Chapter One Zara #2
My gaze rises to assess the lowering skies, framed in a jagged bowl of white-crowned mountain peaks, all pearly with fading afternoon light.
Just in time to feel the first fat snowflake drift down from the heavens to land on my nose with a cold wet kiss.
“Ugh.” I swipe off the moisture with my mittened hand. “Looks like the snow’s already starting. Guess we’re done with our shopping, huh?”
“No worries, baby queen. We need anything else, I’ll just pop back into town and get it,” Mordred assures me.
Meaning he’ll apparate.
Which is another one of his demon superpowers.
But there’s no point getting the poor mortals any more interested in us than they already are.
Mordred rootles happily through our assorted packages on the counter, commenting to me with approval on the various goodies he finds.
Meanwhile, Ronin brackets Vasili’s slim hips between his spread knees, loops his arms around V’s neck, and slow-kisses our dominant alpha in a way that sexes up the whole street.
Yum.
The sooner we all make it to the Mercury chalet and our Alaskan king bed, the yummier.
I sneak a warming sip from my Styrofoam cup of cocoa, all steamy and creamy and salty with caramel. My cocoa’s so yummy I don’t even miss the gluhwein I declined, because pregnant. Moaning softly with appreciation, I close my eyes and extend my senses.
I’m reaching.
Reaching for the others.
Reaching for the rest of our mates.
Right away, I get a telepathic ping from Lucius.
No need to worry, my dear girl, he murmurs, low and rumbly, through our mating bond. I’m already on my way. I’ll fetch the others.
Our wolf shifter headmaster has been doing his own last-minute shopping in the Christmas bazaar, and he’s been suspiciously sneaky about it. But of course, his shifty senses have picked right up on the changing weather.
Lucius Aries is the most responsible guy in my whole harem, bar none, so he’s already rounding up the others. Namely, the two whose Fae brains I can’t access. Lack of telepathy is no impediment to Lucius’ wolf, who can sniff out anyone, even in a crowd.
“Oh, hey, babe! There you are.” Neo wiggles through the shoppers clustered around the North Pole display window of the Bavarian ornament shop and trots breathlessly to my side.
Our bookworm looks flushed and winded from running, green eyes wide and glasses sliding down his nose.
His soft purple curls are mashed under a red wooden cap stitched with prancing reindeer and crowned with a big snowball.
“Hi, baby. We missed you.” I wait indulgently while Mordred scents my fated mate to welcome him.
Then Neo nestles up trustingly next to Ronin and Vasili.
Ronin flashes his slow grin and turns to greet him with a lingering kiss (to the fascination of the wine-pour girl and the scandalized stares of the elderly couple).
I eye those two disapproving looky-loo bystanders until they huff and hurry off, with the lady clutching her handbag like we’re gonna steal it.
You know, on account of our obviously loose morals.
What. Ever.
Yeah, I may be a cat burglar, but I’m reformed, fuck you very much. There’s plenty about living among these so-called normals and their judgy ways I definitely don’t miss.
“Darling, you look like a Christmas elf.” Vasili smirks wickedly at Neo’s goofy hat, spruce-green parka, and Grinch Who Stole Christmas scarf.
But, really, he’s just being Vasili.
“Nothing wrong with a little Christmas spirit,” Neo says stoutly. The whole enemies-with-benefits vibe between those two has gotten a lot more mellow over the past few months. By now, Neo is totally used to V being a snake. “You should try it sometime, Vasili. You really should.”
“Yeah, Goblin King. You can be Krampus.” I giggle into my cocoa. It’s the demented-sounding giggle my former enemies used to call my Mad Queen laugh.
But I haven’t seen Cleo or Xiao or even Messalina in months. Not since I won my throne back from Cleo.
So no one says that about me anymore.
I mean, that I’m mad.
Neo snuggles me happily into his arms, with my rounded tummy tucked between us. He bends his head, I rise on tiptoe, and the two of us share a sweet kiss that tastes like peppermint. His soft lips are sticky, like he’s been sucking on a candy cane.
“Did you finish shopping for your Secret Santa?” I ask with an indulgent smile.
Our whole Secret Santa thing was Neo’s idea. We’ve all drawn names from a hat and shopped, supposedly in secret. Until Christmas morning, no one’s supposed to know who drew who.
But Neo was so excited and happy to draw Ash’s name that he spilled the beans and told me right away.
“Wow.” That’s the wine-pour girl again, eyes round as dinner plates. “So you’re actually a … fivesome? What do you even call that?”
“That would be a pentad,” Neo supplies helpfully, because of course there’s no obscure factoid or vocab our bookworm doesn’t know. “But, uh…”
Poor Neo. He’s still trying to wrap his head around how to explain to our wholesome-looking new friend that there are actually more than five of us when the other three show up together.
Their sudden arrival definitely creates a sensation.
God knows, Zephyr alone would be enough to create one.
The King of the Dark Fae pointedly ignores Vasili (those two are feuding again, for reasons) and stalks straight to my side, all broody and intense, looking totally exotic with his long spill of mossy green hair and the eyepatch slashing over his feral face.
Even with a black ski cap pulled down to hide his pointy ears and his dragonscale armor replaced by the slim-fit Olympic ski suit he’s zipped his lithe frame into like a second skin, he’s pretty sensational.
“I am returned to you, my bride.” Zephyr smolders down at me like the morally gray hero in a romantasy novel.
That’s an effect I always appreciate.
“Lucky me.” I loop an arm around his neck, breathe in a hit of his burnt amber and dragonhide aroma, and lean in for a fangy Dark Fae kiss that takes like cloves and nutmeg (very Christmasy). “We missed you, Your Radiance. For real.”
“Then I shall not part for you again this day,” he replies seriously. “Nor from you, sweet boy.”
