After a harrowing rescue, Theo and Robbie take Kat to Maui to recover, only to be swept into another intrigue. Robbie comes into his own and learns to appreciate who and what he is while Theo comes to terms with his family. But a greater prophecy is at play—one that may draw the couple into things they are not yet ready for.
Book 4 of the Crossing Nuwa series.
Excerpt:
Transform
Connal Braginsky & Sean Ian O’Meidhir © 2023
All Rights Reserved
Chapter One
Theo
Clueless dumbass idiots. I can’t understand how people get themselves into so much shit and then need to be rescued. What the hell ever. I’m sure that stupid mind mage and his baby vampire boyfriend will either be okay or the cyber fae will experiment on them. Kinda don’t care.
I’m taking Kat and Robbie to my place in Maui until the heat is off. And now I have more pressing matters—Thanksgiving—and I’m somehow hosting! How that happened, I haven’t a clue. It was supposed to be just the three of us. How did it blossom into the three of us plus Robbie’s cousin, her new husband, and her aunt? It’s been a couple years since I’ve been to the house I acquired in Wailea when I was eighteen—a foreclosed investment just as the market was recovering. Bad for them, nice for me. I’d been on my own for three years and had established myself pretty well in my chosen profession—that of cyber thief. Made a few million by that time and thought real estate was pretty solid, so I picked up a half-dozen properties, in different names, around the world. I now have most listed online for rent.
This one in Maui is a four bedroom, three and a half bath with private beach. Fully furnished and stocked at all times, I have a property manager who takes care of the landscaping for the four acres of manicured lawn, maintenance, and housekeeping, so it’s pretty sweet to just arrive.
“This is really nice, Teddy,” Kat said, her skin shimmering in the afternoon rays. She pushed one of her long red dreads over her shoulder as she took in the estate before bouncing through the door with her usual exuberance.
Originally hailing from somewhere near Batswana, my two-hundred-year-old great-great-great grandmother is a force to be reckoned with. She looks like she’s my age, so we say we’re cousins. I guess being a blood mage has its perks.
I smirked, used to the nickname she gave me when I was born. “Thanks, Kat. There are two guest rooms upstairs for you to choose from. I suggest the one with the lanai because it’s got the better view, and you won’t hear Robbie cry out in ecstasy when I’m fucking him.”
I didn’t have to look. The heat radiating off my partner’s face could light the house for a year, and his embarrassed gasp made me chuckle.
Kat took everything in stride. For her, sex was an essential part of life. She was the first one I came out to when I was thirteen. Well, the second. My best friend who I had sucked off the night before was the first. Kat was the one who taught me about the many cultures through the centuries and how the “zeitgeist” of religion and politics influences societal and cultural thought. Polynesian culture has always been a lot more accepting, despite various religious influences trying to change it, and it continues to be fairly inclusive despite those would-be haters. Much more so than many regions of the mainland and other areas of the world. Shame, but not something I care about. I like to fuck dudes. And fuck the hell out of them. I make no apologies.
“Good suggestion.” She winked at both of us while carrying a bag up the stairs. Shooting me an incredulous look, Robbie scrambled to haul her second one and one of ours up after her. Kat is very self-reliant and has often laughed off Robbie’s attempts at being chivalrous—not something he even thinks about consciously. His twisted upbringing made him practically a slave to his messed-up mother and aunt, people Kat and I had helped to rescue him from over a year ago.
Robbie’s smile is my kryptonite, the sounds he makes a drug. I cannot seem to get enough of either and will do anything to make sure we both get more. Both are reserved just for me, which may sound conceited but is definitely the truth. The way his jade eyes glint when he sees me never ceases to give me pause. It’s as if I’m the only person in the world, even though I royally messed up and almost lost him because of my insecurities this past June.
I observe him with others. He’s always so reserved, sometimes even showing a hint of fear, although that has faded a lot since his mother died this time last year. It’s been a year of helping him to learn how to be in the world and unlearn some other things—like not making eye contact with women who I swear he still believes are his superiors. We’ve been working on that. I think his going to college has probably helped the most. But having Mrs. Gomez, our housekeeper, and Kat around has also helped. He no longer completely shuts down when they’re in the room. In fact, I’ve seen Kat get him to laugh more times than not. Not the full belly laugh he gets when we’re alone, but it’s good to see. I think I heard him offer an actual opinion the other day when she asked him something. And Kat, may all the Gods love her, is the absolute most caring and patient person I’ve ever met. I know in her own subtle way she has been trying to get him out of his shell. And he’s taken to helping Mrs. Gomez in the kitchen because while his major is accounting, he added a culinary arts minor just this past semester. I’m a really lucky guy and willing guinea pig.
It’s so strange too. I was more than happy living on my own, but now I can’t imagine not having him here. Hell, having the whole house full. I was living on my own in California and then Kat claimed one of my guest rooms for her own. Then, after seeing what a slob I am, she insisted on adding Mr. and Mrs. Gomez, our live-in housekeeper and landscaper. And now Robbie lives with us. I guess not much about it is negative except me having to remember to throw on some underwear when I go downstairs. Otherwise, the house is clean and usually smells great.
