by Tate James
“That’s not how it works,” George continued with a small sigh. He glanced over at Mr. Plant and then refocused his attention back on me. I could hardly look away from his face, that same sense of needy attraction rolling over me like a wave. Even with the acrid scent of char filling my nostrils, I wanted him. Them. I wanted all of them. “We can only make a spirit elemental once.”
“You used your one trump card on me?!” I asked, still not fully grasping what he was saying. “You were virgins?!”
“Unprotected sex, ST,” Reg added, sauntering into the room and standing next to me with his arms crossed over his blue tank. “You’re not the first woman we’ve ever slept with—you don’t get this good without a little practice, obviously. But yeah, first one to have us nice and bare and—”
“Reg, shut your damn piehole,” Shane said, giving him a look that'd freeze hell over.
“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” I chanted under my breath, squeezing my eyes shut tight and rubbing at my temples. Fuck, my head felt like I had been caught in a storm drain during a cyclone.
“Where's Britt? I want her in here now.” My voice came out in a low whisper and I could sense the panic rising up in me again. Why was the room spinning so badly, and why was I so bloody horny?
“Blossom,” George said in a gentle sort of way, like he was a yoga teacher or some shit, “it's going to be okay, I promise. Let's just talk this out, shall we? We'll get through this together.”
George sat down on the edge of the bed beside me, wrapping his arm around me, enclosing me in his warm bronze embrace; I just glared at him.
Good god, he smells incredible, like wildflowers and sunshine.
The thought froze me in his tempting arms. Of course he smelled like wildflowers and sunshine—he was a fucking elemental! And now, so was I apparently.
A sudden gust of wind whipped through the room, ruffling my hair and picking up random bits of debris off my floor.
“Honey doll, you're going to need to get a grip there,” Shane muttered from behind clenched teeth as he countered the wind and all the bits dropped back to the floor. It was the wrong thing to say to me though, and my temper flared hot, causing sheets of rain to fall from my already sad looking ceiling and drenching the guys.
On the upside though, it also caused their t-shirts to cling to their insanely chiseled bodies in a way that should've been illegal. All except George, that is, who seemed to never be wearing a shirt.
“Do not tell me to get a grip, Skeeter,” I hissed at Shane, rising to my feet and letting my anger drive my actions as I advanced on him, poking an accusing finger into his chest. “This is all your fault. If you hadn't just casually left the door open while you did magic, and then decided to fuck me six ways to next Sunday without protection, then we wouldn't be in this mess right now!” Little fires burst out all around my room again and Mr. Plant continued his growth spurt while the elementals scrambled to counteract my out of control new powers.
“Well, be that as it may, darlin',” Shane gave me a stubborn look, his eyebrow raised, “if you don't firstly get a grip so you don't tear down your Gram's house, then secondly complete the marking, you will die.”
“And so will we,” Billy added, leaning against the headboard and playing with a little ball of flame in his palm. He looked like a douche in his leather jacket, tattoos playing across his hand like an oil painting. But, like, a really sexy douche.
A long, tense silence filled the room after he said this, and I stared wide-eyed at the devilishly handsome fire elemental. It felt like the plug had just been ripped out of the bathtub that was my life, and I was powerless to stop the flow of water leaking out.
“So you're telling me,” I spoke quietly and calmly, which was at total odds with the raging storm happening inside my head, “that if I don't go ahead and let you all mark me, that not only will I die, but you all will too? Is that … the gist of it? Am I understanding you correctly?”
Billy shifted uncomfortably under my unblinking stare and I saw from the corner of my eye, the others were all watching me like some sort of wild animal as well. Like I was just going to snap at any second.
“Yep. True story.” Billy had balls, I'd give him that. He met my gaze dead-on with a stubborn tilt to his chin.
Well, fuck
It was one thing to chance my own life with murderous succubi and incubi and fuck knew what else hunting me, but even as furious as I was, I couldn't willfully let these four die. Could I?
