When I glanced back at Vala, she’d guided Aquilo’s hands to her waist and was kissing up his jaw, whilst slow dancing to the song’s beat like she was screwing him right there against the wall…just taking his everything…through the power of the music and the graze of her fangs against his throat.
It was dark, erotic, and messed-up.
“I don’t think so,” I fiercely whispered.
When I tried to wriggle out from underneath the wolf, however, Amadeus snatched my sleeve. His expression was troubled. “I’m sorry if I didn’t please you, but it was Aquilo’s idea. My sister’s treating him like a favored Omega, and there’s nowhere safer in this kingdom than in my sister’s favor. Doesn’t Aquilo get the choice to protect you, or are we truly your slaves?”
Woah, Amadeus knew how to snap a witch’s broomstick.
If I respected Aquilo as an equal, then I had to let him choose, even if he was being dumb. I’d never allow him to die for me, but Amadeus knew this kingdom better than I did; I had to trust him as well.
Amadeus nodded towards the door, and grudgingly I nodded back.
Yet I froze when Vala unbuttoned Aquilo’s black velvet shirt. She teasingly revealed his sculptured chest, the sweet dips of his collarbones, and his pink nipples; I craved to lick and kiss between them, until he melted into my touch. I was desperate to show him that he should be quivering in pleasure, rather than holding himself with the same stiffness and terror as a kitten dangled by the scruff of its neck about to be drowned.
Aquilo was no incubus seducer…
In the House of Blood, I’d overheard Aquilo’s mom warn him that as the male he was only the breeding stock and had to make sure I was happy in bed because then maybe I wouldn’t hurt him too badly.
Yep, that hadn’t made me want to hurl at all.
I’d promised Aquilo that we wouldn’t be following the typical witch model, but what were my words and a couple of tender hugs when compared to a lifetime of lectures, whippings, and fearing your arranged marriage?
Then Vala slipped out her iPhone and wrenched Aquilo’s shirt away to reveal one snowy shoulder. He yelped, cringing back. My shadows whipped out, and I battled to restrain them.
Vala held up her phone with a grin. “Say silver.”
Woah, Aquilo’s glare could’ve frozen her into an ice statue, but she still snapped the photo.
“I didn’t imagine that the desire to see me in such a state of undress would be high amongst the Crescents.” Aquilo tried for casual, but hey, he didn’t pull it off.
Vala licked up his neck, and he shuddered. “Guess again, Blood boy. By the face of the moon, do you even know how many families have lost children to your House? You’re a celebrity.” When Aquilo ducked his head, Vala tilted up his chin. “Why don’t you drop your pants? Let’s see if it’s true or not that Bloods steal our Omegas because their own males have no dicks.”
Okay, screw all that noble stuff about trust and choices. There was no way on earth that Aquilo’s pants were coming off.
Aquilo and I were going to have a serious chat about acceptable diplomacy tactics because Aquilo wasn’t Amadeus or Emperor who’d both been taught to wield seduction as a weapon. Maybe that was why Amadeus didn’t understand the danger.
Ivy had once asked me to be careful with her son because he was an innocent. It wasn’t like I had a lot of experience before I came to England because hiding my magic from non-magical boyfriends had made anything more than a couple of coffee dates like a Bond movie. But Aquilo was a virgin, and I wouldn’t let Vala steal his first sexual experiences because Aquilo had some warped view of his role as my fiancé.
Like a weirdly overdressed worm, I squirmed out from underneath the stuffed wolf to face off with the real one. Behind me, I heard Amadeus sigh and heave himself to stand next to me.
“Hands off my fiancé, bitch,” I growled.
Vala dropped her phone, which clattered amongst the bones.
Aquilo’s neck and chest blushed a pretty pink, as he bit his lip. I shivered with the desire to take his lip between my own teeth, and then to suck away the hurt. Except, even more than that, I had the itching urge to bite a certain wolf princess and not in a sexy way, who’d smugly swung her arm around Aquilo’s shoulder.
It wasn’t like I could miss that message.
“Flame, I thought that I’d taught you better than that.” Vala’s claws tapped Aquilo’s nose. “If you’d meant to disobey me, at least you could’ve done it well. What’s with the unstealthy?”
