20. Rehan

CHAPTER TWENTY

REHAN

I poked at the ragged tatters remaining on my shirt before eyeing the roughly cut-off sleeves on Tysons, displaying his cut biceps.

“Is this really necessary?” I asked.

The thin man whom the superintendent hadn’t named gave me a once over and hummed. “Aye. I only know one illegal portal into England, and a wee bit less is whatcha need.” He moved his gaze to Jay, only dressed in her sports bra and low-slung cargo pants, which she’d cut ragged lines into, showing off her legs. A pair of sparkling pink heels made her butt look incredible.

A growl rumbled in my chest, and I stepped between him and his view of her.

The man ducked his head and exposed his throat. He was clearly used to working with shifters. “I’d rather have you on top any day.”

I jerked back and he winked.

Jay’s chuckle bounced around the dimly lit stone cellar. She straightened the spiked collar loosely clasped around Ogden’s neck, entirely at ease with the situation, which calmed me.

“Now.” The man made a final cut to Tyson’s shirt, exposing a wide strip of his six-pack, before turning to Jay. “Don’t let them wander. Club V isn’t for the faint of heart. In case you’ve not realized this yet, these are Dragon Shifters… like the stuff of legends.” He bit his lower lip. “Does their jizz really taste like dessert?”

“Yes, flavored to match their personalities,” Jay answered way too casually.

The man looked right at me and slid his gaze down before focusing on my junk. I shifted uncomfortably and moved my hands in front of me.

“Subtle.” Tyson snorted.

“I’d pay a lot to suck your dick, so would a lot of people,” the man said. He turned back to Jay. “Don’t let them shift. London’s a big city, supernatural trafficking is still a problem, and Club V has illegal portals for a reason.”

“They’re smarter than they look.” Jay gestured. “Just open the portal.”

I narrowed my eyes. That was it? No talking about our options or even details about what was coming next? This wasn’t our world; we needed Jay’s knowledge, but back in control, she was once again cutting us out.

The man sighed. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you…oh and if anyone hands you anything, don’t eat, drink, or snort it.” He turned to what I thought was an old barren stone wall and mumbled, tracing a pattern across its rough surface. The sound of rock grating against rock filled the room. Runes, outlined in florescent pink magic, emerged out of the wall. The man, er clearly mage’s voice, rose in volume until a swirl of pink snapped into place in front of us.

My heart raced in my chest. Everything happened so fast when I opened the last portal. I remembered some glowing fluorescent-green runes, but not the shimmering liquid waiting for us, just being sucked forward against my will.

Jay came to my side and laced our fingers together. I squeezed hers back.

“There are two types of portals in the world,” she explained. “This is a fixed portal, a mage…”

The man smirked. “Me.”

“…creates a fixed location and can connect to anyone else’s fixed location as long as the two give each other keys.” Jay pointed to the incredible number of runes etched in the circle on the wall, though only a fraction glowed. “Think of it like a massive rotary phone.” She made little half circles with her pointer finger. “The opposite of that, the most potent supernaturals can open portals at will and step to any location they can clearly picture in their minds. The portal at Scalehive was a fixed location, but it didn’t have a way to dial. Which means it only had one use.”

Jay’s gaze unfocused.

“Does that mean your ex is still on our island?” Lux asked.

Jay shrugged. “Probably. Unless he made another portal somewhere else, we need to check in with Oliviarose. This also explains how I got to the island. After my car accident, someone chucked me through.” Jay shook her head. “Which is neither here nor there.” She squeezed my hand again. “The point is, you opened something which wasn’t meant to open for you, and it was impressive, not something to be feared.”

Her words cut through my simmering anxiety, and my dragon preened. Even if I hadn’t meant to, I impressed my mate. Unlike my childhood, I controlled what happened to me. I took a deep breath and released it. I could do this.

Curiosity brightened the mage’s gaze, but Jay ignored him. Probably for the same reason we hadn’t even exchanged names. The less everyone knew, the better.

Jay released my hand. “We’re buddying up for this. Og, don’t leave Tyson’s side. Rehan, stick with Lux.”

Ogden’s shoulders dropped, and to my surprise, I found myself similarly disappointed in the pairings. I worked really well with Og, and I trusted him to be at my side. I barely knew Lux. The thought made me pause and study Jay again. A stupid smile came to my face. Clever girl.

“What about you?” Tyson asked Jay.

Jay grinned. “I’m front and center. You can still feel my location, right?”

I grunted, the others making similar noises of agreement. We would be hard-pressed to lose track of our mate when she was literally tethered to our souls.