My head was pounding again and my eye twitched in anger. How dare they put me in this position?
Outside my shattered bedroom window, there was a huge storm blowing, which the elementals seemed to be keeping from entering the room as not a single breeze touched us until a booming crack echoed and a jagged bolt of lightning slammed into the tree directly outside. It must've shocked the guys just as much as it did me, because their hold on the elements dropped momentarily, allowing the storm to drench us all again before they got it under control.
“Sooner rather than later, would be good, Sugar Tits,” Reg drawled, seemingly relaxed but I could clearly see the muscles in his neck and shoulders bunching as he held the torrential rain outside.
“He's right,” Shane agreed, chewing on the full curve of his lower lip. Mixed in with some of that worry was a little … anger? Was I reading him right? And what the hell did he have a right to be angry about anyway? “A power surge like this … well, it's liable to attract the wrong kind of attention. We best get this shit under control—and fast.”
“What does that mean? I don't understand what the fuck is going on?” I turned my attention back to Shane, the leader in his merry band of plumbing misfits.
Jesus, he's hot.
My whole body flushed with heat and my stomach started flipping around like butterflies on a trampoline. Was it a crime to have a chest that wide, that flat, with pecs that sculpted and delicious? Because it damn well should be.
“It means that you just painted an even bigger target on your back, Blossom.” George slid his hand into mine and tugged me gently toward the door. “Come on, your bedroom is a disaster. Let's head through to one of the guest rooms and finish this marking.”
“Before we, you know, get fucking murdered,” Billy grunted, extinguishing the little fire fox in his hand. I wondered if he realized that Chrome was a much more reliable internet browser these days. “Or worse.”
“What could possibly be worse than death?” I hated to ask, but got my answer anyway, sort of.
“COCS,” Reg spat, then led the way to one of Gram’s many guest rooms.
How very … true.
Cocks were deadly, this irresistible addiction that was ten times more dangerous than meth and heroin combined. As far as C.O.C.S. were concerned, I highly doubted they were more trouble than the four penis-wielding magicians standing around my house.
So fine. Fine. I'd let them mark me and then maybe I could get some peace. I had a friend with an apartment in New York City. Maybe I'd head over there for a weekend of peace and quiet? Hopefully Siobhan wasn't a werewolf, elemental, succubus, or any other assorted supernatural creature. It'd be nice to have a friend who was, you know, human.
“We need a few things for the marking, don't we?” Reg was saying, putting his hands on his hips and looking up at the ceiling. Hopefully he was contemplating the best way to fix the new leak in my bedroom. “We better hit up the Wicca shop on Washington. Shane, you want to come with? Billy and George can, uh, get started without us.”
With a smirk, he waved a hand dismissively and dried all of our clothes … except for my white tank.
“You pig,” I growled, but he was already on his way out, leaving George, Billy, and me in one of Gram's creepy guest bedrooms.
“This is your grandma?” George asked, lifting up a picture of Gram. I took the gaudy gold frame from his bronzed fingers and stared at the woman contained within. Considering I was about to have some kind of weird, ritualistic fivesome with
a bunch of strange dudes, it was an odd moment.
Her severe face glared out of the picture and sent an icy little chill down my spine.
“That's her,” I said, remembering hard swats, boring afternoon tea times, and summers without TV, music, or reading material that wasn't historical romance or non-fiction. Honestly, I didn't much miss my grandmother. She'd been a harsh, judgmental woman with a quick temper and little patience for the antics of children.
I moved over to the dresser, pulled open the top drawer, and shoved the picture inside.
Sorry, but this girl was not about to get busy with her Gram's cruel, green eyes glaring out at her.
“So,” I said, turning around and giving the two remaining boys my best bitch face. “How do we do this?”
“Well,” Billy began, playing with some old perfume bottles on my Gram's nightstand. “Sometimes, when two consenting adults feel things for each other, they take off their clothes …”
I picked up a small statuette of a naked cherub and chucked it at him.
