Maia's Magickal Mates [The Double R 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read online

  The Double R 3

  Maia’s Magickal Mates

  Brothers Thayne and Cade Malloy couldn't be more different, the only things linking them their psychic gifts and their Wiccan legacy. With their parents killed twenty-four years ago, they are all each other has.

  When Cade turns up on his doorstep after a long absence, burned-out and needing refuge from his gifts, Thayne welcomes him with open arms. Neither brother is aware of the evil that stalks them.

  Wiccan and New York transplant Maia Jensen knows she is more than a handful for the sensible and staid Thayne, but she can see interesting things happening for her, Thayne, and Cade in the future…if they can survive an egomaniac's power-hungry trip in the present.

  Thayne, Cade, and Maia are chased through time when Prentice Teague, a powerful black-magick Wiccan with an age-old score to settle, sets his sights on augmenting his powers with theirs. Prentice has another thing coming, however, when the trio's growing emotional connection enhances their gifts.

  Note: There is no sexual relationship or touching for titillation between or among siblings.

  Genre: Interracial, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Western/Cowboys

  Length: 96,239 words

  MAIA’S MAGICKAL MATES

  The Double R 3

  Gigi Moore

  MENAGE EVERLASTING

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting

  MAIA’S MAGICKAL MATES

  Copyright © 2012 by Gigi Moore

  E-book ISBN: 1-61926-690-3

  First E-book Publication: April 2012

  Cover design by Les Byerley

  All art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

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  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  MAIA’S MAGICKAL MATES

  The Double R 3

  GIGI MOORE

  Copyright © 2012

  Prologue

  Los Angeles, California

  Twenty-four years ago

  “So when can we come home, Mom?”

  Brielle Malloy listened to her oldest son on the other end of the phone, heart aching with missing him. He thought he was grown-up now that he had turned eleven and “firmly broken into the double digits,” but he would always be her baby.

  She wanted her boys home but knew this separation was necessary, even if Caith didn’t agree.

  Despite this and his not understanding her concerns about the upcoming meeting, her husband had let her send the boys to Oklahoma to stay with her sister and her sister’s husband for a little while, at least until she and Caith could clear up this situation with the West Moon Progressive study circle.

  Bless his heart.

  Brielle tried to console herself with the thought that the boys liked the ranch and loved their Aunt Aura and Uncle Jeff, but listening to Thayne’s voice on the phone, wanting to hold him and reassure him when he remained so far away, almost made her resolve crumble.

  Why was she being so maudlin? This impending meeting wasn’t a life-or-death matter.

  “I thought you liked it at the ranch.”

  Thayne sighed, and Brielle laughed, steeling herself for his gripe. “Yeah, I do. Even though Uncle Jeff makes us work hard, there’s always lots of cool stuff to do like riding the horses and stuff, but…”

  “But?”

  “You know, like, I really miss…LA.”

  “Miss all the excitement and danger of the concrete jungle, huh?”

  “Yeah, and my friends, too. You know how it is.”

  “I certainly do.” Brielle grinned against the mouthpiece, deciding to let her son off the hook. She knew he was too tough to admit he actually missed his mom and dad. “Want to put your brother on the phone so I can say good night to him, hun?”

  “Sure thing, Mom.”

  Brielle listened to Thayne yell for Cade to come to the phone. A moment later when he handed the receiver to his younger brother she braced herself.

  This would be a little harder. Cade was only six, just as tough on the outside, trying to emulate the brother and father he idolized, but still a little boy who slept with a night-light and worried about dying in his sleep if he got hit with a stray bullet that might crash through his bedroom window.

  Caith worked extra shifts at the locksmith to earn more money, eager to move his family out of the neighborhood as soon as possible. Until then he maintained the most secure home on the block and kept a gun in the house for protection just in case.

  Brielle had tried to talk him out of the latter since violence should never be a solution and just wasn’t the Wiccan way.

  “For the time being, and until I can get you all someplace more safe, it’ll have to be.”

  She hated that they were forced to compromise their beliefs, but it was either that or leave themselves vulnerable to attack, and after the latest home invasion in the neighborhood just a week ago, Caith insisted the best defense was a good offense.

