Fate's Fools Box Set

by Bell, Ophelia

  I frowned, uncomprehending. Where was he going with this?

  Ozzie closed the distance between us once more. He dipped his head, the lift of his brows earnest.

  “I’m not sending you home,” he said, squeezing my upper arms. “And I’m also pretty sure you’ve only just met the two of them, despite obvious evidence of a deeper, ah, acquaintance.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Ozzie. I’m part dragon. Deeper acquaintance goes with the territory. Can you drop it?”

  He pressed his lips into a tight line, then chuckled and shook his head. His hair caught the stark morning sunlight, taking on a silvery sheen.

  “Right.” He scraped fingertips over the couple-day’s growth on his chin, took a deep breath, and then regarded me more intently. “Rohan’s clearly formed an attachment. Are you . . . do you want to . . .”

  He winced. It didn’t take a genius to read between the lines.

  “I feel the same way,” I said. “I mean, as much as I can after a day, but at the very least I need to stay close to him to help him survive. And no, I don’t want to keep any secrets. We’re in this together now. I guess Keagan could be let off the hook, but I have the feeling he wouldn’t leave Rohan even if we asked him to go.”

  “Nobody’s going anywhere,” Ozzie said. “Not until we’ve worked out what exactly is happening with the bloodline and these attacks. But as long as you’re fine with the others hearing anything I have to share about your past, we should include them in the conversation.”

  A rush of excitement filled me. He was actually willing to help. “Just to be clear, we are not bringing my parents into this. And you’ll make sure Llyr doesn’t haul me back home, right? I really need to see this through. I have a feeling it’s the key to my power.”

  The corners of Ozzie’s mouth turned down. “Despite what you might think, Llyr is here for you, not for Neph. He’ll help too. What exactly makes you believe your power hangs in the balance here, anyway?” His voice was edged with caution, like he might be afraid of my answer.

  “Because of how new these abilities are, not to mention I’m able to see the creatures that are attacking the bloodline when no one else can. Figuring out how to use my Prismatic talent . . . Maybe it’s just getting out there and using my powers for a real purpose that’s making that possible. Either way, I need to do this to see exactly how much I can learn and how much stronger I can be. After a day with Rohan, I can tell my dragon magic is stronger. I still can’t breathe fire yet—”

  “Thank the fucking Winds,” Ozzie interjected.

  “Hey, it means something to me!” I punched him lightly. “I’m sick of feeling like I have no purpose, and before you go all, ‘but your family loves you,’ you know that isn’t enough. You of all people should know.”

  He dropped his gaze, frowning. “Being cursed to have a pre-determined soulmate is not exactly a bonus.”

  “At least you know there’s someone out there for you. That’s more than I’ve got. So I guess I’m more willing to take love where I can get it, even if it doesn’t come with that kind of bond.”

  Something in my core ached to confess that I wished it were him offering me that bond, or even some facsimile of it. The old song I’d composed for him itched at my lungs. As if sensing that urge within me, he stepped close and placed a finger over my lips.

  “Rohan’s a good choice,” he gruffed. “If nothing else, he will make you happy, so save that song for him.”

  I swallowed and nodded, unsure whether I should confess the song I longed to sing was only for Ozzie; Rohan and I already had one we shared.

  He moved his hands to my shoulders and cocked his head. “Is this all you’ve got to wear?” He pinched the fabric of Rohan’s t-shirt off my shoulders and dropped it.

  “I didn’t exactly pack anything when I left home,” I said. “And conjuring outfits is a waste of magic when I need every ounce of it to help Rohan.”

  “Well, I’m not letting you out of the house in only a t-shirt,” he said, turning and striding to a door obscured by a tall, potted plant. I followed him, gratified that he’d consider letting me out of the house at all. Not that I’d have stayed if he’d forbade me from leaving.

  He stepped inside a walk-in closet and rummaged through the hangers, glanced at me with a frown, then grabbed a garment and shoved it at me.

  “Put this on.”

