Page 16 of Love Bites Harder (Mated to the King #3)

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CLEMENTINE

We were definitely late by the time I managed to convince-slash-force Kai to portal us back to the Manor.

Definitely.

We were later after I made him shower—and he made me come again.

By the time we finally made it out of our room, I was sincerely hoping the rest of the kings were still gathered for the meeting at all. Not so we could plan the masquerade ball. That was so far from my mind, it wasn’t even funny.

But the eclipse was another beast, and we needed to make sure the vampires and the wolves were ready to welcome fae.

And then I needed to get Kai to let go of me long enough to help get an entire city’s worth of fae into Izzy’s lake and Blair’s pool. Which might prove to be the hardest task yet. Usually, they only had to round up the small portion who lost control. Now, almost everyone would be losing control.

His hand stroked my ribcage beneath my shirt as we made our way down the hall that led into the meeting room. Kai was sane enough to lead me there, and sane enough to have a normal, rational conversation, even if he couldn’t quite keep his hands to himself at the moment.

I understood, though.

And hell, I wasn’t going to complain about my mate being unable to stop touching me.

We stepped into the meeting room, and thankfully, everyone was still there.

The room was pretty simple, with five couches facing each other in a circle. Blair and Hale took one, Izzy and Porter had another one, and the other two occupied ones held men that I recognized immediately from tabloid photos. Talon the dragon king, and Bane the monster king.

I would’ve checked them out hard core before I was mated to Kai.

But considering what we’d been doing fifteen minutes earlier, they really didn’t hold any appeal.

“Tell me you’re fucking kidding,” Talon said flatly. “You gave Kai a siren but won’t give one to me? I filled out your stupid fucking request form at least thirty times.”

The request form thing was true.

I’d looked at his form many times when I was looking for a mate. It had been a little tempting, but I was glad that I hadn’t mated with him.

He’d said repeatedly that he needed a siren, but still refused to say why.

Kai, on the other hand, didn’t want my magic. Which was preferable to being used for it any day.

“One of the fae dragged her into my realm during the last eclipse. They didn’t give her to me. I can forward you the death threats her sisters sent me if you want proof,” Kai said flatly, leading me to the single empty couch. His fingers pressed against my ribcage a bit harder, but the pressure felt nice.

“I assume you’re the siren Curtis forced into a temporary bond,” Bane said, studying me curiously.

“Unfortunately,” I said, my voice cheerful. “I’m Clementine. Nice to meet you.”

“You as well.”

“Austin, Paul, and Rocky have been hauling fae into our lake since the eclipse started. They’ll head for Vamp Manor if the lake gets full,” Porter said, interrupting the pleasantries. “But we talked with them, and they look like they’re barely holding it together.”

“This one’s worse than anything we’ve experienced,” Kai said, resuming the motion of his fingers over my ribs. “If I don’t get it under control, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“Can you?” Hale asked.

Kai’s jaw set.

He didn’t know.

“We’re working on the solution,” I added, so things didn’t sound as grim. “We have a lead. We’re going to keep looking.”

I didn’t mention what we were looking for was information, in old journals.

Or that Kai was running out of those journals, and had yet to find anything concrete.

“What happens if you can’t stop them?” Izzy checked.

“My people grow wilder until all of us are lost to the madness,” Kai said bluntly.

There was a moment of tense silence.

“At least the masquerade party would be less crowded,” Talon finally grumbled.

Kai snorted, and chuckles went around the room as the tension dissipated.

“If the eclipse isn’t handled in time, we’ll figure out something else for the decorations,” Hale said. “We’ve got everything else handled already.”

“I can’t believe we’re still throwing that party,” Talon said, folding his massive arms over his chest.

Honestly, he was kind of scary. Kai was big, but in a pretty way. He didn’t look anything like the terrifying dragon.

And the only man bigger than Talon was Bane. But he seemed to be trying to make his size look less threatening than Talon’s.

They started discussing something related to the ball, but Kai went tense partway into the discussion.

His fingers dug into my skin, and I looked back at him, worried.

The red in his eyes was brighter.

Much, much brighter.

Something was wrong.

“We’ve got to go,” I said quickly, standing up and pulling Kai with me. He was resistant, but he did move.

“Stay away from the fae right now. Keep your people away from them too. This could get ugly,” I said, and towed him out of the room with me.

My sisters called after me with questions, but I didn’t have time to answer them.

As soon as we were free of the room, I broke into a jog, tapping into my speed just a little and forcing Kai to keep up with me. He could run as quickly as we were moving—he was just being controlled by the eclipse, and fighting against it.

There was blood all over our lobby when we reached it.

Panic surged in my chest.

This was bad.

Really, really bad.

Kai’s face hardened at the sight of the carnage. There was a body or two in the corner, but I didn’t let myself look that way.

“We can’t stop. The only way we can help them is by finding the anchor,” I told Kai, forcing my voice to come out more certain than I felt. “We have to go back to the realm, and you have to let me help you work through the journals.”

“No. It’s far too dangerous there right now,” he gritted out, managing to keep my pace as we made it to the elevator. “I wouldn’t be able to control myself even slightly.”

The elevator’s doors closed, and I looked up at Kai, setting my hands on his face.

He shuddered beneath the touch, but otherwise didn’t move.

“You have two choices here, Seven,” I said, ignoring the slight wobble in my voice. “We have to find the anchor before it’s too late, or there’s no telling what will happen. You can go with me to the fae realm and finish reading the journals with me. Or you can take me to the fae realm and leave me there so I can work through them on my own while you come back here to try to minimize the deaths.”

He snarled, shaking his head violently.

I didn’t remove my hands from his face. “You might not be able to admit it to yourself, but you’re an amazing king. The best you could be in this situation. And we both know that you can’t leave your people to deal with this alone, just as much as we know that someone has to find the anchor. We have to split up. You have to cut our vine—just while I read through the last journals.”

“I can’t do that. I can’t leave you. I can’t?—“

It was the last thing I wanted to do, but I wove my magic into my voice and commanded, “Cut the vine connecting us and take me to the fae realm.”

He roared, but in his state, he was helpless against my magic.

I felt it somewhere in my chest as the connection between us snapped and the world around us shifted.

There was fury in my mate’s eyes when they met mine in our bedroom in the castle.

“Bring me the rest of the journals and enough food to last a week. Then don’t come back until the day ends on Earth,” I ordered.

The magic of the command wouldn’t hold when we were apart, but I trusted Kai to follow it.

He might despise me for it, for a little while. But when everything was said and done, he’d recognize that it was the only option.

He vanished, and reappeared with the journal he’d been reading on Earth a minute later. He put it in my hands before he stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

I would’ve gone after those journals myself, if I wasn’t afraid of running into any wild fae out there.

But I was, so I didn’t.

Kai was back a few minutes later, dropping three more journals on the bed before he strode back to me and grabbed my face like I’d taken his in the elevator.

“If anything happens to you, I’ll burn this fucking realm down myself,” he said, his voice low. “I’m locking you in here. Don’t fight me on it this time. I’ll be back with food when I can. And for the love of your fucking life, Five, don’t try to order me around with sex magic during an eclipse. I can barely stop myself from putting you on your knees and feeding you my cock as it is.”

My lips curved upward.

Before I could tell him to go for it, he kissed me hard, then disappeared.

Maybe we didn’t need slow and soft after all.

Maybe hard and fast was perfect.