Princess Ninja Warrior (House of Garner Book 4) Page 5

  “Yes, you’re abused,” I drawled, shaking my head. “What did you find?”

  “I’m not telling,” he sang. “Is Inez staying the night or is she getting back to the tree? Trisha was dying that she had guard duty of a damn tree, but we all feel the life and pull to it. She was setting up a ton of artillery just in case.”

  “I think we’re staying,” I sighed, glancing over at the uninvited guests.

  “Oh fuck,” Wilson whispered, catching on. “Okay, um, just fuck?”

  “Basically,” Darius agreed.

  “I’ll get the wolves and foxes starting on rooms and fast,” Hope said as she joined us. “Wilson, get me at least three all access keycards and we’ll start stripping the nicer rooms. Someone else handle refreshments and extra lunch, like now.”

  “Got it,” Wolfe muttered, taking off.

  “Let’s start with some coffee and snacks,” I told Hope. “I’ll get everyone to the espresso bar.” I announced to everyone and escorted Mother, giving her a curious look. “So, the ocean?”

  She shrugged. “When you get an urgent feeling to be somewhere and dream of its importance, you go, because you know it’s coming from somewhere you should listen.”

  Hope didn’t mess around, because wolves came in moments later and started cleaning tables, chairs, and vacuuming floors. James and Tyson came in with maps and everything they had probably already had set up in a conference room.

  “You two are in way too good of moods considering the surprise guests,” Darius muttered as coffee started brewing.

  James smirked at us. “We’ve got another destroyer and a fuck ton of ammo.”

  “A. Fuck. Ton,” Tyson echoed. “Inez is going to be thrilled. We might have found another nuclear powered merchant ship too, but we’re not sure yet. Seattle is a huge fucking score.”

  “Plus, we’re looking forward to dinner. I mean, really looking forward to it.”

  “We’re cat shifters,” Tyson chuckled, as if that said it all.

  Nick—the head chef from James’s crew—came in with a tray of breakfast goodies and set it on the bar where people were putting out fixings for coffee and more. He turned and looked at the group with a smile.

  “I apologize for not preparing for uninvited and unannounced guests, but I understand this was unexpected from your end as well. We have easy planned for lunch, as we’re having crab and crab for dinner tonight if all goes well. If anyone has any dietary restrictions, please let me know, and we’ll do our best to accommodate you.”

  “Ahh, crab season,” James sighed with a big grin.

  “Inez wanted to plot out ideas to recover abandoned pots, as she read it was a real problem in the area and could have hurt the population,” Tyson told us.

  “Of course she thought of that,” I chuckled, scrubbing the back of my neck. I smirked over at Cerdic. “Good way to get ungrounded.”

  He nodded. “Good call.”

  Nick turned to Jacob. “What’s the call on the wildlife? Do we have a lot of culling to do this time, or are we filling freezers?”

  “Your noble answers to the shifter who cooks for their coven?” a princess jeered Matilda.

  Nick turned to her and looked like he was trying not to laugh. “Our princess doesn’t allow bigotry or elitism. She’s a firm believer that everyone pulls their weight in the apocalypse, or they deserve to get eaten. She doesn’t allow anyone to look down at any in her coven. We’re supposed to tell her if anyone does and she’ll shoot them.”

  Darius snickered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I want to say she wouldn’t, but she totally would. Did she bring her sniper rifle?”

  “Of course she did, James wants a rematch,” I drawled. “We were going to get a train of building materials going and they were going to do a rematch and some hunting if needed. She’s got all her weapons.” I winced as I glanced at the group. “We should hide the ones with big bullets.”

  Several of the shifters snorted as if that would do anything other than annoy her. I glanced at Darius. “You do it. I don’t want to get grounded.”

  “How does she ground you, my son?” Mother purred.

  I cleared my throat and my face felt hot. “We’re not allowed any input on her clothing choices.” I focused on Darius again. “You’re the good husband right now building her a castle. You take her rifle.”

