More rapping on the door had me glancing up in irritation. What was it this time?
Bodhi poked his tousled head in when I called a greeting. His brows were creased. “Ah, you might want to get out here. Probably best to get dressed too.”
I rose and slipped the robe off, exhaling a deep breath of smoke that clung to my body, transforming into my favorite outfit. Across the room, Maddie clapped her hands together. “My Lord, is that something else! Girl, and you asked to borrow my ratty old dress?”
“I’m afraid I won’t be able to return the dress to you,” I said.
She waved her hand in the air. “If you can summon me up an outfit like that sometime, we’ll call it even.” She eyed me up and down with a big grin, then followed Bodhi back out the door.
The scene that greeted me in the other room made me pause in the doorway. Willem and Rohan both knelt in the center of the room, their heads bowed. Llyr stood defiantly behind them, his arms crossed and his jaw clenched. Ozzie wore an expression of grim resignation when he looked at me from his spot near the windows.
Keagan cursed and fell to his knees beside the other two, and I finally shifted my gaze to the reason for all the deference. I froze.
Maddie propped her hands on her hips and said, “Who the hell are you?”
I suppressed a smile at her defensive posture. I loved this woman a little more every day, especially if she was fearless enough to stand up to the man who had just arrived.
Touching her elbow lightly I looked between her and Bodhi and said, “I’d like to introduce you two to my dad, Nikhil.”
Fool’s Paradise
Fate’s Fools Book Three
1
Bodhi
When you met the father of the woman you loved for the first time and half the people in the room knelt, it was probably a good idea to follow along. So I wasn’t sure why I didn’t.
Keagan, Rohan, and Willem all rested on their knees, heads bowed in front of one scary-looking dude. It still hadn’t quite sunk in that Deva had just introduced him as her dad. Mom had just given him lip—leave it to her to stand up to him. He seemed like someone who kept attack dogs around just to snuggle with, if a guy like him even snuggled.
Nikhil was well over six feet tall—probably not as tall as Willem, but he made up for the difference in sheer, domineering presence. His simple black cotton T-shirt and jeans might have been unassuming, but they highlighted how fucking intimidating he was. Even the glowing tattoos around his neck and wrists made him seem more menacing. His black hair was trimmed high and tight, and his steel-gray eyes glinted like sharp daggers as he took in the room.
He barely glanced at the three men on their knees, passing over them quickly. His eyes narrowed as they reached Ozzie, and his jaw twitched when his gaze landed on Llyr. Neither Llyr nor Ozzie had knelt. Ozzie leaned casually against one wall, completely unfazed by Nikhil’s arrival, but Llyr . . . Both his hands were clenched into fists so tight his knuckles were bone-white.
“At ease,” Nikhil rumbled down to the trio on the ground, and they immediately stood. Shit, had Deva told me he was military? Then Nikhil’s attention slipped to Deva and his entire demeanor shifted. His face lit up in a huge smile and he stretched out his arms. “Baby girl, I missed you.”
Deva squeezed my hand as she passed and gave me a reassuring look, making me feel a little less like a jerk for not bowing to her dad. I still wished she’d prepared me a little better for this, but feeling out of my element had kind of become my natural state lately.
She slipped into her father’s arms, the tension slipping away from her as he held her tight. His eyes grew glassy and his brows twitched for the briefest second before the show of tenderness disappeared so completely I wondered if I’d imagined it.
“You should have come to us before it got to this. We’d have helped,” he said.
“I needed to prove I could take care of myself,” Deva replied.
“We never thought you couldn’t.”
“I needed to prove it to myself, Dad. And I honestly don’t believe there’s anything any of you could have done to help the bloodline. I’m the only one who can find them, and I’m the only one . . . or I was the only one who could see the fate hounds. Now I have help, so you don’t need to be here.” She glanced back at the rest of us, and I straightened as Nikhil’s gaze landed on me. His dark eyebrows lifted the tiniest bit before he glanced at my mom and smiled.
