Wicked Ones
Chess
Shifting from foot to foot in excitement, I wait for my angel to answer the door. I’ve stumbled on something amazing and I can’t wait to show her what I found.
To think, I wasn’t sure about the transparent boards until Ren pointed out how versatile they were. Ducking my head, I smile as I think about how close our little family has gotten. Being an orphan wasn’t easy, despite how well Felix and Fitz treated me, and having the support of all our friends is making me feel warm and accepted. Even Aubrey is getting a little less gruff, and I hope he’ll trust me to come into his archives next.
With permission, unlike my mischievous consort.
My lips curl when I think about Aubrey’s rampage after he found out Fitz rubbed his fucking nuts everywhere in the clean room. My angel paid her own price for her mistake by filing thousands of password change forms. The run he made Fitz take around campus to avoid being fried was damned funny and well deserved. Everyone but him knows better than to fuck with the dragon’s lair.
Where is she?!
I pull my phone out, shooting a quick text to the guys to see who Dolly is with. She’s not answering the door to her room, and I know she has free time right now. I want to show her a clue that I hope will lead us to some of the damn artifacts we need, but she’s not around.
Now I’m worried.
My phone buzzes and I sigh in relief when Fitz tells me she’s in the shower, according to her phone tracking. I’d be upset with him for violating her privacy, but she honestly loves that he does it. I don’t get it, but then, I’ve lived with Fitz for my entire life. I definitely don’t need him obsessing enough to install GPS or, god forbid, cameras.
Oh, shit. Does he have cameras in there?
I panic a little when I realize I can’t put it past him, so I test the door to see if it’s open. “Angel, it’s me… I’m coming in!”
All I hear is music coming from the bathroom when I walk in, so I take my keys out of my pocket. Turning on the little penlight I bought after our trip into the tunnels, I flick it around to see if I catch the glint of a camera lens. I stroll around the room, checking various things for a hidden webcam until I come to a shelf that makes me blink.
What the actual fuck is this?
Amongst the shelf full of stuffed toys and pop culture figurines are three jars with… body parts suspended in them. Squinting as I move closer, I see one has three fingers that look male—if the fingernails are a tell. The next has an earring adorned ear that’s clearly female, and the last has a furry claw that I can’t figure out. The jars aren't labeled, but I have a good idea where this shit is coming from.
“Oh! Chessie!”
I whirl around to see my angel pad in, wrapped in a bright pink towel and adorably on the nose bunny slippers. Her hair is in a matching towel, wrapped in that weird turban style all women seem to be born knowing how to achieve. “Good afternoon, Angel. Have a nice relaxing steam?”
Her cheeks flush and I feel she did more than wash her hair, but I let it go. Dolly walks over to the dresser, pulling out lingerie and clothes as she winks at me. “Were you looking at my trophies?”
“Trophies?” I sputter.
Her lips curve as she heads for the bed, dropping the towel to give me a view of her soft, round ass. She bends to put on her underwear and I groan, adjusting myself carefully. “Yeah. Fitzy gives them to me. The fingers belong to dickwaffle Todd because he touched me without permission this summer.”
My eyes widen. “He didn’t…?”
“No, no. Fitzy was there, and he saved me, but as the big kitty.” Dolly hooks her bra and spins it around—another miraculous woman's trick—then shrugs. “Nothing happened, I promise.”
I frown for a moment. “And the ear?”
“That one I’m not sure about. He just said people need to learn to listen to both sides and put it on the shelf.” Her grin widens as she tugs on her jeans. “The claw is from that fuckhead professor. Fitz says putting your meddling fingers where they don’t belong is a lesson he won’t forget.”
Suddenly, I know where the ear came from. My consort is quietly avenging every wrong that’s been done to our girl since she arrived. She’ll be lucky if she doesn’t get a hyena dick in a jar over the piss thing. I watch her pull her shirt on, looking for signs that she’s uncomfortable with this, but she’s all smiles.
By Odin’s sparkly eyepatch, Fitz has someone just as ruthless and crazy as he is to love him.
This is why she doesn’t give a shit that he stalks her; he’s her protector and savior.
I get it now.
Walking over to her, I lift her hand, kissing her knuckles gently. I’m something completely different to her than Fitz is or than I am to him. We’re complimentary pieces and when you add Felix, Aubrey, and Renard, it’s a fearsome quint of shifters.
“I need to show you what I found, Angel.” I grin broadly at her, tugging her to the door. “First, we need to go upstairs to the nest room. Then we’ll go to the next place.”
“Hold on!” she pulls back, giving me an excited look. “I need shoes for the second part, silly.”
Oh, right.
“Okay, but be quick!”
After I showed Delores the way the transparency of the drawings she was puzzling over fit perfectly against the actual map of Apex, she almost screamed.
