by Meg Xuemei X
My mates stared at me, as if they didn’t recognize me.
“You always surprise us, dulcis,” Lorcan said softly.
“I’ve wondered when you’d ever be mature,” Amber said in a hushed voice. She was still intimidated by all of my mates, but she could rise to the occasion.
I grinned at my mates. “I’m a mated female now. I can’t always be reckless. More important, I need to take the leadership role, like you dudes. So I’d better start now. I don’t want to end up as an idiot with too much power.”
Quite a few people chuckled in the room.
“You want to be a leader, I see,” Reysalor said, pondering.
“She’s never a follower anyway,” Pyrder grunted.
“I’m going to woman up and take more responsibility,” I said, looking at them expectantly, “even if it comes as a form of punishment. What do you guys think?”
They assented grudgingly, with one condition.
When the day came, I ran laps at amazing speed, all smiles, holding a crystal ball as if it weren’t a bomb but a gift. If I tried to toss it away before I finished twenty laps, it would go off. And if I ran below the speed limit, it would explode, too.
The crystal ball contained potent magic, yet I couldn’t discern what type of magic lay inside. But I knew it wasn’t Earth magic.
This Noah dude was something. How could he access non-Earth magic? Something was off with him. Soon I would get Amber to work with me and give him a heavy-lift reading. If he was anything like Phobos …
A black panther charged toward me and ran beside me.
That was our bargain. I refused to let all my mates crowd me and take part in my punishment, so they compromised and sent only Reys to monitor the bomb.
The students were watching us. Somehow the meddlesome Amber spread the word that I’d had to redirect my power to destroy the empty part of the courtyard in order not to hurt them. Now many of them thought I was taking the punishment for them.
Amber trailed after me after my second lap. Then another student joined. Then another. When I finished the fourth lap, the track was full of students, running with me or behind me. Yet all of them left one lane vacant for me.
“You go, Cass,” someone called after me. “Lead us.”
I hadn’t expected this kind of support, and warmth swelled in my chest like the brightest sunlight in winter.
While my other mates spread out on every corner of the track, watching me like protective hawks, the panther sprang beside me like a black arrow, keeping up with me in every step.
The fae heir to Sihde had set me free. He had been with me when my new cage-free life started. He was with me now in the middle of the track, and he’d be with me to the end.
“I love you, Reys,” I said, holding the bomb steadily.
The black panther roared in response.
21
A wave of nausea shook me, and a pounding pain slammed into my skull.
I snapped open my eyes. I was majorly relieved that I wasn’t in the cage but sleeping in Reys’s arms, Pyrder on my other side, his strong hand draping over my thigh.
My eyes found Alaric on a long sofa near the bed, asleep. This was the largest room in Pyrder’s suite in the Academy, so we took it as our common room. Alaric wouldn’t get in bed with us unless he fought and won the place sleeping next to me.
My gaze skipped Alaric, searching for my last mate, but he wasn’t here.
The High Lord of Night had a different schedule than us. He was most active at night. So, right now, he might be patrolling the floor to make sure I was properly guarded, delve into the deep night to find our enemies’ secrets, or coordinate with his generals and kings of all vampires across the globe to ready for the war.
My mating bond with him was strong since we’d exchanged blood several times. I now could easily detect Lorcan’s true emotions and intentions if he didn’t block me. My bond with Alaric and Pyrder was solid as well, though different than with Lorcan. Reys and I also had a bond, but it hadn’t snapped in place since he was the only one who hadn’t properly claimed me, even though he was the first I’d had intimacy with.
Reys wanted to form the bond with me, but he wasn’t rushing me. Right now, he was pretty content just to hold me in his sleep. His body heat, solidity, and pure male scent comforted me.
As I nudged closer to his cut chest, another wave of dizziness assaulted me, and an empty, cold feeling gnawed my insides, digging and expanding, as if a foreign force was gutting me.
The nausea turned worse, spinning me violently.
Panic burned in my throat.
I took a deep breath, trying to drive away the terrible feeling, but my chest tightened like a fist. A sound escaped my throat, which I had no control over.