  He snorted. “I hope she shoots someone if they’re assholes. Fuck, it’s part of why I fell in love with her.”

  “She shot you,” I drawled.

  He shrugged. “I scared her and was probably an asshole. I still loved that she did it.”

  Jacob looked seconds from laughing. “I would suggest a thinning of the river otter population, as they’ve started a lot of trouble blocking water paths and handling those as well. Also, the moose population has exploded, as well as the coyotes.”

  I nodded and glanced over at Father. “How is everything from the wolves and bears before?”

  “Almost done,” Mother answered. “The tanner and his helpers were making a special rug for Inez when I checked a few days ago. He’s been without much work and was glad to have a lot to do again. Would Inez be open to the same deal?”

  “She said as much,” I answered, Darius nodding. “She mentioned wanting to send something to Princess Matilda now that she and Cerdic are engaged, as long as it’s not stuffed or the head. That unnerves her when she’s friends with shifters.” I shrugged when they gave me a range of looks. “She didn’t grow up around them.”

  “It unnerves us as well,” Nick muttered. “We appreciated how she handled the wolf culling situation. It had to be done and yes, don’t waste pelts, but stuffing animals or hanging heads for sport is not something shifters appreciate.”

  “I never knew that,” Mother admitted.

  “With all due respect, Princess, as Jaxon speaks highly of you as do others, but have you ever asked?” Tyson muttered, dipping his head to her as if saying he wasn’t trying to pick a fight, but most would think to check. It was a point well-landed, as I hadn’t either, and I felt bad about that.

  “We’ve got water,” Vance announced as he came jogging in. “Kristof brought Inez there first and will go round back to the water treatment next. The building’s good to go. There’s no damage or anything structurally worrying. There are some wall seams that need repairing or windows that need replacing, but nothing other than cosmetic.”

  “Water treatment online,” Asher said from the radio. “She’s flying through them today. Where do we need her next, or can she demolish in Anchorage? Apparently there is a lot there for her to take down, and they’ll get it all into containers once she does.”

  Vance brought the radio to his mouth and hit the button. “Do that. We’re good for today and we’ve got plans for tomorrow. Well, and I have something extra to make my princess happy.”

  “So does Wilson,” I warned.

  “She’ll love mine,” he promised.

  Kristof appeared and loaded up some food for Inez, thanking Nick before he was gone again.

  “What have we found for farms?” Nick asked, pulling out his notepad and jotting a few things down. “We keep finding more, but now we’re leaving it all where we find it for those staying.”

  “There is a lot here,” Father said, his tone a bit wistful. “There were a whole lot of organic farms, so not a lot died in cages or couldn’t get to food. There were a lot of greenhouses that you would think would have died without maintenance. But they must have had a bad storm or something that broke a lot of glass, because they were pretty roofless but still flourishing.”

  “You said there were huge herds of cows and pigs you found in Prince George, yes?” Matilda asked Jacob, getting in on the conversation it seemed.

  “Yes, but what we’ve already found here dwarfs what we found there, as the wolves and bears were eating the herds. Here, they just exploded and no one was eating them,” Jacob told her. “They could be set for a dairy farm, one herd had so many calves. T
hough they’re small and the cows are underfed, but that can easily be fixed.”

  “I’ve been told it wasn’t only our islands on which rumors spread that the virus was transmitted through animals and populations decimated,” Matilda said, giving me a look that I should take note.

  It was definitely something to think about and clearly we had a lot of interested ears.

  I was glad when lunch started being set out, as it would keep the visitors happy. Once they had what they needed, the rest were going to have it in the ballroom, since there were hundreds of shifters that would be staying there. But for now, keeping the “guests” busy and tended to was great.

  “Okay, so who’s officially staying, and are there more to their parties?” Wilson asked as he came in with Wolfe. “I mean, are we going to be swarmed with nobles looking for their princesses and thinking we abducted them?”

  “Yes, I’m staying, and I did tell my court I would be gone a bit,” Mother told him, Matilda and several others echoing the same.

