"I'm coming," I said, responding to Colby's Summon. I finished pulling on my strappy black heel and then ran out my front door and hopped into Colby's car.
It'd been a week since I'd given them all their powers. Colby had taught me how to Urge, practicing on baristas and waitresses and store employees. I'd gotten the hang of it pretty quickly. He'd come with me to talk to Axel and Trixie about my stepping out of the ring. I'd read their minds and Urged them to tie up every loose end. They stopped asking questions once I told them I wouldn't need payments anymore, though. Trixie was extremely happy about that.
We were driving to the Traphouse now for the party Kevin had wanted to throw. Kevin was staying at the Traphouse for the time being and I'd been spending almost all of my time there. I even slept there one night with Colby. I adjusted the strapless black leather dress I was wearing and ran my hands through my straightened red hair.
"You look really hot," he said. I chuckled.
"Well thanks," I replied, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek.
"So, uh, not to be pushy, but... when are you going to move into the house with us? You know our chief should be living with us," Colby said. They'd started calling me the chief after I told them I didn't like them calling me their queen. That felt too weird. They called Colby boss still, since he was my second in command. He'd adjusted to the idea of having someone above him pretty quickly and he'd started managing his anger a lot better, too.
We'd spent just about every minute together that we could, except I had slept at home most nights. I'd gotten a lot closer with him and we'd fallen a whole lot more. I was closer with everyone else, too. They had accepted me as their chief and were now moving on to accepting me as a member of the family, too.
"I hadn't really thought about that," I replied.
"That's okay. You can take your time. Mike and Brennen just really want you there to make their job easier, but alleviating their stress is by no means your responsibility. And you can have the extra bedroom," he said.
"What, don't like sharing?" I asked. He literally swerved the car when I said that. "Jesus, Colby, don't kill us before we get there."
"Sorry. I just, uh... I didn't think you'd want to," he said.
"Share a room with you?" I asked. "Why wouldn't I?"
"I don't know. I'm just not used to having someone that wants to spend so much time with me," Colby admitted.
"I know, love. That's okay. Are you okay with that or would you rather I take the extra one?" I asked.
"What! No, no, I definitely want to share," he said. He put his hand on my bare thigh. "Jesus babe, do you really need to wear stuff that short?"
"The whole point of having desire as a power is to be desirable. Lust and seduction is what makes the whole mind reading thing possible," I said. "Seeing them only makes them trust me. I can't read into them unless they're attracted to me."
"Yeah, and you could wear a trash bag and still have guys swooning over you," Colby said. He'd been getting jealous really easy when we went out into public together. Part of his wrath power also included being able to sense how strongly someone was feeling something. He could choose a feeling and make someone else feel it however strongly he wanted, but could also just sense the intensity of anyone's feeling while unable to know what that feeling was. So if he saw someone look at me and that person happened to be really sad or happy or literally anything, he'd sense the strength and immediately assume it was lust or desire.
"Hey, one of your powers is literally called seduction. You're literally 'physically alluring'. Which means you're so hot that people will believe anything you tell them," I replied.
"But that's different. I'm not doing it on purpose," he said.
"All I did was put on a dress and some heels," I said.
"Ugh, I know," he said, defeated. We pulled up to the house a while later and the party was already in full swing. "Alright, ready to use your big girl powers?"
"I already have been. On all of you. Are you ready to use your big girl powers?" I teased.
"Yes," he said. "Let's go." He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek before we climbed out of the car and went inside. We made our way into the kitchen to see Jake and Corey standing on the island, clearly drunk and very aggressively dancing.
"Hey! It's big boy Brock!" Jake screamed over the music. Everyone crowded in the kitchen let out a cheer and held their cups up to us.
"Brock?" I asked.
"Yeah, that's my last name," he said.
"Holy fuck, I didn't even know that," I said.
"What's yours?" he asked.
"Jagger," I said.
"Your fucking name is Jupiter Jagger?" he asked.
"Yes, now leave me alone, Colby Brock," I said.
"Oh, shush," he said. He grabbed my hand and pulled me over to the bar.
"Are we getting drunk before using our powers?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"No. Prove to me that you can convince anyone of anything right now," I said.
"Ugh," he said. He looked around the room and a mischievous smile formed on his face. He was going to do something he knew I wouldn't like.
He walked over to a pretty girl a few feet away and spun her around by her hips.
"Who are you? What do you think you're doing?" she asked.
"What's your name?" he replied.
"Uh, Taylor?" she answered.
"Happy one month of dating, Amanda!" he exclaimed. She stared at him for a second before her face broke into a smile.
"Aw, you've made this past month the best, Colby!" she exclaimed. Colby looked at me and smirked, then back at her.
"You have no idea who I am and we've literally never spoken in our lives," he said, blue gleaming in his eyes. She nodded and turned back around to resume dancing with her friends. Colby walked over to me.
"There. Happy? I went a step beyond it. She said my name after asking who I was without me telling her," he said. The difference between Urging and his seduction power was that with Urging, he had to specifically say everything he wanted the person to believe. With seduction, he could get someone to go along with a concept and wholeheartedly believe whatever he was both actually saying and mentally implying to them.
If he was Urging her, he would have had to say 'your name is Amanda, not Taylor, I'm your boyfriend, and we have been dating for a month as of today'.
"Okay, yeah. I'll give you that one. It was pretty smooth," I said.
"I know," he said. Cocky bastard.
"Too bad you weren't that smooth with me," I said.
"What? How was I not smooth with you?" he asked.
"You spoke to me for five minutes at the party before shocking me and running away for the rest of the night," I said. He looked at me for a second, trying to think of a witty response.
"Can we drink now?" he asked.
"Yes," I laughed, nodding.
"Wonderful. Except I'm not letting you get completely shitfaced like last time," Colby said.
"Maybe you should worry about Jake right now," I said, pointing across the room. Him and Tara were standing together laughing, Jake's eyes glued on a guy that was blatantly flirting with another guy who very much was not interested.
"Oh, god damn it," Colby muttered. I smiled and shook my head, then winked. I'd learned that if I channeled all of my energy into an action, it could control my powers until I got enough experience to do them without a second thought.
The guy who had been flirting with the other one immediately got a terrified and confused look on his face before running away, an angry girl following him out.
"Oh my god, he did not just make a girl's straight boyfriend flirt with a straight dude right in front of her," I said. Jake's face scrunched up, like he was trying to harness his power that I'd just taken away.
"Don't tell him. Let him be confused," Colby said.
"Honestly, I don't know what the point of that power is," I said.
"It'd be useful if we were trying to start a fight or distract people," Colby pointed out.
"Eh," I replied.