“Thanks for the portal,” Jay said to the man, and without another word, she stepped forward, disappearing into the shimmering pink liquid.

I rushed after her before I lost my nerve. Despite looking like a liquid, the shimmering pink felt like a blanket of hot swirling air. Frayed bits of my pants and shirt floated, momentarily weightless, and then that feeling of my essence being pulled apart ripped into me, only to end as I stepped into a new world.

Literally.

The sheer volume hit me first, and my ears shrank like my dick in cold water. Although the lighting was dim in the massive square room, spotlights of all colors swirled and dappled a literal sea of humanity. Women and men shook and pounded their fists. It took me a moment to realize the shaking under my feet was in time with the bass of the music.

I turned. Scantily clad men and women danced on poles, in cages, and in the center of moon gates, much like the one I just came through. Each gate was fixed to a small platform, which had lights beaming off the surface, occasionally creating a texture that filled the center. If we hadn’t been coming out of it, on this side, the gate looked like the decorations.

Jay grabbed my arm, pulling me away from the portal just as Lux stepped through, Ogden hot on his heels. Tyson stumbled out last, his face going from ready to fight to a broad grin. Although I had no idea what was going on, Tyson obviously knew what this was and loved it.

We melted into the edges of the dancing masses. Jay wiggled her hips, seamlessly blending in with a group of women next to her. They swayed and jumped in their tight dresses, studded with hardware and cat ears. Wait. I looked closer. The women weren’t wearing cat ears. They had cat ears. It took me a moment, but half the people I saw had something inhuman about them. One man had blue-tinged skin. Another woman had two little horns poking out of her updo.

Jay came back into my view, twirling Lux and Ogden like they were princesses, and deposited them on either side of me. I exchanged a look with Tyson, both of us a head above most of the crowd. Instead of turning his nose up, as I expected, the fire prince dropped, twerking his hips.

I groaned. I seemed to be alone, looking out for danger.

The woman with little horns bumped Tyson’s hip with hers and put her hands in the air. “To the window!” She sang along with the music, as did half the people in the room. “To the wall. Till the sweat drops down my balls.”

My heart raced unhappily.

Suddenly, Lux was in front of me. The air prince grabbed my hands and moved his hips from side to side before leaning forward and standing on his toes. “It’s a club, like in the videos. Relax and dance.”

“This isn’t dancing,” I growled. “I don’t know what videos you’re referring to. I don’t like technology.”

Lux shrugged and shuffled his feet, his hips moving more fluidly than most of the women around us. Tyson grabbed Jay’s hand and spun her, making her laugh and flush while a different woman placed her back against Tysons and pressed into him.

I didn’t like it. Any of it.

The bass thumped, and Jay caught my eye, leaning her head further into the crowd. I nodded. Feeling like the only sane one in our group, I put myself in the back so I could keep an eye out. Lux danced directly ahead of me as we made our way across the mass. More than one head turned as we went. A small group of women danced in our wake, giggling and pointing, obviously trying to get our attention.

The memory of the portal mage’s gaze unabashedly resting on my dick as he warned us about supernatural trafficking added a layer of unease I wasn’t used to feeling. Sweat, not just from the press of bodies, ran between my shoulder blades. A woman tried to link arms with me, pulling me in the wrong direction. I didn’t even pretend to dance as I stepped out of her personal space and directly into someone else's. For a moment, I lost track of Jay and her line of dragon princes before Tyson’s red hair reflected the light of a golden spotlight. But he wasn’t moving.

I cursed and pushed through the bodies. If we got separated in here, that would be it. The sheer magnitude of the noise, lights, and smells suppressed my dragon senses. I squeezed between a group of dancers and found Tyson staring down at a short woman whose breasts were easily half her body weight. A bright pink corset pushed them up and together. A line of something white and sparkling ran from her collarbone into her cleavage.

It was her tits, that was it. Tyson’s exact words came back to me.

“Tyson,” I warned, but the music swallowed my voice.

My stomach twisted as the fire prince leaned down, only to straighten back up and shake his head. I bit back a smile. He kept his head, something I doubted he’d ever truly wanted to do before.

Suddenly, the bass line shifted. A piercing scratching noise made the music quiet. A new song burst to life. Every girl around me jumped and squealed, the big-breasted one included.

The sparkling powder on her tits flew up into the air, including the bottle of it she still held open in her hand. I had no idea what the powder was, but the man warned us not to ingest anything.

Time slowed down.

Lux took a breath, and sparkling particles flew into his mouth. Worse, Tyson looked up just as the bottle turned and emptied right on top of him, covering his face in sparkling white powder.

Time sped up.

