Page 6 of Princess For All

“I need a drink or five. Always. Why am I not an alcoholic already?” I grumbled and then snorted. “Right, my husbands pull that shtick.”

“We deserve that,” Cerdic muttered. “Okay, let’s eat and unpack that.” He cleared his throat. “And let’s get someone here who can tell if people are lying.”

“I’m not lying,” Travis said firmly.

“I believe that and people don’t fool Kaci, but you’re all over the map, mate. So let’s just get this handled right and fast for your nerves.”

Five minutes later, I was sitting eating sandwiches and potato salad with all of my husbands, my security, Sundar, and Sebastian.

“Start at the beginning and how you figured this out,” Sundar suggested. “Then we can circle back and you can tell us what we need to know about your clan to protect you.”

Travis nodded, wiping his mouth and then taking a long drink before focusing on Sundar as if he was easiest to talk to. “Kaci came to check on us and said to be careful that we couldn’t sense corrupted anymore—none of us could. She brought us one of the fixed electric vehicles and said we could use it. There was a way for us to plug it into a solar panel—”

“Why not just bring you here?” I asked, missing huge pieces.

“She wanted to,” he admitted. “Snakes aren’t high up on the food chain with shifters. On top of that, we’re garter snakes. We might as well be bugs to most shifters. And after all we’ve been through with our own clan—shifters—it’s hard to be around shifters. I about piss myself when I have to be near predator shifters. Or yelling men like my dad.”

Oh boy. That would be problematic with our group.

“Do earplugs work well on snakes?” someone snarked, and I felt the same.

“Or we could all learn to control our tempers better,” I drawled. I sighed when Kristof gave me a look. “Yes, fine, people are doing better and it’s the fucking apocalypse. I… That’s fair. Sorry. Rough day.”

“You deserve all of the snark you want, my wife. I just don’t want more issues later with people thinking you’re upset with them, specifically when you’re not or bring on more miscommunication.”

“Thank you.” I looked back at Travis to signal he could continue.

“We used the car to go raid where Kaci said it was clear. Me and one other guy. We heard a crash in the next building, and like we’re taught, we shifted and thestenchwas—I can’t put it into words. It was like—it was beyond gross. I’ve never smelled anything like it.”

“And the noise was corrupted?” Sundar checked, nodding when Travis did. “You’d been that close to them before and they hadn’t smelled?”

“No, nothing like that. A bit of decay and gross, but I smelled that in human form. This—it’s only in my snake form. And it went for a while. It took awhilefor them to get out of range and we could—I felt like a wolf catching a scent and knowing how to like track for once. Like it was pungent, and we could—we went back the next day and could still smell it.”

“Well, you might just become our new best friends,” I muttered.

“That’s what Kaci said, and we want to help, but like I said—” He shut his mouth so fast that he bit his tongue. All the vamps there smelled the blood. He also went pale.

Because Nick was in the doorway.

“Well, clearly, I stepped in something,” he said quietly, focused on Travis. “I know you’re prey, pup, but we don’t care about that here, alright? I’m the head chef of the castle and manage a lot for the princess. We’re people, not just animals.”

Travis tried a few times to speak, but it was clearly hard for him. “I’ve not met a lot of wolves who feel that way. Sorry.”

“Yeah, we’ve got a lot of bullies. You find any here that are wolves and you tell me. I’ll make them regret it,” he promised before looking at me. “I’m going to turn in, Princess. If you leave it all out, I’ll handle it in the morning or clean up the kitchen.”

“We’ll handle it, mate,” Cerdic replied. “Thanks for everything.”

We all thanked him and chuckled when Nick said there were some fresh cakes in the fridge. The man really,reallyloved feeding people.

It was his happy place after all he’d been through.

“Okay, back to what you were saying,” Sundar muttered. “Forgive me for being blunt and crude, but—are you saying we should basically carry you around shifted when we clear buildings to scent corrupted?”

Travis had trouble making his mouth work again, relaxing when a few people chuckled. “I don’t know the answer. I don’t know what you all have going on here. We just told Kaci what we knew when she came back this last time. She said she thought Aether gave us a chance to move up the food chain and promised I wouldn’t regret taking this chance.”

“Okay, so first, let’s get your group here and safe,” I said firmly. “Then we can figure out how this all works in the morning before we make a point to find other snake shifters and—”

“Not my clan, please!” he worried.

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