  “Hey, Mommy!”

  “How’s my big Cade?”

  “Aw shucks, ma’am, I’m right as a trivet.”
r />   Brielle laughed at the Old West slang she knew he had learned from his uncle. Whenever he came back from visiting Aura and Jeff, Cade always had a couple of new Old West sayings in his repertoire with which to impress his parents. “Well, that’s good to hear, little man.”

  “Are you coming to get us soon, Mommy?’

  “Uh-huh. Real soon.” Brielle didn’t trust herself to say anything else without choking up. She swallowed over the lump in her throat. “Is your brother still there?”

  “Yep.”

  “Give me a kiss and give me back to your brother before you get ready for bed, munchkin.” Brielle listened as Cade puckered his lips and gave her a big wet one over the phone without even bristling at her nickname for him. “Night, Mommy. Love you!”

  “Love you, too, baby.” Brielle didn’t even have a chance to wallow in her separation anxiety before Thayne got back on the line.

  “Hey, Mom. What’s up?”

  “Remember to take care of the crystal I gave you.”

  “I wear it around my neck always.”

  “Good. And remember, it’s not a toy like your 8-Ball.”

  “I know that. It can actually do things, like protect me.”

  “Only if you believe, Thayne. If you believe, anything is possible, even without the crystal.”

  “I know, Mom. I do.”

  Brielle took a deep breath, preparing to sign off, but her boy beat her to the punch and said, “Don’t worry about us, Mom. We’re okay here. Whenever you’re ready to come get us, come get us. I’ll take care of Cade until then.”

  He was so much like his father, protective of the weak and small, putting others before himself, mature beyond his years. She couldn’t wait to see him grow up into the beautiful, honorable man she knew he would be. “I know you will because you’re my big man.”

  “I gotta go, Mom. Who’s the Boss? is coming on.”

  “That Alyssa Milano is a real cutie, huh?”

  “Aw, Mom…”

  “Give me a kiss and say good night.”

  Thayne sighed but relented and kissed the receiver. “Night, Mom. See you soon.”

  “See you soon, baby. Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  Thayne hung up on his end and, as if on cue, someone rang the doorbell.

  Brielle glanced at the grandfather clock across the room, frowning.

  The Teagues had arrived early. They must have been as eager as her to get this show on the road. Brielle just wished that Caith had made it back from the market already. She didn’t want to face the couple alone or start without him.

  Brielle started for the front door just as she heard the back door open and close. A moment later, Caith emerged from the kitchen and crossed the living room to stand before her.

  “Showtime yet?” He grinned.

  Brielle’s heart fluttered. She’d known him since before high school, and after more than a decade together, those deep dimples still did things to her. “What took you so long?”

  When he slid his arms around her waist, drew her close, and bent his head, all her anxieties seemed to evaporate beneath the soft insistence of his kiss.

  Caith pulled away to gently caress her brow with a thumb. “Stop frowning. We don’t want you getting wrinkles before your time.”

  She playfully punched his shoulder as he released her waist to take her hand.

  “I got caught up trying to decide between the plain pound cake or the coffee crumb cake,” he said as they walked to the front door together. “I finally decided we can’t go wrong either way with Entenmann’s.”

  “Honestly, I think I’m too nervous to eat anything, even Entenmann’s.”

  “Maybe our guests will be, too, and as eager to leave as we are to get rid of them.”

  Caith unlocked and opened the door, greeting the couple that stood on their front porch before introducing himself and Brielle.

  “It’s nice to finally meet you two,” the woman, Althea, said.

  She was nothing like what Brielle had expected. Her voice was cultured and, clad in designer clothes, she and her husband had an obvious look of money about them. Not that Brielle had anything against people with money. She just wondered what these particular people wanted with her and Caith. She and her husband came from modest backgrounds and lived by modest, if comfortable, means. It worked for them, but the Teagues were obviously not in their league.

  “Please, come in.” Caith stepped aside to let the couple into their humble abode.

  Brielle offered to take their coats and hung them up on the Peg-Board that Caith had installed behind the door.

