by Alex Lidell
A cool hand slides down my spine, under my ass, and between the folds of my sex, teasing my entrance from behind. “Very good, Samantha. You’ll get a reward for that,” Reese says, and I feel my juices drench his hand. “Lean forward,” he orders, and fuck if that voice doesn’t nearly make me come a fourth time.
I obey at once, bracing my hands on his muscular thighs, my heavy breasts swaying beneath me.
“Keep your mouth open,” he demands.
I freeze. Do as I’m told. Not daring to hope.
A moment later, the head of Ellis’s amazing, warm cock presses between my lips.
Oh holy hell. YES. I moan and take him into my mouth hungrily, sucking the thick viscous saltiness. I run my tongue over the velvety skin that is stretched taut. I want so much more.
Reese grips my hips, lifting me, and I feel his rock-hard cock at my entrance. And then he pulls me down and thrusts up at once, filling my channel so suddenly, I scream around Ellis’s cock. The two males thrust together the next time, giving me no quarter. I tilt forward with the force, but Reese digs his fingers into my hips, pulling me back hard against him.
The males find their rhythm, thrusting in counterpoint to each other. In and out, in and out, Ellis’s cock alive and pulsing in my mouth. The fae male’s warmth is an utter contrast to the coolness of the vampire’s cock on the other end. Hot and cold. In and out. Full and throbbing and inescapable and everywhere.
I use my own legs to help, riding Reese’s cock with my hips, my forward tilt making my clit rub against his hardness with every stroke.
The rhythmic pounding fills the room, the sounds of my suckling mixing with the wet slap of Reese’s skin against mine. Ellis breathes heavily above me, pressing harder into my mouth. Snaking his hand beneath me, the vamp teases my clit right in its engorged center.
I gasp, sucking on Ellis so hard that his thickness hits the back of my throat just as a shattering orgasm cascades through my body. My channel spasms around Reese’s cock over and over, my cries bouncing off the walls. If I thought the first three climaxes had wrecked my body, this one launches me off a new height, all my muscles contracting at once. A moment later, thick liquid slides down my throat, just as Reese’s cock spills warmth into me, and I can do nothing to stop yet another tsunami of pleasure from hitting me so hard that I see stars and scream.
29
Sam
“You’ve no intention of storming out of the room, right?” Reese asks, watching me cautiously over his whiskey, one dark brow lifted.
Both males lounge near me on the leather furniture. And by lounge, I mean Ellis has shifted into his wolf form and now takes up most of the couch, his fluffy white head squarely in my lap. I’m wearing one of Reese’s long shirts, a warm satisfied glow making my limbs heavy—and I know it’s not just from the hundred-year-old whiskey I’m sipping.
I shake my head. “Are you itching to run off and kill someone in the Middle East?”
Reese’s pause is too long for comfort, and I push Ellis’s wolf off my lap to lean forward and frown at the vamp. The wolf whines unhappily, but shifts back into fae form, Ellis crossing his arms over his chest as he takes in the silence. His hair has dried into wild blond strands, which he takes the time now to tie back into a knot.
“What did I miss?” he asks.
“Samantha wanted to know if I had the intention of going to a different continent,” says Reese, his voice heavy with meaning that Ellis seems to understand better than I do.
A chill settles over me, and I place my glass down on the coffee table with deliberate slowness. Studying the vamp’s beautiful face, I find the muscle on the side of his jaw tight with the same tension that grips his shoulders, his blue eyes very carefully neutral. My stomach clenches into a heavy ice cold knot. “You want to leave.”
“I’m not sure that want figures into the equation,” Reese says quietly.
I force my clenched fists open, ordering my fucking body to stop feeling. “You need to leave.”
Reese shakes his head.
“The bloodsucker isn’t sure he can leave,” Ellis says, blissfully cutting to the chase. “It’s possible that Sienna did something to us.” Reaching over to me, he uncurls my fingers to reveal the star-shaped scar.
