Elements of Ruin (Hijinks Harem Book 2)

by C. M. Stunich

  “Joke all you want, but you do realize that you're in a heap of shit, right?”

  “It's my fault you got beat up, isn't it?” I asked, trying desperately not to look at George. Where the fuck was that fucking healer?! Come to think of it: George's wound was sort of my fault also. I mean, Daniel and his lackeys were my biological parents. I hoped it was worth it to them to have one of the world's few elemental females in their group.

  “I didn't know CUM was all over you,” Siobhan said, completely serious. Britt giggled from her hunky new boy toy's arms as Reg snickered from beside me. Yep. Clones of one another, the male and female version of the same person. What did that say about me? That I'd sought out a dude that was a clone of my best friend. Wait … Siobhan and Dustin, same deal, right?

  “Cum certainly was all over Ari,” Reg added before Shane gave him a shut your damn piehole glare.

  “What do you mean by that exactly,” I said, coughing theatrically and trying my very best not to laugh. COCS and CUM—two terrible organizations. Heh. There was some ironic sense to those acronyms, huh?

  “The attack at the club,” Siobhan said, surprising me. “This … thing with Daniel. I didn't know about any of it, but as soon as I heard, I came back. Dustin came with me and then … shit got out of hand and quick—I had CUM all over me.”

  “Can you please stop saying that?” Reg said, choking back a laugh as he glanced over at George. “It's just, like, really funny.”

  “How do you know my biological dad's name?” I asked, taking the washcloth from Reg when he tried to surreptitiously dip it between my breasts. I was still dressed in just a shirt and panties and totally not prepared for this shit storm. Now, if I'd been wearing heels, a nice face of makeup, a new dress …

  “Your dad?” Siobhan asked, and then it was like a lightbulb went off behind those emerald eyes of hers. “Daniel's your father? Well, that explains a lot.” She glanced to the side as Britt let out a growl, and Siobhan flipped my werewolf bestie off.

  “You're seriously going to sit here and insult Ari after all the shit that just went down? You've gotta a lot of nerve, girl,” Britt said, pushing her new beau's arms away and taking a step forward, like she was getting ready to start something. Nope. No. Not letting my two girls go at each other like that.

  “Woman on woman violence is just another tool of the patriarchy,” I said, pushing Shane's arm off and rising from his lap. It was really, really hard to leave that denim clad warmth behind. “Ladies …”

  I stepped between them just about the same moment the doorbell rang.

  “Fucking finally,” Billy growled, stalking over to yank the door open. “Dude, you are way past late.” He moved aside to let in … an entire entourage of people.

  An entourage that included my new mother-in-law.

  Great. Fan-fucking-tastic.

  Joan paused, her blonde hair perfectly coiffed, her silk blouse wrinkle free, and her jeans so high-waisted that I knew—I knew—that even if she looked my age, she was totally a mom. Because like, those were the mom-est looking mom jeans I'd ever seen in my life.

  She wrinkled her nose at me and looked at my … fucking bat panties?!

  I tugged the baggy t-shirt I was … oh shit, that was Pokémon themed … down over the underwear and coughed to draw Joan's attention back to my face. I was wearing Pokémon shit again?! Where did the boys get all this stuff from?

  “We were attacked while I was in the nude,” I said, lifting my chin haughtily. “I didn't exactly have time to plan my outfit.”

  “What a shame—I always have battle ready attire set aside for just such an emergency,” she sniffed and I swear, beams of hatred must've been shooting out of my eyes in her direction.

  “Babes,” Britt snickered, “where did you get Woobat panties from?”

  “What's a Woobat?” I asked, feeling like I was engaging in the dumbest conversation in the world, but just this side of tipsy enough to roll with it. “It sounds like a girly wombat, but I'm pretty sure these are like … regular bats?” I lifted my shirt a little to take another look at my panties but they held no answers for me.

  “A Woobat is the un-evolved version of the Pokémon Swoobat. They have like, psychic powers and can fly. See, the bat wings with the fluffy sort of body?” Britt leaned close to my ass to poke at one of the bats. Sorry, I mean Woobats. Fuck a duck. Was this what my life had come to?