  “Rooms are clean but bedding and mattresses are being washed so that’s where we’re at,” he said as he handed over room keys with the number on it. He might have said more, but Kristof arrived with Inez, who was about vibrating with excitement.

  “I’m totally going to win,” she said too loudly, dancing between the twins. “I’m so going to win.”

  “No way, I got the best find,” Wolfe argued.

  “I didn’t know you had anything,” Wilson growled. “No holding out on your twin.”

  Wolfe just shrugged, smiling at Inez. “Whatcha got?”

  “What?” she asked, wiggling her finger in her ears. “Sorry, damn ghosts were loud today.” I made the motion for her earbuds, as if to ask why she hadn’t worn them. She held up a book and made it dance. “I was doing research.” She glanced around and found Jacob. “Do you know about these? What if we found one of these machines and absconded with it?”

  He took the book from her and smiled before showing it to the rest of us. It was about bullet trains and China’s advancements a few years before the apocalypse. “You want to put one of these in?”

  She nodded, trying to pop her ears, sighing when it work. “Damn ghosts.” She adjusted her neck. “Yes. I know we can’t have all of the cargo trailers and whatever, but we could still have that. What if we built those instead of trying to figure out how to fix what we need to? They’re electric. Fine, fourteen cars only, but say a few are passenger, a freezer one, and some cargo.”

  “That is smart,” I praised, smiling when she beamed at me.

  “Damn, that is good,” Wilson grumbled but then wiggled his eyebrows. “Except I found a server farm here in Seattle. The system tried to backup on its server, and I followed the trail to find out where. We’ve got a server farm to check out.”

  She pursed her lips and crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s only better if there’s anything good on the servers. What if you just get a bunch of outdated bank shit that’s useless? If you get like those Netflix servers or Amazon Digital, then maybe I would give you a fighting chance.”

  “You just came up with the idea of bullet trains, not even locating the machine thing,” he argued.

  “I found two wind farms we can check out,” Vance announced. “We could totally get them hooked in on power.”

  “Assuming the corrupted didn’t take down the turbines and only the circuits got fried,” she pointed out. “I still think I win.”

  “I think Wilson depending on what he finds,” Wolfe admitted, frowning. “I found industrial vacuums. Like the big boys that output into dump trucks. I thought that would be awesome for collecting your energy beads.”

  “That is good,” she gasped, hugging him. “That’s awesome! It would be a huge help to collect them. Dude, we’ve got to get those to everyone.” She winced as she pulled away. “I get points deducted for sure. I totally forgot about getting the gas out of all those busses I flattened, and I leveled a city block we didn’t raid.”

  “Four-way tie?” Wilson offered when she seemed to seriously be considering it.

  “Yeah, we’re just all awesome,” she agreed, shaking her head when they started laughing. She glanced between Darius and I. “What about you guys?”

  I nodded over to the guests. “We’ve been handling the situation.”

  She turned and looked at them all, frowning. “Tell me they’ve not just been sitting on their asses doing nothing?” She shot them a disgusted look when the princesses stared at her like she was nuts. “You couldn’t clean rooms or strip beds? Seriously? Even the kids can do that.” She shook her head and headed towards the food. “Be of use or fuck off. Sure, just eat our food, use the power, but don’t help. Idiots.”

  “I’ve got twenty she shoots someone before the end of the day on principle alone,” James muttered.

  “Don’t, just don’t,” I grumbled, sighing when Kristof looked like he hoped she did too. “Not helping.”

  He shrugged. “I have a few I would suggest she shoot first.”

  “Great, you’re supposed to be the old, mature one,” Darius grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose.

  Inez must have veered off from the food, because she came back with a wheeled metal cart, stopping in front of a few tables of princesses that had made the faces at her. I watched as she set down a full crank churner in front of the first one.

  “The kitchen needs butter for dinner tonight and breakfast. Make some or find your own food. I’m assuming you can turn a crank as you sit on your lazy ass.”