The witch’s words in the bathroom. The ones I’ve been going back and forth on, wondering if they were a delusion-filled dream. “Something like what?”
Reese taps his finger on his whiskey glass. “When you were in the infirmary, I looked through your medical records. You’d stopped in for some medicine while I was gone.”
I nod, struggling to follow the change in direction. “I had a bit of a fever, nothing huge.”
“And is that common for you?” Reese asks.
“No, but it’s hardly uncommon.”
“It is uncommon when you are a vampire,” says Reese. “And I had it too.”
“You think Sienna had something to do with it?” I ask. “The voice in the bathroom—”
“So you do remember.” Ellis cocks a brow, and I have the decency to blush. “We think she did something, but we don’t know what exactly. For whatever reason, physical distance between you and Reesand created a problem. Would the same be true if it were me who left? Or Asher? Or did sex have something to do with triggering it? We have no idea.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, not sure what I’m supposed to do with this information. “What does any of this have to do with you being an asshole to me?” I ask, returning to familiar—if not more comfortable—ground.
“I thought Sienna pushed us together,” Ellis says, capturing my eyes with his golden gaze. “And I wanted—I want you to make your own choices, not play out a game Sienna’s spells may have carved into us. No matter how badly I long for you, if you never want to repeat what we did today, then we will not.”
Each of the male’s words hits an aching spot in my heart, which pounds a steady, desperate beat against my chest. My breath quickens as I lean toward him, this male who’s made me cry. Who came when I called. Who protected my choices. My power.
I press my mouth against his, and he hesitates only a moment before returning the kiss. Deep, powerful, and so claiming that my magic wakens with a buzz inside me, my soul purring its content.
Reese clears his throat, and Ellis lifts a hand from my cheek to flip the vampire off.
I laugh, pressing my head into the male’s muscled chest as I turn to take in Reese—and the rest of reality crashes into our perfect moment. “So we’re all stuck together now?” I ask. “What about Asher and Cassis? Are they…stuck with me too?”
Reese raises one powerful shoulder, his face sober. “We do not know the nature of the bond Sienna wove, but I agree with Ellis—whatever this thing between us may mean for magic, or proximity or lust, our feelings are our own.” Reaching out with one hand, he traces his thumb over my cheekbone.
I swallow, nodding at his words. Now that my mind is no longer in the gutter, I see the vulnerable male Cassis warned me about, the one who is as utterly terrified of getting hurt as I am. Leaning toward him, I kiss the vampire’s cool cheek. “Then we’ll all take things day by day.”
30
Ellis
Ellis stuck his hands into his pockets and watched Asher swear at his computer for a good ten minutes before finally shutting the laptop with a disgruntled snap. Despite the sunlight streaming into the male’s office, the room had an aura of frustration jamming every bit of space between the various military memorabilia Asher had gathered over the centuries.
“If anything you are about to say includes the words fight, brawl, disruption, destruction, or witch, please shove yourself down the nearest well and save me the trouble,” said Asher.
Grabbing a chair, Ellis turned it around and straddled it. “You are the one who wanted this bloody job.”
“That was before one overbred Romanian vampire and an equally frustrating witch managed to take everything apart bit by bloody bit.”
A growl rose deep in Ellis�
��s chest, and Asher raised his chin, meeting his glare head-on.
“Don’t you fucking start, brother. You want to be protective of your mate, take her to Talon. So long as you’re both here, I want to hear nothing of it.” Asher rubbed the heel of his hand over his eyes, fatigue lining his face.
“Then would this be a poor time to tell you that it’s possible you will never be able to get any significant physical distance between yourself and Devinee?” Ellis inquired lightly. He waited until Asher released another impressive string of obscenities before filling him in on what happened when Reese went away. “Sienna wanted to ensure that the five of us would continue fighting for the dream, so it’s not that far a leap to imagine she’d try to stop us from getting too far apart.”
