Group Leader Eleven wasn’t someone I knew personally, but Henry had explained that she was one of the women that was at the Eldur Academy that wasn’t a dragon. Which meant she had to be extremely powerful, and unfortunately for her, she seemed to attract the attention of their flight. Yet even she seemed to be cautious. I didn’t blame her in the least for avoiding everything that came with associating herself with them. Not even the crown, just the other psychotic shit they did.
“Don’t swear around your mother.” King Pele frowned at his son, who offered him an incredulous look. I mean, I had to admit, if there was a time to swear, this was probably it. Then again, I had a feeling these guys tempered their shit down a lot around their parents.
My eyes darted over to Gavriel, who was watching the interaction with Maya with interest. As if he wasn’t a legitimate serial killer. Then again, what did you expect with the type of fathers they had? We may have an edge, but it was because of training, not just pure, unadulterated bloodlust. The princes actively enjoyed killing and took extremely dangerous missions to do just that. I looked over at Marco, who seemed to be gauging the situation and whether it was worth trying to stop all of this. Like I said, they didn’t have any reason to hurt her… but it still put me on edge.
“This is Sol?” Rhysand asked, his voice filled with surprise and a bit of pain. Considering he was the oldest, that didn’t surprise me because I was positive he and his three other brothers remembered her well since they had been born two years before her in the same fledgling flight. The twins had been born the year before Maya, putting them all around the same age range.
“I actually go by Maya,” Maya voiced, looking extremely relaxed. I had to wonder what the difference was between her reaction to them in comparison to her fathers. Maybe she had instinctively realized they didn’t pose a threat? I mean, that wasn’t accurate at all, except to maybe her. I was still waiting for them to put together that their little sister had mates. Somehow I didn’t see this going over well.
I mean, if it hadn’t been for Maya handling her fathers the way she did, the group of us would have probably been locked up by now. My eyes narrowed on Sai, already blaming him for something that had never happened. Fucker knew exactly what he was doing. My eyes darted to her neck, littered with bites, as I inhaled sharply.
I wish I could tell you I wasn’t jealous.
I wasn’t concerned that Maya hadn’t marked me. I mean, I wanted it badly, but more than anything I wanted her to feel comfortable doing it. I was still overwhelmed that she even cared about me enough to get mad at shit that had happened to me in my past, so if she decided to mark me, whenever that was, I would be grateful as fuck. Did that take away the incessant need I had for her, even now as she was surrounded by family? No, that didn’t really fucking matter to me, frankly. An image of Maya bent over the banquet table, her dress pushed over her hips as I slid into her, played through my thoughts as I tried to not reach forward and grab her.
Henry offered me a narrow-eyed glare as I flashed a smile. Motherfucker shouldn’t have been listening to me if he didn’t want to know.
“Where the hell has she been?” Fintan asked, looking sincerely confused and a bit panicked, which was amusing in its own right. The man was a complete asshole, so if this was freaking him out, I couldn’t imagine what it was doing to the others. Although it was pretty obvious from the looks on their faces.
“Long story,” Nuriel smoothed over. “We will talk about it later.”
“Maya, these are your brothers. We have Rhysand and Dusan, they are the two oldest—” Queen Cyra began pointing out both princes. The image they painted was night and day, the first scarred and looking pissed while the second looked like a golden boy, except for the fact that I was pretty positive I had heard a rumor he had a bit of a fixation with dead bodies.
“By seconds,” Fintan muttered as King Fuji offered his interruption a disapproving look. The queen continued, “Then you have Fintan and Gavriel.”
“This is an interesting turn of events,” Gavriel muttered, looking at Maya once more before meeting my gaze. Realization flashed in his eyes as his gaze narrowed on the mating marks on her neck. Fucking wonderful. None of those were mine either, so fuck my life.
“Finally, you have the twins, Faolan and Alois,” Cyra finished as Maya swallowed nervously, offering a nod.
“It’s wonderful to meet all of you.” Her voice had all of them looking at her with a softer affection than I realized was possible from them, but then again, this was Maya. The woman pulled things out of people you could never expect.
That was right when Rhysand clocked the fact that she had mating marks and who else was standing at the table with them. His gaze met Marco’s as I went tense, honestly not knowing how it would play out. I mean, Rhysand probably had some size on Marco—he was close to Atlas’s height—but Marco was also extremely protective over Maya… so I really didn’t think it would be a fair fight. Plus, that wasn’t even including if his dragon got out.
“Commander Moretti, you’re back,” he mused. He and his brothers were younger than Marco, the twins being Sai’s age and the oldest being only twenty, so there had always been a begrudging respect there. But this was different, and I think Marco knew that.
“We had some business to handle.” Marco looked relaxed and confident, and if it wasn’t for our flight bond, I wouldn’t even know how tense he was. I had a feeling that all of these men being around Maya, family or not, were really fucking with his dragon. I didn’t blame him. I felt like there were a lot of people wanting Maya’s attention, and I wasn’t fucking okay with that.
“With our little sister who has been missing for nearly two decades,” Gavriel tilted his head, watching our reaction.
“Gavriel, now is not the time.” Con offered him a look as he put his hands up and shook his head, his eyes darting past all of us to where Eleven was talking to her team. I almost smiled at that, but I figured that was an easy way to get fucking killed, so I decided against it. I was strong, but I wasn’t an alpha, and all of them had the capacity to be exactly that, no matter the position they served within their flight.
Mind you, I would fucking risk it if it meant keeping Maya safe, but I would probably just end up fucking slaughtered. Worth it, but a rather tragic end overall, especially since it appeared I had eternity with Maya coming my way.
Before anything else could be said, a bell rang overhead, signaling the start of dinner as I gently led Maya back to her seat, positioning her in the middle of all of us. Henry, Atlas, and Marco sat to one side, the rest of us on the other. I sat next to her and intertwined our fingers together, examining her expression, which appeared a bit excited and very thoughtful.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked quietly.
“None of this seems real,” she admitted hesitantly. “I just don’t understand how all of this existed, this entire section of my life… and I just wasn’t aware of it.”
“It was stolen from you, peanut,” I clarified quietly.
Her gaze met mine as she rested her head against my shoulder. “I don’t know how to handle any of this. I don’t know if I should just welcome them back into my life. I mean, I have no reason not to… this is just far more complicated than I could have ever guessed.”