by Amy Sumida
“I'm a child for not making decisions for her?” Slate growled. “For respecting her and having faith in her ability to make the right choice? I think you've got that backward; you're the ones behaving like children.”
Declan's eyes flashed, but Torin laid a restraining hand on his forearm.
“It's because he isn't married to her,” Torin said flippantly to Declan. “Elaria's just his girlfriend. Slate doesn't understand the intricacies of marriage. He's simply not as committed as we are.”
“Just because I haven't given her a ring, it doesn't mean that I haven't made vows to her,” Slate growled as he leaned forward in his seat. “I'm just as committed as any of you are. She's it for me. I don't need a piece of jewelry to prove my fidelity. And as for our decisions affecting each other, I agree that some things should be discussed and decided on together.” He shot a searing look at Declan. “But there will also be decisions that we must be allowed to make alone. If one of my brothers came to me with something like this, I would say yes, without speaking to Elaria or any of you. I'd inform her of it and ask for her opinion, of course, but she doesn't have the right to forbid me to help my family. Just as I don't have the right to tell her not to help her family. Some bonds are sacred.”
I smiled softly at Slate. “I would never try to stop you from helping your brothers.”
“I know,” he said confidently. “I said all of that for them, not you. You, I have complete faith in.”
“And you still don't get it,” Declan said with a huff and a wave of his elegant hand. “She is more than family to us. This isn't about control or blood, this is about love. This is about the fact that if one of us dies, the rest will suffer. So, yes, we do have the right to tell Elaria not to help Cerberus, and she has the right to tell us when she doesn't think that something we want to do is worth the risk to our lives. That is commitment, Slate, not some romantic drivel you babbled while you laid between her thighs.”
Slate shot to his feet with a roar and a raised fist, and Declan rose to meet him, magic filling his eyes with a deadly glow.
“Enough!” Cerberus shoved himself between the two men and straight-armed them away from each other before I could react. “Both of you sit the fuck down!” He pushed the men back into their seats. “I'm not going to talk about who has what right; that shit's between all of you and, frankly, it makes my head hurt to even think about it. But I will say that I will be severely fucking disappointed in all of you if you don't man up to help me after all I've done for your ungrateful asses!”
Torin and Declan shared heavy looks.
“Are you sure this is what you want to do, Ellie?” Banning asked me gently. It was the first thing he'd said.
“Yes.”
“I understand,” Banning nodded then looked at Cer. “You're sure, Cerberus? You're certain that you want to start something with the Demos Family? This will be brutal. It will be bloody and vicious and may drag on for years.”
“I'm sure,” Cer said just as firmly as I had.
“That's all I need to know,” Banning said. “You have the support of my gura and me. Whatever we can do to help, we will.”
“Thank you,” Cerberus said in relief.
“Have you forgotten that we were friends before I met Elaria?” Banning asked Cer. “You've been there for me, time and time again. You don't have to thank me, Cerberus. You're my family too.”
Banning and Cerberus clasped forearms, looking like a couple of medieval warriors. Despite the testosterone oozing off them, the scene was sweet.
“Well, that makes us look like assholes if we keep arguing against this,” Declan said dryly to Torin.
Torin sighed then said, “I will agree on one condition; that you promise to give our opinions more consideration in the future. You're my wife, Elaria. I love you, and I want to support you, but you need to respect me and my needs as well. We should come before everyone else, including Cerberus.”
I glanced at Cerberus apologetically before I answered Torin. “You do, Tor. All five of you”—I gave Slate a pointed look—“are more important to me than any friend or even my family. We're in this cage together, remember? I will always listen to what you have to say and give it serious consideration, but that doesn't mean I'll agree with you or allow you to sway me when the decision impacts other people I love. We're married, not merged into one person. We're going to disagree.”
“Let me put this into perspective for you.” Declan leaned forward and took my hand. “How would you feel if I told you that I was going to risk my life for a friend of mine, whether or not I had your consent? And not only would I risk my life, but I'd also put you and everyone else you cared about in danger by starting a war. How would you feel about that, Elaria?”
I grimaced. “Fair enough, Declan. This impacts all of you, and I should have been more open to your protests.”
Declan kissed my hand and sat back with a soft smile.
Then I went on, “But we both know that if you felt so strongly about something that you were willing to start a war over it, I wouldn't argue with you about it. I'd simply ask what you wanted me to sing.”
Declan lost his smile to a deep sigh.
“And that's why I go wherever my mate leads,” Gage declared with an expansive wave in my direction. “Because she loves me enough to turn around and follow me when I need her to.”
Chapter Three
“You okay?” I whispered to Slate as I joined him on the balcony the circled my tower.
