Fate's Fools Box Set

by Bell, Ophelia

  “Can they even share their souls with me? Now that you’ve already done it, I mean. All I know from my studies is how the individual races work. There’s nothing about chimeras because there’s never been one before. As far as the texts are concerned, I’m theoretical, and I don’t think the lack of a soul part has anything to do with being mixed-race. That was all Meri’s doing.”

  He led me into the huge walk-in shower and turned the knobs. Cold water blasted from two walls and I yelped in surprise, jumping into his arms. Rohan chuckled and held me close, looking down at me. “Well, my theory is as good as any then, right?”

  The water heated and I eased back and closed my eyes, relaxing beneath the spray. “What’s your theory?”

  “That you’re part dragon.”

  “That’s fact,” I said. “We know that already.” I turned and tilted my face up into the hot water, groaning when he slid big, soapy hands slide over my shoulders and down my back.

  “Let me finish. You are part dragon, yet you couldn’t shift before last night. How much of your dragon nature could you manifest?”

  “Not much. The passive stuff like seeing auras, channeling magic with my prismatic powers. Conjuring small stuff.”

  “And today, now that you have a dragon soul?” He slipped his hands around my torso and cupped my breasts, roving his sudsy palms over both heavy globes like he might see his fortune in them. I leaned my head back on his shoulder and just for the hell of it tested my newfound powers to shift.

  I opened my eyes and held up my hands in front of me. Brilliant, iridescent scales shimmered in waves across my skin and my fingertips transformed into gleaming talons. Doing that was effortless and sent an intense thrill through me that rivaled the pleasure of Rohan’s touch. I went a step further and exhaled a lungful of smoke that quickly filled the enclosed shower.

  “Still not quite sure what I can do with my smoke,” I admitted.

  “Anything you like, really. You healed the wounded hound last night with it. Prismatics are only limited by their imagination and their reserves of magic.”

  I focused and gradually the smoke changed color, transforming into a shimmering golden cloud, and even though the sun hadn’t broken through the fog outside, it was as though we had our own personal sunrise. Joy and happiness infused the room. Outside the shower door, four violet faces appeared in the steam. The four hounds sat happily wagging their tails.

  I turned and grinned up at Rohan. “This is fun.”

  “Do you see my point?” he asked, his expression earnest. “Now that you have a dragon soul, you have all your dragon powers. The only thing left to do is fully shift and fly.”

  “You think I need more than one soul to unlock my nature for each race?” I asked. “But if that’s true, I would need five mates. Doesn’t that seem excessive?”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re asking a dragon if collecting mates is excessive?

  I pressed my lips together and shook my head. “I know it sounds crazy considering my parents. Aunt Numa has five mates, but she’s so much more . . .” I paused, thinking about my regal Green dragon aunt who counted an actual god among her five mates. “Powerful, I guess. I suppose I don’t believe I’m strong enough to deserve anything close to what she has.”

  “You would be if you had all five of us,” Rohan offered.

  “But then that would mean you’d have to share me.”

  He let out a long sigh and swiped fingers through his wet hair, looking at me as if I were testing his patience. “With Keagan and the others, yes. In case you missed it, I’ve already shared you with two different men and the world didn’t end.” His expression grew more serious. “I love Keagan, and I’m not saying it has to be him, but he’s the one I’d choose if I have a vote on which ursa you pick. Bodhi’s growing on me. I already said I’d be down with Ozzie if he were into men, but I’d happily share you with him. No need for him to touch a dick if he didn’t want to. Llyr . . . jury’s out on him but he is clearly crazy about you, which I think is a prerequisite, and adding a satyr to the mix would definitely increase the power factor by about a hundred.”

  “Except Keagan’s the last person who’d work because I’m pretty sure he hates me. And Ozzie . . . well, we talked about him already.” I shook my head and turned back around, reaching for a bottle of shampoo.

  “Be honest with me, Deva. I promise you won’t hurt my feelings. Jealousy is not in my vocabulary. Just one dragon to another. Do you want them?”

