Royally Entangled

by Catherine Banks

  “We haven’t gotten off to the best start,” he said with a smile, thankfully dancing with me during a slow song.

  “I’m at fault,” I whispered sadly. “I don’t have the best control on my temper.”

  “My name is Johann.”

  “Jolie,” I said with a smile.

  “You seem to make my son happy,” he commented. “I have not seen him smile as much as I have when you are near him. He is focused on his training and his studies again, something he had been neglecting. He is also much more interested in our politics, things I know I can thank you for. You are a good influence on him.”

  “I can’t take credit for all of that,” I mumbled.

  “Trust me, it is all because of you.”

  “You were right about me getting him into danger,” I said sadly. “Especially with the curse…”

  “Will you take him as a mate?” he asked me suddenly.

  “I, uh…I haven’t decided yet,” I admitted.

  He nodded. “You should decide soon. Even with this gesture from the Elders, you are still in danger. Being named mate of the four princes, or even one of them, will greatly increase your safety and make people think twice before hurting you.”

  “It is strange to me that you kings are all okay with your sons mating with a human, especially a human who will be mated to other princes,” I muttered.

  “Polygamy is quite common among Other races. Plus, mages and humans aren’t so different, right?”

  “Right,” I agreed.

  He kissed the back of my hand and handed me off to the dragon king. My legs were going to be extremely sore tomorrow, from all of the dancing. I wasn’t going to complain though. How many females got to say that they danced with the four kings and the four princes?

  “Jolie, you look lovely in that dress,” he told me.

  “Thank you, King-”

  “Emrys,” he supplied.

  “Emrys,” I said, hoping I said it correctly.

  He smiled, so I thought I had said it right.

  “Emrys, how would you feel if I took your son as my mate?” I asked him.

  He laughed. “My son has already told me that he will not mate with anyone else, so I suppose it is truly inevitable.”

  “I love him,” I whispered.

  He nodded and said, “I know. I can see the love you all share with each other.”

  “My turn,” Fox said and held his hand out.

  Emrys kissed my hand before setting it in Fox’s. “Visit my clan soon, Jolie. They would love to have you visit.”

  “I will,” I promised. Had I hit my head and this was all a strange hallucination during a coma? That had to be the answer. There was no way that all of this was really happening.

  “Hello, Princess,” Fox greeted me and guided me through a dance that I didn’t know.

  “Hello, handsome,” I replied.

  “Did my father behave himself?” he asked.

  “Yes, he was very nice.”

  “I’m glad. Sometimes he can be a bit…overwhelming,” he whispered. I laughed and before I could reply, Rhys stole me away.

  “Rhys,” I gasped.

  His lips were turned up into one of the most handsome smiles I had ever seen on him. “You look amazing,” he said and pulled me closer against him. With his lips next to my ear, he whispered, “I’m going to have you wear that dress when it’s my day, just so I can take it off of you.”

  Our bodies were pressed completely together, not even air could get between us. Our eyes were locked and I swore there were visible sparks between us. His gaze was so intense, so focused on me, like I was the last person on the planet.

  Someone cleared their throat behind us, breaking the spell.

  “May I?” an older male asked.

  “Certainly, Alfred,” Rhys said, kissed my knuckles, and then set my hand in Alfred’s.

  Alfred and I joined the dance and I smiled as he twirled me expertly, matching and exceeding the younger males dancing skills.

  “You’re quite the dancer,” I complimented him.

  “You’ll often find that the older males have more experience and can provide more enjoyment,” he replied with a wink that made me blush.

  Another male cut in.

  Then another.

  And another.

  I danced with a whirlwind of males, rarely getting a dance with any of my guards, though they did occasionally sneak in. The next male I danced with was very stiff and kept avoiding my eyes. He had resisted my attempts at conversation, not that I was a great conversationalist by any means.

  Rhys slid his fingers along my side as he danced with another female by me. I turned to look for him and felt a sharp pain in my side. Someone screamed and Rhys’s gaze, who I finally found, was wide with fear.

