Chapter 10
ten
KAT
Nausea sat in my stomach like a rock when Callum pulled into the Orchard's overflowing parking lot.
Not because of what we’d done together. That was fun.
Not because we were almost going to be late, either.
I was nauseous because I was about to see my sister for the first time in five years, and I had no idea how it would go.
A dude who was somehow even bigger than Callum sat on a motorcycle between two empty parking spaces, and waved us over when we got there. I recognized him from pictures on the internet.
Darius Scorch, the summer fae king.
He was a verifiable giant, wearing nothing but a pair of sneakers and black joggers. A ton of his muscle and scarred, brown skin was on display.
The bargain marks all over Callum were sprawling, glittering gray swirls in different shapes and sizes, with some empty space between them.
Darius’s, on the other hand, were so tightly packed that I couldn’t tell where one began or another ended.
They covered every inch of him, other than his face and the palm of his hands.
According to the internet, they were all over his cock, too. Not that I’d researched it. At least, not intentionally.
You can’t blame a girl for being curious.
Darius was well-known across the city for his magic. Fire, and pleasure. People were drawn to him, and he was known for the small, silly bargains he made with them, leaving them feeling amazing afterward.
Personally, I thought offering any part of your soul was crazy, but offering a part of your soul for something as silly as a drink in a bar was next level insane.
People did that, though. That was how strong his pull was.
His scars suggested there was something more to him behind the playful bargains and sex magic, something more, but I didn’t know what it could be. Maybe it had to do with the price of his power.
Callum talked to Darius while I slipped out of the car and walked over to the men. I stepped up next to Callum, and he took my hand. He didn’t seem completely comfortable with the tiny public display of affection, but I knew we were supposed to make it look like we were in love.
He kept the drizzle of rain off me with his magic, so I supposed that would work in our benefit. That seemed like a lot of effort to go to for someone you didn’t care about.
"So, this is the famous Kat," Darius said with a grin.
"Hey." I pushed my fingers between Callum’s, feeling both a little awkward and a little reluctant. Callum’s grip was stiff, but he didn’t stop me from making the hand-holding look more intimate.
We were going to have a really hard time convincing people we were in love. It was a good thing I’d made sure he smelled like me.
Something told me I was going to have to do the brunt of the work. If that was the cost of my bargain, so be it.
The actual mate bond… well, that was something else entirely.
"Nice to finally meet you." Darius held out a hand like he wanted me to shake it, but Callum blocked me from doing so. Probably because of Darius’s pleasure magic. "Since you’re a part of the squad now, I go by Dare."
"You’ve got to stop calling it a squad." Callum’s expression was deadpanned, but I thought he might actually be trying to make a joke.
Darius’s widening grin confirmed that. "Make me."
"I would, but we need to get in there. Kat's boyfriend is probably missing her."
I elbowed Callum in the side hard enough that he winced. Felt kind of bad afterward. He had enough pain in his life. But he was being an asshole, so he did deserve it. "If I have to tell you one more time that he's basically my brother, you will regret it."
"Make him regret it." Darius started to nudge my arm.
Callum's hand pressed the small of my back, basically driving me away from his friend before the guy could touch me. "We'll see you in there."
"Who's the other parking spot for?" I asked, as we walked toward the crazy-loud arena not far from Crescent Villa. It was on the front edge of the orchard.
"Merrily. She'll get here just before it starts."
"Because of her magic?"
Callum dipped his head.
We were silent as we walked down the path toward the pit. Like most werewolves, I had seen the large, bowl-shaped clearing in the orchard that was used for challenges. I'd never seen a challenge in person, because the invitation list was usually exclusive, but I'd seen the pit itself.
The path leading toward it was paved with pretty, reddish stone tiles, and was empty other than us. Almost everyone would be gathered at the pit already, because most people wouldn't risk pissing the Alpha off by not showing up earlier.
Fairy lights had been woven through the massive fruit trees on either side of the path, reminding me of Gwen's bedroom in our childhood home.
My chest ached with the memory.
