“I’m sorry I freaked out too, I’m sure the spider is really nice and everything, it’s just… I mean, when I see them in the house, I never kill them, but I do get Nicole to catch them for me and put them outside.”
His eyes squinted with amusement. “Let us buy the arrows quickly and hurry home. I have a strong need for you,” he said, touching me possessively at the small of my back.
“Um…”
“Since you have had such a trial and will need to relax, I will first thoroughly pleasure you with my mouth while I might persuade Xado and Rafe to massage your shoulders and feet.”
I got wet instantly just thinking about that image. “Do we really even need these arrows?”
Chapter Twenty-One
Dakota
Rafe and I went to the Fixed Plane to get all of us some proper clothes for our trip. I tried calling mom at this point but she didn’t pick up. Eventually I wanted to get my stuff from the house, but I was so terrified of facing Nicole that I hadn’t done it. Hopefully she wasn’t angry enough to cart it off to Goodwill.
It was possible I wasn’t handling this as well as I could. I just didn’t know how to talk to anyone about it. I mean, even the cafe, I assumed Nicole had told them something, but when I tried sending her some messages she responded with a curt “ok”.
“Are you all right?” Rafe asked, eating a pretzel as we wandered through the mall, my old stomping grounds. I told him to take me to a mall in Florida so the clothes on offer would be more Florida appropriate.
“Yeah…it’s just very weird that no one is calling me back. Mom must be showing a lot of houses today.” I was, generally, in a sour mood because I looked totally stupid. I didn’t have any makeup back at the castle and I had to change back into my jogging outfit. Rafe had found me an old t-shirt to wear over the top and I basically looked like a disheveled mall walker. I spotted myself in a passing reflective glass wall and cringed back.
“Let’s get this knocked out. We have three wardrobes to buy and none of this stuff looks Xado sized…,” Rafe said.
“Don’t we have four?”
“No, obviously, I already have enough Hawaiian shirts,” he said. “It’s pretty warm here. I wonder if Hiron would find shorts to be comfortable or insulting to his lordly dignity…”
I laughed. “We should definitely get him some. It is hot.”
“Do we need any dress clothes?”
“Not really. Dress casual.”
“And swimsuits,” he said, pointing as we passed a beachwear joint. “I’m sure there’s a pool at the hotel, right?”
“Yeah…” I brightened a little at the thought of all three guys shirtless at the pool.
“Let’s get you that one,” Rafe said in my ear, pointing at a red bikini in the window display.
I yelped. “Nooo way. I can’t do bikinis.” I walked into the store and pointed at a retro one-piece with boy shorts. “That’s more my speed.”
“Why can’t you do bikinis, darlin’?” He caressed a hand up the loose t-shirt just high enough to touch my hip. “It would be a crime not to show this off.”
“Uh, it would be a crime to show this off.”
His brows furrowed. “What’s with this all of a sudden? You never seem so concerned over your appearance at the castle.”
“Well, that’s because the three of you make me feel pretty. And like, makeup doesn’t exist.”
“You don’t think you’re pretty? This is ridiculous.”
“No, I…I do. I’m just not put together right now. I’m not perfect out of the box. And I could still stand to lose a little weight.”
The look he gave me was almost insulted. “You have all the beauty of a happy, healthy woman who is well taken care of by her men,” he said. “With curves for days. And no need of makeup. Why would you feel the need to attract anyone more to you? Aren’t you satisfied?” He grabbed a bikini top off the rack and put it in my hands.
“It’s not about attracting other men!”
“What is plumage for, then, if not for mating?”
“I guess it’s so other women aren’t like, who does she think she is wearing that?”
“You’re our mate. And I say, Hiron and Xado will be very disappointed if I let you buy that other one. Is this the right size?”
“I can try it on.”
“Better not. I’m already getting hard just thinking about you trying it on. If I so much as hear the sound of your shorts hitting the floor in that dressing room, I’m going to have to find a private spot in here.”