  And then she gave out a few more of them before heading for food, muttering under her breath that maybe if she shot them in the butt they’d get their heads out of their asses.

  “I’m so in love with her,” I whispered, not even able to hide it.

  “Nick, I woves you so much,” she called over to the shifter when she saw lunch. “BLTs and crab for dinner before tons of fun. Totally makes up for the crazy.”

  I winced and headed towards her. “I think we have to reschedule tonight, my love.”

  She snorted. “No fucking way.” She paused in loading her plate when I didn’t reply. “No. I don’t care if Aether Herself comes here and visits. We’re not changing the plan. We’ve been talking about this for way too long. We have the booze and James promised.” She raised an eyebrow when I opened my mouth. “Sure, you can be grounded with Cerdic.”

  I shut my mouth and leaned down, kissing her cheek. “We can’t let good whiskey wait for us, right?”

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” she purred, wiggling her pert ass as she continued to load her plate.

  I sighed as she went for sides and drinks. Yeah, I was so damn sunk. Thank the Goddess she loved me back.

  “What’s this plan tonight she’s so excited about?” Mother asked as others joined us to eat.

  “The destroyer’s at LA,” Inez answered, her eyes full of excitement as she glanced over at us. “We’re heading there to join up with the others, and I get to fire the really big fucking guns. Finally. James is finally letting me go.”

  “Safety first, sexy bite,” James reminded her.

  She rolled her eyes. “Trisha’s my favorite. She said she’ll take me up in the fighter jet since I was aces in the helicopters. It’s not like I’m going to fly it, just ride shotgun.” She let out a little giggle. “And maybe fire the guns.”

  “She’s serious?” Mother checked, shaking her head when I nodded. “No, she’s definitely not like any princess I’ve ever met.”

  Thank the Goddess for that.

  5

  After lunch, Nora, Matilda, and the other Wessex princess, Hanna, seemed to come to some decision join up for whatever goals they were plotting. Clearly they were playing the in-law, or in-law-to-be card, but I didn’t know why. I mean, specifically. I knew they wanted goodies for their coven, like duh.

  “Is there a store we could visit?” Nora asked me so the others could hear. “We weren’t given the foresight to pack b
ags so I would ask your indulgence to get what we’d need. Get to spend some time with you as well.”

  “Get to know you,” Matilda added.

  I glanced between them and saw the smiles on the other princesses’ faces as they muttered that would be nice, very kind of me even. I had a moment to think how many times I’d played the same game to get what I wanted from settlements. I caught the looks Darius, Jaxon, and even Cerdic gave me that it was a trap of some kind. Probably not to injure me—no, that would be stupid—but there was a definite goal.

  “Sure, definitely and yeah, I’m sure you guys need some answers, the nobles too,” I agreed with a smile. I went over to one of the navigators and pulled up what I wanted, turning to Kristof with a smile. “Would you mind?”

  “I look for any excuse to have you in my arms,” he chuckled, taking the navigator. I held out my hands like a little kid asking to be picked up and he just shook his head.

  “Piggyback, monkey, or princess carry?” I asked, snickering when he gave me a look. “Right, monkey. Of course, you pick the dirtiest option.” I jumped and he easily caught me. “I could talk baby talk when you do this.”

  He sighed and tucked the navigator in his pocket.

  I peppered his face with kisses and did it. “Does wittle Kristof need huggies? Lots of kissies to make him smile?”

  “Stop, or I’m throwing you over my shoulder.”

  “That would make me puke all over you,” I cooed. “Don’t be cranky because we’re skipping nappies. We can take a bath with duckies later.”

  He broke. He burst out laughing; burying his face against my neck, he laughed so hard his whole body shook. He blurred us away and he was still laughing when he set me on my feet. “What am I going to do with you, Inez?”

  “Oh, I’m sure you have a list,” I purred, smirking when he stopped laughing and gave me a heated look. I glanced at the others who were frowning. “You’ll want to gear up for those answers.” I thanked Kristof when he broke the gate and door of the gun store so I could go in.