by Cat Marsters
“Aren’t you going to introduce me?” Chance asked as Bael moved away from Kett’s hip. He was staring at Chance, but that was only to be expected. Her cousin was the most beautiful woman Kett had ever seen, all ash-blond hair and cheekbones, her perfect figure caressed by a green silk kimono. It should have looked stupid on someone with her coloring, but Kett had never known Chance to look stupid in her whole life.
She sighed. “Yeah,” she grumbled, pulling the sheet over herself. “This is Bael. Bael, this is my cousin Chance, and Dark, her…er—”
“Majesty,” Bael said, bowing his head, and for the third time in as many minutes, Kett was lost for words.
Chance giggled. “You got yourself a Nasc lover,” she said, and Kett stared at Bael. Nasc? Well, why not? This was shaping up to be one of the weirdest days in her considerably weird life.
“Right,” she said. “Uh, Chance, what are you doing here?”
“I came to see you. Of course, I wasn’t expecting to see so much of you.”
Kett scowled. “Well then, you should have knocked. How did you know I was here?”
“I know everything,” Chance said airily. “Plus Miho called me.”
Bael was still staring at her. Kett reached over and closed his mouth, and he blinked.
“Yes, she’s beautiful,” Kett said. “She’s also boffing your king.”
“I forgot what a charming turn of phrase you have,” Dark said in his rumbling, deep voice, reminding Kett that at any moment he could switch forms with his animal twin, an eight-foot, dark-maned lion.
“The correct term is ‘mate’,” Chance said, leaning against Dark and looking up at him with a smile. Kett figured the correct term for it was “soppy”. “Which does actually make me the queen.”
“Well, whatever,” Kett said. “Why did Miho call you?”
“Said you might need my help. Naked in the woods and all that.”
“My being naked in the woods is cause for concern now?” Kett asked, and Chance grinned before her face sobered.
“No, but that cut on your wrist is. She said you were having trouble walking too.”
So much for hiding it. “I’m fine,” Kett said automatically. “Five by five.”
“Yes. Well, I don’t believe you.” Detaching herself from her “mate”, Chance walked over to the bed. “Dark, could you go tell Miho to hold off supper for a bit, please?”
Dark nodded, verbose as ever, and left the room, closing the door behind him. Chance picked through the tray of medical supplies. “So what happened?”
“Fuck if I know,” Kett said. A cave in the mountains. Symbols on the walls. Burnt bodies.
The sad thing was that on Kett’s scale of weird shit, this barely rated a five.
“Right. Excellent. How long have you two been together?”
She snorted at that. “About five minutes.”
“Wonderful.” Chance, wisely, stopped asking personal questions as she picked up Kett’s wrist to look closer at the jagged cut there.
Then she dropped it, Kett’s hand thudding on the mattress, and recoiled. “Bloody hell!”
“What?”
Chance peered at Kett’s eyes, visibly shaken. “What kind of mojo are you under?”
A prickle ran up Kett’s spine. The sort of mojo that repressed her shape-changing abilities, she’d bet. Ritual magic. They’d wanted her alive when they strung her up.
She shook her head wordlessly.
Chance transferred her attention to Bael. “Did you do it?”
He shook his head, clearly still under her spell. Kett clicked her tongue in irritation. She was used to watching grown men reduced to quivering teenage boys by Chance’s phenomenal beauty, charm and grace, but that didn’t mean she particularly enjoyed it.
Bael was looking at her as if she was coated in whipped cream and dispensed beer from her nipples. Five minutes ago he’d been about to lick Kett’s pussy and now she might as well be part of the furniture.
I was desirable until she walked in.
“You mentioned supper?” she asked, beyond irritation.
“Er, yes—Miho said it was just about ready…” Chance was regarding Bael with a slight frown.
“Right. Good. I’m fucking starving.” She shoved back the covers and tested her leg. Hurt like hell, but it was holding. “And can I get some bloody clothes?”
