Chapter Six Neo

My hands are still shaking.

That makes it hard to pour the slug of peppermint schnapps from the vintage liquor cart in our great room into Dez's cocoa. But she really needs it to steady her nerves, so I just suck it up and get the job done.

Since I'm apparently not a candidate for helping in any of the major ways around this domus.

At least in Zara's view.

I hate thinking that way, I really do, like now is obviously not the time for me to throw myself a pity party? No one has time to deal with that.

The thing is, that's obviously what she and the guys are thinking. That's gotta be why, when my fated mate was in danger and needed us most, I got whisked away. I was literally the only one of her guys she wanted sent away. She wanted me gone so badly she even Compelled Racetrack (who definitely looked doubtful, with me yelling no way and frantically shaking my head at her the whole time) to do it.

Everyone else in the harem (except Zephyr and Ash, who haven't exactly been around) got to stay at Zara's side and fight.

And the fact that my hands are still shaking, even hours later, well after the rest of them got home?

It's like proof that Zara's right.

When it comes to fighting for her and defending her, I really am useless.

Biting my lip, I breathe in the cool bite of peppermint, cradle the steaming mug carefully between my palms, and trot across the great room to the crackling heat and light of the central hearth. Shadows dance and flicker around the high-backed Renaissance sofa where Dez and Racetrack are cuddled together in their jammies.

RT looks grumpy as heck in her scruffy sweats and athletic socks, with a gauze bandage wrapped around her forehead and her fist wrapped around a bracing cup of black coffee. Nurse Lavinia just left, and my housemate's not supposed to sleep, because she might have a mild concussion.

After RT magicked me off the yacht, one of those big bullies from the AIB apparently sucker-punched her. Knocked her out cold.

Snuggled up next to her, Dez is swimming in her big terrycloth bathrobe, dark ringlets still damp from her shower. When I hand over her cocoa, her olive eyes look big and haunted.

"Thanks, copper. That'll set me to rights." Dez summons up a brave smile, but her voice is raspy from crying, and her skin is tight with strain.

She's got bruises on her delicate wrists from being manhandled by those jerks, but I give her total credit. She's no kind of fighter. But Dez held her shit together like a pro.

When I blinked into the domus , still yelling in protest, Dez was already getting the Dean (who's like a million years old and had to be woken up and apparently slept through the actual party?) on the landline.

"How about a nip of the strong stuff for yourself, Red?" Ronin's sprawled across the settee, tummy-down and shirtless, with a white square of adhesive standing out against the tawny ripple of his naked shoulder and his head pillowed in Zara's lap. His black hair spills over the edge of the settee and one hand cradles his glass on the floor. There's an inch of amber scotch melting the ice. That's the only anesthetic he'd let Nurse administer before she stitched him up.

I don't want any cocoa. I don't need to be babied.

But I go and fetch the Macallan to top off his glass.

At least that gives me something to do that's useful. I mean, like, it's an alternative to hurling myself at Zara's feet and howling like a toddler throwing a tantrum because she sent me away.

"You're a good lad," Ronin murmurs.

He's kinda sleepy from the scotch and the heat and Zara stroking his hair. He's so brave. I mean, he's so badass I don't think he was even afraid. When Zara's ex was doing his darnedest to ram his knife through Ronin's throat, I was more terrified than Ronin, who mostly just looked pissed.

Anyway, I'm not a good lad.

I'm about to explode with frustration.

My shoulders are all bunched tight with stress.

Leaving three messages in a row on my dad's mobile, which he still hasn't returned, is definitely not helping.

"How's your shoulder?" I say politely, but also with real concern.

Ronin was the one who needed actual rescue. Seeing him tasered and pinned under that jerk, I was scared to death. By the time Ronin showed up here with the others, grim and bloody but thankfully still ambulatory and breathing, I was practically in tears.