What would our lives have been like if she hadn't agreed to become the Alpha? Or if she hadn't withdrawn from the loan at the last minute?
There was no point in dwelling on it, but of course I had wondered.
I'd done what I had to do for the sake of my cafe, but it had changed my life drastically. There was no way around that.
Before, I'd been surrounded by a pack I loved and people I loved, planning to run The Werewolf Cafe with my sister, who I was incredibly close with. Most of our friends, who made up our pack, were in college at the time. They all had plans to help with the café, either by working part time, helping with marketing, or just coming to visit so the place wasn’t empty.
I lost all of those plans when Gwen left.
I lost all of those friends, too.
Even our family had sided with her. Other than a few holiday texts and strained phone calls, I no longer had any relationship with them.
Gwen made her choice, they made theirs, and I made mine.
I definitely hadn’t expected my choice about the café to end with me being forced to mate with a fae king, though.
My gaze skimmed the trees, looking in the direction I knew the Villa was located. It was only a few miles from the pit. I could see the building peeking over some fruit trees, and couldn't stop myself from remembering what it had been like the last time I was there.
Callum and I didn't speak during the walk, or as we approached the pit. The space around it was so packed with men who had come to compete that I couldn't see anything but gigantic, soaking wet male werewolves.
The rain was only a drizzle, but it seemed safe to assume they had all been there for hours, being told the rules and assigned their places.
The dirt around the bowl-shaped dip where the fighting occurred sloped downward, making it easier for large groups to watch. Not that the slope was effective if you were a female immortal, given the sizes of most of the males.
Challenges between werewolves tended to be both quick, and dirty. They weren't like the carefully run fights Jonah participated in professionally. They were short, bloody attempts to take out the other person, purely and simply.
Long ago, werewolves had challenged each other for many reasons, but now, it was typically only done when someone wanted to force their way into a beta position in a pack, which was rarely a good idea.
As I'd told Callum, an unhappy alpha female could just leave.
Betas had more purpose when you were in a seat of power, like my sister was, or if you lived outside of Rumor. Humans knew about immortals, and did their very best to kill us out there, which made having a strong beta pretty much necessary for any alpha female outside.
Because of the wards, we’d become much more domesticated. Living in Rumor was a privilege, honestly. Hence the Cabinet's many rules.
There were twenty-two seats in it, and most of the larger types of immortals had one. The fae, wolves, demons, spellcasters, and monsters were the only groups who had more than one. Other than the fae, each of those possessed two seats, which meant two votes.
The fae had four.
They were too powerful for anyone to try to stop them, and their magic kept the wards alive, so they were untouchable.
That didn't mean everyone liked them, of course. It was safe to say that most people didn’t.
I didn't know the specifics about politics or drama, because everything online was biased in some way, but I assumed there were politics and drama.
Callum's magic chilled the air as we approached the edge of the group around the pit. People turned to look at us, and quiet, urgent voices carried through the crowd as it parted quickly. One large werewolf dude stumbled into another, and nearly took him down.
I was used to people’s attention since my café had become so big, so I stayed calm and quiet despite their alarm as Callum tucked me in front of him and propelled me through the gap the crowd had made. It widened, as we walked through it.
No one wanted to piss off the ice king.
No one even wanted him to notice them.
They couldn’t have missed the hand he had on my hip, though, or the way we smelled like sex.
As we approached the paved path leading around the edge of the pit, I saw twenty folding chairs placed in two rows along the curved edge straight across from where we stood, with a large awning stretching across the entire group to keep them dry from the rain.
The four chairs on the far end of the front row were clearly reserved for the fae royals, with Liv occupying one.
The other three were empty. Every other seat was already filled.
The Cabinet members looked normal for immortals, but I knew they were all among the most powerful people in the city.
Between the shadows that curled off some of them like smoke and the magic that made the air buzz around others, the people in those chairs weren’t the kind I should risk pissing off.
It was strange to think that the man behind me, the one who was forcing me to be his mate, was more powerful than any of them. Except maybe Liv.
I wasn’t sure how the royals’ magic ranked against each other, or if they could compete at all given how different their power was.