“So how was your alone time?”

  Elena said, “Really good, a little weird at first but that faded fast. I’m glad we’re doing that for half the mornings during the week.”

  I nodded, “Weird for me too, but also faded fast. I agree too, it’s a good idea.”

  Bonnie asked, “Weird how?” curiously.

  Elena answered, “We’ve been a bit attached at the hip the last two weeks as a threesome, not having our cum supply nearby felt a little odd. So was walking away from him when we really didn’t have to be, you know? But it’s just mental habit and comfort, I don’t think any of us are codependent or anything, just in the honeymoon phase.”

  I laughed, as did Bonnie.

  “I think Mags is wearing off on you.”

  Elena chuckled, “Maybe a little. So, anyway, we put off the personal time thing until we had our fourth, to avoid making anyone feel abandoned.”

  Bonnie asked, “And what if we get a fifth?”

  Elena said, “We’ll figure it out. I think that was the plan though, five in total for our core family and then extended family with benefits for some of the coven members when needed for spells. By tomorrow we’ll have our office set up, the odd person out can do work or something. Maggie already disappears at times for the coven and her businesses too.”

  We continued to chat lightly the next twenty minutes or so, as the food coma slowly subsided and my energy came back. Having the leggy and busty golden blonde on one side, and my exotic petite sexpot on the other almost felt normal to me. I’d come a long way in my new world with that kind of thinking the last nineteen days. Of course, it helped that I was insanely in love with Elena and Maggie, and Bonnie was exciting and new, but there was already affection there.

  That’s about when Maggie came back in the room with a scowl. She looked magnificent in black two-inch heels, a power red pencil skirt, and the pearl blouse showing just a tiny bit of her generous heart-shaped cleavage.

  “This can’t be good.”

  Maggie said, “They had me on hold for twenty minutes, then the line was disconnected. I think we should go there. I don’t want a battle, but I can’t have them harassing and recruiting my witches, and then blowing off phone calls from another matriarch like that. The old bitch is playing games.”

  Bonnie asked, “How old is she?”

  Maggie shrugged, “Fiftyish? Not really that old for one of us, but she pissed me off.”

  Bonnie giggled.

  “Let’s go visit.”

  I took a moment to summon sixteen souls from Tartarus, and made the two-layer armor for everyone, the bottom layer a single soul, and the top three. That was more than good enough if we weren’t going to be facing a powerful demigod, and even then it’d probably do. It was cheaper for me power wise that way, to create the full body armors.

  Bonnie asked, “Think that’s necessary?”

  I shrugged, “I’m not really sure, but we still have Carmine to worry about, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Dane was still in town. Until I’m sure that situation is dealt with, I’m not taking chances, for all I know there’s a sniper right down the road waiting for us to go out. We don’t leave the property at all without protection until then. No, make that the house.”

  Bonnie smiled, “Yes, sir.”

  Maggie raised an eyebrow, then grinned, “Yes, sir.”

  Elena groaned, “When did that happen? Never mind, it’s a good idea, we can’t forget we have other enemies and he’s right. Even if one soul each would probably do for a confrontation with witches.”

  Maggie tilted her head, “Maybe.”

  “We should also go out one night, group date. We haven’t since that first few days.”

  Maggie asked, “What made you think of that now?”

  I shrugged, “Because we’re leaving the estate, it made me realize it’s been like a week since that happened last. I’m more than happy staying home with you all but it seems like a bad habit to get into. I don’t want to take you all for granted, and us going out is important. Now that there’s four of us we can trade off dance partners too, so I won’t have to kill any men for hitting on you. Anyway, let’s get going.”

  Elena rolled her eyes, and I got it. My joke about killing men hitting on them had grated on my own nerves as it passed my lips. I’d really get jealous of course, but I wouldn’t be really killing anyone.

  “Sorry, I totally get that now.”

  Elena kissed my cheek, then got up, and we all headed out.

