Shameless: A Reverse Harem Fantasy Romance (The Carnal Court Book 3) Read online

  “Be the best Odette you can possibly be.”

  She rolls her eyes. “I’m serious, Kari.”

  “So am I. You don’t know how much I wish I could bring you with me, but that just plays right into her hands. And as much fun as we’d have with the magical sleepover, I can’t just lock you up inside our house in the middle of your tech week.”

  She stands up from the couch and starts to pace. “There are understudies for a reason.”

  “Odette, no.”

  The door to the apartment opens and quiet footsteps enter. The guys are back from outside. And I feel a tug in my chest—Aeric questioning if he can interject. I send back a confirmation. “Odette,” he says, stepping closer. “We’re going to set up protection around your apartment, and if you can, Urien, we would like you to dispatch guards. At least temporarily.”

  She goes pale again. “You think that’s necessary?”

  “We do,” Brae says. “They will remain invisible. No one will know.”

  Odette hesitates for a minute, staring at the ground and tapping her foot. “Okay, yeah. It would make me feel better if they don’t mind babysitting a human.”

  Urien just nods. “They will do as they’re asked, and Verys and I just completed wards around your apartment. If anything happens, we’ll know about it.”

  “But nothing will,” I say firmly, glaring at the guys. “We’re going to take care of it.”

  “We should go,” Kent says quietly.

  I look at Odette, fighting back the tears I thought were gone. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t want to risk being here longer than we need to be.”

  I hug her again, and this time she returns it fiercely. “If anything happens to you I’m going to fucking lose it,” she whispers in my ear. Then she pulls back and looks at my men. “I know you all heard that. If you let anything happen to her I am coming to Allwyn and kicking all of your asses.”

  “That’s the plan,” Verys says.

  I don’t want to leave, and I find myself hesitating. “I’m going to get her back. I promise.”

  “Go, Kari,” she says.

  I only hesitate for another second before turning and walking through the door. Another hug would have broken me again. “Brae,” I say when we step into the evening light. “Where are we going?”

  “Back to the mansion. I’ll track Emma as far as I can and—”

  “Like hell,” I say. “No.”

  “What?” he seems genuinely shocked.

  I cross my arms and stare him down. “I’m going with you. I don’t want us separated right now. Now when Ariana has every reason to pick us off one at a time. Let’s go. Now. She thinks we’re regrouping, let’s go.”

  He matches my stare without flinching, and through our connection I don’t feel anger, just consideration. Urien speaks. “She has a point.”

  “All right,” he says. “Let’s go.”

  Cold relief pours down my back like ice water. I’m not going to just sit and let them do this without me. If we’re doing it, we’re doing it together.

  Emma’s shoes are in one hand, and he draws a portal with the other. The light tracing the portal is white shot through with purple, and it opens onto a landscape that I’ve never seen before. It almost seems nonsensical.

  Brae steps through first and I follow. The sky here is a pale grey, but I could swear I see it morphing into green as I watch. The rolling little hill of dirt we’re standing on ends in a cliff of rock piercing the sky. But that cliff only seems to be ten feet wide, like a spire, with nothing similar within my view.

  The portal collapses behind Kent, revealing an entire grove of trees that are burnt to a crisp. “Where are we?”

  “The Wild Kingdom,” Brae says with obvious distaste.

  “What’s here?”

  “Anything,” Urien says. “Everything. Things that don’t fit into the other Kingdoms.”

  Brae starts walking to the left and I follow him. “There also happen to be very few laws here. I’m not surprised this is where she’s hiding.”

  “And not a place we should draw undue attention,” Verys says. But he draws the sword that’s strapped across his back. I forgot that they were armed. They mask the weapons in the human realm so they don’t get stopped by the police.

  The ring of metal sounds again as the rest of them draw their swords. “I need a weapon,” I say.

  “You have one,” Brae says. “Your magic is all you need. A weapon you’re not familiar with is just as deadly as being unarmed.”

  Fair point. I draw power into my palms to I have it ready if I need it.

  The things we pass don’t make any sense. At least not next to each other. There’s a patch of small red flowers that I swear smell like pizza. Trees that radiate sting energy. A waterfall that runs backwards into nothing and fires that seem to pop into existence as they please.

  It is beautiful, in its own way.

  While we’re walking, I double check my shield. It’s become second nature now for me to hold it, and it’s there without any holes. But I carefully expand it so that we’re all contained within its bubble.

  “We’re close,” Brae says.

  But I can’t see anything close to here that would count as a place to hide. “Where?”

  Our immediate surroundings look like ice. There are a few hills obscuring the horizon with pools in random places, but no structures. When I reach out with magic I don’t feel anything that’s hidden either. “Brae?”

  He closes his eyes, and it looks like he’s listening hard. In my chest I feel his concentration and connection. “Below us,” he finally says.

  “There,” Verys points. There’s a depression in the ground near one of the hills, and it does look like it sinks further. Against this background of white ice and gray sky, Verys looks entirely in his element. I want to take pictures of him in monochrome, because they would be so beautiful.

  There are so many things I want to do with them.

