by Scott, Helen
Some days, when the shit got crazy, and things were just tumbling down into whack-job land with Arthur and ancient one-percent bikers, Marcella always reminded me of who she was to us.
Ours.
But more than that, we were hers, and she’d never let us forget that.
The pursang bond had to be more powerful than our link with her. It had to be. Just by sheer logic. But Marcella never made us feel like we were lesser, and fuck, I loved her for that.
With my brothers and I having been ‘lesser’ all our damn lives, to suddenly matter was beyond refreshing. It meant that no matter how far down the cuckoo nest we tumbled, she’d never have to fear losing us.
Even if she had massacred us at a Mother’s whim.
My lips curved at the thought and I moved my arm around her shoulder so I could tuck her close. She was as stiff as a board and about as movable as one too. Her spine was straight, and she was refusing, point blank, to sit back against the comfortable sofa of the nook we were in.
This space reminded me of the balconies at the opera. They were inset with curtains shielding us to a certain degree, with lush cushions to lounge against. Of course, it wasn’t old-fashioned like I remembered back in the day, no red velvet here. Instead, minimal grays and ashes, dark blond oaks and whites dominated the area.
Regardless of the modern vibe, Marcella was sitting up as though she were a governess waiting on her charge. I pressed my hand to her lower back and murmured, “Marcella, love, calm down.”
Her mouth tightened as she studied Darius. “What’s he doing?”
“Mingling,” Raven stated, as he picked up a handful of grapes and began feeding himself some. As he leaned over, elbows to knees, he popped some lose and twisted so he could press one to her lips. She shook her head, the grape skimming over the bottom curve of her mouth. Raven grunted, didn’t move his hand, and grated out, “Marcella.”
There was a warning in his tone that had her narrowing her eyes at him for a flash before she opened her mouth and sucked the grape in.
I could have come in my pants like an untried boy then and there.
Sweet fuck, Marcella could be hot without even knowing it. Either that or my cock and everything about her were on their own private speed dial… now that I thought about it, that made sense. I got a kick out of watching Marcella doing even the dullest of chores, so it figured that there was something sneaky going on with my dick where she was concerned.
“Mingling? He’s barely introduced me. What was the point in coming here tonight?”
“He has a role to see through,” Gideon stated from behind her. He was sitting on the back of the couch with his butt on the top of the cushions. His feet were on either side of Marcella’s hips so, if she’d been amenable, she could have leaned back against his calves. Not that she was willing.
“I wish he’d informed me of that because I’d have preferred to stay home and wash my hair,” she sniped, making us all grin.
Cade, on Raven’s left, murmured around a smirk, “Your jealousy is hot, Marcella. Be careful we don’t fuck you out of your snit.”
She narrowed her eyes at him again, and the way she moved her head was close to mechanical. It was like something out of the fucking Exorcist, and yet? Sweet fuck, it was hot. Her pursang was out to party, and the danger in the air had my cock literally dripping pre-cum.
Maker.
“Who said you’d be fucking me?” she rasped, making his eyebrows draw together in confusion. When comprehension dawned, her top lip curved in a sneer. “Watch yourself, Cade, before you’re flat on your back eating me out.”
“That’s something I’d be down with,” he retorted, his voice husky, and his eyes flashing silver with want. “You’re not about to hear me complaining.”
“If you think any of these old perverts are going to see my pussy or your cocks, then you’re fucking insane.”
So, her tunnel vision wasn’t so bad that she wasn’t not seeing the woods for the trees. It was that the atmosphere wasn’t affecting her.
Considering there was one of her to six of us, I guess that made sense. She didn't exactly lack for sex, did she? Not a day went by when someone wasn’t tumbling out of her bed or accosting her in the bathroom… My lips curved as I thought about how I’d done the accosting earlier while she was taking a bath.
My cock seriously had no reason to be so hard considering what she’d done to it before the party.
Half drooling, I watched her attention return to Darius, so it was with surprise that she murmured, “Where did Barclay go? He left fourteen minutes ago.”
Cade snorted. “I thought I was the one with the internal clock?”
“I can tap into yours now,” she retorted with no heat. “Where is he?”
Raven shot me a look. “Want us to go find him? I swear that dude is too wolfie sometimes.”
“What do you mean?” Marcella queried, frowning because I knew she hated whenever one of the brothers put Barclay down. It wasn’t like it happened often, and usually, it was just guys giving each other shit, but she took it to heart for some reason.
I wasn’t jealous, but I wondered if she knew how much shit Barc was capable of throwing back at us.
“I’ll go and find him,” I volunteered. “I think he went to use the bathroom.”
“Unless he got stuck down the toilet, I figure he should be out by now,” she growled, her irritation evident.
I hid a smile. “I’ll go and retrieve him.”
She dipped her head but didn’t thank me. In her eyes, though, I saw her gratitude. Saw the thin leash she had the pursang on, and I felt for her. It was amusing and sometimes a turn on to see her pursang out, but as I looked into her eyes, I truly saw how hard it was on her.
I wanted to reach over, grab her hand and squeeze her fingers to comfort her, but I knew the pursang didn’t want that. She wanted her men around her, and now that two were AWOL, the creature wasn’t happy.
