“And again I say, how kinky. Hurt me, Daddy.”
Nolan grinned but his tone was taunting. Shan’s gaze raked over him with more interest than I’d expected. “Don’t call me that unless you want a spanking.”
He was dead serious, immediately turning back to Caspian. Nolan paled and then flushed, reaching out for Oswald and picking him up. In his arms. Like a cat. Loosing another hiss, Ozzy let it happen, curling up in Nolan’s arms.
Gods almighty, if I pulled something like that, I would lose an eye. Maybe both. My familiar was comfortable having me pet him, but holding him and cuddling was something he’d requested I not do from the beginning. When there wasn’t so much flirting and odd behaviour going on, I’d be interrogating Ozzy about this one.
“Tell me why you didn’t tell me,” Shan urged Caspian, gentling his tone.
The incubus looked at me and bit his lip. I’d been right about Shan demanding to know the same thing I had. Emmett was silent, acting as Caspian’s rock and using his hands to stroke gently down his sides. Though we’d barely had any contact, his affection for Cas was obvious and he’d figured out the best ways to calm him. There was no way I could hate Em when he handled the incubus like the fragile being he was.
“I didn’t want you to know I’m a freak,” Caspian muttered after a pause. “Killing is a drug to me. When I take a life, it feeds me and makes me hungry for more. If I don’t feed myself, I can go feral and kill people.”
“Caspian, I don’t give a shit if you kill people. It’s not like I’m one to judge you for going feral. I killed over fifteen people less than 72 hours ago, and I was fully in control of myself. If you killed that many people because your body was working against you, all I’d do is help you clean up the blood.”
Rolling his eyes, Emmett placed his hands on Caspian’s hips and left a soft kiss against his temple. With one strong movement, he’d lifted the incubus and placed him in Shan’s lap instead. He clung on. “He’s terrible at giving verbal comfort. Let him show you,” Em said. “Although, Shan, we need to have a talk if you think you were in control of yourself when you went to Jude’s.”
Shan glared but relief was hiding in his expression. His arms wrapped Caspian in a tight embrace, and Cas hid his face against his chest and wound his hands through his loose hair. There had been a few tears in his eyes.
They cuddled together in a moment far too intimate for the crowd, and I took the attention back to Nolan. His face was snuggling against Ozzy, the exact opposite of Caspian’s reaction to my familiar. “You need to stop treating him like a cat,” I said.
Emmett looked over too and snorted. “How is he letting you do that? When I let him out of the kennel he was seconds away from trying to maul me, and I wasn’t the one who put him in it.”
Nolan didn’t stop. In fact, he may have grasped Oswald tighter. My familiar was oddly silent through the ordeal. “He’s allowing me, so I’ll continue to pet him. There aren’t many animals around here,” Nolan said. Pointedly glancing at Em, he smirked. “Maybe you can shift, and I’ll pet you too.”
Oswald hissed.
We all blinked at him, Shan and Cas jolting out of their moment.
“What the fuck was that?”I asked him, noting he was glaring at Emmett.
“We’re not going to talk about it. For… reasons that I can’t talk about.”
“Seriously? A curse thing?”
How irritating. I should ask Amabella if she’d ever heard of a curse like his, considering we were all on the same side for the time being. If he wasn’t a familiar — and by this point, I was confident he wasn’t — I needed to find a way to turn him back into… well, whatever the fuck he was originally. A vampire, maybe. He drank blood, which wasn’t in the typical familiar diet.
“I don’t know what the familiar has against me,” Emmett said under his breath. “I’m pretty sure I’m the only normal one here.”
“You are,” I confirmed. “We’ve barely met, and you’re by far the most rational. Since Shan had his little rage breakdown, anyway.”
“Fuck off, Freya,” Shan said. “I’m still rational.”
“Please, tell me more about how you massacred a house full of members of the vampire mafia while acting completely rationally,” I said dryly.
He glared at me.
Could he deny it? No. To be honest, I was worried about him. We’d spent only a few minutes around each other since we’d been here, but there was something off about his demeanour. He was more possessive than he’d been before, his pure rage at my capture out of character for the cold and calculating man I knew.
Plus, there was him calling me his wife. Where had that come from, and should I confront him about it while he was in this state?
“I’m curious about how he was ever considered a good decision maker,” Nolan said casually. He’d slid until he was lying on the couch, Ozzy on his chest. “The only good decision I’ve seen him make is not killing me, and that was with Emmett’s help.”
Caspian’s lips parted in surprise, before he bit his bottom lip. “That was my fault, wasn’t it?” he asked. “He was going to kill you when you had my scent all over you.”
“Let’s just say he wasn’t pleased.”
Shan grunted, his irritation redirected from me to Nolan. “Why was not killing you a good decision? I could change my mind. In here, it’s five against one. I could have your head off before your guards reacted.”