“Who are your friends? I know those two fuckers already.” He jabbed a thumb at Ozzie and Llyr. “And I remember Willem from the Haven War.” He clapped the big man on the shoulder and Willem nodded.
“They’re our replacements.” A jovial male voice filtered in from the entry to the suite as three more people entered. Didn’t this place have locks on the goddamn doors?
But when I saw who it was, I finally did have a sudden urge to drop to my knees, because I was in the presence of fucking greatness.
“Holy motherfucking fuck,” I murmured when Lukas North appeared, followed by his brother Iszak and then Belah, who I’d only seen with the band a handful of times, but whose face was unforgettable. “Fate’s Fools, in the flesh.”
Lukas must’ve heard my awestruck comment, because he glanced at me and grinned. “Past-tense, friend. I’m guessing all of you are the new version of us, yeah?”
I blinked at him and started to shake my head when Ozzie pushed off the wall he’d been holding up and pulled his cousin into a tight hug. “It was gonna take a lot more than two to replace the pair of you,” he said. “What the fuck are you guys doing here?”
Deva’s eyes were wide with apprehension and she chewed on her lip the way she did when she was worried. “I’m not going home,” she finally stated in a clear, strong voice.
Nikhil scowled, but Belah placed a hand on his arm and he relaxed again. When I’d seen Belah up on stage at shows, she’d looked otherworldly, belting her songs out to the crowd with such love it seemed as though she was singing to us all, but I realized the look in her eyes now was the same one she wore on stage, and it was directed at Nikhil. She’d been singing to him.
Belah urged Nikhil to sit and he did without complaint, though he looked amused and his eyes glinted, remaining on her as he settled into the armchair. I had the strangest sense he was keeping score of something. He sure didn’t seem like the kind of guy who let anyone boss him around, let alone a woman.
But this woman . . . I could see why he might let her.
“We didn’t come to bring you home, Deva,” Belah said. Her voice thrummed inside my gut the way it had when she’d been on stage singing. She reminded me of Cher, only something in me recognized the sheer power lingering behind her brilliant blue eyes. I had the sense that if I were ever compelled to kneel to anyone, it would be to her.
“Then why are you here, Mama Belah?”
Worry flashed across the woman’s face. “Sophia North visited me tonight. You’re in danger. I intend to try to visit my father to learn what I can, try to reason with him . . .” She gave a rueful chuckle. “Not that there’s any reasoning with Fate. But until that happens, you and your . . .” She glanced around the room at each of us in turn, her gaze lingering a few seconds longer on Keagan and Rohan. Her blue eyes flickered with inner light the way I’d seen Deva’s do sometimes and her brows lifted. “Mates? Oh my, this is unexpected.”
Nikhil rose to his feet again, eyes blazing. “You two bastards had better not have . . .”
Belah pressed a hand to his chest. “My love, let me finish.” She returned her gaze to the rest of us, the flashing blue examining everyone. She passed over Willem without a blink, but scrutinized each of the rest of us in turn, finally looking at Deva with a sly smile. Deva’s cheeks darkened with a deep flush as she met her mother’s gaze and swallowed. It was the strangest exchange, as though a conversation was going on between them that only they could hear.
Nikhil seemed to catch on, his jaw tightening so much I thought I could hear teeth
grinding. Belah’s hand remained on his arm, and his tattoos flared brightly for a moment before he turned and stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
“He didn’t have a choice with your sister,” Belah said with an apologetic shrug. “I think he hoped he’d have more time to process you coming into your own.”
Behind Belah, Iszak grunted in amusement. “Baby, he’s going to take that out of your hide later, you know.”
“I know. And I look forward to it,” Belah said. “But his emotions only muddy the waters here. Worrying about who Deva mates will not solve anything. These two won’t be the only ones. What are your names?”
She slipped gracefully up to Keagan and Rohan, the light catching her leather pants and jacket. I realized they weren’t black after all, but a deep, midnight blue. I could see where Deva got her sense of style.
