“Including you?” I asked, the words coming unbidden to my lips and making Seth’s brows rise as I caught him off guard with the question.
But before I could get my answer, Darius, Orion, Xavier and Max strode into the room, all of them loudly discussing what they’d been through tonight as they began to strip down and Seth tore his attention from me, placing it on them instead.
I moved across the pool, sinking into the hot water and sighing as tension ran from my flesh as I let myself relax.
I dipped beneath the surface, grabbing a washalilie and scrubbing it through my curls as I worked to get the muck and dirt free of them.
By the time I came up for air, the others were all in the water too, scrubbing the evidence of battle from their skin and still swapping tales.
I listened to Max and Xavier describing the panicked dash across the wilderness to get the bigger Shifters back here while my gaze trailed to Seth who was struggling to scrub all of the dirt from his long hair. A frustrated whimper escaped him as he worked and the third time he swore at the tangles, I took pity on him, knowing he was used to his pack grooming him and shit like that and I knew he’d been missing them a hell of a lot since we’d arrived in this place.
“Come here,” I said, catching his elbow to get his attention and tugging him towards me as I took the foaming flower from his hand and turned him away from me so that I could help him.
“Seriously?” he asked, giving me the puppy eyes over his shoulder and I nodded indulgently, casting a brush into my palm with my earth magic and coating that with the suds from the washalilie before starting work on combing the tangles from his long, dark hair.
“There was some fucked up shadow creature in the palace,” Darius said as he scrubbed at the black ichor which seemed to be clinging to his skin like oil and Orion was struggling with the same problem.
“Really?” Seth asked curiously. “Like a big hairy shadow beast that likes to prey on the souls of the irritating? Killing Karens everywhere and bringing an end to their reign of boring fucker nonsense?”
“That might have been less creepy,” Orion replied dryly. “This thing was the size of a man with a face that looked weirdly like Darius and Xavier. It was scuttling about like some kind of spider, clinging to the ceilings and shit.”
“What the fuck?” I asked, yanking a little too hard on Seth’s hair and quickly apologising as he whimpered.
“What was it?” Max asked, his brow furrowing.
“I don’t even want to know. But we killed it good so whatever it was, it isn’t anymore,” Darius said, his lip curling back in distaste.
“Lavinia and Lionel left the fight in a hurry and she was screaming like a stuck pig on Christmas Day,” I said thoughtfully. “You think that thing was connected to her? Like a manifestation of the shadows?”
“Well, if it was then that’s only more evidence of her power growing. So thank fuck we got hold of that shadow eye. Hopefully now we can track down the rest of the rifts and close them, cutting her off from her power and leaving the two of them vulnerable at last,” said Orion.
“Yeah. Then I can kill my father and Roxy can get her ass back in my arms where she belongs,” Darius said with a growl.
“Shit man, you’re taking this possessive stuff a bit far. I mean, I know you’re missing her and I’m guessing going cold turkey on all the sex you guys had been having has to suck, but you need to hold it together,” I said. “What’s a few months in the grand scheme of things?”
Darius pushed his tongue into his cheek, smoke coiling from between his teeth before he blew out a harsh breath and banished it.
“I just spent a long fucking time thinking I’d never be able to have her,” he said with a shrug, his hand going to his shoulder where the flames of the Phoenix tattooed on his back were just visible. “I don’t like wasting the time we’ve got.”
Seth howled and Max reached out to brush his hand against Darius’s arm, sending a wave of relaxing emotions from his body which struck us even more potently through the water.
I sighed as I let his gifts take effect on me too, dropping my mental barriers and letting him push that feeling into me, wanting to loosen the knot of tension which seemed to have me tied up within it all the time recently. I had so much to worry about with most of my family still so close to Lionel, Hadley being groomed for a position on the Council which he was unlikely to ever take up and my mom in clear danger just because of how powerful she was. I wouldn’t put it past Lionel to turn on all of our families eventually, wanting to wipe out the lines of every Fae who was strong enough to pose a threat to him.