Alaric jumped off the sofa, fully awake now. He strode toward the bed, looking down at me.
A shadow of alarm flicked through his eyes.
My face must have looked paler than the dead. And the moonlight shining through the window on my skin wasn’t making the sight better.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Alaric asked softly.
Pyrder bolted up, turning to me.
Reys pulled me tightly against him, still sleepy. “Cass baby, what’s hurting you?”
Alaric had gotten into the bed with us, reaching me and trying to pull me into his arms.
“I got her,” Reys said, gathering me onto his lap.
A stream of tears flowed down my face. I started sobbing.
“Cass baby, talk to us,” Reysalor coaxed, his finger wiping off my tears, which flowed faster than he could dry them.
“I’m very thirsty,” I said amid my sobs. “I’m going to die of thirst.”
Reysalor left the bed and immediately returned with a cup of water. Alaric moved in and took Reys’s place as he inspected me.
Reysalor put the glass to my lips. “Drink, baby.”
I shook my head, pushed the glass away, “Water can’t make the thirst go away,” and sobbed. I couldn’t help it. “Nothing can. My head is pounding and pounding. My body hurts everywhere. I’m dying.”
“You’re not dying, Cass baby,” Pyrder said. “We’ll figure this out.”
“I’m going to kill Noah,” Alaric said. “That motherfucker gives off bad vibes. Cass wouldn’t be like this if that asshole hadn’t insisted on pulling out her power and exhausting our mate.”
“Alaric, I hurt,” I said, as I found the sympathy in him.
Alaric pulled my eyelids up and cursed.
“Are my eyes bloodshot?” I asked. “I don’t want to look bad in front of you. But do you see infection? I must have caught a lethal virus. This is worse than fever.”
I had never been sick before, not even when I was half-starved to death.
“Cass is suffering severe withdrawal,” Alaric announced. “She was supposed to drink from Phobos over a week ago. Her body now craves the pure energy, but it can’t have that shot anymore.”
Reysalor took a sharp breath. “So this is like drug and alcohol addiction?”
“A hundred times worse,” Alaric said, wiping off my tears with the sheet, which was more effective than Reys’s hand. “Drug and alcohol often act as brain depressants that push down the spring and suppress the brain’s production of neurotransmitters like noradrenalin. When an addict stops using drugs or alcohol, it’s like taking the weight off the spring. Her brain rebounds by producing a surge of adrenaline that causes the withdrawal. It’s hitting Cass with savage force, since Phobos’ energy is much more powerful than any drug.”
How did he know so much about drugs? It didn’t matter. I hurt.
“I need a quick fix,” I whimpered. I truly felt like an addict, now that Alaric had been so kind and merciless as to point it out. “Or I won’t survive the night.”
Great. Now I talked like one as well.
“Maybe sugar will help,” Pyrder said. “Cass loves cakes.” He vanished and then reappeared with an angel cake Boone put in the freezer.
Boone had mentioned that this type of cake was made with egg whites alone, no yolks, though I wouldn’t mind the yolks.
“I can’t have cake,” I said. “Amber said food is scarce, and a lot of people are hungry. I’ll only have one piece of cake a week, or maybe two pieces, but that’s it.”
“Today is special, and you need cake to get over withdrawal,” Alaric said and put the cake up to my mouth.
He was right. I stuffed my face with the snow-white, airy cake and all fruits on its side, hoping it would fill the hole inside me. After two servings, I pushed the cake aside and resumed crying.
“It didn’t help. And I don’t want to keep eating cakes. I’ll gain weight and none of you will want me anymore.” Tears leaked out of my eyes again.
“Who told you that bullshit?” Alaric asked.
Shan and Frances had both warned me of it, especially Frances. She worried for me. She told me a lot of human females got dumped by their lovers and husbands when they gained extra pounds. Her sister was one of the sorry cases.
“You’re half-god,” Pyrder said. “You’ll never gain weight.”
“You can’t know that,” I said, my eyes following the tattoo of the golden panther on his taut, sexy chest.
