Page 23 of Nine Inch Nasty
Normally conduits gain magic from each of their mates as they gain them, but Delaney hasn’t shown any extra abilities yet. It’s likely due to the fact that she’s been so unsure about so much. She just needed to be reminded of how strong she already was.
So with all of us offering her a bit of our magical power, she obliterates the still-intact cloud litter that Shelly rode in on, and it’s some type of fucked up to understand that she was using Delaney’s mates as furniture.
Maybe we should return the favor. “My love, before we erm, go past a point we can’t return from, might I offer a suggestion?”
Delaney blinks up at me, eyes lost to the power she’s wielding, but I know my beautiful mate is in there.
“We could…turn her into a gargoyle? I hear there’s a men’s locker room at the university that could use a guardian. They say it smells awful.”
Zac’s parents are crying, trying to catch up on everything that’s going on, but as a princess of our realm, Delaney has the political power to carry out whatever punishment she deems necessary. I know her parents will back her up once they catch wind of everything that has passed here.
Delaney raises her arm, pulling the entire fucking sky down to her as she reaches for…
“Is that what I think it is?” Wil asks, mouth agape.
There’s a thin chain dangling from the very low ceiling now, within Delaney’s grasp, which is near identical to the chain we have in our dorm that operates our ceiling light in the living room.
“Little girls aren’t very sophisticated in the mechanisms they create,” Delaney says as she yanks on that damn chain.
The entire realm fades away with a loud boom that knocks most of us on our asses, has us clenching our teeth and our ears ringing, but when the blackness recedes and the spinning stops, we’re all sitting in the beautifully landscaped backyard of a large manor.
The home Zac and Shelly grew up in, presumably.
Delaney grabs Shelly by the hair and drags her to me, gesturing for me to secure her. So, I sit on her. At this point, Shelly is completely zapped of magic, and the implosion of her realm seems to have critically damaged her, so I’m pretty confident in my ability to manage her while Delaney steps towards all the other mates she’s been missing for days, letting them make her disappear between their bodies.
Chapter Ten
Delaney
I'm really not sure who to attack first. Have you ever been in a situation where you're completely surrounded by the most attractive men you’ve ever laid eyes on, they're all hungry for you and only you, and you've kind of just done some hero bitch thing and saved everybody and you're feeling pretty good about yourself? If not, then don't worry about it. But if you have, that's exactly what I've got going on right now.
My twins naturally push everyone out of their way so they can get to me, sandwiching me between them. It's gonna take some time later to fill everybody in on what they missed when they were clouds, but I reckon we have that time now.
I just want to kiss everybody and hold them now that we're done being yanked around.
I will absolutely admit to feeling stupid that Shelly was able to do me the way she did, and I have a feeling she stole some powerfrom her family line that she was never meant to touch in order to accomplish it. So maybe I can be a little generous with myself for not figuring out this any faster than I did.
Ash is a little wearier to approach me, but when he wraps his arms around me, I know it's only because his lion is riding him hard to do unspeakable things to me, and he's trying to control himself. He is furious. And he has every right to be. Pretty sure we're all going to need some therapy after this.
Zac seems a bit lost, standing with his parents and trying to comfort them, side eyeing his sister, and I can tell that there's guilt there too for my sake. I hold out my hand for him to join us, because I don't want him to get lost in all the noise and confusion happening right now. It's not often that all of my mates are together in one place, and some of them don't even know about Spencer yet. I should probably do something about that, yeah?
Spencer's new to us, so he tends to try and sit in the background where he thinks he won't bother us. He doesn't know his place yet, he doesn't know how our dynamics work, because he hasn't been around all of us yet. But he's mine, and I need to help him figure it out.
“So, I don't know how conscious any of you were while you were vapors, I'm sorry it took so long for me to figure out Shelly’s game, but having you all back here, I'm really happy. I'm happy that we can start figuring out how to move forward as a group, and what rules we want to implement in this new family we get to build together.
“I know everybody here comes from very different backgrounds, but we have time to figure out who we want to be as a bonded group. I know not all you were around when it happened, andin case you missed it, Wil is officially mine, and I also found my final mate in Spencer.”
There's clapping and cheering with that, and then, because they're all so adorable, they push Spencer up through the massive group so that he's next to me, all of them demanding Spencer and I kiss.
Spencer raises an eyebrow at me, then wraps an arm around my waist and dips me, his other hand promptly securing his face to mine. It's romantic and sweet and in this moment, surrounded by all these men that I'm fortunate enough to call mine, I know everything from here on out is just going to work out. With these guys behind me, how could it not?
Chapter Ten Interlude
Oh my gods, can you imagine how fucked up it would be if I just ended the book there? I mean, you have all the elements of a good ending— the heroine rediscovers how fucking awesome she is, she rescues all the damsels in distress, saves the realm from the big baddie, yadda, yadda, yadda…
The problem we run into though if we end things there, is that we haven’t had nearly enough group sex scenes, am I right? Okay fine, there are a few plot holes still waiting to be filled in, much like our heroine is begging to be filled, but I could have done you so dirty. Please appreciate that.
Just like Delaney’s mates are about to do her dirty (but don’t worry, I’ll do you the favor of removing Zac’s parents first, we are not into that sort of kink here).
