“We better go and announce your arrival to Aaron, and ask his permission for you to be in the den. And for the sweet love of everything holy, follow the etiquette. I know you know it, so don’t pull that dumb soldier crap with me.”
He snorted back a laugh, but nodded. He was awfully chipper today, considering he’d nearly just gotten some vital limbs torn off. She gave him a narrow-eyed look. “What’s up with you?”
“Vivian agreed to marry me after this thing with the Fae is over.”
Azar stopped dead. “What? Since when have you guys even been a couple? Congratulations! Looks like I owe Bast a fifty. I said there was nothing going on between you two.”
His chest was puffed out, and his grin was so wide it threatened to split his face in two. “Since we’ve come back from the Amazon, we’ve been seeing each other every night. She’s just perfect for me.”
“Except she’s a Sila. And you’ve known each other, what? Three weeks?”
“We went through training together, and have run a few ops over the years, but yeah this has been the longest we’ve been in each other’s company. I don’t know, Az, I’ve been around a long time, and I just know this is different. I knew almost instantly. We are like two pieces that match, even though we are from different puzzles, you know?”
She couldn’t help but think of her and Bast. Yeah, she knew that feeling. Was it possible to have more than one piece missing?
“Well, I for one am really happy for you. Your brothers are going to give you some serious shit though. I hope you’re prepared,” Azar laughed. They stopped outside of Aaron’s office, and she knocked. “Remember to drop your eyes, otherwise you’re going to flare up his Alpha instincts and get your face chewed off. Your new bride won’t take you if you aren’t this pretty.”
Cy rolled his eyes. “I know, I know. It’s nice to know you think I’m pretty though. Spread the word.”
She punched him in the arm. Aaron called for them to enter, and she flung open the door.
Leading by example, Azar bowed her head upon entrance, casting her eyes to the left to ensure Cy was doing the same. There was a blast of Aaron’s ancient earthy Alpha power, completely at odds with his young voice. “Please sit.”
Azar looked up and smiled, walking to the couch. Cy sat beside her, his long legs stretched out in front of him.
“How’s it goin’, Cy?” Aaron asked, sitting opposite them. There was a pot of coffee and several muffins on the coffee table. “Muffin?” She was starved. She chose one of the oversized pastries that seemed to be more chocolate than muffin. It was actually the size of a small cake. Cy took another.
“I’m good. Engaged,” Cy replied goofily, his mouth full of cake.
“Hopefully she can teach you some table manners,” Azar said, shaking her head.
“I thought Vivian had more taste,” Aaron ribbed.
Azar raised both eyebrows. “Am I the only one that didn’t realize they were an item?”
Both of the men nodded, and went on eating. She’d been wrapped up in her own life and her own problems, it had been one crisis after another for a while, but she made a mental note to try and stay up to date with everyone’s lives.
“Cy wants to stay for a while. He doesn’t trust my welfare to anyone but kin.”
Aaron frowned, as if deciding whether to be offended. But the good-natured kid was still in there somewhere, and he just shrugged. “Sure, do what you need to do. One more fighting man never goes astray out here.”
She was so proud of the man Aaron had become. He definitely had the ability to become a good leader. He was level headed, pragmatic but fiercely protective of his people. All qualities that made him such a great friend would make him a great Alpha.
“Your security out here is weak against paranormal enemies, Alpha,” Cy addressed him respectfully. “I got all the way to your common area before anyone realized I was here, including the sentinels at the entrance. I’m good, but the Fae will be just as good. I would like to help you find the holes and prepare defenses, if you are agreeable.”
Aaron’s jaw tensed. No one would be happy that Cy had made it so far. If he had been Fae, he could have stealthily killed twenty-five Were before he’d gotten to the Commons. Tao was going to crack some skulls.
“Just tell me what you need, and we’ll get it done.” There was a knock at the door, and Aaron sighed. “No one tells you that you spend your whole day petting hands and solving arguments as Alpha. I can tell you it’s not all prestige and glory.”
“At least you’re never cold at night,” Cy ribbed.
