“Erica?” I asked, recognising one of the Mindys who was blocking the exit. “I’m going to him, if you clear the way out, I’ll tell him you were the one who delivered me.”
Erica grinned in triumph, shifting in an instant and shredding through her uniform as her enormous Lioness form burst from her skin. She bowled over the other Mindys who were blocking the door with one solid pounce. I tipped a salute to my friends in goodbye as I grabbed my shit and shot past the tangle of girls who were all starting to shift too as a brawl broke out.
The enraged shrieks of the librarian chased me out of the Rigel Library and I cursed Leon beneath my breath as I sped back to the Vega Dorms up twenty flights of stairs to the top floor and flung our door open.
Leon was wearing low hung sweatpants and nothing else where he lay sprawled in the centre of our super-king. He had a red rose clasped between his teeth and there were petals everywhere. But I wasn’t gonna be charmed by his cute boyfriend act. This wasn’t some adorable cub, he was the king of beasts, master of manipulation and a monster wearing a thin disguise.
I slammed the door shut, threw my bag on the floor and glared at him.
“What the fuck, Leon?” I snarled, taking sick pleasure in the wince he gave for me using his proper name. “This is how you think this goes, huh? I say no so you set the fucking Mindys on me?”
He spat the rose from his mouth and had the good grace to look sheepish. “Errr-”
“Let me give you a hint,” I said. “No, that’s not the way it goes. And to drive the message home further, little Leon won’t be having any fun times with me for the rest of the week.”
“First of all, don’t call my dick little, it’s a blatant lie which you know full well,” Leon said, pointing at me with a hint of outrage in his tone as he sat up, causing rose petals to cascade from his chest. “Secondly, I asked nicely and you said no. What was I supposed to do?”
“Accept my damn answer of course!” I threw my hands in the air and stormed away from him as he tried to give me that little boy lost look he did so well. But his shit wasn’t flying with me today.
I started stripping out of my uniform, snarling at him as he made a move to stand up and approach me. Leon groaned dramatically, flopping back down onto the bed.
“I told you it was important,” he huffed. “And you still said no.”
“I’m not going to drop everything every time you get horny, Leon,” I growled as I finished dragging my clothes off and tossed them into the hamper, underwear and all.
Leon gave my body a hungry look and I gave him a bitchy smile as I grabbed a pair of his sweatpants and pulled them on, quickly followed by one of his baggy ass T-shirts. Then I tied my hair up in a scraggy knot on the back of my head and gave him my firmest ‘not tonight, asshole’ look as I folded my arms and waited for him to try and get out of my bad books.
“You know I’m used to getting my own way, little monster. And you know I don’t expect you to do all the Mindy shit, but I don’t really hear the word no very often. It’s hard for me to accept it.”
“You want a shovel to help out with that hole you’re digging yourself?” I asked him, arching a brow.
“I didn’t actually call you back here for sex, you know,” he said and I just looked at the damn rose petals smothering the bed in response to that. “Well, I’m always hoping for sex,” he added with a smirk. “But when I said it was important, I meant it.”
I huffed irritably and moved to sit next to him on the bed, using a gust of air magic to sweep the petals into a corner of the room.
“They were meant to be romantic,” he protested with a pout.
“Bits of dead flowers sticking to my ass while you fuck me? Be still my beating heart,” I deadpanned.
“Angry Elise is kinda scary,” Leon teased as he moved to sit up too, leaning his back against the headboard as I remained rigid with my legs crossed beneath me. “Is this the side of you that gets Ryder all turned on? ‘Cause you’ve got that same psycho look in your eye that he gets and I’m betting the two of you angry fucking would be hot enough to start a house fire.”
I frowned at that comment, almost speaking and then not. The damn guilt twisting my gut again as a part of me enjoyed that mental picture and another felt like I was being a damn ungrateful bitch for even considering it while I had my perfect match sitting in a bed with me.
Leon groaned, knocking his head back against the wall and releasing a long breath.