“Rohan and Keagan,” Deva supplied when the two knuckleheads seemed too dumbstruck to form words. Keagan finally shook off his dazed look and dipped his head.
“Honored, mistress,” he said in a low, gravelly voice.
“Uh, ditto,” Rohan said. It was all I could do not to roll my eyes.
Deva came back to my side and slipped her hand into mine. “And this is Bodhi.”
My skin heated with awareness of her fragrant warmth and the strange sense she’d just claimed me in front of both her mother and mine. I squeezed her hand, the euphoria of that knowledge sinking deep.
I bowed my head like the others did when Belah strode nearer and gazed into my eyes. Up close, she was smaller than she’d seemed, almost delicate, her fair skin luminescent and a stark contrast to the three swarthy men who’d arrived with her. She looked nothing like Deva.
“It’s an . . . uh . . . honor to finally meet Deva’s mother,” I said, face warming as I stumbled over the words. Should I shake her hand? Bow? Prostrate myself at her feet? Fuck, I had no idea what the protocol was when meeting a . . . whatever she was.
Belah smiled. “I’m only her stepmother, if you want a human designation for our relationship. Her biological mother can’t visit the human world yet. And I am a dragon, to answer your other question—one of the first of six children born to the Mother Dragon and Fate at the beginning of time.”
She could read my fucking mind. Of course she could. God forbid I managed to keep thoughts of what I’d done with Deva buried deep.
Belah flashed a grin at me and gave my cheek a gentle pat. “I can smell you on each other, but don’t fret. I’m not here to criticize anyone’s choice of partner. I fell in love with a monster, and look how that turned out. But the fact remains you are all in danger if you stay here.”
“Please tell us what you know, Blue,” Ozzie said, moving to settle down on one of the sofas.
Belah relaxed into the chair Nikhil had vacated, the North brothers perching on either arm like sentinels. All three men behaved as if they were . . . I couldn’t even think of the right word. Slaves didn’t sound right, not when Iszak rested his hand against the back of her neck, slipping it beneath her dark waves and wrapping his fingers around the delicate column of her throat. The gesture was so overtly proprietary I got the sense their dynamic was far more complicated than it appeared.
Her chest heaved in a deep breath and her eyelids fluttered. Beneath the tight blue fabric of her silky camisole, the outlines of her nipples poked through with upraised circles attached.
Piercings. Holy fuck.
Before my stupid brain could travel down that rabbit hole, Deva tugged at my hand and I realized I’d been staring at her stepmother’s tits with my mouth hanging open. Heat blazed in my cheeks and I obediently sat where Deva indicated, pulse pounding in my ears and drowning out her next few words.
I tried like hell, but couldn’t stop the imagery flooding my mind of that powerful, poised woman being dominated by three enormous men. But the second the pictures gelled in my mind, it wasn’t Belah I saw, but Deva, surrounded by the four of us like before, naked, on her knees, with hoops through both dark nipples and my dick in her mouth.
At least I wasn’t fantasizing about her stepmom anymore, but I’d totally missed half the conversation in my efforts to replace all those fantasies with happy thoughts of my grandmother’s cooking, or being out on the water with the wind filling the sail of my windsurfing rig.
My ears finally perked up when I heard my name and felt a nudge at my elbow.
“Why is Bodhi’s humanity an issue?” Deva asked, a hint of defiance in her voice.
“Because you are immortal. You have to be prepared for your power to affect him the way mine affected Nikhil when I first marked him. He could lose his will entirely.”
“Dad seems fine. Are you telling me you’ve mind-controlled him?”
Lukas chuckled. “Pussy-whipped, yes. Mind-controlled, no. He’s too fucking ornery to let her have full control. But there was a moment after he was marked . . .” He glanced at his brother.
Iszak nodded. “Nik lost himself in a bad way at first. I think he only came back because Belah’s first real command was for him to break her hold over him.”
I cleared my throat and shot a look at Deva, who had gone wide-eyed and ashen. I wasn’t sure what the hell to feel. The curveballs just kept coming.
