a relieved smile. "Andy? Oh my god, Andy!"

I found myself with an armful of pink and blonde fluff. Amy and I weren"t really that close. We weren"t besties or anything. Mostly she minded her own business, and I did the same, all while splitting rent and occasionally getting drunk together to mourn the state of our crappy human lives. She must have been really worried about me, if she was hugging.

"I thought you were in a basement somewhere being raped and murdered!" she said as she pulled away. "Where the hell have you been?"

While I thought about which version of the made-up story I wanted to go with, she registered that we weren"t alone. Her eyes slid to my sex-on-a-stick companion, and she froze. "Oh," she said, a little breathless. "Hi. I"m Amy, Andy"s roommate." She held out her hand and did this gross girly blushing and eyelash batting…thing.

I was about to make up some reason for Aahil"s refusal to touch her when his expression melted into a sexy smirk and he took her hand, bringing it up to his lips. For fuck"s sake. Amy was going to need new underwear. If she didn"t already. I was pretty sure she was also pregnant from the contact. With triplets.

I rolled my eyes and ignored their chattering while I perused my herb cupboard. I should probably stock up on a few things while I was here. If releasing the rest of the bestiary was as much of a pain in the ass as the first couple creatures had been, then I was probably going to be stuck in the magical realm for a long time.

"What are you doing?" The voice that spoke from right over my shoulder was Amy"s. But Amy had never once in her life sounded so sultry and inviting.

I turned, a bundle of dried wolfsbane in my hand, to meet Amy"s warm golden eyes. Shit. Amy didn"t have golden eyes. Usually. I darted a look around the room, noting that the jinn was nowhere to be seen.

"Knock it off," I said, pushing past Amy to get a container for the herbs I wanted to take back with me. "It"s fucking creepy."

Amy leaned against the counter beside me and rearranged her tits in her pushup bra. "Really? The Lovell bitch who put me in the book thought it was delightful."

I scowled. "Get out of her, Aahil. Seriously. If you fuck up her little human brain, I will fuck you up."

I"d never seen possession up close in real life like this. Couldn"t say I was a fan. But I could well imagine my predecessors would have been delighted. Aahil could do whatever he wanted to Amy right now, and no one would be any the wiser. He could make it look like she"d done all manner of weird, stupid, underhanded, or dangerous things.

He could kill her. And everyone would just call it suicide.

My magic flared up inside me. Amy was a ditz. But she was my ditz. "Get the fuck out of her," I ground out.

Amy laughed, Aahil"s deeper, more sultry voice joining hers as he materialized across the room. "Oh," Amy said, her eyes blue again, and her entire being somehow…less. "Your boyfriend is so funny," she said, as if Aahil had just finished telling us a joke.

I narrowed my eyes at the asshole, wondering just what he had implanted in her mind to make her think he was my boyfriend. "Yeah. He"s a real riot."

She winked at me and whispered, "lucky," as she walked by me. Then in a louder voice, "Well, it was nice to meet you, Aahil, but I"ve got to catch some sleep before my next shift." She waved at us both and headed off to her room, as if she had completely forgotten I was supposed to have been missing for several days, presumed locked in a basement raped and murdered.

"What did you do?" I demanded.

Aahil raised his hands as if he were completely innocent. "Me? I just gave her a reason for your absence. Who can blame a woman for becoming flighty and irrational when she is so enamored of her hot new lover?"

I shook my head at him. "There are so many things wrong with that sentence, I don"t even know where to start. Maybe you should just google what century it is and the evolution of feminism first, then we can sit down and chat."

He grinned, evil incarnate. "Oh, none of that really matters, darling. Because enlightened times or not, I own you." The faint markings on my skin heated up a bit as a reminder. "I do what I want." He spread his hands and gave me a joyous smile. "After all, thanks to you, I am a free man!"

I was really regretting my life choices. Should have just burned the damned bestiary with him still in it.

I piled the herbs with the rest of my crap on the counter and headed to my bedroom to grab clothes. Aahil followed along, poking and prying at everything he touched as he passed. Nosey asshole. He plonked his pretty ass on my bed while I went to rummage around in my closet and dresser, those gold eyes taking in every detail of my inner sanctum. The he started bouncing up and down, making the bed squeak. "Quaint."

