by Jana Leigh
“Rules? Whatever fish boy, I can totally become a fish, who cares about rules. I just want to shift again,” Alex said.
“Well, FISH GIRL, let’s get a move on, and get back,” Xander said and spanked her ass when she went by. Alex laughed and then she shook her hips a little more when she kept moving.
The three got dressed quickly and began to go back to the main building where the men had been staying. But before they did, she asked if they could stop at the King’s house.
They took her on the tour and she was shocked. The place was huge inside, she looked at each room, most were painted in the soft peaches, whites, and grays, her mind swirled with the possibilities. How the hell were they ever going to actually fill it? The one thing she did love was the huge kitchen that was in the house. She loved the chef’s cooking but she also loved to cook herself. She wondered how they got the fresh ingredients.
“How do you get milk, eggs, butter, you know stuff like that?” Alex asked and the men laughed.
“Well, we have a freezer, and we have dried milk and eggs. We have regular deliveries where we can request stuff, like I said, we have our sources,” Xander said and shrugged his shoulders. They continued to look around for a few minutes and when they came to the master bedroom, Alex peeked her head in and smiled. It was almost bigger than her whole apartment on the surface.
Des pushed her in and she laughed when she saw the huge walk-in closets, one for the men, and one for her. Then they pushed her toward the bathroom and she felt like she had died and gone to heaven. It had a separate, large shower that could fit them all, and a jet bathtub, large enough for three. There were three sinks against the wall, the bathroom had black marble swirled with silver—it was gorgeous. She could not wait to slip into the tub and take a bubble bath.
“When can we move in, and since the mate’s house is not done, and we have a lot of bedrooms, I counted five others on each wing, can we put Sam and Gabby in the west wing together, and we would all be happy,” Alex asked.
Xander nodded, “No problem, we will ask the men to help us in the morning, but for now, let’s get back to the headquarters.”
Alex reluctantly left the home and stared longingly as they drove away. She never dreamed she would actually find a home that she loved. When she was small, the house she grew up in was not a home; it was a monstrosity that she lived in. Her father loved it because it spoke of his prestige and his ego. As a child she barely saw him. Thinking back, the house was probably the same size as this one, however, this was a warm feeling, wonderful home she could see raising children in with the men she loved. Wait, what? Loved? Shit, when the hell had that happened? With tears in her eyes she looked at her men, Xander pulled the cart over when he saw her eyes.
“Sweetheart, what is it, are you hurt? Do we need to call Sage, can you make it back?” Xander said anxiously.
Des was out of the back and leaning over her, running his hands over her body looking for something. “I don’t see anything, but it could be the shift, maybe it screwed stuff up.”
Alex cried harder and pulled one of their hands to her chest, which made them pause. “No, I am fine, I just realized something.”
“Thank goodness, you scared the shit out of me!” Des said with a relieved tone.
“What did you realized?” Xander said slowly with a guarded tone.
Alex smiled through her tears and looked at both of them and wailed, “I love you both.”
There was silence as she continued to sob and pull them close to her, she didn’t notice the silence for a few moments and then pulled back and looked at them. Des was laughing and Xander was frowning.
“What?” she said.
“Not to sound like an ass or anything but DUH!” Des said, kissed her soundly, and then jumped back into the back of the cart.
Alex sat there stunned, “Hey, that sounded exactly like an ass.”
“Was there even a question of that?” Xander frowned.
“When you are a female, yes. I told you, I love you and now you should be telling me how much you love me,” Alex said impatiently.
Xander looked over his shoulder where Des was laughing quietly again. “Why? We already said it,” Xander said.
Alex thought and then frowned, “No you didn’t.”
“Yes, we did,” Xander argued. “When we had sex, Meridians do not have sex with anyone other than their mates. So of course, we love you. We bonded—it is the ultimate declaration of love.”
Alex shook her head. “Doesn’t count unless you say it.”
“I love you,” Xander said flippantly.
“Now I don’t want you to say it. Not unless you mean it,” Alex said.
“We do!” Xander yelled.
“No you don’t, or you would have said it,” Alex said and folded her arms across her body.
“FINE!” Xander said and made the cart jump.
Des opened his mouth to say something and Alex held up her hand, “Not a fucking word.”
The rode the rest of the way to the main building in silence, when they arrived Alex got out and stomped to the main floor. She walked up the stairs until she got to the medical floor and slammed the door of her room.
“What just happened?” Des said, scratching his head in frustration.
“I have no clue, but we are gonna find out,” Xander said and walked to where the medical offices were and slammed open the room. “SAGE!!!”
***
“How in the hell could you fuck up a mating?” Sage asked, laughing.