Chapter Three
Dinner was a minor ordeal. Aside from his inattentive, absentee parents, Bael had never met any other Nasc before, but he knew his monarch when he saw him. King Talvéan—Dark—rippled with power and authority, and Bael was totally, unexpectedly in awe. Usually authority figures pissed the hell out of him, but he seemed to have some sort of inbuilt subservience switch when it came to his king.
Maybe this was what it was like being a kelf and driven to serve humans. Bael actually wanted the king to approve of him. Wanted to serve him. Weird.
The king’s consort wasn’t Nasc—she was something not entirely human, but he couldn’t tell what. Regal of bearing, warm and unutterably beautiful, she was a perfect foil for the king’s majestic stillness.
And she was Kett’s cousin! His mind reeled. His queen was Kett’s cousin. They were nothing alike. Quite apart from the differences in their coloring, Kett was all wiry strength, flashing fury and surly, dangerous sexuality. She was like thunder and lightning, fascinating but deadly. Chance, on the other hand, was grace personified. She exuded warmth and charm that only seemed to make Kett look more bad-tempered.
He glanced over to where Kett was poking at her noodles, scowling. She had a great line in scowling. Those wonderful silver eyes of hers blazed and sparked at him across the table. She didn’t seem to be talking to him, didn’t seem to be talking to anybody.
Which made conversation all the harder. Several times Chance enquired of him what his animal twin might be, and each time he fudged the answer, changed the subject. If he told them the truth—if they knew—every Nasc would know. News would spread. The Federación would surely find out.
And then he’d be dead.
“I haven’t met very many Nasc,” Chance was saying brightly now. “Might I know your parents?”
“I doubt it.” Bael tore his eyes from Kett to address his queen. “They died when I was young.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
Another silence. Bael watched Kett stab at her food, apparently angry with it. She tangled up some noodles and shoved them into her mouth with a total lack of grace he found weirdly charming.
“Dark is touring ’round, introducing me to all the Nasc we can find,” Chance said. “Sometimes I feel like an exhibit at a freak show.”
“You are a freak,” the king muttered.
“Thank you, darling.”
“In the nicest possible way.”
She glanced sideways at him then flicked her gaze quickly away again. But she was smiling.
“It’s not freakish for me to be non-Nasc,” she said.
“Of course it isn’t.”
With that was the unspoken coda it was something else that made her freakish. Chance shifted and the king flinched, and Bael realized she’d kicked him under the table. He held his breath, but the king just grinned at her. And she grinned back.
“Will you still be here tomorrow?” Miho asked. “The Emperor is coming for tea. It would be fitting for him to meet the Nasc king.”
The Emperor. What kind of people did Kett know?
“It’s been awhile since I saw the Emperor,” Chance said. “If we’re still here,” she glanced at Kett, who shrugged sullenly and said nothing, “then it would be lovely.” She beamed at them all. Miho smiled back. Bael tried to remember if he’d ever gotten into trouble in Xinjiang—the sort of trouble the Emperor might care about, anyway.
To redress the balance, he pulled on one of the few pieces of Nasc news he actually had heard. “Your Majesty,” he enquired of his king, “how is her Highness, your sister?” To Kett, he explained, “She was kidnapped and i
mprisoned, but the king and his mate freed her.”
“The king, his mate and me, actually,” Kett said, and Bael stared at her, dumb with admiration.
Amused, Dark said, “She is well. Thank you for asking.”
“Do you have a mate, Bael?” Chance asked.
“Uh, no,” he said, his eyes sliding back to Kett, who was sucking a noodle between her lips. His mouth went dry. “I don’t—er, I, uh—no, no mate,” he stammered, watching her lips move, pink and soft and supple.
“Oh, of course. You and Kett.”
“There’s no ‘and’,” Kett snapped. “We’ve only just met.”
“Well, yes, but if he had a mate then he couldn’t be, er, you two couldn’t…”
“What makes you think we have?”