Azar had seen the appreciative looks the females had been casting at Aaron last night. Aaron flushed bright red.
“I’ll see you later, Romeo,” she threw over her shoulder as she walked out the door. A pretty Were woman was waiting at the door. She had the longest auburn hair Azar had ever seen, it actually brushed the back of her knees, and she’d barely taken her eyes from Aaron to acknowledge them. Well, at least they now knew why Aaron spent so much time petting hands.
“So, Councilor Nazemi, where to now?”
“Ergh, don’t remind me. I should check on my motley crew, I guess. Then, I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
She’d never been in battle before. Well, a planned battle anyway. She’d avoided the human World Wars as best she could, and the fights she’d been in were mostly skirmishes. She didn’t know how to prepare for an actual all out, balls to the wall, war.
Cy wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and hugged her close. For a large soldier, he was awfully huggy. Maybe it was just because he was so happy. Just thinking about Cy and Vivian had Azar shaking her head. They’d make a good couple, if they didn’t get into an argument and battle to the death in the first year.
Vivian was one of the handful of people who knew that Azar had a drop of Tuatha Dé Danann blood in her ancestry. It wasn’t a huge secret by any means, but it would put an extra target on her back if it got around. However, not even a whisper of it had made it onto the paranormal grapevine, not even Killian and her family knew. She didn’t know why people thought she magically had a new Fae army, but she suspected they thought they were with her for Nevyn. Technically, they weren’t wrong.
She asked for directions to the infirmary from a passing Were, who cast a suspicious glance at Cy before reluctantly pointing down one of the many tunnels. She hated being underground, but she was getting used to the crushing weight of the claustrophobia.
Cy walked along next to her, his eyes taking in everything and everyone like the trained soldier he was. He was looking for weak spots and security risks. She wanted to tell him that their only security risk was killed last night protecting her charges, but talking about Becca pressed down under an avalanche of guilt.
They stopped in front of a door with a large red cross on the front. There was a pane of glass in the top half, and Azar peeked through to see if Donovan was still there. Cy’s hair brushed her own as he looked through as well.
Donovan was indeed still there, scowling at the doctor, an ageing Were with hair like a skunk. His back to the door, Donovan had nothing on but a pale blue hospital gown and she could see a brief strip of his naked ass. They were arguing in low voices, and the Doc was waving a pair of tweezers from the sterile pack of dressings.
Azar raised her hand to knock, but stilled when Donovan shouted something at the nurse and dropped his hospital gown to the floor.
She gaped. She took in his long, pale body that was covered from neck to toe in tattoos. Even his ass. A Kraken ran over his hips; Azar could see the tentacles curling around toward his spine. Mostly black ink with shades of grey, there were a few splotches of color running through the tattoos. She stared harder and realized the color splotches were actually a Japanese style dragon that weaved its way through all the other tattoos, down, down, down over his glorious ass until its tail curled around his thigh. Holy hell.
She must have let out a squeak because both Donovan and the Doc sw
ung towards the door. Her hand flew up to her eyes, but not quite fast enough. Well, that answered a lingering question she had about the extent of his tattoo coverage on the front.
“Tell me when he’s dressed,” she muttered to a hysterically laughing Cy. He was doubled over and gasping for breath. Eyes still covered, she took a swinging kick at his shin and missed.
“Alright, it’s G-rated in there again.”
Not quite trusting that Cy wasn’t messing with her, she opened one eye just a tad, and was disappointed to see Donovan back in his jeans, sans shirt. She pushed open the door.
Donovan gave her a loaded look, but she’d already decided to pretend she hadn’t seen where the dragons head began.
The answer was on his dick. The head of his cock was the head of the dragon that ran over almost his whole body. Cy still had a bad case of the giggles, and Donovan glared.
“I’ve, er, come to check how you are doing.”
The Doc pushed him back onto the hospital bed, and snapped on some gloves. No longer recalcitrant, he scowled and muttered as the older Were peeled off the previous dressing.
It was the Doc who eventually answered her. “The patient is doing fine. An obstinate fool who refuses to stay in bed so he doesn’t tear his stitches, but healing well enough.”