The bastard caught it in midair.
“Cheeky bastard. Now, how does this ritual go and why is it necessary? Telling me you're going to die if I don't do it sort of reminds me of that one time my ex-stepfather said he had cancer so my mum would take him back after he cheated.”
I cocked my head to one side and quirked a brow.
“Listen, doll face,” Billy said as he sat down on the edge of my bed and kicked off his boots. “Elementals aren't like humans—we can't exist in our own little world. We're all connected. And now that you're one of us …” He paused and the corner of his lip quirked up in a dirty smile. “It's like how the toilet and sink meet the soil stack. There are different ways for the water to flow, but it all ends up in the same place. Energy, Arizona, that's what this is about. You're like a leaky pipe, draining all of us. And if you die, you take the rest of us down with you.”
“If I'm such a liability, why'd you bring me into this shit at all?” I snapped, crossing my arms under my breasts and noticing that both Billy and George followed the motion with smoldering gazes.
“Because you're the only—” he started, and then paused when he noticed George giving him a look.
“The only what?” I ground out through clenched teeth. After all this shit was over, I was going to have to pay the dentist a serious visit. Hopefully I wouldn't grind off all my fillings. “This whole thing, you showing yourselves to me … that wasn't an accident, was it?”
“Blossom,” George began, but the look I gave him stopped him dead in his tracks.
“Only. What,” I repeated, but it was not a question this time—it was a threat.
“You're the only woman we've ever run into with elemental blood,” Billy said, raking his fingers through his hair. “Mostly human, sure, but all we need is that one percent.” He glanced over at me, but not at all like he was sorry for what'd happened. “We're a dying race, Arizona.”
“One percent?” I asked, trying to make sense of what he was saying. So … back in the day, some ancestor of mine had played hanky-panky with an elemental?! “You … did this on purpose?”
The idea that this whole mess was intentional made a fuck of a lot more sense than some stupid accident.
But it was also fucked six ways to Sunday.
“You did this to … what, make babies with me?” I asked, putting together dying race and only female into one logical conclusion.
Billy frowned, his brows pinched as he stood back up and turned to look at me. George, meanwhile, stayed just out of punching range. Good for him because the first guy whose nuts I came in contact with, was getting kneed right in the junk.
“There are maybe a million of our people left worldwide, and most of those are male and in quads. You're literally almost one in a million, Arizona.”
“And I'm supposed to care?” I asked, noticing that my hands were once again see-through. A bolt of lightning crashed into the bricks of the back patio. Huh. What the fuck must the neighbors be thinking? Lightning in early winter in New York? That was kind of … not normal.
Eh, maybe they'd just blame global warming and be done with it?
“I'm not a savior for your dying race, and I'm not a baby making machine, so eat shit.” I closed my eyes and sucked in a deep breath. Despite my rage, I knew I was still going to go through with the marking. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, fuck me running. Not getting fooled a third time. I wasn't going outside again without completing this stupid ritual. “Let's just get this over with.”
“Over with?” Billy asked, and it looked like that brooding bad boy side of him was starting to take over. “This is a sacred ritual, Ari. It's not something you just slog your way through.”
“Oh? A fivesome is now a sacred ritual? Puh-lease. Then I guess I had plenty of sacred rituals in college then.” Total lie. Closest I ever came was that one time Britt and I made out with the same guy and then took turns with him. Alcohol was involved. “Just do what you need to do so I can head into the city and have some time to myself. COCS will leave me alone if we do this, right?”
“It's more complicated than that,” George began, but I was already shaking my head.
“Don't care. I am seriously fucking done with you guys right now. Fucking done.”
I dragged my sopping wet pajama top off and threw it against the wall with a wet slap, then faced the two dangerously handsome men with my hands on my hips. Tits standing out proudly, I glared at the two of them.