I flushed. I hadn’t realized until now that when I was around Rafe, Xado, and Hiron, I didn’t think about my appearance the same way as I did back here. I never felt inadequate. They were hungry for me from the moment I woke up in the morning, but…beyond that, they just didn’t expect me to be anything more than I was. In the castle, my perspective shifted radically.
“Okay.” I unclipped the bikini top from its hanger and held it up to me to see. “I’ll give it a try.”
“Good. I can’t wait for that.” He brushed his hand between my legs. At the thought of putting on the bikini for the guys and being out in public, with all of them admiring me, being at a hotel pool went from an innocent concept to red hot.
“You said we have three wardrobes to buy,” I said, stepping away even as a tingle of desire shot through me. “No distractions.”
“Yeah…”
Soon, we were bringing home bags of clothes.
“I hope stuff fits,” I said. “Rafe wouldn’t let me hit all the stores.”
“We were out for four hours,” he said. “I think we got far enough…”
I rolled my eyes. Four hours? That was nothing.
“We couldn’t even find very good stuff to fit you two,” Rafe said. “Especially you, big guy.” He handed Xado a black v-neck and plaid shorts that made me think how hot he’d be in a kilt. Xado frowned as he tried on the clothes, but I was grinning like a fool. The outfit really showed off his muscular body and long legs.
Hiron tried on a khaki button-up and black pants.
“More clothes in the suitcases,” Rafe said. “Swimsuits…shorts. Dakota says it’s going to be hot in Florida.”
“You guys look so good, I could almost believe you’re not going to ruin my vacation,” I said.
“We don’t wish to ruin your vacation,” Hiron said.
“Yeah, well… as soon as I explain this to my mom, it’s all over.”
But there was no way around it. A few days later we were all packed up and ready to go. I was supposed to meet Mom at the hotel. At this point I had been putting her off by telling her I had laryngitis, and I was wracked with guilt over it. I mean, she hadn’t talked to me at this point since she was first reassuring me about her diagnosis. The strangest thing was that she wasn’t communicating with me as much as I expected either, even when I sent messages.
Xado told me to focus on the idea of my mom, like I wasn’t already, and he opened a portal into the Fixed Plane. We somehow walked out into a hot swampland with tall, skinny southern pine trees. I was up to my ankles in water.
“Where are we?” I cried, before I realized I could see Space Mountain in the distance. “Oh…we’re at Disney now.”
“The portals can only be opened away from humans,” Xado said. “It was hard to find a good place with no humans!”
So we somehow made it to an actual road. My shoes squelched with every step, but before long we were facing a parking lot with the hotel in view. My phone rang.
“Hey, Mom…” My voice was shaking.
“I’m waiting by check-in,” she said.
“Okay, I’m almost there.”
Disney was a very strange place to return to the real world. It didn’t seem quite like the real world itself, with retro-futuristic architecture poking out everywhere and a general air of well organized hospitality. The Contemporary hotel was a white building shaped sort of triangular, with the monorail running through the middle, like an e
xtra cool 1960s apartment building. This was my childhood fantasy, Mom surprising me with a trip to Disney, and I couldn’t enjoy it now. I was insanely nervous. As we walked up to the entrance, I was drenched in sweat and not just from the Florida heat. I held up a hand. “Hang back, guys, okay? I need to try and explain this somehow.”
“Of course,” Hiron said.
I walked in the doors to the lobby. I barely appreciated the soaring ceiling, the gigantic colorful mural overlooking the monorail track, or all the shops selling merchandise. Mom was standing there with a very serious look on her face. She looked the part for vacation in a long sundress and a brimmed hat, with her suitcase beside her, but she should have looked excited and she didn’t.
A wave of nausea passed over me.
It’s bad. It’s worse than I thought. She’s dying. I clutched the bag I was carrying with the healing potions inside. “Mom…”
Suddenly I was running toward her, a sob choking out of me. It sort of echoed, but in a way that lost the sound entirely, thank goodness. “Mom!”
