Chapter 18 Raven
Raven
The queen’s consort opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He blinked before forcing a smile.
“If you’ll excuse me, I must return to my queen.”
Farris nodded. “I’ll join you shortly, Daresh. Her Majesty expressed a desire to catch up.”
Something private passed between them. Not obvious to anyone else, I’d say, but I caught the way their auras swirled together briefly, intimately. These two males liked each other. More than liked.
I wondered what the queen thought of her fated mate having a bond with the fae but then decided it was none of my business.
Farris the Fucking Fae could watch his own back.
As long as he guided us safely back through the portal when it was time to leave, I didn’t much care if Queen Laryssa later skewered his balls on her trident.
The minute Daresh was out of earshot, Farris frowned.
“He recognized the mate mark.”
I yanked up my bodice and cursed myself for not hiding it better.
I should have glamored it or asked Rasmus to.
But I’d completely forgotten about the small tattoo above my breast. It had become a part of me, like the small silver scar on my left calf from a close encounter with a needle vine as a kid.
“Can we leave now?” The longer we stayed here, the twitchier I got. If Daresh put two and two together and then told the queen, we were in big trouble. She could stop us from leaving, lock us up, drown us.
Panic threatened to drag me under like the cetus monster Kai had killed. Spots floated in front of my eyes as I hyperventilated.
“Breathe, little mate,” Maverick whispered in my ear. Zane shifted closer, unsmiling for once.
“I don’t trust the fishy man,” he said. “He lusts after the fae, and anyone who desires that fucker is not to be trusted.”
Farris glared at Zane. “Excuse me? Males and females throughout the realm are queuing up to bed me!”
I snorted out a laugh, temporarily distracted from my meltdown.
“It can’t be your winning personality.”
The fae fucker rolled his eyes. “No, it’s my massive cock.”
That shut me up. Were fae exceptionally well-endowed? More so than my mates?
Goddess, I suppose it would make up for his shortcomings in other areas.
If Glynda expressed a strong desire to have relations with the fae at some future date, I’d encourage her to give him a go. Every female needed to bed a well-endowed male at least once in her life.
Or so Willow had told me when I asked what first attracted her to the asshole wolf shifter she met at a weekend market.
A loud trumpet sounded, silencing our conversation. The queen stood, gracing the room with a beatific smile.
“In honor of our esteemed guests from the fae realm,” she began, which triggered fresh alarm because now that the attention was on us, it was going to be difficult to sneak away. “I’d like to invite our most eligible mermaids and mermen to make our guests welcome.”
To my horror, four pretty mermaids dressed in skimpy seashell dresses and a thickly muscled merman emerged from the crowd. The five of them approached our table. The merman held out his hand to me, while the four mermaids slithered up to my males and Farris.
“What are they expecting us to do?” I asked Kenji.
“Dance? How would I know? I haven’t been to the mer kingdom before.” He remained under the table, out of sight.
“It is our honor to lead you in the dance of our people,” the handsome merman told me with a smug grin. He seemed far more thrilled about this dance than I was.
Farris let a mermaid lead him toward the dance floor while the merman waited for me to take his outstretched hand.
Maverick growled, but before he could go full shifted bear on us, I quickly stood and let the merman escort me away from my mates. One stupid dance wouldn’t kill me.
“If he touches you inappropriately, he’s fucking dead,” Maverick snarled in my head.
“If he tries anything, I’ll set him on fire,” I replied. Probably unintentionally, admittedly.
A quartet of females at the far end of the room began to sing, their voices seductive caresses across my mind.
The low, sultry melody sank into my head like an earworm until all I could hear was the music. My blood heated as the singing grew louder.
The hunky merman pulled me closer, guiding me through the steps, slow at first, and then faster. Round and round we spun. I laughed out loud, enjoying myself as the music grew louder.
This was fun!
I loved dancing.
Why hadn’t we hit the dance floor sooner?
Other people joined us. I saw my bear spinning past with a dainty female in his arms, and then my incubus twirling around a silver-haired mermaid wearing nothing but a few strategically placed shells.
I waited for jealousy to strike, but there was nothing. The music grew louder and more insistent. Heat curled in my core, making it harder to concentrate. With every spin of the room, I caught flashes of naked males and females cavorting in the corners.
Oh, this must be the orgy!
What fun!
My blood sang as my skin heated.
My dress felt too tight, too restrictive.
The merman’s hands slid lower, skating along the curve of my ass. He leaned in, dry lips brushing my neck. A faint murmur of disquiet skittered over my consciousness, but the music washed it away.
The merman was handsome, virile, and I needed a male to quench my desire.
He’d do.
Kenji yelled curses in my head. “You need to block out the music!”
But I liked the music. It made me feel good. Sexy good. Soooo sexy.
“It’s a siren song! Use your magic to shield your mind from the sirens before they have you fucking anything that moves!”
Zane ripped the merman away from me and dragged me across the room, shoving writhing couples aside despite their protests and groping hands. Most of them were naked.
I wanted to get naked too.
It looked like fun.
“Oh, my sweet pet, I want you naked, trust me, but we need to get the fuck out of this room before you’re lost to the sirens’ lust.”