“I exercise every day.” He grinned, flexing his muscles to distract me from my misery. “You never need to worry about us leaving you. We’ll always do right by you, no matter what kind of shape or size you take.”
“You say it now, but when I’m a whale, you’ll run. All of you.” I cried again at the image of them running from me, and me so huge I’d be slow and never catch them.
My eyes were a faucet, and I couldn’t turn them off. All my mates were going to be so sick of me, which only made my tears pour more. I’d be all alone in the future if the gods didn’t finish me off.
“Dulcis!” Lorcan shouted urgently before he entered the room. “Are you all right?”
He must have felt my emotional turmoil through our bond.
He rushed in and halted at the bedside.
“What’s this about?” he snarled, staring hard at my other three males who all tried to get a wailing me into their arms. He leaned in and found a spot at my feet. “What’s bothering you, dulcis?”
“I’m a drug addict, Lorcan.” I wept. “Only the drug is Phobos. He made me this way. He did me no good. And he took off and left me dry without even saying goodbye. I need to get him back. I don’t care that his terror essence also gets into my bloodstream when I drink from him. I’m sorry that I’m a junkie now. But I need him. I need to take a big sip off him to fill this abyss in me. It hurts so much without him. My body hurts all over, and my bones ache. Ache!”
“She’s suffering severe withdrawal,” Alaric said, his eyes brooding and worried. I sensed that a hundred ideas wheeled in his mind as he tried to find a way to fix me.
“Looks like we need to recapture Phobos, or another minor god, and let Cass drink from him,” Pyrder said with a sigh.
I looked up at him through my moistened lashes. “You will do that for me?”
Alaric and Lorcan glared at Pyrder.
“It’s a lousy solution,” Reysalor said, rolling his eyes at his twin. “We never thought that drinking from a god could cause Cass such harm.”
“There’s no harm in having another glass of the Devil’s Love,” I protested. “We just need to find either Phobos or another god. He has a brother.”
“You don’t want Deimos, sweetheart,” Alaric said. “He’s worse than Phobos.”
“We’ll get through this together, Cass baby,” Reysalor said.
“I’m not sure if we can.” I gazed up at him through a mist of tears before I grabbed the sheet from Alaric’s hand and wiped my face.
“Come here, dulcis,” Lorcan said.
“Why?” I asked, but I was moving toward him as my other mates surrounded me like walls. Lorcan must have wanted to touch me since he’d been away from me for the night while the others slept around me. I wasn’t backing him up or choosing him over others, but he needed his fair share, too.
“I think I have a solution,” he said, his claws protruding and slicing across his wrist.
Dark crimson blood gushed out in rivulets, and he pressed his open wrist to my mouth.
“Drink,” he ordered.
“But—” I stopped protesting as his sweet, spicy blood flowed into my mouth and hit my tongue. When the ancient, potent blood rolled down my throat and landed in my stomach, the torn fabric in me started to weave back.
I instantly felt better—at least my muscles had stopped clamping—but I doubted that Lorcan’s blood would be enough to seal the hole completely.
Fire returned to me, and lust sparkled.
My core started throbbing with aching want.
I needed to fuck Lorcan, or any of my mates.
Desire darkened Lorcan’s gray eyes. I could see the bulge under his designer pants. With restrained strength, Lorcan pulled his wrist from my lips, and I lunged for him with a snarl.
“I need more!” I cried, and I wanted his massive, hard cock inside me.
“Control yourself, dulcis,” Lorcan said softly, yet with steel in his voice. “This is not over yet. My blood isn’t enough. You need to drink from all of us.”
Reysalor, Alaric, and Pyrder traded looks before staring hard at Lorcan.
“The four of us share the bond of brotherhood. Our combined blood is more powerful than anything,” Lorcan told his bonded brothers before turning to me. “Remember the runes that freed you from the cage? The runes wouldn’t have worked if they weren’t infused with the combined blood of Reysalor’s and mine.”
“Take my blood, Cass baby.” Pyrder volunteered.
Just when he was about to take a dagger strapped on Lorcan’s outer thigh, so he could cut his wrist, I felt an ache in my gums. Then fangs protruded from my mouth.
