by Kenna Bardot
"Well, I suppose we can’t truly keep you locked up in this place, We’re not the Unwanted Lands. We’re not a prison," he finally said.
"No, we’re not. We’re just a family and only recently I’ve felt like more a part of it. Please don’t destroy the progress I’ve made.”
He nodded and sighed, shooting me a resigned look. I dared not hope, but I was sure I had finally gotten to him.
“So is that a yes?" My voice broke on the last word. He just frowned at me before he sighed and leaned back on his chair. He looked behind me towards my guards and he shook his head.
"You inspire a loyalty that I find myself envious of, Mireyah. You must really tell me your secrets.” He smiled at the two guards behind me before fixing me with his steady silver gaze. “It’s not a no.”
I leapt from my chair, smiling widely. "Okay, thanks." And I walked back to my room, heart light and happy.
I could go home. Finally, to my Sires, my home.
✽✽✽
It was easier said than done. Given the fact that it took a miracle for us to sync our days off, I’d had to inform them to pick a day when I could go home. A good day because I wanted to see all of them. Not even four would do. It had to be all five. The fates had been kind to me, and only two days from the night I’d argued with Elin and my day for going home had arrived.
Much like Elin had done, my Sires had complained about my safety, but my men knew that I needed to be around all of them. It was a burning physiological and emotional need. I needed them so I could continue to be strong and thrive. I just had to accept that they would worry and be especially protective of me during our time together.
In fact, I looked forward to being watched over by five men who loved me rather than one or two who were assigned to be my keeper.
Patrick escorted me to the Express station so we could wait for one of my men to come pick me up. I didn’t know who it would be, but whoever it was, I’d be happy to see him. And I’d be happy not to see him in the visitor’s area, but in the station itself from where we could go home.
“Incoming,” Patrick mumbled, but loud enough that I could hear it. When I saw that it was just a letter and not one of my men, I had to break the silence. “Thanks for helping me out a few nights back, Patrick. I really appreciate your agreement over your boss’ anger and insistence.” I gave his arm a gentle squeeze.
“I meant what I said. Five men guarding you, even if none of them are Dragon Guard, feels like it makes total sense. But still, please, be very careful. Zeevar will come unhinged if he loses another pair."
I scoffed, but it was in good humor. "I think you overestimate my worth in Zeevar's eyes. I'm a pain in his ass."
"As are we all," the Guard chuckled, “He might not show it often enough, but you saw how broken up he gets about a death. Especially two happening so close to one another within one year.” He crouched down to look in Hydra’s eyes. “It would be tragic to lose this beauty.”
“You can rely on the fact that I will be careful.” I looked over at the booth, seeing that something was coming. Within moments, Tate appeared and the instant he saw me, he rushed over.
“Well, at least it’s a Nastroj,” Patrick said with a grin. “I’ll be leaving you here, Mireyah. Either Julian or I will wait for you here tomorrow.”
“Thanks, bye,” Tate dismissed as he gathered me up in his arms. “I’m so happy that you’re coming home tonight. You don’t know how much we’ve all missed you. How sleeping in that bed at night has been so harsh.”
I nodded and ran my hands over his face. “I know. My bed in the Reserve feels so empty, even though it’s small.”
“Let’s go?” He took my hand and with Hydra right between us, walked towards the Springen booth. There was no line or people waiting, deserted but for the Springen who was working, also wearing his own Dragon Guard uniform and identifying him as one of us. With most of the Dragon Guard locked down willingly within the Reserve, there was almost no one coming and going as of late.
We flashed to the station nearest our home quickly and then started our walk along the path that led to our house. With the sun shining, it seemed unrealistic that it would be anything other than bright and cheery. Somehow, I couldn't stop thinking about the night Ryle suddenly appeared right behind me, when I had been so sure something more ominous waited for me.
Watched me.
It felt even more portentous now, riddled with the knowledge that someone was killing dragons.