  “Rot in hell,” the male I had been dancing with snarled in my ear.

  My body felt cold and numb and it took a lot of strength to look down. In the center of my stomach was a silver dagger, buried to the hilt. Blood dripped down the dagger, creating a pool on the ground at my feet. I swayed and fell onto my back on the ground. That asshole had stabbed me.

  More people were screaming and when I blinked, a dragon appeared over me, roaring. I recognized that roar, Rhys.

  He was spewing fire, the heat of it warming me a minute as it built in his dragon belly.

  “Shit. Shit. Shit,” Fox gasped.

  He started to heal me, but Katar pushed him to the side. “Stop. We all know that you won’t be useful if you heal someone.”

  Fox stood up and faced away from me, his body glowing softly.

  “You with me still, Princess?” Katar asked.

  “Yes,” I said and hissed as the movement hurt immensely.

  “Okay, stay still and I’ll heal you,” he explained.

  “Help…others,” I ordered him.

  “You’ll die if I don’t heal you,” he informed me.

  Tamara and Madison ran beneath Rhys, sliding to a stop next to me with blood coating their fur. Madison shifted and gasped, “Auntie Jolie!”

  “You’re related to them?” Katar asked.

  “Not by blood,” Tamara explained.

  “Where are your parents?” Katar asked, his hands glowing as he held them over my stomach.

  “We don’t know,” Madison admitted. “That’s why we came to Auntie.”

  “Stay beneath the dragon,” Fox ordered them. “He’ll protect you.”

  “Okay,” they agreed simultaneously.

  A vampire leapt at Katar, but Fox tackled him before he could touch his father. Four more vampires came and Katar had to stop healing me to draw his sword and slice all of their heads off.

  Two goblins leapt towards him and Rhys used his tail to smack them away. Once they were gone, he curled his tail around my body, not touching me, but protecting me within his scales.

  The female dragon who had stolen me previously, flew into Rhys at an alarming speed, knocking him away from me and into the house fifty yards away.

  I tried to watch their fight, but my body wasn’t responding to my demands. My chest felt heavy and I struggled to take in deep breaths. Was I dying?

  “Jolie!” Fox yelled.

  Shit. I didn’t want to die. Not yet.

  “Jolie!” Deryn yelled.

  I stared up at the star-filled night sky and tried to locate Fox’s powers within me. If I could heal myself... It seemed impossible, so I went to plan B, use all of their powers. Blinding light from somewhere appeared and I felt like I was weightless. The dagger fell to the ground and I felt my innards and skin healing back together. I took a tentative breath and it didn’t hurt any more. Yes!

  “What the-” someone gasped below me.

  I sat up and pressed my hand against my stomach, fully healed. That was going to come in very handy.

  Now, I wasn’t a liability. I wasn’t the damsel in distress that the guards had to protect. I could defend myself. I could heal myself. I was OP as hell!

  �
�Jolie!” Rhys called.

  He had shifted back into his man form and ran to me, crushing his mouth to mine.

  “Now’s not the time for that,” I reminded him and pushed him back.

  The girls cowered next to my feet in wolf form, staring out at the party, which had been attacked by my father and his army. Thousands of different beings swarmed within the party, attacking the attendees.

  Their side was losing, the kings and princes were killing things right and left, tearing down their numbers and protecting their people.

  King Johann and the mages used fire and sun powers to obliterate the vampires. My father floated above the chaos in a sphere with a woman who was holding her hands out. She must have been a mage.

  “We have to defeat him,” I whispered.

  “You can’t use the powers anymore,” Rhys ordered me. “Most will just assume the necklace the kings gave you protected you. If you use them more, or individually, you’ll be exposed.”

  “We can’t let them kill people,” I urged him.

  “Stay behind me and we’ll help get rid of these scumbags,” Rhys agreed.

  The girls followed on my heels, watching our backs and walking backwards. Their hackles were raised and they were snarling and showing their teeth, looking like vicious wolves instead of scared children.