I rolled my eyes. "So sorry it"s not the harem you"re used to."

The bed stopped squeaking and I squeaked instead, letting out a startled sound that would make a squashed mouse proud when the jinn appeared directly in front of me, pushing me backward out of the tiny closet. "You find that funny, do you?" he purred, prowling, using his small, decadent body to push me backward. "Is that how you see me, Lovell? As a kept whore, just like the other witches in your family?" The back of my legs hit my bed and I sat suddenly.

What the fuck? Clearly Niamh was right, this guy was unstable. He"d gone from zero to one hundred on the rage scale in an instant. I stared up at him in shock as he kept coming, pushing me back on the bed and crawling over me. My back hit the mattress and he planted his hands on either side of my head, a dark, sultry god staring down at me with the fury and pain of centuries in his eyes.

"That"s what they used me for at first," he breathed, his voice sending chills over my body. I couldn"t think, couldn"t muster my magic to defend myself. All I could do was stare up into those dangerous, compelling eyes, frozen like a startled rabbit in the eyes of a wolf. "Should I return the favor?" he purred, lifting a hand to draw the newly sharpened point of one long claw from my collarbone to the top swell of my breasts, the sharp appendage parting the cotton of my t-shirt like it was nothing. "Should I make you fall in love with me? Make you lose yourself in me? Devote your life to me? All before I betray you and use you over and over. Just like your ancestor did all those years ago?"

He leaned in closer, knees on either side of my hips, his groin pressed to mine, those inhumanly beautiful lips mere inches from my own. "I could make you beg for me, reduce you to a trembling mess of pheromones and need, manipulate your mind, use that plump body in every way possible before I bled your magic from your veins. Would you like that?"

Holy fucking shit. He was using some sort of enchantment on me that I didn"t understand. Had to be. But how was he so powerful here, away from the magic realm? And why the ever-loving fuck did I want to say yes? I sucked in a breath, my chest heaving against his, my skin flaring with heat. I wanted him to destroy me with whatever this dark lust between us was. I wanted to burn.

"Andy, no!" Elijah"s eerie voice was just enough to snap me out of whatever the fuck was going on.

Above me, the jinn smiled like a dark flame. "No? Perhaps not today, then."

And then he was gone, his slight weight and heavy magic vanishing from against my body so fast my head spun. I sat up, feeling utterly lost. What. The. Fuck?

Elijah hovered between me and the jinn, looking as furious as a mostly see-through poltergeist could. "She is not the one who did this to you, Aahil! Andy deserves your mercy and understanding, not your misplaced rage!"

Aahil lounged indolently against my cheap, second-hand vanity, examining his claws. He glanced up, a bored look on his face, all that intensity and rage from before wiped away as if it had never existed. But his words were poisoned barbs. "Do not preach to me, angel. I have no need of your salvation."

Then the jinn dematerialized and vanished.

"Fuck," I muttered succinctly.

Absolutely none of that was good.

Elijah drifted for a moment in the middle of the room. "I"ll find him." Then he, too, vanished.

"Great." I"d just lost not one, but two fucking unlicensed magical beings in the human realm. Perfect.

Do not preach to me, angel.

I guess now I knew why Elijah was so strong. I lifted a hand to push my hair back from my face, ignoring how badly the hand was shaking.

I was in way over my head. What had I unleashed on the world? This was the last time I tried to do the right thing, that was for damned sure.

Eventually I managed to stop moping and drag myself off the bed. I finished packing up my clothes into a duffel bag, added a few little luxury items, and dragged my bag to the kitchen. There was still no sign of Elijah or Aahil. I ignored the fact that they were probably out wreaking havoc on the human world and I"d likely be in magical jail by the end of the day. I was good at that—ignoring shit that would keep most people awake at night. It was kind of the story of my life.

