Fate's Fools Box Set

by Bell, Ophelia

  An agonized groan barreled up from my belly and I bent down and sank my teeth into Bodhi’s shoulder to try to suppress it. He held my head against his shoulder while he kept stroking us both, the gesture strangely tender. “Talk to me,” he murmured against my ear. “I need it as much as you do, I promise you.”

  I braced my hands on either side of his head and pushed my hips into his fist, looking down at him in a haze of fevered lust. “She doesn’t want me. I fucked her twice. The best fucking sex of my life, both times, but she did it for him. I just want . . . I want her to look at me the way she looks at him. To sing to me when I fuck her.”

  “Listen to her now.”

  I shook my head but there was no getting away from the sound of her song. “Can’t fucking deal with that. Will you . . . maybe turn around and let me fuck you?”

  “Not happening, dude. Not yet. You bullied me into this, so let’s see it through. Tell me what it was like to fuck her. You’ve already been closer than I’ll ever get.”

  I groaned and closed my eyes, clinging to him and pressing my face against his neck while he continued working our dicks together. He added fresh soap and the tingling suds sliding over my hot hard-on made me jerk with pleasure into his hand.

  “I couldn’t fucking resist her. She smells like home and her sweet little pussy got so goddamn wet for me. She’s got ursa blood, you can tell, because once you’re inside her it feels like she could swallow you whole. Like her pussy might suck you right in until you just disappear and you’d be all right with that. I’d be all right disappearing into her and ceasing to exist because it’d be better than feeling like this.”

  “Tell me more,” he said, his voice tense and his teeth gritted. My dick throbbed with the need to come and he was doing his fucking damnedest to make it happen. I opened my eyes and stared at him again, perplexed by his insistence until I realized he was just as fucking destroyed over her as I was.

  “You remember how she tasted? Like spiced honey? Her sweet pussy all slick and hot when you tongued her?”

  “Fuck yes.”

  “And how her little clit pulsed under your tongue when she got close and you just sucked on that little thing, rolling it around the tip of your tongue until she fucking lost her goddamned mind? And you didn’t even care she might be drawing blood with her fingernails. She wouldn’t. She’s too gentle, but you almost kind of hoped she would because you actually wanted her to mark you. You wanted some tangible evidence of it all. But all you could do is slide your dick into her and hope she didn’t wash your scent off too soon because smelling yourself on her was the most fucking potent aphrodisiac in the goddamn world.”

  His hips jerked and I gripped us both again, taking over as he found my mouth. The image I’d painted filled my own mind as if Deva were right there with us, her pussy open and ready for us to take turns filling up. Or not even taking turns. My dick pulsed at that thought, so vivid in my mind I had to say it out loud. “She could take us both I think. Like this, together, filling her up until she fucking screamed our names.”

  “Jesus, fuck!” Bodhi yelled, his fingers digging into my shoulder as his cock spasmed against mine. At the same instant, a rushing sensation filled my balls and my entire body tingled. A second later hot fluid covered my fist from both our cocks.

  I released us both and collapsed against the wall, leaning and facing him with the water still pounding down against us, still cold but I couldn’t feel it anymore after how hot that imagery had made me. I held my hand out under the spray to wash the semen away and Bodhi stared dazedly down at my knuckles.

  “You’re lucky you got to fuck her,” he said.

  I shrugged. “It was for Ro. She needed power. I could give it.”

  He snorted and lifted a brow at me. “You paint yourself as a martyr, but I know better. How big of a hardship was it really? If none of this shit was happening and it was just you and her, would you turn your back on her?”

  The light coming through the high window changed as though the marine layer had suddenly burned off and I blinked out at it. “I’d want Ro still,” I said with a sigh. “I’m not cut out for being one-on-one with a woman. It’s just not how I’m built. But he’s different I guess.”

  “Circumstances fucked us over. But I think the universe has a way of sorting things out.” He pushed off the wall and reoriented the shower head to rinse off while I remained staring out the window. A moment later, he stepped out of the shower and grabbed a clean towel from the stack on the shelf.