“This right here is why I wanted to talk to you. We have a problem. Or three problems I guess, but then they do all kinda fall under that one umbrella of problems so who am I to say that they’re separate issues? But then lumping them together probably isn’t cool either. Although, I don’t really mind the idea of being lumped in personally, so maybe it’s okay-”
“What are you talking about, Leo?” I asked softly, my heart racing as I picked up on the thread of his words but didn’t really understand where he was going with them. Issues? Problems? I didn’t like the sound of that, but he didn’t seem mad at all, just kinda frustrated.
“I want you to take an honesty potion with me,” he said, changing tack fast enough to give me whiplash as he grabbed a little bottle from the nightstand and shook it at me. “I don’t want any half truths or kind words to try and spare feelings. We both know what being Elysian Mates should mean, but I think we both know we aren’t good at following the boring path in life either. We both take the potion and we get the fucking words out there. Then we both know where we stand and hopefully we can move forward in the right direction.”
“I dunno, Leon,” I said hesitantly, balling my hands in my lap. “What if I say something that hurts your feelings? Or that you don’t agree with?”
“Look at my eyes, little monster,” he purred, uncorking the bottle and leaning closer to me as he raised it to my lips. “The stars say I’m perfect for you in every way and you for me, too. I’m willing to bet this will be a good thing. And even if we aren’t on the same page then I think it will help us get there.”
He pressed the bottle to my mouth and I gave in to the look in his golden eyes as I traced the silver rings surrounding them, letting him tip a mouthful between my lips.
Leon grinned, taking a swig himself before setting the bottle down on the nightstand.
“I’ll go first seeing as you’re pissed at me and I owe you some grovelling,” he teased, forcing a smirk to my lips despite my desire to cling on to my anger. “I miss the others.”
“The others?” I breathed.
“Your other boys, my little Lionesses,” he said with a grin. “I miss seeing you smile with them and I wanna know how you feel about trying to get us back to where we were before the whole mate thing with them.”
“You mean, you want...” I trailed off, afraid to ask and he smiled wider.
“I want to get the pride back together. I mean...I guess we never actually all made it work as a five in a full on way before now, but I feel like that’s where things were going. And I liked it.”
“You liked knowing I was hooking up with three other guys when you weren’t around?” I asked with a frown. I’d obviously known that he encouraged me with Dante and he’d done the same with Ryder that one time. I guessed I’d thought of that as more of the sex side of things, but he wasn’t making it sound like that now.
“Not gonna lie, little monster. Seeing you with Dante over the summer was all kinds of hot, joining in was even fucking better. I’ve even had more than one exciting dream about you with the other guys too, so you’ll get no complaints from me about that. I dunno why, but it turns me on to see you with them or think about you with them.”
“Because of me, or them...or both?” I asked with a grin and he laughed.
“I’m all about the pussy - no need for any sausage in my bun, thanks. But making a sandwich out of you, or even a short stack...”
“So I’m a pancake now?”
“Nah, little monster, we’re the pancakes, you�
��re the syrup, all over all of us, making us nice and sticky.”
I burst out laughing and Leon caught my hand, threading his fingers between mine and placing a kiss on the inside of my wrist which sent heat spreading through my veins.
“So how about you?” he asked. “Are you up for four pancakes?”
“Yes,” I blurted, the honesty potion refusing to even let me consider a lie and I blushed as Leon growled hungrily at my answer. “But I dunno about a stack,” I added. “The four of you at once would be...a lot. Two at a time, yeah, but more than that, I’m not so sure.”
Leon chuckled, his next kiss landing a little higher up my wrist and making my flesh burn. “We can work up to that,” he teased and the way he said it left no doubt in my mind that he actually liked the idea of it. Of me and all four of them at once. “So that covers the sex,” he said and I chewed down on my lip as I realised that this was going to be the harder part to answer. “But we need to talk about feelings too.”