He raised my hands to his and kissed the inside of my wrist. Instantly, it felt like my entire world opened. My reactions to each of my Sires bonds was different and for Tate, it was like all the emotions in my body heightened, bringing me to the brink of the deepest and most beautiful pleasure.
“I missed you,” I said with a sigh. Beside me, in Tate’s arms where she’d jumped the instant I’d let go of him, Hydra made a huffing sound like she was laughing at me. I shot her a stern look. “Don’t you judge me, missy. I’ve been deprived.”
"Glad to oblige. How are you coping?" Tate asked as he set Hydra down so she could prance along the path just ahead of us. Bouncing and swaying, my girl was pleased to be off the Reserve for the first time in a week.
I was so open, so free. And that’s when I realized that being so open could be a detriment when faced by the Nastroj. The familiar feeling of Tate's magic pressed against my skin, and I knew the moment that he tried to read me.
He hadn't even given me a chance to answer before he set to finding out for himself. I realized just as suddenly that he'd been doing it all along. Reading me through our Bond or proximity. It was why none of them had bothered to ask about my mental or emotional state.
Because they already knew.
It felt like an invasion of privacy, especially for him to violate that without even bothering to get the answers from me through conversation.
"Why bother asking if you're just going to circumvent the conversation by reading me, anyway?" I asked him, turning a glare up to his face. "You could have at least given me the chance to answer," I scoffed. "I wouldn't have hidden it from you. I lost a friend, Tate, and I’ve been having to live without the five of you when I sleep for nearly a week. Did it occur to any of you that maybe I wanted to talk about it with the men I love?"
I took my hand back from his, hurrying along the path. He kept pace with his longer legs, but that was just fine.
Was I surprised that they had planned to do this? Planned to read me so they wouldn’t need to talk to me? No.
Aes had been right when she’d told me I had to remember the love. I wasn’t surprised that they’d betrayed me in just this manner. In fact, I was an idiot for not expecting it.
But was I hurt that they didn’t give me the courtesy I thought they’d promised they would give me since we’d been down this road before? Had the same argument before.
Damn right I was. So I rushed to get home as fast as I could. If we would have this argument, I only wanted to have it once.
It could wait until we were home. Until I was face to face with all of them.
Twenty-Two
Mireyah
The rest sat around the kitchen table, waiting as Hollis cooked. They spun as one, shock on their faces as I threw open the door.
"Mireyah!" Shep said, the first to stand from the table and approach us.
"I'm not certain how I missed it before," I said as I held up a hand to signal he should keep his distance. "I should have known you all have Tate reading me instead of just fucking talking to me like a normal relationship. Why ask when you can just take right?" I asked.
Shep flinched back, casting his eyes over my shoulder to look at Tate. Hydra sensed the danger looming and retreated into the room we'd converted for her. I hated that my dragon and I had missed them all so much, only for our reunion to be ruined by another argument. It seemed like it was all we did recently, and after the six months of happiness we'd had when I first Ascended, I hated it more than ever.
>
"We just worried about you," Shep whispered.
"There's worried and then there's being overprotective to the point that you violate my privacy. Time and again, I’ve asked Tate not to intrude on my emotions like that, and he had no right to do it now. You could have just talked to me! Any of you! If a single one of you asked how I was doing, I would have volunteered that information without a moment of hesitation. I lost someone I admired, and who I thought of as the beginning of a friendship. I lost the first dragon I ever saw in person. None of you bothered to just ask me how I was feeling. You don't think that hurt me?" My voice trailed off to a whisper as I thought back to all the brief and shallow conversations we'd had over the last week. I’d wondered why they never checked in on my wellbeing.
"Mireyah," Tate cut off, stepping up to me like I might want to be comforted. It was too little, too late.
It stung like a betrayal. After how far I'd thought we'd come, it put me right back to the place where they took what they wanted without care for how it affected me.
