Vacation Hell: Princess of Hell #4 (11 page)

I
should dump
her and dive into the nearest canal.
Perhaps if he escaped her presence, then Tristan’s tumultuous emotions would calm the fuck down.

The strong feelings plaguing him in regards to her were getting out of hand. The woman was involved with three other guys. She had a kid! Yet she teased him, hinted that perhaps he should become her fourth. A part of him wanted to shout yes.

No. No. And no.

He didn’t believe in a polygamous relationship. He wasn’t a guy who shared his girlfriends. Yet, Muriel wasn’t like anyone he’d ever met. Not even close. She drew him on so many levels, the erotic one being only a fraction of it.

He found her attractive. Outspoken. Intriguing. And he had enough magic within to recognize the power within her. But it was more than that. He felt an instant connection. A sense of recognition that seemed to indicate she was the one.

But damn did she come with lots of baggage.

All these thoughts and more went through his head as he carried her into the palace that, even in the few years since he’d first arrived, never failed to impress him with its delicate beauty. A fragile splendor that trembled as an explosion shook it. He clutched Muriel tighter as he braced his sea legs on the rolling floor.

“What’s happening?” he shouted to a squadron of guards who came trotting for the entrance.

“We’re under attack, my lord,” announced the amphibian captain of the guard.

Boom
! A great rumble shook the palace, and there was a tinkle, as of glass, as shards of shell fell from above and shattered on the harder marble floor.

“Who is it? Where is my father?” As Tristan barked questions, he set a squirming Muriel to her feet.

He grasped her hand and pulled her with him, for some reason unwilling to let her out of his sight as he sought out his father.

The throne room had not suffered the explosions gracefully. Some of the fluted columns had cracked and fallen. A few had landed on the courtiers who always hung around waiting for the newest undersea scandal.

His father was pacing in front of his throne, his face florid with agitation as he yelled. “What do you mean the Undines breached the mountain? I have guards to prevent those traitors from coming near the palace.”

Sir Mackeral, a being more fish than anything, even with his two stubby legs, flapped his fins. “The mermaids must have sent them, my king. The Undines only obey their command. I have rallied our troops. They will soon rout the interlopers.”

“Of course we’ll beat them back. But I want more than that. I want to punish those with the nerve to attack in the first place. I know the mermaids are behind this. And I also know we’ll be feasting on their ribs tonight.”

“But the better question,” Tristan said, “is why they did this. Why now? Is this part of the prophecy or a distraction?”

“The mermaids have found Jenny,” Neptune announced.

“Who’s Jenny?” Tristan asked.

“The girl who is going to open a rift and let something bad through if we don’t get to her in time,” grumbled Neptune. “The bloody mermaids and then those damned sirens hid her presence from me. “

“But who is she?”

Neptune stroked his beard. “Remember how I said you were an only child? Turns out I was wrong. Again. You have a sister, son.”

“A sister?”

“One with a killer voice, and I mean that quite literally. She’s got a deadly musical talent, one imbued with potent magic. If she sings like the mermaids want her to, then we’re in a lot of goldfish poop.”

He couldn’t help a shudder. Giant koi made quite the mess. “So what do we need to do?” asked Tristan.

“Simple,” Muriel interjected. “Kill her. If she’s dead, then the problem is solved.”

Before anyone could reply to Muriel’s rather permanent solution, a commotion arose.

“My king.” An excited starfish waved a conch shell. “We’re just received word that a large ship has entered our waters.”

“Blow the fucker up!” Neptune slammed the end of his trident on the floor.

The starfish wilted. “Um, my king, is that wise? The Lord of Hell and his admiral are on board.”

“Lucifer and Charon are here?” Muriel pushed past him and confronted Tristan’s father. “I need to get back to them right now.”

For a moment, Neptune gaped at Muriel. “How did you get here?”

“He brought me.” She jabbed a finger in Tristan’s direction. “But I need out, and apparently you’re the only one who can do it. Draw me a portal or something, would you?”

Neptune shook his head. “No can do. The mountain is in lockdown mode. No portals in or out.”

“But I have to get to that ship.”

Another explosion shivered the place. Neptune’s brows drew together even tighter. “I don’t have time to ferry you, Muriel. I have a palace and city to defend. Tristan, park Muriel somewhere safe then get your ass to the surface and see what’s up with Lucifer. He’s here for a reason, and it better not be to say I told you so.”