"I'll be right as rain, love. No worries." From the comfy pillow of Zara's lap, he eyes my hovering frame under sleepy lids. "I'm a fast healer, aren't I? All those shifter biochemicals I've got from Lucius, yeah?"

My gaze shoots to the kitchen, where I can still hear the soothing drone of Lucius' murmur on the landline. Our headmaster's speaking Hungarian, so I guess he's finally been able to reach his grandpa.

I don't speak the language, and we don't have a mating bond, because Lucius is afraid to bite me (and please don't get me started on that whole topic). But I like the sound of his rolling R's and buzzing Z's and sibilant S's. He's lurking in the kitchen doorway, stretching the long phone cord to its maximum limit. That way he can keep an eye on Ronin and Zara (both of whom he's bitten and thus goes alpha-to-the-max protective over) while he talks to Laszlo Aries.

"If you will insist upon engaging in mortal combat, Ronin Pendragon, you should have more than one mating bite." That's Maxim, getting in his two cents and speaking his careful English, which he taught himself back home in Russia. "My dragon's bite will speed your healing."

Max has been super vocal lately (when he's around, because he's gone a lot) about wanting to bite Ronin, because Ronin and Zara were the first ones he mated, and he bit Zara right away.

It especially comes up when they're fucking.

Which is, like, insanely sexy.

Right now, my dragon shifter boyfriend looks disreputable but yummy, ripped jeans and faded black tee clinging to his wiry frame, buttery blond hair spilling loose around his shoulders. He's scowling and pacing before the sliding doors that open on the domus courtyard and the glowing turquoise rectangle of our swimming pool.

Those glass doors are currently closed and locked because A) we're on an island and the nights still get nippy, and B) no one feels safe having any doors open.

Not after what went down on that yacht tonight.

"And have superheats every blooming month the way Zara does? No thanks, love. My heats from Lucius' bite are plenty." Ronin snorts at Max, but softens the rejection with a wry smile. "You dragons are a potent lot."

Max looks kinda disgruntled—I think he literally wants to bite all of us, except maybe Lucius, whom he defers to.

But Max is too focused on patrol duty over there to double down on coaxing Ronin to take his mating bite.

He's been pacing like that since he shifted back. It's actually making me tired just watching him.

Zara stirs on the settee and turns to Max with a sigh. "C'mon over here and warm up by the fire, big guy. We gotta talk this thing through, all of us. Anyway, Lucius has wards on the domus . We'll know if anyone comes."

Her wary eyes shift to me and soften. "You too, baby. Come right over here and sit with me. We can all feel you. I'm really sorry you're hurting."

Now it's my turn to sigh. Living in a polycule with telepaths isn't all fun and games.

It's, like, impossible to keep anything secret.

Unless you're Vasili.

Who seems to have no problem, ever, keeping secrets.

I eye the ottoman where Zara's bare feet are resting. Her pretty opal toenail polish glitters in the firelight.

But her little feet look cold.

When she came home, she just threw on her favorite yoga pants and a Villa Augustus tee shirt (that's the name of this domus , our residential college at Icarus). She's really not wearing enough for a chilly night.

That decides me. I can't have my precious one cold .

I trot over and plunk myself down on the cushion at Zara's feet to face her. It's hard to meet her eyes when I feel this way, but her love and worry for me radiate through our mating bond. Gently I gather her feet in my lap and cup her cold toes (she's, like, icy) in my warm palms.

"That's so nice, baby," she murmurs with a grateful smile. "My feet are freezing. Too worked up earlier to find my slippers."

I'm a little chilly too, but there isn't time right now to worry about me. Until, to my surprise, Max prowls over and crowds onto the cushion with me and wraps himself around me from behind.

Which is just so comforting and nice.

He's a fire sign, he's the Sagittarius scion (only he calls it a prince), and fire signs always run hot.

While I rub Zara's cold feet and massage her soles, Max's sinewy suntanned arms slide around my waist. He spreads his denim-clad thighs to tuck me between them, then rubs the tawny bristle of his five o'clock stubble against the side of my neck.

