Chapter 14

Barbie

The shifter prince walked in as if he owned the chaos house and the air I breathed.

I'd resumed my former pose—my cheek on my palm, an elbow on the table, one foot on the edge of the chair. My green eye was shut, and my sapphire eye peeked at him, not impressed.

He seemed to be more muscular. Maybe he'd been spending all his time in the gym. His chest and ten-pack might burst his expensive shirt open. Perhaps that was his intention—to intimidate his rivals or to seduce chicks. Yep, from that smug look in his amber eyes, he must believe all the hard muscles would get me to run into his arms like one of his bitches.

I didn't even bother to force open the other eye, let alone rise to greet him, as he'd expected or would demand later. Surprise glinted in his eyes before anger lifted its ugly head. But he suppressed a growl and toned down his alpha stare before it came into full effect.

Well, he'd learned not to train his alpha stare on me again.

The house magic had reset everything in the room. The table enlarged, as the house considered the shifter prince a hostile force. I rolled my eyes and told the house that Silas wasn't going to jump across the table to get me, and if he did, I could handle him.

But the house magic danced to Killian's every whim, with my familiar as his enforcer. The trio were mentally linked.

I could counter them and cause a ripple of trouble, but it wasn't worth the fallout. Silas wasn't worth the effort. Plus, I wanted to put the princes in their places for their wicked plans for me that Sy had learned through fucking Rowan. I wondered if their plan of taming me and ruining me was still in place after my kidnapping, since they'd all come to rescue me, which was the opposite of ruining me.

"Welcome to the official speed date with Miss Barbie, our new member in the House of Chaos, Prince Silas!" Pucker rushed to greet Silas giddily.

"Beat it!" Silas snapped. "Who needs you here? This is a speed date for two, not for three!"

Wow, he was far more brutal than Louis. I didn't comment, at least not yet. He might be dead, but he was two hundred years older than me. He could handle himself.

Pucker blinked hard, twice.

Silas reached the other side of the table in no time, his massive wolf peeking out of his amber eyes, giving me his full attention.

"What happened to your other eye, Barbie?" the shifter prince asked, turning the chair around and perching on it.

I'd noticed that he didn't bring me a gift either, so I didn't bother asking for it. Nor would I open the other eye for him.

"Does it still hurt?" he asked, concern in his voice as he remembered how I'd looked in that dungeon.

When Killian fought to get me to his house, he hadn't realized that it only made the other heirs want me more. The rivalry between them was no joke, and Silas always set out to poach what Killian had.

So, no, the shifter prince's new niceness couldn't fool me.

"Mmm," I said.

Earlier, Pucker had tried to persuade me to have both of my eyes open for his show.

"Why?" I'd asked.

"So you can have a better look at your dates."

"What's there to look at?"

"They're all good looking!"

"Can good looks fill my belly?"

He'd shaken his head exasperatedly. But now, after taking abuse from two princes, he seemed glad that I was giving them the one-eye treatment.

I wasn't exactly happy about this speed date chore, since I didn't get any benefit out of it.

Powerful men and their games! And none of them had brought me a gift!

"I'm sorry about what happened to you, Barbie," he growled. "But mark my words, I'll make sure whoever did this to you pays tenfold!"

Would he care if I was still the lowest "shifter" in his house? Would he even have come for me? The princes could show their nice, charming sides all they wanted, but I'd always see the predators beneath, and their predators didn't respect weakness.

I wasn't just any chick who could be charmed easily. I was a monster, though I didn't look it. True monsters seldom did. Adding Sy, we were twin monsters.

Of course, I was grateful that the princes had helped rescue me, but I didn't need to show it and play into their hands. I'd leave no debts unpaid, but I'd pay them on my terms.

"I appreciate it, sir," I said flatly, my tone bored.

"You can call me Silas when we're alone," he said, as if doing me a huge favor.

"That'd be improper," I said. "As I recall, you're very strict on hierarchy, sir."

"We got off on the wrong foot, Barbie," he said, a little disappointed at seeing that I wasn't jumping up and down at having a speed date with him.

"Yeah?"

"We can start over." He gazed at me boldly, his amber eyes glowing with heat. "Have I ever told you how lovely you are?"

My alarm bells started to ring. I trusted this nicer version of the shifter prince even less.

