And on top of that, I was worried about my friends here. We were rebels, on the run from a mad man who had already issued each and every one of us with a death sentence if we were caught, and tonight we had come pretty damn close to meeting that fate.
So I let the lure of Max’s Siren gifts sink into my skin and bathed in that feeling of utter relaxation as I banished the brush in my hand and trailed my fingers through Seth’s hair instead. His posture stiffened in surprise as he glanced over his shoulder at me again.
“You want me to stop?” I asked, wondering if I was letting the Siren lure push me too far. It wouldn’t be the first time. When Max had first Emerged, he’d loved practicing on all of us and I’d gotten a little addicted to letting him use these kinds of gifts on me until my mom had realised and forced me to work harder at blocking him out. There was just something so fucking nice about letting a Siren sweep your worries and inhibitions aside though and now that I was confident in my abilities to push his influence back out again if I wanted to, I didn’t see the harm in indulging from time to time.
“Don’t stop,” Seth murmured and I continued to toy with his hair, a smile pulling at the corners of my lips.
Max smirked at me as he read my mood and he shifted, his navy scales rippling along his body and making me groan as the power of his magic intensified and my whole body felt like freaking jello as I relaxed even more, my eyes hooding with the feeling as I leaned against the edge of the pool and continued to play with Seth’s hair.
Seth glanced between me and Max, a grin finding his lips too before he lowered his shields as well and I watched as his pupils slowly dilated and he moved to lean against the edge of the pool beside me.
Max dipped beneath the water, disappearing for longer than he would have been able to in his Fae form as he revelled in the kiss of the liquid against his scales before surfacing on my other side and draping my arm around his shoulders.
“I’m pretty sure I should be pissed about this,” I muttered, feeling high as a fucking kite as he drew even more of my worries from my body, seeming to carve them right out of my bones and leaving me feeling so chilled that I was close to falling asleep.
Max just chuckled as he stole my magic like a total asshole, but I couldn’t summon the energy to care, concentrating on the feeling of Seth’s soft hair as I twisted it between my fingers and Orion started talking.
“Fuck, it’s been a long time since I let myself relax like this,” he muttered.
“I don’t think I’ve ever felt this relaxed in all my life,” Darius sighed and that made me feel shitty for him for half a second before Max stole that away too.
“I love you guys,” Seth said dreamily. “Even you, Lance. I know that your snappy snaps are only ever meant with love.”
“They’re not,” Orion mumbled.
I breathed a laugh, my fingers, stroking through Seth’s hair before brushing against the back of his neck and I felt a tremor run through his body where his side was pressed to mine which made my sleepy smile widen.
“I was so cool today,” Xavier said sleepily. “Did you see how cool I was, guys?”
We all murmured agreements, a few snorts of laughter passing between us as we lazed in the fog of Siren magic, drinking in the taste of victory in the air.
“Well,” Geraldine’s voice called to me from beyond my chilled out bubble and I fought to get my eyelids to peel open again. “If I’d known there would already be so many salacious sausages at this party, I wouldn’t have brought more.”
The sound of her heavy metal breastplate hitting the floor made my eyes finally open and my brows went up as she whipped her shirt off and flashed all of us her huge tits without so much as a warning.
“By the stars,” Orion muttered but he was drowned out as a Max lunged away from me, cutting off his Siren gifts so suddenly that I felt like I’d just been punched in the dick as all of my own emotions and worries came slamming back into me with the force of a meteorite crashing into the earth.
“Fuck,” I wheezed and Seth howled beside me as Darius growled angrily.
Max leapt from the water so fast I could have mistaken him for a damn Vampire as he whipped a towel from the pile beside the door and wound it around her so tightly that her arms were pinned to her sides.
“What in tarnation and the name of the solitary sun beam do you think you are doing, you irksome eel?” Geraldine cried. “I need to wash the evidence of battle from my nipoleans and I won’t be ushered away by your flipper dippers!”