Invincible: The Curse of Avalon #4 Read online

  Grumbling quietly under my breath, I assessed the situation: giant incubus draped over the top of me, and his long arms encompassing me. There was a forearm under my boobs, and a heavy shoulder and bicep over my shoulders. That in and of itself wouldn’t be so bad, but his leg I swore weighed about seventy-five pounds alone. Not only was it flung over me, but hitched under my knees, too. How in the hell did he manage this? This last dream must have been a doozy. That coupled with sexy-session number two where Mathias exhausted me, and no sleep the night before thanks to Bash and Xander I was fucking exhausted.

  Okay, think, Ava. Perhaps if I shimmy my shoulders out and duck under his arms… then I can shift off to the side and slide out.

  The intense pressure in my abdomen says, “Hey, ain’t nobody got time fo’ ‘dat!”

  So I opted for plan “B”, and stabbed my finger pointedly into his chest. Hard. He couldn’t feel pain much, unless he was aroused, so I was not sure how this would work. “Hey. Mathias. Dammit, let go, I need to pee.”

  The damn Roman jerk barely shifted. Goddammit!

  “Mathias! Come on!” I shoved him with my entire fist this time. “Septimus! Wake the fuck up!” I hoped his moniker given to him as a child would help. Nope. Not even an eye flutter.

  Drastic times call for drastic measures. “All right, I tried to warn you,” I muttered. Still feeling his hardness against my hip, I shimmied down some until I could reach him with my hand—it’s not difficult to do so, because he’s, ah, quite…endowed. I palmed his morning “wood” in my hand, softly at first—scowling at myself because even with the fact that I had to pee, this was severely turning me on. Fucking Avalon seduction magic…

  Well, if I could finally use the bathroom, I could act on the magic. Grinning slyly to myself, I slid my hand down his cock, taking as much of him as I can, and firmly grasped his long length, while my other fingers clawed into his bicep. I winced, knowing that I was probably leaving some nasty marks and anyone else it’d hurt. A lot. But, Mathias had a thing for pain: he liked it. It was made quite apparent by the long, seductive moan that escaped his mouth. And—victory—he shifted.

  “Oh thank god!” I quickly rolled out of bed and dashed like Albert Einstein being chased by a horde of brain-eating zombies to the bathroom, leaving Mathias in bed to groan, and go, “What the—?”

  “Sorry, handsome! You were sitting on my bladder!” I shouted back, as I kicked the door shut behind me, and finally, blissfully did my business. It was almost as euphoric as the orgasm he gave me a few hours ago, and I snorted to myself as I washed my hands. My life has really become a bunch of potty humor. Potty humor, and dick jokes. I supposed that’s what happened when you lived with—and were engaged—to four guys.

  Not just mere guys, though. Incubus demons, cursed over the years by Morgaine le Fay—yes, that Morgaine le Fay—over the centuries under different identities and glamours to do her bidding.

  And, King Arthur, Camelot, and Avalon? All true, but what is known about them is… skewed. See, the legends aren’t exactly true as the stories would have you believe. For starters, King Arthur was a megalomaniacal madman, intent on taking over humanity. Why? Not quite sure, other than he’s being manipulated by Nimue. Not “the lady of the lake”—there was no such thing. But an evil, dark, shadow “fae” from the pits of the Underrealms. For what purpose? Not exactly sure, either, but surely she had a reason. A shitty one at that.

  And, Sir Lancelot? Well, he was really an incubus, first to be cursed by my mother, Marian Dawson. Or, otherwise known as Morgaine le Fay. Again. The bitch really got around, let me tell you.

  But, being immortal, and having to steal the sexual essences from women to survive over the years—and ew—my father had lived a long time, only now he went by Lachlan Steele. And somehow, Morgaine glamored herself into someone else, conned Lachlan into sleeping with her to conceive me: Avalon “Ava” Dawson.

  But, since he was an incubus, and she basically human, the product was me, a cambion. The only sort of supernatural being that could successfully have sex with an incubus and not be harmed by it.

  Of course, we were rare. There was only one other in existence: Emrys Ambrosius, otherwise known as Merlin. Yes, that Merlin. The movies and books didn’t do him justice. He’s commonly portrayed as smart, venerable, and wise.