I stared down at the bestiary. If I took it with me on my errands, I could be sure Elijah could find me whenever he chose. But what if my taking the book caused him to be recalled from wherever Aahil was because of distance? In the end, I decided to leave it at the house while I was out. There was always the risk of it being stolen, but the chances of another magic user figuring out it was here were pretty low in the human realm. I tucked it into the cupboard with my hanging racks of herbs, just to discourage Amy from casually fucking with it out of curiosity.

Then I locked up the house and headed down to the little convenience store where I worked. Nothing had changed. It was still the same little gray brick corner store with the obnoxious orange and green sign above it, adds for cigarettes, booze, and gas-station-quality hot foods plastered in the windows. But for some reason, my stomach gave a little lurch at the sight of the place. I had been in Mageia less than a week. But with how crazy things had been, it felt like I had been gone a lot longer. Pushing aside the ridiculous sappiness, I opened the door and went inside.

My boss was working, as expected at this time of day. He got the privilege of working the cushy day shift, while the rest of us grunts got the nights and weekends. Not that I minded really. It was shitty work, and dealing with customers sucked. But I was pretty sure I could handle a robbery if I had to, thanks to my hidden magical abilities. And it paid the bills. Mostly. Still better than living in the magical realm and all the complications that would come with that bullshit.

Bob looked up with a bland greeting on his lips, then he recognized me, and his expression melted into a scowl. He wasn"t a bad guy, normally. Like everyone, he had his good points and his bad points. But, for better or for worse, life as convenience store owner was pretty much the height of his ambition. He had given me a job and put up with my green hair, my at times inconvenient medical needs, and my eccentric behavior. But skipping out on all my shifts for a week straight was probably a bit much.

"Hey," I said with a cheery wave and a wince.

He glanced at the overhead cameras to make sure there was no one loitering in the aisles, then crossed his arms over his paunch and narrowed his eyes at me. "Where the hell have you been? You don"t show up for work. No call in. No text or email. No return calls. Nothing. Then you just come strolling in here looking for your paycheck. Is that it?"

I held up my hands. "I"m sorry! I had…something come up. Unexpectedly."

He snorted. "Something came up. And you couldn"t even bother to call in. I had to scramble to get your shifts covered, wonder if you"d be there for the next one. I"m going bald because of you, Andy!"

I raised a brow. He"d been well on his way to bald before I added to his stress level. But I didn"t think now was the time to point that out. "I"m sorry."

"And?" he said tiredly. "I"m guessing you"re not here to ask for more work?"

I sighed and went over to the counter. "I need at least another week off…probably more. The…situation that came up…it"s going to take me a while to take care of that and get back on my feet."

He watched me suspiciously. "What"s going on, kid? Is this some medical thing? Or are you caught up in something illegal?"

It was my turn to roll my eyes. "Nothing so dramatic, I promise. I just need time off. I don"t want to talk about it."

And really, there was only ever one way for this to end. But if I at least pretended I was interested in keeping my job, maybe he wouldn"t try to withhold my last paycheck or something.

"I can"t just give you a couple weeks off after you no-showed every shift for the past week, kid." He reached under the counter and pulled out a bank bag. Taking out an envelope, he handed it over. "I had your direct deposit stopped. But I printed a check in case you decided to explain yourself."

I took the check and gave him a nod. "Thank you. I appreciate this. And everything else. Really."

Then I walked out on my job. It was just a stupid minimum wage job at a convenience store. No big deal. But for some reason it was a big deal. It felt like giving up a little bit of my life. Like the stupid fucking magical bullshit I had avoided for so long was now chipping away at my hard-won sense of normalcy.

As I expected, my check and the little I had put away in my savings account wasn"t quite enough to cover my portion of this month"s rent and utilities, so after I stopped at the bank, I headed to the pawn shop. Still no sign of Elijah or Aahil. Though, the pawn shop was pretty far from my house and the bestiary, so I wasn"t sure if Elijah"s tether would let him travel that far.

I took the money the pawnbroker had given me for the amulet I"d brought and turned to leave…and walked right through Elijah. The ghost"s cool, misty presence swept through me, and I shivered. His hollow voice followed me as I headed for the door. "You could have gotten far more money for that back home."

