Chapter 31
The chateau had a ballroom and a feasting hall. Delphi had looked at both for a long moment before deciding to use a dining room that must have once belonged to the staff. It was a shorter walk to the kitchen, and it was still one of the grandest rooms she had ever eaten in.
While food was cooking, Delphi had gone back to her original room connected to the old laboratory to bathe and hunt down clean clothes.
When she opened the wardrobe where she had stored her pack, she found it hung with shirts in soft fabrics, decorative waistcoats, finely tailored pants, and silk undergarments.
She had only just bathed and was still uneasy about touching them in case she got them dirty.
"How can magic do all of this?" she murmured, finally giving in to temptation and running her fingers over the rich fabrics. Her fingers snagged on one and seemed to stick, so she pulled it free.
It was a silk dress, simple with no ridiculous bows or other nonsense. It had small buttons running up the front, and a set of ties at the back that could be adjusted for comfort.
The color made the fire in Delphi's chest glow. It was a dangerously dark red, the kind of red that would have made her flinch to even think of wearing, even if she could have afforded the dress.
It was the same red that they had dressed the witch in when they had burned her in Montcrillon, and Delphi had always associated it with danger.
She remembered the crowds so clearly that day, their eager, bloodthirsty faces salivating over suffering.
There had been very few women, and all of them high-born and therefore untouchable, but there had been a lot of men who loved to see any woman with power suffer.
Dressed in the rags of boys' clothes, Delphi had been the only child.
"Fuck all of you ignorant bastards," she snarled and put on the dress.
Delphi did up the buttons and ties, and stared at her reflection.
The red in her hair glowed brighter as she unraveled her braid.
She was going to redo it and then decided against it.
She rarely left it out, but tonight was special, so she arranged the loose waves over her shoulders.
Delphi couldn't wear her old boots with such a dress, so she hunted through the cupboard and slid out a large drawer she hadn't noticed before.
Inside was a pair of black leather boots, so soft and shiny they didn't look real. They weren't proper work boots. They had a short heel, a pointed toe, and delicate lacing that rose to the calf. Only nobles would have such impractical footwear.
It didn't stop her from pulling on a pair of soft black socks and trying them on. She stood up slowly, unsure, and after a few trial steps, she realized that she could walk in them easily.
Delphi struggled not to feel like a little girl playing dress up until she remembered the way Syn and Tenebrys insisted she was a queen.
Looking at her reflection in the mirror, with her horns, loose hair, red dress, and defiant smirk, she felt like a queen.
Queen of the Wild Things with fire and magic in her blood and a beast in her bed.
This is who you have always meant to be, the voice said inside of her.
Delphi swallowed down the lump in her throat. "Yes, it is," she whispered to her reflection. She straightened her shoulders and went to find her king.
Delphi heard the shifters arguing before she could see them. It was strange to hear voices raised when there were usually none.
"How can we be sure she isn't some plant sent by Plagues to finish us off?" one voice growled.
"Because she is Narcisse's spawn, you lout," said another more cultured one. "After sending Kesari's mother here, do you really think Plagues would risk it?"
"If she is a witch, she could have enchanted Tenebrys to believed they are mates."
"No magical enchantment in the world could make a knot appear on my dick if Delphi wasn't my true mate, Nahir," Tenebrys replied impatiently.
"I still don't like it."
"You don't like anything, Nahir," drawled another voice.
"Being miserable is your natural state. She belongs to Kesari, and no parentage can ever change that.
Maela was one of Plagues's most loyal assassins, and when she met the king, none of it mattered for either of them.
You shifters and your mating rituals are impossible to counteract in that regard.
She won't ever betray us, because whatever loyalty existed in her past now belongs to Kesari.
You know this. You just want to be obstinate. "
Delphi had heard enough. She pushed open the doors to the room and declared loudly, "Where the fuck is my mate?"
Seven pairs of eyes turned on her. She smiled at Syn and Felix. Both of them were cleaner than she had ever seen them and were dressed in shirts and pants that fit their uniquely shaped legs. The chateau hadn't only been making clothes for her, it would seem.
The other three she didn't recognize, but they were all powerful, huge, and stunning to look at.
Delphi found Tenebrys, dressed in all black.
He looked her over, his eyes glowing with a primal, animal intensity that never failed to send a shock of lightning and lust through her veins.
If he kept looking at her like that, if they made it through dinner without her ripping his clothes off, it would be a miracle.
Tenebrys closed in on her, and she crooked a finger at him coyly. He leaned down and kissed her. Little shocks of hot desire burned her lips, and she had to remind herself that they had an audience. She reluctantly drew back.
"Do they always argue this much?" she asked him.
"Unfortunately, yes," he replied, a big paw moving to rest on her hip. "Maybe we should skip dinner. Leave them here to bitch at each other, and we can go and find some peace and quiet."
"Peace and quiet? Is that what you think will happen?" Delphi laughed and kissed the tip of his nose. "Nice try, but I worked too hard at cooking this meal, so they will eat it and be civil about it."
