Consort of Secrets

by Eva Chase

  I wanted. Oh, I wanted, with an ache already painful at my core. The ceremony’s potent energy urged me to fulfill that need. But I had three more consorts to complete my bond with.

  Tearing myself away from Kyler, I turned to Seth. He held his hands out to me, ready to accept my ribbon and to offer me his. My heart squeezed. It took barely a sliver of the magic coursing through me to imbue my words to him.

  “I, Rosalind Hallowell, take Seth Lennox as my consort. I will light my spark by him and never let it burn him.”

  He set his ribbon in my waiting hand, clasping his fingers over mine. Magic streamed back from him to me. “I, Seth Lennox, take Rosalind Hallowell as my consort. I will light her spark with my heart and never do her harm.”

  Another giddy wave coursed through me. I leaned in, and Seth was there to meet me. He kissed me so hard tiny echoes of my spark danced behind my eyelids.

  When I swiveled to face Jin, his eyes were bright with unspoken words. I gave him the end of my ribbon. Emotion and energy quivered through my chest. “I, Rosalind Hallowell, take Jin Lyang as my consort. I will light my spark by him and never let it burn him.”

  My artist’s voice rang out rich and steady. “I, Jin Lyang, take Rosalind Hallowell as my consort. I will light her spark with my heart and never do her harm.”

  The third deluge of magic made my legs wobble. Jin caught me by the waist. I gripped his shoulders and kissed him until the ache of need became unbearable.

  One more. One more, and then I could satisfy that desire.

  Damon accepted my ribbon, looking down at it as if he couldn’t quite believe it was really there in his hand. Then he clenched his fingers over it. His gaze seared into mine.

  “I, Rosalind Hallowell, take Damon Scarsi as my consort,” I said, my voice quivering now with the magic swirling through me. “I will light my spark by him and never let it burn him.”

  His voice came out low and rough. “I, Damon Scarsi, take Rosalind Hallowell as my consort. I will light her spark with my heart and never do her harm.”

  The final joining hit me like a thunderclap. I tumbled into Damon’s arms, my lips crashing into his, but the ache inside me split open with the flow of magic, letting loose a flood of longing. To hold and be held, to touch and be touched. To take all my consorts in every way I possibly could.

  The flood swept us all together. As Damon kissed me back, other arms came around me. A mouth brushed my shoulder. Another nipped my ear. Fingers trailed across my breasts and down between my legs. I whimpered, my hips swaying to meet them.

  Damon pulled his lips from mine. He teased the edges of his teeth down my throat to nip my collarbone. His hands dropped to my thighs, hiking up the skirt of my dress.

  “I won’t be greedy,” he said, looking like hunger incarnate. “But I’ll get you ready.”

  He dropped to his knees and tore my panties off me. Seth’s strong arms closed around me from behind, his solid chest supporting me. He kissed the sensitive spot right behind my ear. Kyler leaned in to claim my lips and Damon—

  Damon slicked his tongue right over my clit.

  I moaned, my hips bucking. Damon held my thighs, and Seth supported the rest of my weight. “Best thing I ever tasted, angel,” Damon muttered, and pressed his mouth to me as if to devour me.

  A different sort of sparks careened up from my core. Seth’s hand rose to cup one of my breasts. Jin was there at my other side, bending to lap the other nipple into a stiffened peak. And oh, Damon’s lips and his tongue, the flick of it over my clit again and again.

  I was so ready for release I barely had time to savor it. Damon suckled me harder, his tongue tracing my opening and the edge of his teeth grazing my clit. I shuddered in Seth’s embrace. An orgasm ripped through me, feeling as if it’d set all the magic in me ablaze. Bliss quaked through my muscles.

  Somehow I still wasn’t sated. I made a sound of protest as Damon stepped back. His cock bulged against the fly of his jeans, but he shook his head. We both knew I had three other consorts I was burning to join with.

  My fingers caught the front of Jin’s shirt. I yanked him to me. As he kissed me hard, I reached for the button of his slacks. He groaned.

  “Yes, Rose. Fucking yes.”

  As if we were one being with a single purpose, the five of us moved to the edge of the clearing, to the log. Someone stripped off my dress and laid it on the mossy surface for me to sit on. The cool air felt shockingly electric against my naked body. My guys still had on too many clothes.

  I kissed Jin again, tugging down his zipper. At the same time, I hauled at Seth’s shirt with my free hand. He chuckled hoarsely and wrenched it off. Then he was holding me from behind again, his bare chest against my back, his hands rising to massage my breasts.

  My fingers closed around Jin’s erection. It twitched against my palm. “Rose,” he murmured. He kicked off his pants and knelt between my splayed legs. As I stroked him, he pushed closer. The head of his cock rubbed over my clit, making me gasp. The need inside me burned. I guided him to my opening.

