“No, because they are selective and in tune with your own wants and desires. Instinctively, and you can probably thank your inner kraken for it, those fuck me vibes will only entice beings that you are turned on by.”
“But how many more times is this going to happen? Damn it, Cas, I already have three, four including Saxon. Is there a limit to this?” I ask, hearing the desperation in my voice, but before he can answer, a loud bellow echoes out through the arena, and we both duck the stream of fire that got a little too close to us.
The dragon, which is as big as a house, is a holographic pink color in some light, but then he looks almost black at a different angle. The crowd shouts and cheers for the dragon as he defeats the snake monster, and Caspian whispers in my ear.
“What do you think of the new show? Silac and Tirrian think it’s a hoot. They came up with the idea themselves.”
I watch the pink and black dragon as it takes the Naga in his mouth and shakes his head before tossing him to the ground, defeated, where Silac lies before another flash of light and smoke has him changing back into his human form. The crowd cheers as the dragon changes back into a man who hurries over to Caspian and me.
He bows before kneeling at my feet and taking my hand. “I am forever your servant, my lady,” he announces before placing a kiss on my hand.
The crowd erupts into applause as I look down at the man holding my hand in his, but I almost stumble back when I meet his eyes. In them is a cold fury the likes of which I’ve never seen before. Whoa, I wonder who pissed in his Wheaties. He stands up and escorts me back to my seat before helping Silac up, and the three of them take a bow before exiting the arena.
“Wasn’t that fun?” John beams at me.
“You could have warned me,” I grumble at them, and Eric smirks.
“What would be the fun in that? You should have seen your face when he shifted. I just wish I’d thought to take a photo, because it was everything we’d hoped for.”
I flip him off as William returns to center stage to give the crowd a warning about the barriers and the temperature drops in the arena.
The lightning cats storm into the arena, their roars sounding out as lightning flashes. The crowd oohs and ahhs as William puts the cats through their paces, but one of them breaks off from the group and stalks toward us. Slightly smaller than the others, this one is a pale icy blue with large, gleaming white fangs. The tiger gets to the other side of the glass from where we sit and pounces at it, scraping its claws down the glass barrier. I flinch as the crowd around us screams at the sound of nails on glass.
“Get away, Natalia.” Eric bangs his fist against the glass. Out of the corner of my eye, I see movement just before she’s tackled from the side by Echo, the pure white tiger. The two of them claw and spit, rolling around on the ground until the largest of them, Maxsim, uses his huge paw to cuff Natalia across the head. She rolls over the frozen landscape, and I watch as blue blood drips off both her and Echo. Neither of them was pulling any punches, and that certainly wasn’t part of the show.
“Holy shit,” I murmur as William pulls a whip out of thin air and cracks it in Natalia’s direction. An arc of lightning travels across the arena from the end of it and hits her, and she screeches before running back out the way they came in.
Maxsim licks Echo’s wounds on his face while William finishes off the show with the other three cats.
“William is going to be pissed.” Eric sighs as he sits down. When I look at John, I can practically see the steam coming out of his ears, so I nudge his brother and nod to him.
“I don’t think he’s the only one.” I can’t help but feel sympathetic for him. All these changes are a lot to take in.
“If the Vilaxians even place one foot wrong during their performance, I am going to go ballistic,” John fumes quietly, his face turning a few shades of red. “I’ll fire everyone and hire a whole new lot of performers. There is no shortage of people who want to be involved with us.”
“They came down from the ship yesterday, didn’t they?” I ask them, trying to distract my furious grandpa.
“Yes. Hale assures me that they have their act worked out, but I know Radella and Estrella are particularly, how should I say this kindly… unhappy at the moment. I wouldn’t put it past them to cause problems.”
“I can’t wait to see it and all the other acts I missed the first night.”
The three of us sit through the next couple of acts, which I have already seen—Magenta and her silks, and the Nengh clowns—before we finally get to the part I haven’t seen yet. Once the clowns clear the stage, a hush falls over the arena as smoke starts to drift across the audience. Where it’s coming from, I really can’t tell. I’m sure Xavier is working his mojo somehow.
“That’s Xavier’s mist. It has people getting a little foggy on the details regarding the pool’s arrival. It’s convincing them they are watching the floor open up and a pool rise out of a hidden hatch underneath,” Eric whispers quietly as the three of us, unaffected by the mist, watch the pool beam down. It’s huge, almost as big as the arena itself, and it rises just enough to be sticking up from the floor. There are glass panels all around so we can see what’s going on under water and a platform in the middle of it. Flashes of pastel-colored shapes swim back and forth too fast for the eye to see. Standing in the middle of the platform is Nixie in her human form. She’s wearing a wetsuit, but the skin we can see is still pastel blue. She has on a headset, and she’s waving to the crowd.
“Hello,” she greets everyone with her musical voice, “and welcome to the wet portion of the show. If you are sitting in the first couple of rows, there are plastic ponchos under your seats. Now would be a good time to put them on if you would like to stay dry.”
She gives the crowd a few moments to do as she asked. I reach under mine, but there isn’t one. I look at John and Eric, and neither of them have one either, so I don’t stress about it.
Nixie continues to talk, weaving a magical story about mermaids, dolphins, and true love that mesmerizes the crowd as the five pastel-colored dolphins leap and spin and perform when given instructions from her. They balance balls, tail walk, and launch Nixie into the air when she gets into the water with them.
She asks the crowd to again look under the chairs, and if they find a colored hoop, to stand and hold it up high. I play along, and sure enough, there’s a pastel green hoop under my seat. Picking it up, I stand and wave it high as requested.
“Now I’m going to send the dolphins to collect them. They need to get the one that matches their color.” She’s facing me when she says this, and when she winks, my heart drops in dread. Fuck, I have a feeling I should have looked harder for something to cover me.
Quick as a flash, the dolphins speed for their colored hoops. All of them slow as they reach the person who has theirs—except mine. Nope, it does the dolphin equivalent of drifting, and I watch as a wall of water comes flying toward me. I get soaked, and the crowd around me starts to laugh as I glower at the stupid animal. He nods his head up and down and even blows a couple of fountains of water, which also hits me. Water drips down my back and into my underwear as I look at both my grandpas who are bone dry and grinning at me.
“What better way to get to know the show than by being a participant?” John remarks as Eric snickers. How the fuck did they stay dry? I bet they used some of their Skarrian magic. Assholes.