  Maggie suggested, “Maybe the weekend though? During the week the evening is the only time I get with the coven, but after spending all day Saturday with them I won’t feel so guilty heading out for a few hours.”

  “It’s official,” I declared, “Saturday nights are group date nights.”

  Maggie and Bonnie replied with happy yes sirs, while Elena cackled.

  We made it to the five-car garage and as usual took the Cadillac CTS. I really wanted to drive one of the sports cars, but I wasn’t going to ask Elena and Bonnie to stuff themselves in a tiny backseat. It was all fixed now of course. It’d needed some body work after being flipped by my brother from hell, and some stuff replaced on the bottom of the car, but it was as good as new.

  As soon as the car started up, Maggie programmed in the address, and I was surprised just how close the Oak Circle coven was to us. They were just five minutes away, maybe two miles on side streets, in the same swanky neighborhood north of the city.

  “What’s the plan, matriarch?”

  Maggie looked at me in surprise, then smiled, “I’m not sure yet, love. Get in to talk to her, see what she has to say. I can’t understand why she would do this when she left those mind-controlling raping assholes alone.”

  I took her hand as we pulled out of the gate and started down the road.

  She added, “We escalate only as far as we have to, to get in to see her. After that it’s up to her. I’ll be satisfied with an apology and promise not to do it again. There’s also a chance she’s expecting this, me to come to her, as some sort of power play. I can’t think of another reason she’d snub my phone call like that.”

  The ride went quickly and despite being ready for it and my suspicions there were no problems from Bonnie’s psycho ex. If a weekend romp could be considered a relationship anyway.

  The swinging gates were closed, and I stopped and hit the call button on the keypad.

  A male voice asked, “Who are you and what do you want?”

  Maggie snorted, and spoke across me out the window, “Reginald, you know damn well who it is. It’s Matriarch Maggie Addison. Open the gate, I need to speak to Matriarch Frost about her bad manners.”

  Reginald replied coolly, “As I told you on the phone, the matriarch is otherwise engaged and isn’t seeing guests today.”

  Bonnie said, “I’ve got it,” in a chirpy voice, and the gate started to roll open.

  Maggie snickered under her breath, then said coolly, “She better clear some time, we’re on our way up.”

  Reginald said, “You’ll regret this, child.”

  I snorted, and then hit the gas.

  There was a large circle of oak trees on the left side of the property, as well as oak trees and other bushes scattered around their landscaped estate. The mansion itself was vast, and older style as it was made of entirely of red brick though it could’ve just been a face of some kind because it looked relatively new.

  The center of the mansion was three stories tall, and they had bay windows and several rounded balcony patios on the second and third floor through French doors flanked by large windows on either side. There were no balconies on the two-story high wings, but there were flowerpots and other accents hanging off of the bedroom windows.

  Bonnie said, “Things may not be as they seem. As soon as we got inside their wards… things feel off. Be ready for anything.”

  Maggie asked, “Off how?”

  Bonnie shivered, her usual vivacious and exuberance absent.

  “Dark magic, the stuff I won’t touch. You said Danielle wasn’t that bad right? Would she deal in soul bindings and sacrifice?”

  Maggie shook her head with a contemplation on her face, “I don’t think so, are you sure?”

  Bonnie nodded, “It leaves an echo, the wards and protections here are marked by it. Like a choking miasma in the otherwise light and flowing magic. It indicates the coven well itself is fouled, though I can’t verify that behind their inner wards, not without breaking them.”

  We pulled up in front of the house, and just because of Bonnie’s lack of normally playful and joyful exuberance, and the disgusted worry on her face, I added two souls to all our outer armor for five in total.

  We all got out of the car warily, and headed up to the front door, which clicked open. Maggie stood in front confidently, and she walked into the house and seemed to know where she was going. I guessed she’d probably been here before, though she hadn’t said so.