Goosebumps break out all over me under my Academy polo shirt. I sigh and melt into him.

I love Max so much.

Literally one of the only good things about Zara getting kidnapped this spring was that Max and I got major together time while we were chasing her and Zephyr through the portal and the standing stones to Avalon.

Max and I hooked up over there (finally!) So now we're together too.

"Perhaps it is you I should be biting, hmmm, kotyonok ?" our dragon rumbles in my ear. His mating scent of leather and brimstone fills my head. "If you will follow our sovereign and these hellions we are mating into danger, then we must keep you safe."

Kotyonok means kitten in Russian. I love the nickname. And I love the thought of him biting me (after waiting so long for him to offer!)

I shiver all over with happiness and delight.

Of course, Vasili's in a mood. He's never totally gotten over finding out about Max and me, and he's really territorial. Because V actually has bitten me. That means he really is one of my alphas.

Even if he doesn't act like it.

I mean, he never hovers and fusses over me to make sure I'm warm and fed and happy, you know, like an alpha should. Actually, Max is way more hovery.

So of course V has to totally ruin any kind of nice moment Max and I are having.

"Bite him if you must, darling." Vasili sneers at Max from the far corner of the settee where he's draped like a serpent, looking like Mata Hari in a silk kimono, with his gilded hair still damp from his shower and slicked back from his pretty face. "Since our First Boy is clearly into it. Then you can fuck him into a sex puddle and indulge your ridiculous mpreg obsession about filling his nonexistent uterus with a clutch of your revolting dragonets. The same way you carry on with Ronin."

"Oh, man," Racetrack mumbles from the sofa behind her coffee. "TMI, guys."

Ronin gives a surprised snort of laughter and rolls onto his good side to grin at Vasili. "Easy, love. Don't yuck on his yum. Not Max's fault he's got a breeding kink, is it?"

"Yeah, what he said," Zara murmurs. I feel a warm little spurt of gratitude, because she always defends me. "It's just a fantasy, Goblin King. Since Ronin doesn't mind, it's all good. We gotta let Neo and Max have their own thing too."

Her tone is soft with understanding because she gets Vasili, she really does, even when he's being all vile and snaky.

Still, I'm sensing a somber note of sadness and guilt lurking in my fated mate that I don't like her to feel.

When she fiddles with the glittery tiara she's tossed onto the end table next to her, with her gorgeous Hollywood face all pensive, I figure out what's bothering her.

It's all those awful things Messalina said in front of the whole witching world. You know, about how Zara's all wicked and selfish and slutty.

How she's not worthy to wear the witching world crown.

Hearing Zara put him in his place, V gives an annoyed little huff and sulks behind his martini.

But Ronin's really hard to resist when he's shirtless and grinning like that.

Especially when he throws one yummy leather-clad leg over Vasili's lap and rubs a teasing bare foot against V's thigh .

That makes V unbend enough to give Ronin a sultry smirk.

"Just don't expect me to throw you a baby shower." That snake gives a delicate shudder. "You know I despise infants."

Ronin smolders back at him and slides his sexy toes up V's inner thigh. "Bet you'd like mine though. Wouldn't you, love?"

Wow. Okay.

Clearly, Ronin's all sexed up. Even though the moon's nowhere near full and no one's going into heat.

Maybe it's the adrenaline rush of combat.

Not that I'd know anything about that.

Firing with sudden resolve, I turn my head to peer back at Max.

He too is literally smoldering at V (who hasn't even bothered to answer Ronin's question) with his golden eyes flaming and his oblong dragon pupils narrowed to slits. Suddenly I wonder if Ronin isn't the only guy in our harem Max fantasizes about knocking up.

Anyway.

Max might be looking at Vasili, but he's wrapped around me, slipping his hot fire sign fingers under my polo shirt to tease my bare abs. He's attentive and possessive and broody enough about me these days to finally give me the courage to tell him what I want.