“Sienna was a deranged lunatic,” Asher said flatly. “You assembled the horsemen in the middle of the fae-vamp wars to fight for peace between species. There is no war now, bar the fistfights between demis that Sam seems to start and Victor does nothing to discourage. Sienna was wrong. And I don’t just mean what she did to us, but I mean about everything. From what was needed then to what might be needed in the future.”
Ellis tapped his finger on the back of the chair. Asher had a mind for strategy, and what he said made sense. To a point. “What about our mating? However it happened, Devinee is my mate, Asher. She may be yours too.”
“She isn’t,” Asher said with more force than necessary. “My body lusts after her as if I were an adolescent cub, but that’s all it is. Oh, I wouldn’t put it past Sienna to have tried to create a connection, but the only place I feel it is in my cock—and no one has died of a hard-on yet. Plus, Reese’s little proximity problem didn’t happen until after he bedded the witch. So I’ll take that as a warning to the wise, as if I needed one.”
“But—”
Asher held up a silencing hand. “Meanwhile, Victor is claiming there’s been an increase in gateway activity into Talon—any idea what that’s about?”
Ellis blinked at the change of topic, shaking his head. Back to business. “None at all. But how does Victor know one way or the other what’s happening at the gateway? Vamps aren’t exactly welcome there anywhere near the building.”
“Not unless they are leading a Talonswood Reform education field trip,” Asher said dryly. “Which he did. Packed up a dozen cadets and took them sightseeing.” He sighed, his voice changing to something softer. “Do you miss it, Ellis? Talon, I mean.”
Ellis let out a long breath. His return to Talon, to the jackass who sat on the Talon throne, had been the spark of the other horsemen’s hatred for him. But by the time Sienna was done with him, Ellis had no soul left. It might have been Cassis who’d brought Sienna into their fold, but Ellis was the one who accepted it. He’d been their leader, and he’d failed spectacularly.
But the realm itself? With its magic and lack of humans, with no need to hide who he was, that was home. “Very much so,” Ellis answered honestly and, before Asher could follow up on the topic, walked out of the office.
A few hours later, Ellis opened the door to his room from the hallway and felt his entire body tense at the familiar smell. Although he couldn’t see the male just yet, he knew Bryant was here.
Sure enough, as he closed the door behind him and stepped farther into the room, a large gray wolf who’d been dozing behind a bookshelf shook himself awake and stepped into view. The air shimmered about the way it always did here in the mortal world, and a few moments later, Bryant in all his glory was taking up Ellis’s chair.
“Well, look at that uniform.” The fae king’s gaze raked over Ellis, a smirk twisting his strong features. His blond hair was brushed back from his high forehead, his blue eyes sharp as ever. “You look proper enough for a golden badge. I think that’s what humans give out?”
Ellis’s jaw tightened. He wasn’t surprised that Bryant had managed to get his way past Victor’s security to stage this little ambush, but he was surprised that his father had bothered with it. There was no reason to be stealthy—the king of Talon could walk through the front gates of the Academy any time he wished, probably to a full fucking reception. Which meant he had something specific—and covert—in mind.
“Father.” Ellis bowed his head in proper deference and remained standing as Bryant sprawled his large body in Ellis’s chair and continued regarding him for long moments.
“Well?” the king finally said. “Are you going to give me a report, or have you already forgotten what the hell I sent you here to do?”
Right. Breaking the witch to bridle. The notion had a rather different ring to it now than it had back in Bryant’s study. Sticking his hands into his pockets, Ellis shrugged with swaggering nonchalance. If Bryant suspected that Ellis cared for Sam, he would exploit the weakness. Just as Sienna had exploited Reese’s love of his wife.
“The witch is fully engaged in the Academy, as you commanded,” Ellis said. “She is learning discipline—no small feat, as I’ve never met anyone who lacked it quite as much as she does.”
“Look in the mirror next time you need to see what an undisciplined brat looks like,” Bryant said. “Either way, there’s a change of plans. One that will please you. You are being released from purgatory early. Return to Talon and take the witch with you.”