Amadeus whimpered, hunching his shoulders at her disapproval. Wait…so, she was most pissed off that his ninja assassin skills hadn’t been perfect?
What on earth had they taught Amadeus?
“You’re still handsy,” I snarled.
My shadows burst out, casting the skulls and bones in a red like they were seeped in blood.
Vala’s mouth tightened. “See, that’s because he’s my mage.”
I clenched my jaw. “Would it turn you on if he cried?”
Vala’s eyes glowed golden. “I’m not a witch. That’s what turns on Wolf Charmers. Didn’t you spend long enough in the cave to learn that?”
I flushed. What did I say that came close to how I’d felt in the Forever Memory Cave, unless you know, it started with I’m sorry my family murdered your family? Wait, maybe that was okay. “I’m sorry—”
“Please, apologize for your family’s genocide of mine.” Vala’s teeth elongated, until she was partially shifted.
My breathing became ragged, as I snapped shut my mouth. Huh, in dumb ideas of the week that ranked highly.
Only then did I notice that Vala was herself shaking, whilst she stroked Aquilo’s hair back from his forehead more to soothe herself than him.
Why in the witching heavens hadn’t I realized it before? The Alphas of Vala’s generation were as messed-up as the Omegas and Betas, simply in a different way. They’d also lived through the Wolf War as kids, witnessing their parents’ humiliating defeat, their relocation into the Wolf Kingdom, and their oppression ever since by the witches.
Yet the danger was that the Alphas were in a position of power to do something about it. They’d had a hundred years to plan how to damage the witches back, and by the blazing glare that Vala directed at me, I was certain that she planned to.
I had to free my princes and my people from this wounded generation, or they’d prove the witches right about them being nothing but beasts, savages, and killers.
Jesus, I couldn’t even think about the deaths of my hot, sinful, and glorious wolves if they lost a second war.
Amadeus slunk to Aquilo, doing up his shirt because Aquilo’s hands weren’t steady enough. Aquilo flinched even at his gentle touch.
Then Amadeus peeked up at his sister through his eyelashes, before touching her cheek. “If it pleases you, sister, the Charmer’s not what we always thought. She’s as much a wolf as a witch, and she could help—"
Vala shoved Aquilo into the wall, before snatching Amadeus by the front of his top. She was taller than him, and his toes scrabbled in the bones, throwing up a mist of dust. “Don’t try and manipulate me, brother. Ever.” Amadeus was breathing in harsh pants; his eyes were blown wide with fear, as he nodded. “You are not pleasing me.”
Amadeus whined, high and pained.
Vala was hurting him, simply through her displeasure. I gritted my teeth, rocking back on my heels to stop my crimson from ripping Amadeus from her grasp.
Control, control, control…
My shadows throbbed through me like a red tidal sea, but I couldn’t act like just another dickhead Wolf Charmer, no matter how much I craved to show this jerk of a princess how I protected my pack because that’d be repeating my great-grandmother’s mistakes.
Plus, once I unleashed the crimson tide, I didn’t know if I could stop it washing away every wolf in its wake.
“Remember what’s stamped on your wolfie ass,” I ordered because commands helped Amadeus, and anything that
’d win in the verbal war with Vala was an incubus approved weapon. “You’re mine, and you please me, right?”
Amadeus’s whine transformed into a moan of pleasure.
Boom — that was how to explode the pleasure bomb.
I wrinkled my nose. I even made my own brain shudder with that image.
Vala clutched her brother’s bicep, shaking him. “Since you’ve returned, you’ve done nothing but displease me.”
Amadeus panted like she’d punched him in the gut.
My nostrils flared. “Honestly, you always please me.”
Amadeus’ eyelids fluttered; his fingers opened and closed compulsively, caught between the twin sensations of pleasure and pain.
“You bring me no pleasure,” Vala whispered, hot and cruel against his ear.
Amadeus’ knees buckled, and she let go of him, allowing him to tumble to her feet with a howl. I bit my tongue, whilst my own shoulders quivered.
A curse on a mage’s dick, how could she hurt her own brother like this?