“Oh, real funny, wait until you have to deal with your female mate, then you will see what the hell we are talking about. This is screwed up. And she shifted,” Xander said.
Sage nodded and frowned, “Yeah, we have to take more tests before we can allow her to do that again. Make sure that she has no lasting effects, how she shifted, why now, all of it. We have to figure it out,” Sage said and stood. “Why don’t you go to Cash and Rosul, see if they can do some research about how to dig yourself out of a hole when you piss off a woman. I will take care of the rest.”
“On it,” Des said and dragged Xander out of the room protesting. Des already had an idea of what would make their little mate turn around.
***
“Now I am dying, just tell me,” Alex said dramatically and then took another swig of the wine bottle. By the time Sage had gotten to their room, they had called the chef and asked for wine. Thank goodness, he got there before she had started drinking. The blood he took from her, Sam and Gabby was at least alcohol free.
“You are not dying,” Sage said from the corner as he tried to make sense of the reports that were spitting out of his machine.
The women were on the floor behind him, each with a bottle in hand, each with an empty one next to them. They were shit faced. Sage was just taking it in stride, although he had called their mates. However, when the men showed up in their room, the women stormed out and came into his office. Now he was stuck with three drunken women who were bitching about men.
“Then what am I?” Alex slurred. “I can tell you what I am not. I’m not a human. I’m not a rug to be walked over. Damn it, I’m a woman with needs, and they are being asses. So until they pull their collective asses out of their heads, this vagina is closed.”
“Yep, we all have closed vaginas,” Sam said and held up her wine bottle for them all to ‘cheers.’
“I say, we put a sign on the floor, I mean the door,” Gabby said. “Casius thinks he can tell me what to do. You know that is the only time he talks to me, when he is telling me what I am going to do. My vagina is not going to be opened for a long time!”
Casius leaned forward into the camera and then growled.
“Has he kissed you yet, ‘cause I can tell you, these guys can really kiss,” Alex said and laughed.
Gabby shook her head. “Hell no, he pisses me off too much.” Gabby looked straight into the camera and growled back.
The girls giggled and knocked their bottles t
ogether again. Sage shook his head and focused on the results.
“Do you think you could listen and focus for a minute?”
“Sure can, Dr. Fishman,” Alex said and held up her bottle.
“Can I invite the men in please? This will affect them,” Sage said.
“Nope, put them on the screen, Spock, we can talk from here,” Sam said. “We need space.”
Sage rolled his eyes, and then pushed the controls on his screen. All of the men appeared on the screen, they were all in Xander’s office. His King narrowed his eyes as he took in the scene in the medical office.
“Sage?” Xander said, put his fingers up, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Are they drinking?”
“Damn Skippy we are,” Gabby said and laughed when Casius growled. “You should have been a werewolf, not a Mermaid.”
“MERMEN!” Casius ground out and the women laughed.
“Sage, I thought you were running tests,” Xander said.
“I am, I did, shit, listen, I have the results back, and I am not sure what is going on, but I only want to have to explain this once,” Sage said and pointed over his shoulders and continued, “and they are a bit drunk.”
“Hey, don’t call us drunk. We are slightly incapacitated,” Alex slurred and lifted her bottle.
“Ha, bet you can’t say that five times,” Sam said, slapping the floor.
“Moving on,” Sage rolled his eyes. “Alex’s blood has changed, she is full Meridian now, I don’t know how or why. However, Sam and Gabby still have partial blood—it may have to do with the mating, or the water. We are going to have to test the others to see. First, I have to run more tests on Alex. We have to make sure that this change is not temporary or anything. We are talking about new territory. I think the genetic markers have something to do with this, as well as the mating. We need to figure this all out, but until then, the women should not shift again—under any circumstances.”
Xander and the men nodded their heads and began to ask questions. “What about mating with Alex, I mean it is kinda a done deal,” Xander said.
“Hey, this VAGINA IS CLOSED!” Alex laughed loudly.
“Huh?” Des said into the screen and looked at Alex as she frowned at them on the screen.
“What did I say, buddy. You can’t tell me that you love me, then that’s it. Figure it out,” Alex growled.
“I did tell you I loved you, damn it,” Xander ground out into the screen.
“Shit, this is like a real live soap opera. I need some bon-bons and another bottle,” Sam said and leaned against her sister.
“Yeah, maybe we should make sure there is like no gun, you know how the soaps are, shit, someone always gets shot and then they come back to life,” Gabby whispered.
“Bitches, I can hear you,” Alex laughed. Then she turned and looked at her men and stuck out her tongue. “And you said, ‘Duh,’ Des and Xander, I am not even talking about your response. When a woman says, I love you, and you just look at her with a frown. That is messed up.”
