Page 41 of Honey, I'm Home

I take a menacing step forward, feeling the town’s support, lending me more power. Tara gets smaller with each word, with each step, quaking in fear as I hold her frozen. “I’m squishing up my baby princess bee; won’t my mommy be so proud of me?”

From the perimeter of the gathered crowd comes my actual mom’s voice yelling, “Hell yeah I am!” nearly making me lose my focus.

I stumble, but my guys are getting stronger by the second and are now standing next to me, and there’s a wall of warmth beyond them that I can’t identify right now, but it’s making it easier and easier to keep this princess bee’s mind under my control.

My intent behind this is to hypnotize her so she’ll be completely harmless and maybe just live a very simple life rolling in pollen, but we’ll see what happens.

Honestly, it’s the intent that matters, right?

Right?

Well, bottoms up. Let’s find out how this ends together, shall we?

Another step forward, and now the princess is about half the size of me and is shaking, but all I have to do is remember all the times she put the welfare of my men in danger, and how her mother tried to ruin my wedding and my intent changes imperceptibly.

I open my mouth for the final verse. “I’m squishing up my baby princess bee…eww, she’s gooey!”

At that proclamation, she somewhat-accidentally implodes.

Remember when I said I might have yanked the chain a bit hard?

It would seem I snared more than her mind.

With the final pull of the chain, her internal organs have nothing keeping them in place, and the sudden loss of pressure makes them instantly rupture, turning Tara into the pile of goo I was just (quite menacingly) singing about.

I fight the urge to vomit as the crowd starts cheering, the guys putting me on their shoulders and lauding me as the town’s hero.

I would say that that’s taking things a bittoofar, but then again, shewastrying very hard to hurt the guests at my wedding, wasn’t she?

“My love?”

I spin automatically, responding to the voice. “Hmm?”

Wait. My guys are next to me.

I whip my head to look at them. Arbor is wide-eyed, Dev fighting a smile, and Hawthorne is…yeah, you guessed it. Coming in his pants.

Honestly, I don’t believe that that man even has an endophallus. It seems to be out and causing havoc way too often.

A man in a bowtie with wispy hair jumps in front of us, notebook at the ready. “Aster Pepperling, how does it feel to go into today ready to marry three bees, only to end up with twelve more as your forever-and-can’t-go-back mates? Would you say you’re overwhelmed? Anxious? Nauseous? Terrified? Horny?”

I shake my head, hoping that maybe that will clear up the confusion.

When my vision re-focuses, it’s to find twelveverynaked men…bee shifters…on one knee, facing me.

“The…lights…that were attached to Tara….”

Dev wraps an arm around my waist and kisses the side of my face. “Sorry, our wedding gift to you is definitely going to pale in comparison. You’re the proud new owner of…an entire colony.”

From somewhere in the crowd, I can hear my brother laughing so damn hard that he’s wheezing for air, but I can’t stop looking around, hoping for someone more in charge of the situation to step up and fix things.

I sigh in relief when my dad shows up next to me, rubbing his chin.

I can tell by the look on his face instantly though that there’s nothing he can do.

“Dad, no. I can’t…do you see how many of them there are?”

He nods apologetically. “I never thought to warn you that our powers can lead to unpredictable consequences because it’s so rare that we’re stirred up enough to cause them. I uh…think you’re going to need a bigger house…”