  He sucked in a breath as he slid inside me. His hands settled on my thighs, holding them in place. With a heft of his hips, he pulled back and sank into me even deeper. The blaze inside me flared like a wildfire.

  Seth kissed the side of my neck, still fondling my breasts with sure, skilled strokes of his fingers. Ky bent between his brother and Jin to press his mouth to mine again. I tipped my head back against Seth’s shoulder, opening myself more to his twin. Oh, Spark help me, even with Jin’s thrusts setting me on fire from my core and Seth’s hands stoking the flames through my chest, I wanted even more.

  I grasped Ky’s pants and tugged. With a startled breath, he yanked them and his boxers down. His cock sprang free, long and slim to match his body and stunningly erect. I couldn’t imagine doing anything in that moment other than urging it to my lips.

  Ky groaned as my mouth accepted his cock. His hips bucked, pressing it deeper inside, almost to my throat.

  I sucked him in and swirled my tongue around his salty skin at the same time. He clutched my hair. His hips jerked again. “Fuck, Rose, I’m so close already.”

  I was close and far and everywhere in between. The pulse of Ky’s cock in my mouth and the caress of Seth’s hands over my breasts and the rhythm of Jin rocking in and out of me. The pants of Damon’s breath somewhere beside us where he was stroking himself in time with the rest of our maelstrom of passion. My body thrummed with pleasure and my spark roared like an inferno, both sensations threatening to swallow me whole.

  Ky broke first, spilling himself in my mouth with a ragged gasp. I slid my lips off of him and swallowed. Then he was there again, kissing me mouth to mouth, not caring about his taste on my lips.

  Seth squeezed my nipples between his fingers, making my nerves jump with a shock of bliss. Jin plunged deeper, faster, our bodies growing slick with sweat where we joined. He arched to let the base of his cock bump my clit. Again, and again, and—

  Ecstasy blasted through me as if my spark had detonated. I cried out, clinging to Seth’s arm, to Ky’s shoulder. Jin thrust another few times, propelling me even higher over the edge, and then he tumbled over with me. He spent himself inside me with a groan.

  Damon tugged my chin, tearing me from Ky’s mouth to claim mine with his own. His hand jerked over his cock. He came with a sharp inhale, his teeth scraping my bottom lip.

  My body had gone limp, the muscles sagging even as magic crackled through every limb. My head had nestled against Seth’s chest. I peered up at him. “Seth?”

  “I’m good,” he said before I could expand on that question. He eased me up so he could kiss me on the mouth. “I have you,” he murmured. “The rest can wait. Unless you need…?”

  There wasn’t a particle in my body my spark wasn’t scorching. If any more magic lit me up, I was pretty sure I’d explode.

  “No,” I said, pulling all of my guys closer. “You’ve already given me everything I need. Everything I co
uld ever have wanted.” My boys. My consorts.

  That last thought sent a heady rush of possessiveness through me. Jin nuzzled my cheek. Damon looped his arm over my belly. Kyler pressed one last kiss to the inside of my elbow. Seth brushed his lips against the top of my head.

  It wasn’t just magic that flowed between us. I could feel the love that shone from all of them and from me in return, a giddy tingling everywhere we touched.

  I’d returned to the only house I’d ever really thought of as mine a month ago, but now… Now I was truly home.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Rose

  The tick of the grandfather clock carried through the otherwise silent house. I pulled my duvet higher over my head, my eyes open in the darkness underneath. Not that it was any less dark in the room around me.

  Celestine needed to think I was asleep. Magic was still rushing through my veins, my spark ignited enough to fill my whole body. The twined bonds of my consorting held it steady in my chest.

  This power wouldn’t fade. But I didn’t know yet how much my stepmother might hold. If I was going to get through tonight, I needed to use every possible advantage, including surprise.

  Alongside the thrum of the magic, a dull throbbing ran through me, sharpest low in my belly. I was pretty sure certain parts of me were going to be physically sore tomorrow, but that didn’t dull my longing. My pain at being apart from the guys I’d only just partnered with.

  Normally consorts didn’t leave each other’s presence for at least a week after the original ceremony. Both to solidify the emotional and physical bond, when often they hadn’t been that intimate beforehand, and to avoid this discomfort as the strands of magic that joined us were so newly formed and unused to stretching. Could the guys feel it too, this twang calling out for us to come back together?

  The rush of our first coming together, all five of us, had been so explosive… Heat rose in my cheeks as I remembered it. The magic of the ceremony had unleashed all our passions. I hadn’t expected to come quite this far in just a few weeks from the knowledgeable-but-virginal Rose I’d been when I arrived here. But I definitely wasn’t complaining.

  My lips curled with a brief grin. Actually, I was very much looking forward to more moments like that one. Maybe with a little more time to savor the experience when we didn’t have the ceremony’s urgency whirling around us.

