Elements of Desire Read online

  "Reg," I hissed. "What the fuck? This is a rental!"

  He rolled his eyes and smoothed that same hand through his blonde hair, causing it to stick up in spikes. "Don't stress, babe, it's black carpet."

  "So?" I blinked at him, not seeing why this made it okay.

  "Because it'll like, disappear. Just you wait." He gave me a superior look. "After all, who is the expert in fluid?"

  Well … I guess he had a point.

  "Besides, ST, you're hardly one to talk." Reg nodded to my seat and I shifted to reveal a decent sized wet patch on the black leather.

  To be expected, I guessed. I hadn't managed to pull my dress back down far enough and I had just taken three full loads of elemental jizz.

  Damn it, we were not getting our security deposit back. Good thing Dustin was so cashed-up …

  Shane rolled his window back up, and we watched the cop get on his bike and pull onto the highway.

  "He was concerned," Shane announced as he turned back to look at us. "He pulled off the highway because he saw our car shaking, and was worried we were having trouble with the engine or somethin’."

  Dustin snorted. "And what did ye tell him, then? That we wer busy changing our wife's oil?"

  Reaching over the seat, I smacked him in the head. Cheeky git.

  "Uh." Shane colored a little as he answered. "I mighta mentioned our wife needed her adult diaper and catheter changed. He was worried, but when I explained about her leaky bladder, he didn't feel the need to check."

  "Shane!" I screamed, and Dustin—that prick—cackled with laughter.

  "Ah, anyway, Darlin'." Shane changed the subject. "We should hit the road again. Don't want your mama worryin’ about us."

  "Fine," I growled as he pulled back onto the highway, "but I swear if I hear one more incontinence joke, I’m putting Pandora off-limits for a week."

  "Just Pandora?" George asked, seemingly innocent until he continued. "Because I can work with that."

  "All of it," I growled, "Vag, ass, mouth, hands, tits … all of it will go off-limits. So consider your jokes wisely here on out."

  The whole car went silent for a long time while my words sunk in, until Reg raised his hand like he was in school or some shit.

  "Sugar Tits? What about just like … looking at you naked? Would that be allowed?"

  "No," I snapped. "I'll invest in some floor-length nightgowns … with sleeves."

  Okay, clearly this was a hollow threat now. Ain't no way in hell I was wearing a nightgown with sleeves while in Australia in summer. That was just suicide.

  The guys didn't know that though, so I received some mumbled apologies, and we continued on with our journey in silence.

  Hunting around on the floor, I located my bag with wet wipes once more, and gave myself another whore's bath. This time, the name seemed a hell of a lot more appropriate …

  But like, in a totally feminist way because there was nothing wrong with being a ‘whore’.

  Yup, exactly that.

  My jaw tightened and I tensed as I prepared myself for whatever mood my darling mother, Kate, might be in today. We'd just pulled up outside her cough syrup colored house in the heart of Tamborine Mountain, and she was standing on the front porch waiting for us.

  "Sweetie!" she exclaimed as I climbed out of the SUV with the help of a gallant hand from Warden.

  I'd changed in the back seat after doing the best clean up I could with wet wipes, and was now dressed in a floral maxi dress with off the shoulder sleeves. Real hippy shit. I personally thought I looked like an escaped cult member from the seventies, but knew my mum would eat it up.

  Kate was such a hippy. She even went as far as checking which country her laptop was assembled in before she'd buy it. One time, she spent over four hundred dollars on a pair of jeans, because they were certified organic Australian cotton fibers.

  "Come up here and give your mum a hug!" she called out, opening her arms, but brushing me aside when I got close and wrapping herself around Warden like an octopus with a meal. "Oh my," she murmured as her hands roamed and he gave me a what the fuck expression. "You are really something … and who is this?"

  She'd turned her attention to Dustin who gave her a salacious smirk that made me want to punch him in the damn balls. He better fucking not flirt with my mum or there would be hell to pay.

  "Dustin MacKenna, Miss. You must be Arizona's sister." He took Kate's hand and bowed over it dramatically, kissing her knuckles while winking at me.