He pushed me through a heavy wooden door, out into a cool corridor. The moment the doors swung shut and the music faded, my sanity returned.
Oh my goddess! What had I done?
Kenji appeared beside me.
“The siren song is hard to resist,” he told me, not unsympathetic for once.
I cringed, utterly mortified that I’d embraced my inner ho in public. Goddess save me, if Zane hadn’t removed me from that room, I’d have done something terrible. Like fuck a random merman.
“I wouldn’t have let that happen, my pet,” Zane assured me. “Now wait here while I grab the other two idiots.”
He pushed the doors open, letting some of the siren song out. Almost immediately, I wanted to follow him, but Kenji sank his sharp teeth into my ankle. The stinging pain blocked the effects of the siren song, and I shrieked in shock.
“Ouch!”
“It’s for your own good. You’d never forgive yourself if you did the horizontal rumba with a random merman, and I don’t have the mental bandwidth to act as your emotional support kitsune when morning-after shame hits hard.”
He was right, but the delivery needed work.
I moved away from the door to avoid being hypnotized again. The corridor remained empty, curiously free of guards.
Magic lights glowed in shell sconces, and paintings hung at intervals, all of them artistic representations of the mer queen posing in different gowns, dripping in jewels.
Goddess, that female loved herself way too much.
It was a miracle my merman hadn’t grown up into a raging narcissist monster like his mother.
The doors of the banquet hall swung open again, and I quickly slapped my hands over my ears to block out the dangerously hypnotic siren song. Zane appeared, dragging Maverick with Rasmus close behind. All three males were in a state of undress, and Maverick’s face bore several deep scratches.
White-hot jealousy flared as I surveyed them all. Had they succumbed to the mermaid temptresses? If so, we were five seconds away from a raging massacre.
“Relax, pet, they’re fine.”
Rasmus shook himself and shuddered. “Even vampires find it hard to resist a siren’s compulsion.”
“Did any of them touch you inappropriately?” I needed names and physical descriptions.
“They tried, but Zane got us both out in time.”
Maverick scrubbed his face and groaned. His shirt hung off him in strips, and while the deep scratches were healing fast, he refused to look me in the eye.
I could sense the shame and confusion from my bear. He thought this was all his fault, but I didn’t blame him. The only person at fault here was the bitch queen.
Yes, my mother-in-law and I had gotten off to a very rocky start, and unless she did something exceptionally amazing in the next minute, I was cutting her from our family tree.
My grandkids did not need a manipulative, narcissistic, cuckolding grandma.
But we weren’t thinking about babies.
Oh no.
I shoved that thought down before my males got excited slash terrified all over again. I was not in the mood to hear more about Zane’s unhinged child-rearing plans that involved lessons on how to massacre demons.
“We need to go find Kai before the orgy ends,” I announced firmly. Since my males were still processing their orgy experiences, it was up to me to take charge of this rescue mission. But that was fine. I had excellent leadership skills and totally reliable magic.
My plan was simple: we’d find Kai, rescue Farris from the bitch queen (because we needed him to get home) and get the fuck out of here.
What could go wrong?
My familiar rolled his eyes. “Knowing you, everything.”
“Thanks for your support. It means everything to me.”
Kenji shook himself and ignored my sarcasm.
“We don’t know where the queen is holding Kai,” Maverick pointed out, still not meeting my eye.
“Good thing I went looking earlier,” Kenji said. “He’s in a cave below the armory. Follow me.”
“I hope we meet some angry mermen,” Zane declared, rubbing his hands together gleefully. “I’m in the mood for some violence, and I have a lot of magic to expend.”
“You’re always in the mood for violence,” Maverick pointed out.
Zane grinned. “It’s my love language.”
Kenji trotted off, leading the way. I made it a grand total of five steps before stumbling in my stupid heels and nearly breaking my ankle. Luckily for me, Rasmus used his vampy speed to catch me before I hit the floor.
“I’ll carry you, mea amica.”
Being carried while on an important rescue mission wasn’t a good look for a strong, badass witch in charge of her males, but I decided it didn’t matter tonight. Speed was of the essence, and Rasmus was faster on his feet than I was.
Learning to delegate was a sign of a capable leader.
Just as we reached the stairs down to the lower levels of the palace, the queen’s consort blinked into view in front of us.
He slammed his trident into the stone floor, sending a wave of powerful magic blasting out.
“This area is off-limits to guests!”
“We were looking for our suite and got lost?” I forced a dippy smile, but the merman wasn’t buying my bullshit.
“The queen will be most upset that you are abusing her hospitality.”
“Daresh, leave them be.” For the first time ever, I was grateful to see the fae. He strode toward us while tucking his shirt into his pants. I forced myself not to look down in case little Farris was saluting the world; the evening had already been traumatic enough.
“Your companions are trespassing, my dear friend. I can’t turn a blind eye, not even for you.”
Farris sighed. “Look, I didn’t want to drag you into this, but that mate mark on the witch? It’s Malakai’s. The witch is his soul-bonded mate, and unless you help us rescue him, he’ll die.”