The sss and the Beast

Chapter 1

1

KELLSEY

Oban, Scotland, twenty-four years later…

Kellsey looked down at the wooden arrow in her hand. “Shouldn’t Cupid’s arrow be made of gold, dotted with hearts or something? This looks more like something Robin Hood would use.” She hadn’t expected an angelic choir when she had taken the arrow from the vault, but this just looked sad.

“You could ask your brother,” Shay suggested, and she jumped on the windowsill beside the kitchen island. “Oh, wait, then you’d have to tell him that you stole something from his safe.”

“Borrowed,” Kellsey corrected her. Stealing and borrowing was practically the same with the Callahans. She handed the arrow to Vicky so she could use it in her witch’s brew.

“Are you really going to stick that arrow in Leroy’s ass?” Shay continued. “Can I be there when you do it? Can I? Please?”

Was she really going to do this? Use a love arrow to make Leroy Leandros fall in love with her? Even if it was an artificial love?

After a millisecond of pondering she nodded. Absolutely! All was fair in love and war. Especially when she was challenged.

“Someone has to put that arrogant fairy in her place,” she said defensively. “I have a reputation to uphold.” Which was why she hadn’t been able to refuse when Lea had challenged her during a game of Truth or Dare to steal a kiss from Leroy. On the hood of his beloved Jeep, during the annual Blood Games, where everyone could bear witness.

Vicky cleared her throat while she continued to stir in her cauldron. “Are you sure Lea’s challenge is the only reason?”

Kellsey put on her most innocent face. “What other reason could I possibly have?”

Shay snorted. “Maybe because you’ve been chasing Leroy’s ass since you could crawl?”

“I have not!”

“Watch it; your nose is growing,” Shay said as she grabbed a lollipop from a kitchen drawer.

“Why not just explain it to him?” Vicky suggested as she threw a rose and a peacock feather in the cauldron.

“What’s the challenge in that?” Kellsey asked, not surprised by cautious Vicky’s suggestion. The black witch feared her own shadow. That is, unless you crushed one of her plants. Then she turned into the Hulk.

“It’s safer,” Vicky said. “We don’t even know what kind of mythos he is.”

“He’s Greek, right?” Shay noted. “Maybe he’s a centaur. You think he’s hung like a horse?”

Kellsey rolled her eyes. “He’s not a centaur. They’re practically extinct.” Which was a damn shame, because riding on the back of a centaur was on her bucket list.

“What if he turns out to be a dragon?” Vicky continued. “He could burn the place down. Your brothers won’t be happy if the Asylum collapses, and they have to rebuild it again.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Shay said as she waved her lollipop. “Remember that time when you hid a hydra in the dungeon?”

Kellsey sent her an annoyed look. “How could I have known that Hermy would grow so fast? Or that he would slip into Levi’s bed?” If she’d known that she would have kept the baby hydra far away from him. Of course, it didn’t help when Levi decapitated the hydra and continued to decapitate him until poor Hermy had nine heads.

“Just like you didn’t know your Kraken would outgrow the tub in the basement?” Shay asked sweetly.

Kellsey winced. She didn’t like to be reminded of that incident. “Well….”

“Kellsey was practically a toddler when that happened,” Vicky defended her. “She probably didn’t understand Krik when he told her that he would soon outgrow the bathtub.”

If only that were true. She had been seven when Krik told her that he needed more space. Understanding Krik and telling her brothers that they were about to be living with a gigantic sea creature, however, were two different things. By the time she had gathered her courage to tell them, Krik had burst from the joints of the basement. He had taken half of the basement with him, as his giant tentacles had beaten it to smithereens. Something her brothers liked to remind her of, a lot. They were never going to let her live that down.

“This is Leroy we’re talking about,” Kellsey hastily changed the subject. “He doesn’t have any mysteries or surprises that could cause unexpected problems.”

His reliability was one of the things she liked most about him. And his muscular arms. He had the sexiest arms. She pictured him traveling through the jungle, swinging from vine to vine in search of an ancient temple with a hidden treasure. Sadly, so far that picture had remained a fantasy, because he had refused to take her on one of his trips.

“Then why doesn’t he ever appear in his mythos form?” Shay asked suspiciously.