  As the couple passed her to enter their house proper, Brielle reached out with her mental fingers to touch their auras, drawing back at what she sensed. It wasn’t anything necessarily bad, but their colors were definitely off, as if their souls were in flux.

  Caith had offered them seats on their simple brown sofa and took a seat in the matching adjacent recliner.

  Brielle tried to catch his eye as he addressed the husband, Griffin. Failing this, she made her way over to sit on the arm of the recliner, wanting Caith’s closeness, needing it.

  “Before we get started, I was curious as to how you learned about us,” Caith asked, taking the words out of Brielle’s mouth.

  Griffin laughed, obviously uncomfortable as he shifted in his seat. “Well, Caith, you certainly know how to get to the point.”

  “I don’t see any reason to beat around the bush, Griffin.”

  “Of course not,” Althea said, looking at her husband as if for a signal before looking at Caith and Brielle. “Let’s just say we have our sources.”

  “Did your sources happen to mention that we’re solitaries and are perfectly happy practicing that way?”

  “Don’t you miss meeting with like-minded people?”

  “We’ve both gone down that road a long time ago and learned the politics and structure, among other things, just weren’t for us.”

  “I assure you your experience with West Moon would be different.” Althea grinned, looking supremely confident. “We’re not big on structure, either.”

  Brielle cleared her throat. “Most traditional covens don’t recruit.”

  “As you’ve probably guessed, we’re not traditional.”

  Griffin leaned forward in his seat, forearms resting on his thighs as he folded his hands. “We aspire to be better than traditional. Greater.”

  “Joining a coven or study circle isn’t about competition.” This couple had it all wrong if that’s what they thought. Wicca was a spiritual journey, a search for peace and harmony with the universe, or at least it should have been. It wasn’t about being better or greater than.

  “You’re sadly mistaken if you believe that. Everything in life is a competition,” Althea said, her tone firm and…aggressive, for want of a better word, as if she thought to convince them with her attitude alone.

  Brielle glanced at Caith and saw him arch a brow. She could see that he was ready to call an end to this meeting forthwith.

  When he stood up, Brielle felt the energy in the room suddenly change.

  She stood up next to him, her fingers gripping his biceps as she looked at the couple still seated on their sofa.

  Althea smiled up at them.

  Brielle saw it then, the cloudy spots in the woman’s aura, right before she felt the liquid warmth on her own upper lip. When she reached up a hand to touch her lip and her fingers came away with blood on them, Brielle caught her breath.

  Caith looked at her then at Griffin and Althea as the couple finally stood. “I don’t believe your group is for my wife and me. I think you should leave now.”

  Her husband’s words emboldened her for only a moment before the energy in the room shifted again, more drastically, knocking Brielle’s world totally off-kilter.

  Right before she felt something touch her mind, she realized that her and Caith’s time had run out, and they would never see either of their boys on this earthly
plane again.

  As she and Caith began their journey to the Summerland, Goddess imparted the best thought in the world to accompany Brielle. When the time came, she and Caith would be granted the chance to assist their sons in reaching their destinies.

  The small consolation eased Brielle’s emotional and physical pain as she passed from the earthly plane to the astral plane.

  PART I:

  Here and Now

  The 21st Century

  Chapter 1

  Sacramento City Cemetery, Sacramento County, California

  Current day

  They should have told him what he wanted to know. None of this would have happened had they been honest with him and more forthcoming. He wouldn’t have been forced to kill them had they but cooperated.

  Prentice Teague half listened to the High Priestess extol the virtues of his parents and scowled. He could have told the Priestess a thing or two about the deceased.

  You brought this on yourselves.

  All his life he had tried to get them to notice him, to love him, his efforts all for naught.

  They had been too busy worrying about making amends to the Wiccan community in general and those boys in particular. What about making amends to him? He was their son, their only child, not the Malloy boys. He was their blood. Yet he had been pushed to a back burner because his parents had grown consciences after the Malloys’ deaths. They felt guilty.

  “We welcome the spirits of the ancestors and the honored dead not yet reborn…”

  Prentice bowed his head, tried to appear the dutiful, grief-stricken son.

  The only grief that struck him now involved the time and money it would take to find Thayne and Cade Malloy now that he had extracted their names and other vital information from his parents.