“Where is this Mushroom Man?” I asked softly.
“He’s here somewhere.”
He steered me into a different room, and I knew immediately who Mushroom Man was. He was sitting on a throne made of wood at the end of the room, holding court. He wore white from head to toe, and jewels blazed on his fingers. Dark hair was pulled into a ponytail, and I could see markings climbing up his throat, hinting that he’d have marks on his torso as well.
He stood as he saw us approaching. “I send you an invitation every single year and yet you’ve never come. But now here you are, and with the loveliest companion.”
The crowd parted, paying a little more attention to us as Mushroom Man approached.
“Marlin,” Ryker greeted him, as if they’d met before.
One of these days, I was going to walk into a situation and know all the details ahead of time. But for now, I could only control what I was going to do tomorrow, and that was kill Ryker.
“Who is your lovely?” Marlin asked.
I forced my arms to stay at my sides as his eyes roved over the length of me. “I’m Bugs.”
“Unusual name.” He waved a hand over his shoulder, and a servant appeared, offering us drinks from his tray. Ryker took one and handed me the other.
“What brings you here? Did you want to meet the queen? I’m sure I could get you an audience tomorrow.”
“Thank you, but we can’t stay that long,” Ryker said. “I’m here because I need a seed of the Elibell plant.”
“And you think I have one?”
Ryker lifted his brows.
Mushroom Man laughed. “Yes, well, of course I do. Why do you need it?”
“You can give it to us or not. I can owe you a favor. Or not.”
It was clear Ryker wasn’t much of a socializer, which was fine. But when I had to step in to save the day, it was bad. And I needed this seed.
We’d done it his way, but my life was on the line, and Marlin definitely favored a feminine touch, from what he was showing so far. “I need it. I’ve got a little issue with a spell I can’t seem to dislodge.”
Ryker turned to me and stared. He wasn’t the eye-rolling type, but his glare had the same effect.
“What kind of spell?” Marlin asked, getting even closer, breathing deeply.
“Just a silly little thing of a personal nature that’s been plaguing me.” I added a giddy little laugh at the end, hoping he’d take me to be a flake.
He leaned forward, breathing deeply, as if he liked something about my scent. “Your magic is strong.”
Ryker inched nearer, placing a hand at my back, his hand directly on flesh. Skin-to-skin contact that would keep me alive.
“Which is why you want me to owe you a favor.” Although after we took his stone, Marlin wouldn’t want a favor. He’d want us dead.
His chest rose and fell several times as he looked over my exposed flesh. “How strong are you?” he asked.
I could see the confusion. He could sense my magic, but he couldn’t find my markings.
“Does it matter?” I asked.
“I like having strong friends.”
If he was saying that all I had to do was prove my strength to get the bean, I had this in the bag. Now I needed to swallow back years of the instinct to hide, which had kept me alive.
Every person here would be another person who would know what I was. What was growing inside me. Then again, word was spreading anyway. Did it matter? It was do or die, and I needed that bean.
“Let me show you.” I turned to give him my back, and heard the intake of breath from the crowd watching on before I lifted my hair.
I pulled it out of the way and I heard murmurs shoot through the crowd, some oohs and ahs and a few whispers of “Full Blood.”
Ryker’s fingers had relocated so that they curled in and grazed my side.
“They’re magnificent. May I touch?” Marlin said, close behind me.
I didn’t know why I looked to Ryker before I answered, but I did. He stood unflinching. He’d have my back either way. I felt as sure of that as if it were Ruck, which was the oddest feeling, since I hated Ryker most days.
There was a slight shift of his head that I read to mean it wouldn’t hurt me even if neither of us liked it.
“Sure,” I said.
I stood, letting Marlin trace my markings for as long as I could take it, which was about three seconds. Then I turned, dropping my hair back over them.
“I’ll give it to you”—he broke into a sly smile—“if you take it from my lips. A kiss isn’t too much to ask. Is it?” He flicked his hand, and one of his men ran off to do his bidding.
I felt Ryker’s magic flicking at my back, a special kind of heat brushing at my skin that could only be created by one person. It didn’t flare or dissipate, a slow, steady burn.
“I’d be honored.” The heat spiked but pulled back immediately.
A servant brought forward a box that Marlin took. He opened it; inside was a single seed, solid black. And large. He took it, lifted it to his mouth, and placed it between his teeth. He then cupped my cheeks, pulling me closer.
Our lips met. He released the seed immediately, and then his lips grazed mine.
He pulled back and then paused, our lips nearly feathering. “You need to swallow it whole for it to work,” he said softly.
All in all, not as horrific as I’d prepared myself for. I swallowed it but needed a large gulp of the drink I’d been handed to get it down. “Thank you.”
“I couldn’t let a magic as beautiful as yours be marred.” He turned and waved his hand toward the crowd. “I hope you’ll stay and enjoy yourselves for a while?” he asked me.
“Of course.”
Sensing he was done with us, women walked over and draped themselves across Marlin, moving their hips to the beat of the music. He was quickly distracted, and we faded into the crowd.