  Fucking prick.

  "Oh stop," Kate gushed, flapping her hand like she was hyperventilating or something. So gross. Thinking about your own parents as sexual beings was just … revolting. "This one's a real keeper," she said, looking at Dustin like he was her new husband.

  I narrowed my eyes and exhaled sharply.

  Whatever.

  This was a short trip; I could deal with Kate's eccentricities. Somehow, knowing we weren't blood-related made things a little easier. That way, I could tell myself that none of her weirdness was in my DNA. Unfortunately, that then meant facing the reality that my DNA was made up of six moms and one dad, and that, like they were homicidal and insane.

  "I know; that's why I married him," I said as the rest of the boys climbed out and surrounded us. Not a one of them was under six feet tall; it was like being trapped in a copse of trees or something. Mom seemed to like it, but then, she'd always been into younger men. One time, she'd dated a high school student. While I was in high school. Actually, she dated my ex. Fucking gross, I know.

  "Don't be so sour to your mama, Sugar," Shane drawled and Kate practically squealed in excitement.

  "Oh, he's such a cutie! Do you hear that accent?" she gushed, turning toward him and then getting so caught up in all the man candy around us that she kept turning until she faced me again, entirely flushed. Leaning in close, she put a hand to her mouth and stage whispered, "how do you keep them all satisfied? Your father was so insatiable, I could barely keep up. Then again, he was a bore with a tiny peni—"

  "That is not what I came here to talk about," I said, putting my fingers in my ears and hoping they weren't already bleeding. "This is my honeymoon that I so graciously agreed to have here and share some of with you since you didn't bother coming to the wedding."

  "It wasn't that I didn't bother," my mother said, her face falling as she gazed into my eyes with this sad puppy dog expression that I was completely and utterly immune to. Maybe it looked cute to some people, but I'd been put through a lot of shit with this woman and I wasn't falling for it. I could still remember that time she thought she was going to get busted for having weed—it's still illegal in some places which is totally weird, I know—so she stuffed it into my backpack and let her fourteen year old daughter take the blame.

  Bitch.

  "You know I don't support Trump, so either he gets assassinated, impeached, or voted out or I'm not spending my hard-earned money in the USA." I face-palmed and tried not to scream.

  "This wasn't about some orange-faced weirdo, Mum. This was your only child's wedding." I crossed my arms over my chest and stared her down. It would've been nice to have some backup at the wedding, some of ‘my’ people in the crowd so I didn't feel so … judged. Wait, this was Kate we were talking about here. Never mind. That would've happened either way.

  "Yes, and to six men I've never met or heard about in my entire life!" she said, but with a false cheer that made me raise my eyebrows. Kate gathered up some of her long curly dark hair off of her neck and fanned her face. "It's hot out here, so why don't we go inside and you can explain how all of this"—she gestured loosely in the air between us—"came to be."

  "I'll get the luggage," Shane said as Dustin—ever the contrary little bastard—took my mother's arm and led her toward the stairs and into the small purple bungalow. Trying to sleep here with all my husbands was going to be … interesting.

  "Don't say anything about the adoption," Gram said, appearing by my side in all her shimmery ghost
ly goodness.

  "Why not?" I whispered, because the last thing I needed was for Katelyn Fischer to see me talking to myself. That would not go over well. Although I was tempted to turn into a dragon just to see her eyes bug out of her face. Now that would be a real hoot and a holler right there.

  "Because she doesn't know," Gram murmured and I raised both brows.

  "She doesn't know she didn't get pregnant, grow to be the size of a whale, and push a small human out of her vagina? I sort of feel like that's something a person would recall."

  "Don't be sarcastic. Sarcasm is the tongue of the devil," Gram said, playing with her pearls and making me snicker because I'd had a way better pearl necklace in the back of that rental SUV. "My son and your mother had a child of their own, but … unfortunately she passed away just a few days after she was born. Rather than watch them suffer, I spelled their memories and put you in the child's place."

  "Whoa, what?!" I asked, because this was the fucking first I was hearing about this shit. "That's a little fucked-up, don't you think? What if we'd had to get bloodwork or DNA tests or something done at some point?"