There was silence. Bael thought he heard Miho suppressing a giggle, but he couldn’t be sure he’d actually heard anything through the fog of memories of Kett this morning, Kett last night, hot and strong and naked, her mouth and her breasts and her tight, sweet pussy.
He was glad he was sitting down, because to get a hard-on in front of his king would be pretty damn embarrassing.
“Sweetheart,” Chance said, “I know.”
“Oh, piss off,” Kett snarled halfheartedly, stabbing at her plate again, and the table was silent a moment more before Miho cleared her throat and tried to start another conversation.
“How long have you been in the Realm?” she asked Chance and Dark.
“Oh, not very long. A few weeks. We’ll be going back to Peneggan soon, of course, to Elvyrn for Yule. Kett, are you coming?”
Kett shrugged. Her breasts moved interestingly beneath the thin tunic she had on under her open kimono. Chance had spent a futile few minutes trying to get Kett into an obi and then given up and let her wear the kimono open like a long robe. Bael could hardly object. Fastened up, the kimono concealed all those attributes of hers that he so enjoyed looking at.
“Well, it’ll be nice if you do. Bring Bael.”
Kett shot her a venomous look. It made her eyes sparkle and flash.
Chance grinned at her. “It’ll be fun,” she said provocatively. “I don’t think you’ve ever brought a date to the Yule party.”
“So why start now?” Kett muttered.
“Bael.” Chance reached over and placed her hand on his, and he looked away from Kett for a moment. His queen was pretty compelling. “You must come. Tell Kett to bring you.”
He looked back at Kett, who was scowling harder. She licked a drop of sauce from her lips and he tried not to moan. “Sure,” he said. “I’d love to.”
Kett shoved back her seat abruptly, standing up, the kimono swirling around her, the tunic clinging to her body. Bael lost his breath again. “I’m done eating,” she said when they all stared at her. “Good night,” she added as a sort of afterthought.
Then she stomped from the room in a swirl of silk and annoyance. Bael started rising to his feet.
“I’ll go,” Chance said, moving faster than seemed possible. “You stay here. Dark, be nice to Miho.”
“I’m always nice,” he said, and she just laughed as she left. The king fixed Bael with his dark stare. “The women in that family are crazy,” he said. “Have you met her family?”
“I’ve hardly even met her,” Bael said honestly.
“Hah. Well, if you do, take body armor. I’m not kidding.”
“Right,” Bael said, liking Kett more and more.
* * * * *
Chance caught up with Kett as she stomped around trying to find her room again. Not that there was anything personal in it to mark it as hers. She should probably just find a bed somewhere else and sleep in it. Might get Bael off her back.
Bloody Bael! Rationally, she knew it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t know Chance was going to interrupt them, and he couldn’t help his reaction to her. It was almost genetic. She’d known men who fell into swoons after a mere smile from the beauteous Chance.
“Kett, wait.”
“Speak of the devil.” Kett narrowed her eyes and carried on walking. Well, limping. Fucking leg.
“Are you all right?”
“Five by five.”
“No, you’re about two by three. And the three’s for your leg.”
Kett scowled at her. Chance remained unmoved.
“He’s cute,” she said.
Kett shrugged.
“What are you so pissed off about?”
She stopped, squeezed her eyes shut. Nothing she had any reason to be pissed off about. “Nothing,” she said. “I’m just…cranky.”
Chance touched her arm, and Kett knew she was trying to weigh up the spell. Well, that wasn’t helping with the crankiness. Being trapped in one skin was maddening. How did other people manage it their whole lives?
“Can you lift it?” she asked.
Chance frowned. “No. I…you know I’m still learning. Striker might be able to.”
Kett snorted.
“Okay, he will be able to. Whether or not you can talk him into it, I don’t know.”
“I owe him enough already. I’ll think of something else,” Kett said.
Chance started to say something, hesitated, then said, “It’s suppressing your shifting powers, isn’t it?”
Kett nodded and started walking again. She didn’t ask how Chance knew—for one thing, Chance knew a lot of things without being told, and for another, it had been a long time since she’d appeared in public with all her scars showing.