Once it had been decided that we were all on board with stopping the Demos Family, or at least ending their newest venture, the conversation had turned to planning. The men started amiably going over tactics as if we hadn't spent the last half an hour ferociously arguing. All but Slate, who stood up with an irritated and astounded expression and strode out to the balcony.
The irritation slipped from Slate's face as he turned to look at me, replaced by hurt. I didn't say anything more, just took his hand and pulled him further down the balcony to a spot where we couldn't be observed or overheard.
“What Torin and Declan said to you was unfair and untrue,” I said firmly. “They don't know the intimate details of our relationship; that's none of their business. But because I haven't shared that with them, they don't understand that we made vows to each other that were more than words. You're mine, and I'm yours. A ring isn't required to validate that. These”—I held up my hands to show him my rings—“are symbols, nothing more. I like to look at them because of what they represent, but I don't need them to know that what I have with the men who gave them to me is real. And I don't need a piece of jewelry from you to tell me that we are real. The fact that every day, we get up and choose each other all over again, that we look at each other and know that this love is what we want, and we can't imagine waking up the next day without having this to look forward to, that validates us. That makes us real.”
Slate's shoulders smoothed down as a sigh eased out of him, and he pulled me into a tight embrace. “I thought this was supposed to be a family. I didn't expect to have to defend myself against them. Not like that. That was vicious.”
“You're right; the way they spoke to you was unacceptable. You're not just my boyfriend. We're bound through magic, and they know that. They're just scared for me. Scared and angry.”
“They can't be angry with me for having different ideas on how a relationship should be,” he growled.
“You've misunderstood me. They're not mad at you, Slate. They're mad at me.” I glanced across Kyanite, the sparkling, lush kingdom steadying my thoughts. I've never seen anything as beautiful as the Kyanite Kingdom, not even the island I grew up on. “And they're mad at Lucifer.”
Slate made an annoyed sound. Being upset with Lucifer was something he could relate to. The reformed God of the Angels had done some horrible things to me before I literally cut the evil out of his soul. Unfortunately, the experience had left Lucifer with a hardcore crush on me; a crush that he made no effort to
hide. He had even taken to dating women who he had surgically altered to look like me. On top of that, I exacerbated the situation by forgiving Lucifer and when I had been in dire need recently—losing control of my fire magic while I tried to escape a mad scientist—I had called on Lucifer for help instead of my lovers.
It didn't matter that Lucifer was the only person I could have summoned at that time who had the power to help me control my volatile goddess magic. Male egos don't react reasonably to such things. All of my lovers said that they understood, Torin himself had spoken with Lucifer and announced that he sympathized with the god, but I was beginning to think that they harbored some hurt feelings over my choices and that pain had just been directed at Slate.
“I didn't like that either, but you've made your feelings clear to him,” Slate said. “You've done everything you can to put Lucifer firmly in his place; a non-sexual place. They know that as well as I do. We went over this already. I don't think all of that was about Lucifer. I think they simply don't like being challenged when it comes to you.”
“Maybe you're right, and I'm not saying that you should let it go. Call them on it. Just wait until you have a private moment with them to do it. Right now, they're just going to dig in their heels even though they know they're wrong.”
“What happened to RS making us feel like brothers?” He grumbled.
I can't do everything for you, the Rooster Spell, AKA RS, spoke into our minds. Brothers argue. Buck up, little buckaroo.
The Rooster Spell was the whole reason I had multiple lovers. She'd been transferred to me by a dying witch who previously used her to bind several sirens, including my mother, to him like a bunch of hens to a rooster. When the spell became mine, it changed. It took on aspects of my personality and spoke with my voice. It also shifted from a lust-based spell to one powered by love. It required love to fuel it; love from multiple sources. But in return, it fueled us. It made all of us more powerful and bonded the men in a comradeship that was very similar to brotherhood. She could also speak in all of our minds; together or singularly.
Besides, RS went on, Kyanite's the one who could have calmed everyone.
Darcraxis and I had an additional voice in our heads; that of our aligned jewel, Kyanite. Ky had attached to me first and thought of himself as my seventh lover. His magical properties included communication of all forms, psychic enhancement, and calming abilities. We had bonded because of his communication skills. Through me, Kyanite had a voice and with him, I had music on demand. He not only empowered my spellsinging, but he also made music out of thin air for me to sing to. I had focused so thoroughly on that aspect of our relationship that I'd forgotten about his other talents.
“Ky?” I asked as I realized that RS was right. “Why didn't you help us?”
Calming your men would have only served to push their anxieties down to surface at another time. I thought it best to let them vent, Ky said reasonably.
“Except they vented on Slate,” I growled.
Slate's a big, strong gargoyle. He can take it, Ky's tone went smug.
“I'd rather hear the truth than have Kyanite calm them into politeness,” Slate said at the same time.
“It wasn't the truth, Slate.” I took his hand. “That's what I'm trying to say. They didn't mean those things.”
