Mad, Bad & Dangerous

“I came to see you. Of course, I wasn’t expecting to see so much of you.”

Kett scowled. “Well then, you should have knocked. How did you know I was here?”

“I know everything,” Chance said airily. “Plus Miho called me.”

Bael was still staring at her. Kett reached over and closed his mouth, and he blinked.

“Yes, she’s beautiful,” Kett said. “She’s also boffing your king.”

“I forgot what a charming turn of phrase you have,” Dark said in his rumbling, deep voice, reminding Kett that at any moment he could switch forms with his animal twin, an eight-foot, dark-maned lion.

“The correct term is ‘mate’,” Chance said, leaning against Dark and looking up at him with a smile. Kett figured the correct term for it was “soppy”. “Which does actually make me the queen.”

“Well, whatever,” Kett said. “Why did Miho call you?”

“Said you might need my help. Naked in the woods and all that.”

“My being naked in the woods is cause for concern now?” Kett asked, and Chance grinned before her face sobered.

“No, but that cut on your wrist is. She said you were having trouble walking too.”

So much for hiding it. “I’m fine,” Kett said automatically. “Five by five.”

“Yes. Well, I don’t believe you.” Detaching herself from her “mate”, Chance walked over to the bed. “Dark, could you go tell Miho to hold off supper for a bit, please?”

Dark nodded, verbose as ever, and left the room, closing the door behind him. Chance picked through the tray of medical supplies. “So what happened?”

“Fuck if I know,” Kett said. A cave in the mountains. Symbols on the walls. Burnt bodies.

The sad thing was that on Kett’s scale of weird shit, this barely rated a five.

“Right. Excellent. How long have you two been together?”

She snorted at that. “About five minutes.”

“Wonderful.” Chance, wisely, stopped asking personal questions as she picked up Kett’s wrist to look closer at the jagged cut there.

Then she dropped it, Kett’s hand thudding on the mattress, and recoiled. “Bloody hell!”

“What?”

Chance peered at Kett’s eyes, visibly shaken. “What kind of mojo are you under?”

A prickle ran up Kett’s spine. The sort of mojo that repressed her shape-changing abilities, she’d bet. Ritual magic. They’d wanted her alive when they strung her up.

She shook her head wordlessly.

Chance transferred her attention to Bael. “Did you do it?”

He shook his head, clearly still under her spell. Kett clicked her tongue in irritation. She was used to watching grown men reduced to quivering teenage boys by Chance’s phenomenal beauty, charm and grace, but that didn’t mean she particularly enjoyed it.

Bael was looking at her as if she was coated in whipped cream and dispensed beer from her nipples. Five minutes ago he’d been about to lick Kett’s pussy and now she might as well be part of the furniture.

I was desirable until she walked in.

“You mentioned supper?” she asked, beyond irritation.

“Er, yes-Miho said it was just about ready…” Chance was regarding Bael with a slight frown.

“Right. Good. I’m fucking starving.” She shoved back the covers and tested her leg. Hurt like hell, but it was holding. “And can I get some bloody clothes?”

Chapter Three

Dinner was a minor ordeal. Aside from his inattentive, absentee parents, Bael had never met any other Nasc before, but he knew his monarch when he saw him. King Talvean-Dark-rippled with power and authority, and Bael was totally, unexpectedly in awe. Usually authority figures pissed the hell out of him, but he seemed to have some sort of inbuilt subservience switch when it came to his king.

Maybe this was what it was like being a kelf and driven to serve humans. Bael actually wanted the king to approve of him. Wanted to serve him. Weird.

The king’s consort wasn’t Nasc-she was something not entirely human, but he couldn’t tell what. Regal of bearing, warm and unutterably beautiful, she was a perfect foil for the king’s majestic stillness.

And she was Kett’s cousin! His mind reeled. His queen was Kett’s cousin. They were nothing alike. Quite apart from the differences in their coloring, Kett was all wiry strength, flashing fury and surly, dangerous sexuality. She was like thunder and lightning, fascinating but deadly. Chance, on the other hand, was grace personified. She exuded warmth and charm that only seemed to make Kett look more bad-tempered.

He glanced over to where Kett was poking at her noodles, scowling. She had a great line in scowling. Those wonderful silver eyes of hers blazed and sparked at him across the table. She didn’t seem to be talking to him, didn’t seem to be talking to anybody.

Which made conversation all the harder. Several times Chance enquired of him what his animal twin might be, and each time he fudged the answer, changed the subject. If he told them the truth-if they knew-every Nasc would know. News would spread. The Federacion would surely find out.

And then he’d be dead.

“I haven’t met very many Nasc,” Chance was saying brightly now. “Might I know your parents?”

“I doubt it.” Bael tore his eyes from Kett to address his queen. “They died when I was young.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

Another silence. Bael watched Kett stab at her food, apparently angry with it. She tangled up some noodles and shoved them into her mouth with a total lack of grace he found weirdly charming.

“Dark is touring ’round, introducing me to all the Nasc we can find,” Chance said. “Sometimes I feel like an exhibit at a freak show.”

“You are a freak,” the king muttered.

“Thank you, darling.”

“In the nicest possible way.”

She glanced sideways at him then flicked her gaze quickly away again. But she was smiling.

“It’s not freakish for me to be non-Nasc,” she said.

“Of course it isn’t.”

With that was the unspoken coda it was something else that made her freakish. Chance shifted and the king flinched, and Bael realized she’d kicked him under the table. He held his breath, but the king just grinned at her. And she grinned back.

“Will you still be here tomorrow?” Miho asked. “The Emperor is coming for tea. It would be fitting for him to meet the Nasc king.”

The Emperor. What kind of people did Kett know?

“It’s been awhile since I saw the Emperor,” Chance said. “If we’re still here,” she glanced at Kett, who shrugged sullenly and said nothing, “then it would be lovely.” She beamed at them all. Miho smiled back. Bael tried to remember if he’d ever gotten into trouble in Xinjiang-the sort of trouble the Emperor might care about, anyway.

To redress the balance, he pulled on one of the few pieces of Nasc news he actually had heard. “Your Majesty,” he enquired of his king, “how is her Highness, your sister?” To Kett, he explained, “She was kidnapped and imprisoned, but the king and his mate freed her.”

“The king, his mate and me, actually,” Kett said, and Bael stared at her, dumb with admiration.

Amused, Dark said, “She is well. Thank you for asking.”

“Do you have a mate, Bael?” Chance asked.

“Uh, no,” he said, his eyes sliding back to Kett, who was sucking a noodle between her lips. His mouth went