King Cave

by Scarlett Dawn

  Pearl appeared nervous. “I’m not sure about this.” She was staring with wide eyes.

  Jack glanced her way, nodding at an area where Mysticals of different factions were boxing. “Want to practice with me first? Work the kinks out?”

  She nodded instantly, beginning to stretch her arms. “Yeah, I’m afraid I’m bloody rusty after a month of doing nothing.”

  Jack jerked his head to the mats, actually gracing us with one of his, as of late, rare smiles. “Let’s do it then.”

  Ezra and I watched them wander over to the intermingled Mystical mat, Pearl looking very timid and Jack acting almost as a protector the way he angled his body between her and the others. Ezra chuckled quietly, murmuring, “This could be good for both of them.” When I nodded in agreement, he asked, “Still not feeling well?”

  I rubbed at the small of my back, groaning. “Yeah, I have…” I cleared my throat. “Well, it’s a girl issue.”

  A slow grin began etching his features, his stance almost as if he were going to pounce.

  I knew what he was thinking. Vampires didn’t have to wait while their women were on their period. In fact, they enjoyed it when they were. Rolling my eyes, I waved my hand toward the Vampire area. “Go beat someone up.”

  His chuckle rumbled, sounding intimate and full of possibilities. “If I have to.”

  “You do,” I whispered, seeing King Kincaid talking with Elder Merrick and waving me down. “The King’s beckoning me.”

  “I’ll take kicking someone’s ass over that any day.” Ezra smiled, walking behind me, his fingers trailing softly against my skin between my sports bra and my shorts. “Plus, I’m sure Elder Merrick wants another crack at you.” He raised an eyebrow before strolling away in his black mesh pants, his bare upper half showing all his beautiful muscles under the golden lighting.

  Quickly, I jerked my head away, not wanting to be caught ogling, and began making my way to King Kincaid and Elder Merrick. Ezra was probably right. Elder Merrick had been instructing me every other day while hitting on me. Figuratively and nonfiguratively. He had figured out I had the knack for swords and guns, so he had sidestepped those and focused mainly on hand-to-hand combat — my weakness — and the crossbow, which I was only decent with. All the while making subtle innuendos at the end of our sessions, mainly every day that Ezra would come to meet me, our sparring and babysitting ending right around the same time.

  I hadn’t missed that key factor, which meant only one thing.

  Elder Merrick had caught me in some kind of lie the first day we had met, and possibly knew something was amiss. In his twisted, genius mind — which he definitely had — he was definitely scheming. Whether he kept his assumptions private was beyond me, but Ezra and I never did anything to give him pause, neither of us rising to his bait. But I did believe that if I chose to hop into his bed, he wouldn’t be opposed to it, his invitation never a lie. But his attraction for me normally waned when Ezra wasn’t around, which I thought interesting in itself.

  Rubbing my stomach, I burped quietly before reaching King Kincaid and Elder Merrick. I shouldn’t have eaten that fourth chili dog at lunch. “I’m not feeling so hot, so can you make it quick?”

  Both appeared puzzled, staring where I had started rubbing my back.

  I chuckled and whispered quietly, “Cramps, gentlemen.”

  Their faces blanked.

  God, men were so easy sometimes.

  King Kincaid cleared his throat first. “Well, I wanted you to try these out.” He turned, bending to open a case, and lifted two swords from inside. “See how they fit your hand. You’re so small, I know it’s hard to find swords that fit well in your hands.”

  “Oh.” I nodded, lifting them from him. I weighed them inside my palm, giving him my input on the balance and size. They were still too big for me, but better than the ones here we had to use. Just a little smaller and they would be pretty perfect for my petite stature.

  “Want to swing them around for a bit?” Elder Merrick asked, picking up two swords from a nearby selection. “Tell him where they could be corrected?”

  I agreed, but jerked my head toward the bleachers, asking him quietly, “What’s Antonio doing?” Antonio sat between Cahal and Elder Jacobs, but his head was in his hands, and he was staring at the floor, both Elders continuing to eye him between resting from their own workout and watching others spar. He and I hadn’t talked since he had threatened Ezra and me, but that didn’t mean I didn’t notice him when he was around. In fact, I noticed him more now, my emotions vying between want to yell at him and wanting to cry on his shoulder, hoping he would hug me back.