The mood was changing from conversation to more intimate scenes of women and men kissing and grinding against each other.
The farther we weaved into the crowd, the tighter Ryker’s arm wrapped around my waist.
He continued to weave us through groups of people, and I knew where he was going. It was where I would’ve gone as well. We were heading toward the master bedroom.
There were people wandering the halls as we moved deeper into the house. Most of them were coupled up and paying more attention to each other than us as we went.
We made it up the stairs, and there were double doors at the end of the hall. He pulled me to the wall, leaning into me as people left one room and then passed us.
As soon as they were out of sight, we moved in unison and shot down the hall.
The room only had one piece of furniture, and it was a large bed in the center that would hold five people easy. Every single wall and ceiling was mirrored.
“Where would it be?” I asked, walking farther in the room.
Ryker was scanning the mirrors, as if they were hiding something. “The intel said he keeps it close. It’s got to be here somewhere.”
I heard steps outside the doors and froze. Then someone said, “Because something was triggered.”
I heard the door open, and before I could think, I was on the bed with Ryker on top of me.
Ryker’s lips were on mine, a hand in my hair. Another was at my side, slowly learning the curve of my hip, the softness of my stomach as it glided upward over my ribs, stopping right beneath my breast. His hand took some of its weight, molding it to the shape of his palm.
My nipples pebbled and ached. That was when his hips shifted into me. I could feel the length of his cock through my dress, pressing, pushing my hips higher, my back arching.
All thoughts of company disappeared. We could’ve had an audience of a thousand and I wouldn’t have noticed. Soft groans escaped my lips as I pressed into him.
It was a show, charade for all, an act so we could get what we needed. It was what I was supposed to do, even if it felt so good I�
��d die if we never touched again.
His arm slipped back around my waist, moving us both to the center of the bed. He gripped under my knee, pulling it up so he could settle in closer, and I arched, adjusting to help him.
My fingers dug into his shoulders; my leg wrapped around him and pulled him in.
It was bittersweet.
He didn’t really want me. He was aroused because he was a man and because of the magic. He was doing this because we did have an audience. So was I.
He paused, but didn’t move away. “They left,” he said, his lips hovering above mine.
“Yeah.” They had?
He didn’t move, and I didn’t ask him to.
“We should get back to work,” he said, still not moving.
I’d thought that’s what we’ve been doing. I nodded. “Yeah, we should.”
He stood, grabbing my hand and pulling me up with him.
29
I searched the room, laying my hands everywhere, trying to sense magic with everything I had. “Should we be doing this? Maybe you can make friends like you did with Knife?”
Ryker was walking the perimeter of the room doing the same. “There’s a reason I’ve ignored every offer to come here, and he’d never hand over the stone.”
“He didn’t seem that bad. Maybe we could work with him?” We’d been walking around this room for ten minutes, and there wasn’t that much in it. “We might have to work with him.”
“He doesn’t work with anyone. He didn’t get all this by being nice.”
I turned toward him, stopping my search for a second. “How bad?”
“The worst. And now that he knows what you have, you can bet he’ll be in line with the rest coming for you.”
I went back to searching. I climbed up on the bed to run my hands over the walls above it. Once, twice, and then I paused as I zeroed in on a spot. “I think I’ve got something.”
Ryker walked over. “There?”
“Yes. It feels exactly like the one you made with the stone.”
I placed both hands on the spot and felt power buzzing through my fingertips. “It’s here. I can feel it. This wall is an illusion.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.” I continued to run my hands along the area, trying to figure out how large it was and if there were any weaknesses.
“Can you get past it without him sensing?”
“I don’t know, but I’ve got to try.”
“Agreed. Do it.”
He stood between the bed and the door, but close enough to touch me if things went bad.
Both hands in place, with desperation driving me forward, I went to work. I didn’t know if the bean would work, but I’d felt the power the stones could generate, could feel it now in this ward. If all else failed, the stones would be my salvation.
I moved my hands along the ward, trying to coerce the pattern that I knew was there out of it. Over and over again, I ran my fingers over the same spots.
“You’ve got to hurry. We don’t have all night,” Ryker said from behind me after about fifteen minutes had passed.
“I know.” Sweat coated my brow as I continued trying to find a weakness to get a foothold in. “I think I’ve got something.”
Magic tingled across my spine. It wasn’t like any of the wards I’d felt. It slithered forward as I worked farther in, choking out some of my own. I tried to focus past the foul magic, knowing something was different here. Then I realized it wasn’t the ward but something behind the ward I was feeling. I was nearly through it, but the worst might lie ahead.
“Ryker, move away from me.”
“Why?”
“If you want the stone, do it. If things go bad, I don’t want someone connected to me. I want someone who can move in quick and get me.”
“You sure you know what you’re doing?”
“I’m positive.”
He moved a foot away from me, and I knew that was all I was going to get. It was enough. This thing was contained within the ward. If I could get the stone and pull it out, without completely breaking it, we’d be okay.
I pushed forward. The thing, or whatever it was, churned against every part of me that was beyond the ward. I couldn’t see what it was doing as the illusion of the wall stayed intact, but my skin felt as if it were being shredded.
