Chapter 1
MAD
Mad was doing whatever he could to avoid Odette Beaumont.
Which was almost impossible.
As the Blackwells’ house manager, everywhere he went within the house, he could smell her.
Like lilacs and honeysuckle and…
He swung his sword through the air with enough force to sever a head. He spun and lunged, then backtracked and swung again.
He was in the ballroom at Blackwell House. Several decades ago, they’d transformed it into a fully-outfitted gym with plenty of space for sparring and sword practice. In the twenty-first century, the Blackwells had little use for balls.
Sweat beading on his temple, Mad advanced on an imaginary enemy.
It’d been almost eighty years since he’d fought in a war and even then, his primary weapon had been a rifle. He missed battles of old. When men wore suits of armor. When the sound of horses’ hooves hitting the dirt meant impending chaos. He missed the sound of steel hitting steel. He missed the mud on his boots and the smell of blood on the air.
He was a warrior. He always had been. It was what he excelled at.
But now his only duty was to his family and he took it seriously.
So why the fuck had he risked everything to—
He lunged again. Gritted his teeth.
He, Mad Blackwell, oldest Blackwell djinn, had crossed an uncrossable line.
Shame crept up his throat and threatened to steal the oxygen from his lungs. He hated that he’d done the unthinkable. And ever since, there’d been a building pressure in his chest that reminded him of the feeling he got right before war was about to break out. He had a sixth sense about these things and in the past, it had always served him well. But this was not the past. This was the 21st century. If war was coming, it wouldn’t be fought on European soil between kings and their armies.
No, if war was on the horizon, it would be an altogether different kind.
When he spun around again, he realized he was no longer alone in the ballroom.
Red Blackwell stood along the north wall leaning casually at one of the open windows. Dawn hadn’t broken yet, but Mad could sense it trembling on the horizon.
“What are you doing up?” Mad asked.
Red was his grandfather and close to a thousand years old or maybe just beyond it. It was hard to judge these things when looking at an immortal, and Red was never the type to share personal details if he could help it, even with his own family.
A few months ago, Red had been close to Death’s Door, and he’d been ready to succumb to the end. It was Mad’s sister-in-law who’d saved him. She wished to switch places with Red and so now the thousand-year-old djinn was human.
He did not wear it well.
“I hate sleep,” Red answered.
What he didn’t say was that sleep made him feel weak and vulnerable, two things he absolutely detested.
“As mortal, you have to sleep,” Mad pointed out. “Or you will die.”
Mad walked over, his sword in hand hanging limply by his side now, and when he got closer, he noticed a raw, angry bruise around Red’s throat.
Mad nodded at it. “Who did that?”
“Who do you think?”
Thorin. Mad’s youngest brother.
“He’s angry with you.” Mad put the sword in the rack. “You can’t blame him.”
Just yesterday, Red’s psychic, Cassie, had come to Blackwell House to do a reading for Thorin. It had recently come out that Thorin was only half djinn. Turned out the other half was god. Thorin was the son of Thor to be more specific. Red had known about it all along. Or at least he’d had a really, really good suspicion and he’d never told Thorin.
“Why keep it from him this whole time?” Mad asked.
“I’m not the only one who held that secret.”
He meant Artemisia. Mad and Thorin’s mother.
She existed in Mad’s memories as a woman who was irreproachable. He knew that wasn’t true. No one was without flaws. But it was easier to paint Red as the villain in this scenario. Because Red’s reasons were likely not as righteous as Artemisia’s had been.
“Mother died over a hundred years ago. You had plenty of time to share the knowledge with Thorin.”
“You knew he was your half brother. Why didn’t you tell him?”
“Don’t turn this around on me. I only knew he was half-djinn because that’s what you told me. I didn’t know he was half god.”
Red looked away. “What’s done is done.”
Mad yanked the towel off the hook by the door. “You’re right.” He wiped the sweat from his brow. “We have bigger problems anyway. Cassie stopped to talk to me before she left.”
A shadow crossed over Red’s face.
Mad still wasn’t sure of the nature of the relationship between his grandfather and the librarian who turned out to be an extremely powerful psychic. Cassie and Red had made a deal months ago and whatever Cassie’s last wish had been, it’d entailed keeping them apart. Which only seemed to make Red more prickly as the days went on.
Never in his life had Mad witnessed Red yearn for something or someone.
This was new territory and Mad wasn’t sure how to navigate it.
Sensing Red’s unspoken curiosity, Mad said, “She looked well. The more aligned she is with her powers, the better she’ll be, I suspect. You should have seen her read Thorin. It was a sight.”
Red’s expression softened and for the briefest of seconds, Mad could have sworn his grandfather’s eyes turned glassy with unchecked emotion.
But Red being Red, he clamped it down tight and refocused the conversation. “What did she tell you?”
“Lydia is on her way here.”
“Lydia Beaumont?” Red said and made her name sound like a curse. “For what reason?”
Cassie’s words had been, She knows about you and Oddie.
The shame came flooding to Mad’s chest again and he suddenly felt like he might suffocate beneath it. Worried that Red might notice, Mad turned away and climbed on one of the treadmills along the far wall. He jabbed at the speed and easily fell into a sprint.
Looking back, Mad wished he would have pressed Cassie for more details. He’d been caught off guard. Too lost in his own head to think like the tactician he usually was.
She knows about you and Oddie.
A djinn, of all people, knew how the same six words could mean six different things.
How much did Lydia know? Was she coming because she knew? Did she have facts or only suspicions?
And most importantly, when would she arrive? It was possible that Cassie saw a future where Lydia knew, not necessarily that she knew now. She could be on her way to the house now or next year or the next decade.
His head was already pounding just thinking about the twisted possibilities.
When Red came over, there was a new sharpness to his expression. “What reason would Lydia have to come to my house?”
Good question.
Mad let his gaze go fuzzy. The ballroom’s recessed dark green panels blurred and for a moment, he could pretend he was running through the Black Forest.
“Mad,” Red said again.
“I don’t know.”
The lie turned sour on his tongue.
Rarely was he dishonest with Red. Rarely did he have a reason to be.