“I...” I hesitated, afraid to say it out loud in case it wasn’t what he wanted to hear and quickly changing direction to make him give me his answer first. “How do you feel about them?”
“Dante is like a brother to me,” he answered instantly. “More like one than my actual brother half the time if I’m being totally honest. I love him. I love seeing him happy. I want to spend time with him and time with both of you together as often as possible. And luckily he isn’t actually my brother so the idea of him sharing you with me doesn’t gross me out. When the three of us are together it feels right. Like...the same way my dad and moms feel right. And maybe that’s just because being a part of a pride is normal for me so I can see all the possibilities that kind of love can offer, not just between you and him but between me and him too. My moms love each other even though it isn’t sexual and their relationships with each other only make their lives better. I guess, I can see that with Dante too.”
“And Ryder?” I pushed hesitantly.
Leon snorted a laugh. “I kinda love pushing him out of his comfort zone. And I think he actually likes me despite the fact that he clearly doesn’t want to. I like him too, mostly because I know he makes you happy. But I also find him funny - not that I think it’s intentional. I can’t say if I’d ever be able to love him because I don’t really know him but I can see what you two have is real, so I want to have something real with him too. Gabriel, on the other hand, is an ass.”
I burst out laughing and Leon grinned big. “You don’t like him?”
“There’s not a lot to like,” he said with a shrug. “Not a lot to dislike either. He’s so closed off. But I feel bad for the guy. I think he’s lonely. I think he needs a pride more than any of us. And I don’t think he’s a total lost cause. I wanna like him for your sake, but I wanna like him for his too. I don’t think he has many friends, maybe not any. That shit has to suck.”
My heart throbbed at his words. At the fact that he’d thought about this enough to be able to offer them to me with so much conviction.
“Point is, if you were a Lion, you’d be a king, little monster. And that means I’m the first Lioness in your pride.”
“I’m not a Lion though, and the other guys aren’t either,” I pointed out. “None of their Orders are polyamorous. Hell, Vampires aren’t either. This isn’t normal. I have an Elysian Mate. Surely I shouldn’t-”
“Who gives a shit about shouldn’t? If it’s what makes us happy then I say that’s what’s right. Besides, you’re half Pegasus, they have a herd, they don’t always mate with a single Fae. And Dante was born of Wolves, they’re poly at least half the time. Who the fuck knows what Basilisks do and Gabe loves you so much he’ll give in to it eventually whatever. We can always build him a nest on the roof of our mansion to go grump in when he wants alone time anyway.”
“That’s your solution, a grumpy nest?” I groaned, flopping down onto the bed and he hooked an arm around me, tugging me against his chest.
“Yeah, you can go ruffle his feathers up there whenever he’s in a vision downer or whatever and he’ll be cool again after that. I’d say we’re gonna have a bigger issue figuring out how to move Dante and Ryder in without their gangs coming and murdering us all,” he replied seriously like he really was considering that as an option and I just groaned again at the fucking ridiculousness of that thought.
“In my head it all seems so simple,” I sighed. “I want all of you, you all want me. Easy. But in reality...well, reality is a total bitch.”
“Let’s just focus on getting everyone signed up to the pride before we worry about all of that, yeah? All I need to hear from you is that you want them and me. All in. Because that’s what I’m feeling and somewhere amongst the foggy future options that might just be available to us, I wanna believe there’s a glimpse of hope that maybe we can figure out a way to make that work. So what do you say, little monster? You wanna go all in with all of us?”
“Yeah,” I replied on a breath, a tear slipping from my eye and rolling down to splash against his chest before I even realised I was crying. “I wanna be all in.”
Leon silently wiped my tear away, not needing me to explain the reason for it. Because as loved as I felt by him, my heart had been breaking these last two months for my other kings too. And I wanted to be able to fix it more than anything in the world.
“Then we’re all in. Just leave it to me.” He turned to press a kiss to my lips and I melted against him for several long moments, heat building in my flesh at the simple contact before I forced myself to pull back.