Billy smothered a grin by rubbing a hand over his stubbled chin. He made no attempt to cover the fact that he was taking a good long look at my hardware before meeting my defiant stare. His inked fingers split open over his grinning lips.
“We can't complete the marking until the boys get back, which could be a while yet … but if you're that eager to practice in the meantime …?” His hands went to the heavy leather belt slung around his hips, that sly grin darkening seductively.
My hands flew up instinctively to cover my breasts and I whirled around to face the dresser, my face flaming. In line with my current run of luck, the dresser had a mirror so I could clearly see Billy smirking at me while I dug around for a clean shirt and threw it over my head.
“I'm not,” I lied, “I just didn't want to wear a wet shirt while we waited.” Lie, lie, lie. “I'm only going to go through with this whole marking bullshit to save my own ass.” If I were Pinocchio, my nose would be giving hardcore sex toys a run for their money right now.
“Sweetie, I feel like you haven't fully understood—” George tried again but I cut him off with a wave of my hand.
“Will I die if we don't finish this? Yes or no answers here, Woody.” I was referring to the little wooden cowboy from Toy Story. Honestly, my mind wasn't always in the gutter.
“Yes,” he nodded, then tried to say something else.
I cut him off.
“If I let you mark me, then will COCS stop trying to have me killed? Yes or no?”
“Well, yes …” a frown creased his bronze face and he ran a hand through his hair, like he was annoyed at me. For what, I had no idea.
“George, why don't you go and get Arizona some more wine?” Billy smoothly interrupted, jerking his head toward the kitchen. “She looks far too sober for what's about to go down.”
Oh fuck, what the hell did that mean?
“Don't look at me like that, Firebug,” the smoldering hot handyman chuckled, stepping in closer and boxing me against the dresser with arms on either side of me. “We never did get to finish our chat upstairs before we were so rudely interrupted by your powers. Are you sure you didn't want a bit of a warm-up before the boys get back?”
His scalding breath feathered across the skin of my neck, sending shivers curling through me and I forced myself to shove him away. I was still madder than a cut snake, and this asshole was one quarter to blame for this shit flood I was currently wading through.
“Not on your life, William,” I sneered. “I w
ill go through with this marking, this … group sex thing … but as soon as it's done, I am out of here. You all can stay and fix up all the damage you've caused to my beautiful house, but I'm getting some space from all of this crazy.”
“We'll see,” he answered cryptically, flopping onto the bed and folding his arms under his head. Refusing to take the bait, I just shook my head and stared out the window. The storm outside was still raging hard, and the poor old oak that had been hit by my lightning was steaming and smoldering under the deluge.
A soft hand caressed my arm, sliding down to my hand and placing a glass within it. George had arrived so silently I hadn't even noticed he was back.
“Here.” He smiled, his bark brown eyes sympathetic. I noticed he'd filled my glass way over the socially acceptable point. “Don't worry, I brought backup.” He gave me a sexy wink and nodded to the bedside table where three more ancient looking bottles of red wine sat.
Taking a long sip of my wine, and moaning a little as it warmed my belly, I gave George a bit more of a genuine smile.
“I think you might be my favorite,” I murmured, running my tongue over my teeth and savoring the fruity, acidic aftertaste that this wine had. Tasted like a Chianti or one of those old-world styles, but what would I know? I was a barista, not a sommelier.
“Why, because he brings you alcohol?” Billy snickered from his position on the queen-size spare bed.
“Exactly,” I replied, not bothering to look over at him. My gaze was firmly held by the earthy depths of George's eyes.
“You're welcome, Blossom,” he whispered back with a heated look in his gaze, like he was already thinking about where he wanted to plow his wood. He tucked a stray piece of my wild blonde hair behind my ear, then smoothly leaned in and kissed me.
Totally contradictory to the hot and demanding way Reg and Shane had kissed me, George's kiss was sweet and unhurried. He took his time, massaging his lips against mine and letting me set the pace while all my pent-up anger and frustration seemed to slip off me like dirt in the rain.
