by Katie May
"We need to get to the ball," I cut off, staring everywhere but at him. I managed a humorless laugh. "I am the guest of honor, after all."
"Z." This was said with a heavy, resigned sigh.
Ignoring it, I grabbed his chair handles and pushed it down the hall.
We passed a few elegantly dressed Nightmares, all of which stuck up their noses when they caught sight of me. A human. With the crowned prince of Mermaids.
The chair-bound crowned prince of Mermaids.
We reached the large, ornately carved wooden doors that would lead to the ballroom. From the other side, I heard music playing and people chatting with one another.
I stepped away from Dair to open up the door, but he grabbed my hand and pulled me back.
His eyes were somehow able to see through every flaw I had, every mistake I had ever made, every layer of doubt and self-loathing. I felt stripped bare beneath his penetrating gaze. Naked and vulnerable.
"Z, I love you," he whispered. Before I could reply, the ballroom doors were thrown open to reveal the Shifter King smiling down at me.
"Z!" he said jovially. "We've been waiting for you."
FOURTEEN
Z
The Shifter King leaned over, taking my hand in his large paw. With a cant of his head, he pressed his lips to my knuckles.
"We're happy you could join us," he said, smiling. I didn't trust that smile for a damn minute. This was the same man who avidly supported human work camps and stricter laws for human disobedience. He was evil personified; no amount of smiles could curb the malicious glint in his eyes.
"I didn't know I had a choice," I said lightly, feigning a laugh. His own smile thinned, eyes darkening. He pulled his attention off of me to face Dair. He extended a hand, and my Mermaid mate shook it. With great reluctance, I noted somewhat amusedly.
"Dair! How are you faring today?" he asked. I wished I could see Dair's face, articulate his emotions through his facial features. Instead, I placed my hands on his shoulders, unsurprised to feel them stiff.
"I'm doing good, your majesty."
Awkward silence descended. The Shifter King remained standing in the doorway, a glass of what looked like wine in his hand. Behind him, I could see a sea of color as people twirled, danced, and chatted. Each of the ladies was bedecked in a dress that put mine to shame. For the first time that evening, self-consciousness crippled me.
I fucking hated that feeling. The feeling that no matter what you did, you would never be good enough. Was that normal? Did females normally feel like that?
Huffing, I smoothed my hands down the silk skirt. I prayed that my hair wasn't still mussed from my rendezvous with Dair a few minutes earlier.
Or that the evidence of my arousal wasn't particularly pungent with all the enhanced senses around me.
"If you don't mind, your highness, I really should get to the party," I said. The Shifter King's eyes widened in surprise, but I couldn't decide if it was shock that I had somewhat spoken back to him or realization that he was blocking the doorway. Either way, his lips curved up cruelly, and he stepped aside with an elaborate, sardonic wave of his hands.
"By all means..." he said curtly. I prepared to wheel Dair in, but a hand on my shoulder stopped me.
"There are stairs here, dear." He said dear as if it was a curse word, not an endearment. Unease prickled beneath my skin, but I kept my smile pleasant. "Dair is going to have to enter through the side entrance."
"Then I'll go with him," I said resolutely, already turning his chair around. Dair's hands were white where they gripped the seat handles, but he didn't interrupt our conversation. Trusting me. Allowing me to take the lead in this fucked up game with a fucked up king.
Said King chuckled darkly.
"But you're the honored guest! Of course you have to make a grand entrance." He roughly shoved my hands off of Dair's chair, ignoring my yelp of protest, before linking his arm with mine. "He'll meet you there."
I glanced helplessly at Dair, but he begged me with his eyes to play along. Be the good little assassin that everyone expected me to be. And good little assassins didn’t castrate kings. No matter how tempting it might've been.
Flashing a smile I had perfected in the mirror, I allowed the Shifter King to guide me to the top of the stairs. It was a Cinderella moment...only I had seven princes instead of one.
And a murderous, sadistic king leading me down the stairs.