  Elder Merrick shook his head. “He came in an hour ago. Beat the living shit out of a few Mages before sitting down like that.” His forehead crinkled. “He hasn’t moved since.”

  My own forehead scrunched. That wasn’t like him. “Well, let’s do this.” I swung my swords a few times and glanced one more time at Antonio before settling on a section between the mats for better footing. Cracking my back, I rotated my shoulders while holding the swords as Elder Merrick moved people back so we would have room to move without risking injuring others.

  “Are you sure you’re fine for this?” Elder Merrick asked quietly, standing in front of me.

  “Just because I’m a woman, that doesn’t mean I’m a wimp,” I muttered, then rotated, coming at him hard, arching one sword down, but blocking with the other, knowing he was as good as me. He grinned, the clanging of our swords joining the rest of the battle sounds of the room. The match was on. He had taught me in the past few weeks to use my strength to avoid being hit, and that was exactly what we both did.

  Our jumping and flipping high into the air sometimes felt like flying, but we had to make sure we landed right, or risk breaking bones. That was what I was focused on when I went light-headed during one of our parries in midair. Elder Merrick didn’t realize this, and took my distraction as an opportunity as we fell. I managed to arch, evading the zinging blade by a mere inch, but missed avoiding the brutal blow to my shoulder, which he pulled back at the last second, making it the heel of his shaft that hit instead of the slicing edge.

  I landed hard on my side, my swords clattering loudly on the ground as they tumbled a few feet from me. Vision still blurry, I shook my head hard. I could tell it was Elder Merrick who stood in front of me, recognizing his shoes, which I saw way too often while lying on the mats during hand-to-hand against him.

  He cursed, squatting in front of me. “You’re off your game.”

  I shook my head again, rubbing my forehead. “I don’t feel right.”

  He quickly set his swords down, gently placing his hands under my arms and lifting me slowly to my feet. I wobbled, utterly dizzy, and fell against his chest. Cursing again, he wrapped his arms around me, holding me steady, and shouted, “We need a medic!”

  My stomach chose that moment to cramp, ten times worse than before, and I groaned, “Trash can!” I swallowed hard. “I’m gonna puke.”

  “Shit,” he growled, lifting me off my feet and rushing me to the nearest one.

  He lowered me, and my face, to it right on time. As I gripped the edges, my stomach clenched, and I heaved what felt like my guts into the thing. The smell didn’t help matters, while Elder Merrick grabbed my hair, holding it back as I continued regurgitating every goddamn thing I had eaten today. Which was a shitload, I realized as I saw it make an undignified reappearance.

  Elder Merrick and King Kincaid were arguing directly over me.

  I could hear general murmurs beginning farther away. I waved a hand as I started dry heaving, choking, “He didn’t hit…my stomach.”

  “I fucking told you,” Elder Merrick explained to King Kincaid, growling under his breath, his wolf taking voice. “I only hit her shoulder, and she fell on her side.”

  “What the fuck is going on?” Ezra’s voice boomed through the growing crowd.

  “Ezra!” Cahal barked harshly, a warning, from somewhere close
to my right.

  I wiped my mouth with a damn handkerchief — seriously? — someone handed me, and pushed up…only to fall flat on my ass against the trash can. My vision was spinning, so I placed a bracing hand on the ground, even as Elder Merrick and King Kincaid both grabbed my shoulders to keep me from falling over completely. I blinked hard, trying to focus on King Kincaid’s face, finally finding his dark eyes. I repeated myself. “I don’t feel right.”

  “Shh,” he hushed me, brushing my hair out of my face in soothing motions. His eyes left mine, darting around the growing crowd before snarling, “Where the fuck is the medic?”

  Letting my head fall back on the trash can, I blinked out into the crowd as a Mage pushed through them, yelling for them to move. I saw Jack and Pearl standing a few feet away, their expressions frantic, and Ezra was a few feet from them, his eyes glowing dimly while glaring at Elder Merrick, but his dad had a white-knuckled grip on each of his shoulders, standing behind him. When Cahal had moved from my right, I didn’t know.

  The Mage medic dropped to her knees in front of me. I had seen her before. She was normally in here for any injuries that could, and usually did, occur. I was pretty sure her name was… “Hey, Lindy.”