  I swallowed and stalled as I worked my hair into a lather. The whole suggestion just sounded so . . . arrogant. Like I’d be flying too close to the sun. If I told him the truth I knew he wouldn’t judge, but after a year of having zero expectation of ever finding love, it felt a little risky to grasp at more than I felt I’d earned. Like I’d be testing Fate by trying to have too much all at once.

  But it was just the two of us here in this shower. At least if I didn’t count our little posse of fate hounds, who I’d have to deal with soon, now that I’d figured out they would indeed obey my commands. I didn’t have the same confidence in the other four men, however, but if Rohan wanted the truth, I’d at least give him that.

  “Yes,” I said, the confession unlocking a surge of emotion from somewhere deep inside. “I didn’t want to admit it out loud though, can you understand that?” I asked, abandoning my sudsy hair and looking up into his eyes again.

  “It’s okay to want happiness,” he said. “And I’m not too proud to realize you’re special. So special I might not be enough to give you what you need on my own. At least not real happiness. But I want it for you no matter what and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to give it to you.”

  “Does it matter if they don’t want me though?”

  Rohan gave me a warm smile and stepped in close, cupping my head and tilting it back so he could gaze down into my eyes. “Baby, I think whether or not they want you is the one thing you absolutely don’t need to worry about.”

  2

  Keagan

  Morning wood had never been a welcome distraction before, but today it was. I’d rather deal with the annoyance of a hard-on than the sounds of shower singing coming from Rohan’s bathroom.

  He and Deva were singing another duet. And laughing. And probably using up all the fucking hot water in the process. I needed to get them the fuck out of my head.

  I was just sliding my hand beneath the sheet for the much needed diversion when the bed shifted beside me, reminding me that I wasn’t alone.

  “Why the fuck are they so goddamn happy,” Bodhi grumbled, rolling onto his belly and pulling a pillow over his head.

  The scent of sex wafted up around him and my hard-on twitched. I opened my eyes and glanced over. His intricately tattooed arms were clamped around the pillow, muscles flexed.

  The man’s tattoos were works of art: two full sleeves and a full back piece depicting a flying fish soaring above an enormous wave, with the bright sun shining down on the water. It was painted in vibrant oranges and teals that made my own scraggly Joshua tree look lame by comparison.

  I loved my tattoo. It was a reminder of my link to the ursa Sanctuary’s Sundance portal in the Arizona desert that I’d spent a season guarding before beginning my pilgrimage. But unlike Bodhi’s vividly detailed tattoo, mine was as barren and solitary as the way I felt right now. My Joshua tree was as dependent on the rare gifts of rain for its survival as I was on whatever was going on in the next room, because the uncomfortable tug of magic from my soul had diminished seemingly overnight until I felt almost normal.

  But even if Deva and Rohan had done something to help me, dwelling on them only hurt in a different part of me, so I turned onto my side and fixed my attention on Bodhi’s ink instead. His tattoos were so intricate they served as a more interesting distraction than my own dick, at least. The more I looked, the more details I found hidden in the shadows of the tapestry of his back. He had stronger shoulders than had been apparent in clothes when we�
��d met, his flexed lats flaring wide as wings where they stretched up his sides, the line tapering down toward his ass with the artwork perfectly aligned with the muscle itself.

  I propped myself on an elbow to get a better view and pulled the sheet off his ass, curious whether the ink went farther south. His naked lower back displayed a symbol I’d never seen before. A stylized trident shape rested atop an inverted cross, the entire design rendered in black ink. It looked familiar for some reason, sparking some old ursa lesson that I’d long forgotten.

  “Dude, are you checking out my ass for any particular reason?” came his muffled query from beneath the pillows.

  I smirked and smacked him on one round, toned—and inkless—ass cheek. He jerked and pushed the pillow off, glaring at me.

  “Just admiring the art is all,” I said. “What’s this mean?” I traced the line of the symbol down to the cleft of his ass where it ended, letting my fingertip linger suggestively at the top of the crease. Apparently, the lowest point the ink went was right at the end of that symbol. Nothing but smooth, light-brown skin was visible beyond and my cock roused at the idea of the things I could do to an ass that tight.