“Told you what?”

Boom
!

More dust and shards fell from the ceiling.

Tristan’s father turned even redder with anger. “I don’t have time for this. Take the princess and go.”

When Muriel wouldn’t budge, and began insisting that Neptune obey her, Tristan tossed her over a shoulder and carried her off with him.

She pounded on his back, which served to loosen the taut muscles in it.

“Put me down, you large, delicious brute.”

“Are you going to act like a lady if I do?”

A stream of giggles was her answer.

So he kept going with her, but not to a room where he could lock her up. He already suspected nothing would keep her restrained, and since he was already going to the surface, he might as well bring her with him.

Not that he told her his plan. He let her rant and rave, quite entertained by her devious threats to his life—and manhood.

Arriving at the not often used clam chutes, he dismissed the single guard on duty with a brusque, “You’re needed by the entrance to repel invaders.” The chitinous soldier clacked off on several legs.

Tristan set Muriel on her feet. She stepped away from him and crossed her arms over her chest.

“You can’t lock me up. I won’t stay.”

“I know. Which is why I brought you here.”

Muriel eyed the giant closed shells with narrowed eyes. “You’re going to feed me to a clam? That’s new. Most guys would be looking for ways to eat my clam.”

He grimaced. “That was really not the most attractive reference I’ve heard for that act.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.” She smirked. “But if it’s any consolation, it is delicious. Especially if slurped right.”

He wouldn’t think about licking that pink flesh between her thighs and sucking on the hidden pearl. But he would definitely get an erection apparently. Good thing for the robe.

Or not. It didn’t seem to stop her from unerringly knowing where his cock stood at attention as she stepped close to him and grasped it through the thin material. Her lips rose and hovered only a hairsbreadth from his.

“I need to get to that ship. And if your dad won’t help me, then you will.”

He almost said how, except her grip tightened and her lips meshed with his. Fire lit all of his nerve endings at once. Heat flushed his skin, and captured by her sensual spell, he couldn’t move away. Didn’t want to.

Instead, his arm wrapped around her and tugged her close to his body, the flimsy fabric of the robes a silky deterrent. An annoying barrier.

As he tugged the robe from her shoulders, letting it spill to the floor, so did she disrobe him, leaving him naked but her clad in the ragged bikini.

“We really shouldn’t be doing this right now. I am needed elsewhere,” he said in a protest that sounded feeble even to him.

“You’re needed all right, here and now. By me,” she growled against his mouth before nipping his lower lip.

She pushed at him, stronger than she looked, until his back pressed against the wall. Her lips devoured his, and her tongue slid along his in a sensual path of decadence. Her hand tugged at him, pulled at his cock, sliding back and forth along his erect shaft.

She controlled him in that moment, had him pumping his hips in time to her fisting. But Tristan wasn’t a puppet. She wasn’t the only one who could command.

Time she realized that. His hand slid down the curve of her waist to her rounded buttock. He cupped the full size, enjoying the weight, and briefly thought of grabbing them both, raising her, and impaling her on his cock. But that would mean her winning.

His fingers trailed from her perfect ass to her thighs then between them. He cupped her mound, feeling the hot heat pulsing from her sex.

A tremble went through her, a soft gasp. Moisture wet his fingers. She might be using him to fuel her magic, but she wasn’t untouched. She was just as aroused as him.

The knowledge made him bolder. He slid a finger between her damp nether lips, feeling her flesh pulse around it as he pushed it in. Her hips thrust. He slid in a second finger. She tightened her channel around him. He shoved in a third to stretch her, and her grip on his shaft became almost painful.

Together, they began to move, hips thrusting, hands twisting and pulling and rubbing. The air around them grew static, magic hummed, the smell of sex permeated the air, and his body burned with liquid desire.

Their breaths came in pants, faster and faster, trying to keep up with the rapid pumping of his fingers in her sex and her hand on his cock.

He couldn’t say who initiated it or how it happened. Yet they found themselves on the floor, her head bobbing over his cock, her sweet mouth inhaling him while his lips sucked at the swollen pearl of her clit, her flavorful honey ambrosia to his taste buds.

When her climax hit, a shudder went through her then another, and he jabbed his tongue into her sex to catch the wild waves. Her hard suction at his cock drew his own orgasm, and he shot his salty seed into her willing mouth, his hips arching from the floor to drive deep into her throat.