She threw her arms around me, her expression softening. “Hey, baby.”
“I’m sorry I haven’t called! I—I—I have some things I need to talk to you about.”
“You were captured by three men…from a parallel world,” she said. “Well, it’s okay. You’re staying here now.” She squeezed my shoulder. “Nicole told me everything.”
“Nicole—?” I barely gasped out her name. “You—you believe—her?”
“Well, I’ll admit, it’s by far the craziest thing I’ve ever heard, but I’ve also been thinking about looking death in the face, so I want to believe it. I want to think there’s more out there, you know? Besides, I talked to Nicole, I talked to Elias, Edie, all of her husbands… I mean, you should have just told me what really happened to Edie.”
“I didn’t think you’d believe it…” I was feeling short of breath. “Who is Elias?”
“Well, that’s an important question. Let’s get to that later. I think we should check in to our room and talk in private.”
“They’re here,” I said. “My…men.”
“They came with you? All three of them? Elias didn’t think they would.”
“Who is Elias?”
“I want to talk to you in private,” Mom said, gripping my hand. “They can wait.”
“You don’t want to meet them?”
“Not right now.” She leaned closer to me. “They’re dangerous. You need to get away from them.”
I stared at her, unsure how to react. The last thing I expected was that she would already know everything, and would actually take control of the situation.
This was going to be my thing, I thought. The first thing I’ve ever done that has nothing to do with her at all.
“They’re not dangerous,” I said, wresting my hand back. “I’ve been really happy. I made healing potions for you. I’m learning magic and everything, and we all get along together really well. Amazingly well. It’s like they’ve been waiting for me all their lives. I want you to meet them and see.”
She took a deep breath. “Private talk first. Then I’ll meet them.”
“Okay, let me at least tell them.” I backed off and made a beeline for the doors before she could stop me.
“It’s all right, little bride,” Xado said when I told them to just come into the lobby and wait for me. “I’m sure your human mother will need some time to adjust to the situation.”
“I told you, don’t call me ‘little bride’ here! Actually, don’t address me at all.”
“Don’t address you at all?”
“I mean, if you want my attention, just say ‘Hey’. That’s how we do it around here. And don’t use the word ‘human’, like, at all.”
“Let’s just let Dakota take the lead in this instance,” Hiron said.
They followed me in. Mom was standing back from the doors, glancing at them over her shoulder. She looked impressed by the collective size and strength of my men. Not necessarily in an entirely good way, but I knew even she couldn’t deny that some serious eye candy had just walked in the door. In fact, I saw a wrinkled old lady in a power wheelchair stop and stare at them. Rafe slid off his sunglasses and gave the old lady a faint nod.
“Are you drawing power from an old lady? Don’t make any mischief!” I snapped at him. “I’ll be right back.”
Mom seemed flustered. “So…that’s them. Dragons, huh?”
“Mom…come on. Look at them.”
“That is way too much man for one girl,” she said. “Trust me. I have been surrounded by hot men. They’re the worst. You don’t want that.” She found the elevator, digging room keys out of her bag. “Babe, no one wants you to get hurt, that’s all. Do you really want to live in a different world? But your friends told me what you did. That you got yourself into this.” It was so strange to hear her take all of this in stride. She must have found out right when I first left. “I know what this is about. I can’t help but feel like it’s all my fault.”
“You couldn’t help getting sick.”
“I must have done something wrong if you feel like you have to sign yourself up for something like this at the slightest fear that I might die.”
As the elevator lifted up, another wave of nausea swept over me. I was getting past the bounds of the spell that forced me to stick close to the guys. But I wasn’t about to let Mom notice. If I told her all of that stuff, she would never be convinced.
“It’s more than that,” I said. “As soon as Edie met her guys, I knew I wanted that. Specifically, a world where magic is real. Hearing you were sick just clarified things for me. I mean, we only have so much time to be what we want to be.”
We stepped off the elevator. “And you want to be…magic?”