He materialized in front of me a second time. I stuffed the cash into my back pocket and brushed past him. Once we were out on the sidewalk headed toward home, I finally replied. "Sure, selling my family heirlooms to a magic trader sounds like a great idea." I could have gotten at least three time as much money as I"d just gotten from the pawnbroker, if I had taken the amulet to someone back in Mageia who dealt with amulets and charms. But that wasn"t how I did things. The last thing I wanted was someone using one of my family"s nasty trinkets. Even if the item seemed harmless, you could never be sure what kind of fuckery had been woven into it by the Lovells. So, I stripped the items of all their magic, then brought them here to Planum to be sold off for their base components, sometimes as jewelry or housewares, sometimes as individual bits of gold or gems. It was safer for everyone that way.

"I knew you had a good heart the moment we met," Elijah said as he drifted along beside me.

I didn"t look at him, muttering out the side of my mouth so no one passing by would see me talking to myself. Mediumship wasn"t exactly a common ability, even among real witches. "I would call bullshit, but then, I guess you"d be as good a judge of character as anyone…angel."

He poofed out of existence for a second before reappearing. "I thought so too, once. But then, arrogance often leads one astray."

I shook my head. "Why hide it? What you are? You"ve been pretty damned secretive, but I knew you weren"t human when you were alive. Your ghost is way too strong for that. So, what was the point?"

He let out a long-winded ghostly sigh. "You are right, of course. It"s hardly important now. Even the ghost of an angel is still just a ghost."

I didn"t believe him. There was a reason he had tried to keep his angelic nature a secret. But we were drawing near a little bench the city had installed along the sidewalk, under a couple of anemic ornamental cherry trees. I recognized the lithe, compact figure waiting for us, and all thoughts of angelic secrets scattered.

Aahil. A slurry of emotions churned inside me, embarrassment over my reaction to his little freak-out wanting to come to the forefront, right behind a stray thought about what it would be like to kiss the terrifying demonic asshole. But I chose anger instead, clinging to it like I was a drowning man and my fury was a life raft. "Hey there, fucker," I greeted in a cheery voice as I halted in front of him, hands on my hips. "Glad you could finally join us. Done with your tantrum now?"

The jinn"s sultry eyes slid up my body, from my sneaker-clad feet to my face. His voice was as condescending and dismissive as ever. "Spook here insisted that I bring this closer to you." He tapped the book he held in his lap. The bestiary. He had taken the dustcover off one of my hardcover books and wrapped it around the grimoire. Probably a smart move. But I wasn"t going to tell him that.

"Thank you," I ground out, turning to continue back toward home. Feverfew and fairy rings, it wasn"t like the jinn was under any obligation to come back. Fuck knew I was happy he wasn"t out setting shit on fire and possessing people or whatever the hell else a powerful jinn could do. I really didn"t want to spend the night in witch jail.

Not that I knew what that was like. I tried to avoid the Supernatural Alliance at all costs. They tended to be a bit more barbaric in their punishments than the human police.

I mean, the last Lovells to get on their bad side had parted ways with their heads before being burned and having their ashes scattered over holy water and fed to nematodes, so….

We walked in silence for a time, and the house was in sight before the jinn finally disrupted the peace. "I can hear your tiny brain worrying from way over here. Never fear, witch," he purred. "I only did some exploring. I would never leave without my prized possession." And all the marks on my skin started to itch.

"Fuck you," I snarled as I brushed past him, enjoying the way he flinched away at the last second to keep my shoulder from touching his. Asshole.

Jotting out a quick note for Amy, I explained that I"d be away for a while, on a trip with my new…boyfriend. Gag. Then I tucked the money for rent and utilities into our secret hiding place so she could pay the bills for another month.

I eyed the jinn. He seemed weirdly unwilling to part with the bestiary. He hadn"t set it down since we got back. Probably afraid someone else would use it to imprison him again. I let him keep it, for now. The four winds knew I had enough of my own shit to carry. Herding him out back, I gathered up my magic and took us the fuck back home.

It was only as the last of my physical being faded from Planus, in that moment before transition, that the terrible, awful, disgusting realization occurred to me.

I had just thought of the magic realm as home.