“I’m still mad about the Mindys,” I pouted because using them against me wasn’t on and I wasn’t letting him off the hook over it.
“How many orgasms am I going to have to give you before you forgive me?” he teased, rolling me over suddenly so that my back was pressed to the mattress as he pinned me down.
“Five,” I gasped, the damn potion making me answer even though I wanted to make him work harder at an apology than that.
Leon growled hungrily, tugging at the baggy sweatpants until he’d ripped them off of me and tossing them aside with a wild look in his eyes. He moved to pull the T-shirt off too but I gripped the hem, shaking my head at him.
“You haven’t earned boobs.”
Leon pouted as I held back a laugh and he suddenly dropped down, throwing my legs over his shoulders and dropping his head between my thighs.
“I’ll give you six orgasms and then I want boobs,” he warned and before I could reply, his mouth fell to my clit, making me forget what I’d been going to say anyway.
***
My damn alarm woke me earlier than I wanted the next morning and I rolled out of Leon’s hold with some difficulty, grabbing my Atlas and narrowing my eyes at the reminder flashing up on the screen. Fucking Counselling. I just had to hope that this new guy wasn’t as much of a dick as Nightshade had been. And that he wasn’t a fucking Siren.
My horoscope was ready and waiting for me so I tapped on it quickly, wondering if it would give me any insight into how this session was going to play out.
Good morning Libra.
The stars have spoken about your day!
Today could get off to a bad start with Mars drawing closer to your chart, but if you stay true to yourself, you might find pleasant surprises on the horizon. A Capricorn could shock you today and as always you have a Leo in your corner, cheering you on from the sidelines in everything you do.
Not particularly helpful.
I sighed irritably, leaving Leon to sleep as I shot around, pulling on a thin dress to suit the hot weather and running a brush through my short hair. I glanced in the mirror and slapped on a blood red shade of lipstick to detract from the bags under my eyes. I’d been up worrying about my other kings last night again. Even after Leon helped me forget about my guilty feelings over supposedly betraying my mate bond by wanting all of them, I still wasn’t any closer to fixing things with them. Especially Ryder and Gabriel. Just because Leon was on board with
the idea of them still being with me, didn’t mean they’d still want to be. I was going to have to try and convince them that I wanted them just as much as Leon, but with the silver rings in my eyes to taunt them, I knew that wouldn’t be a simple task.
I released a sigh and with a burst of speed raced out of the room, across campus and all the way to the office which used to belong to Nightshade.
I fell still as I arrived outside, finding the door open and Ryder standing inside the room with a man I assumed was Mr Pluto.
They didn’t notice me appearing so quickly and my eyes widened as Ryder tossed him a thick wedge of auras.
“Whoopsie, guessing I wasn’t supposed to see that,” I teased and the two of them snapped around to look at me.
Ryder grunted like he was irritated and then shrugged. “I trust you to keep your mouth shut,” he said, before looking back to Mr Pluto. “Have you got Nightshade’s notes on me?”
“Err, yeah. I haven’t had a chance to go over them yet, but-”
“Good. Don’t. Send them to me then delete them and just make up whatever shit you need to to put a check in the right boxes for your own notes. You’ll get the same amount next month assuming no one catches on to your bullshit. I don’t have to tell you what will happen if you decide to run your mouth about this.”
“No problem, Mr Draconis,” Mr Pluto agreed hastily. “I’ll see you around.”
Ryder grunted a vague agreement and moved to stalk out of the room. I chewed on my bottom lip as I realised what I was seeing. He’d just bought his way out of these fucking sessions. I tried to guess at the amount of money in that roll of notes as Mr Pluto shoved it into his pocket and quickly determined that the money I had left over from the Kipling jobs I’d done wouldn’t cover it. Nope. I’d be stuck with these sessions unless he saw fit to sign me off and agree I didn’t need them anymore.
I moved aside as Ryder walked towards me, his gaze fixed over my head as he went right on back to ignoring my existence.
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