  I was expecting Danielle to be a bit wizened, but that was just from being so new. Maggie had said she was fifty, but of course she looked to be in her mid-thirties, witches living half again to twice as long as humans, but I’d forgotten. She was an extremely attractive woman with a lithe body at five feet and eight inches, her face was cuter than pretty, and she had reddish blonde hair and bright blue eyes.

  She sat stiffly in a comfortable chair in the sitting room we’d arrived at, and it was fancy, almost like she was royalty sitting on a throne entertaining her lessors. I suspected the room and chair said a lot about her arrogance, and she most definitely did not treat her coven warmly like family as my Maggie did. What was strange was what she had on wasn’t at all what I expected, and not in the least bit the professional dress I’d expected. She had on a black leather bustier, and a pair of black thigh-high silk stockings on her legs. She also had knee high shiny black boots with five-inch stiletto heels. She looked like a mistress out of a BDSM porno, all that was missing was a whip or riding crop.

  She looked at us haughtily, but her eyes were filled with fear, and grief. My guess was the outfit was hers, but for her submissive lover’s eyes only, similar to how my Maggie wore trashy and slutty stuff for me. As to why she was wearing it down here I had no idea yet.

  There was a man in a dark suit, gray button-down shirt and bright red tie standing behind her and to the side. He was built, with black hair similar to my own, and a deeply chiseled young face with dark gray eyes that almost looked black in the dimmer lighting.

  Another man in a lighter suit came in behind us, with dark brown hair and light gray eyes, and he bowed in their direction. I recognized him as Reginald by his voice.

  “I could not stop them.”

  The other man’s voice rasped, “Leave us,” in a cold voice.

  Reginald looked worriedly at us, then took off like his ass was on fire.

  I felt something drain my power, just a sliver of it, and assumed one of them just tried to touch us all with magic and I’d needed to feed more power to my armor to defeat it. I’d also felt power, which told me the man wasn’t just a witch, he was a demigod and controlling magic with his power.

  The man scowled, “What are you doing here?”

  Danielle’s eyes widened in panic.

  Maggie looked uncertain, and she said, “I’m the Matriarch of the Crystal Rose coven. Who are you that holds my fellow matriarch in thrall?”

  Several things fell into place in my head at that moment. Danielle had arranged the harassment as a call for help. If she was under thrall, she probably couldn’t ask anyone for help, but she’d found a loophole of sorts and instead broke coven courtesy and tradition to get our attention. No doubt this asshole had her still running most of the details of her coven, that he couldn’t be bothered with, and she’d taken advantage of that. That might not be completely right, but I suspected it was close enough to the truth of what had brought us here. There were still a ton of unanswered questions, was this psychopath sacrificing her coven members?

  The man chuckled, “Severn, at your service. The coven belongs to me now, by right of strength. These demigods serve your will?”

  Maggie ignored his question and said firmly, “Then I have business with you. Your members harassed two of mine, ignoring the usual courtesies between covens despite their marques. You will not do so again.”

  He didn’t look surprised, so maybe I’d been wrong about the cry for help idea. The idea I wasn’t quite cynical enough for my new world was almost amusing. That made me wonder why he was recruiting though, was he running out of Oak Circle members to sacrifice?

  He waved a hand, “I do what I wish, and correct your tone little matriarch.”

  She said coolly, “And we protect our own. What’s so urgent anyway, running out of members to sacrifice?”

  I was startled, as her accusation echoed my own cynical thought.

  Severn scowled, “What do you think you know? Not that it matters, I do what I must to perfect my arts. You have no say here.”

  She replied, “That was true until you bothered what belongs to me. We all do as we must, I will have your word not to trouble my people further, or I will do what I must to protect them.”

  This guy seemed like an asshole, one that needed killing. But I was taking Maggie’s lead, and she seemed to think as long as he left us alone, it’d be okay to let the guy do whatever he wanted with Oak Circle, the old matriarch, and their people. I wasn’t sure what the right thing to do was. We couldn’t save everyone, they’d all warned me crusaders were dealt with harshly, and it wasn’t our business until it was.