Azar got a good look at the angry, red wound and had to agree with the Doc, he needed to stay in bed. If he was a full-blooded Shaitan, he would have healed almost instantly. But like her, he was half-human, and that meant they healed slower in comparison to their full-blooded brethren. They were also far easier to kill; something that sat uneasily on her conscience considering she’d just helped bargain for a small army of Unbound.
Cy was still struggling to maintain his composure, and Donovan was getting irritated.
“What’s he doing here anyway? There’s enough savage assholes running around in these dens as it is.”
The Doc poked his wound with a finger, making him hiss out a breath.
“You should mind your manners while this savage asshole has his finger around your ouchie bits.” The nurse holding the tray beside him let out a chuckle, but sucked it back when Donovan gave her his ‘death’ face. It was a scary expression, like your nightmares had stepped out of your closet and were here to make you scream.
Cy was barely controlling his hysterics now, and was beginning to make a sickly wheezing noise.
“Excuse me,” he choked out and bolted for the door. They could still hear his belly laughs from the hall though.
Azar rolled her eyes. “Don’t mind him. He’s here to watch my back. He heard about the attack yesterday.”
Donovan’s eyes glittered like shattered black diamonds, and it was a dangerous sign that his rage was about to break loose.
“Calm down or I’ll poke you with horse tranqs again,” the Doc said, not looking up from where he was bandaging his wounds.
Deciding she was just making it worse, Azar took her leave. She patted Donovan’s shoulder. “Stay in bed and rest. We need you fighting fit.”
He sneered at her. “Who made you my boss? I don’t remember being one of your pets, down on their knees swearing fealty.” The mention of Becca was a deliberate one. That was the thing about the Shaitan, they always knew exactly which buttons to press. But Azar had been there too, ready to push everyone away. Luckily for them both, she was a stubborn bitch. She stared down at the wound in his side. So easily it could have been fatal. She could have been burying Donovan today.
“I’m not saying it as your boss, I’m saying it as your friend. I don’t want to lose you too,” she mumbled, her voice rougher than she wanted it to be.
Donovan reached out, grabbing her chin and lifting her face until his black eyes met hers. His face was softer, and his eyes held guilt that she knew intimately. Tugging her face forward, he pressed his lips to hers.
He kissed her.
Azar was too shocked to pull away. His kiss was tentative, but the longer she maintained the contact, the bolder he got. He kissed her harder, sucking her bottom lip into his mouth and biting it gently.
Following the shock was a wave of fear, but it was artificial. She knew in her bones she had nothing to fear from Donovan. She pushed past the fear to chase the next emotion. She knew what it was. It was lust.
Pure, unadulterated, drop your panties lust. She moaned and kissed him back, pressing her tongue back into his mouth as they fought for dominance of the kiss. She stepped between his knees and he gripped her hips tightly, pressing against his chest and the rapidly hardening, err dragon, between them.
Then she pulled back, gasping for air. Bast.
Bast. Bast. Bast. She had to remember that her heart was already taken. Someone else matched her puzzle piece already. The Doc was making himself busy on the other side of the infirmary, giving them some semblance of privacy. Shit.
Donovan was looking at her softly, but she turned and left before he could say anything else. She didn’t want to air all their dirty laundry in front of a stranger. She walked down the hall in a daze
She met Cy in the hall. “Got yourself under control?” She asked, pretending her world wasn’t just rocked moments ago.
He nodded, but there was still a stupid grin on his face. “I’m good. But speaking of under control, what’s going on with you and Donny?” His tone was light, but she froze.
“What do you mean?” She cleared her throat and walked down the hall, pretending she had no idea what he was talking about. Did he see the kiss? She needed to talk to Bast before something happened that she couldn’t undo. Or someone other than Cy saw. If Cy saw. Maybe he was just picking up on the sexual tension. Yeah, maybe that was it. If watching cop shows had taught her anything it was deny, deny, deny.