It was the most intense experience ever, and in the aftermath, he could feel the magic that coursed between them. A magic that tethered. A magic that made her almost glow as she scrambled to her feet, her body flushed and beautiful.

I want her.
Not just now but forever.

He lay there stunned. Possibly in love. Definitely terrified. Because, in that moment, he realized that no amount of fighting or arguing would work. He belonged to her.

D
ammit
all to Hell and back. Despite my attempt to use Tristan only to power my magical batteries, I’d still managed to bind us together.

The thing was I couldn’t seem to find an ounce of remorse in me. No matter how much I denied I’d wanted Tristan from the first moment we’d met.

I also suffered from chagrin at the realization that I’d have to explain to Auric and the others that our family had grown. Annoyance also suffused me, given Tristan looked somewhat horrified at what had just happened. Smug satisfaction also coursed through my body because now Tristan belonged to me. And finally, I felt irritation as I realized that, even though I had refilled part of my magical battery, Neptune wasn’t kidding when he said portals weren’t happening during the lockdown of Atlantis.

I stomped my foot. “Dammit. Who does a girl need to blow to get out of here?”

“You already blew the right prince,” was his saucy reply. “And if you’d bothered to listen before instead of mauling me—”

“Mauling? I like that word. It sounds so ferocious.” I growled and swiped at him.

He didn’t step back, but his eyes did smolder with interest, and was it me or did a certain part of him twitch, too?

“The reason I brought you here—”

“To have your wicked, debauched way.”

“—was so we could use the clam to get you to the surface. See those holes behind them in the wall? Those are chutes, much like torpedo ones, used to get them to the surface fast.”

“Why can’t you just bubble me?”

“Because if there’s too much agitation in the water, it could burst, and to rise rapidly in one of those means pressurization issues. The clam is your best bet.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth and not trying to trick me into getting into one of those while you swim off into battle and steal all the glory?”

“You’re the devil’s daughter. You know I’m not lying.”

The truth oozed from him like a sickly miasma. But that didn’t mean I let him off the hook. “Then you won’t mind a little test then. Do you like me?”

“Yes.” How interesting; he didn’t even grit his teeth when he said it.

“Do you want me?”

“Yes.”

More truth. “So when can I expect you to move in?” Because that was the next step.

“Never.”

Truth? I glared. “What do you mean never? We are tied together, you and I.”

“For now.”

I would have said forever because I didn’t do one-night fucks, but another explosion shook the place. Chunks of rock rattled from the ceiling.

“Get in the clam, quick.” Tristan slammed a fist on the closest one, and it sprang open, its inside pink and moist.

As I righted my bikini, I shook my head. “Hell no. I’d rather take my chances with a bubble.”

“Fine. But don’t come crying if it pops and you drown.”

As if he’d let that happen. He could deny it all he wanted, but he was mine, and he’d do whatever he needed to keep me alive. Or so I hoped as Tristan did his thing, his lips pursing and blowing a sphere around my body.

He floated my bubble to a chute. Stepping back, he slapped a shell on the wall. I could almost feel the magical barrier that sprang into place. I wondered why for only a second before water began to fill the space around me. None got in my bubble, yet once again, that tiny iota of trepidation made me eye it with distrust.

But it was the bubble or the clam if I wanted to get to the surface.

Before I could brace myself, the bubble shot up, whipping upwards with so much force my ears felt as if they would explode. And then my bubble did break!

For a moment, I thought Tristan was right and I’d have to suffer an ‘I told you so’, except the luminance in the chute showed me the real reason my bubble had popped.

I was attacked. The webbed fingers swiped at me, missing my face but drawing scratches along my arm. Mouth closed and treading water, I faced my first mermaid.

An ugly bitch, too, with waving seaweed-green hair, a sickly pallor, and big eyes. But it was the jagged nails and pointed teeth that worried me most. I refused to end my first date with Tristan as shredded meat.

I yanked the chopsticks from my hair and jabbed. I shish kebob-ed her ass, but before I could pull my needles free, arms wrapped around my legs and dragged me down.

When I popped out onto the floor of the clam room, I heaved a happy breath of air.

Tristan said, “Now will you get in the clam?”

I did, and it was just as slimy as feared.