  “If you're done with your inane discussion about Pokémon?” Joan's voice was as dry as a nun's cunt and she raised a sarcastic eyebrow at me. Such a bitch.

  “Sorry, healer right?” I pointedly ignored Joan and smiled at the effeminate sort of man clutching an old-school doctor's bag to his chest.

  “Healer, is me, that is, yes.” The little man bobbed his head up and down like one of those nodding dogs that people used to put in the back window of their cars.

  “Ahh, okay cool …” Was he just super nervous or did he always talk like Yoda? “George is the one in need of healing.” I indicated my injured husband and the healer shuffled past me.

  “Dwayne is the best healer in the state; he will have George sorted in no time,” Joan sniffed and looked around at the room's inhabitants. “A succubus?” She did that infuriating eyebrow arch at me again when she spotted Siobhan, and I resisted the urge to slap her.

  “Yes, a succubus. Is that an issue for you?” I tried to return her brow raise, but it was not a talent I had quite mastered so instead just ended up doing a sort of surprised face.

  “It is. And considering the mess CUM has just made all over your life, I'd have thought you'd find it an issue, too.” Joan said this with a dead straight face but Reg and Britt simply couldn't help themselves, snorting with laughter. Fucking children.

  “I was just explaining to Ari that CUM is all over me just as much as her right now,” Siobhan spoke up helpfully and Joan speared her with a signature dagger glare.

  “Joan, why don't you and your friends have a seat?” I waved my hand at the entourage that had arrived with my mother-in-law and the little healer man. They looked vaguely familiar but I was too damn tired and beaten to put any further thought as to who they were. “I need to finish speaking with my friend in private, if you don't mind.”

  “We do mind, actually,” one of Joan's friends spoke up in an equally snooty tone of voice. He was a prim looking red-haired man of indeterminate age, dressed impeccably in a custom tailored pinstripe suit and shoes polished within an inch of their lives.

  “And who the fuck are you?” I asked rudely, propping a hand on my hip in a sassy sort of way. Fuck manners. These people had just showed up at my house, uninvited, mere moments after both myself and my husbands had almost become magical dog chow—they deserved my rudeness.

  “I'm Larry, father of Dustin and current patriarch of the Metal Clan.” He tilted his chin up proudly as though I should have been impressed by this introduction. I wasn't.

  “Okay. Cool story? Siobhan, let's go finish our discussion in my room.” I turned back to my succubus friend but Dwayne the healer was crouched on the carpet beside her and frowning at her injuries.

  “Still, she must sit,” he murmured, frowning at me then turning back to Siobhan. “Heal, I will. Next, you be.”

  “Is he for real?” I muttered under my breath to Billy, who had sidled up and was propped against the wall beside me.

  “The Yoda thing? Yup. But he's also the best at what he does, so you kinda just need to roll with it.” He flicked a cigarette out of fuck knows where and lit it with a snap of his fingers.

  As much as I hated smoking—because cancer was no goddamn joke—I couldn't help but stare at his sexy fucking mouth wrapped around the little death stick. Jesus H. Christ my fire-husband was hot. Literally and figuratively.

  “You need to get that seen to when he's done with your slutty friend.” He brushed a light finger over the wound on my neck and I shivered.

  “Why? What happened to Britt?” I frowned, thinking about my slutty friend,
then realized my error—I had two slutty friends. “Oh, wrong one. Right.”

  “Really, bitch?” Britt drawled, “Little miss gangbang is allowing slut shaming now?”

  She had a point.

  “Is anyone going to offer us tea?” Joan interjected, having made herself comfortable on an armchair, while her entourage—Larry included—hovered around my living room like overgrown crows.

  “I've got it, Mom,” Reg hopped up like a good boy and disappeared into my kitchen to make tea out of Grams' stuffy English stash. I didn't much like tea; if I had my way, the sum total of my kitchen would be wine, wine, more wine, some coffee, a bottle of vodka and maybe some whiskey.

  “Now then,” Joan said, folding her ankles like a real lady and pasting on a smile that was as fake as a display toilet in a bathroom showroom. “Larry has come to retrieve his son. Kindly tell him where you're hiding him and then the Metallics can be on their way.”