“I have eyes, Sis. And so does everyone else. You need to sort your shit out before it blows up in your face,” he said, eerily echoing her own thoughts. Then he grinned. “Me and Vivian don’t sound so crazy now, do we?”
Azar couldn’t help but laugh. He had a point. They were basically the poster couple for healthy relationships in comparison to the mess that was her love life.
She smiled at her brother, opening her mouth to say something smart-ass back, but instead she just snapped her jaw shut and shook her head.
Lost in her thoughts, she ended up in the main area of the den as if on autopilot. There was a games room off of the common area, and Azar stuck her head in there first to see if she could find Nevyn and Freya. She knew they were fine, but she wanted to see it for herself.
Luckily, they were easy to spot, because Nevyn was levitating Kayla ten feet off the ground. Azar rushed into the room.
“Nevyn!”
His concentration broke, and Kayla plummeted to the ground. Luckily, Cy was there to catch her.
She rounded on the boy. “What are you doing? You could have seriously hurt her!”
Kayla wiggled out of Cy’s arms and was over beside Nevyn in seconds. Then they both started talking at once, and Freya joined in, as well as a couple of the other pups. It all ran together in one slightly high pitch cacophony of noise.
“Everyone stop!” She took a deep breath and turned to Nevyn. “No more levitating of people, pups or kitchen chairs, okay?” She turned to Freya and Kayla. “I expect you two to know better. Do not encourage Nevyn to do things that you know your parents would disapprove of, because it won’t be you who gets in trouble, it will be him. Do you want to be responsible for Nevyn getting kicked out of the den, hmm?”
They shook their heads solemnly, and all three of them were looking at their bare feet. She felt like the worst person in the world, but it was for their own good.
She sighed heavily. She hated being the bad guy. Parenting was hard. “Alright, off you go. But no more party tricks, okay?” Three nods, and Kayla threw her back a grin. They were off and out of the room, up to gods-knows what mischief. She needed caffeine and a doughnut before she could even contemplate being a grown-up again.
Behind her, C
y slow clapped. “You have maternal guilt-tripping down to a fine art. It’s almost like you’ve been taking lessons from my mother.”
Azar rolled her eyes. “I doubt it worked any better on you and your brothers than it did on those three.”
They moved off to the kitchen, only to find the last person she wanted to check up on. Oliver was holding court, surrounded by a group of female wolves. A person would be forgiven for believing that there would be no attraction between dogs and cats, but Oliver was the walking, talking incarnation of seduction. Azar was fairly sure he could woo a nun out of her habit. He flirted like he breathed.
But for all his flirty man-whore ways, he wasn’t the type of guy who needed the attention to survive. As soon as Azar walked into the kitchen, he grinned in her direction and excused himself politely from his fan club.
He smiled at Cy and then wrapped her in a bone-crushing hug, snuffling her hair a bit. It was a weird little idiosyncrasy that pleased the cat part of him, and made her heart do this weird flip-flop thing in her chest. Even knowing she should pull away, she spent a few seconds longer in his arms, just soaking up the warmth and joy that was Oliver.
Finally, Azar pulled away enough that she could check him over. The cuts on his arms and legs were healing slowly, but Lorcan had said that the Fae swords were steel that was struck through with silver and iron. It made them very efficient weapons against the paranormal.
“I’m fine, Az. Just a few scrapes. How’s Donovan?”
She flushed bright red. “He looked fine. I mean, he is fine. Healing, under the Doc’s capable hands.”
Cy squawked with laughter again. Oliver quirked an eyebrow at them both, but let it go.
He walked over to the coffee pot and poured her and Cy a cup. It was a testament to how strange their life was that he didn’t even ask why Cy was here, in a wolf den, a place that no Djinn had been in a century, until Azar and Bast had come out here six months ago.
Azar had been made a friend of the pack after she’d saved Aaron’s life, which basically made her a pack member in their eyes, with all the associated benefits and pitfalls. She was the first Djinn in half a millennia to get that privilege, and it had put her in a unique position.
The Azar Omnibus: The Complete Azar Trilogy (The Azar Trilogy Book 0) Page 55