"No, sir," I said. "But you once said that my usefulness was limited to shifting to a chihuahua if I ever shifted. You said, I quote, ‘But do we need a house pet who's more a pest? Everyone in this house must contribute, even a street urchin. You don't work, you don't eat!' After that, you wrinkled your nose and said, ‘Now beat it. You stink, Little Bob! You need to take a bath.' Before that, you backhanded me. If I hadn't been nimble, I'd have sprawled on the floor, or even cracked my skull. Oh, you also forced me to carry rocks before Sir Killian got me out of your house."

After Killian had exposed me as a girl, the shifter prince had been so pissed off at my deception that he used compulsion to make me suck his cock to publicly humiliate me. He'd failed, though, so the joke was on him.

He looked stunned before he blinked hard. Asshole didn't even remember all that.

"The list is long, sir, if you want me to continue," I added.

"I didn't know you were a girl back then," he said, rubbing his jaw, calculation glinting in his eyes as he pondered how to turn my thoughts in another direction.

Right on cue, Pucker popped up beside us, flicking in and out of sight.

"Why are you still here, poltergeist?" Silas scolded, taking out his frustration on my familiar. "I told you to fuck off, and I meant it! Barbie and I deserve alone time and guaranteed privacy."

"Nothing is guaranteed in any corner of the universe, Your Highness," Pucker said, puffing up his ghost chest in outrage. "And I can't fuck off. I'm the host of this speed-dating show. Only Prince Killian can fire me from the job. Anyway, the show must go on, and we've prepared snacks for you, courtesy of the house."

The house had taken away the glass of chicken blood that was served to Louis. He'd rejected it, though. Now a plate of cubed bread materialized in front of Silas.

"What is this?" He narrowed his eyes as he inspected the bread, then he picked up a cube, squeezing it between his thumb and forefinger, but the bread remained intact. "This is harder than a rock! Does Killian intend to break my teeth?"

"But you have shifter fangs, Prince Silas," Pucker offered. "I'm sure you can handle it."

"Take it away!" Silas ordered him. "You, begone too. We don't need to have a third wheel, or Killian's spy, hovering over us!"

Pucker turned to me, looking miserable and angry. "I quit! I don't need all the abuse! There's no respect for the dead in this realm."

"Take it easy, Pucker. Deep breaths." I shrugged. "Just know that they don't even respect the living."

"Before I leave the show," Pucker said, lifting his stubborn chin, "I must perform one last task."

The ghost guardian waved his wand, and the house whisked away the rock-hard bread cubes and deposited a pot of steamy tea in front of Silas, leaving the lid open.

"Enjoy, Prince Silas of House of Shifters!" Pucker offered with a professional bow. "And you have two more minutes left."

And he was gone.

Instantly, Silas started to sneeze. I sniffed the air and widened my eyes. The house had brought him strong wolfbane tea. Shifters were extremely allergic to wolfbane, and if you didn't want a wolf to be on your tail, the best way was to spread wolfbane on the trail while carrying a bag of wolfbane powder on your person.

Killian must have had the house magic brew the most potent wolfbane he'd illegally gotten from the black market.

"What the fu—?" Silas couldn't stop sneezing.

"Are you all right, sir?" I asked in fake concern, my voice husky.

The scent of wolfbane spread through the entire room in no time. Silas's eyes turned bloodshot from the allergy, then he bent over and sneezed nonstop.

He had it bad!

"Whadd…the fu—fu…?" he tried to curse.

"I don't follow, sir. Fu—fu what?" I asked, but now he could barely open his eyes. "Should we call Guardian Pucker back? If you have a cold, sir, I gotta get out of here! I don't want you to pass the fucking cold to me. I might not be immune to shifter sicknesses, since I haven't fully recovered from being kidnapped and tortured!"

You aren't a human,Pucker chimed in my head. You'll never catch a cold.

You can't know that! I scolded him. And I don't want Silas to know that either. Why are you still here? I thought you quit.

Silas tried to gaze at me, tried to speak, but he was too busy sneezing and fighting off the virus at the same time. A new plume of wolfbane steam floated into the air from the teapot. I had no intention of covering the lid though. It wasn't my business.

"It's not a cold." He finally forced the words out.

The alarm blared in the room, and I clapped my hands over my ears. The door flew open, and the house hurled the shifter prince across the room and tossed him out while he was still sneezing like a monkey from Hell.