  “Metallics?” I looked closer at the murder of crows in my living room. “There's like … more of you?”

  “Of course there is,” Larry snorted, looking at me like I was a clump of hair pulled from a drain. “We just don't associate with the likes of you.”

  “What Larry means, dear,” Joan looked like she couldn't decide who she liked less—me or Larry the human crow, “is that the Metallics are an almost extinct race of elemental, and have chosen to separate themselves from the rest of the elemental community.”

  “So how does COCS plan to deal with all of this CUM mess they've unleashed?” I asked, putting my hands on my hips. Even I had to giggle a little at that one; I could hear Reg chortling from the direction of the kitchen.

  “The Committee of Combined Supernaturals,” Joan said, purposefully avoiding the phallic acronym as she smoothed an imaginary wrinkle on her silk blouse, “has a plan in place to deal with the rogue chaos clans.”

  “Chaos clans …” I said and then ah, I remembered. A storm of elementals, a pack of wolves, a lead of foxes, a chaos of succubi and incubi … and a kindle of kittens. Aww, kittens …

  “But you'll need to tell us what happened here,” Charlie interjected. He was so quiet, so overshadowed by Joan and the like, totally creepy healer dude that I'd barely noticed him. “From the beginning, please.” He raked a hand over his thinning hair—for a dude that looked so young, the thin hair was a little concerning. Hopefully Reg had inherited hair genes from, you know, one of his other four dads.

  I wished suddenly that Warden were still here. If he'd stuck around, he'd have rolled his eyes at Joan and told her to go screw a ladybug farmer—whatever that meant. He was so good at being a snarky piece of shit …

  And you almost just died for him, my mind whispered before I brushed the words aside and felt George's arms go around me—no bone this time. His smell, that sweet jasmine scent mixed with earth and growing things, it surrounded me in a pleasant cloud as I leaned into his warmth.

  “Go talk with your friend,” he told me, letting go and stepping back. I sort of hated losing the feeling of him pressed up against me like that. Who ever woulda thunk that we were still virtual strangers to one another, huh? “I'll take care of the recap.”

  Without waiting to see what Joan's reaction was going to be, I grabbed Britt, and I grabbed Siobhan—my girls were just going to have to learn to put up with each other—and flashed a sorry, dude smile at the weird healer man with … did he have fucking wings on his back, too?! They were tiny and shriveled and sort of sad, but then again—so were Alberta O'Sullivan's and she'd literally just pulled my fat from the fryer.

  Billy watched us as we slipped by and moved up the steps, giving me a look that said he'd much rather come with us than deal with the mess in the living room. As we moved up the staircase, I could hear that Larry douche yelling behind me.

  “Chin up, sweet bottom,” Grams said, appearing in the hallway as I dragged the girls to the guest bedroom where the boys and I had had our first orgy—wow, did I just say our first orgy. Hmm. What a state my life was in.

  “Can it, grandma, it's time for girl talk,” I said and then slammed the bedroom door in her face. Well, like, sort of through her face which was weird. But she faded away as soon as I flipped the lock and at least pretended to give us some privacy.

  “Why are we both up here in the same room?” Britt asked, giving Siobhan the stink eye. “You know we have a twenty-feet-between-us-at-all-times rule.”

  “Only because werewolves reek like wet dog,” Siobhan said, sitting on the edge of the bed as I surreptitiously tried to pull up the covers. I had no idea if the boys had washed them while I'd been comatose for three days and like, there could be bodily fluids everywhere.

  “And chaos assholes always have that hot summer sex stench about them, all sweaty and—”

  “Britt,” I snapped, gritting my teeth as I sat down next to Siobhan and ran a hand over my face. “Can you chill for a minute?”

  I needed time to process, and I needed support, and I needed a break from the boys so I could have logical thoughts without my ovaries sending all the wrong signals to my brain.

  “Are you okay?” Britt asked, her voice softening slightly as I closed my eyes and sucked in several deep breaths.

  The thing I found weird about that question was how complicated it suddenly felt.

  Was I okay?

  I honestly didn't know the answer to that question.

  Maybe if I snuck the girls out the window, grabbed some Starbucks, and had a moment to myself … I'd find out?

