“Too late,” I said. “The damage is done. You already shouted out my name.” I turned to Purple, offering what I hoped was a disarming smile, making sure to hide my fangs. “I’m Sy, and this ‘who-are-you’ champion is my sister, Barbie.”
“Who would name herself Barbie?” Purple snickered, obviously loving how much she was riling up my sister. “Seriously.”
Barbie bit her lip and shot a look at Killian. He’d been the one to name her after literally ripping off her breast binding to reveal that she was a girl in front of thousands of students on the ice rink. The name had stuck ever since.
I shot Barbie a warning look that spelled outlet me do the talking.
“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady,” I said, aiming for an ice-breaking opening to show everyone who the adult in the room was.
“Don’t call me lady,” Purple protested. “I’m Marigold.” She raised her voice suddenly. “Mates! Mates! Come here! Look what I’ve found!”
Instantly, four giant males materialized from the mist, all hard muscle and lethal grace and utterly gorgeous. They formed a protective half-circle around her, and the flame barrier thinned just enough to accommodate all five of them within its embrace.
My jaw dropped. “They’re all your mates?” The question slipped out, laced with more envy than I had intended.
Rowan growled possessively. I smirked and slanted him a look that said he was all I wanted. But I wasn’t dead, and my eyes had a mind of their own. My heart belonged completely to him, but that didn’t mean I was blind to the spectacular display of masculine perfection in front of us.
Marigold laughed, the sound musical and sensual. “Yeah.” She jerked her thumb toward each male in turn. “Hector, Paxton, Axel, Zak. They’re all mine.”
“Always,” Paxton, the one in the middle, said softly, his tone brimming with unmistakable pride. Water twirled around his long fingers even as he stood within the flame barrier. His water magic felt different from Silas’s—stronger, vaster, thrumming with a divine potency.
In fact, all four males radiated immense power. They were at least demigods, possibly more.
When they fixed their attention on us, their eyes turned as hard and unyielding as ice.
“What do you want?” Hector asked, his muscled arms folding across his armored chest. His shoulders were as broad as Killian’s; in fact, the two looked remarkably alike, save for the massive black wings folded against Hector’s back. Death power rolled off him—I could taste it on the air even from where I stood.
A distinctly dragon-like rumble emerged from Killian’s chest. The dragon wasn’t impressed.
“We just want to deliver a package, as I told your lady,” Killian said, his tone carefully measured.
“What package?” the one called Axel asked, arrogance dripping from every word. A metallic power hummed around him—the aura of a war demigod.
Killian lifted Ruin as gently as he could—chains and all—for them to see. “A baby. We’re looking to give you a baby. Perhaps someone on your side is in the market for an adoption.”
“And youchaineda baby?” Zak frowned, lightning flashing in his blue eyes. “What kind of people are you? I suggest you find him a cradle and sing a lullaby to make it up to him.”
Did he have any idea who the baby truly was? Was he playing us? He even shrugged at seeing a baby in chains. Perhaps Marigold’s mates were all psychopaths.
“Well, this is a special baby that requires special care,” Killian said, revealing nothing more.
“Nice try, asshole.” Marigold’s laughter rang out again. “That isn’t a baby.”
“Don’t call my mate an asshole,” Barbie hissed. “He might be one to everyone else, but never to me. Well, hewasone to me at some point, but I put him in his place. He had his reasons, but I’m not an enabler.”
“I did the same!” Marigold called back, jerking a thumb toward Paxton. “Ask him. I put him through hell until he groveled for a very long time.”
“If you drop the ward, Mari Gold,” Barbie said sweetly, switching tactics with surprising speed, “we can high-five for our wins in taming impossible assholes. We could compare notes.”
“Sneaky. Sneaky,” Marigold said. “I lower the ward, and you toss that old loser, your special baby, into my territory?”
Barbie’s eyes widened in surprise, and mine went just as round. I could feel the shockwave ripple through the heirs as well. How did she know the evil baby was the God of Ruin?
“You think I was born yesterday?” Marigold snorted. “I’ll be a hundred years old in ten days, and my mates are much older, except for Axel. Axel and I went to the same school. I used to call Half-Blood Academy the Half-Death Academy since only half of the students survived that fucking place. Long story short, there isn’t much I haven’t seen.” She paused, tilting her head as if listening to something we couldn’t hear, then laughed again. “Did you hear what that old loser just said?”
Barbie blinked. “You can read his mind, even though I’ve bound his tongue?”
“Of course,” Marigold said casually. “He just called me a meddling whore who shares a bed with all my males at the same time.” She winked at me. “It’s fun. Really fun. You should try it sometimes.”