  The real Merlin went by “Rhys”—rhymed with “piss”—his words, not mine. And, the real Merlin was nuts. Certifiable of Macadamia University, graduated with batshit crazy honors. He was promiscuous, immature, and incredibly powerful. That part of the legends was correct.

  And, long story short, Morgaine le Fay had been part of a long-standing plan to spirit the isle of Avalon into the holy grail—really just a clay vessel—to hide it away from Arthur when he began to turn dark. And, she kidnapped me and did a ritual putting all of that magic in me. So now, not only did I have my father’s gift of “invisibility,” but now I had all this seductive, healing magic inside me as well. Thank god I had four incubus protectors, or else I’d probably implode from sexual combustion.

  Now, Avalon was all that stood between Arthur’s twisted reign of humanity, and Nimue’s plot to resurrect Camelot—the kingdom spirited away in it’s own realm centuries ago by the witches of Avalon at the time. Some of them. A few remained to continue the Avalonian traditions for when they’d be needed: when Avalon would be resurrected again.

  And, resurrected it was on the guys’ rural Minnesota property. Why Minnesota? Because apparently, miles away had once contained a stone tablet Merlin and the witches years and years ago put the spell to bring Avalon back to Earth to protect it from Arthur. It had sat, unassuming, in a tourist museum in Alexandria, Minnesota, and was commonly known as the Kensington Runestone. Its magic had subconsciously driven supes like mine and countless others here over the years, and now Minnesota contained a very broad supernatural-being population.

  Which brought us to now. Now, we—Mathias, Trystan, Sebastian, Xander, and I—were waiting for Prince Mordred to return to us and tell us when it was time to come battle his father.

  In the meantime, I was just enjoying time with my guys: laughing, living… fucking. A lot of fucking. I mean… with four insatiably-sexy incubus demons as fiancé’s…it was to be expected. Some of the magic had worn off, but my love for them hadn’t. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Just the four guys, and me, against the world.

  Well, five really if you counted Rhys. But I was not screwing him. I was however pretty sure he was screwing some of the witches of Avalon. Probably all of them, knowing him. And between him, my guys, the five dogs, a wolf that lived in the house things got quite chaotic and messy often.

  I loved every second of it, really. Except for when I had to pee. Or I slid into the toilet when one of the guys— ahem ahem Trystan! —forgot to put down the toilet seat.

  And I was forcing myself to enjoy every second of it too, because who knew how long it’d last?

  Thankfully, the time in Camelot moved much slower. For every week that passed here on Earth, maybe a day passed over there. Which gave us an advantage of sorts, because saving my father, and defeating Arthur and that heinous, rotten, skankbitch Nimue was going to take a lot of luck, balls, and effort.

  As instructed by Mordred—Prince of Camelot and leader of the Avalonian Rebel Army—we were waiting to make a move until we heard from him. So far it’d been over a week, and silence, so we hoped everything was okay. If we didn’t hear from him in another week, we were just going in, guns blazing so to speak, and that was not a good idea.

  In the meantime, we were taking advantage of the downtime—well, it was sort of downtime. Much of that was spent helping get the witches of Avalon settled into their new lives. They’d been living in a time-limbo for years, and now that time was moving normally for them again they needed things like food, clothing… that sort of thing. And guess who’s job it was to figure that out?

  The damn High Priestess’, that’s who. I still wasn’t comfortable
with that title. But, it was what it was.

  Ugh, why am I thinking about this now? I seemed to do a lot of thinking while on the “can”. The Throne of Silence. I frowned in contemplation, the muscles of my jaw contracting and shifting, and felt a stinging pain on my chin. No fucking way.

  I stood immediately—not having to bother with pants or underwear because I was naked as the day I was born—and glanced into the mirror with a scowl. “Sonofabitch!” I jabbed at the bright red zit forming on my chin; now that I knew it was there, I wasn’t going to be able to ignore it.

  “What’s wrong, Avie?” Mathias called back, with worry.

  Grumbling under my breath as I squeezed and prodded at it—which only made it worse—I reached for one of the bottles of things I kept stocked on the counter of Mathias’ bathroom. I had a similar stash in each of the guys’ bathrooms thanks to two-day delivery, and Mathias, being the preener he was—but would never admit it—actually put some things in my bathroom. When I lifted the bottle of toner, I noticed it felt… lighter. I cocked a brow, holding the light green bottle up to the light; sure enough, half of it was gone. Seriously?