So, instead of giving her physical comfort, I sought her ease by heading off to grab Barclay from where he’d gotten lost. As I wandered around, inadvertently spying sex acts that truly belonged in a bedroom and not at an official function—and they said the salsangs were the dirty bastards—I headed for the bathroom that was nearest to us, figuring that’s where Barclay had gone first.
When I headed inside, I saw there were actually cubicles, and that there was a woman leaning against the vanity with her arms folded across her chest. At first, I thought she was waiting for a cubicle to free up, but though both doors were shut, one was faintly ajar. I pointed to it and said, “It’s open.”
“That’s okay. You use it.”
I frowned at her. “I don’t need it.”
“Then you’re in the wrong place then, aren’t you?” she retorted.
“Keiran?”
I twisted around and saw Barclay’s head over the cubicle door. Scowling up at him, I ground out, “What the fuck, man? Marcella’s waiting on you.”
“You’re cheating on me?”
I jerked back in surprise at the woman’s shriek. “Who the fuck are you?” I growled, seeing that the bitch’s pursang was out, and only then appreciating how controlled Marcella was even if most of the time I thought our mate’s pursang was a rabid bitch.
“I’m waiting on my male,” she growled, and she pushed herself off the side of the vanity and pressed herself into my space. “You can get the fuck out of here, now.”
Gaping at her, I turned to look at Barclay when she leaped at me. Putting a hand to her forehead, I shoved her at arm’s distance, watching with bemusement as she windmilled her arms, trying to get to me, to rake my face with her claws. “What the hell have you done this time?” I groused.
He shrugged, but his eyes were wide. “Nothing. I came to use the bathroom and she barged in after me.”
“So you hid out in the cubicle? Maker, Barc, are you a man or mouse?”
He snorted. “Neither. Her hands were all over me, Keiran, and I wasn
’t about to walk out and have Marcella smell her on me. She’d have lost her shit.”
I grimaced because he wasn’t wrong. “Fuck.” Huffing, I demanded, “Is she on something?”
“I’d assume so. I mean, I know I’m irresistible to women, but to this extent?”
“You leave my male alone!” the female roared. Her sleeveless dress was beginning to slip with all her aerobics, baring a shit ton of tit that I really didn’t need to see.
“I’m not your male!” Barclay yelled back. “I don’t even have a clue who the fuck you are!”
A chuckle sounded from behind me, and I glowered at Raven who had his arms folded across his chest and his legs crossed at the ankle as he leaned against the wall, watching us like we were in a goddamn sitcom. When he saw I had his attention, he shrugged. “Marcella didn’t appreciate the wait.”
How long had I been gone?
“Ten minutes,” he replied, like I’d spoken the question out loud. The bastard really needed to start asking for invites into my brain.
“A little help?” I retorted, motioning with my free hand to the woman who was trying to attack me with some kind of front crawl move that would have worked had she been in the water.
He smirked. “But this is so much more fun.”
“I’m sure it is. Until Marcella investigates herself and sees this bitch with her tits out.”
Darkness flashed in Raven’s eyes, and I knew he was aware of how badly that would go down if Marcella realized we’d seen another woman’s naked form.
He straightened and his eyelids softened, the one tic he had that told me he’d slipped into her mind. When his eyes flared a second later, he hissed, “Kronos.”
* * *
Raven
The woman’s mind was like a piece of taffy being twisted over and over on itself, wound around until the uppermost layer was some kind of strange mishmash of all of the things below it. Looking into her mind made me feel dizzy and nauseated, but it also showed me that she thought Barclay was a former lover that she’d lost to another pursang, who in the drama in her head was being portrayed by Keiran.
It was like watching a soap opera, only the plots were three times as convoluted and made even less sense. I tried to put her under, knock her out, but it wasn’t working. Her mind was too busy to even notice me and my suggestions of sleep.
“Keir, a little help,” I said, as I walked over to my brother and slapped my hand down on his shoulder a little harder than I had intended.
As soon as we connected, I felt his power rush to meet mine, like two waves came to a head before settling. Whenever we combined powers, thanks to Marcella linking us, I always felt sleepy. It was as though Keir was constantly on the verge of falling asleep himself, which I knew wasn’t the case. It was more that his power couldn’t help but relax and almost overpower my own.
When I pushed both of our powers into her mind, it at least made her slow down, and the rabid scratching she had been trying to use to get Keiran out of the way slowed too. Her hands became more like oars while she continued to try and push past my brother. The sharp curl of her fingers and the claws were all gone, leaving her appearing human… for the most part.
Now that she was more compliant, we were able to move her, so I hauled her off Keiran and shoved her into the other bathroom stall where she slowly pounded on the metal barrier between the two.
It was like one of the very first zombie movies I’d ever seen, where they didn’t have any intelligence or speed, just the craving for flesh or brains, except her craving was Barclay. I shuddered to think what would have happened if she’d been smart enough to shimmy under the stall door or launch herself over it.
I couldn’t help but wonder who she was and how we could go about getting her help. Most pursang males would see her as an opportunity, a small dalliance in the bathroom, nothing more, nothing less. While this female may have torn Barclay limb from limb, or tried to force herself on him, that was nothing compared to what the males who were more than a millennia-old would do to her if they found her like this.