  Bodhi shifted away just enough to prove he wasn’t ready for that kind of attention yet, but he didn’t run so there was still hope I’d get to return the favor. I’d love to find more of a distraction with him than simply admiring the scenery.

  “It’s the alchemical symbol for antimony. It’s a metal that’s sort of a universal symbol for adaptability and free spirits. The wild nature that’s present in all humans to some degree.”

  “Maybe a little more in you, I take it?” I let my hand rest on his hip and glanced down to his half-hard dick jutting toward me. Could be he was turned on or maybe he just needed to take a piss, but I wasn’t about to let the opportunity for a morning fuck sneak by, not with the noises coming from the next room.

  “I’m not afraid of trying new things but I also don’t dive in recklessly. I like to be prepared. Plan ahead.” He lifted both brows at me and then rolled over and slid off the bed.

  “You cock-blocking me dude?” I fell back and rested my forearm over my eyes, then dipped my hand down and took myself in my fist intent on finding some level of pleasure to drown out the sounds and the incessant sense that I was on the edge of needing to leap of a fucking cliff.

  “You’re out of lube!” he called back. “Can I use your shower?”

  “Sure. Just be prepared for a cold one. Those two have been in there for a while and I’m pretty sure I heard Willem and Sandor share one earlier. Our hot water tank is big but not that big.”

  I could have pictured Bodhi’s tight ass while playing with myself but somehow even the muffled sounds of Deva’s impassioned pleas had me picturing her face instead. Not even her luscious brown-sugar ass or her glorious, cushiony tits, either, but her face, and that desperate, needy look she’d given me just before she came on my cock the other day when I’d fucked her up against the fridge. The look that made me think she’d been about to sing for me if I’d let her, but she hadn’t.

  Fuck this shit. I needed visual aids or I was going to drive myself crazy thinking about her.

  The room spun for only a second when I stood but I pushed forward, stumbling into the bathroom and half-falling against the counter. I felt like I was coming off a drinking jag, which under the circumstances wasn’t a half bad idea for a way to spend the rest of the day. But if Bodhi was amenable, I had a better idea, or at least a secondary distraction for an activity to accompany the drinking I fully intended to do later.

  The room was entirely steam-free yet the shower was on full blast. Which, all things considered, worked just fine for me. It meant I had a clear view through the glass door at Bodhi in all his tattooed glory. My brows lifted as my gaze tracked down over his chest to his crotch.

  “Cold water’s not an issue for you,” I observed, staring at the heavy length of his cock hanging between his thighs. “That’s quite a talent.”

  He shot a wet look at me, his soapy hand dropping to cover his dick. With a scowl he said, “Are you just going to stand and watch me like a perv?”

  “Nah, I have all kinds of other plans for that ass,” I said, giving him a salacious grin. I stalked forward and opened the shower door, catching a whiff of my soap mingled with the earthy scent of him. He was a conundrum, this human who sang like a turul. His love of the water contradicted the impression that he carried turul essence, and his endurance of the cold was more an ursa or dragon trait. But he was most definitely human, unlike Deva.

  He stood his ground, simply staring at me in half-amused irritation as I climbed in, crowding his space beneath the shower spray. I had one of the smaller bathrooms that lacked the dual shower heads, so if I wanted to share with a friend, we had to get cozy.

  When my erection grazed his hip, his gaze darkened. “What the fuck are you after, dude?”

  “Distraction, pure and simple.” I reached up with one hand and redirected the shower head toward the wall, and with the other took the bottle of body wash off the shelf. At the same time, I crowded him backward under the spray again.

  He smacked into the tile with a little grunt and widened his stance. “Good, because I’m pretty sure what Deva wants for us isn’t going to happen. This is fun and all, but you are way too fucking pushy to be my soul mate.”

  “You gonna bitch at me for not asking first?” I glared at him as I squeezed a dollop of soap into my palm and then rubbed my hands together until I had a good lather. With my gaze fixed on his, I reached down between us and took his dick in one hand and mine in the other, coating us both with slippery suds. His half-hard cock stiffened fully and he let out a muffled curse, his head falling back against the tile.