The ballroom was beautiful, I noticed immediately. It was a different room than the one we had held the feast in so many weeks ago - the feast that had resulted in hundreds of deaths and my position as the Kings' assassin. A powerful Mage had performed a spell that had killed everyone in the room, including the young ladies participating in The Matching.
The Matching was a competition for the princes, my mates, to find their wives.
My jealousy, once more, prickled into awareness, but I pushed it aside. They were mine now. Any woman they might’ve been with in the past was only that...a part of their past. Heaven only knew I hadn’t arrived into this relationship a virgin.
Shaking my head, I focused once more on the spacious room. A seven-tiered chandelier hung directly in the center of the room, providing the only light visible. The ceiling was an intricately crafted combination of gold and wood. Tiny angels were intermingled with carved flowers and swooping vines. The walls, too, were made of wood, various pillars protruding outwards.
The entire space felt elegant, as if I had stepped back in time thousands of years ago.
The second thing I noticed was the people. Hundreds of them, all elaborately dressed. The women wore puffy dresses, a variety of colors, and the men wore suits similar to Dair's. Hair was coiffed, slicked back, curled. Everyone was the epitome of beauty and perfection.
And all eyes were on me as I descended the staircase. Shock, curiosity, horror, desire...they all blended together as the Nightmares looked, for the first time, at their new assassin. I wondered who these people were.
High-ranking officials? Nobles?
I tried to keep my anxiousness in check as I met each person's gaze. Men and women alike were staring at me, enthralled. Why wouldn't they be? I was an enigma. A woman and a human who had won The Damning.
I wondered how many of these people knew the truth of who I was, and how many thought I was a normal noble.
Devlin's violet eyes peered up at me from the back of the crowd. His mouth was parted slightly, wonder and awe emanating from him in palpable waves. Beside him stood Killian and Bash. The two of them had similar expressions on their faces, though Bash looked pissed too. Probably because he felt desire towards me at all.
I scanned the crowd with a newfound eagerness now that I knew my mates were lurking nearby.
I spotted Jax next, arm linked with Atta's. I normally would've been jealous, but his gaze wasn't on the beautiful woman beside him. It was on me. Only me. As if I was the only girl in the entire world.
It took me another moment to find Lupe. His large, burly body was leaning against a wall. His eyes roamed me from head to toe, lust darkening his features. He took a step closer, as if he intended to grab me from his father, before releasing a pent-up breath and stepping back into his corner.
A Shadow stood beside him, clothed in darkness.
For a brief moment, those shadows departed to reveal the face of my mate I had only ever seen once. Just for me, Ryland released the shadows. Just for me, he showed me his face. I gaped, stunned, as he smiled cheekily at me. Just as quickly, the shadows reappeared, once more obscuring his face from view. I was momentarily struck speechless, and I couldn't help but wonder if I had imagined the exchange.
"We have some people we want you to meet," the Shifter King said coyly. A sinister smile lit up his face.
He led me to the center of the room where the Mermaid King and Incubus King were laughing. Both men stopped when they saw me, and their eyes flashed with something akin to hunger. It made the previous prickle of unease turn into full
-blown wariness.
"Z! As lovely as ever!" The Incubus King took a step towards me, planting kisses on both of my cheeks. I held perfectly still until he finally pulled away. His power briefly caressed me causing my nipples to harden. His smirk told me he knew exactly what he had done.
Asshole.
"Z." The Mermaid King nodded in greeting, but his eyes were hooded as they made a slow perusal of my form. I was modestly dressed, but I felt as if I had walked into the ballroom naked.
"I should wait for my date, your majesties," I said, once more scanning the crowd for my mates. I could see Devlin, Bash, and Killian lunging forward on one side, and Lupe parting the crowd on the other. I didn't see Ryland, but that didn't necessarily surprise me. For all I knew, he was already beside me, invisible to the naked eye.
"Date?" The Mermaid King straightened with interest. "Is Tavvy treating you good?"