  As we moved, Rhys attacked the enemy, helping the weaker beings defeat those who were stronger than them.

  “You okay?” Deryn called to me while fighting a large ogre. The ogre slammed a huge club into the ground, but Deryn easily avoided it. The club got stuck and Deryn ran up it and sliced the ogre’s head off with a sword.

  “I’m fine!” I called back to him. “What happened to the guy who stabbed me?” I asked Rhys.

  “I killed him,” he said with a growl.

  “Did you know him?”

  He shook his head. “Never seen him before.”

  “He was a mage,” Nico told me as he walked next to me, his staff glowed nonstop as he sent spell after spell into enemies.

  “Any idea why?” Rhys asked.

  “He was struggling to provide for his wife. We think someone paid him to do it and the money had too much allure.”

  “How sad,” I whispered. He tried to kill me, but desperate people did desperate things when they were at the end of their rope.

  “You’re too kind,” Nico warned me.

  “How bad are things?” I asked. They didn’t seem so bad from where I could see, plus my dad looked mad, which meant he had to be losing.

  “Tomorrow, we need a massive cuddle puddle,” Nico whispered to me.

  To them, lying around me in a square, with a hand each on me was a cuddle puddle. We only truly cuddled on our individual days.

  “Watch out!” I yelled and ducked, pushing the girls’ heads down as I did, avoiding the sword swung at us.

  Rhys stopped the blade with his arm, dragon scales covering it to protect him. He turned and punched the attacker, a goblin with green mottled skin. The goblin staggered back and clutched his face, which was bleeding heavily.

  “Nico, go help,” I ordered him.

  He bowed his head and whispered, “Queen.”

  They had been doing that more lately and I wasn’t sure that I liked it. I wasn’t a queen. I didn’t plan to be one either. Being named a princess was one thing, but queen? Wait, if my dad was the king of vampires, then wasn’t I technically the princess of the vampires? Not being a vampire probably played a role in me not being their princess. Not that I wanted to be part of the vampires.

  Something slammed into the shield protecting my dad and then dropped to the ground. I realized it was Deryn. He had jumped at him.

  Nico and his father stood side by side, sending spells of various sizes and shapes at the shield, which cracked immediately.

  The mage with my dad panicked, released the shield and tried to run. Nico froze her, while Deryn and Fox attacked Dad with swords.

  He had a sword of his own and was very skilled with it, blocking most of their attacks, despite it being two on one.

  “You’ve lost,” Katar told him. “Give up now and we’ll spare your life.”

  “No, we won’t,” Nico growled and leapt into the fray, setting Dad’s shirt on fire and attacking his legs.

  The three of them fought seamlessly together, never getting in the others way without even talking. A simple look and they’d attack simultaneously, and then separately. It was breathtaking to watch.

  Dad had several cuts on his arms and a nasty gash in his side, which he was holding a hand over. Nico knocked him onto his back and Fox ran him through. I turned, too late to avoid seeing it. My father screamed out, the sound dying in a gargle. When I turned back, his body had vanished. He was dead. My father, my torturer, the king of vampires…gone.

  Rhys pulled me into him and gripped my side tightly.

  “Why did you kill him?” Katar asked.

  “He tortured her,” Fox whispered to him. “He tortured her as a child and as a teenager. He tortured her when he stole her from us. I could not let him live.”

  There were several people laying on the ground, some getting healed and others providing first aid treatment. There were also some who were dead, their bodies stiff and eyes unseeing.

  “Girls!” Sharla yelled.

  The girls turned and ran to Sharla and Martin who were running in our direction. They had been on the opposite side of the battle from us. I smiled to see the reunited family and felt a deep sadness about my father. He was evil and had never loved me, but he was the only blood family I had left. Mother had died while I was a baby, and my grandmother had died a year ago.

  “Let’s go home,” Deryn whispered. He brushed hair behind my ear and rubbed his thumb down my cheek.