  I took it, eyeing the other clothes inside. There were only a handful of hangers dangling from the rods, but they were all dresses, some of which looked distinctly dowdier than others—including the one he’d handed me.

  I held the dress out and wrinkled my nose at the dark gray cotton. “Why do you have old lady dresses?”

  “Nanyo doesn’t always arrive with luggage, and neither does Evie. Lukas and Iszak usually borrow something from me or the guys, but Nanyo and Evie are more particular. They left these here for visits.”

  I mouthed a silent “oh” but didn’t comment, stepping into the closet and hanging the dress that obviously had been Sophia North’s back up and flipping through the scant options on the opposite side. Both women were smaller than me, but if Ozzie was insistent I wear real clothes, I’d humor him.

  “This is better,” I said, snagging a dress made of a soft, drapey white fabric that would at least feel nicer on my skin than the coarse gray of the one he’d handed me. It had a button closure over the bodice and a flared skirt dotted with blue flowers. It was also at least a size too small for me.

  I had Rohan’s shirt halfway over my head when someone coughed. Peeking through my arms, I raised an eyebrow.

  “If you just . . .” Ozzie made a gesture to the doorway I was blocking.

  “Sheesh, turn around if you’re embarrassed.” I smirked as he reddened and turned, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

  Naked, I picked up the dress again and gave it a dubious look. It was a loose cut, but Ozzie’s female cousin was a small woman.

  “You should try channeling your other power to Rohan,” Ozzie said. “If you did that, you and Keagan wouldn’t have to . . .”

  I paused with the skirt of the dress over my head and my arms halfway through the holes. “I don’t know what you mean. I don’t have any other power to channel except what I get from sex.” I shimmied a little to work my arms up through the bodice of the dress, but it tightened just shy of my shoulders.

  “You would, if you focused. The wind magic can be redirected.”

  I snorted. “My turul magic is nonexistent, aside from whatever floats around in the air when I sing, but that’s just there. Anyone with a hint of magic and a decent singing voice can do the same thing. The other victims I met have turul blood, and they improved just by singing to each other.” I grunted, twisting to try to get the dress farther down, but it was stuck. “Can you help me with this?”

  I peeked through the opening of the dress I was trapped in, but Ozzie was still resolutely staring at the back wall of the closet, head tilted back slightly. “I could show you how it works. Come to practice with us. If music helps the victims, then the studio is the best place for Rohan.”

  “Fine! I’ll do whatever you want, just help me get this damn thing on!”

  He darted a glance over his shoulder and I widened my eyes at him in impatience. The bottom of the dress covered the tops of my breasts, but the rest of me was completely bare. His gaze flitted down my body, a spark of heat visible for a split-second before he closed his eyes and turned fully toward me, nostrils flaring. Gripping the hem, he gave it an impatient tug and the seams strained.

  “Don’t! You’ll rip it. I think it’ll fit, but you have to be gentle. I don’t want to owe Evie a new dress.”

  “What was wrong with the other one?” he grumbled.

  “It was ugly. And I’m pretty sure your grandmother is even smaller, though she makes up for it somehow.”

  Ozzie examined my predicament in a slightly more reasonable manner, a smirk playing on his lips. He started at my elbows,
gently working the fabric down my arms. It had a little give to it, stretching a bit as he eased it over my shoulders. The seams protested again as the bodice of the dress moved into place.

  He was so close. My breath hitched at the summery scent of him. His skin seemed infused with the ocean, and I realized how very perfect this new locale was for him. Not that I’d ever had the pleasure of visiting him in his old stomping grounds in New York, but he definitely seemed to belong here.

  Ozzie paused, lifting his head until his gaze rested on my face. He studied me with knit brows.

  The high waistband of the dress shifted with another tug, snagging at my breasts once before slipping over them and finally allowing the sleeves to settle at my shoulders where they belonged. Yet Ozzie didn’t step away; he held onto the bunched fabric of the skirt, fingertips grazing my hips as he tugged it down a little farther, then stopped.

