Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Lila
We finally arrive in Aquilian air space. They don’t have a space station for us to dock at, so we settle into an orbit above the planet. The only ships allowed to land on the planet are their own, but for now, the ones shadowing us continue to remain in orbit as well.
“Bubby, is there another ship nearby?” I ask him from my seat on the flight deck.
I needed a break from everyone to catch my breath and get my bearings before I have to deal with whatever trumped-up charges the Aquilians are trying to pin on me.
Link was the one who suggested I come up here and hang out.
Everyone else is distracted by the children or micromanaging our Husadavia plans.
I have no idea where Tirrian is, and Silac and Xavier have been locked in the conference room, having clandestine talks about something that I’m sure they will eventually share with me.
When I asked Saxon while we were dressing the children this morning, he said something about getting Silac out of his arranged marriage.
I didn’t let myself hope it was because he wanted to be with me.
Saxon said it involved some political maneuvering and sneaky shit, which Xavier excels at.
“No, Lila, love. Nothing that I can see on the long-range scanners either. Is there something specific you are looking for?”
I watch as the Aquilian ships hover off to our side, not willing to leave and land on their planet until they receive confirmation that I have reached the destination I am required to attend.
“Yes, the warlock king and queen will be joining us,” I tell him, and a grin lights up his face and he chuckles.
“Those damn cans of tuna aren’t going to know what hit them.” Everyone has started referring to the Aquilians like I do. Poor Nixie is going to be pissed at me, but I will make it up to her somehow.
“No, but we may have to go ahead without them. Can you tell them to join us when they arrive?” I ask the captain of the ship who I’ve come to love like a favorite uncle.
“Sure thing, Lila. Make sure you don’t take any crap from the pompous King Marlin,” Bubby tells me as I take my leave and go in search of those who are going to join me on the surface.
William and Eric are both coming, but John is staying behind.
He feels like he won’t be any help if we encounter any trouble since he isn’t back to full strength.
Both cats and Link are also going to remain behind, as well as Saxon and Silac.
The fact that the planet is ninety percent water is really going to work against us, but Cas and Xavier will both be accompanying me.
Cas for obvious reasons, but Xavier insists his presence will unnerve the Aquilian king.
We were all supposed to meet in the teleporting room, and that is where I find everyone who is accompanying me, but there is a loud argument going on, and it doesn’t stop as I enter. I try to make heads and tails of what they are arguing about, but I’m lost.
I lean against the wall and watch with interest. Maybe I should get a talking stick.
I remember the sparkly, glittery version we had in elementary school, and whoever held it could talk and everyone else had to shut their pie hole.
My family could benefit from one of those. I must put it on the shopping list.
“I’m just saying that having an Aaz’axian with us is enough to make King Marlin crap his pants.” Cas gestures to Brannock, who is shaking his head.
“It’s not a good idea. I’m sorry, but I will remain on the ship.”
“I have to agree with Cas. The asshole is mostly all talk, and seeing you will throw him off, which will be to our advantage,” Xavier agrees with my kraken, and Brannock starts to pace with agitation, his spines bristling with each step.
“I would gladly accompany you anywhere to keep Lila safe, but please don’t ask this of me,” he argues, and William frowns.
“Why not?”
“Hey, lay off the man.” I step into the conversation, seeing as none of them are backing off. “I’m sure he has his reasons, and what business is it of yours?” I growl at the gathered men, who look slightly chagrined in the face of my annoyance.
I turn my back on my grandpas, mates, and Tirrian—I have no idea why he’s here—and pull Brannock to the side, trying to use my warlock powers to reassure him that his decision is valid.
I’m not in warlock form, though, which I kind of have to be to use them, so I guess it’s pointless, but I feel him relax under my hand, so maybe just interrupting helped.
“It’s okay,” I assure him. “You have no skin in this game, and you owe us nothing. If you don’t wish to come down to the surface, it’s fine.”
He just stares at me for a moment, and then he grimaces and looks down at the ground and mumbles something that I don’t catch despite my enhanced hearing.
“I’m sorry, what?” I ask him, and he huffs before raising his head.