Like, for myself.

I clear my throat, give Zara's pretty feet a gentle squeeze for courage, and sit straighter in his arms. "Uh, Max?"

Max rubs his bristly face into my neck to scent me. "Kotyonok."

I lick my dry lips. "Will you teach me to fight?"

The whole room falls silent. Like, you can practically hear a mosquito breathe under the crackle and pop of the fire.

"Fight?" Max repeats cautiously, lifting his face from my neck to peer at me. "How do you mean, fight?"

"I mean fight ." My held breath spills out in a rush. "You know, fight fight? Like, with knives and staffs and weapons, the way you and Ronin train all the time?"

Zara's gaze locks on mine and her plush lips fall open. I read surprise and understanding and concern in her eyes. But there's something else pulsing through our mating bond that's an instinct too strong for her to hide.

It's fear. For me. Because she doesn't think I can fight for myself .

That whole reaction just makes me more determined to learn.

Totally predictable that Vasili recovers first.

"Dear fuck," he says into the startled silence. "This is like that moment when you open your express delivery from Balenciaga and realize they've sent you Miu Miu instead."

Racetrack snickers from the sofa. Dez hushes her with a soft murmur.

"Why would you wish to fight, Neo Mercury?" Max sounds so reasonable. "It is my honor to fight for you. As I fight for our sovereign. As I fight for all of you."

"Yeah, I know." My shoulders lift in a frustrated shrug. "I just… I want to fight with you. I want to help . I want to defend Zara. Against Messalina and Cleo and whoever else comes after her and tries to steal her crown."

While everyone else absorbs this newsflash, Ronin pushes up to sit and sweeps back his long hair with an impatient hand.

"Love," he says to me gently, "you're already helping. Every day. Just by being you. You've got nothing to prove. You don't need to risk yourself—"

"No. I need to do this." I don't like interrupting, but this is way too important. "I'm not, like, some sheltered omega from one of Zara's books. I don't need to be sheltered. I want to carry my share of the load." My face heats with shame and my volume takes a nosedive.

I finish in an embarrassed mutter. "At least let me learn to protect myself."

Ronin's brow furrows in consternation. "Bloody hell."

Zara's been reading us some of those glossy omegaverse paperbacks I had shipped from her old place. Those are some of my favorite times, curled up in a pile with her and the guys in our big medieval bed on a rainy Sunday morning while she reads to us.

So we all know what an omega is. In her books, they're like this special protected mate that has to be taken care of by all the alphas in their pack.

And most—but not all—of the omegas are girls.

"Neo, baby," Zara breathes, because of course she's in my head, just like I'm in hers. "You're never a burden. I love being with you. And so do they."

"Omega," Max says slowly. His tone deepens to a dragonish rumble in my ear. "In Zara's books, these omegas… they become pregnant, do they not?"

Vasili rolls his eyes and voices an eloquent snort of disgust.

Max isn't a natural telepath and he hasn't bitten me, so we don't have an actual mating bond. That means I can't actually read his mind. But I don't need telepathy to sense the sudden addition of an imaginary omega version of me, capable of getting pregnant, to Max's mpreg sexual fantasies.

Racetrack groans and scrambles up from the couch. "You guys gotta do this mpreg shit when I'm not around, for real. But Neo's got a point. He does need to learn how to handle himself in a fistfight."

"Thank you, Racetrack," I tell her humbly.

"Yeah." She shrugs. "Just makes sense. If they won't teach you, I will."

Max makes a disgruntled sound, but I glow up at her. I'm beyond grateful to have at least one ally.

My housemate's beelining for the kitchen with her empty mug when Dez pipes up. "Maybe we should all learn, cobber."

RT stops in her tracks and pivots to eye her girlfriend. Under her bandage, her hard face scrunches up. Clearly she sees the trap she's just walked into. "Shit. Dez… that's… totally different—"

"Except it's not, though, is it?" Dez sits up straight in her big terrycloth robe and looks determined. "Messalina's minions, the AIB, Cleopatra and her boo—they'll all be gunning for Zara—"

At that exact moment, a furtive knock echoes through our domus .