Ryle's face turned thunderous as he stepped in front of me and filled my line of sight. "You close yourself off when it suits you. Because of that, we've learned to do whatever we must to understand you. To protect you. Because you are ours, whether you want to be independent or not. When it all comes down to it, you're our wife. Our responsibility," he grumbled, making me feel like a child. I didn't want to be anyone's responsibility. "We've tried to give you leeway as you figure out your new place with the Dragon Guard-"
"You told me you trusted me when I decided to stay at the Reserve! You make excuses because it gives you control. And it just kills you that the Dragon Guard is sacred above all else," I spat. "That my purpose there is more important to the Core Gods than my purpose as the wife to warm your bed."
Char rose from his chair slowly, coming to stand next to Ryle as he stared down at me with icy fury. "We are still your Sires. You’re ours to care for. To fight. To love. To fuck."
I stood my ground. “So it was all a lie when you said you were willing to compromise? Did you really question my argument but just let me do what I want because I was walking around like the dead?” I grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked in frustration. “I suppose because someone I started to care for was dead, it meant that there was no talking to me like a sensible person? Certainly not an equal to any of you. Definitely not an equal to the five best Descendants to ever Ascend from Godsvail.”
“You go too far, Mireyah. You’re only just a baby. Not just as a Goddess, but in general.” He growled and his hand went to his belt. Ryle looked over at him. Then when his golden eyes came back to me he reached out a hand to touch my shoulder. I spun away, desperate to put distance between us. I knew them well enough to know what came next.
With my back turned, Ryle grabbed me and tugged the fastening of my uniform open in the back, shoving it off my arms as I struggled against his brute strength. "Get your hands off of me!" I shrieked, and I thought for a moment that when Hollis stepped up in front of me, he might be a voice of reason. But the chilly look on his face reminded me of the Hollis who had tossed me onto his bed and spanked me when we first met. Who had punished me by turning my body against me, and I knew I would find no reprieve with him.
He knelt on the floor, tugging my boots off one by one as Ryle lifted me off the ground and I thrashed in his arms. Even as I fought, I knew I couldn't actually fight. My ice hovered right at my consciousness, and I wanted to use it. But I could never hurt them so harshly.
Even if they didn't give me the same courtesy.
Once he’d pried my boots from my feet, Hollis turned his attention to my pants and peeled them down my legs until every inch of pale flesh was revealed for them to see. I hadn't noticed, in my screaming and fighting, that the other three had stepped up and surrounded me.
Not until Ryle used one insanely brawny hand to shove me to my knees in between all of them. Char turned me to face him, catching my chin in his hand as he held me still and stared down at me with intense white eyes. "You may be a Dragon Guard, but you're still ours to use. We took from you once, and you made us regret that we hurt you. Tell me no and it stops here."
I fumbled for the word, trying to grasp it and make my mouth form it. But nothing came, and I couldn’t seem to say it. As much as I hated the dominance, the part of me that always had to control craved it.
I learned to find peace in not being in charge during sex. I just wished they understood that ended when we put our clothes on.
I glared up at him, sealing my lips tight as he drew himself from his pants. Once he was free, he dragged the head over my lips as if he could entice me to open for him, as if the simple biology of our bond would be enough to make me willing in whatever punishment he had planned. Even if I couldn’t say no to make it stop, it didn’t mean I would make it easy on him.
Neither of us wanted it that way.
His lips twisted into a cruel grin, and he reached out his free hand to my nose. He squeezed there, pinching my nostrils together until he cut off all the air from my lungs. Hollis chuckled from behind me in the circle, the smooth skin of his hands touching my forehead briefly as he pulled my hair off my neck and gathered it on the back of my head. "Open up, Pet," he whispered, his voice cruel and mocking. "Even a Goddess needs to breathe."
My chest heaved with the need for air, and eventually I had no other choice but to drag in a gasping breath through my mouth. Before I could close my mouth out of defiance, Char shoved to the back of my throat with a harsh thrust. I gagged around the sudden intrusion, drawing more air into my lungs when he pulled back just enough to let the precious oxygen slide down my throat. He chased it, tilting his hips just so to get deeper with each stroke of him inside my mouth.
