Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Lila
“Is that…” Xavier trails off as Tirrian pushes past us and strides to the bar, his anger now directed at another target.
Taking a seat at the table with the Madovian woman is none other than Tirrian’s cousin Dylan—the same shifter who caused so many troubles and was booted off the circus for trying to attack me.
His uncle, who is Tirrian’s father and the king, had also banished him from Fluxx due to the shame he brought on their family.
I start to follow them over, but Silac grabs my arm. “If you go in there, you may mimic Dylan. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t want that reminder every time you shifted into a dragon form.”
I shudder at the thought but shake his hand off my arm. “It seems like my mimic abilities are actually pretty choosy. The itchiness left my body the moment I saw him.”
Silac frowns but releases my arm, and we follow Tirrian into the dive bar to hear Dylan greet Tirrian rather caustically.
“Well, look who it is. If it isn’t my dear old cousin, the prince of the dragon shifters, and the warlock, the snake man, and the whore. My day just got a tiny bit shiny seeing you all here.”
His sarcasm is thick and obvious, and we stay quiet, my attention locking onto the woman next to him.
Tirrian starts to talk, but I ignore what he’s saying and take in all I can of the other creature.
I wonder if I can mimic this form and if I’ll get the snake form as well.
Oshan didn’t mention it, but I’m assuming I can.
I only have to mimic a shifter in half form to get the full range of abilities.
The itchiness returns to my skin, but I rein it in, not allowing it to take over, but I hope I have enough of her features locked into my mind that once I get a moment alone, I can assume her form.
A gasp of shock has my attention returning to the conversation between Tirrian and Dylan.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Tirrian demands, and my mouth drops open in disgust as I catch sight of the other side of Dylan’s face. He had been sitting, so we could only see one side of him. The other side is a mess of jagged, puckered scars, and his eye is completely white.
“Well, when you get banished from your home and you have no other skills but performing in a fucking circus, then you have to take whatever opportunities you can. Being a mercenary is a dangerous business, and sometimes you get hurt.” The angry sarcasm must be a constant state now, or maybe it’s just for us.
“Mercenary? You’re a killer for hire.” Tirrian sounds disgusted, but Dylan just shrugs.
“It pays well. Now why don’t you fuck off?
You are interrupting a business transaction, and we have nothing else to say to one another.
” Dylan has been surreptitiously side-eyeing me the whole time, but he hasn’t actually addressed me apart from the first insult, so I see no need to involve myself in the conversation.
Xavier’s mist pulses aggressively next to me, and that might be a suitable deterrent.
The Madovian has been quiet this whole time, but now she bares her fangs and hisses, and I take a step back.
“I’ll be letting my father know about this,” Tirrian threatens, and Dylan snorts with amusement.
“Of course you will. Now run along, and I’d watch whose company you are keeping, Tirrian. I’m not sure whore Skarrians are a suitable match for a crown prince.”
Dylan’s last dig actually hits its mark as we walk away from the angry dragon.
His words trigger a concern that has been on my mind almost constantly since I realized that my mates are powerful men.
Saxon is the Villaxian queen’s nephew, Xavier is Westalin’s crown prince, and Maxsim is the leading matriarch of Iceen’s son.
Then there is Link, the heir to one of the biggest conglomerates in the galaxy.
I’m sure they were all expected to have prestigious pairings suited to their stations, and yet all they have is me, and not only that, but they are also stuck in a harem of six men.
Hardly prestigious. I’m just grateful Mira and Murphy were so accepting, and I guess Maxsim’s mom too, since she gifted them to me, but I’m terrified about meeting the parents of my other mates, especially Link’s mother who seems like a raving lunatic, sending her son approved fiancés.
“Lila, stop it.” Xavier’s hand reaches out of the mist and gives me a little squeeze. “I know what you’re thinking, and none of it is true. My parents are going to love you, I promise.”
“Stop with the mind reading crap,” I mutter and shake him off.
“No, phoeall. How many times do I have to tell you that you just have a very expressive face? I’ve also met the Queen of Vilax, and she adores her two nephews almost as much as she does her own daughters.