  “Mathias, did you use my stuff?” I called through the door at him.

  “Um…”

  I smirked, picturing his cheeks turning bright red. “Ugh. Seriously, you’re a fucking incubus! You don’t have to worry about ugly things like acne and shit.” Grumbling, I fumbled through a drawer for some cotton balls and doused it with the contents of the half-empty bottle.

  “I’m sorry!” He said, his voice closer. He must have gotten up and was on the other side of the door. “I just wanted to try it. It smells good; I liked it.”

  “‘It smells good’, he says.” I clicked my tongue reproachfully, and staring at my reflection with a scowl, I started dabbing the stinging liquid all over my chin.

  “I’ll buy you more, I swear!”

  I rolled my eyes in irritation but couldn’t fight the grin that spread over my face. He was so adorable, seriously. “I’ll buy you your own, ya jerk. Just don’t touch my stuff! I am having a zit emergency!”

  He snorted from his room through the door. “A zit emergency?”

  My eyes narrowed at him, even though he couldn’t see them through the wall of the bathroom door.

  “You’re glaring at me, aren’t you?” His tone was amused, he was totally mocking my skin situation.

  “Yes, I am.” That only sent him into a fit of gentle laughter. “Come on, how would you know how traumatic it is? Have you ever looked like anything other than fucking perfect, Spartacus?”

  “You look fucking perfect, Ava. So stop it,” he scolded, and I felt my mouth quirk into a grin, as I reached for a tub of cream that sat next to his—whatever the hell it was. I think it was shaving stuff. Seriously…oils, creams…he was such a diva. I snorted to myself.

  That was, until I opened the lid and without paying much attention, I dove my finger in and started swiping it on my face… white cream, beard hair, and all.

  Wait—what!?

  “You didn’t.” This wasn’t cute anymore, this was war. Screw Arthur, screw Camelot: it was on. Ava versus anyone who messed with my beauty supply arsenal. Mathias was going to get it, somehow.

  “Didn’t what?”

  I grabbed a nearby towel and wiped the offending substance off of my face. Glaring into the jar I found short, dark hairs caught along the top and sides. “Dammit, dickweed! You didn’t.”

  “Didn’t what?” He demanded, his tone almost a slight whine.

  “Fuck me, you’re getting to be just as bad as Trystan,” I muttered under my breath. Angrily, I opened the door, and thrusted the offending object into his line of view. Quite a feat, since he towered over me but I didn’t care.

  “What are you—” His gaze tracked down, and he frowned sheepishly. “Oh, yeah… I wanted to try that stuff too. Guess I forgot to close it when I shaved.”

  I slapped my hand against my forehead and swiped it down my face, screaming quietly into my palm.

  A pair of strong, long arms wrapped around me, and I was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that I was still totally naked, and the entire length of myself was now pressed up against the smoldering golden-hued skin of Mathias. Oh hell… I shuddered at his proximity, his presence sending sharp tingles down my limbs that resonated and rested finally between my legs. And there it was, that Avalon desire was back.

  I pulled my hand away from my face and glared up at him. His face was serious, but his eyes were anything but. The maroon-rimmed irises and a playful shimmer in his deep brown eyes betrayed him. One of his large hands was pressed against my back, and he traced his fingers down the length of my spine, until it rested on my bare ass cheek. Oh fuck… “Seducing me isn’t going to work, Mathias. You got beard hair in my face cream! I have a zit! I—”

  My protests were silenced by Mathias’ deep, probing kiss and before I realized, I’d completely sank into it, heart, mind, and body, totally forgetting what I was perturbed about.

  He broke the kiss and tipped his forehead against mine, smirking gently.

  “I’m still ticked at you, Spartacus,” I said, my voice low and husky. I could practically feel my eyelids become weighted under the heft of his brown-eyed stare, drinking in my face and body.

  “I’m sorry, I’ll buy you more,” he said, leaning forward and placing a series of soft nips from my jaw to my ear. My teeth clenched gently, and the small act of shifting my chin and the sharp pain of the zit brought me back to reality. My head snapped up, and I glared, shaking a finger at him.