“I may have been a bit harsh,” Declan admitted as he stepped around the curved wall with Torin. “I'm sorry, Slate.”
“We know you're committed to her,” Torin added. “I apologize for saying otherwise. I'm worried about her going back into that bazaar with her goddess magic still unreliable.”
“You could have just said that,” Slate drawled as he leaned against the railing and eyed the other men.
“I might have if you hadn't been so damn cocky about how you don't try to control Elaria,” Torin pointed out. “The rest of us have gone through hell to reach a point where we think of each other as family. You're with us now, and we're all trying to make you feel welcome, but when you say things like that, it draws a line between us, and we can't help banding together against you.”
“So, you're saying that if I want to be a part of the family, I have to agree with what you say?” Slate narrowed his eyes at Torin.
“No,” Torin growled and then took a deep breath. He continued in a more even tone, “We're not one person; we all have different opinions and that will lead to arguments. But when we argue, we try not to let our relationship with Elaria become an issue. We were speaking as concerned husbands and instead of respecting that, you challenged it. You made the argument about who was the better man for Elaria. Who treated her better. You can't say that kind of separatist shit to us and expect to be treated like family.”
“We may have been wrong,” Declan said diplomatically. “But we're in this together, and we deserve to be heard. You basically gave us the finger and told us to shut the hell up. That wasn't going to go unanswered.”
Slate let out a long sigh and grimaced. “Fair enough. But all I did was speak my mind. You came across as controlling, and I don't agree with that.”
“You can be controlling in other ways, Slate,” I said gently. “We are all guilty of that. That's what happens when you love someone; you want to protect them, even if it's from themselves. We have a lot invested in each other and that makes it difficult to step back and just watch while one of us makes a decision we don't approve of.”
“Thank you,” Torin said stiffly.
“That being said,” I went on, “we have to find a better way to deal with these situations. Attacking each other is not constructive.”
“Agreed,” Torin said. “But neither is making decisions without letting us have a say. We joined our lives to yours, Elaria. You are not single anymore; you're part of a team. That means we make life-changing decisions together.”
“Going after the Demos Family isn't life-changing,” I protested.
“It is if they kill you or one of us,” Declan said grimly. “Yes, we're powerful now, but I've always been a powerful man, and yet there has always been someone stronger than I.” His stare became intense, and I knew he was thinking of Bodicca, the queen who had killed his parents and tortured him. “It's foolish to let yourself believe that there is no danger involved in this.”
“I know this will be dangerous,” I said softly. “But the Nymphs are being abused and my friends have chosen to take their side. How can I turn my back on them?”
“Now, this is how we should have discussed things.” Torin pulled me into an embrace. “I understand your need to help your friends, little bird. If this is what you want to do, I'll stand with you. But I need you to be more stable when we take that stand.” He pulled back to look at me. “I don't want you putting yourself in harm's way until Rathlin can assure us that you have your fire magic under control.”
“But—”
“At least enough so that you won't pose a danger to yourself when you use it,” Declan added. “We don't want a repeat of the melted lab incident.”
“You mean; you don't want me calling on Lucifer to help me again,” I lifted a challenging brow.
“Yes, that was annoying, but we know why you did it,” Torin said evenly. “We're not so petty that we resent Lucifer for helping you. I spoke to him about you, and he assured me that he's trying to move past his feelings for you. I don't have a problem with Lucifer; I have a problem with you.”
“Excuse me?” I gaped at him.
“What if you're in the middle of the Bazaar and something upsets you, Elaria? What if you need to sing and your fire magic rises beyond your control again? Think of what that could do. The whole Bazaar could go up in flames. Even if you survive, you'd be devastated.”
I blew a hot, annoyed breath out of my nose. Annoyed because Torin was right.
“I'll call Rath.”
“And?” Declan prompted.
“I won't go off alone until he gives me the thumb's up,” I promised.
“Thank you,” Declan said as Torin kis
sed my forehead. “And what about you, Gargoyle? Are we good?”
“We're good,” Slate rumbled. “And I'll try to keep my ruthless tactics out of any future arguments with you.”
“Then maybe this will work.” Torin grinned from me to Slate. “Now, let's get back inside and put all of this energy to better use.”
“Makeup sex?” Declan looked at me hopefully.
The rest of us groaned and headed back inside.
“Don't tell me that you weren't thinking it,” Declan called after us.
Chapter Four
After hours of planning, Cerberus went back to the Grand Beneather Bazaar in Istanbul, the bazaar within the human bazaar. The first Cerberus Security office is there and that's where he intended to run this operation from. Cer would be setting every available security officer he had on the case. They'd patrol the Bazaar undercover, keeping an eye on the Demos goons and reporting their movements to Cerberus. That information would, hopefully, help us make more detailed plans.