  Home. Home was definitely with the four of them.

  “Home,” I agreed and nodded.

  They boxed me in and we took the SUV we had driven to the meeting in, but Deryn drove since we had left Martin to be with his family. I leaned against Fox in the backseat and couldn’t believe that we had defeated Dad and his army. His evil influence was gone from the world. Finally.

  No one talked as we drove. No one talked as we took the elevator to Fox’s apartment. As soon as the door closed, all four crushed me in a group hug. My head was pressed into Fox’s chest with Rhys at my back.

  “I’ve never known fear before,” Fox whispered. “I thought I did, but seeing that blade in your stomach-” He couldn’t finish his sentence and instead buried his nose against my neck.

  “We failed you, again,” Deryn mumbled into my left shoulder.

  “No, you didn’t. Who would have thought someone would do something like that with everyone there?” I asked them. “Plus, I wouldn’t have let you stop me from dancing with them.”

  “I didn’t even get to dance with you more than once,” Nico grumbled.

  “Well, maybe we can go to a club one of these nights,” I suggested. I hadn’t been to a club in a long time.

  “Let’s change,” Rhys suggested and pulled his blood-soaked jacket off.

  All of them stepped away from me to remove their jackets and unbutton their cufflinks and their shirts.

  Rhys noticed me staring and smirked. “Are we bothering you?”

  “Please, don’t stop on my account,” I teased and leaned against the living room wall to watch. “I’m quite enjoying the show.”

  “Food, booze, and cuddles in an hour at Deryn’s,” Fox requested.

  Everyone nodded their agreement and then took turns kissing me before leaving.

  Fox locked his door and then was suddenly in front of me. “I need to know you’re alright,” he said. “I need to get this dress off of you. The sight of the blood on your stomach is making me uneasy.”

  I slipped the dress off, shivering as the cold air covered me. He slid his hand along my skin, where there wasn’t even a scar from the attack.

  “I almost lost control of my powers when I saw him stab you,”
Fox whispered. “I’ve never lost control.”

  “It wasn’t a picnic for me either,” I chuckled.

  “Don’t joke about this, please,” he requested.

  Serious Fox was so unfun, but probably right.

  “Sorry,” I whispered.

  His shirt was still on, so I finished unbuttoning it and took it off, leaning back to admire his body. He unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned his pants, and slid them down slowly, giving me a nice view of his backside as he did so.

  His strong arms wrapped around me, trapping me to him. “I love you, Jolie. I love you more than anything. I can’t stand seeing you hurt. I can’t stand knowing I was right there and you almost died. I was powerless to stop it. I don’t like being powerless.”

  His skin was so soft and his muscles were so hard. It was a contrast that I loved exploring with my hands, and my mouth. I kissed my way around his neck and chest. He grew hard against me instantly and moaned as he took my mouth with his.

  “Shower,” he growled into my mouth. “I need to get this blood off of you.”

  “You’ve got blood in your hair,” I pointed out.

  We kissed the entire way to the bathroom and didn’t stop until we started shampooing our hair. It took a few washes to get the blood off of my stomach, but once I did, Fox relaxed and pushed me gently against the bathroom wall.

  “You can’t die on me, Jolie. I can’t lose you.”

  “You won’t lose me,” I whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You deserve so much more than I can give you. You deserve the stars and to rule over it all. Martin may have been your first love, but I, and the other three, will be your final loves. I will never take you for granted. I will never stop loving you. I will continue to fall deeper and deeper in love with you as we grow old together.”

  “You’re the greatest thing to happen in my life,” I whispered.

  He kissed me ferociously, devouring me in a way that was very unlike Fox. Our sexual encounters were normally slow and calm. That night, it was fast and demanding. He whispered promises to love me forever in my ear as he gave me orgasm after orgasm.

  “I’m never giving you up,” he told me as he gripped my hips and thrust into me as deep and as hard as he could. “You’re mine.”

  “For eternity,” I agreed.

  “Say it?” he requested.