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Are you going to introduce me?” Max asked Ryker. Although his eyes spoke volumes, his mouth did not. “I’ll take that as a no. Hi, I’m Max.” She smiled widely at the newest primo specimen in front of her as she held out her hand for him to shake.

“My name is Kane. It is a great pleasure to meet you, Max.” Kane practically purred as he took her hand and skimmed his lips over the top gallantly. The way he said the word ‘pleasure’ had Max believing that he would indeed be a pleasure … multiple pleasures in fact!

“Oh, my!” She twittered as she batted her lashes. Ordinarily, Max would think such flirtations were an insult to her feministic side but after the mass rejection of the paladins that morning, she was willing to go with the flow. She heard a low sound, oddly like a rumble or a growl and was just turning to place it when Kane’s brilliant white smile widened and revealed a matching set of dimples. Now that was just plain wrong! That such a masculine, mountain of a man, so rugged and virile would have those boyish little dimples … sigh! Looking around she noticed the band of merry misfits watching the exchange with varying degrees of amusement, shock, censure and approval. The approval, of course, coming from her fellow chica Cali.

Max tried to return her attention to Kane only to be distracted by that grumbling sound again. She pivoted and narrowed her eyes at Ryker. “Are you growling?”

“No!” Ryker growled.

Shrugging off the antisocial, perpetually premenstrual paladin, Max opened her mouth to ask Kane if he wanted to join her for a drink when her brain decided to have a seizure or something. Standing in front of her was not one, but three Kanes! They wore identical expressions of lust and had identical gleams in their eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she apologised, “but I think I may have just had a stroke. You seem to have multiplied.”

The three Kanes laughed in tandem. “No stroke.” Kane the Second assured her. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with your fine self. I’m Kai, and this is our baby brother Kellan.” Kai bowed graciously and indicated the remaining look alike to his left.

Kane the Third tilted his head and flashed his own set of killer dimples. “By baby, he means by two minutes. I promise you, there is nothing babyish about me.”

Max held up hands. “Wait a minute. There are three of you?”

The three K’s grinned devilishly whilst nodding their heads. Not one to believe in such luck immediately, after all, some hallucinations could be very vivid, Max turned to Cali for confirmation, “There are three of them?”

Cali widened her eyes comically and mouthed silently but distinctly, “There are three of them!” Her words held more power because of their silence and just like that, Max believed in Santa Claus again!

With nothing intelligent left to say, she simply twittered another, “Oh, my!” as she battered her lashes once again.

“You said that already!” The snarl from Ryker rudely interrupted Max’s in-brain movie of herself in a sweaty triplet sandwich. She shoved him with her shoulder not even sparing him a glance as she spoke to the trio.

“Don’t mind him. He has some kind of brain disorder that I haven’t quite figured out yet.”

The choking gasp from Ryker could be heard over the several loud snickers and chuckles. Max rolled her eyes, “See what I mean?”

Clenching his jaw, he rumbled, “Would you please try to contain yourself? It’s embarrassing!”

“Who’s embarrassed? I’m not embarrassed. You guys embarrassed?” She asked the triplets and received three vigorous head shakes. She turned to Caspian, “Yo, Cas. You embarrassed?”

“No ma’am,” he replied swiftly, “you could very well live out a favourite fantasy of mine if you continue down this path.”

Lawson gave him a playful swat to the rump, “Watch yourself, brat.”

Max smiled, those two were so cute! She tucked her unruly hair behind her ears and stood a little straighter, causing her breasts to push against her tee shirt. Good posture was very important. It was times like these that she wished she had some nicer and newer clothes, maybe a little make-up or hair product. And wow, was she really standing here lamenting over her lack of feminine wiles? She had truly hit rock bottom but what was a girl supposed to think when she was a frumpy dwarf surrounded by a bunch of beautiful amazons? She was so out of her league, but if Ryker and the others didn’t want her then she would damn well prove that somebody else did. The three hotties in front of her were a good place to start.

“How about I buy you boys a drink?”

The middle one, Kai, smiled. “Drinks are free here.”

Max grinned back, “Even better.”

A giant shadow seemed to suddenly block out all the light in the room. Max craned her head back, back, back, only to see a scowling Ryker directly behind her, his oversize head obstructing the above light. Max could tell by the look in those yummy eyes of his that he was going to ruin all her fun.

He flicked his eyes forward. “Go away now.” Just three little words but it was enough to bring about a flurry of movement. Although Ryker insisted they weren’t the most respected paladins in the room, it looked like they were the most feared for everyone scattered including the three pretties.

“That was not appropriate behaviour.” He intoned.

Max spun around and poked a finger into his hard chest, “Are you kidding? Those three are my reward for being a lone wolf all these years! I totally deserve them! You can’t have them!” Max yelled a little hysterically at seeing her new toys slip through her fingers.

Ryker rolled his eyes, completely unmoved. “You’re being ridiculous. You can’t keep them.”

“Actually, she can. Isn’t that the whole point of coming here today? So she could be introduced to unbound paladins and find those who would share their vitality?” Cali inquired.

“It’s not going to be them.” Ryker stated.

Cali placed her hand on a slim hip, “And why is that?”

“Cali …” Ryker’s low voice held a warning that she was pushing him past his limits.

“Ryker …” Wow, Cali had a pretty impressive growl of her own.

“That’s it. Show and tell is over. We’re leaving.” Ryker actually grabbed Max by the arm and began dragging her from the room. She managed to throw a ‘nice to meet you’ over her shoulder at Caspian before she found herself outside once again.

“Hey! Wait a minute Bullwinkle. You can’t just drag me around like a piece of meat. I heard you lecturing the pretties about respect, how about you start showing some?” Max demanded, hands on hips. The others had followed them out and she noticed they were standing around her in various poses of displeasure. Looks like they were on her side for once.

“Ryker man, she’s right. You can’t be treating a warden that way, especially not in front of the other paladins. It undermines her authority.” Beyden said.

Lark quickly followed up with; “And as a warden – a Life Warden nonetheless – her authority is absolute.”

Max tried not to look smug. It was nice to have defenders. Ryker ran his hands through his hair in exasperation as he appeared to take on board the criticism. She had to give him that at least; he always listened to his fellow knights and weighed and measured their opinions before forming a conclusion of his own. She bet he would have made a formidable Captain.

“You’re right. I apologise.”

Max nearly fell over. “Was that an apology? I don’t believe it.” She turned to a stunned looking Darius, “Can we stop at a newsagent on the way back? I need to buy a lottery ticket.”

“Yeah, yeah. Live it up while you can. I am sorry. I had no right to manhandle you but those three are not what I had in mind when I said you needed to bind yourself to your own paladins.”

“Heck, Ryker. I didn’t want to bind myself to Kane … I just wanted to sit on his face.”

Could someone go into a catatonic state while standing up? Because that’s what Ryker seemed to do. He was standing so still she wasn’t even sure he was breathing, he was no longer blinking, and his face looked like it was carved from granite. Max glanced around at the other paladins and saw various looks of astonishment on their faces; Darius was blushing, Axel was grinning seductively as if he was picturing Max on his face, Beyden’s amber eyes were wide in disbelief, Lark was laughing uproariously, and Cali was giving her a thumbs up sign. Clearly they weren’t quite used to her yet. Too bad they didn’t want to take the time to try, she thought, feeling dejected once again.

Copyright 2015 Montana Ash. All rights reserved.