  “Oh, you naughty Roman jerk,” I said, laughing shortly as I fought to get out of his grasp, but he was relentless. He wouldn’t really hold me if I didn’t want to be, but he knew damn well I didn’t mind. At all. I burst into laughter finally, at the ridiculousness of it and the thought of Mathias primping in the mirror using all my beauty products. The image of him, with a yellow face mask all over that perfect golden skin of his flashed through my mind, and I started laughing harder.

  “What?” He asked, eyeing me oddly.

  “I’m just picturing you primping with all my crap and it’s hilarious!” I managed to gasp out through fits of laughter. “Six foot seven, a billion pounds of muscle—and he plays with beauty products!”

  Mathias pursed his lips in an attempt to scowl, but even he couldn’t resist the urge to start laughing uproariously. “I guess it is kind of ridiculous huh? Now you understand why I don’t let Xander in here more than once a week. The amount of shit he’d give me for all hair crap and whatnot—I just can’t take it. At least I can remember to hide it once a week.”

  “Now you can just blame it on me,” I said, with a wink. “And then he can do his obsessive crap and I don’t have to worry about getting your damn beard hair all over my shit.” He snickered while I raised my hand to his scruffy jaw. “Seriously do you like shave twice a day?”

  He shrugged as he rubbed his hands mindlessly up and down my upper arms, the tips of his fingers dragging languidly over my skin, causing gooseflesh to form. I wasn’t cold, but Mathias was always seemingly molten to the touch. “No. I’m not that hairy, jeez.”

  Smirking, I ran my hand down the length of his chest and skated my fingers over the swoops and valleys of his rigid stomach. “Do you all have to wax or something? Or do you just not get hairy except for like…” Mathias’ eyes turned heavy as I moved my hand lower, to his still-hardened cock. “…here?” I grinned up at him.

  “Something like that. All part of the incubus curse. Oh hell…” He groaned, his head rolling onto his shoulders as I cupped his cock—well some of it—in my hand and massaged.

  “So, it’s not like a spell or something?” I inquired innocently but feeling particularly impish. “Not like, ‘remove-us pube-us’ or something like that?” I tried to hold in my laugh as his gaze snapped upward and he cocked a brow at me.

  “Did Trystan tell you about that?” He asked, and I shook my head, biting my lip to stifle
my laugh when he realized. “Oh it was you outside of Bash’s room that day! You were listening to our conversation!”

  I laughed wildly. “And you think girls talk about weird stuff. Manscaping. Pfft.”

  Mathias, with a molten-hot stare, stalked towards me gently until I was backed up against the bed. He leaned over me until his face was just a whisper from mine, and my breath caught as he pinned me to the bed with the wide expanse of his upper body. And now I was goner. One-hundred-percent, call the coroner, sign the certificate, time of death: now. All thoughts began to completely evaporate from my brain, including why I was mad in the first place.

  My lips parted and I waited for him to find them with his, but he bypassed them altogether, aiming for the soft spot on my neck. He knew damn straight that was a horrifically sensitive spot of mine. Well, everything was nowadays but that especially. “Oh hell…” I mumbled, feeling my eyes roll back into my head as he trailed little nips and kisses over the side of my neck, and over the shell of my ear. I tensed, and fisted the sheets under me, my jaw clenching as he began to palm one of my breasts. Just as I began to moan, the red spot on my chin began to throb again. Ouch.

  “Dammit!” I cursed profusely as I struggled to roll out from under him. I could not forget it, even with the prospect of being seduced by the hot Roman currently giving me an odd look from his deep brown, brooding eyes. “This hurts,” I pouted, jutting out my lower lip but it pulled at the skin and made it worse.

  Mathias grinned and chuckled, kneeling and sitting back on his calves, crossing his arms over the massively-wide expanse of his chest. “What hurts?”

  I scowled. “I’m not going to show you. But it hurts. Seriously—you guys don’t get this stuff do you? Zits? Body odor? Weird, human things, right?”

  He shrugged. “I guess I never thought about it, but… not really, no.”

  “Hmmph. And I’m half incubus right? Or would that make me a succubus?” I scratched my head in confusion. “I never could figure that out.”