“It’s not that I don’t want to come. I can’t swim, so really, if anything happened, you would be the one rescuing me.”
I blink, startled by his embarrassed confession, before shaking my head.
“Don’t be embarrassed. Almost sixty percent of Earth’s population can’t swim.
I completely understand. I wouldn’t want to do battle in the sky.
I can fly in my elemental forms, but in my Vilaxian one, I’m more likely to crash and burn.
We all have our strengths, and that’s okay, but if you’d like, once we get some downtime, I can teach you if you want.
I’m pretty good at it, even in my normal Lila body,” I offer, and he just stares at me for a moment, and I worry I’ve overstepped.
His eyes brighten, and the smile that crosses his lips is one of pure joy, and holy smokes, the man is hot when he smiles.
I feel tingles in places I shouldn’t be feeling them for a man who isn’t my mate, and I have to grit my teeth and shove my mimic ability deep, deep down so it doesn’t rise up and tag this man as one of its mates.
It’s too late, though, and I see the moment my attraction mark burns itself onto his body. Fuck my life. Brannock’s sinful smile disappears, and his mouth drops open in shock. His hand comes up, and he reaches back, rubbing the spot on his shoulder.
Groaning with embarrassment, I turn away, unable to look at him any longer.
I’m also aware that my back is burn free.
Of course the attraction is one-sided. I’m never going to be able to look at him again, let alone teach him how to swim.
Maybe it’s not a bad thing. Seeing his body almost naked and dripping with water wouldn’t help things anyway.
As I go to move away from him, that familiar feeling starts to burn into my back, and Brannock grabs hold of my arms, spinning me back to face him.
He leans in and whispers, “Don’t think I haven’t noticed how incredibly sexy you are, not to mention that you’re kind and caring and generous, but there are things you don’t know about me—things I can’t share, reasons why you may change your mind about how you feel.
I didn’t want you to think that the attraction only went one way though.
I’d have to be blind and dead not to desire you, and I am neither of those things.
” His voice is husky in my ear, and I can see that he isn’t unaffected by what just happened, but as soon as he admits that, I see a shutter come down over his emotions, and he becomes that blank, almost robotic being that we have gotten used to.
He releases my arm and turns away, and I step back. I notice that everyone else gave us a moment of privacy and are discussing how they will deal with the king of the fish people.
“Right, Brannock won’t be coming down to the surface,” I tell them, even though I’m certain they all listened into what just happened like the nosy busybodies they are. “Shall we just do this? Until we know what the charges are, we won’t even know how we are going to respond.”
I see Link and Xavier exchange a loaded glance, and I brace myself. I know that look, and they are about to drop a bomb on me.
“God, what now?” I ask, hearing the whine in my voice and not even caring that I sound like a petulant teenager.
“We think we know what this is about,” Cas says, coming over to me and wrapping his arms and a tentacle or two around me, and I start to panic. He’s obviously trying to soften the blow of whatever they are about to tell me. His tentacle caresses my leg, but I push it away.
“Don’t try to distract me with your sexy as fuck tentacles, squid rings.” I poke a finger into his chest, and he winces and shrugs at Xavier.
“I tried,” he says and steps back as Xavier scowls at him.
“You weren’t subtle. I said be subtle, but no, you had to go and grope her with your tentacles and try to distract her with your sexiness. I knew she wouldn’t fall for it. This is serious.”
With the way the two of them bicker like siblings, you never would have guessed they brought each other to screaming orgasms during our hot as fuck orgy a few days ago.
I cross my arms, trying not to get distracted by thoughts of tentacles and orgies. “Just spit it out. Obviously it’s shitty news if you’re trying to soften it in any way.”
The two of them continue to bicker, and Eric rolls his eyes, wrinkling his nose. “When you had your ‘swim’ with Nikos, did he bite you?”
“Yes, he left a scar around my—” I break off, not wanting to share where he bit me with my grandpa.
Eric shudders and holds up his hand. “I don’t need details, it’s fine, and did you bite him back?”
I have to think back carefully. Mostly, I try to block it out because I feel guilty that I was so easily lured away from my precious babies.
