Oh wait—we were.
That was a fun thought.
Once safely back to my house, I was feeling pretty proud of our successful jailbreak, and was rewarding myself with a nice glass of wine. And when I say glass, I do mean the bottle. At least it was classier than drinking from a goon-sack or tinnie (that's Aussie slang for paper bag and aluminum can, my dear American friends).
I'd just taken a big sip when I overheard how much money Siobhan had ended up bidding on Dustin, and half spluttered, half choked on it.
“How much?” I shrieked, and my succubus bestie repeated herself.
“Oh girl, that is so many Australian pesos,” Britt commented, walking into the room with a bit of a weird sort of gait. Like she'd been riding horses.
“Dollars, Britt. Australia uses dollars.” I had to try sometimes, but I suspected she deliberately didn't listen because she found it funny to piss me off.
“Pesos, dollars, same thing.” She sat gingerly on the edge of the couch. “So where the hell are you all finding this money. Don't tell me new lover boy here is a closet millionaire?”
“Charlie,” Reg sighed, running a hand over his short blonde hair.
“We're going to need to pay up,” Shane nodded, and suddenly all eyes were on me.
“Pay up?” I squeaked. “You're not serious. I thought you were like, talking metaphorically? Charlie doesn't seriously want a wedding. Right?”
“Charlie isn't really big on jokes, Blossom,” George smiled sympathetically, “but I mean, technically we're already sort of married. Charlie just loves an excuse for a party.”
“Yeah, but only to you four, right? I still have to finish the whole marking ceremony thing with those two, first.” I waved my hand at Warden and Dustin standing in the doorway to my kitchen, talking in low voices while Siobhan watched with love sick puppy eyes.
“Um, yeah, about that,” Reg hedged, looking up at the ceiling, like Grams was going to appear and help him out.
“You need to complete the marking sooner rather than later, is what he's trying to say,” Billy announced, sitting his ass down on the sofa beside me and taking a sip of his fireball, neat; the cinnamon smell was unmistakable.
“Why?” I frowned, watching as he magically produced a cigarette in his other hand and flicked it alight.
“Because our magic is volatile as shit, and if we stand any chance against your crazy ass Dad and his harem, then we need to be as strong as we possibly can. Which means, you've got to complete the marking with both Warden and Dustin. Just this time, try and actually remember the ritual, yeah?” He took a long drag on his cigarette, so I snatched it out of his mouth and dropped it in his drink. Asshole.
“Very mature, Ari.” He rolled his eyes.
“Well what if I don't want to complete the marking with them? Warden has made it pretty clear he'd rather go skinny dipping with crocs while covered in chicken fat, than be here with me. Us. Whatever. And Dustin is in love with my best friend!” My voice had risen a little much toward the end and I looked up to find the subjects of the conversation staring at me.
“He's not in love with me,” Siobhan said, her nostrils flared, orange curls in disarray, my grandmother's paisley robe slung over her thin shoulders. Speaking of grandmothers …
“Duckie …” I heard the distinctive warning in Gram's voice and turned to glance over my shoulder at her … sitting in Billy's lap with knitting needles in her hand. It seriously grossed me out to see my husband like, inside my grandma.
“Could you move please?” I told the fire elemental because I knew sure as shit that Grams was pissed at me and wasn't about to move her ghostly bum out of my husband's physical space. He just glared hard in my direction. “Ghost. In your space. Like, you're inside of my grandmother.”
That worked.
With a wrinkled face of disgust and a nice dirty scowl, Billy stood up and moved off to the side, watching the conversation with crossed arms and a bored, irritated expression on his face. I think it was a mask to try and hide the passionate rage he was feeling toward Warden, but hey, I was a barista, not a therapist. What the fuck did I know?
“What are you bleedin' goin' on about?” Dustin asked, turning to look at his girlfriend with a superbly frustrated expression on his face. “One minute, you and I are happy as clams, and the next, I'm being dragged out of my damn bed by your people. What the fuck is wrong now?”
