Mad, Bad & Dangerous

“Yeah. Captain Tanner in Elvyrn, he’s one of us. A Knight. And Striker. And Chance.”

“You’re a Knight?” He slid his hands up her stomach to cup her breasts.

“Yep. No armor though.”

“Shame. Bet you look hot in armor.”

Kett smiled, leaning down to kiss him. She’d no idea how real any of this was, but it would surely be easier to repeat herself once she was awake. Once something had been done, it usually got easier to do.

Her smile faded as she realized the last thing she had to tell him.

Got to be done, her brain told her. You got yourself into this mess, you’re the only one can get you out.

Closing her eyes, she rose and fell on Bael’s thick, delicious cock, and concentrated on the memory of Marisa. It came easily, the dream assisting her, and she knew when she’d gotten there by Bael’s sharp intake of breath.

“What the hell?” he shouted. “Okay, now I know this is my dream.”

“No,” Kett said, opening her eyes. “You’re not imagining this. Bael, does it feel like a dream?”

He shook his head rapidly, scrambling off the bed and away from her, pushing her off him just like he had in the tavern.

“This is not funny,” he said. “This-I was going to tell her, you know, I was going to own up. She still thinks she’s tied to me, even after what I did to her. I was going to bloody tell her!”

Kett knelt on the bed, her body feeling oddly empty without him. “Bael, it’s me,” she said. “It’s Kett.”

He stared wildly at her, pacing back and forth, running his hands through tousled hair.

“Shapeshifter,” she reminded him, and turned herself back. “See?”

“But-” Bael looked like she’d just slapped him. “I- I-

“I think I’m going to wake up now,” he mumbled, and suddenly vanished.

Kett swore but a second later someone was shaking her by the shoulder, and she opened eyes that she didn’t think had been closed to find herself back in her bedroom at Nuala’s house, Bael peering worriedly at her in the moonlight.

Chapter Twenty

“I know all about Marisa,” Kett said, and Bael wanted to die.

“I was going to- Wait, how do you know?”

“You’re not paying attention,” she said impatiently. She was sitting up in bed, her arms folded across her bare breasts, the room in darkness. Bael could see her just fine, thanks to Var’s enhanced night vision, and Kett wasn’t complaining, so he guessed she could see in the dark too.

“That wasn’t your dream. Or rather, it was yours, but it was mine too,” she said. “How else do you think we got to Koskwim? In point of fact, Bael, how else do you think I know what happened in your dream?”

He ran his hands through his hair. “You ever shared a dream with anyone else before?” She shook her head. “Me neither. Maybe it’s my latent Mage powers finally making themselves known.” A bloody shitty power, but anyway. “Look. I was going to tell you about her, but then I found you with that-that-”

“Very hot, skilled man who did absolutely nothing for me,” Kett said.

“I don’t want to hear about how hot and skilled he was!”

“You’re still not listening,” she said, and grabbed hold of his arm to dig her nails into it. Bael flinched, because her nails were damn sharp.

He looked down. She’d manifested claws.

“I’m a shapeshifter,” she said. “I can change my shape.”

“Yes, all right.” He tried to extract his arm but she held on to it.

“Mostly I imitate things, it’s easier that way. Like drawing a picture of something that’s in front of you. I mostly do animals, things with the same sort of mass as a human body. And occasionally, I change my appearance.”

“Like when you turned to stone?”

“Yes. And like when I turned into a floozy barmaid who drugged you, dragged you to bed and woke you up by sucking on your cock.”

Bael gaped at her.

His first thought was, How did she know? How did she know I slept with Marisa, and how did she know all those details?

His second thought was, Is she serious? I’ve seen her change shapes. Just because Var is limited to animals doesn’t mean Kett is. She could change her eyes, hair, skin-she could look like anybody.

His third thought was, Does this mean I didn’t cheat on her?

His fourth thought was, Damn, even bruised and sulky she’s gorgeous.

“It was me, Bael. I was trying to prove I wasn’t your mate. I didn’t know if you’d go for another woman, so I figured…”

Bael tried to shake off the fog of lust and confusion clouding him. “Why?”

She let go of his arm and plucked grumpily at the bedcovers. “I don’t want to be tied to anyone. I never did.”

“You got married once.”

“Yes, when I was very, very drunk, and it ended very, very badly. I don’t like fate, Bael. It tells you what to do-”

“And you don’t like being told what to do,” Bael finished, incredulous. She was dumping him because of a problem with authority?

“I don’t expect you to understand,” she said.

“Try me.”

Kett heaved a sigh then said, “All right. You want to count these? First up, my natural disaster of a marriage.”

“Lots of people have failed relationships.”

“Do they end up in jail as a result of them? All right, when I was about seventeen I was sleeping with this pro-Treegan player. He did some aerial stunts to impress me, fell off the gryphon, broke his back. And it’s not just sexual relationships. Look at my dad, he ended up dead.”

“Temporarily.” Bael still couldn’t quite process this.

“Look, even my friends get hurt. Jarven, there’s a nice, recent example. And my army buddies, they tried to stand up for me, and not one of them ever got promoted because of it.”

“So bad things have happened to you-” Bael began, but she cut him off, her eyes steely and defensive.

“It’s not just me. It bites everyone in the ass.”

“What does?” Bael asked, frustrated.

“Love. Whatever shape it comes in. Look at Chance-she sacrificed herself for Dark.”

“But she’s fine now. She survived.”

“Striker’s been killed for love at least three times that I know of. Chalia even shot him herself once.”

“Can’t entirely blame her for that,” Bael muttered.

“Captain Tanner-did you meet him? Got his finger cut off trying to defend his fiancee. The king? You know he’s a widower? His wife was killed protecting her children. And then there’s me-again. I tried to protect my dad from the sorceress who was bumping off Striker’s friends. Remember how that one ended up?”

He touched the scar on her stomach and she flinched away.

“And finally we come to you. Deliberate or not, Bael, because of you, I ended up almost dead in that cell. Maybe it is just me. The Curse of Kett, Bael. Falls on everyone. I’ve hurt more people than I can remember, and you can be damn sure they’ve hurt me.”

She rubbed her shoulder and Bael ached with the effort of not touching her, soothing her-contradicting her.

“So I gave up. Went to live with Jarven, who’s a total sociopath. Figured I couldn’t do any damage there, to me or anyone else. Don’t you see, Bael, I’m not like other people. I can’t do the relationship thing. I can’t do the