Someone's knocking at our front door.

From the kitchen, the comforting hum of Lucius' voice breaks off. A heartbeat later his wary face appears in the doorway.

Wary, but not totally alarmed.

The defensive wards on our domus are linked to him. If someone's lurking out there who wants to hurt us, I have to hope he'd sense that.

But this island's crawling with all those refugees from the yacht. All those Aquarius allies.

So it really could be anyone.

In a single catlike twist, Ronin rolls to his feet. Max snarls and coils up to stand with him, shoulder to shoulder .

Vasili lapses into perfect stillness. You'd need to look close to realize he's levitating, barely an inch above the settee. Without even trying, wearing nothing but a black silk kimono and whatever knives he's got strapped to his sexy body underneath, he's still the biggest badass in this domus .

Zara snatches her feet out of my lap, grabs the witching world crown, and rams it on her head. Her eyes light up with periwinkle fire and the ends of her teal pigtails start floating.

Which makes me wonder if that bauble we pinched is more than a royal heirloom.

Maybe it's also, like, a magical artifact?

But I shove that thought in a folder to think about later, because that furtive knock—more insistent this time, almost desperate—sounds again. I leap to my feet, but don't know what else to do. Dez and I are just the civvies, the non-combatants in the room.

Same as always.

Anyway, I'm not leaving Zara. I grab the iron poker from the fire grate and plant myself between her and the door. Racetrack stalks across the room and ranges herself at my side.

Like a comrade-in-arms. I appreciate her for that.

Zara levitates six feet in the air and orders, in the eerie reverberation of the lightning voice, "Open the door."

"I'll handle this. The rest of you, for the love of God, try to stay out of trouble." Lucius gives us all a grim look and crosses the room with his measured tread.

Looking all professorial in his cardigan and houndstooth trousers, with his chestnut hair neatly tied at his nape, he pads down the little staircase to the vestibule.

Ronin and Max are right on his heels.

Zara stares after them with her eyes narrowed. I have the feeling she's reaching out with senses I didn't even know she had, like Ronin's clairsentience.

Vasili takes a delicate sip of his martini and watches the stairs like a cobra eyeing a mongoose.

A rush of hushed and hurried voices flows from the vestibule. But I don't have shifty senses, just plain old Kryll ones like the rest of my race, so I can't make out a word .

"Well, well," Vasili murmurs, sounding thoughtful. His icy eyes narrow, but they don't thaw. He does have shifty senses, but he likes to keep his secrets.

"Fuck this waiting shit. Not cut out for it," Racetrack mutters and starts for the door.

But she doesn't get far before they're back. All three of our guys.

But, like, with company.

The whole kit and kaboodle tromps up the stairs and pours into our great room, with Lucius in the lead.

Behind him, a tall skinny girl pushes back the hood of her Academy sweatshirt to reveal a pale freckled face, wide gray eyes, and a soft mouth that's grim with resolve. Her bright coppery braid, which is super distinctive, spills over one shoulder.

"Oh. hey," I say in happy recognition.

Two guys push in on either side like bookends and loom over her, all protective. These are guys I recognize from Villa Hadrian. (That's one of the other residential colleges.) Draco's in my Witching World Law class and pretty hard to miss. Jae's more of a lurker, but I did a group project with him last year in Witching World History.

"Sweet fuck." Vasili sneers. "It's Mallory McSnicker and her magical ménage ."

"Hey, Zara." To her credit, Mallory doesn't get distracted by that snake. She's laser-focused on my fated mate, who's still floating six feet above the fray. "I know we're not part of your harem. But we're here to join your court. I mean, if you'll have us."

"God save the queen," Draco growls in his gravelly voice and bares his teeth in a savage grin. "We're here to join the witching world resistance."