“You don't love me,” Siobhan said, closing her green eyes against a wave of heartbreak. I felt like … well, I don't really know what I felt like in that moment. Weird summed up my feelings fairly resolutely. I mean, I'd just fucked the man my bestie was in love with right after a night of lovemaking with the one who got away, all the while my other four husbands sat around and twiddled their thumbs … “You're an addict, Dusty.”
“Oh, bleeding Christ on a cross, not this again,” he mumbled under his breath, raking his fingers through his short red-orange hair. God, he was fucking lovely. I tried not to appreciate him, but we'd just had sex and my body was singing his praises loud and clear. “I'm not a goddamn addict.”
“You're an addict, honey,” she said, taking a step away from him. Dustin had thrown on a pair of jeans over his dick, but he was a bit more muscular than whoever he'd borrowed them from and they weren't buttoned. I could see a nice flat line from his belly down to his … you know, his cock. If only the pants were a little lower … “That's why you got with me in the first place.”
“This is feckin' ludicrous,” Dustin said, moving over to Billy and nodding his chin in his direction. “Can I bum a fag off ya?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Billy said, giving the metal elemental a weird look. I guess … they'd never met before either, huh? How awkward. Billy handed over a smoke and lit it with the tip of his finger as Dustin stepped back and surveyed the rest of the room with a wary eye.
“Besides, even if you did love me …” Siobhan started, her voice cracking as she moved over to sit on top of Gram on the cushion next to me.
“I'm still angry with you, Duckie,” Gram interrupted, not a big deal since only I could hear her. “You put yourself in unnecessary danger today. Once you're finished here, I expect you'll give me a moment to talk?” She cast me a look and I rolled my eyes, mumbling fine under my breath and wishing the wine was strong enough to wash this sickly taste from my mouth.
Dusty belonged to Siobhan and I had a serious no dating the bestie's ex clause that I'd never once broken. Not once.
“Even if you did,” Siobhan repeated, taking the wine bottle from my hand and swigging a giant mouthful. “You belong here, with the rest of your sept.”
“Whoa, whoa,” Warden said, moving around the couch and standing dead center in the middle of the room. “Just because we're … all different elementals doesn't mean we're a true sept.”
“No, man, that would be because of the magical cords connecting our souls together. That's what makes us a sept,” Reg said with a roll of his eyes, still rocking the beaded man panties. Everyone else had changed but him. Silly boy.
“Nooo,” Warden said, sounding like he was getting pissy rather quickly, “it's trust and love and friendship that make a true sept. Not accidental matings.”
“There was nothing accidental about us finding, Arizona,” George said, his voice laced with quiet menace. He was a nice guy, but it when it came down to it, he had his opinions set in stone. “It was fate. Think about it? What are the chances that we'd find the one elemental female in the world that you'd slept with? We were drawn to her, as she was to us.”
“What about Dustin?” I asked, lifting an arm in the man's direction. “Pretty sure I'd have remembered if we'd fucked before.”
“Damn straight you would've,” he murmured under his breath, smoking his cigarette and moving over to the window to crack it open. He waved curls of gray smoke out with his hand. Shane took over a minute later and without so much as the blink of an eye had the smoke swirling away from us in a nice, clean breeze
and out the open window. I couldn't even smell the tobacco anymore.
“So if I didn't fuck him, then why was he … like …” I touched a hand to my chest and tried to think of the right words to say. “Inside of me.”
“I was inside of you because I wanted the hell out of that house without getting my ass rammed by some maniacal incubus bastard, that's why,” Dusty said with a roll of his gorgeous green eyes. In a really weird and narcissistic way, his childish, annoying dickhole attitude sort of reminded me … of me.
And I liked him for it.
Eww.
I had serious psychological problems, maybe.
“Inside me, magically,” I said, using the magic to flick that silver cord, the one that connected the well of my power to the boys'. “If I didn't fuck him, then how was he connected to all of this?”
“Uh,” Warden said, scratching at the back of his head and looking up at the ceiling. “You know how in college, I toyed with the idea of being bisexual …?”
I squinted at him.