“So you’re saying if she marks me, I could lose my mind?”
2
Bodhi
“They don’t know that,” Deva said, her voice strained. “They don’t know anything about me because I’m the first chimera ever born.” Turning back to the others, she added, “Did you know I needed five different mates to have a complete soul? Maybe it’s different for me. I’m part human, after all; maybe I won’t break him.”
“Maybe not,” Belah said gently. “But I wanted you to be prepared. We’ve deciphered Meri’s grimoire enough to learn whose blood she used to create you. She used the most powerful blood she had access to from each of the higher races. Much of it was immortal blood, and given the infusion you received from the Source while in Vrishti’s womb, we have every reason to believe your powers could be as strong as any of the immortals’.” She took a deep breath and leveled a stare at Deva. “You just need to understand the rules are different for those of us at the higher rungs of power. You need to be careful.”
Deva shot a longing look across the room to where Rohan and Keagan sat, having taken seats as far from her as they could get to avoid causing her pain with their proximity. They couldn’t seem to decide between them who should be with her, but she needed someone now.
I took her hand and squeezed it, but she pulled away, clasping her hands in her lap. My palm went cold at her subtle rejection and I itched to reach out again, but restrained myself.
“I understand.” She took a shaky breath and straightened her spine. “The bigger issue is the bloodline, anyway. If we have fate hounds hunting us, we need to leave soon, but I’m not about to let Sandor suffer if we can find him and help him. Do you have any idea where Fate could have taken him? And how the hell are all of us supposed to get there? We can’t just drift or fly aimlessly around hoping for a lead.”
“I will speak with my father,” Belah said. “When I asked Sophia, she claimed she didn’t know, but she will work on finding out too. If it isn’t safe for her to come to you, she will reach out to me. It’s less of a risk for her to be seen with me, anyway, since we’re friends and Fate bound her grandsons to me.”
In response, Iszak tightened his fingers on her neck and began massaging lightly. Belah’s eyelids fluttered again and she glanced up at him with a look of supplicant bliss.
Meanwhile, the ache to comfort Deva burned in me. Christ, I wanted her, but if the cost was becoming a mindless toy, was it worth it? A big part of me really didn’t give a fuck if it meant I’d be hers; I’d have given myself to her several times already, if not for the fact that I desperately wanted to understand more about her world first, and I definitely didn’t want to go down that road until I knew my mom would be safe.
B
ut more than that, I liked the idea of simply wooing her, crazy as that sounded. A sexual seduction was out of the question—too easy—but winning her heart still posed a challenge. Winning her over on the idea of love that didn’t depend on a physical connection.
Not that I didn’t intend to take every opportunity to involve myself in whatever fun she’d let me share with her and the other guys. I wasn’t a fucking monk, and Keagan gave amazing head.
Christ, what the fuck had happened to me? Was I really fine with not fucking this beautiful woman next to me and looking forward to sex with another man instead? With him, though, the desire was purely physical. With Deva . . . I wanted with my entire being to see her happy.
“All I know is that we can’t stay here,” Ozzie said. “The hotel’s wards won’t hide us for long if Fate really is on the hunt, and Deva’s hounds aren’t enough to fight off a throng like I saw at my house or at Maddie’s. We should be prepared to go, even if we don’t have a destination.”
Deva stood up, shaking her head. “It isn’t just about us, though. The entire bloodline is in danger. How are we going to protect them if we’re on the run? I need a way to find them too.”
I glanced between Deva and the four hounds who sat avidly watching the conversation nearby. If we had to run, we would run, but I didn’t think it needed to feel like running.
“It’s all about the journey, not the destination,” I said, leaning forward and propping my elbows on my knees. “Until we know where to go for sure, we’ve got the best excuse to go on the road I can think of, and the perfect way to help the bloodline too.”
I glanced around the room at half a dozen blank faces, astounded that they hadn’t put the pieces together already. But they were worried about their friend—a guy I only knew a little, but had liked immediately.
Fate's Fools Box Set Page 56