Page 29 of Ivory's Familiars

“It would be, yes,” Ronan agreed, “Give us some time to ponder this and look into it. If the time comes we feel we need to go to the conclave directly, we’ll discuss it with you first. I promise.”

Ronan was such a good little diplomat, Vaughn thought. It was one of the reasons he always liked dirtying the man up. Looking at Ivory, he could see the indecision warring on her face. He couldn’t reconcile her fear of the conclave with his own experiences, but he couldn’t argue that it was genuine on her end. Trusting them with her biggest secret must be incredibly difficult for her. She was chewing on those fuller, poutier lips of hers and Vaughn wanted to be finished with the talking and get back to the screwing. He didn’t think that was likely to be happening anytime soon and he let out a deflated sigh.

Ivory glanced at him, then Ronan, looking up at Seth before finally stepping out of his arms, “You’re all familiars charged with serving my bloodline, aren’t you? If you were my grandfather’s familiars, then you must be … mine … right?”

Seth smiled, “That’s right. Ivory, you can’t possibly understand what kind of a miracle you are. Everyone believes the Panthera bloodline is extinct. But here you are.”

“Here I am,” she repeated, dully, “I guess that explains why I felt an immediate attraction to all of you. With my glamour down, it’s so obvious that my magic recognises you. But I suppose I must have felt it on a sub-conscious level.”

“That’s not why. Don’t reduce our attraction to magic. It’s natural – couldn’t be more natural. You’re our mate,” Vaughn was quick to defend the intimacy of their attraction.

“I’m your what now?” she looked startled – and not altogether pleased.

“Mate,” he spat out again, “It means –”

“I know what a mate is – I watchAnimal Kingdom,” her pissy tone was a match for his, “Your panther’s think I’m their mate?” she questioned again, eyeing them all warily.

“Mine doesn’t just think it – he knows it. Listen to your animal, what’s it telling you?” Vaughn urged – trying to reign in his impatience.

Ivory tilted her head, her hair shimmering like water in the light as it fell over her shoulder. She extended a claw on her pointer finger, tapping it against her knee, “Right now, mine is telling me to slice your balls off for acting like a jerk.”

The confrontational tone had Vaughn’s pupils slitting vertically for a second as a lecherous grin tilted his lips. Vaughn’s cat thrived on confrontation – it was all foreplay to him.

“Ivory, our panthers noticed your unique scent when we first met you; it’s a combination of all three of us. Fresh earth, thunderstorms, and vanilla. With your glamour dulling your magic and your animal, it was the only clue we noticed. But we must have recognised it on some level. I mean, it explains why we are all so outrageously captivated with each other,” Ronan explained in a reasonable tone.

But it seemed Ivory wasn’t interested in being reasonable if her narrowed eyes and stubborn jawline was anything to go by, “You’re saying the only reason we’re attracted to each other is because of some ridiculous animal instinct? Don’t you see how insulting that is?”

“What? No, I mean yes … sort of,” Ronan blabbered, shaking his head, “Why is it insulting?”

“You’re kidding, right? You basically just admitted you were acting on some primal predisposition rather than any kind of actual like for me. If our panthers didn’t want each other, you wouldn’t have even looked twice at me.”

“Well, our panthers do want you. You’re our mate. That makes us yours,” Vaughn felt the childish urge to poke out his tongue and say;‘so there!’.

“Well, maybe I don’t want you to be mine,” Ivory crossed her arms over her chest causing her breasts to plump and reveal a tantalising view of her cleavage. His cat purred in the back of his mind. Damn cat didn’t know what was good for it. They were getting an arse-chewing from the woman and the stupid beast was still purring in ecstasy.

“That’s not what you said last night,” he threw back, with no small amount of smugness.

Ivory narrowed her eyes dangerously once again and Ronan shook his head, “Vaughn … really not helping, brother.”

“Ivory. That’s enough now. You’re being difficult, twisting our words, and turning something miraculous into something cheap,” Seth’s voice was low and stern – not something the happy-go-lucky man usually projected. He must be losing his patience as well, “The fact that someone on this planet is the perfect match chemically, emotionally, spiritually – and everything in between – is a blessing. It’s not a curse. How many people do you think are given such a gift?”

Ivory opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, before slumping back and covering her face with her hands, “You’re right. I’m being a total bitch,” she peeked between her fingers, violet irises shining bright, “I’m sorry. I just …”

“It’s okay. I think all our nerves are fried,” Seth rubbed her knee.

She dropped her hands, sighing and offering a weak smile, “Yeah. I’m going to go get dressed and then head downstairs for a while – alone.”

“What? Ivory, we –” He began.

“Please, just give me some space. I need to think – to process,” her eyes beseeched him to understand.

He looked to the others, knowing he didn’t want her out of his sight for a second but also knowing that some time apart was probably a good thing. Tensions were high and everyone was getting frustrated. Better to have a time-out before anyone said or did anything they would regret; “Fair enough. But you can’t go anywhere alone, remember? Nothing has changed. Someone still has their sights set on you,” he reminded her.

“I know. I’m not going to do anything stupid. I’ll just go down to the bar – work on something mindless like the inventory. I promise.”

She ran a hand through her hair, the satiny strands catching the light and giving them an almost silver glow. He found himself completely entranced by the movement, but it also brought her appearance to the forefront; “There’s one other thing – your glamour. Can you redo it? Otherwise, your employees are going to get a bit of a shock.”

She looked positively startled, glancing in the mirror hanging on the wall. He saw her touch her face, a sad look entering her eyes for a moment before she squared her shoulders, “I can’t do the exact same one. It was semi-permanent, only dispersing when I willed it to – something I never had any intention of doing. When I decided to settle here, it took me months and months to perfect that spell and to store up enough power to make it work. Until then, I had been doing daily glamours. I guess I’ll have to go back to doing that.”

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