  "I was always there to clean up messes," Gram said, waving her wrinkled hand as if it was no big thing to replace someone's deceased child with a new one. I mean, what the hell was I supposed to think about that? "Besides, you needed me and what else was I going to do with you?"

  "Needed you how?" I asked, but then I was already up the steps and moving into my mother's orange-painted living room. Sunlight streamed through the rainbow colored curtains and highlighted the … lack of a proper sofa and all the pillows on the floor. They were those beaded cushion types, lined up against the walls in a half circle. Where the hell was the sleeper sofa with the creaky springs?! There was something about that creaky spring sound that kinda turned me on …

  Gram tsk-tsked under her breath and disappeared before I could question her further. But I was so not done with that conversation. Next time I saw her when I wasn't in a public place or about to be humiliated by my own mom, I was grilling her ghostly ass about it. Hey, after all, I had learned that as a spirit elemental, I could throw my grandmother's ass across a room. I might just do it if she didn't give me the answers I needed.

  "Where's the sofa?" I asked, coming into the kitchen to find that Mom had set out her version of a welcome spread: bottles of chilled kombucha, brownies that were clearly special, and an array of vegan appetizers.

  "Sorry," she said with a dreamy smile that was directed at Reg and not at me. If she knew his beautiful blonde hair was spiked up with cum, she might not see him that way. "But I had a swingers' club over the other night and we were having a communication circle."

  "How can you be a swinger if it's just you?" I started, realizing that I'd spoken too soon when a tanned, shirtless young surfer guy waltzed out of the bedroom and gave me the shaka symbol with his hand.

  "This is my fiancé, Brad," Kate said, grinning as the guy—who was definitely younger than I was—came in and hooked an arm around Kate's shoulders.

  "Fiancé?" I asked, completely and utterly confused. "When did this happen?"

  "Last night," she gushed, holding up her hand and flashing a pretty expensive looking ring that Kate had undoubtedly bought for herself. Sorry to make rash judgements here but there was no way this surfer wannabe could afford something that nice.

  "You just had to one-up me, didn't you?" I said, crossing my arms over my chest as Kate gave me a totally innocent look in response.

  "One-up? Darling, you're five ahead of me already. Brad and I are more into the swinging lifestyle than we are the idea of actually committing to more than one person."

  "Explain to me the idea of swinging," Billy said, taking a seat on one of my mother's wooden stools and grabbing a slice of mango from one of the trays.

  "A young man as … interesting as yourself doesn't know what swinging is?" Kate asked, canting her head to one side and looking at Billy with renewed interest. What she didn't realize was that he was from a completely different culture. Fuck, he wasn't even human. That was a surreal thought, standing there in Mum's tiny kitchen and realizing that she and her boyfriend Ben or Barney or whatever his name was, were entirely different animals altogether. Like, literally.

  "Uh, Smokey," Warden started, pausing in the entrance to the kitchen with his face pale and his teeth clenched. "We've got a bit of a problem here …"

  "A problem?" I asked, feeling my skin get tight and little beads of cold sweat roll down my back. In the past, a problem for me might've meant I didn't have enough money to pay my electricity bill. Or it might mean I didn't have any clean clothes yet and had to do laundry.

  Now?

  Now a problem meant murderous bio parents, undead dragons, mysterious evil organizations with perverted acronyms and …

  "Joan," I breathed, dropping the kombucha bottle I'd unknowingly picked up. It crashed to the floor at my feet and shattered to pieces, a strange ominous reminder of all the other glass items I'd broken since the beginning of this strange journey.

  "Yeah, uh," Warden started as I pushed past him and ran outside to find a sleek black Lincoln Town Car pulling up in Mum's half-circle driveway. "Shane was hoping to get rid of her before you saw, but … I have a feeling he's underestimating Joan's power to get what she wants."

  "Gemma is with her," I groaned out, wishing I'd ordered a couple dozen of those airplane size alcohol bottles to stuff in my purse. Then I might feel prepared to deal with this. "Why the fuck would she think it was okay to bring my husbands' ex to my mother's house on my honeymoon?!"