She wouldn’t have sent the blood rose cup for you if she hadn’t been thrilled.
She would have denied him use of it, which would have been messy. ”
“If she had denied him, he would have died, so I’m not sure it had anything to do with being thrilled,” I say dryly. I hear Silac and Tirrian talking quietly behind us, but I don’t have any energy left to snoop.
“Let’s get this done. I’m suddenly very keen to see the back of this station,” I say as we finally make it to the accommodation suites.
Xavier puts his hand against the panel of the one we rented, and it opens up.
We enter a lavish yet slightly gaudy room with a humongous bed as its center point, but the stripper pole with small stage and the giant, bubbling hot tub are also big selling points.
I flop down on the large plush sectional sofa and grimace.
“How are we going to do this? It’s a big place. How are you going to find what you want without people running scared from ‘the warlock’ approaching them?” I ask Xavier as he lets his mist recede, and he grins.
“Well, firstly, I’m going to do this.” His body shimmers as he assumes a glamour, and I sit bolt upright when I see exactly what he’s done.
Gone is the beautiful lavender male, and in his place is the spitting image of Magenta.
“And when they realize I’m Skarrian and down to fuck, I’m pretty sure I can get them to come with me, but in case they won’t, I will mesmerize them and bring them here like that. ”
“Hey, are you implying my magenta-haired bestie is a slut?” I scold him, and he shrugs.
“Yeah, kind of, but only in the best way. She makes it clear that it’s one night and one night only.”
I narrow my eyes at that little bit of information. “Do you have firsthand knowledge of that?” I growl, and Tirrian and Silac chuckle as Xavier/Magenta holds his/her hands up defensively. It’s really bizarre.
“No, I promise I haven’t gone there. I had my harem, and there was Saxon if I had needs,” he reminds me, and I’m not sure I’m any happier about the harem reminder, but I relax back again.
“Okay, fine, let’s do this. What about you two?” I ask the two shifters, hoping the two of them will leave the room as well so I can try mimicking the snake woman.
“We will help Xavier scout. Our presence may scare off other dragons and nagas. Both of us are the top of the food chain so to speak, and we wouldn’t want to intimidate potentials,” Silac explains, and Tirrian just crosses his arms and grunts, still out of sorts after seeing his cousin, but then it really is his default mode, so maybe he’s not. Who the fuck knows?
My heart rate picks up with excitement as Silac tells me that, and his head cocks to the side. He must hear it. “Is everything okay?
“Yeah, yup, sure, I just want to get this done,” I explain, not admitting the truth, otherwise they will never leave me.
“Okay, well, sit tight, because we may be a while. Like you said, it’s a big station, but I think I saw a couple of Elementi as we made our way here,” Magenta/Xavier tells me.
“And I definitely saw a Barcoa in the stands of the arena. They are usually pretty standoffish, but if you offer to suck the inside of their elbow for them, I’m pretty sure they’ll be a sure thing,” Silac says matter-of-factly.
Suck the inside of their elbow? What the fuck are they making me mimic? I must look as confused as I feel.
“Barcoa are a slightly primitive warrior race that is big and beefy. They kind of look like rocks, but the texture of their skin is more like leather. They are not all that intelligent, but they are good at following orders and almost indestructible. They are often used as security guards for high profile people. They are humanoid in shape, but they have a centralized mouth situated on their stomach and they eat moss. The thing that makes them good at security is they have several decentralized eyes—one on their hand, one on either side of their head, and one on the back of their knee. It gives them three hundred and sixty degrees of vision. But their sexual organs are in their elbows, and they are both male and female. They have a vagina-like slit on one arm and a penis, which is retractable, on the other.”
I’m almost speechless after Tirrian finishes describing the creature they want me to mimic. One, because I think he just spoke the most words he’s ever said to me in one go, two, because there wasn’t a hint of aggression, and three, what the fuck?
“And we think it will be an asset for me to mimic this?” I ask, and the three of them nod enthusiastically.