Ellis schooled his face, his mind racing to pick apart his father’s new orders. “Taking the witch through the gateway would be a violation of all the council’s edicts. ‘No nonfae shall ever enter Talon’ and all that business. Isn’t that why this whole charade of taking her to Talonswood Reform came about to begin with? So we could keep an eye on her here instead?”
“Yes, and had Asher not royally fucked everything up and handed the Academy to Victor on a silver platter, I’d have stayed the course.” Bryant sighed as he rubbed his chin. “The count’s presence changes the risk calculator too greatly. He is going to get his hooks into the witch somehow, I’m certain of it.”
“You think Victor is going to beat me to securing the witch’s obedience,” Ellis said flatly.
“I don’t think it, I’m damn certain of it.” Bryant rose, moving the chair back into place. “I would like you to make it appear as if the witch ran away. Does she go into the town on a regular basis?”
Ellis considered lying, but the risk that Bryant already knew the answer was too great. “She does. Devinee is a bartender at Dusk. Next shift is this Saturday—so, three days.”
“Bartender or snack?” Bryant shook his head. “Good enough. Have her take a detour and head to the gateway instead.”
“You want me to kidnap her en route to Dusk and force her into the gateway?” Ellis clarified.
“I don’t want you anywhere near her when she goes,” Bryant snapped as if that much was obvious. “A rogue witch running away from Victor’s cruelty. I can sell that.” Bryant added the last to himself, plans already flashing though his dark-blue eyes.
It was a good cover story, Ellis had to admit. And Bryan would do an excellent job selling it to the council. Ellis snorted. “You want me to just give Devinee directions to the gateway and expect her to voluntarily prance off to Talon, a place she’s never been?”
“That was—is—your damn job,” Bryant barked, his face darkening. “Finish it. Say whatever you need to get it done. Lost puppy, ice cream, a key to unlock her magic—I don’t care if you tell her she’s the long-lost queen of the fae and needs to return to claim her throne, just get her there.”
“Easy enough.” Ellis’s chest tightened, the effort it took to keep his fingers from clenching great enough that he did not dare take his hands out of his pockets. Nonetheless, something about his posture must have raised suspicion, because Bryant stilled suddenly, his piercing gaze narrowing on Ellis. “Is there something happening between you and the witch?”
Fuck.
Pushing away from the wall, Ellis sprawled lazily on his bed. “I wouldn’t say no to a chance to stick my cock in the witch, but other than that, I’ve got no love for the damn th
ing.”
“Get the damn thing to Talon, and you can stick your cock inside her anytime you wish.” Without saying another word, a gray wolf took the place of the king of Talon and leapt gracefully out the window and into the night.
Waiting until he was sure Bryant was out of hearing range, Ellis shoved himself off the bed and reached for his phone. “Asher. We need Devinee confined to campus through the weekend. Something seemingly unexpected that comes up at the last moment is best. I’ll fill you in in person.”
31
Bryant
Bryant walked into the Talon gateway building, a large, modern glass-and-steel structure on a lush green hill overlooking downtown Talonswood. Of course, the building itself looked nothing like the actual centuries-old gateway to Talon housed deep underneath it. The security guards snapped to attention with such crispness that Bryant was certain the outside patrol had alerted them of his approach. Good. None of this lounging against the wall with hands in pockets that Ellis imagined he had a right to.
Bryant straightened his jacket lapels, setting course for his chief of security, Fryer. As his steps echoed over the marble floor, he considered his meeting with Ellis. Something about it hadn’t felt right, and not just the insolence. In fact, the insolence bothered Bryant the least just now, because, while annoying, it was typical for the angry pup. If anything, Ellis hadn’t been insolent enough. The boy had never been good at controlling his emotions, and his fury over being confined to a cadet’s uniform in the human realm should have made the walls shudder.
The Ellis that Bryant knew would have all but taken a swing at him, not agreed to his orders with a minimum of negotiation. Then again, the last time Ellis had a run-in with a witch, he’d come crawling back on his belly. Maybe his time in Talonswood Reform had left him in a similar state of mind.