I yelped. “Fuck! I just grew fangs. What kind of freak am I? Am I becoming a vampire? I need to reverse this!”
But my fangs wouldn’t retract, and my thirst only increased.
The dark monster in me rose again, and it wanted the blood of all of my mates.
Instead of shrinking back, my mates leaned in to study my fangs.
“You aren’t a vampire, dulcis,” Lorcan said drily, his piercing gray eyes chiding me, “even though you now have fangs. No amount of my blood or anyone’s blood can turn you. If you’d become a vampire like me, I’d have known.”
“Your fangs are actually cute,” Pyrder said with a grin, reaching for a fang. “Our Cass likes to bite. Now she’ll bite even harder.”
Reysalor frowned, his forehead creasing. “Why did she suddenly have fangs? What does it mean?”
“What does it mean?” I parroted as I commanded my fangs to retract, to no avail. My eyes glowed as hunger kept pounding in me. “It can’t be good, can it?”
“Cass’s survival instincts often bypass the conditions and logic of her mind,” Alaric said. “Instinctively, she knows she needs to take our blood to fight the withdrawal caused by the sudden absence of Phobos’ energy. Our Cass wanted to drink from Pyrder’s neck as soon as he offered. So voila, her fangs.”
“Dulcis has developed the ability to mimic our powers,” Lorcan said.
“Did I tell you all that I teleported last week?” I asked. “It must have come from Pyrder and Reys, but I added my own tweak.”
Pyrder blinked. “But why haven’t we gotten her powers?”
“She’s a born chameleon,” Reysalor said in awe. “And her new powers keep emerging whenever she’s thrown into a situation.”
“I don’t like a situation,” I said. “I don’t like surprises.”
And I didn’t like them continuing to analyze me and gaze at me expectantly, as if I might grow two heads at any second.
My fangs ached. I needed Pyrder.
“Are you going to talk me to death?” I asked, eyeing the throbbing veins on Pyrder’s neck.
I morphed to
a vampiress. I’d return to be Cass after I had a taste from my fae mate.
“Do you need guidance as to how to do it properly, dulcis?” Lorcan asked gently.
“I think I’ve got it,” I said, inching eagerly toward Pyrder from Lorcan’s lap.
“I’ve never given my blood to anyone,” Pyrder said. “I have no idea what to expect.” He grinned at me and arched his neck bravely. “Get on with it, Cass baby. You need it.”
“I do,” I said, and grabbed him, my lips brushing his before alighting on his neck, tracing it up.
Pyrder groaned, and an animalistic sound rumbled in his chest. I expected his panther to rise up to fight me, but he didn’t. The beast only peeked through the fae prince’s eyes, turning them a smoldering gold.
My fangs glided over Pyrder’s skin, found an angle, and sank in. All this felt so natural to me. I hadn’t had time to ponder the freakiness of it as Pyrder’s blood that tasted like honeysuckle gushed into my mouth.
Pyrder jerked and cursed. “Fuck, oh, fuck.” Lust burned brighter than the morning stars in his eyes. “Take more, baby,” he bellowed in pleasure. “Drain me!”
“That’s enough, dulcis,” Lorcan said, prying me off Pyrder, though both Pyrder and I tried to fight him off.
Then to Reysalor and Alaric he said, “We need to teach our mate some control. Don’t let her get into the habit of draining us, as the idiot panther called for.”
My displeasure turned to approval as Reysalor leaned toward me, exposing his neck. His trust warmed my heart, yet mercilessly I sank my sharp fangs into his pulsing vein and sucked in a mouthful of his pure fae blood.
My Reys tasted just the way he smelled—of autumn rain and fresh forest, his arousal pure male and irresistibly sweet.
Reys’s turquoise eyes turned to fiery amber.
Liquid fire pooled between my thighs and licked my tender flesh. My mind grew lost in the haze of lust. My eager hand groped and found his massive erection. I needed to fuck him. I had to finish what we had left off, and I needed his granite-hard cock to penetrate me over and over.
Alaric pulled my top over my head and fondled my breasts while Reysalor pulled off my panties.