I also try to forget how incredible the whole experience was, how his cock felt in my slit, and how we spiraled through the ocean together, every beat of his tail sending my pleasure higher and higher, his cock moving inside me like it could bury itself in me forever.
We connected on a level that we hadn’t reached before, and that was ripped away once I came out of my sex-induced fog and realized his betrayal.
He took me so far away from my babies that it made them vulnerable to the predator beast. I was completely relieved when I saw the sea dragon fighting off the whatthefuckasaurus, but angry at the merman.
“No, I did not bite him. I was pissed off and yelled at him and banished him. I told him I never wanted to see him again or something like that. Do you think he went crying to his dad? Is that what this is about? The poor little prince got yelled at by a woman.”
Everyone in the room exchanges glances and knowing looks, and now I’m just getting pissed.
“What the fuck is going on?” I demand.
“What they are scared to tell you is that bite that scarred was Nikos claiming you as his mate,” Tirrian tells me, leaning against the wall.
There’s no sarcasm or any of the aggression I’ve been getting from him since he admitted that his dragon picked me as his, just sadness and a hint of sympathy in his eyes, and my heart races as I recognize what he’s telling me.
“He mated me?” I ask quietly as I try to play over everything that happened in my head.
“Yes.” He nods as the tension ratchets up in the room. I guess everyone is waiting for my explosion.
“But Aquilians don’t have fated mates,” I argue, and he sighs.
“No, they don’t. They choose whom they want to spend the rest of their lives with, unlike a lot of us, and he chose you.”
“But I’ve been horrible to him,” I whimper. “How could he have chosen me to be his mate? Surely there are many other more suitable mer girls who wanted to be his mate?”
I look around the room, and no one seems to know how to answer the question.
“That’s probably why.” Tirrian breaks the tension again.
“You treated him like he was normal, not the Aquilian crown prince. You didn’t care if he was a prince or a circus performer, and you certainly didn’t care what he could do for you or what your status would be if you managed to snare him in your net.
” Xavier stares at the dragon prince with an intense focus, but Tirrian ignores him.
Cas sighs and nods. “I have to agree with the dragon. You didn’t take any of his crap, and he loved that more than anything else you could do.
Despite how he acts, Nikos is not stupid.
Most of that is an act to scare people away and get people to underestimate him.
Yes, he is a bit of a himbo, so don’t expect that to change, but he is smart, and he knows when someone is after him for what he can do for them or who he is.
It’s why he was with the circus in the first place. ”
“So what? I’m half mated to him?”
“Well, he has selected you now, but it will be a half mating, because if it’s not fated, it will break after a period of time, and both of you can move on.
He will be able to remate.” I feel a sudden rush of anger and jealousy as Xavier says these words.
“But I would hazard a guess that the king is going to force you to accept him or ask for some kind of compensation. Rejecting Nikos will have far-flung consequences for him. Marlin may even remove his crown prince title and elevate one of his other children. He won’t stand for the shame of his son being rejected, especially by someone he considers lower than him. ”
“So let me get this straight. Because Nikos chose me as his mate, he may lose his title and get banished from his home because his father is a bigoted asshole?” I’m fucking furious—mostly at Marlin, but a little at myself for not understanding the significance of what happened between me and my favorite can of tuna.
I was angry, but over the last few weeks, I’ve come to recognize that I was just as responsible as Nikos, and I guess I’m slightly ashamed of how I treated him.
He didn’t deserve to suffer all my wrath because I felt guilty.
“Yes,” Xavier admits, and I feel a whole new wave of anger wash over me.
“So all of this is because King Marlin is feeling slighted?”
“We believe so, yes.” Grandpa William sighs and runs a hand through his hair in frustration. Luckily for them, they age slowly, because I bet since meeting me, their hair would have turned gray three times over.
“Well, let’s go and tell the king of the cans of tuna what we have to say about that.
If he thinks he can blackmail me into accepting his son, he has another thing coming.
As for compensation, I’ll compensate him by removing his head if I have to.
” I step up onto the teleporting platform, knowing none of my words are making sense because I’m that furious.
It is none of his business what Nikos and I decide to do, and he will not get away with threatening me and putting my family in danger.