  The unfastened bodice splayed wide, my breasts barely covered by the edges. Ozzie’s eyes slipped down and he blinked slowly, dark gold lashes just barely concealing the heat in his gaze. A breeze gusted out of nowhere, rustling the waves of the longer hair on top of his head.

  My heart thudded as he grazed the peaks of my hip bones with his thumbs in a deliberate caress. He seemed almost mesmerized by the view of my cleavage, and I had the sense that I ought to have mercy and hide myself from him, but part of me craved that look of hunger. I’d dreamed of that look nearly every night for the past year, but not even my dreams could compete with the heat that flooded me now.

  A strange sensation tugged at my core. As if in response, Ozzie pulled me closer. His breathing had grown ragged, but mine was no better, and it left me entirely when he cupped one breast and thumbed aside my dress to graze my nipple.

  “Boreas fucking save me, you should not feel so good to touch.”

  Then his mouth was on mine in an almost reverent tangle, his tongue barely hazarding a taste as he darted it along the seam of my lips. When I parted for him, a rough groan vibrated through his throat, and he squeezed my breast and tightened his grip on my hip, pulling me tight against his arousal.

  I whimpered, elated by the unexpected attention—something I’d craved for more than a year. But just as quickly I was grieving its departure as he tore himself away.

  With his hand no longer holding it, the hem of the dress fell around my thighs, covering me at last. Ozzie pushed past me without another word, swiping the back of his hand across his mouth as he fled the bedroom.

  “Conjure some goddamn panties, at least,” he shot at me before charging through the door and slamming it shut.

  The second the door closed, it was as though a tether had snapped. I staggered against the doorway, overcome with an ache so strong a sob welled in my chest. My fingers dug into the door frame behind me as I struggled to cling to reason and not give into this confusing surge of loss. I’d never had Ozzie, so why the hell should this hurt so much? I hadn’t reacted half as strongly after Keagan’s similarly hot and cold behavior.

  My sight blurred as I lifted my shaky hands and attempted to fasten the buttons of the dress. I was still fumbling when a hazy figure appeared and big hands clamped over mine, steadying them. Rohan’s smoky, tropical scent filled my senses, and the hurt eased almost instantly.

  “I’ll set him on fire, if you want me to,” he said, tugging my hands aside and carefully buttoning my dress the rest of the way.

  “No, I don’t want you to set anyone on fire. Just . . . keep doing what you’re doing.”

  “Dressing you?” he asked. “You do realize how out of character this is for me, right? I prefer doing the opposite.”

  He tugged harder at the sides of the dress, forcing a button into a hole only to have it pop open from the weight of my breasts. Golden smoke enveloped me then, but it had a different texture than the stuff he’d infused my lungs with a moment ago.

  This time, the smoke seeped beneath my dress, sliding around my breasts in a warm caress before solidifying into lacy fabric. It lifted my flesh until the button he fought with stayed fastened.

  The same smoke wrapped snugly around my hips, teasing only briefly between my thighs before stilling, leaving behind a lightly constricting sensation against my ass and over my pelvis.

  “Did you just conjure me lingerie?” I asked, peeking into my bodice at the shimmer of pale yellow lace.

  Rohan fastened one more stubborn button before giving up and cupping both my breasts, smiling as he fondled me. “I’d offer my support in other ways, but it’d be weird for me to walk around with my hands on your tits all day.”

  He let his hands fall to my hips and pulled me into a tender embrace. “Besides, the Maestro seemed to have quite a vocal opinion about your lack of undergarments when he came back after your talk. I’d expect to have to worry about pissing off one of your fourteen dads, but him I wasn’t quite prepared for, and if there’s anyone I want to stay friends with, it’s Ozzie. Fate’s Fools is my life.”

  “Seven,” I said, leaning back. “I only have seven dads.”

  He grinned and lifted his brows. “Only seven, she says. You want to come out here and share that story with us? I’m sure Keagan’s dying to hear it.”

  I resisted his pull when he tried to lead me out of the closet. “Keagan would probably love any excuse to like me less. I’m pretty sure Ozzie feels the same way.”