“We explained that,” Xander protested and looked around at the men who were in the room. “And what the hell is a soap opera?”
“Hey, don’t know the soaps, Days of our Lives, and As the World Turns is fucking real!” Sam said. “And you two,” she said pointing at Cash and Rosul, “you had better be taking notes ‘cause seriously, I ain’t dealing with this shit.”
Cash glared at Des and Xander and said, “See what you have started.”
“What, we didn’t do anything. How hard is it from going to part A to part B?” Xander said.
“What? Are you referring to our relationship like you would Legos, are you fucking kidding me?” Alex roared and tried to stand, only falling back to where she was, and leaning against the wall. “This is all your fault.”
Sage looked at his friends and said, “For the love of God, please stop.”
***
Alex rolled over and hit one of her friends in the side of the head and they both cried out from the pain that struck their head. “Shit,” Alex moaned, “where did the train come from?”
Sam and Gabby held their arms over their eyes and moaned together. “The light—it burns.”
They heard a man chuckling and all of them looked around. How in the hell had they ended up on the floor of their room in the hospital wing? Sage was standing over them shaking his head.
“Well, darlings, you passed out after arguing about a show called, Dance Mom’s. I have no idea what you are talking about, but the lady who runs the studio sounds kinda mean,” Sage said and bent down to help them up to their feet.
All of them moaned and groaned as they took turns in the shower and changed out of their dirty clothes.
“You know it is all Xander and Des’s fault. I swear men can be so stupid,” Alex grumbled.
“Yes, we could say they were stupid and ignorant men who should have known better. Or we could say they were stupid and ignorant men who are aliens that live with fifty other men and have basically had limited female interaction for three hundred years. Tomatoes, Tamatoes, I guess. I mean, how dare they not know how to deal with you, a female mate they never would have dreamed they would find. Very rude, you should never speak to them again,” Sage said and leaned against the wall as the information flowed through her head.
Alex paced and then went into the shower and thought some more. By the time she was dressed and ready for the day, Alex was sobbing and needing comfort from her friends as she wailed.
“I am such a fuck up. I finally found men who love me—for me—not for what I can do for them. And what do I do? Act like a demanding, heartless, spoiled, bitchy prima-donna,” Alex said.
Sage looked around the room helplessly. He never thought she would start crying again. He just thought she would think things over, now he was stuck in the room with three wailing females again. What the hell had his life become? He was not a babysitter.
Relief came when Xander and Des pounded on the door. Apparently, his leader had lost his patience, he needed to warn them before they walked into the hormonal fest he had going on.
Before he could reach the door, Alex jumped up and ran for the door, flinging it open, and then into her men’s stunned, waiting arms, crying.
“What happened?” Xander demanded, folding the woman against him as he felt Des push to their side and engulf them in protection as they looked around.
Alex began mumbling and crying, but neither of the men could make out what she was saying. They were not sure how to deal with this—crying—happy—mad.
Sam smiled and nodded then put an arm around her sister and hugged her. “Oh look, our little Drill Sargent is growing up,” Sam sniffed and Alex turned and glared at her before looking up at her men.
“I am sorry,” Alex sniffed.
Xander and Des smiled and said, “We were wrong, too, apparently. So let’s begin our mating again, shall we?”
“Can I shift again then?” Alex asked excitedly and Sam and Gabby stepped forward.
“No!” yelled Sage and they turned and looked at him. “No shifting until we make sure you will not be harmed.”
Alex frowned and looked at the men. What had she missed, thinking back to last night, she frowned. She remembered being in the office, Sage explaining things.
“So, I am dying?” Alex asked.
“Seriously, can we get off the dying thing, NO, you are not dying? We are just being cautious, running tests, making sure that everything is okay,” Sage said.
“Well, this whole crying thing is just strange,” Alex sniffed. “I am not a crier and I tell you this is the most I think I have cried in my entire life. Why?”
Sage stepped forward and frowned, “What do you mean?”
Sam laughed, “She means, that normally, she is the Bitch In Charge, no one, nothing, and especially no man, ever made her cry—at least in public.”
Alex nodded and sniffed, feeling that overwhelming feeling coming over her again. What the hell? she wondere
d, then looked back at her mates and felt their worry.
“Sage, can you explain this?” Xander demanded.
“Not yet, let me run some more tests, I would say let’s keep her comfortable, relaxed, and no drama,” Sage said.
“We can take care of that,” Des said.
Everyone in the room laughed at Des’s tone, they knew exactly what Des was referring to.
Chapter Twelve
Charles Collins IV stormed into his office and slammed the door after yelling at his secretary to hold all his calls. His daughter was being a pain in the ass. Where the fuck was she. He needed her. James needed her, and damn it, she was going to do what he said or else.