  “Bindi,” she murmured, her voice spiced with the South. “Now, what happened?”

  “We were sparring. I hit her shoulder in the air, and she went down hard on her left side, then she started throwing up,” Elder Merrick stated in a clipped tone. “She said she wasn’t feeling well before.”

  Bindi’s hands started glowing, and she placed one on my head. Oddly, it didn’t feel like anything. Staring into my eyes, she murmured, “What were you feeling before the match?”

  I groaned as my stomach cramped. “I’ve got cramps.” Blinking a few times to keep her in focus, I mumbled for Elder Merrick’s benefit, “It wasn’t his fault. I got dizzy in the air.”

  Her lips pinched. “You have a slight fever.”

  And…the crowd went silent.

  Swallowing hard, I mumbled, “I can’t have a germ.” Germs were the Mystical term for something sexually transmitted by a Com to a Mystical. We didn’t catch their diseases, but we did catch a ‘germ’ of sorts, which gave us Com flu-like symptoms.

  “No chance of it?” she asked with a completely blank expression.

  “No chance.”

  “Truth,” Elder Merrick mumbled absently.

  She kept that same expression. “When was the first day of your last menstrual cycle?”

  I snorted. “I’m not pregnant.”

  “Answer the question, please.” One of her glowing hands was roving over my head.

  I thought about it, my eyebrows puckering as I counted the weeks silently.

  Stalled. Recounted.

  Then recounted once more.

  My breath caught, my eyes focusing hard on her golden gaze, and I whispered, “Five weeks ago.” My heart took off in a wild gallop, complications hitting me hard. I shook my head, denial in every part of my being, because I’d had my tubes tied. “I can’t be pregnant.”

  She nodded, though it appeared only functionary, as Elder Merrick and King Kincaid went stiff on either side of me. Her mouth opened to say something else, but King Kincaid bellowed, “Finn!”

  It was so loud my ears rang, and I almost missed Finn saying, “I’m here.”

  King Kincaid ordered, “Get over here.” His growl would have scared most people off, but Finn still moved into our line of sight, kneeling between the Mage medic and King Kincaid. Glowing, dark eyes slammed to him. “Test her for pregnancy.”

  Finn blinked. “We haven’t had sex in three weeks.” He was alpha enough to meet King Kincaid’s glowing gaze and hold it. “We used condoms.” He shook his head, dark hair flying about his head. “Lots of them.”

  Yes, we had used condoms. I hadn’t been able to tell him my tubes were tied because that would have brought up too many questions. I shook my head, mumbling again, “I can’t be pregnant.” My head was beginning to spin again, but it wasn’t from dizziness.

  “Truth,” Elder Merrick whispered on a breath, eyes darting to mine and away, but no one else seemed to hear him.

  The medic shook her head. “Test her. Condoms aren’t one hundred percent.”

  Finn sucked in a rough breath, but nodded when King Kincaid’s growl grew louder. He leaned forward, placing his face at my neck. My wide gaze landed for the briefest moment on Ezra. I had to quickly glance away. He had to appear worse than I did right now. His face was pale and drawn, his jaw clenched tight and his arms crossed, a hand over his mouth as he stared at Finn, his eyes still glowing a bit.

  Finn exhaled heavily against my throat, not at all as calm as he was pretending to be…then inhaled heavily, pressing his nose against my neck.

  Nothing.

  He inhaled once more, then leaned back, shaking his head. “If she’s pregnant, it’s not mine.” He would have reacted differently, yanking me away from them while being in full animalistic protection mode.

  “Who else?” King Kincaid ignored Finn as he silently moved back, staring hard. “Lily, who else have you slept with?”

  “I’m not pregnant,” I stated barely above a whisper, my hands starting to tremble.

  “Who else?” he ordered, his power starting to rise.

  “Don’t do this to me,” I pled on a breath, and watched his jaw harden. Taking advantage of his moment of silence, my eyes frantically darted to the medic. “Can’t you give me a stick to pee on or a blood test to prove I’m not pregnant?”

  She blinked. “Standard urine pregnancy tests only work for Commoners.” Go figure I wouldn’t know that. She cocked her head. “A blood test might prove it, if you’re far enough along.” Her lips pinched, and she paused for a long moment. “Another, faster way is if a Vampire has tasted your blood and remembers it well enough. If so, the Vampire would be able to distinguish the subtle change.”

