Honestly, at first it had been easy to ignore the bastard, but he was persistent and loud, pushing and pushing every time we were near her. Even now, my body was tense, trying to hold myself back from touching her more. Kissing her more. Just doing everything, more. I wanted to believe that instinctual part of me that insisted Maya was ready, but I also didn’t want to fuck up the trust that she had in me.
I loved how safe she felt with me, and I honestly didn’t want to risk that ever changing. Which was why I was hesitant, because once I got my hands on her naked and needy body, I would probably lose it until I’d fucked all my frustration into her tight heaven and marked her from the inside out. It was an irrationally strong urge that had my cock hardening further as I let out a controlled exhale, trying to focus on the council members who were now at the table, having drawn even more attention than before.
Although none of this was helped by the small snippets of Maya’s thoughts that I caught when she got far too turned on to control blocking her thoughts from me. I knew it was an unintentional action, the blocking and unblocking of that connection, but whenever she gave me some insight into her thoughts, it was both pure torture and fucking exhilarating.
Marco stood, and when Maya did as well, I followed, wrapping my arm around her waist and keeping her tucked against me. I didn’t want any of them touching her. It wasn’t necessary.
“Morning.” Anna offered a fake smile that had Maya tensing. She offered a hand to Marco, but he ignored it and greeted Lucas, who sat next to him. I didn’t miss the scowl on Anna’s face as she looked at the two of us.
“Hi Anna,” Maya offered softly, her eyes darker than before and filled with caution. Anna didn’t attempt to reach out, just nodded to both of us and sat down. Larry and Edmund greeted Marco and offered us head nods, not bothering to try to touch Maya either, which was smart because I would have probably snapped either of their wrists.
“The news was pretty heavily saturated this morning,” Lucas commented, looking amused, and then met Maya’s gaze. “You are causing quite the stir in the human world.”
“Well, she is a fugitive, so…” Anna drew out. Maya tensed slightly but took a sip of her water, keeping her expression rather blank.
“Anna, I didn’t know you had looked into Maya’s situation so much. Seems like you would have other shit to focus on,” I offered evenly. Anna let out a growl, looking down at her brunch menu as the waiter came by to take our drink orders.
I watched with amusement as Maya ran a finger down the extensive set of options, Lucas and Marco’s conversation about the media completely taking away from the attempted uncomfortable tone that Anna and the other two tried to set with their off-putting personalities.
“What would you like, miss?” The waiter’s voice held a slightly different tone to it while addressing Maya, and when I looked up, it was impossible for me to not let out a dangerous sound from my throat. His eyes moved from her chest to my face while his entire face paled to a sickly shade.
“Hmm?” Maya looked at me with concern before I shook my head.
“Just do two glasses of champagne,” I offered evenly, my eyes narrowing.
“Right away.” He scampered away and left me with a seemingly content Maya, who seemed to be not nearly as focused on the others at the table now. Which was exactly the way I preferred it.
“Could we get to the point of why we are here exactly?” Edmund asked, his voice filled with distaste at Lucas and Marco’s friendly discussion.
“And what is the point?” I mused, my fingers brushing through the pink streak in Maya’s hair that seemed to shimmer against her skin.
“I want to know why you are returning to the realm,” Larry all but blurted out.
“We have some business to attend to,” Marco explained evenly.
“After all this time?” Edmund frowned. “I find that unlikely.”
“Afraid of what news we will bring back?” I chuckled. Lucas made a sound of agreement, taking a sip of his bloody mary, clearly finding all of this funny as fuck… which it was. Extremely so. I loved making Edmund and Larry uncomfortable.
Fear flashed through Edmund’s thoughts, making me realize that was very much the case. Which hadn’t been the goal, but now that he mentioned it… Maybe we needed to look through their actions with a fine-tooth comb.
“I just assumed we all shared the same goal on why we left,” he amended.
“We don’t share any of the same goals,” Marco leveled. “But if it makes you feel better, this has nothing to do with you.”
“It has to do with her,” Anna bit out, taking a sip of her martini as Maya offered a small thanks to the waiter who was delivering drinks.
“You are telling them you have a phoenix mate?” Larry frowned. “You understand the problems that will cause, right? She isn’t fully marked.”
“You didn’t seem to care about that last night,” Lucas added.
“But the realm is different, you know that,” Edmund argued.
“Why do you need to go to the realm for her?” Larry demanded.
Maya took a sip of her drink and set it down before Marco shared a look with her, our mate clearly completely comfortable with whatever we wanted to tell them. It was funny, in a way, because Maya cared about so much and to such an extreme extent when it came to those she loved… but those she didn’t? There was a reserved almost coolness to her attitude that was completely unintentional. An indifferent and apathetic sense of examination she applied to them, like right now. I could almost see her phoenix watching the group of them struggle with what to do. Almost in a predatorial fashion.
“None of your business,” Marco mused. “Besides, we won’t be long.”
“They probably want to know if she can have dragon babies after all the shit she went through.” Anna grinned as Maya’s body tensed, clearly not having expected Anna to have known about the abuse she went through. Then again, the media paired with the pictures Becky Ash had taken really painted a picture of what Maya had gone through. Not including the assumptions she was no doubt making.
“Is that true?” Larry shot back. “Are you checking the viability of her being able to breed?”
A low growl broke through my throat at his words as Maya shrank into me, her eyes darting around the table uncomfortably.
“Enough,” Marco snapped, his magic wrapping around the table and tightening. Anna smirked, looking down at her drink. “What happens between our mate and our flight is none of your fucking business. If we don’t have anything else to talk about, I am perfectly happy with ending—”
“We need to talk about something else,” Edmund added. I pulled Maya onto my lap, no longer caring about their words and wanting to comfort her. Without a fight, the woman relaxed into me, her head resting on my shoulder as she narrowed her eyes at Anna just slightly, the woman unaware of the discomfort she was causing my mate. Or maybe extremely aware of it. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the problems I knew it would cause socially, I would have killed her by now.
Simply making Maya uncomfortable was enough of a reason for me.
“Anna?” Maya asked, drawing the woman’s attention as her eyes flashed with something that looked a bit like fear.