  “Why the fuck would the universe give a shit one way or the other?” I asked, tearing my gaze from the light outside and tilting my head beneath the water to actually bathe while I was in here. I sudsed up my hair and glanced out at him. He secured the towel around his waist, then smeared a blob of toothpaste on his finger and stuck it in his mouth like a makeshift brush.

  “Nature abhors a vacuum,” he said cryptically as he began rubbing his teeth.

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  He paused his brushing, his lips lined with white foam. “Just that if there’s an emptiness, it’ll be filled one way or the other.”

  I stepped out and grabbed a towel, smirking at him. “You mean like your ass and my dick?” I smacked said ass and he glared at me in the mirror.

  “Metaphorically. Or magically even, as I’m coming to learn.” He spat and swished water around then spat again as I grabbed my toothbrush. “I don’t know how it’ll work, but I don’t plan to languish in misery while I wait for it to happen.”

  “Staying in my bed would be far from miserable, I promise. We can fill a lot of voids without leaving the room.”

  “Listen, they’re probably going to fuck all day and I don’t particularly want to hang around to bear witness to it. Whatever happened between them last night has improved their moods by about a million. Even I can sense the change in energy in this place. Can’t you? It reminds me of my house the other day when my grandma and Gus got hitched. As much as I appreciate the boost in general atmosphere, I really don’t fucking want to stick around just on principle. Because I want her and it hurts in a different way to see her with someone else. Even if it’s someone I believe deserves her.”

  “So we go back to your house and drown our sorrows there. Is that what you’re suggesting?” I asked. I was pretty keen on just having sex and drinking for the rest of the day, or the fucking year if it came to it. I could drink alone but the sex part was better with a partner or else it was just fucking pathetic.

  He chuckled. “No, and my plan really has nothing to do with drinking or fucking, though neither one is off the table. That was a pretty phenomenal hand-job by the way.”

  I followed him back into the bedroom and sat on the bed watching him throw on his clothes. Little by little, a sense of disappointment crept in as it became clear he really wasn’t interested in my idea of a diversion. The fact was, I had almost no enthusiasm for anything right now and the thought of leaping off the bluffs was becoming more and more attractive.

  “Get dressed,” he said, stepping into my closet and tossing a few things at me. “Do you own a wet suit?”

  “Why the fuck would I own a wet suit?”

  “You live in fucking Malibu, don’t you surf?”

  “Ursa don’t do oceans. I’m here because the band is here.”

  “You don’t know what you’re missing, but I intend to show you.” He stood with his arms crossed and eyebrows raised, staring at me expectantly.

  With a grumble I got dressed and followed him out to the living room. There was still no sign of Ozzie or Llyr, but delicious smells wafted from the kitchen. I started heading that direction on autopilot, but Bodhi grabbed me by the elbow and directed me toward the door. “I’ve gotta check on my mom. There will be food at my house.” He gave me an emphatic look suggesting he was itching to go now.

  Just as we reached the door, Sandor slipped out of the kitchen and waved. “We’ve got food ready. Stay and eat?”

&n
bsp; I gave Sandor a longing glance, but Bodhi wasn’t about to budge. “Ah, I think he’s gotta get home so we’re gonna bounce.”

  Sandor’s brows lifted and he glanced between the two of us long enough that heat began to creep up my neck. Finally, he just nodded and shoved a hand in his pocket. “Good deal. We brought your bike back from the store last night. Didn’t get a chance to give these to you.” He tossed a set of keys to me and gave me a little salute before we headed out the door.

  3

  Ozzie

  Disbelief mixed with dread in a sickening tangle in my stomach. I’d just witnessed Fate itself praising one of its hounds for ripping out the throat of a member of the bloodline.

  Deva had been right to worry about the bloodline, but I didn’t think she realized how much danger they were really in. The hounds she had found were benign compared to the creatures still under Fate’s control.