“It was a one-time thing for me,” Dustin said, flicking his cigarette butt out the window and onto the lawn. I wanted to punch him in one of his big, muscular man tits for that. Fucker.
“So you're bisexual?” I asked and Warden shrugged, looking adorable and amazing and so cute I wanted to scream. Why couldn't I just hate him like a normal person? He was my ex. I was supposed to hate him.
“Like an eighty/twenty on the Kinsey scale,” he said, nodding his head to the numbers. “Yeah, eighty percent of me prefers women, but there's like this fucked-up little twenty that's … experimental, you know?”
“So you fucked Dustin and brought him into the sept,” I said, trying to puzzle this all out. I glanced over at Siobhan and found her face pale, the wine bottle still held up to her lips.
“That was … we all got drunk together one night and I encouraged them to experiment … You know I like to watch, Morgs.” She shrugged a little and a delicate blush stained her cheeks. On me, that blush would make me look like a damn tomato but on her it just had to be pretty, didn't it?
“When was this? I thought you said you and Dustin never fucked?” I was torn between anger that she might have lied to me, and fascination about what it'd be like to watch Warden and Dustin fucking. Okay fine, I was just really turned on by that. Siobhan wasn't the only one who liked to watch.
“We haven't,” she quickly defended. “I knew Dusty was only seeing me because of his addiction, so I was holding out on umm …”
“On going the full monty? On letting him stick his dip tube down your O-ring?” Britt offered, helpful as ever. “Or wait, wrong trade. On welding his pipe? So, you just got Warden to plug his socket instead? Oh, I'm making assumptions here that Warden's the top, but maybe I'm wrong. Maxi Pad, did you let the big strapping Irishman rewire your circuits?”
“Britt,” Warden snapped, “shut up.”
“Okay, so let me just get this totally clear,” I interrupted before Britt could go nuclear for being told to shut up. “So, Warden fucked Dustin before the five of us,” I indicated to the original four plumbers and myself, “had initiated the marking ritual, and after Warden and I fucked back in the stone age, meaning because Dustin was the missing link in an otherwise connected circuit; he got added by association when he fucked Warden? Is that the general gist of it?”
“Ah, yeah that's pretty spot on, Ari. You're getting a handle on this supernatural business really well.” George grinned, and I tried not to preen like a happy pussy under his praise.
“Okay, cool. And to be clear, Warden, Dustin and I now need to complete the marking with the chanting and the knife and cup things—”
“Chalice and athame,” Siobhan muttered under her breath.
“—chalice and athame, and all the sex and stuff. Otherwise we don't stand a chance against Bio Dad and the Many Moms, and we will eventually be killed or drained of our power? Or both?” I looked up to the ceiling to think on whether I had missed anything. “Oh, and then we all have to get married. Like … white dress, tuxes, the whole nine yards. Is that correct?”
“Yeah, that pretty much sums it all up,” Reg nodded.
“Except I reckon the boat has sailed on the white dress, babe,” Britt snickered and I glared at her.
“And to be clear,” I continued, looking at Siobhan and Dustin shrewdly, “you're not in love?”
“Dustin doesn't love me, that's correct,” Siobhan whispered in a strangled sounding voice. Dustin heaved a sigh, but didn't contradict her statement, which was interesting.
“But you say he's an addict, and I assume you mean he's addicted to like … succubus-ness?” I figured it was okay to make up words when dealing with supernatural beings. It wasn't like they were in the damn dictionary.
“Yes, to the power drain. Lots of magicals get addicted; it's why we try to mostly feed on humans.” Siobhan tucked a piece of hair behind her ear with a shaking hand. “Now, if you'll all excuse me, I don't think I want to be around to witness this ritual.”
She picked up her designer handbag then headed toward my front door, before hesitating. “Morgs, I'm borrowing your car, okay? Just call me … after.”
“Shivers! Don't do this!” Dustin bellowed after her, but she didn't look back as she slammed my front door behind her.
An awkward silence filled the room, and Billy lit up another cigarette. Fuck that boy needed an intervention or something before he died of lung cancer. Could elementals get lung cancer?