  On the other hand, she could be taking that tack because of all that, but she could be hoping the asshole would say no or attack us. My Maggie could be a warm sweetheart, but I hadn’t forgotten she could also be coldly ruthless against enemies and when it didn’t involve her or hers. We weren’t heroes, we kept our people safe, and that seemed to be the standard. It bugged me a little, but it wasn’t so different than the human world. None of the humans in this part of town were all that fussed by the gangs, drugs, and violence happening in the inner cities either, content to let the cops not handle it, because of manpower shortage.

  Still, in our world the only justice was what we brought, so I wasn’t entirely sure that metaphor held water. Wasn’t there a moral imperative? Though that wouldn’t help us if we were all overwhelmed and killed later on. The right to self-defense seemed pretty clear, but there was just as much darkness as light in the world of gods and demigods, as I noted earlier, crusaders were dealt with harshly.

  In short, I couldn’t just kill the bastard, because he was evil. It still sounded wrong in my head though, seeing what he was doing to this coven, but it wasn’t our responsibility to defend them. It was Danielle’s, and she’d failed. Hopefully he would attack us, then I could take his ass out guilt free.

  What made it even stickier was I suspected he was a son of Hecate, and probably a champion of Bonnie’s mother. That’s probably where that perfecting his arts bullshit came from, for those that put magic and learning it over all other considerations, such as not sacrificing people and binding souls, and summoning demons or whatever the hell else they got up to while perfecting all forms of magic.

  It was clear enough from the blessing that was his greatest ambition and purpose, to perfect the art of magic.

  Oh, not sticky because the asshole deserved special consideration or anything like that, for his horrific acts, but because I really didn’t want to make my mother-in-law my enemy. All her champions would be like this I imagined, and Severn wasn’t all evil most likely, as he’d be perfecting light magic as well. Still, his debasing of Danielle really peeved me.

  Severn replied in an irritated voice, “Very well, I will curb their efforts where you and yours are concerned. You never answered my question,” he turned to us, “You serve this witch? She had unusual strength but not near our power.”

  Bonnie replied, “She is our mate, brother.”

  Severn’s eyebrow went up, “I see, but you were too weak to follow the path required. I trust you can find your way out, as you did your way in?”

  Bonnie shook her head, “I see it as strength, principles and morality are not a weakness and power is not everything.”

  Severn sneered, “Foolishness.”

  Bonnie tilted her head, “Is it? If it were so, then why are none of mother’s champions enjoying an afterlife in the Elysian fields? My foolish morality as you call it comes from within but given the fact it is supported by the gods themselves makes it totally real enough. This life is long for us, but eternity in the circles will be much longer, brother.”

  Severn rolled his eyes dismissively.

  Maggie cleared her throat, “We can show ourselves out. Just to be clear, I am taking you at your word, but should you change your mind know any further interference in my coven will be taken as an act of war. Forgiveness for trespass will only be extended once.”

  I didn’t look at Danielle’s face as we turned and left. I didn’t have the stomach for it, to see that despair again. It felt really fucking wrong. I felt dirty, but we had to protect ourselves, and save who we could without drawing wrath from all sides.

  “How the hell does that happen?” I asked as we got in the car, “I thought demigods left covens alone.”

  Bonnie said, “As a rule, but there are always exceptions in all truths. It’s not all that unusual for a champion of Hecate to take over a coven temporarily to help perfect their magic in the latter stages of their self-training. Believe it or not, most of their coven will survive, and those that do will be stronger for it.”

  I snorted, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?”

  Bonnie sighed, “That too, but I mean magically. Much like I’m going to totally train the Crystal Rose coven in the magic disciplines I have perfected to broaden their diversity if not their raw power. He will do the same there, and once his goal is reached then he’ll step down and leave Danielle in charge again. He also isn’t abusing her physically, that wouldn’t be consistent with his purpose, and he’d see it as a weakness of the flesh. I totally suspect she’s being punished for something to be displayed before the coven like that.”