“I’m serious,” I said. “I made you some healing tonics.” I opened my bag and took out the three small bottles. “The book says to take a spoonful of each one every day, and…maybe it’ll help.”
“I thought magic doesn’t work here,” Mom said.
“This is witchcraft. It’s not as strong, but it will do something.”
She wrapped a hand around one of the bottles and slowly put it in her bag. Then the other two. “There is plenty of magic in this world,” she said. “Do you really want to leave? You have a good life here. Friends and family. You don’t want to let men control your life. No matter how good looking.”
“It’s not like that,” I said. “If anything, I have them wrapped around my finger. And when they are dominating…well, I’m not complaining…”
“No,” Mom said. “I’m not letting you do this. Come on.” She opened the hotel room door.
Nicole was sitting there with a guy and it clicked in my head that this was the guy she showed up with outside the castle. Nicole stood up and gave me a hug. She had an air of general weirdness, though. What has been going on in my absence? I patted her back, distracted. The guy stood up very straight. His clothes were from this world, but he carried himself like a demon. This had to be Elias.
“Your friends told me you can’t back out of this,” Mom said.
“Yeah, um…” Nicole crossed her arms. “Me, your mom, Edie and her guys, we all feel pretty strongly about this, Dakota. Elias offered that you could marry him and his bond-mates. They’re werewolves and they live in America. They have a rock band based out of the Philadelphia area. So you would be really close to all of us. Dante and Elias are friends and I drove down here with him and we’ve been hanging out. I’ll vouch for him.”
Elias was good looking too, but I felt nothing when I looked at him. He just wasn’t…mine. I was feeling a little woozy from the spell. “I don’t know Elias! I’m already bonded!”
“And you know those guys?” Mom said. “No, you don’t.”
“They kidnapped you,” Nicole said.
“Actually, Hiron saved me from a monster that was trying to kidnap me.”
“Dakota, I know. You’re caught up in it right now.”<
br />
“You don’t really want to live in Sinistral,” Nicole said. “Come on.”
I held up my hands. “This kind of feels like an intervention. Like, oh poor sweet Dakota, just floating through life making dumb decisions again…” I shot a look at Elias. “Will you and your bond-mates teach me to be a witch?” I asked.
“Uh…I can’t say we specialize in that,” he said. “We don’t really need witchcraft in America. You could always learn on your own, of course.”
“You keep saying, you don’t want this, Dakota. You don’t want dominating men, you don’t want to live in Sinistral. Well, first, you don’t know those guys. And second, maybe you don’t know me. Those guys out there are literally everything I’ve ever wanted. Hiron and Xado look exactly like the men of my dreams. And Rafe, well, I love him because he’s different from them. They’re teaching me magic, they’re sweet, and if you must know, the sex is amazing. And Sinistral is amazing! There are like, talking animals and winged people! Who the hell would choose working as a barrista in frickin’ Gaithersburg when you could live in Narnia!”
“I would,” Nicole said dryly.
“Well, you aren’t me. And Mom, I’m not you either. You always tell me I’m strong like you. But I’m—I’m not strong in the way you are. I want to know I have someone to take care of me…and I want to take care of someone too.” I swayed a little as stars danced on the edges of my vision. I willed myself to hold on. I couldn’t just go rushing back to the guys. I really, really needed to have this conversation.
Mom looked immediately saddened. “Dakota—”
“I’m happy!” I said. “Just let me be happy. If it turns to shit, you can all line up and say I told you so. But this Elias guy isn’t going to make me happy.”
“I’m getting a lot of that this month,” Elias said in a sarcastic tone.
“I want them. I want their world. I still love you, and I’ll visit. I’ll bring your grandchildren. Just…” I reached a hand toward the wall. I was blacking out, my head suddenly spinning around and around until the floor felt sideways. Or maybe I had fallen sideways.
Captured by Dragons: A Reverse Harem Paranormal (Brides of the Sinistral Realms Book 2) Page 13