I rushed forward, not able to escape the few particles still in the air. The moment they entered my nose, the colors of the room heightened. My blood rushed, making the world seem more exciting. My dick twitched. Even the material of my undergarments gave me too much sensation.

I focused, grabbing the massive-breasted woman and forcing her to meet my eyes.

“What was that?” I yelled.

Her dilated gaze darted around as if seeing the world for the first time. She jumped out of time to the music, her hands flopping as much as her massive breasts.

“Pixie dust. It’s my birthday!” She yelled. She blinked and looked me up and down. “Dance with me! You have to!”

I didn’t have to do anything. I turned from her, finding Tyson’s dragon-slit eyes out and his tail splitting his pants. His pupils were so large they took up most of his face. Next to him, Lux chuckled, his eyes not quite as dilated but his hands as floppy as the woman’s.

Jay came to a stop near a wall on the opposite side. Our usual serene bond bubbled. A body leaned against me. I looked down to find a man twerking up to my hip in a world of his own. It was time to go. I let out a roar that cut through the pumping music, or at least the people trying to mob us. The group stumbled back far enough I could wrap an arm around Lux’s waist before throwing myself toward Tyson and doing the same. Tyson giggled, a sound I didn’t know he could make, and stumbled over his half-grown scaly tail. I cursed as his full weight fought my grip.

Virtually carrying the two princes, I plowed through the jumpers, disrupting little dance circles and sending people flying. Tyson moaned, the sound so guttural and sexual it made my oversensitive dick tingle with need. The bodies around us turned, faces flushed. I didn’t stop, and Tyson wrapped his tail around my waist, trying to turn his body. If his dick touched my hip, I was dropping him—one of Jay’s mates or not.

On my other arm, Lux threw his hands in the air, almost clocking me and making me stumble to the left. I collided with a body just as it came down from a jump, causing him to run into the body next to him and the one after that. I cursed, suddenly wishing I could kiss Lux and knock him unconscious like Jay had.

Instead of stopping to apologize to the small group now sprawled on the floor, I plowed forward. Twelve steps later, the crowd thinned, and I found Jay’s worried face looking for us. We made eye contact, and her shoulders relaxed, only for her eyes to widen as she stared behind me.

A hard hand grabbed my shoulder. I dropped Tyson and Lux, spinning on the balls of my feet, ready for a fight. Lux caught himself, giggling and gripping my arm, while Tyson fell to the floor, mumbling and swatting at nothing.

Although my hands were up in a guard position, I dropped them. I’d never seen anything like the creature now in front of me. Made of pure stone, the eyeless mass of dark grey was vaguely human-shaped. It only came up to my shoulders. A few bits of moss clung to its joints. Its head rotated down, taking in the partially shifted Tyson at my feet, one horn now poking out of his head.

“Shit,” Jay came up on my side. “That’s a golem. There’s a mage controlling it.” She looked to either side. “We don’t want to draw outside attention, and we want nothing to do with Club V. It was just our doorway to England.”

A wall of pure muscle and meat clopped to a stop to the left of the golem. The supernatural’s lumpy face had a mop of greenish-yellow hair which ran down its back. A big silver loop came out of his nose.

“Who do you think you are?” he asked in a booming voice.

I blinked, unsure if the creature was talking to me or the golem. The golem didn’t move, and Jay let out an exasperated breath. Out of the corner of my eye, Ogden got Tyson up while Lux still danced around both, his feet slightly out of time with the thumping bass.

“I’m sorry, dude,” Jay yelled back. “I don’t know what he did, but let me buy you a drink to make up for it?”

The hulking lump of a man narrowed his eyes. His upper lip curled, and he licked his teeth, which were way too sharp to be human.

“Or a blood bag?” Jay bit her lower lip. “Or a dog bone?”

“He looks like a lumpy rock.” Lux stopped dancing and squeezed my arm. His dilated eyes bounced in his skull. “They could be twins!” He jumped up and down, pointing between the golem and the new arrival.

The lump’s chest rose. “A fucking golem!” And he stepped forward with his arm raised.

Jay sighed. “Fuck.”

Between one heartbeat and the next, she kicked out, hitting the beast in the nuts, before stomping on his foot. His eyes bugged, the pupils glowing with a dirty yellow, and he crumpled. On his way down, she kicked out again, and the lump fell backward into the arms of two more lumps who fell backward in a too-familiar chain reaction of bodies, halting the dancing around us.

The golem didn’t move.

I swallowed.

“RUN!” Jay pulled me toward a glowing green exit sign. “There’s never just a few Orcs.”

With Tyson slung over Ogden’s shoulder and Lux, once again pulled to my waist, we booked it.