As Zephyr wraps one territorial arm firmly around my waist and the other around Neo’s, the guy draws every eye on the street.
Even though we’ve strategically left his green dragon Xhevith back on Avalon, curled protectively around our clutch of incubating dragon eggs.
Those three luminescent eggs, each the size of a microwave oven by now, are the fruit of Max’s epic shifted mating flight with V’s genderqueer dragon.
Between V’s eggs and my second-trimester triplets, we’re all, like, co-parenting.
Including the actual dragon.
“Six, seven, eight,” the wine-pour girl whispers to the bashful ginger behind the counter. “Plus the guy who went for the car. There are nine of them!”
“Yeah, we’re a polycule,” I tell her, smiling into Zephyr’s burning jade-green stare. “All nine of us. That’s the word you’re looking for.”
“It’s really great. We’re all in love with each other.” Neo snuggles happily into Zephyr’s possessive embrace. “And legally married, you know, I mean it’s legal where we come from.”
The girl needs a tick to process that newsflash and work up the nerve to ask me directly. “So, like, are you all from Utah?”
“Well, the thing is—” The flicker of a predator’s slinking approach on our periphery captures my full attention. “Hold that thought for me, okay?”
My gaze veers straight to Lucius.
My wolf king looks exactly like an Oxford don on a rom-com holiday, chestnut hair swept into a proper tail at his nape, rangy frame buttoned neatly to the chin into a sober wool coat. Tidy shopping bags blazoned with the names of Wonderland’s gourmet grocer and chocolatier swing from his hands.
He’s stalking purposefully straight for me, his intent whiskey-colored eyes scanning my pregnant body for any sign of discomfort or distress. But Mordred intercepts him, deftly plucks the shopping bags from Lucius’ grip, and deposits the goods on the counter with the rest of our Christmas loot.
Then Mordred bends our wolf shifter headmaster back over his strong arm and dives in for a searing old-school Hollywood kiss.
Oh, hell to the yeah.
The riveting spectacle of our aristocratic and reserved headmaster being thoroughly kissed by a burly, dimpled, blue-bearded dude in a full Santa suit—a Santa who’s giving major fuck me vibes, because incubus, and basically sexing up the whole street—sparks a spontaneous round of applause from a passing quartet of college girls in ski bunny gear.
The chicks all slow to admire our show as they saunter past.
Someone else from the crowd streaming past our stall lets loose with a piercing wolf whistle.
Ruddy and flustered, Lucius grips Mordred’s broad shoulders for balance and struggles upright. “Ah, hello to you as well, Mordred.”
Those two aren’t fucking (yet). That’s because Lucius has it stuck in his head that Mordred—as a freshman exchange student at the Icarus Academy—needs mentoring and other academic shit from Lucius more than he needs fucking.
But Mordred’s a demon on a mission.
A mission I totally approve.
A mission to fuck all the mates in our polycule, because Mordred was the last of my warlocks to join. And Lucius is the last holdout.
Long story short? I don’t think Lucius’ virtue is gonna remain intact much longer.
When my wolf king’s gaze swerves to me, I smile and blow him a kiss for reassurance. “No worries about me or the puppies, Teach. The guys have been taking such good care of us.”
For the moment, that’s enough for Lucius, who tries really hard not to hover and always gives me my space.
Meanwhile, Ash beelines straight for Vasili. Who’s still standing between Ronin’s spread knees with his back to the street.
Still, V being V, he’s fully aware of what’s coming.
Ash is physically the largest of my warlocks, just a massive mountain of a man, close to seven feet tall and impressively wide though the shoulders, with thick biceps and corded thighs.
Plus the mountaineering parka half-unzipped down his broad chest just makes him look larger.
The sunglasses perched high on his spiky pewter hair draw extra attention to his quicksilver eyes and rugged, square-jawed face.
At least he’s rocking a common magics glamour spell to downplay his pointed ears.
“Howdy, beautiful,” the big Seelie rumbles in Vasili’s ear, engulfing V’s slim waist in his large hands while our snake hums a welcome. Then Ash lifts his head to look right at Ronin. “You too, firecracker.”
So, yeah. Ash is into nicknames. It’s part of his folksy, aw shucks, I might be the Light Fae Prince but I’m just your average joe old-fashioned charm.
And it makes me so happy that Ash has finally given one of his old-fashioned nicknames to Ronin.
Because those two started out hating each other. Jealous of each other. At first, even when they fucked, their vibe was total hate fuck.
For months.
Some nights, it still is.
But not today.
“Cheers, mate.” Ronin leans into V, who totally doesn’t mind, to reciprocate Ash’s howdy with a casual kiss.
“Polycule,” the wine-pour girl whispers, clearly trying out the word and the concept, and fortunately forgetting to follow up on the problematic issue of where the hell we hail from. “Whoa. I might have to give that a try after all.”
“I certainly recommend it,” I say dreamily, rubbing noses with Neo and gazing deep into his love-filled eyes.
Now that’s three of my warlocks wrapped around each other and two more wrapped around me, while Lucius takes a brisk businesslike inventory of our mountain of purchases. Mordred banters and flirts at his side.
Normally I’d worry we’re maybe attracting too much attention from the normals.
But not now.
Thick flakes are spiraling from the leaden skies, floating past the gaslamp-style streetlights and the swoopy strand of blue-and-rose Christmas lights the ornament shop just switched on, glowing in the deepening twilight.
The mood on the street has shifted from the happy buzz of holiday shopping to folks checking their phones for the weather report and muttering about getting on the road before the snow gets worse.
“Figure we all better get a move on.” Ash jams his big hands into his parka pockets and addresses this remark to all of us. “Definitely a big blow coming. I’m guessing we wanna be off these mountain roads, tucked safe and sound in our digs, before the real snow hits.”