“I knew it! I mean, I didn’t know it, but I knew it was something familiar. The shape of the campus is the same, but the drawings might be… the tunnels underneath?”
I nod, grinning at her in excitement. “I thought so, too. This circular area close to the spot we found the weasel was where Ren and I explored. You saw the pictures, right?”
“Yes. Rennie said some runes were Celtic, which he knew, and Felix recognized the ones from Bloodstone like you,” she says. “Aubrey saw some he knew, too.”
“Exactly. I think we’re looking for something to decode that stone, and the way these tunnels all pass under our home means we’re part of this. I think the key we need is in the Tower.”
“Oooooh, Chessie!” my angel squeals as she throws her arms around my neck. “I know where we should look. There’s a big creepy room with stuff on the third floor. It’s across from the kitchen. We can look there without a problem, but if we have to go higher, we’ll need to talk to Rennie. Above the third floor is super restricted.”
I arch a brow, and she motions like she’s zipping her lips. “Okay, angel. Keep your secrets, but we should explore the first room you mentioned together.”
“No duh!” Dolly grabs my hand, yanking me away from the boards and to the steps with a crazy grin. “Time to find some artifacts, Dr. Jones.”
Oh, hell. I knew we shouldn’t have watched that with her and Fitz.
I see bullwhips in our futures.
Looking around the hallway as she tugs me to the door, I ponder. Nothing really looks special, but when she opens the doors to our destination, that feeling changes.
This room has to be important.
“There’s a lot of stuff in here that I figured was old junk,” Dolly says as she walks in the opposite direction I do. “But if the drawing is an overlay map of the school and all roads lead to Jericho, then the key to the weird room you saw might be here.”
I grin over my shoulder at her. “Have I mentioned how damn sexy your brain is, Angel?”
She winks at me playfully. “Back at you, my knight. All my guys have hot, nerdy brains, even Fitzy. People don’t give him credit for it because of his… exuberance, but they just don’t know how he works.”
Running my fingers over the edge of a painting that’s making my instincts flare, I think about her words. Then I remember his comment about Catch-22 and grin to myself. She’s totally right; Fitz’s intelligence got overshadowed by his behavior and neurodiversity. It took someone with patience and love to help him show that side of him without fear.
“You know, Angel, I’ve never seen him act this mature and put together before. I mean, outside of bringing you body parts and dressing like a cracked out unicorn at raves.” I chuckle at the memory of my two loves running around drinking out of fish bowls with glazed eyes.
She bounds over with a weird-looking box and glittering eyes. “I like his gifts and passion for life. Plus, reading out loud to him is fun, too. We play games with it and he has really interesting points of view. Also, I think this is a puzzle box.”
Way to bury the lead.
“Good job, Angel. I think this painting holds a clue, too. I’m not finding anything yet, but the dude in it?” She looks at me curiously as I take a deep breath. “The man in it is almost certainly the twins’ great-great-great-grandfather.”
Her eyes widen comically, and she gasps. “No fucking way!”
I nod, grimacing. “The current Raj took over when his mother retired to Thailand. People weren’t thrilled because he was young with a poor reputation and his mother killed her mate to ascend the throne. She did because he was a paranoid psychopath with delusions of grandeur, but the ambush saw the markers of those illnesses again in her eldest son.”
“Why did she retire, then?” Dolly asks, as I continue fiddling with the frame.
I sigh. “Remember, we weren’t around. The rumor is he forced her to retire much younger than she preferred. Her home in Thailand is more of an exile than a retirement villa, if that’s true. Felix planned to look into that when he took over.”
Her eyes narrow. “Hence the application of a new, unapproved law that prevented him from ascending to his birthright.” I nod and the loud snarl that echoes in her chest shocks me. “I’m coming for that motherfucker, too. Once I handle shit here, your adoptive father is on my new fucking list, Chess.”
The ferocity radiating off my angel is enough to make me drop to my knees, my expression agape as I whisper. “By Odin’s wrinkly balls, angel… you just alpha’d me to my knees. I can’t even look at you.”
“What?! How?! I’m not…” Her breathing escalates and I force my hand up to take hers, still keeping my head down. The touch calms her a little, and she finally speaks. “We can’t let anyone outside of our family know until I figure this out. I’ll have to work with Felix to make sure I can control it.”
Her hold snaps and I nod when I can finally look up at her freely. “You’re definitely right. No one can know a prey animal has this power. It would put you in even more danger.”
She lets out a long breath, staring at the ceiling as she grumbles, “Could I be normal for one fucking day? Is that too much to ask?”
Laughing, I rise and pull her into my arms. “Normal is boring, angel. Now let’s figure out the rest of this puzzle so we can tell the guys.”
“Deal.”