“Look at me,” I commanded. When Amadeus raised his gaze to mine, peering through his black hair that was stark against the translucent white of his skin, I remembered the way that he’d looked at me with such love in the cave. I hoped that he remembered the love that’d been in my eyes as well. “Pleasure…your tongue…my mind blown.”
Aquilo pulled at the frayed bottom of his shirt as he muttered, “You don’t need to crow about it. How mind blowing can a kiss be?”
Amadeus snickered. “She didn’t say where the kiss was, see?”
I hadn’t thought that Aquilo could blush any deeper, and boy, did that make me wonder what he’d be like caught in the tangle of an angel, wolf, and witch snuggle fest, which made me flush almost as pink as him with desire.
“Mind…blowing.” I arched my brow like it was a fencing sword at Vala.
“Yeah, I’m not playing the Does He, Doesn’t He Please Me Game,” Vala growled. I swallowed because the way she’d announced that made it sound like a kid’s game that was popular with incubi stuck in the middle. She hauled Amadeus to the door. “On fear of silver, don’t speak and go to the Isolation Room. You don’t deserve to feed tonight.”
Like the Kingdom of the Gods hadn’t been starved enough…but then, the witches had taught them that trick.
Amadeus’ voice was thick with tears but also a blazing fearlessness, “Goddess Moon! Why don’t you see that I’m not yours anymore to punish? I don’t have to please you, only my Charmer.”
Vala froze; her cheek twitched, even as her claws sank into Amadeus’ arms. Jesus, his words must’ve hurt her after decades of raising Amadeus (and don’t think that I’d missed how she loved him possessively), to be rejected for the monster who the entire kingdom feared.
Yep, karma was a witch.
Vala tossed her brother out of the museum without meeting his eye. “Now do you see why you displease me?”
When she swept back towards me, I stumbled because you know, I’d never understood how someone could have a murderous glint in their eye but I did now. Her sharp claws extended even further, whilst her fangs gleamed.
I was trapped in this underground kingdom, whilst Mischief was leashed, and the rest of my pack was hidden somewhere apart and alone from me. I shivered, chilled at the rage and hatred that swirled in the princess’ eyes: I’d known that we were enemies.
In my arrogance, I’d grown too used to wolves either loving or fearing me, rather than hungering to tear out my throat. I’d spent so much of the last week battling to stop the witches murdering the wolves, that I’d never thought the wolves would fight back.
Yet Vala prowled past me, snatching Aquilo by his hair instead and pulling him after her. My throat burned, as she straddled the back of a wolf like she was riding the Omega.
Aquilo’s desperate gaze met mine. He thrashed in an attempt to stop himself being dragged onto the wolf as well and being trapped in front of Vala.
Vala pulled Aquilo up, however, holding him in place like they were lovers on a motorbike.
I understood Aquilo’s panic because his House had killed almost as many Omegas as mine, and it was one thing to know that and another to literally ride the dead.
He was going to hurl again…
“What a clever Wolf Witch stealing my Beta,” Vala hissed. “Only, if he’s no longer mine, then your mage won’t ever be yours.”
I clasped my hands behind my back to control the red. It’d been easier when I’d been bound in Cosmos Tower by Ivy, before she’d thrown me to the wolves, because all my power had been taken from me. But now I had to control myself and do the adult thing that would save all sides in these supernatural wars.
Huh, this was what it felt like to have true responsibility: it was kind of like a panic attack combined with heartburn.
“I take it your loser ass isn’t aware that I can say a couple of words and our magical engagement is broken?” I cocked my head, ignoring the way that Aquilo flinched. Please let him realize that I didn’t mean a damn word of my bluff. “Check out the markings around his wrist. If I break the bond, it’ll kill him. It looks like you better release him, huh? After all, he can’t give you any kinky fun if he’s cold and stiff.”
Vala’s eyes blazed, as she raised Aquilo’s wrist to study the blood bracelet that was now throbbing violently; Aquilo whimpered. Then she traced over it sensually with her tongue, never lowering her intent stare from mine.
“By my fangs, every time that I believe witches can’t invent a worse cruelty, they find a way to impress me with their heartlessness.” To my surprise, Vala slipped off the back of the wolf, handling Aquilo as gently as glass as she helped him down. “How could you murder such beauty? You don’t deserve him or any of them.”
