Page 112 of Playing with Fire

No, it was the perfect time for Quinn to do a very thorough examination of me with his tongue, and I groaned when Quinn pulled away. He cupped my face with his hands. “They hurt you. They took you from me.”

“You have a one-track mind, little Samuel. Bailey, it might be easier if you let him have his way, especially since he went through all the effort to tie you to the wall. While it’s a good idea on how to keep her out of trouble, you may want to move her upstairs where the air is fresher, little Samuel. You might want to know she has sedatives in her pocket along with a vial of pixie dust. The sedatives in particular might help keep her from doing something we regret.”

“Traitor!”

“I view it as pursuing my grandson’s interests.”

Quinn smirked, gave a playful lick of his lips that made my toes curl in my shoes, and peeked down my shirt. “I see you haven’t used your beautiful breasts as a most royal treasury this time.”

“Quinn!”

A single touch of his lips to the side of my throat left me whimpering and needing more. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured.

His hands skimmed down my sides and dipped into my pocket. He retrieved the vial and bottle of sedatives. “This could work nicely. Sedatives for here.” He paused, leaned towards me, and whispered in my ear, “How does a little bit of dust and a whole lot of lust later sound to you?”

Yes, please.

Quinn’s grandfather chuckled. “Save your loving reunion for later, little ones. Have you learned how many of them are here?”

“Audrey has five sisters. They’re all in torpor. Audrey’s awake, and she’s caring for the hive’s sole young, a female, maybe two or three years old.” Something about Quinn’s tone changed, and the growl I so loved took on a frightening edge. “There are at least ten petrified surrogates who may be with whelp or child. The phoenixes avoided them. I can’t say the same for the incubi and succubi on the roof. I suspect they were infected with dust.”

Quinn’s grandfather sighed. “Our family will take care of the whelp and the unborn. The sins of the parents are not the sins of the child. What else do you know?”

For a long moment, Quinn’s dark eyes stared into mine, and he lifted his hands to run his fingers through my hair. “They tried to take her from me. They meant to try again, and again, and again, until they succeeded. They won’t.”

“You have her safely trapped now. Separate her from the wall so we can take her to a better—safer—place. Where are the females nesting?”

“Upstairs, top floor. Their nest is there. They might have eggs.” Quinn’s snakes hissed and flared their hoods. “New eggs. It looked like Audrey was settling in to guard the nest.”

“The eggs will be safe. If you ask your bride to hold them and keep them warm, I’m sure she won’t mind. After all, she mothered a pair of phoenixes. You chose well.”

“The little bastards pecked me,” I mumbled.

Quinn’s gaze snapped to my arm, which was still stained with my blood. The orange tint to my blood hadn’t faded. “The phoenixes did that to you?”

“They’re phoenixes, little Samuel, and she has a hint of ambrosia in her blood.”

“Ambrosia?” Quinn pulled away, turned to his grandfather, and tensed, his feathered wings rustling and his tail lashing from side to side. “She’s been poisoned with ambrosia?”

“She seemed rather distant for a while but hasn’t suffered any harm as far as I can tell. Either her immunities are far stronger than I ever imagined, or someone in her ancestry had a romp with a god. All things considered, I suspect one of her relatives wasn’t truthful on the identity of a father. Perhaps a grandfather or a great-grandfather? It would explain where her immunities came from.” With a chuckle, Quinn’s grandfather stepped on my husband’s tail. “Do settle, little Samuel. We have work to do. If there are live eggs, we need to get them into a proper nest and soon. This place is far too cold for healthy eggs.”

Quinn growled. “I don’t know if there are any eggs, only that the five females are in torpor on the nest.”

“Remove your bride from the wall so we can take her somewhere safer and warmer. It’s chilly and damp here. It wouldn’t do to let her get cold.”

The stone released me, and with a startled cry, I fell against Quinn. My wrists remained bound together with bands of glossy stone. Wrapping his arms around me, my husband pulled me close, pressed his nose to my shoulder, and breathed in deep.

His cobras vied for the right to nuzzle me, snapping at each other and hissing until they all had a turn rubbing their scaled heads against my cheek.

“Quinn?”

“All you have to do is hold the eggs in your hands for a while and keep them warm. Would that bother you?” he murmured.

“What? No, of course not.” I had held two phoenixes. “That’s it? I just need to hold them?”

“That’s all.”

Quinn’s grandfather released my husband’s tail, and it coiled around my legs. “Bailey, what little Samuel isn’t telling you is that gorgons are like birds in some ways. Our young require warmth while they are still in the egg. When they’re young, they’re very small. Their eggs grow as they do. I suspect he didn’t kill the hive because he refused to risk hurting any live eggs. We’re like that. We’ll do almost anything to prevent the death of the unborn.”