“Well, then. Let's get on with it shall we? One quick magical fuck and then everyone can go back to their lives like nothing ever happened.” I clapped my hands together and stood expectantly.
“Duckie.” Grams popped up in my face, very suddenly, and I let out a little scream. It wasn't my fault she was wrinkled enough that she looked like one of those hairless cats. Crikey, those cats were scary. “You're in another spot of bother my dear. I do wish you would take the time to think your actions through.” Grams shook her head, like I was a bloody toddler who had shut her fingers in a drawer.
“What do you mean, Gram? I'm not in the mood for your riddles right now.” I tried to walk around her, but she popped back up in front of me, making me either pull up short or walk through her.
“You'll see, girl. Should have listened to your grandmother.” With that ominous warning, she evaporated like a soap bubble.
A sassy sort of knock sounded at my door, and I raised my eyebrows to the space where Grams ghost had been standing a second before.
“Open the door, ya wee elemental twit!” Alberta O'Sullivan, the brownie that lived next door, yelled out.
“What do you want, trash panda?” I asked, snidely. Oh sure, I'm the bitch for being rude to an old lady, but she can insult me and dig through my trash whenever she wanted? Ah ah. I don't think so. She could dish it out? Well, she better be prepared to take it back.
Alberta curled her weathered lip at me as I opened the door, holding out an expensive looking envelope.
“Ye've been summoned,” she announced, slapping the paper into my hand and storming back off my property like her wings were on fire. Crazy old bat.
“Summoned?” I muttered, tearing open the envelope and unfolding the letter inside. “Who the hell is Francesca Rosethorn, and why is she summoning me on pain of death for non-compliance?”
I stared at the paper which was, you know, actually kind of nice. It was that homemade shit with flower petals in it, tons of glitter, nice and shiny and pretty. The handwriting was all curly and embellished, too. Lovely.
But … like, what?! Death?!
“What is this?” I asked as I turned back to the room full of men … and Britt, the most feminine creature to ever grace the planet.
“Lemme see, babe,” she said, using her hip to push Shane out of the way when he tried to come around the couch. “Hos before bros,” she growled at him—literally growled—and snatched the paper from my hand. “Oh,” she said as she studied it, her brown eyes
scanning the lines of impeccable cursive. “This isn't good.”
“What's not good?” I asked as I stood there on my tip toes and tried not to have a fit. If it wasn't one thing, it was another. Couldn't a poor girl catch a break? “Britt, I'm not good with suspense; you know that.”
“This is a summons from the Seelie Queen,” she said, and I heard Billy, Reg, and Warden all curse under their breath. Dustin, on the other hand, threw back his head in raucous laughter.
“Oh, that's rich,” he said, and even though I wanted to punch him in the throat, I also kind of wanted to kiss his beautiful Adam's apple. Wow. My vagina and my brain were pretty much polar opposites. How was I supposed to reconcile their differences?! “This is bloody ridiculous.”
Dustin put his hands on his hips and dropped his head, staring at Gram's hideous living room rug for a long moment.
“What's so fucking funny, bro?” Warden asked, raising his dark brows and giving Dustin a look. “The Seelie Queen is a friggin' psycho. She'll tear Ari to pieces.”
“Seelie Queen?” I asked, because I was ignorant as hell apparently. In my mind, I kept picturing, like literal seals sunbathing on rocks. But I was ignorant, not stupid. I knew I was way off the mark.
“One of the two faerie queens this side of the Veil,” George supplied helpfully, crossing his arms over that brilliantly bronzed chest of his. “But why would she want to see Arizona?”
“Because she's banging that feckin' maniac, Baron,” Dustin said, already proving he was far more up to date on supernatural gossip than I was. “Madly in love with that mad as a hatter motherfucker.”
“That creeper is banging a faerie queen?” I asked because, come on, it was a little hard to believe someone as weird as that nutter was sharing a bed with royalty of any kind, even royalty I'd never heard of before.
Elements of Ruin (Hijinks Harem Book 2) Page 11