  “Well, I know for a fact Llyr likes you.”

  I rolled my eyes and groaned. “Good for him, because he’s the one I can’t stand.”

  Rohan stood in the center of the room, shirtless and beautiful and giving me a very patient look. “So there’s no love lost between you and any of those bastards. That just means more for me, right? I’m down with that like you wouldn’t believe. But the fact remains that they’re all here to help, and they can’t do that until you explain to us what needs to be done. So are you going to let us help you figure this out?”

  My shoulders fell and I nodded. “Yeah, I’d like that. Are you feeling all right? I can share more power.” I lifted my hand to his cheek and he gripped my wrist, pulling it down to rest over his midsection.

  “Just a little, and you can be damn sure I’m repaying you as soon as my soul is healed. I would give you the whole damn thing, if I knew how.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me, but thank you,” I said, warming with gratitude that he’d given my lack of soul that much thought. I let a surge of power seep from my hand into him, and his aura instantly brightened.

  With an expression of fierce emotion, he pulled me into his arms and held me so tight I couldn’t breathe. “You deserve to have someone worry about you, Deva. It’s no wonder your family sent someone like Llyr to find you. Give yourself more credit, all right?”

  I stiffened and pushed away, irritated by his lack of understanding . . . but that wasn’t his fault. “I don’t feel unloved by my family—just overprotected to the point I wasn’t growing at home. I know very little about who I am as it is, and I’m never going to discover what I can do without taking some risks.”

  As he regarded me, another certainty sank in. I wanted to take a few risks for love as well, but not the impulsive, crush-inspired risks I’d taken before that compelled me to sing pointless songs to Ozzie and Llyr. This dragon who stood before me with his kind-hearted need to infuse the world with joy was a risk I was determined to take, and not just because I felt responsible for the damage he’d endured.

  He truly made me feel treasured in a way my family never had, and I’d be damned if I let that slip through my fingers.

  18

  Deva

  The three men were waiting in the living room, Ozzie and Llyr seated on the armchair and chaise that Keagan had repaired the night before. The sofa was in a crumpled heap out on the patio, leaving no other available seating.

  Keagan remained standing, leaning his broad-shouldered frame against the fireplace. Despite his surly look, I caught a flash of barely contained panic in his eyes when Rohan and I
entered, and the raw vulnerability made me want to reassure him that I didn’t intend to steal his lover. Rohan had as much as said he expected to share me, but I hadn’t wanted to correct him. It’d be Rohan who Keagan and I had to share if there was any compromise to be made between the three of us, and it would only be a temporary arrangement anyway.

  Rohan rested a hand on my hip, his touch reassuring. When we stepped down into the living room, he tugged me in tighter, the possessive gesture sending a brief thrill through me. All three of the other men’s auras instantly flared with identical hues of territorial orange. Keagan’s I understood—it was likely directed at Rohan—but the other two had no right to feel possessive of me.

  Rohan paused and dipped his head to my ear. “You sure you don’t want us all, Deva? I’m sure you can see as well as I can what you do to them. Just being in the room together lights up all their auras.”

  “This isn’t about that,” I said, extracting myself from the comfort of his hold. I needed to stand on my own for this conversation. Each of the men here only knew part of my story, and different parts at that. If I was going to get them all up to speed, I needed to tell the whole damn thing, and I only wanted to have to do that once.

  I paced toward the broken window, cautious at first. When I saw no remaining shards of glass, I straightened my posture and strode to the opening, letting the warm ocean breeze catch my hair and whip around my head. I closed my eyes, willing away the fatigue caused by the depletion of my power, and found the resolve I needed with every light caress of that wind.

  It helped a little to pretend it was Ozzie’s magic urging me on—the wind certainly seemed to tingle as though infused with the West Wind’s power. But when I turned and opened my eyes to his closed-off expression, I knew it was all my imagination.

  The wind blew in behind me, fluttering my skirt and toying with each man’s hair as I began to speak. By all the gods and demigods, let them understand.