Page 19 of Risen (Love and Revenge #6)

Ah. So that was what this was. My mate was offering Robin and I a safety net with his presence, if she could see past her pride and accept it. Goddess, his understanding and tolerance when it came to my needs would never cease to amaze me.

And Robin must know what he was doing. Though she would never acknowledge it out loud. Goddess forbid the proud dragon alpha ever admit that she had accepted help. But the yearning and hunger in her touch communicated her desperation and relief loud and clear.

“So… is the bath cancelled? Or do we all get to make out with Ruya now?” Sadavir said, coming to stand before me and place his hands on my knees.

“Way to butt in, moron,” Yukio muttered under his breath, and I swear the temperature of the air near Sanka dropped several degrees.

Cicely’s warm aura moved closer as well, and he reached between me and Sadavir to comb his fingers through my hair.

He didn’t speak, but I felt the silent question in my mind, and I pulled back from Robin with a smile, tilting my head toward Cicely for a kiss.

But before that could happen, water sloshed, and my faun let out a little gasp as he suddenly withdrew.

It took me a moment to realize what had happened, and to intuit that Sadavir was taking liberties with the other man.

Oh, wow can he ever kiss! Cicely said in my mind, joy and lust coloring his tone. And that tongue. Ruya, you are one lucky woman.

I flushed with my own surge of lust at his words, momentarily turning from Robin to reach out my hands and touch, finding Cicely now sitting on Sadavir’s lap.

I felt Robin start to move away, but Sanka spoke, removing his hands from my knees, to reach out and grab her before she could get away.

“Ah-ah,” the sorcerer chided. “No running away, alpha. You’re not scared, are you? ”

I huffed a laugh at his obvious attempt to manipulate his alpha. But it worked. “What? Don’t be stupid,” she huffed in a haughty tone that did nothing to hide the husky note of want in her voice. “I was simply getting more comfortable. Come here, useless beta.”

Sanka chuckled as he let Robin draw him into a kiss. I didn’t have a second to feel neglected, though, since a pair of small, strong hands skimmed up my thighs beneath the water and came to rest on my hips.

Martina’s kiss was sure and confident, honest without being demanding, but filled with unspoken promises. A caress of chill air told me Yukio was nearby, and Sanka’s hissed and breathless, “That’s cold , you jackass!” told me all I needed to know about the pixie-cross’s whereabouts.

I threaded my arms around Martina’s neck and pulled her closer, sinking into her kiss.

When we came up for air, she trailed kisses along my throat, pausing to nip suggestively at the sensitive skin there, sending a jolt of desire straight to my pussy.

The scrape of her fangs jolted me out of the moment though, and I remembered that there were others lurking at the outskirts of the fun.

“Josh?” I murmured, “Dusek?”

My bond with Sadavir hummed with reassurance as Cicely slid off his lap and took his place next to me, leaning in to cup my breast and kiss along the opposite side of my neck from Martina.

I sighed in pleasure, but half my attention was still on the rest of the court.

Sanaka, Yukio, and Robin were tangled up with each other, the long-time lovers murmuring in hushed whispers next to Cicely, Martina, and me.

But Josh and Dusek’s auras were further away. On the other side of the pool.

“Come,” Sadavir said, his voice carrying just a tiny hint of alpha command.

I felt Robin stiffen beside me, her shoulder brushing mine. “Call your vampire pet all you want,” she growled. “But the bubak is not yours to command, snake.”

I reached out and placed my hand on her thigh, urging calm through my aura.

Shit. When I congratulated Dusek on his connection with Sadavir, I hadn’t really thought through the consequences.

I knew Robin had been patiently waiting for Dusek to feel comfortable to engage in a relationship with her—though the bubak would probably never believe me if I told him so.

This lovely moment was about to devolve into a blood bath. Robin would only see Sadavir’s interest in her gamma as poaching. And Dusek’s interest in the naga as a betrayal. She was too much of an alpha to think otherwise.

Dusek’s dark aura had been drifting closer to us. But now, he moved away again in silence.

Josh hovered off to my right, probably standing next to Sadavir.

Apart, but present, his loyalties clear, while Dusek was trapped between the powerful energies of two rival alphas—the woman who had saved his life and given him a home, and the man who had coaxed him out of his shell and shown him he was capable of giving and receiving affection after a lifetime of self-loathing and isolation.

I reached my free hand out toward that dark aura of terror in supplication, even as I squeezed Robin’s thigh even harder beneath the water.

“He doesn’t have to choose between you,” I said firmly, desperate to diffuse the situation.

I did my best to use my omega powers, letting my aura unfurl and fill up the space, thinking soothing, loving, accepting thoughts.

But Robin was already struggling with her instincts and her lack of control over our current situation with Acacia and the emperor, and everything else that was going on. And this was one step too far for her.