"The chateau has given them wine again, so I wouldn't get your hopes up about them behaving."
"Kesari! You were taught better manners than this.
Introduce me to this divine creature at once," a stag shifter declared, moving Tenebrys out of the way.
He bowed low, took Delphi's hand, and kissed the back of her fingers.
Tenebrys looked like he wanted to throw the other male out of the window.
"My queen, I am Eiran, and I am your most humble servant. "
"Ah, I thought you might be," Delphi said with a glance over at Syn. "My money is on Ten."
Syn's serious expression broke, and he tipped his head back and laughed. "Wise bet, Delphi."
Eiran straightened and glared at Syn. "What lies have you been telling, Delphi? You really can't believe anything these ingrates say."
Tenebrys pulled Delphi closer to his side. "Eiran is the oldest of us, and he likes to show it by acting superior and talking to us like we are all children."
"That's because you are," Eiran said. He winked at Delphi. "Except for you. You are delightful. This house hasn't felt so welcoming since Kesari's mother was alive."
"You knew Maela?" Delphi asked him.
"I came from Faerie with her as a bodyguard. We were both seduced to the enemy's side," Eiran replied with a gleam in his eyes.
"The Lord of Plagues cursed you too? Even though you were fae and not a shifter?" Delphi had to reassess some of the thoughts she was having about how the original sickness had worked, if it affected fae too.
"Eiran is special and could shift into a deer," Tenebrys explained.
"A sacred white hart, thank you, Kesari," Eiran corrected haughtily. "And Plagues is a mean, petty bitch who couldn't handle losing me and my magic, so he went out of his way to add me into the nasty thing he threw at the shifters."
An idea suddenly hit Delphi like a rock to the head. "You are fae and know magic? I'm going through the books in Maela's library, and I need help interpreting some of them."
"My dear, I would be delighted to assist you."
"Another thing, why do you call him Kesari?" she asked, pointing at Tenebrys.
Eiran shot Tenebrys an incredulous look. "You haven't told your mate your name? What is wrong with you?"
"Only you call me that, so it didn't seem important," Tenebrys replied with a shrug.
Delphi feigned outrage. "I'm with Eiran on this one. Rude. Come, Eiran, you can introduce me to everyone else so I get their real names." She looped her arm in Eiran's, and the stag shifter smirked.
Tenebrys sighed behind her, but mirth danced in the connection between them. "Don't encourage him to be more insufferable than he already is."
All the shifters were tall and broad, but the hugest one in the room approached her and Eiran.
He put his hands on his hips and looked down at her.
His fur was a dark brown, like the long braid down his back.
The fur was short enough that she could see twisting blue tattoos beneath it.
He must have been covered in them when he took a human form.
"You are very small, witch," he said in a deep grumble of a voice. "But the king seems to believe that you're not going to break under him."
Eiran put a hand over his face and muttered something that sounded like a curse under his breath.
"I haven't broken yet, and we had a good go of it," Delphi replied, staring the shifter in the eye. They were an icy blue that twinkled with amusement. He was fucking with her just to see how she would react. "Getting fucked to death by Tenebrys wouldn't be a bad way to go, I've got to admit."
The big shifter threw his head back and roared with laughter, revealing his long fangs. "A lusty mate is all a male can wish for in this world. I'm glad Ten found his at last."
"This is Otso. He is a bear shifter from Runefjell and thinks with either his balls or his stomach," Eiran said, making it sound like an apology.
"It's because both are so big," Otso said, still chuckling as he rubbed his belly. He didn't have an ounce of fat on him, but he was as solid as a small mountain.
"Can we eat yet? I'm starving," Felix complained. "Eiran is taking forever, so Delphi, this is Nahir. He only talks when he wants to complain."
He pointed to the shifter leaning against the wall at the back of the hall.
He had dark brown skin on the insides of his arms and along his neck and face, but the rest was covered in orange and black stripes like the tigers from Kisharu.
Delphi had only ever seen drawings of the big cats and hadn't known that they had shifters that were tigers too.
Nahir flipped off Felix before he nodded his head at Delphi, saying nothing.
"And this is Asher, he is from Runefjell like Otso, except he is from a snow leopard clan, not a bear," Felix said and patted the male beside him on the head.
Asher was the leanest and smallest of all the shifters. He had silvery fur with darker gray spots and three slender horns peaking through his thick white hair.
"Nice to meet you," he said with a smile. Compared to the others, he seemed almost gentle. Delphi didn't doubt that he could fight just as viciously as the others if he had been guarding a gateway all this time.
"Excellent, we all know each other. Now let's eat already. I'm starving." Felix pushed Eiran out of the way and put an arm around Delphi's shoulder. "I'll help you go get it from the kitchen."
"Another one that thinks with his balls and stomach," Eiran complained to Delphi.
"At least I don't have an antler stuck up my ass, Frosty," Felix shot back.
Tenebrys gave Delphi a long-suffering look. "Are you sure you don't want to go find somewhere quieter?"