The house looked vaguely medieval, with gray brick walls and a steepled entrance. Cyprian, Malik, Kyrian, and I stepped into the grand foyer, or the “gallery foyer” as the real estate agent called it. Our stares angled up to the ceiling 25 feet above us and the balcony just below it that curved around the space in a U. The foyer wasn't at the front of the house—no, that was merely the entry—but at the back and the balcony, or gallery, faced ten-foot-tall glass doors that led to a half-moon terrace overlooking gardens reminiscent of Versailles.
My kishanos and I were house hunting.
Or mansion hunting, rather. This palatial property of nearly 11,000 square feet had eight bedrooms, eleven baths, a library, a wine cellar, a gym, an office with its own entry (so anyone doing anything as gauche as work wouldn't disturb the family), a sauna, a chef's kitchen, a butler pantry, and gardens at both the front and back of the house. At $12,000,000 it was on the lower end of the properties we'd viewed. In case you're wondering how much a mortgage payment like that would be, it's about $56,000 a month. Yes, more than some people make in a year. But we wouldn't have mortgage payments; we were looking to buy outright.
Yes, it surprised me as well.
“I like the turret,” Kyrian said.
“I like the fact that it's in Woodley Park,” I added.
To tell the truth, I was shocked that we had yet to venture far from downtown Washington D.C. in our search for a massive place that could be home to my three husbands, boyfriend, and me. Everan wouldn't be spending much time there since he had a kingdom to run in Danu—that's the magical realm of the Danutians, who you might know better as Fairies—and couldn't waste much time on sleepovers. So, he hadn't attended any of our viewings but we still wanted to make sure there was room for him. I think 11,000 square feet offered enough space for all of us. But then again, Ever's a king and you could fit this mansion into one end of his castle. In an end of the end of his castle.
As for the other men, my most recent husband was Cyprian. He's the Master of the local group of Faulin—an alien race known as Succubi or Incubi on Earth. Cyprian and I were still newlyweds; we'd just returned from our honeymoon a few months back. We'd had a fabulous time exploring Italy and each other—the latter a bit more than the former. But that was to be expected since the honeymoon had been a celebration of our human marriage and the completion of our fusion. The Fusion—a sort of Faulin mating ceremony—had bound not only Cyprian and me, but also Malik, Kyrian, and Everan with us in an unbreakable and magical union that had multiple benefits to all involved. We had already been experiencing those benefits before we completed the Fusion. It allowed us to share our magic with each other and this sharing had changed each of us in extraordinary ways.
For me, my color magic—my ability to see all colors, including ultraviolet and infrared, and use those colors to manipulate auras (to hurt, heal, and more) and cast illusions—had been magnified. I had also received some of Cyprian's Faulin ability to feed on lust except that it had merged with my color magic to allow me to feed on auras as well. Auras are connected to a person's life-force and I could now use that connection to sip some of that energy. If I didn't take too much, my target could recover. However, if I went too far, they'd die. Yes, it could be used as a powerful weapon but draining a person of all life force wasn't a quick process and so wouldn't be the best choice in every battle.
Cyprian's Faulin ability to enhance and feed on lust in other people had grown and altered so that he could magnify and feed on all emotions. I'd had a theory that since Cyprian was the Ruar—the alpha male—in our fusion, he received the greatest bump to his power. But then Kyrian developed an ability to compress emotions and feed off them like a Faulin. As a soldier in the Host—the Triari Army—Kyrian learned to repress his emotions until his aura turned white—the compression of all colors. Triari are the truth behind the myth of Angels and their blinding white auras are the truth behind angelic halos. My