Those long, mobile fingers squeezed mine.
“But I’m not falling into bed or kinky scenes with any of you anymore. I’ve started a war with Rutherglen, I need to find out what these bloody trials are, what being a consort is, if Jen’s OK. That’s my focus, not The Changelings.”
I let Johnno’s hand go, his fingers dropping limply from my grasp, while Lucas got to his feet and strolled over to the door.
“Good girl,” he murmured as he dropped his head down to mine, placing a kiss on my temple and pulling away before I could snarl at him, but he had the right of it. I pulled myself free of the mess I’d made and walked to the door out of here, striding out into Aragide, not looking to see if they followed.
Chapter 2
“Kira! I was just about to send someone to find you.”
I bowed to Ashanti and the people she had clustered around the huge ring of a meeting table, because that seemed to be the polite thing to do, but my eyes were drawn to where Jen sat, curled against Vervain’s side.
“Please, sit, eat. I was just filling the rest of the council in on the new developments.”
Jen’s eyes found mine, so I took a seat on the other side of her, smiling when someone passed me down a plate. I put it before me and looked up, meeting everyone’s eyes.
“Kira is our avatar. She has taken six consorts and opened Aragide and will need to start training with them for the trials—”
“And one of them is the avatar of the sky god?” a curvy black woman with a halo of hair asked. “How is that possible?”
“Lucas is one of the many avatars of the sky father—”
“What the hell is he doing here? And in Aragide? Are we in the practise of opening the door wide to admit our enemies now?”
Voices clamoured, but a small pale hand crept out from where Jen kept them tightly bundled and reached over and took mine. I breathed deep, the arguing, the gesture all tugging at me. Calm things down, explain, settle Jen, make sure she’s OK. I felt the mounting weight of all my responsibilities so acutely, but when I turned to face my friend, I saw something I hadn’t expected to see there—compassion.
“Are you all right?” she hissed, like we were at school and I’d just found out I’d gotten my period or something.
I nodded. “Are you?”
“I am…we are now, thanks to you.” My thumb began to stroke the back of her hand restively as I saw the tears begin to form, like that would be enough to hold them back. They weren’t.
“Seriously, thanks, girl,” Vervain said, looking past Kira. “We were… I don’t want to think about what we were if you hadn’t arrived, but what the hell was that? You were like some demon queen—”
“Yes, reports have been circulated that the avatar is…tainted somewhat by…Lilith, of all things,” someone else spluttered.
“So, if everyone could calm down,” Ashanti said, her warm voice cutting through all the chatter. “We have a lot of information to cover, and it would best be done in an orderly—”
“Forgive me, Mother,” a woman said, entering the room and bowing. “The avatar’s consorts are asking to be admitted.”
“Admitted?”
Man, the interjections were all starting to get to me, and I’d only been here minutes. I reached across and grabbed a croissant, my stomach alerting me to the fact I’d been feeding on a whole lot of people, but not actually eating anything lately. I was munching on that when Ashanti made the call.
“Having everyone at the table would make things more streamlined.” She made it sound like it was an idea we were all in favour of, though I didn’t miss the thread of steel in her tone. “Let them in.”
So in they came, filing into the room, Liam at the back of the group, scowling. All seven of them. My mouth went dry, and I shifted uncomfortably on my seat, Jen shooting me a look and mouthing ‘consort?’ at me.
“Consorts,” I corrected in a low whisper, shrugging as her eyes widened.
We were gonna talk about that, I realised, my fingers closing around hers. She was here and she was safe, and she would rock up at my door toting Bolly and Stoli and drag every bloody detail of my sex life out, and I was glad for that. I’d missed that in my life, the realization coming to me in a rush, my gaze still on her as the guys sat down, something that made her brow wrinkle, then her eyes softened.
Aen had obviously been around in female form, but that was different. She wasn’t a friend, she didn’t inspire soft, sisterly thoughts. Her cunt sucked at my fingers when she came and her lips felt like rose petals against mine, but I didn’t want to braid her hair and talk about boys. No, I’d missed this when I felt like I’d been betrayed, having someone in my corner, giving a shit just because I was me rather than to get into my heart or between my legs, and that was important to me.
“You’re gonna tell me everything,” she hissed.
“Course,” I replied, and we performed that fist bump, wiggly fingers thing that had been our ‘secret’ handshake back at school. “I need to talk to Vervain too.” My eyes slid sideways when Aen took a seat beside me. “I have a girlfriend now.”
Jen slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her squeak of surprise, but we still got a ton of attention, nonetheless.
“Fill your plates,” Ashanti said, “and when you’re ready, we’ll get started. We have a lot to go over.”
Aen slid me a sidelong look, his smile telling me he’d heard everything as one hand dropped beneath the table, sliding up my thigh.
“Kira is the first avatar to take Aragide in over two thousand years,” Ashanti said. “She has her consorts, and she is preparing for the trials to ascension.”
“She’s started a war,” another woman said, looking down the table at me. “Rutherglen is starting to mobilise forces in most of our major settlements. He wants her, and he doesn’t care what it takes to get her.”
“I’ll take him out,” I said. “Shouldn’t be that hard. I got the drop on him several times already.”
“Kira…” Jen hissed, and when I looked at her, her eyes were stricken. “He’s ready now. That’s what he wants.”
“Exactly,” Ashanti said. “You’ve invalidated the Rutherglen empire. It was built on the lord’s association with the sky father’s associates. He procured what they needed. He was useful. He found you. Without you, what is he? He swims in cutthroat circles. Losing the avatar, failing to stop you coming here, his subjects becoming your consorts? This is damning evidence that he will do as much as he can to prevent getting out. He needs you and your consorts back under his thumb before blood is scented in the water. Your job here is to train, to take the trials, and triumph. Bringing the goddess back into the world is the most important thing. All these petty disputes will be resolved the minute you succeed, Kira. Leave Rutherglen and his people to us. Duke will work with you and help you to develop the requisite connections with your consorts to prepare for what’s to come.”
Connections? When I looked across the room at the men I’d decided to ‘take,’ a shiver went up my spine. Whether it from anticipation or fear, I couldn’t decide.