Of course, the nakedness hadn’t helped with that.
“And you don’t have any idea who did it?”
“Nope.”
“Or why?”
“No, I think I have a handle on the why. You want to keep a shapeshifter in chains, you stop her shifting.”
“Chains? We’re not talking the fun, kinky kind of chains here, are we?”
“No.” Kett chewed her own lip. “I need a smoke.”
“Thought you’d given up?”
“I gave up cigarettes. I need a cigar.”
Chance was quiet as they walked a little farther, then she said, “Kett, what the fuck happened?”
Kett sighed. “I don’t know. I really don’t.”
Chance frowned, but she didn’t press it. “How’s your leg?”
“Five by—” She saw Chance’s face and amended, “Better.”
“You need anything, give me a yell,” Chance said. She pointed to a door. “Think this is yours.”
“Cheers.”
Chance nodded and backed down the corridor. “And Bael really is cute. Fancies the pants off you too.”
“Right,” Kett said, knowing when she was being consoled.
“Have some sex. Really. It’s good for you.” Chance winked as she disappeared around a corner.
“I had no idea,” Kett said sourly, pushing the door open and coming face-to-face with Bael. Well, face to chest, really. He was lounging on the bed, magnificently bare-chested, wearing only the loose pants he’d had on under his robe.
Kett bit her lip to keep her mouth closed as she took him in. Good heavens. Sweet, merciful fuck.
Clearly, she hadn’t been paying attention before.
Bael had wonderful golden skin, a light dusting of hair and the most marvelous musculature she’d seen outside of the army. Or in it, come to think. Really beautifully defined chest, narrow waist, the sort of tight stomach that came from hours of hard exercise. Fabulous arms. Strong biceps and, even better, wonderful forearms. Sword-fighting, bow-pulling forearms.
Last night’s frantic sex in the woods had been too hurried, and too dark, to make out any details. This afternoon she’d been too preoccupied with the throbbing pain in her leg to notice anything. But now she could see old, small scars on his skin. Maybe he was more of a warrior than she’d thought.
“Kett,” he said cheerfully.
Of course, a warrior would have better survival instincts.
“How did you get here?”
He looked
nonplussed. “Er, I walked.”
“I mean, before me.”
“I walked faster?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. Of course, she’d been limping around getting lost. Without being able to turn into something with superior tracking abilities, she felt half-blind.
“Kett, Kett, Kett,” he said, swinging to his feet as she shrugged off her kimono. “I know you’re crazy for my body but I didn’t expect you to start taking your clothes off so soon. However, I can’t possibly deny you,” he said, and started unfastening his trousers.
“I’m going to bed,” she snapped.
“Great. Bed is excellent. One of my favorite places to have sex.”
“Not for sex,” she said, because despite his big hard chest and delicious forearms, she was still a little mad at him. “To sleep.”
“Oh.” He looked disappointed, standing there with his clothes half-off. “You’ve been sleeping all day.”
“So?”
“Er. Are you really still tired?”
“Yes,” she said. And because that really wasn’t true and he could tell, added, “And my leg really hurts.”
“Oh,” he said again, looking really disappointed this time. “Really hurts?”
Another exaggeration. But it wasn’t pain-free.
“I could always rub it better,” he offered, brightening. “With some liniment.”
“No. It’s fine.” She shucked the shift she’d been wearing under the kimono and crawled into bed. Bael stood right next to her, all big and muscular and irritating and wrong.
“Or kiss it better?”
“It probably still tastes of liniment,” she said, pulling the covers up to her chin and closing her eyes so she didn’t have to look at his hot body anymore.
“Well, then, I’ll kiss somewhere else better. Take your mind off it.”
Kett swallowed. Beneath the sheets, her nipples puckered. Picking up where they’d left off did sound tempting.
“Because, you know, it doesn’t have to be sweaty, athletic sex.”
And why was she really mad at him, anyway? She was just overreacting. Frustrated.