I blinked. “I never asked for a wolf as a birthday present or the Tributes. Plus, the angels were just sort of in my basement and attic. Okay, I did propose to Aquilo but…” I trailed off. “When did I say that I deserved them?”
“Yet you’d kill them.” Vala shoved Aquilo stumbling across the museum, and I caught him in my arms. When he peered at me through his mop of hair, I smiled at him. “Whereas I wish to bring my pack to life.”
“Just to be clear, you’re not breaking the bond…?” There was a resigned acceptance in Aquilo’s question, even though it was threaded with hope.
I hated that.
I dragged Aquilo into a cuddle worthy of Moon, despite his muffled protest. Yet his head relaxed onto my shoulder, and he let himself be held like this was what he’d needed but would never have asked for.
He’d never need to ask me for gentleness.
“I’ve already watched too many people who I love die. I’ll never break the bond. You’re kind of stuck with my Charmer ass.” I rested my forehead against Aquilo’s.
Vala’s eyes narrowed. “That would truly get me right in the feels, except for the number of wolves who I’ve loved and had to watch die or be sacrificed. Yeah, way more than the witches that you saw massacred. So, you mum and dad died, what do you think it felt like to have my brother ripped from my arms?” She stroked her hands across the back of a stuffed wolf. “My mum thinks that you’re a god, but I know that you’re a devil in disguise. And unlike my mum, I bite. Gods arise!”
Suddenly, a rumbling growl echoed through the museum.
That didn’t sound good.
Then the stuffed wolf’s fur bristled and the wolf turned its head to glare at me with flaming glass eyes.
I eeped, stumbling backward and dragging Aquilo with me.
Yep, zombie werewolves not good at all and worse even than the nightmares that had haunted me for the last decade.
All around us, the stuffed wolves were shaking their heads and arching their backs like they were becoming familiar with their bodies after a long time asleep.
And for asleep, read being dead.
As if with a hive mind, the wolves turned and howled, launching themselves at me. I screamed, falling on my ass, but m
y crimson shadows webbed out to cocoon a shield, whilst Aquilo blasted wind at the wolves.
I tensed, waiting for the howl, clash, or snap of jaws…something. I stared around the gloom in shock: the zombie werewolves had vanished like they’d been no more than ghosts.
My shadows coiled around me in comfort, stroking down my sides to distract me from the unease.
Vala gave a hollow laugh. “So, the mighty Wolf Charmer jumps at shadows. Fool witch, why fear the dead, when the living will soon be at your throat?”
And there it was: the dark threat crossing behind Vala’s eyes that promised pain, war, death…and a plot that I had to uncover.
I forced myself to my feet, staggering across the bones to her. “Would you, the living, and the dead go for it, if I said let’s chill out, have a glass of wine together, and be friends now?”
I grinned winningly. Unless you were an Alpha who hated me, in which case I might as well have waved a wolf flaying knife in front of her to piss her off.
Vala grabbed me by the curls, slamming me against the wall, whilst her fangs descended to my neck. I yelped, as her teeth nicked my skin, and my blood trailed down like warm tears.
My eyes widened in terror. The dickhead didn’t plan to Wolf Bite me…? I wasn’t anyone’s Omega, and I’d never be the princess’.
Then Vala murmured, as her breath huffed against my ear, “By the light of the moon, my mum is buried in her grief and so sits on a throne of bones in the dark amongst the dead, forever remembering. I will lead our kingdom into one of light and life. Then you will wish that the Wilds had torn you to pieces as they should’ve done because a crimson tide is coming.” I jumped: Crimson Tide…? I became ashen, as a wave of dizziness hit me. What if my family’s motto had been about more than my shadows because the Wolf Charmer line was connected to the royal line of wolves in a way that was more complex than I yet understood? “A tide of blood.”
When Vala’s fangs pressed harder against my neck, I shuddered. I’d thought that having been thrown to the wolves, I’d become leader of the pack.
Instead, I was nothing but an icon like Mischief to be used to rally a kingdom to war.
Only Pretty Betas: A Shifter Paranormal Romance Series (Rebel Werewolves Book 2) Page 25