I shoved deeper, until my shoulders were within it as I felt around, grinding my teeth from the pain.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Ryker asked.
“Watch the door,” I said.
He froze halfway back to me, torn between doing what I’d asked and what his instinct told him to do, which was help.
If he touched me, if he made my magic flare, the ward might come down. I was balancing on a razor’s edge of control.
“Please, Ryker, stay away. I can do this, but I can’t worry about it coming for you too.”
“What coming for me?”
It was there again, burning, shredding skin. Writhing around my body. The pain wanted to force me to my knees, but I needed this stone, so I stayed standing, blindly groping around, knowing the stone was there.
A soft cry escaped my lips.
“What’s going on?” Ryker asked, and I knew he wasn’t going to stand idly by for too much longer. “Pull out of there.”
“One more minute.” I dragged in a breath, afraid I wasn’t going to be able to keep going.
My fingers grazed something, and I knew immediately it was the stone. Pure power surged through my fingers. I wrapped my hand around it and I pulled it out.
“I’ve got it,” I said, turning and dropping to my knees on the bed.
Ryker wasn’t looking at the stone. I looked down at myself and then wavered slightly. It wasn’t from seeing the blood, though. I’d seen plenty of that. It was from the loss of it. My arms were shredded as if something had rubbed the flesh from them, all the way up to my shoulders and part of my chest. Every part of me that had reached into the ward had been lashed. My dress was quickly becoming soaked in blood.
Ryker sprang into action. He grabbed the blanket from the bed, wrapping me in it and then scooping me up, my hands still gripping the stone.
“I’ve got you.”
I curled into him.
“You’re going to be okay. I’ll get you out of here and to the witch. You’re going to be fine.”
I didn’t know if he was talking to me or himself. I swallowed through the pain, forcing air into my lungs. “I know. You need me too much. You’d never let me die.”
He walked out into the hallway. Whenever someone looked at us, he laughed and joked that I’d drunk too much. It was a blur as I let my head drop to his shoulder, hoping he could get us out peacefully. I knew what would happen if he couldn’t.
I heard a commotion growing and knew someone had gone into the room and seen the blood on the bed. I heard yelling.
We’d made it all the way to the front patio when I heard Marlin’s voice.
“You came here and stole from me?” he asked.
Ryker turned to face him. I feared for how many lives might be lost. I moved my hand to rest on the bare part of Ryker’s chest. He glanced down, and I could see he didn’t want to do it, but he would.
He looked to Marlin. “I know where you got this stone, and I know what happened to the person who had it before you.”
There was silence. “I thought we could be allies,” Marlin said.
I heard other people walking outside to watch the exchange, but I couldn’t seem to lift my head at the moment. I didn’t want to, either. I’d rather not watch them die.
Ryker’s words vibrated through me as he answered Marlin. “That could never happen. Now you’re going to let me leave here, because you know what will happen if you try and stop me.”
“I will come for you,” Marlin said.
“If you do, it won’t end well.”
Ryker turned and left, and the second we cleared the mushrooms, he broke into a run. It didn’t have anyth
ing to do with Marlin and everything to do with the blood soaking the front of Ryker’s shirt.
“Holy fuck,” Switch said in the distance.
“You’re lucky you’re here, or I was going to kill you. Get us out of here.”
“How? She looks half dead. How’s she going to juice me?”
“She can do it.”
I reached out with one bloody arm and latched on to Switch, giving him everything I had left.
“Bugs. You have to wake up.” Ryker gently shook me in his arms.
I lifted my lids slightly to see familiar faces gathered around me.
“Bugs, I need you to juice Switch one more time. You can do this,” Ryker said.
My eyes drifted closed again. Right now, I couldn’t do anything but sleep.
“How do you not have a healer close by?” Burn shouted at someone.
“Because they died,” Knife shot back.
Ryker shook me again. “Bugs, listen to me. We need to get back to the Valley, and we don’t have time for a chugger. You have to do this.”
There was pretty much nothing I wouldn’t do to get him to stop shaking me back awake at that point. Someone grabbed my arm and pulled it out from where I’d tucked it in between my body and Ryker’s. I jerked with the pain as it jarred me fully awake.
“Be careful,” Ryker said.
“There’s nowhere to grab her that isn’t shredded,” Burn replied.
“You sure she can do this again? She doesn’t look—”
“Switch, shut up and take her hand,” Ryker said. His voice softened as he looked down at my face. “One more time, okay?”
I felt his magic surrounding me like a warm cloak, trying to soothe me. It did nothing for the pain, but I doubted anything would at this point. The pain wasn’t even the issue. It was keeping my eyes open.
“I can do it.” I stretched out my fingers and felt Switch’s hand gently wrap around them. I didn’t wait for him to say he was ready. I gave him what little I had left.
30
The sound of the door opening woke me, and I had to orient myself to my surroundings. The last time I’d been awake, I was outside the walls of Dorley, my skin had been shredded from my body, and my blood was pouring out.
Full Blood (Wyrd Blood Book 2) Page 19