  My vision blurred, even as I stilled.

  “Goddamn it, Lily, you will tell me who the father is if you’re pregnant.” King Kincaid growled low, then his head shot up as he hissed, “Ezra, do you remember her blood well enough to tell if there’s a change?”

  Sweat beaded on my brow, but I was thankful King Kincaid didn’t pull his power on me right here and now. I wasn’t sure I would be able to hold him off, feeling as I was. Having people around us know that Ezra had drunk off me, hopefully in their mind only once, was nothing compared to what they would think if they knew I’d had sex with him.

  Ignoring the stunned crowd’s gasps, Ezra gradually nodded, hand still over his mouth. In all honesty, I wasn’t sure anymore if his dad’s hands were holding him back or just plain holding him up. King Kincaid motioned for him to get down here, apparently oblivious to the way Ezra looked ready to toss his own cookies.

  Ezra’s chest rose, but he dropped his hands to his sides and moved forward, his dad hovering behind him as he knelt between Elder Merrick and the medic. Ezra’s eyes were directed downward, lids hooding his gaze heavily, and in a guttural tone he murmured, “Your hand, Lily.”

  Unclenching my fisted hands, I quickly lifted one, hoping no one noticed how it trembled the barest bit. Blinking heavily, I shook my head past another wave of actual dizziness, my stomach churning again as it cramped. His warm — and sweaty — palm lifted mine higher. His grip was firm, and he used his other hand to extend one of my fingers. Lowering his head, I saw his fangs descend right before his lips closed over the tip of my index finger.

  He hesitated. I felt it in his heavy breathing. So I moved my finger the tiniest bit and pressed it up against his fang. I didn’t flinch as it pierced through my skin. Nor did I flinch when he took one hard pull before gently grazing my finger with the tip of his tongue, pulling my finger from his mouth. He hadn’t swallowed, and I watched him as I took my hand back to my lap, fisting them again as he swished my blood inside his mouth, his head still bowed.

  He swallowed, lifting his hand and dragging it over his
lowered face. “She’s pregnant.”

  All of the air left me at his rasping words.

  There was silence for the barest moment — no one moved or even breathed around me — before King Kincaid growled, “Now, Lily. Tell me who the fuck he is.”

  My body jolted brutally as his command unleashed on me. Groaning, I trembled, my teeth clenching hard. I saw Ezra’s head snap up, his eyes flashing furious green. I knew in that moment that it wasn’t only Shifters who reacted to pregnancy with an animalistic manner.

  “Stop!” the medic shouted, placing a steely grip on King Kincaid’s shoulder. I also knew in that instant she was the one who saved King Kincaid’s life. He didn’t even see Ezra’s face because of the way the medic had positioned her body in an attempt to stop him from using his power on me. But…Elder Merrick did. He stayed very still, not making any sudden movements as he watched Ezra. The medic shook King Kincaid’s shoulder. “With all due respect, Your Highness, you cannot do this to her right now. She could be miscarrying and you’re not helping.”

  King Kincaid’s power cut off abruptly. “Miscarrying?”

  Golden hair bobbed. “It’s a possibility. I need to get her to an examining room.”

  Ezra blinked real slow-like, his eyes flying to my stomach, before his dad placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to pull him back, saying, “Son, get back. They’ll need to move her.”

  My head swam again, but I shook my head. “Pregnant?” My head thumped back on the trash can, listing to the side drunkenly.

  King Kincaid gripped me like a child, lifting me as he stood. “How much of a possibility?”

  “Let’s just get her to an examining room,” she stated in a clipped tone, turning and shouting at everyone to move out of our way.

  My stomach cramped heavily, and I grunted, grabbing at it and turning my head into King Kincaid’s neck as we started moving. As soon as they made it through the horde of onlookers, King Kincaid started running, as did the Mage. My watering gaze opened as he raced with me in his arms, and I blinked into spring green. Ezra was right behind us, keeping pace. I could see Elder Merrick next to him, watching him, but he didn’t try to stop him, or Cahal, who was behind him, along with Pearl and Jack, whose faces were whiter than ghosts.