I blow out a big sigh and shrug. “Fine, whatever. You guys are the experts. I’m going to take a little nap and maybe make use of the replicator while I wait. Don’t get lost,” I caution them, leaning my head back and closing my eyes.
I wait until I hear the door close behind them, counting to one thousand before I allow my eyes to pop open again.
I need to be quick, because for all I know, they stepped through the door and found their first victim immediately.
I search the room for a mirror, and sure enough, there is a mirror above the bed almost as big as it is.
I rush over to it and try to get a good look, but it hurts my neck to look at it standing, so I resign myself to lying on the bed.
I make myself comfortable and picture the Madovian woman in my mind.
It’s weird, because since I awoke from being electrocuted, my memory has sharpened, and I retain images in my mind, so I have no trouble recalling what she looked like sitting next to Dylan in the booth of the dingy bar.
It’s almost like water flowing over me as my skin starts to itch again, and that develops into full body pins and needles.
When I look once more in the mirror, I screech in fright.
Looking back at me is an exact replica of both the woman we killed and the one I’d just seen, down to the cross-shaped slit in my now very naked stomach.
I take stock of how I’m feeling. My vision has sharpened, so I can see everything in the mirror, down to the tiny little scales of the serpents that are writhing on my head.
Their hissing is loud in my newly sensitive ears, and my sense of smell has definitely increased.
I can smell whatever cleaning product the housekeeping used on this room after the last guests. At least that’s reassuring.
I reach up and poke a finger at one of the hissing snakes.
It nips me, but it doesn’t hurt. It then proceeds to affectionately lick the spot it nipped.
I smile at it and almost shriek again at my mouth full of vicious fangs.
Holy fuck, I look nasty, but then a feeling of aggression starts to roll through my body.
A searing need to fuck causes throbbing inside my stomach slit, and I leap off the bed and start to pace back and forth across the room.
My mind starts to blur, and Lila seems to check out as something else slips into the driver’s seat.
“That naga would make a good breeding partner. A strong incubator for my eggs, and a tasty snack for our babies once they hatch. The dragon would too, and I bet his cock is huge. I wonder if it is barbed like dragons are rumored to be. I’d love to feel that thrusting in and out of my sexual slit.
” The words are sibilant and rumbly as I try to wrestle back control.
Holy fuck, this being is strong, and I understand what Oshan was cautioning me about, but I manage to slip back into the driver’s seat, and as soon as I do, I imagine my real form.
The same pins and needles sensation overtakes my body, but I shimmer, and when I look back down, my body has returned to its former shape.
“Fuck, that was weird.” I flop back onto the bed again, not caring one little bit that I’m naked, despite Silac and Tirrian possibly returning at any moment.
I need a few seconds to get my head on straight again.
I was me, but I wasn’t. Or was I? I think if I dig deep down into my psyche, she…
me… whatever was only saying exactly how I feel.
Silac does intrigue me, especially in his half form.
He has two cocks, and I want to know what that feels like.
And the dragon? Yeah, I can’t help but think he’s sexy despite his fucked up attitude.
I mean, who wouldn’t? With all that gorgeous, shimmery skin and those sexy pink wings, he’s hot as fuck.
I think my mimic side has her eye firmly set on those two despite neither of them having any interest in me at all, which is going to make things awkward.
All I can do is continue to pretend to be disinterested.
The doors to the room whooshes open, and I lift my head. Of course I didn’t even have time to find a robe.
“Lila, we found your first victim,” Silac calls cheerfully as he and Tirrian manhandle a huge, rock-like creature into the room. The Barcoa, I’m assuming. They get it situated, and it seems to be in a bit of a trance before turning to face me. That’s when they both recognize that I’m naked.
“Holy shit,” Silac squeaks endearingly, but Tirrian narrows his eyes even further.
“What did you do?” Tirrian hurries toward me and hauls me up off the bed, shaking my body. “What have you done?” he demands again, his eyes roaming over my naked figure before meeting mine to glare at me. “You better have not done what I think you did.”