"Tavvy?" I blinked once. "No, Dair is my date."
The King's face puckered and pursed as if he had eaten something sour. A vein in his forehead throbbed angrily.
I realized, then, that I had said something I wasn't supposed to. It became abundantly clear that Dair had been lying when he had stolen me away from Tavvy.
Shit.
Feigning nonchalance, I shrugged. "Nobody came to pick me up, so I had to walk to the ball by myself. I met up with Dair near the entrance. He agreed to escort me." I shrugged once more, infusing as much sincerity into my words as possible. If there was one thing being an assassin had taught me, it was how to lie expertly. How to twist words to fit my own needs.
I was an expert liar, able to spin my webs until every helpless fly was captured.
The skin around the Mermaid King's eyes smoothed over, and he nodded once, accepting my story.
"Z," the Incubus King cut in. A new man had joined the group, and I took stock of his muscular form, cropped black hair, and piercing eyes. "This is Axel. He was our previous assassin before his retirement this year."
He looked young, a few years older than myself, and definitely not old enough to retire. However, I knew things worked differently here. A new assassin was chosen every five years through The Damning. He must've been my predecessor.
"Axel," I said with a respectful bow of my head. He held himself still, coiled tightly, and his muscles flexed with each movement he made. Despite that, I knew he wasn't a Shifter. No, the way he held himself, the agile way he moved, the flashing of his eyes, I deduced he was a Shadow.
"Z." He brushed his lips over my hand, and behind me, I heard a low growl.
Lupe.
The Shifter King's smile widened.
"Here's my boy!" He almost sounded like a proud, loving father. Almost. I turned just in time to see the Shifter King slap Lupe on the back. Lupe, however, was focused entirely on Axel, eyes predatory.
Axel released my hand quickly, eyes flickering between me and Lupe with something akin to understanding.
"Lupe, I was just introducing Z to Axel. You remember Axel, correct? Don't you think they would make a good team?" There was no missing the sexual innuendo behind that last word. Team.
Lupe's growl grew louder.
"Father!" Killian said easily, finally arriving with Devlin and Bash at his heels. "This party is wonderful."
His stutter, I noticed, was more pronounced than usual. I wondered if it was the presence of so many people or one in particular. One that wore a golden crown and wielded his sex-appeal like a weapon.
I flickered my gaze from face to face. My mates now surrounding me, vibrating with unconcealed tension. The mocking grins on the Kings' faces.
They knew, I realized in numb disbelief. The Kings knew about the mate bonds between me and their sons.
And they were fucking playing with us.
They were turning this into a game, a game none of us understood nor knew how to play. Expertly, they were moving us over the board, and we were dumb enough to play right into their hands.
My eyes narrowed at the realization.
To them, we were nothing more than pawns in a game of chess. Each move had a reason. The goal? To checkmate.
If I was the pawn, I would completely demolish their game board.
I would play their game, at least for now, until I could figure out what they would win from all of this. Would they use me as a pawn to control their sons? Kill me to cripple them?
Or something else entirely?
I kept a smile in place when the Genie King appeared with a wine glass, handing it to me with a fake smile.
Yes, I would play their game.
And I would win.
I always fucking won.
FIFTEEN
BASH
She looked...so fucking perfect and beautiful that I wanted to both hate her and fuck her. The contradicting emotions were giving me a headache.
The dress clung to her chest like liquid silk, a light blue color that made her blond hair shine like molten gold.
And I hated it. I hated that she made me think in terms of "molten gold" and "liquid silk".
My cock was already hard in my trousers, almost to the point of pain, as I watched her descend the staircase like some motherfucking angel of the past. Yup. Hard. I couldn't get hard to save my life, but the second my mate showed up, I was ready to squirt a gasket. So unfuckingfair. I would rather be hard all my life, like Killian, instead of the limp noodle I currently was most of the time because of her.