  The men array themselves in front of me as we approach, and I let them. This isn’t worth arguing about. The hole in the ground opens into a low cave, and I can just barely see it continue downwards under the earth. It’s subtle, and I don’t think I would have seen it at all without fae eyes. “She’s down here?”

  “Likely,” Brae says. “I can’t pinpoint her at this moment, but she’s below the surface.”

  “What are we waiting for?” I step down into the cave. It’s darker, but the light from the surface penetrates enough. The temperature has dropped—confirming the ice. This must be a glacier of some kind. A broken one if it ended up in the Wild Kingdom.

  The tunnel curves down into darkness, and I push my magic out, trying to do what they do. Sense anything and everything that could be harmful. There’s nothing. Just an empty tunnel of ice.

  There’s no way that Ariana has left herself unprotected. She’s too careful. “I’m not getting anything.”

  The fae shake their heads. They aren’t either. But that doesn’t make any of them look calmer. Kent especially is looking around like he expects Ariana’s fae to jump out from anywhere. “I don’t like this.”

  “Something isn’t right,” Aeric agrees with him. “She would have defenses.”

  Pulling the magic from my fingers, I create a ball of light and toss it down the corridor, making the ice shimmer and shine. In places the surface is smooth and glassy and others it’s jagged and cubic like stone.

  Nothing at all seems out of place or strange, and it almost reminds me of Emma’s hallway. Too perfect and too innocent. But there’s no magic. An absence of it almost. There’s nothing.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” I say. “But maybe that’s part of being in the Wild Kingdom?”

  The tunnel curves to the right, and I take a step forward see around the corner, and I feel it before I see it.

  A body slams into mine, crushing me to the ground as molten heat pours from the walls. My vision is nothing but brightness, and melting flame. S
houts and noise, the roaring of the explosion and fire suddenly filling the vacuum that was empty.

  The flames extinguish as quickly as they appeared, and suddenly I can feel everything. Like I flipped a switch and suddenly there’s light in a room that was dark.

  Traps line the walls, and it’s not just a tunnel, it’s a maze. Beneath the surface is a tangled mess of these same paths. They merge and turn back on each other, and there are other entrances too. Holy shit.

  Verys rolls off me. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” I say, a little winded from hitting the ground. “Are you?”

  He nods, but I still see smoke coming from the back of his clothes. Singed, at the very least. I turn him around to inspect his back, and am relieved to only surface damage to his clothes. I was so shocked, that my shield dropped when he pushed me down.

  Brae is crouched near the partially melted wall, touching a glyph carved into the ice. It was not visible before. “Vanishing ward. Haven’t seen one of these in a long time.”

  My limbs are buzzing with adrenaline. “At least we can sense everything now. That should make it easier.”

  “Kari,” Verys says, “we can’t do this.”

  I look at him. “Of course we can. We’re here. We’re ready. We can do this. They won’t see us coming.”

  The look on Verys’s face borders on angry, and that’s not an expression he makes often. “We just broke the ward that hides everything. They very much will know we’re coming.”

  “It’s fine,” I insist. “Right now they’re surprised. We can do this. She’s here, right?” I glance at Brae.

  His eyes are troubled when he looks at me, but he nods. “See?”

  “Kari—”

  “Why did we come all the way here just to do nothing?” I let my power build in my body. “You’re already armed. I will shield all of us if I need to. Let’s go.”

  Verys grabs my arm before I can fully turn away from him. “You need to stop. You’re not thinking clearly and it’s going to get you and Emma killed.”

  “I’m not—”

  “No.” His voice rings through the tunnel, clear as a bell and scattering echoes off the melted walls. “We need a plan. And one that’s better than just walking in some place we haven’t seen because you’re confident it will work. We need more weapons. We need power. Everything here was hidden with magic none of us can sense, and you have no idea if there’s anything more hidden.”

  Not once in the time I’ve known him have I ever heard Verys yell. My heart stutters in my chest. We’re so close. I can’t just walk away.

  “You’re not walking away,” he says, answering the question I hadn’t realized that I’d spoken out loud. “Emma is safe until the deadline that Ariana set. And we need to prepare. We won’t be successful if we do this now.” He lowers his voice again. “You know that if you walk in there that I’m going to walk after you, but you need to understand that doing this is far more likely to end badly.”

  “What if she kills her anyway? Because we came early?” I say, holding back the panic that’s threatening to drown me. If I made this mistake…

  “She won’t.” It’s Kent’s voice from my left. “As callous as it sounds, Ariana needs her as the bargaining chip.”

  I meet Verys’s eyes, and in them I find compassion. “I’m sorry.”

  Lifting my chin with his finger, he kisses me lightly, and I do feel myself threatening to fall apart again. “You never have to apologize to me for loyalty.”

  Brae cuts a portal open to the front of the mansion, and I don’t fight when Verys guides me through it. I feel ill walking away from Emma like that, but he’s right. If it’s more dangerous, I can’t risk her life. Even if that means leaving her in torment longer.

  I send up a prayer to the Goddess that she can hang on.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ________

  KARI

  Urien disappears as soon as we get back to arrange for Odette’s protection, and I retreat to my bedroom and lock the door. It’s the first time that I’ve used it since I started living here, but I need to take a moment for myself.