  "She's not our ex," Warden started to explain, but I was already storming across the front yard, over the dead yellow grass, my skin shimmering with the dark purple color of my spirit magic. I'd just have to hope Kate or Brad/Ben/whatever-the-fuck didn't look out and see me right now. I was too angry to control myself.

  "What the hell is this?" I fumed, pausing in front of Joan and Gemma as Shane tried futilely to argue with them.

  "This is a family gathering, is it not?" Joan quipped, and I came this close to spitting in her face.

  "A family gathering that she is not invited to," I snapped, throwing out a hand to indicate Gemma. The smug look on her face did all sorts of strange things to me, like made me seriously consider picking up a poisonous snake and shoving it down her underwear. Knowing some sort of viper was biting her in the cootch would bring me extreme amounts of pleasure. She was so vile though, she'd probably get off on it.

  "Why?" Joan began cryptically, looking me straight in the face with an evil glint in her blue eyes. "She is your biological sister, after all."

  "Actually," Gemma said, cocking her hip to one side and tossing a mane of dark glossy hair over one shoulder. "I'm your twin."

  I woke up a short time later lying on a futon in my mother's guest bedroom (a recent addition to the bungalow) with Reg, Billy, and George sprawled out around me.

  "What happened?" I asked, trying to figure out if what I'd just experienced was a dream or … "Did I literally pass out?"

  "You released a surge of spirit energy and almost killed Gemma," George said softly. Did it make me an evil person that my first thought was damn, just almost? "And then yes, you passed out." He used his long, beautiful bronze fingers to sweep my hair away from my forehead. His gaze was sympathetic, but his posture was tense.

  "What's going on?" I asked, wondering if my mum or Brad had seen me using magic. "Do I need to do some damage control?"

  "No, Blossom, it's … it's a lot worse than that."

  "How could it be worse than that?" I asked, trying really hard not to think of Gemma as being related to me. I mean, the homicidal bio parents I could believe, but not her. Not that vile, disgusting, horrible bitch …

  "Gemma has a spirit stone," Reg said, choking on the words.

  "What's a spirit stone?" I asked as I sat up and met Billy's eyes. For the first time since we'd met, he looked sad.

  "It's an object that allows a
spirit elemental to un-bond her men from another woman and re-bond them to herself," he answered, making my eyes go wide.

  "I thought that was impossible," I breathed, hating how sick and sad and awful I felt inside.

  "It is: unless the men she's trying to un-bond were rightfully hers in the first place," George whispered as I looked frantically between the three of them.

  "Wait, you don't seriously believe her, do you?" No longer bothering to keep my voice down, I screeched this loud enough to set the kookaburras off in the tree outside.

  For way too damn long we sat there and just listened to their insane laughter before anyone could speak again. Their nest must have been right outside the window because damn, they were loud!

  "I never said we believed her, Blossom," George soothed when the laughter from those fucking birds died off into little echoing aftershocks. "But we would be crazy not to take this threat seriously."

  Fear and hurt stabbed through me, and I needed to take a few breaths so as not to cry. Essentially, what I was hearing was that they had some doubts. That was enough to devastate me. I was into this bonkers marriage with my whole heart.

  Apparently, that wasn't the same for my husbands.

  "Right, so ah, what do we need to do about her?" I asked, my voice tight with emotion that I desperately tried to swallow down.

  "Shit, fuck-nuts." Reg whacked George in the ball sack. "Now look, you've upset our wife!"

  "What? Me? I …" George gasped, but I think it was more in pain than in any other emotion. That had been a hard whack he'd copped to the nuts.

  "I'm fine, you guys," I lied. "I just need a moment to freshen up, or something."

  Not waiting for them to try and backtrack out of the maybe Gemma is our true spirit hole they'd dug themselves into, I brushed past them all to lock myself in my mum's tiny bathroom.

  Once inside, I leaned my forehead against the door, and allowed myself just a couple of delicate, ladylike tears. Okay, I'm lying. I sobbed like a little bitch. Happy?

  "Here." A hand produced a wad of toilet paper from behind me and I screamed.