  “Nah, man. I think you know what you’re doing. We can talk about boundaries later. Fuck, that feels good.”

  We both froze at the sound of an orgasmic female cry echoing through the house followed by a more masculine bellow. I grimaced but before I could say anything, Bodhi grabbed the sides of my head and slammed his mouth onto mine. When his tongue plunged between my lips, I silently thanked him by stroking his cock harder, then tilting my hips until our stiff lengths slid hotly together. I straddled one of his thighs to get closer, rubbing my dick against his, still a little impressed that he’d fucked me with that beast of a cock the night before. He was as big as I was, which was saying a lot for a human man.

  The memory of him inside me sent a fresh pulse of arousal to my balls and I gripped us both in one hand, just barely able to wrap my fingers around us together and stroke while I thrust against him.

  “Never thought this could be so goddamn hot,” Bodhi said, and I lifted my gaze to see his hooded eyes staring down at our soapy dicks sliding together in my fist. His ink-free abdominal muscles flexed with each thrust, his smooth, bronze belly broken by the faintest tan line that stretched across his hips, the lighter skin gradually darkening as it went south, until it was back to a deeper tan on his upper thighs. But even where his skin hadn’t seen the sun he was nearly as dark as me with my mix of Spanish and Native blood from the generations of bonded human tribes that mixed with the ursa to keep their blood fresh.

  Despite that human ancestry, I knew I wasn’t bloodline like he was. The human tribes bound to the ursa were thankfully insular enough to avoid corruption by our enemy. They’d have sooner died than be captured, and many had. But I was the perfect example that you didn’t have to be bloodline to get fucked over by Fate.

  I sped up my tempo, trying to chase away the errant thoughts, the regrets and misplaced craving for a woman I couldn’t have. Bodhi grunted and tangled his fingers in my hair, pulling me close so our foreheads pressed together.

  “Don’t fucking fight it. Push through it,” he said.

  “Push through what?” I asked, licking water from my lips. The temperature of the shower had somehow warmed a bit in the last few minutes despite the obvious sounds still carrying from Rohan’s bathro
om. Deva was singing again and he’d joined her in that goddamn duet from the day she walked into the music store.

  “Her. Them. We’re both a fucking Band-Aid for each other and you know it. We might just need to bleed a little to purge that pain. At least I know I’m not gonna be able to come until I let myself go there.”

  “Go where?” My stomach knotted with dread at the suggestion and my hard-on flagged the tiniest bit.

  “Wherever it was she took you that has you so goddamned ruined. For me it was the way she tasted.”

  My jaw clenched and I stopped my stroking but Bodhi took over, easily replacing my hand with his. The fresh sensation pushed me back to full, needy arousal but I clenched my eyes shut, unwilling to entertain his experiment.

  Still, I wasn’t anywhere closer to climax than I’d been when we started.

  “You tasted her the other night. When you and Rohan were with her. Did you fuck her?” I asked.

  “Nah, but I think if I had I’d be losing my damn mind right now, so I suppose it’s a small blessing. I made her come half a dozen times though. I know what her pussy feels like . . . tastes like. The sounds she made with me were different than the ones she made with him. Like she speaks a different language just for me. Like her body speaks a different language when I touch her.”

  I was losing my damn mind and I let out a growl of frustration. “Squeeze harder. I don’t want to fucking think about her, goddamn you.”

  He dropped his free hand between my legs and squeezed my balls. “Do it anyway. Get it out. Tell me what she did to you to drive you so fucking crazy you got yourself ripped to pieces by that hound beast.”

  “I didn’t do it for her. I did it for Rohan.”

  “You’re a fucking liar.”

  My dick was monopolizing too much of my blood flow for me to think. Was I lying? I’d gone into that studio intending to get bitten after finding out that the soul drain could transfer between victims. I wanted to help Ro. But part of me wanted some of that attention Deva had given my friend ever since his attack. I’d never had a woman so devoted to me that she’d endure being fucked by someone else to help me.