“He’s a nomad. Maybe he’s on the run from his old clan,” Kellsey countered. At least, she thought he was a nomad. She hadn’t seen a clan mark on his body. Hers was placed on her right wrist. Not all mythos wore it in the same place, though.

“Or perhaps he’s being hunted because he’s the last of his kind,” Vicky said softly, her eyes full of shadows.

“Or maybe he’s a hybrid, and he’s ashamed of it,” Shay said stiffly. Her pupils flared into smoldering pools of red and then changed back into a frosty white. Being half frost giantess, half djinn made her an unusual combination of fire and ice.

“Leroy doesn’t strike me as the type that gets hunted.” He was more the hunter. “He doesn’t strike me as the type who’s ashamed to be a hybrid either,” she said. But for some inexplicable reason, he kept his true nature hidden.

“The potion’s almost ready,” Vicky said. “Once it has cooled, it’s ready to be used.”

“Cool is my middle name,” Shay said as she dipped an icy finger into the cauldron.

“I thought it was Lolly,” Kellsey said innocently. Everyone knew of her love for salmiak lollipops.

Shay frowned. “Shut up, Achilles.”

Kellsey pulled a face. “Sometimes you can be so mean.”

“Mean is my default setting,” Shay said. Her corset creaked as she bent over and grabbed another lollipop from the kitchen drawer.

“So, how long will the arrow work?” Kellsey asked. She’d kind of bragged that she’d win the dare within twenty-four hours.

“It’ll work for twenty-four hours instead of a century,” Vicky said and she took the arrow out of the purple concoction.

Kellsey would be lying if she said she hadn’t thought about keeping Leroy as a willing love slave for a hundred years. For just a wee moment, of course. Sometimes, it felt bad to be good. The only thing stopping her was her Callahan pride. She wanted Leroy to genuinely love her, not because a magic arrow shot hearts through his body. “Are you absolutely sure?” she asked. The Blood Games lasted two days. They were held at the open field behind the Asylum where there was a crowd all day long. Leroy never stayed longer than he had to, so he would be gone by the second day. Twenty-four hours didn’t give her a big window of opportunity to hit Leroy with the arrow.

Vicky cast her eyes down. “Yes. If you want the warranty of a trained witch, you’ll have to hire a white witch.”

“No, I trust you,” Kellsey assured her quickly. She could hardly blame Vicky that she wasn’t properly trained in black magic. Her race had been massacred by the white witches. The white witches now ruled over Avalon. So, the odds of Vicky being trained there were about as high as those of Shay wearing a cardigan.

The arrow, now transformed, was pink. “It should work now,” Vicky said, and she gave it to Kellsey.

“That’s more like it.” Kellsey jumped from the kitchen table with the arrow in her fist.

She left the kitchen for the gym where she usually trained with her brothers. The armory was situated by the gym. She took a short crossbow and went outside. She stepped in the middle of a crowd. The back yard was packed with clans and supporters who came to take part in the Blood Games.

Shay sauntered by in her miniskirt and corset. “I love this time of the year when the crème de la crème of sexy testosterone passes over our doorstep. You know what turns men on? Fighting. And blood.” She suddenly frowned. “Where are the Buchanan werewolves?”

The befriended werewolf clan was absent indeed. Shay had a friends-with-benefits relationship with Conn, their alpha. She’d admitted that she wasn’t sure if it could lead to anything more than a fling between them since an alpha werewolf, unlike the betas and omegas, could one day meet his true mate.

Kellsey knew Shay feared that the werewolf would then cast her aside like an old pair of shoes. “You’re playing again this year?” she asked, avoiding the sensitive issue of the Buchanan alpha.

“If your brothers would just enter the Games I could form my own kick-ass team instead of having to join the Buchanan team,” Shay complained.

“At least you get to play,” Kellsey grumbled back. It was a recurring discussion point between them. Shay complained because she lacked five clan members to form her own team. Kellsey complained because she couldn’t play at all.

“You really shouldn’t complain, chicky. It wouldn’t be fair if you played. You know what happened last time.”

Kellsey rolled her eyes. She was just as good at breaking bones as her brothers. Unfortunately, no one on the other team dared to attack her, which just ruined the game. And all that, just because Kuno had gone berserk when someone smashed his fist in her face.