"She's beautiful," Killian whispered in a daze from beside me. I merely muttered something indecipherable in response. She was beautiful, even I could admit that. She looked like something plucked straight out of a fairytale book, something carved into stained-glass windows, someone to be revered and worshiped.
My heart picked up speed, slamming against my ribcage. All I wanted to do was grab her, kiss those chiseled cheekbones of hers, lick every pale swath of skin visible in her dress, tangle my hand in her blond hair...
And who the fuck was that kissing her hand?
Before I could stop myself, I was charging forward, body thrumming with an almost incandescent fury. Anger burned in my veins, a flame seconds from turning into a full-blown fire.
Dimly, I was aware of Devlin and Killian following behind me. I wondered if they saw the same red sheen that I did? Killian smoothly stepped in front of me, flashing a smile at his father. Anyone who didn't know him as well as I did would've thought he was the epitome of calm. Serene. Only we could see the tension in his shoulders, the pronounced stutter, the way his eyes flickered from his father to the asshat named "Axel" who dared put his lips on our mate.
...and why the fuck was I bothered so much?
I didn't like the woman, I reminded myself. I didn't like anyone besides my family. I tried to put on a mask of indifference - as if I didn't want to conjure up a spell that would permanently castrate the last assassin - while watching the scene.
My eyes, unbidden, flickered towards Z once more. They seemed to always go to her, like she was a magnet or something I couldn't ignore. She propelled me towards her. A moth to her flame.
Motherfucking shit.
I was whipped, wasn't I?
"Excuse me, your highnesses," Z said in her musical voice, effectively pulling my attention back towards the conversation at hand. She curtseyed to the three kings present before flashing a singularly beautiful smile at Axel. Lupe, on the other side of the semi-circle we had created, growled low in his throat. The damn mate bond was even making him turn into a neanderthal. She reverted us back to our basic, primal instincts where everything was either fuck, kill, or eat. And with her? We wanted to fuck. It was a sort of carnal hunger, a predatory hunger, that left me speechless.
I have had my fair share of females, but never anyone like her. Never any female that I wanted to cuddle with afterwards, wanted to hear laugh, wanted to know every damn thing she was willing to give me.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I hated the direction of my thoughts, hated the way they always seemed to
lead back to her. I wasn't purposefully trying to be stubborn, but there was no secret that the mate bond was preordained by fate itself. What happened to free-will? What happened to choice?
And I wanted my relationship with Z to be a choice - both hers and mine.
"I promised Bash here a dance," Z continued lightly. I blinked stupidly at her.
Dance?
Did she get dropped on her gorgeous head or something? Because there was no motherfucking way I was going to dance...
She proffered a creamy white hand, and my heart thudded in my chest. Before I could stop myself, before I could think things through, I placed my hand in hers.
Her smile was smug as I led her to the dance floor, away from the Kings' curious, amused gazes and the wistful ones of my brothers.
"I don't fucking dance, blondie," I said, pulling her body towards me. She placed her hands on my shoulders as I settled my own on her waist. Around us, the partygoers were participating in an elaborate dance that included dips, twirls, and some random guy doing the splits. I would rather chop my own balls off than do any of that.
Oh wait. I had no balls. The female before me had taken them.
"Suck it up, Bash-hole," she retorted, and my lips quirked instinctively at the nickname. That was new, I would give her that.
"So why dance with me? I'm sure any other guy - not just including your mates - would love to dance with you." I couldn't hide the slight bitterness in my voice, but I kept my face impassive. Still, she saw right through me, smile widening.
"Are you jealous?" she asked lightly.
I snorted out a laugh.
"Never. Take all the guys for all the shits I give," I said with feigned nonchalance.
That smirk remained firmly etched in place, the damn temptress.
"So I'm allowed to dance with Axel?" She batted her eyelashes at me innocently, but his name had my hands tightening slightly, almost imperceptibly, around her thin waist. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.
"Do what you want to do," I replied.
She immediately removed her hands from my shoulders, but I tugged her back to me.
