Five Kings, One Jet

Lyria

Kael said they were leaving.

The witch did not move. He still had his eyes on my wrist, rings quiet for once, like the silver was listening harder than he was.

“Names,” I said. My voice came out rough. “If you are taking me out of here, I am not calling you wolf and dragon like a fucking idiot. Who are you?”

Kael looked at me. “You already have mine. Kael Draven. Werewolf King.”

The dragon did not smile; heat sat on his skin. “Lucien Veyr. Dragon King. Remember it.”

The vampire tipped his head, pale and still. “Cassian Cross. Vampire King. Try not to bleed near me.”

The demon showed too many teeth. “Malakai Draziel. Demon King. You will scream it eventually.”

The witch did not look up from my wrist. “Soren Blackthorn. Witch King. Hold still.”

His rings stayed quiet, like the silver was listening harder than he was. Kael’s coat hung off my shoulders and stopped at my knees. Under it I was bare. The heat in my body had not died. I pressed my thighs together and hated that they were close enough to notice. They noticed.

Kael’s nostrils flared. Lucien Veyr went still in a way a man that big should not be able to. Cassian Cross turned his face a fraction, as if the air itself had insulted him. Malakai Draziel laughed under his breath, low and wrecked.

“Fuck,” Malakai said. “She is still affected under your coat, wolf. I can smell it from here.”

My face burned. “Stop.”

“I can smell what his touch did to you,” Lucien said. His voice was rough. Heat rolled off him and made the coat stick to the insides of my thighs. “You clenched when he touched you, and you have not stopped.”

“Lucien,” Kael said.

“Do not, Lucien, me. You smell it too. Your body is still reacting.”

It was. All of them. Five men under expensive clothes, and none of them hiding what my presence was doing to them. Cassian’s mouth curved, cruel and hungry.

“I can smell how badly your body reacted,” he said, almost polite. “And I have not even had my hands on you. That is a problem.”

Soren did not look up from my wrist. “It is not want. Not only. Her body answered a touch, and now the air is full of it. Every one of you is reacting because she is. Do not dress it up.”

Malakai dragged a hand over his mouth. His body tensed beneath his trousers, obviously, and he did not apologize for it. “Then say it plain. I want her, and I am not the only one thinking it.”

“Enough,” Kael said, but his gold eyes had gone dark, and his hands were fists. “We are leaving. Now.”

Lucius Mercer came down with a thin black file and held it out like it might bite. “Medical. Bloodwork. The tests the house ran before the hammer. It travels with the lot.”

Soren took it before Kael could. He skimmed, rings ticking once. “How often was this tested?”

“Three draws,” Lucius said. “Clinic. Holding. The morning of the sale.”

“And after she woke?”

Lucius blinked. “She was sedated until the floor.”

“That is not an answer.” Soren shut the file. “No one tested her after she opened her eyes.”

The mark on my stomach pulsed under the coat, faint and hot. I did not care about their file.

“Where is my father?”

None of them answered. Kael looked at me, then at Lucius. “Where is her father?”

Lucius hesitated. Half a second. Maybe less. “The debt was settled by delivery,” he said. “The house does not keep the men who bring the blood.”

“That is not where,” Kael said.

“It is all I was given.”

Liar. I heard it. Kael heard it too. His jaw flexed, and he did not push, not in that room, not with four other men already affected and a crowd still watching us like a show that had not ended.

“He sold me,” I said. “Or someone did. You do not get to shrug and call it delivery.”

Lucius’s smile did not reach his eyes. “Miss Hale, the house buys what is brought. We do not keep the bringers.”

“Move,” he told me.

We left through a side door. Night air hit my bare legs. The coat smelled like him, and underneath it I was painfully aware of myself, and I knew they could tell because Malakai groaned like it hurt.

Five jets waited on the private strip. Black, enormous crests on the tails I did not know, lights lining the stairs, staff who did not look at my knees. My life had been a kitchen and a red-stamped letter. This was a row of palaces with wings.

“Of course you each brought a fucking plane,” I said.

Kael pointed at the first. “She flies with me.”

“No,” Lucien said. “She flies with me. You already had your hands on her. I am not sitting in another aircraft knowing what your touch did to her.”

“Nothing like that was agreed,” Cassian said. “No one gets her alone. Not you. Not him. If I know she is in a closed cabin with one of you, I will land that jet on yours.”

Malakai grinned, teeth too many, his body still visibly tense beneath his clothes. “Wolf touched her first, and now he wants the only seat. Careful, Kael. She reacted from one grab. Imagine what happens if you get an hour alone with her.”

“I am not getting an hour,” Kael said. “None of us is.”

“Because you cannot trust yourself,” Soren said, quiet, the file still in his hand. “None of you can. Her reaction is in the air. It is not a suggestion. It is a pull. I am not putting any one of you in a cabin with it.”

Lucien swore. “Then she comes with all of us. I am not trailing behind while Kael sits ten feet from her after what already happened. Look at us. None of this stays hidden. If she is on a plane, every man in that cabin is going to know it.”

“That is the point,” Cassian said. “No one gets to pretend he is the calm one.”

They all looked at me. At the coat. At the way I held it closed. Shame and heat tangled so hard I wanted to scream.

“I can tell how badly your body reacted,” Lucien said again, lower. “And if she gets on my jet, I will not pretend I do not notice.”

“That is why she does not get on your jet,” Cassian said. “Or his. One plane. All five of us. She sits where we can see who reaches.”

Malakai’s laugh went thin. “Agreed. I want to watch which of you breaks first. I already know what this is doing to me.”

Kael hated it. I saw it. He nodded anyway. “One jet. The rest follow.”

Inside, the cabin was leather and low gold light and had too many seats for a girl in a borrowed coat. I sat because my knees were done. The coat gaped when I did. I yanked it shut. Too late. Four of them had already looked. Kael did not. He stood with his back to the window, his body still painfully tense.

Cassian dropped into the seat across from me like the argument had bored him and my presence had not. “Now you have the names. Do not waste them.”

Lucien took the seat at my other side and did not pretend he was unaffected. “Move another inch, Lyria, and I will stop talking.”

Malakai sat opposite, smiling at the clutch of my hands on the coat. “And yes, I can still tell what his touch did to you. It is driving me insane. Say the word and I will show you exactly how much worse this can get.”

“Shut your mouth,” Kael said.

“Make me,” Malakai said. “You are as affected as I am. She shifts, and every one of us notices. That is why no one wanted her alone. Not mercy. We would have lost control before the wheels left the ground.”

Cassian did not deny it. Lucien’s jaw worked. Kael’s silence was worse than a yes.

Soren had not sat. He stood in the aisle with the file open, eyes moving from the page to my wrist, then back. “Hold still.”

The engines woke. The other four jets turned behind us, lights sliding over the runway. No one watched them. They watched me. The tension in the closed air was thick enough that Lucien’s hands cracked the armrest and Cassian’s fangs touched his lip and did not retreat. Kael’s control was a lie. His posture told it.

Soren turned a page. His rings chimed once.

“Her blood is changing,” he said.

The cabin went dead quiet. I looked down. The coat had slipped. The heat mark Kael’s hand had left on my stomach was not fading anymore.

It was darker.