“That may be how the world works for you ,” she said in that soft, deadly tone that hid a furious predator. “You may get to bend everyone to your whims and take what you want. But the rest of the world doesn’t operate that way, omega. Alphas don’t share. What use is loyalty if it’s divided?”

I clamped my mouth shut on the urge to point out to her that she was wrong.

That she shared plenty of things with Martina, who was also an alpha.

That the court was all loyal to each other and that was more powerful than the singular loyalty a ruling alpha demanded.

She was too far gone, gripped by the instincts of the beast inside her.

And my arguing would only make it worse.

She slid from her seat, shaking off my hand as her fiery aura swelled and ebbed, swirling and unstable. “Is there anyone in my court who isn’t fucking the naga these days?” she spat out.

I rubbed my forehead as a headache started to form. “Robin—” I started, despite knowing better. But she cut me off.

“No. I understand why you’ve chosen to bond yourself to the disgusting snake.

And your pet faun follows you wherever you go, so I can hardly be surprised at his lusting after him as well.

I’ve made an exception for you because of our circumstances, Ruya.

And I’m sure the whole court will need to lean on the naga asshole when this is all over and I am gone.

” Her aura flared with searing heat, but her voice was ice cold.

“But I refuse to let everything I’ve built keep slipping away.

I won’t share any of my other mates with another alpha while I still draw breath. ”

The water rippled as she moved across the pool and onto dry land, and we were all silent until her powerful, unstable aura left the cave. Everyone was probably as aware as I was that trying to speak to her now would only make things worse.

“Dusek.” Sadavir’s voice was full of understanding.

“Bud, don’t even try to run off and mope,” Sanka said, his tone far less understanding, and more exasperated. “You didn’t do anything wrong. That’s just her dragon alpha bullshit talking. You know full well she can share just fine.”

“You clearly have horrid taste in men,” Yukio said, his dry tone cutting through the tension as even he added his support.

“But nowhere in our pledge to this court did any of us ever agree to let the alpha tell us who we can fuck. You haven’t done anything wrong, bubak.

Stupid, maybe. Bound to cause issues. But not wrong. ”

Martina sighed. “Dusek. She’s just mad because she’s been waiting for you to get past your issues and crawl into her bed for a few decades now. It’s just jealousy. Fueled by a little missing-magic insanity. Don’t take it personally.”

Still, the bubak was silent, his dark aura hovering in the center of the pool as if he had completely frozen, shut down and unable to move.

“Can we please talk about something more important than Dusek’s relationship dilemma?” Josh said flatly.

I tilted my head in his direction, surprised at his coldness.

Surely he, of anyone, could understand Dusek’s need to belong and be seen—and his attraction to Sadavir.

“What is more important than keeping this court together when everyone seems dead-set on cutting themselves off from the connection we all so sorely need?” I demanded.

He sighed. “Maybe the fact that she just admitted, out loud, that she doesn’t plan to live much longer. Did you all know that your alpha was planning for this whole revenge thing to be a suicide mission? Surely you are not okay with this. I thought you loved her!”

Oh. That.

I slumped, my shoulders rounding with the weight of his words. “I already knew,” I murmured softly. Maybe I should have told the others, tried to muster them to help me convince her that it didn’t have to end that way. But that felt like a futile endeavor and—

“We all did, I think,” Martina said flatly, halting my self-flagellating thoughts.

Sanka sighed. “Yeah. I just keep telling myself I’m being paranoid. But… yeah, it’s been obvious for a while now.”

Yukio make a “tsk,” of sound, and the buzz of his wings sent a fine spray of water misting into the air around us.

“She’s just being dramatic. All assassins have a moment here or there when they tell themselves the same thing.

That the mission is worth completing at any cost, yadda, yadda.

Stop making those disgustingly sad faces. ”

He sounded confident, but I thought there was more hope in his words than true conviction.

Sadavir surprised me when he spoke, calm determination echoing along our bond.

“I should not have pushed her as I did. I only thought to bridge the gap between us and ease her self-isolation from you, Ruya.” His big hand stroked over my head and down my back.

“And I only thought to help Dusek feel included.”

He sighed. “I have spoken with the elders, and they have agreed to offer support when we go up against the syndicate. I promise your dragon will not bear this responsibility alone. There will be no need for her to make such a steep sacrifice.”

He wants to protect her. Cicely’s whisper in my mind echoed my own shocked thoughts.

And just what did that mean?

“Come here, Ru,” Sanka said, jolting me out of my spiraling thoughts.

“Sadavir didn’t bring us all down here so you could leave just as tense and stressed out as ever.

” I let him turn me around, then groaned when he moved behind me and started massaging my shoulders, letting his firm touch and the hot water ease the tension there.

I tried not to let it get to me when I felt Dusek silently leave the room. The full moon was looming, and with it, Acacia’s meeting with the emperor and the syndicate’s downfall. There would be time to repair all these new rifts in the court later. Once our mission was complete.

I hoped.