  Llyr and I abandoned our tracking of the rogue hounds after that, instead flying out from under the Santa Monica pier where we’d been hiding while it happened and setting eyes on the fate hound who had just eviscerated a man whose only apparent crime was having been bitten by one of the rogues. I still wasn’t one hundred percent sure, but I was willing to wager the rogue hounds had returned to my house. It seemed they were drawn to Deva and that my grandmother’s assessment was correct, that Deva could control them.

  It had to have something to do with Deva’s origins. Our former enemy had intended Deva as a vessel for her soul but the higher races had succeeded in killing her before that could come to pass. I hadn’t been present for the war’s final, brutal end because I’d been the one tasked with taking Deva away to the one place where Meri could not reach her: The realm of the gods.

  Yet somehow the rogue hounds still knew her as their master despite having no link whatsoever to the monster who had broken their bond to Fate.

  I was torn between flying back home to make sure Deva was safe and continuing to track the true threat, but Llyr seemed to have no such conflict, and he was the one with a blood bond to Deva. He would not leave her in danger, I knew that much, so I remained at his side, flying over the massive, sprawling city with my eyes peeled for any more threatening activity by the hound.

  Why Llyr was so intent on sticking by my side was a testament to his devotion to Deva. We hadn’t been back in our human forms since the fight on the rooftop when I’d finally confessed that the true danger to Deva was Fate itself. So no wonder he was still unflaggingly pushing on beside me now that we had seen first-hand what Fate was capable of.

  We stayed in the shadows of the Los Angeles skyscrapers, as far from the hound as we could remain and still keep it in sight. Llyr would leap-frog ahead, now in the shape of an enormous raven so he’d stand out from the multitudes of city birds.

  At first the hound just seemed to wander the streets, occasionally sniffing the air and raising its head to let out a wavering howl that I didn’t hear so much as feel. The way it used sound to work its magic gave me a sense of kinship to it. Its howls were a kind of song, that I sensed helped it seek its target. But I still dreaded what the target might be.

  I was at least relieved that it was heading in the opposite direction from my house and deeper into the city. The people I cared about most were safe and I would do everything in my power to keep it that way.

  The sunrise glinted off the walls of glass, creating a disconcerting illusion of endless sunrise. I didn’t particularly like flying through this jungle of modern human innovation. It was a hazard for big birds, but I wasn’t about to abandon the hunt to determine whether my hunch was correct. I hoped I was wrong, but Fate’s final declaration after the hound’s attack on the pier had made it too evident that the bastard had it out for the bloodline for some reason.

  Llyr banked around a building up ahead and I sped up, soaring upward to gain a higher vantage and overtake the hound if necessary. The alley he flew down opened up at the back of a park, a small camp of bedraggled itinerants still rousing from restless night without shelter.

  We followed the hound farther into the park where it paused near a statue, sniffing the air. A steady trickle of cleanly dressed humans walked past, down the path and around a dried-up fountain, clearly on their way to whatever occupations they spent their days at. The morning sun glinted off the marble statue in the center of the fountain and the bronze plaque at its base.

  I perched in the branches of a tree, itching with frustration. If the hound attacked here, there was nothing either Llyr or I could do without exposing ourselves to the humans, and not just as a pair of naked weirdos. The only way I knew to subdue the hound was with my magic and I wasn’t even sure if I could recreate the lightning cage without Sandor’s help.

  Llyr’s big shadow loomed above and he perched on the branch beside me for a second before shimmering into a smaller bird and gliding down to the edge of the fountain only a few feet from where the hound sat. He hopped down to mingle with a small flock of pigeons pecking at someone’s discarded bagel.

  The hound’s hackles rose and it stood again, tensing and at the ready. I’d lost track of which pigeon was Llyr, but one of the birds had perked up, its beady eyes fixed on the hound.