The rustling sound around me left little doubt to the fact that someone would take his place soon enough. Though I knew it would be pointless to fight, I still knew I would. When Ryle came closer, his length rubbed against my cheek. Char pulled free suddenly, and Ryle tried to slip himself inside before my mouth could close. But he underestimated my desperation to defy them. I glared up at him, my eyes teary and defiant from Char's rough handling. Ryle shocked me, smacking his cock into the side of my face in a move so degrading that I wanted to kill him.
"Open up, Winter Girl. If you bite me, I'll return the favor later," he teased, and the mocking condemnation from each of them aggravated me to no end. I wanted to kill him, but the second smack against my face felt particularly brutal given how hard he was.
Like steel slapping against my cheekbone, he struck the other side. I hesitantly opened my mouth for him to glide in.
"Good girl," he whispered, thrusting in and out of my mouth for what felt like forever. My jaw ached, my body responding to the torment even if I didn't want it to. Our bond made it impossible to resist the appeal, and pleasure and pain were so deeply united when it came to sex between the six of us that I didn't know where one ended and the other began.
Not even as Hollis used the hand in my hair to spin me on my knees so harshly that they ached, forcing Ryle out of my mouth so he could glide and force himself into my throat. I gagged around him, fresh tears stinging my eyes all over again. Even with how hard he fucked my face, there was just no way for Hollis to fit himself inside me.
When Hollis finally released me, I sucked back huge heaving breaths of air as Tate's arms wrapped around me and lifted me off my feet. He took me into the bedroom; the others following. Shep moved to the nightstand, grabbing the lube and tossing it to Tate. He grabbed it out of the air as he set me to my feet and uncapped the bottle to rub it all over himself. Shep grabbed my hair, tugging me forward, and I almost fell to my knees again. Only when Tate pressed a hand to the spot between my shoulder blades did I bend at the waist.
Shep used his grip on my hair to hold me still as his hips worked his length in and out of my mouth. Groaning around him, I tried to swat Tate away when he pressed his head to my ass and eased his way in. It never st
opped surprising me how quickly the burn returned after a period of abstinence, how quickly my body got used to not being fucked there. I hissed through my nose as they glided in and out of me, giving no thought to my pleasure.
It wasn't the point. The point was to remind me they could and would do whatever they wanted with me.
And that I would love every second, despite myself.
Tate groaned, bringing his hands down on my ass and spreading me wide as he slid through tender tissue in long, smooth glides. When his thumb pressed against his shaft and eased inside, I shrieked. I knew what that meant for me, and I was not having it. Shep pulled free from my mouth, moving to the bed as Tate stepped back from my ass and lifted me.
Spinning me to deposit me on Shep's lap and facing up, they wrestled my legs until Shep could lock my knees behind his elbows to cease my struggles. Tate was helpful enough to reach below our bodies, tugging Shephard's shaft free so he could guide him to my ass as the testy man beneath me shuddered in pleasure and slid inside.
"I'll fucking gut you," I hissed, eyeing Tate as he inserted himself between Shep's spread legs and smirked at me like a cat that ate the canary. Shep's shallow thrusts stopped as Tate pressed his head against his shaft, forcing his way in despite my whimper.
As they slid against one another and set an easy pace inside my ass, I whimpered. "Poor neglected pussy," Tate teased, his eyes landing on the part of me I knew he obsessed over. His hand slapped against the empty, needy part of me and made me throb. "Should just be a good girl and then you can have all the cock you want in there." I grimaced, trying to breathe through the stretch as they set their rhythm to give themselves the maximum friction.
One in and one out. Over and over. Alternating inside me. I wanted to cry. It hurt, but it also felt so good in that deeply perverse way, like there was something so wrong with me and I shouldn't enjoy it.
When Shep roared out his release underneath me, he flooded me with his heat. My body immediately protested, the bond wanting the blessing elsewhere, but that couldn't happen. Not anymore, not with all the danger surrounding us.