We’d been like this, all living together with Robbie in Santa Rosa, California, for almost a year, when the shit hit the fan last month. Yeah, instead of getting to celebrate our anniversary like I had planned, we had to get the hell out of the San Francisco Bay area. I somehow got mixed up with this clueless mage and his neonate vampire boyfriend, and Kat got kidnapped by some goddamned vampire about whom no one can give me a good answer if he’s still alive or not. While the companies Impetus and Paradigm are on my forever-shit-list, at this time the most prudent action is recon. So, I packed off the Gomezes to their family in South America for the holidays, and then Kat, Robbie, and I made it out here to Wailea, Maui, to one of my little homes away from home. Robbie asked if we could fly out his cousin Abi and her new husband for a sort of second honeymoon, and who am I to say no? Then, of course, Maggie—Abi’s mother and Robbie’s therapist—had to come. Fuck me if the whole goddamned gang won’t be here soon.
“What are we going to do when Abi and Maggie get here?” Robbie asked, quietly coming back into the kitchen, his tone dripping with bashful concern. I was digging around in the fridge for sandwich fixings and stewing about the upcoming festivities and for a full five seconds couldn’t fathom what he was asking. Then I all but fell over laughing. You see, Robbie’s loud. In bed only. Everywhere else he is soft-spoken, almost reverent. But the octaves I can coax from him are musical.
Catching him around the waist, I whispered, “Ball gag,” before nibbling his ear. Boy, I like where the man’s mind is.
He wrapped his arms around me as he perched his lithe athletic frame atop the counter to do battle with my tongue. I began grinding gently against him, and his legs had just wrapped around me when Kat came in. She was behind him, so I just gave her a thumbs-up and kept kissing him. Guess it was the noise of the sandwich making that clued him in. She had three started, with bread out and mayo added, before his head whipped up in surprise, and he choked, falling off the counter and spinning around in my arms.
“You like all the veggies, Robbie?” Kat asked, nonplussed.
I pulled him back, wrapping my arms around his waist as he laughed softly and said, “Yes, please.”
“You don’t like raw onions,” I reminded him gently, unable to keep myself from kissing his reddened ear and working hard to contain the mix of emotions I always had when I felt his flight response rear up.
“But…no onions, please.” He squirmed, and I gave him a reassuring hug.
Maggie Koch, his aunt, told me it’s something called “exposure therapy.” She encouraged me to have him interact with as many women as possible in healthy ways, and to encourage him to advocate for himself so he could see the benefits. Or some psychobabble. Though…it did seem to be working. He would have just eaten the onion without complaint.
“Okay, honey. And you, Teddy? Meat and cheese, yeah?”
“Yep. Thanks. Don’t want to catch a vitamin and die.”
Over lunch Kat said, “So, I know Vinnie isn’t invited to dinner…”
“Kat, Dad doesn’t even know we’re on the island, let alone about this house. If you’re sayin’ we should visit, we can, but I don’t want him here—or him even knowing about this place. I’ve set up his accounts so they are never overdrawn, and he doesn’t have to worry about money, though I doubt he’s ever looked in the account. You know how he is.” My father…a useless, happy Italian drunk. He plays the guitar for various groups to entertain tourists and locals alike, gets free booze at the gigs he works at, and lives a very simple life. I check in on him whenever I’m in Maui, which is to say every few years. We have some beers, laugh, play music, but there’s just not a lot we have in common, and I guess I’m not as interested in drinking myself into a stupor each night.
“Honey, you know I say what I mean. It’s not about visiting your dad. In this case, I’ve been making headway with the whole scanning thing. The last of my tomes were stashed at your mother’s house after you left the island. I asked Vinnie if I could leave the books, and he said sure. I’d like to retrieve them so we can scan the rest to PDF and the cloud. You mind coming with me?”
Kat’s magical abilities have to do with life magic, specifically related to blood and predominantly completed through ritual magic. At one point, she had more than a hundred handwritten tomes, scrolls, books—you name it—stashed all over the world. An enormous library for blood magic. When I found out, after I had a cow, I told her she needed to scan stuff into digital format. Books get old, destroyed, lost! Digital is forever. It took a little convincing—and first teaching her how to use a computer and reasoning with her that even though I’m a technomage, you don’t have to be a wizard to use a frigging computer.
I partially credit Robbie for Kat’s transformation. Before him, she was rather set in her ways. But when I was teaching Robbie about technology, Kat would often sit and listen. Together, Robbie and I did most of the scanning for the first dozen books or so; then we got her a great scanner and taught her how to do it herself. Now she has scanners spread out across the world and this past year she has been going from country to country and saving everything into three different cloud-based systems I set up for her that she can access anywhere, with backups. Once she got used to the technology, she got excited to be able to access it from anywhere in the world. It was pretty neat to see her awakening. Kind of like watching Robbie’s.
“Nah, I’ll come. Probably best I check up on the old man anyway. Hey, Robbie, wanna meet my sperm donor?”
Rare male weresnake Robbie has had his whole life decided for him down to his meals. But when the time comes for him to perform an unspeakable duty to his clan, he runs.
San Francisco Pride is in full swing when technomage Theo spots a scared-looking young man with brilliant emerald eyes. He’s only looking for a hookup, but before he knows why, he’s taking Robbie home and introducing him to champagne and enchiladas. He doesn’t have any intention of falling in love.
Robbie doesn’t want to return to his clan, at least not without trying to fit a lifetime of experiences into a week, but every day he stays puts Theo in more danger. One week of freedom leads to sexual awakening and adventure… but they’re going to need all their wits and Theo’s magic to fight for their future.
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