  When the hound moved, Llyr and I both took wing, tracing its increased speed toward a figure that walked with swift purpose down the path toward the fountain. It was a human woman this time, elegantly put together in a black skirt suit and gray silk shirt, her black hair pinned to her head in a style that reminded me of my grandmother. Despite her determined gait, her face betrayed an inner turmoil she fought to keep in check.

  But she did not bleed magic like the last victim and so I faltered, thinking this couldn’t be the hound’s target, not if my hunch was correct.

  Llyr, however, didn’t slow his flight. He’d lifted off from the group of pigeons and soared upward and now descended again, swooping over the woman’s head. She merely waved her arm with an irritated look and kept moving while the hound picked up speed. There was no one else nearby within the hound’s path. It had to be her, but why?

  Rather than keep questioning the creature’s motives, I sailed down from my branch directly at the hound, letting out a battle cry as I descended. I held my magic back until the last moment, then let fly when my claws raked over its ruff. I hit only air, but my lightning still made it yelp in pain. It only stumbled for a second before returning to its mission, violet eyes fixed on the woman coming toward it.

  The woman’s eyes widened at the sight of me and she stopped in her tracks. I realized my mistake too late, but the hound was already leaping for her throat. I let out a screech of alarm and Llyr swooped low, tagging the hound with his own claws, but he was just as ineffectual as I was. Our magic could affect them, but physical attacks made no difference and the poor human woman had no idea what hit her.

  From this close, I saw the hound’s teeth become solid a split second before they pierced her throat. In that moment the woman seemed to see it and stumble back a step, but the creature was too fast and ruthless. It was on her and gone by the time she fell backward onto the fountain’s edge. She clung to the pale marble, her blood flooding down over the stone and into the empty basin. The red mingled in a marbled swirl with a small rivulets of water from the dewy condensation that trickled off the huge statue and flowed sluggishly toward the drain.

  I sat stunned a few feet away and was only dimly aware of the flutter of gray wings and a pair of talons hooking into my plumage. Then the world twisted into a whirlpool of movement and the scene before me disappeared, leaving only the vision of the woman’s blood twisting around the drain of the fountain.

  * * *

  We landed naked in the studio behind the house, the force of Llyr’s drift dispelling the magic that governed our shifted forms. My stomach lurched and I doubled over from both vertigo and nausea. I’d never get used to drifting.

  Llyr had no such weakness when it came to using his own powers, and I glared up at him from my bent positi
on.

  “There was nothing more to see or do there without spreading more alarm than necessary,” he said.

  “Why her? Was she even bloodline?”

  “She was. And she carried the mark on her soul as well.”

  “She wasn’t bleeding,” I argued, shaking my head. “Not from her soul, anyway,” I added bitterly. “How do you know she was bitten?”

  His grim expression told me he had gleaned a lot more from our encounter than I had. “I saw her past and future in those few seconds while she was visible. It’s easy with humans, and the bloodline especially, since I’m linked to them. My link isn’t as strong as Deva’s but she doesn’t possess the power of the River to be able to see these things yet.”

  “And?” I straightened up and went to the fridge for a bottle of water, which I opened and guzzled in several long swallows, then tossed one to Llyr.

  “The hound that attacked Keagan bit the woman several days ago. That man on the pier was bitten by a different hound, not one I’ve seen before. It had white tips on its ears.”

  “So there are more rogues besides the ones we captured and the one that freed them and mauled Keagan?”

  “I’m less concerned about those creatures than I was. They bite but so far none of the victims we’ve met have died from their bites. Sophia may have suggested they’re at risk for suicide but that’s only if they fail to find mates. How is that any different than what turul go through?”

  I darted my gaze away and swallowed thickly, unwilling to admit all the dark moments in my past when I just wanted to give up hope. Even though I’d put myself in a trickier position by severing the bond to the mate Fate had chosen and binding myself to Deva instead, simply knowing she was there had abolished that hopeless feeling I’d had for the last several decades of fruitless searching for my One.