“Barc, go find Darius, but don’t let Marcella see you, or, more importantly, smell you,” I ordered.
He grumbled under his breath as he came out of the stall, but the three of us knew that he didn’t mean it, and there was no malice behind it, just frustration. The thick door closed with a quiet thud behind him as he left.
“Think they are all high as balls out there?” Keir asked.
“Probably. They’re Ancients and the Kronos hits them in… Well, it doesn’t work on humans the same; let’s put it that way. It explains the orgy. All they want is to see what the world has to offer, even after their extremely long lives, they want nothing more than to push the boundaries even further. Why can’t pursangs just be happy with what they have?” The question was rhetorical, and one that we had each asked time and time again when we’d watched some bullshit drama, that was completely avoidable, unfold.
When Keir just grunted at me, I knew we were on the same page. Our whole brotherhood, and I’m sure most brotherhoods for that matter, were sick of the council’s shit, and the pursang policies that gave them ever more power and us less and less. A revolution wouldn’t be far away if they kept this up, and I could almost guarantee that most brotherhoods would just step aside and let it happen, or turn on the families they served.
My brain startled at how lucky we were. Being around so many council pricks was just a slap in the face over how different Marcella was. We’d anticipated being bound to a pursang princess, and instead, Marcella not only gave us the time of day but loved us. She was our whole world, but we were hers as well. It wasn’t a one-sided thing like it was with most brotherhoods. I couldn’t imagine being trapped with a Sixth who thought we were worth less than the dirt on her shoe, but that’s how most of them were raised, and in turn, it kept the Stained in line, following whatever the pursangs wanted.
When Darius and Barclay burst through the door a few minutes later, they almost gave me a heart attack as they jolted me from my thoughts, and I could see from a quick glance at Keir that he’d been just as startled as I was. Nothing about this situation was good, and with four of her six mates now clustered together, I knew it would only be a matter of time before Marcella came looking for us.
I was almost amused at how antsy we were, so desperate to protect and shield our female, but equally, I was touched. We were all on the same page where she was concerned, and that was exactly how it was supposed to be. Marcella wasn’t only special because she wasn’t a regular bitch Sixth, but she cared for us like we’d never been cared for before. If that didn’t deserve our loyalty, if she didn’t deserve our protection, then who the fuck did?
“We need to get her scent off us before Marcella comes to investigate. I don’t want to upset her any more than she already is,” I said with a sigh, before I kicked open the door to where the woman was now slumped on the ground with just one hand digging at the metal barrier between her and what she thought was still her male, even though Barclay hadn’t been in there for a while.
I glanced up and saw that he had stationed himself by the door, ready to run at a moment’s notice if the woman became rowdy again. Pussy shifter… the thought made me smirk to myself.
“Isabella, what have you gotten yourself into now?” Darius’s voice was low as he shook his head and squatted down in front of the woman.
“D?” How the woman could slur one syllable, I wasn’t sure, but she managed it.
“Someone go and find Councilman Walker, and advise him that his daughter is sick and needs to go home. If he asks questions or refuses, just tell him that it’s Budapest all over again,” Darius ordered.
“I know where he is. I’ll go,” I offered, remembering where I saw Councilman Walker getting head a moment ago. Nothing like a wrinkly old dick to burn the location of its owner into your memory. Better than fucking GPS.
I was out of the door and down the hall before anyone could even respond. T
here was something about being close to someone who used Kronos that disgusted me on a visceral level. It repulsed me. I knew my primal reaction was probably due to the time I had spent in Elizabeth’s head, but I couldn’t help it any more than I could stop myself from breathing.
Sticking to the shadows allowed me to weave my way around the room toward Councilman Walker without getting any unwanted eyes on me. Just my bond to Marcella, and in turn her other mates, let me know where they were and that they hadn’t moved an inch. It also let me know how close my stunning mate was to turning this place into a bloodbath. Even with the number of pursangs here, I doubted there would be enough to stop her with her powers as they were, or at least, not before she’d had her fill.
Marcella was a ticking time bomb. I couldn’t be the only one of her mates who knew that. Not from how we were all dancing around her cautiously.
It was a good thing we all liked dancing with death…
Naturally, I couldn’t be saved from having to see the guy’s chode—Councilman Walker was still there getting his limp, little cock sucked on. I hadn’t thought that age would impact a pursang’s ability to get hard, but apparently, I was wrong because while the woman was giving it everything she had, he was still a wet noodle in her mouth. Although noodle was being generous.
“Excuse me, Councilman Walker?” I coughed as I interrupted the man’s pleasure.
His Enforcer was up in my face before he could react, although the guy’s cock was still hanging from his pants… Hard to take someone seriously like that.
Pun intended.
“It’s about your daughter, Isabella. She’s sick.”
“Stupid salsang, pursangs don’t get sick,” Walker sneered at me. His eyes still unfocused as the woman waited to see what the outcome of this little interlude would be. He grabbed her head and forced her down onto his dick. The woman would have choked if he’d been anything other than tiny.