  I’m restless. Manic energy slithering under my skin. Now that I’ve tasted action, it feels wrong for me to stay still. When I danced full time I felt the same. Never staying in the same space. Always practicing. Always improving.

  Even after I fell I pushed myself too hard. I was so desperate to get back to where I’d been before that I damaged myself. That’s an uncomfortable pattern to recognize in yourself.

  Brae, Aeric, and Verys don’t talk about their time in the fae war. I can see that it hurts when they do, and I don’t have the heart to push them when I see it. But I would be foolish to think that they don’t know what they’re doing, and tactical retreat can be a good strategy.

  I force myself to lie down, and not move. Perfectly still, until the writhing energy subsides. It’s painful when it goes, leaving me empty with nothing to mask the sadness and the terror. But I still don’t move. I let everything pass through me, until I feel clear and calm. As much as I can be.

  Tentatively, I reach for that bright core of magic inside me. I don’t pull it out to use it. I just touch it.

  “Hi,” I say. It feels more real if I say the words out loud. “If you can hear me, please keep Emma safe until I can get there. Please.”

  I could keep on talking and asking the Goddess for help, but right now that’s the only prayer that matters to me. For a long while I stay there, making sure I don’t move. Resting. I can hear voices downstairs in the living room. The guys talking, and hopefully coming up with the plan I didn’t.

  From Aeric and Brae I’m feeling two different things. Aeric is radiating cool determination. For a moment I seem to pull his connection to the forefront, and I wonder if there’s any way that he feels I’m focusing on him. It’s almost like being touched by his magic, but not quite.

  Brae is equally determined, but he’s got a fair bit of worry there too. Without him in front of me I’m unable to know if the worry is for me, Emma, or all of us combined. There’s every chance that one of us won’t make it out alive out of this, and that has me worried too.

  What is like to actually want someone dead?

  I’ve never really to stopped to think about the strong possibility that that is what this magic is for. But taking a life—my stomach rolls at the thought. The same way that new, fresh, panic grips me whenever I imagine one of us dying. There are too many things that we haven’t experienced together.

  Including not being mated to everyone.

  Rolling off the bed, I shake the stiffness from my limbs and go downstairs. Everyone is there, and they quiet when I enter the room. Urien is first to speak. “There are two fae watching Odette until further notice.”

  One of the weights lifts of my chest. “Thank you.” Sitting down across from them, I look around at each of them before speaking. “There are things we need to talk about.”

  Aeric speaks like he’s been reading my mind. I guess in a way he has. “About killing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “With the exception of Ariana, we can try to avoid it. I don’t think there’s a way to promise, but those fae we saw with her were not conscious. We’ll do our best.”

  “Good.”

  I clear my throat and look at Verys. In spite of everything, the words being a smile to my face. “You mentioned power. I’m assuming you mean powering up through sex?”

  “I did. But you know we’d never force you to do that.”

  Aeric chuckles. “We’ve raised magic by ourselves plenty of times in our lives.”

  “Verys, Urien, I want to seal my bond with you tonight.”

  If a speck of dust fell onto the floor in this moment you would be able to hear it. “Is it the right time?” Urien asks.

  “The right time is when we choose, and that’s now. We’re walking in there, and she’s going to try to kill us. You. She won’t hesitate. And I don’t want to go in there wi
thout being bonded to all of you.”

  It feels strange, to talk about something so intimate so clinically. “I’ll meet you upstairs.”

  I cross to Aeric, who’s staring hard at the floor in front of him. The stab of jealousy from him was fierce and strong, but already it’s smoothing out. Leveling. Easing. “Are you all right?”

  He smiles at me, and despite the fact that I still find tightness and wariness in our connection his expression is open. He takes my hand and holds it. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Okay.”

  I’m standing there in front of them, and it’s been a while since I’ve felt this kind of tension with them. An awkwardness that I can’t seem to shake. Maybe that’s what battle-planning does. You’re all dealing with it in your own way and you can’t give more than you’re able. By the end of the night, I plan on that tension being entirely erased.

  Verys and Urien are standing together in my bedroom, waiting, and that awkwardness rolls its shoulders again. I clear my throat, unsure about how to start something like this. The other two times have felt like a natural extension of things. “You want to do this together? You could…take turns.”

  Reaching out, Verys catches me by the wrist. “Breathe, Kari. I don’t need to feel the bond to see that you’re freaking out.”

  He kisses me hard. Familiar. Safe. Something that we’ve absolutely done before, and I love it. My body responds before I can, and I wrap my arms around him. I’ve missed Verys’s body more than I realized. Part of balancing between so many partners. Urien is behind me now, and I’m reminded of that morning that Kiaran appeared. When I woke up between the two of them. It didn’t feel unnatural then, and there’s no reason for it to feel that way now.

  I lean into their combined embrace and breathe. “Together?” I ask.

  Urien kisses my neck at the same time that Verys steals another from my lips. “That’s fine with me.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ________

  AERIC

  I stride into Kent’s room and toss the sword at him before he’s even fully paying attention, but he catches out of the air, looking slightly alarmed. “Is this the new way that you say hello?”