  But first, I'd change out of the Pokémon panties.

  Lucky Siobhan the Succubus had a spare glamour with her—I'd need to look into getting an extra made—but I had to dress myself up like that kid in A Christmas Story, the one that can barely walk he's got so many winter layers on.

  “I look like a tick,” I said, standing outside in the ice-cold weather and feeling like I was sweating buckets under my red puffy jacket, leggings, and boots. The damn runes were visible even when I wasn't turned on and with all the death threats I'd been receiving lately, I wasn't about to take any chances.

  “You look like a basic bitch,” Britt said with a grin, eyeing me in my leggings and Ugg boots, a pumpkin spice latte clutched between my hands. “Which is, like, so totally not a bad thing because there's nothing wrong with liking what's popular or what other girls like. I'm just taking back the phrase.”

  “How very progressive of you,” I said as Siobhan sipped her hot green tea and glared at Britt in a way that made me believe she was praying for her immediate and untimely death. The funny thing was—Britt and Siobhan were almost the same person. The fact that they didn't get along was sort of ironic to me.

  “Could we try and keep the conversation focused on the serious issues at hand?” Siobhan said, but only because Britt had brought up inane topics first. It could've very easily been the other way around. I sipped my drink, standing on the brick patio of the closest Starbucks (there are like seven in the immediate vicinity) and watching everyone and everything around me like I expected to be jumped at any moment.

  “What's to talk about?” Britt asked as I pulled my phone from my pocket with one hand and glanced at the most recent text from Shane.

  All is well here, sugar—everyone's gone but your dead grandmama. When you're ready, come back, but stay safe out there, you hear?

  My mouth twitched in a reluctant smile as I put the phone back and took another sip of my coffee.

  “We already discussed her bio parents, the old lady neighbor, and how awful COCS and CUM are. What else is there?” Britt flipped some dark hair over her shoulder and gave Siobhan a challenging look.

  “Well, there's the fact that Max is popping in and out of her life like a half-hard cock in a super wet vagina and then there's the issue of the metal elements and … Dustin.”

  “You mean the issue of you dating your supposed 'best friend's'”—Britt set her drink aside on a nearby table and made quotes with her fingers—“soul mate. Is t
hat really where you want to go with this?”

  “Britt!” I snapped, giving my best bitch a shut your hole glare. “Rein it in. I want to hear the whole story from Siobhan—without interruptions.”

  Britt gave me a sulking pout, but shut her trap and slouched back in her chair.

  “Now, Siobhan, can you just start from how you and this Dustin met? This all seems like a really big coincidence …” I narrowed my eyes at my other best bitch and she flushed red.

  “It is, I swear, Ari.” She chewed her lip nervously and her fingers shredded a napkin, “We met at a party that I was, um, working.”

  Britt coughed a snorting laugh and I shot her a look to shut her up again.

  “He wasn't my client or anything. I mean, not directly. It was a chaos hosted event and all the pros were working it,” Siobhan continued, ignoring Britt's noises. “I don't know how much you know about the Metallics, but they're a pretty well-to-do sort of clan based almost entirely out of Ireland. Anyway, CUM loves anyone with money, so the Metallics are always extended an invitation whether they attend or not. It just so happened that Dusty was in town and had nothing going on, so …”

  “So you guys met, hit it off, and started dating?” I prompted, and she blushed.

  “Uh yeah. Fairly much. I mean we're not super-super serious or anything, and I swear we never fucked.” Her wide-eyed sincerity made me believe what she was saying, but I knew her … and so did Britt. Probably because they were basically the same person.

  “So you never went the full monty—peen in vag—but what did you do, huh?” Britt challenged with a smirk. Damn her—she was right. There's no way Siobhan, elite succubus call girl, would have been satisfied with just holding hands.

  “I just don't think all the sticky, sweaty details are necessary,” the red-headed succubus shrugged, dodging eye contact once more. “Suffice to say it’s like, way over now that I know he’s bonded to Ari.”

  “Wait, bonded?” I frowned, “As in, already?”

  “Uh, duh, bitch.” Britt flicked me in the forehead. “Why else do you think this is such a big deal?”