  Fulfilling my longings would have to wait until tomorrow, at least. After my father and I had finished dealing with Celestine and Derek… What was Dad going to think of the choice I’d made? He’d agreed with Celestine that it was best for me not to get too close to the boys all those years ago.

  But he couldn’t have been worried we’d do this. He wouldn’t have thought this was possible. He’d wanted to spare me the broken heart of falling for them and not being able to have them.

  The consort bonds couldn’t be severed, not so early. He’d just have to find a way to accept it. As strange and unexpected as it would seem, he’d at least be able to appreciate that I was happy. I was still his daughter. I was still a Hallowell.

  And I’d be the lady of this estate now.

  It’d been just shy of eleven o’clock when I’d scrambled back through my window. It had to be almost midnight now. I repressed the urge to squirm with impatience. Chatting with Philomena might have helped pass the time, but I didn’t want to be distracted either.

  The noise reached my ears so faintly at first I didn’t quite notice. A soft rasp from the direction of the door. My pulse hiccupped.

  My lock was turning over. I’d set it before I went to bed both to make sure no one without magic came barging in and found me gone, and because that was what Celestine would have expected. Now with her magic she must be releasing it.

  The door whispered open. The air shifted against the top of my head, the only part of me not covered by the duvet. Footsteps padded across the floor to the bed. If I’d had any doubt about who had entered, it would have vanished at the sound of my stepmother drawing in her breath. That was enough to recognize her.

  With a rustle of her clothes, she bent and rested her hand on my shoulder to shake me awake.

  My heartbeat thundered in my ears. I whipped out my arm, tossing aside the duvet and whipping magic through the air in the same movement.

  I caught just a glimpse of Celestine’s pale face contorting with shock before the magic I’d hurled at her struck her across the calves. She stumbled backward, thrown off-balance. I swept my hands toward her again, summoning enough power to smack her right onto the floor.

  She hit the floorboards on her back with a thump. I twisted my fingers, and coils of magic formed around my stepmother’s wrists and ankles to hold her in place. Holding her from throwing any magic back at me.

  She jerked her head, directing some spell at me that way. I clapped my hands together and it dissolved.

  “No more,” I said, the glow of my spark radiating into my words. I traced a sheet in the air and cast it toward her. No tutor had ever taught me to sculpt magic to this specific purpose, but the energy inside me sang out so clearly I saw exactly how to move with it, exactly what to say to it. “Your power will stay in your body.”

  The barrier closed around Celestine’s form. I stepped closer, poised over her.

  My stepmother stared up me in the dim moonlight from the window, her blond bob askew, her pale eyes glossy with shock and alarm. As she stared at me, a flicker of a deeper horror darkened her expression.

  “Rosalind,” she said, her voice tight. “What have you done?”

  “What have I done?” I said. The anger I’d been holding in since I’d first uncovered her scheming seared up through me. It crackled into my throat. “I’ve done what I had to do, to survive you. What I want to talk about is what you’ve done, and everything you were planning to do next.”

  Celestine’s lips pressed flat. She kept herself propped up on her elbows, braced awkwardly against the floor but unwilling to give in and slump down. Somehow she still had enough elegance in her tailored blouse and dress pants to look as if she’d meant to be lying there. I gritted my teeth.

  “You can’t get out of this by staying quiet,” I said. “I know everything. I know you were coming in here to force me to take Derek as my consort tonight, whether I wanted to or not. I know you were going to pervert the ceremony so he would have more control over my magic than I do. I know he’s taken an oath to follow your orders when it comes to me. I don’t even know how many laws of the Assembly that’s already breaking. It can’t get much worse.”

  “Then why are we talking about it?” Celestine asked.

  I glared at her. But the truth was, I didn’t know everything. There was something I wanted to hear from her. “Why? Why would you do that to me? I know we’ve never really gotten along, but I didn’t—I’ve never tried to hurt you.”

  A lump rose in my throat through the anger. What could possibly justify my stepmother, the woman who’d acted as my mother for nearly twelve years, turning me into a virtual slave?

  Celestine shifted as if testing the bindings I’d placed on her, but they held firm. Her jaw clenched. “Your spark will shine bright. Clearly it already does. That sort of power is better kept in check.”

  “Says who?” I snapped. “You’ve got plenty of power. Should someone be pulling your strings?”

  She chuckled a little hoarsely. The glint had come back into her eyes. A shine that looked more like terror than anything else now. “Oh, Rosalind. You have no idea yet. Look at you with your spark just kindled and no experience at all wielding your magic. The Hallowell line runs strong in you, and your mother’s blood mingled with that…” She shook her head. “It isn’t safe to give a witch like you free rein.”

  There had to be more to it than she was saying, but I was tired of hearing her make up excuses. I drew myself up even straighter, reveling in the magic still pulsing through me with all the strength of my consorts and my spark. “That’s not a decision you get to make. And you
’ll be sorry you did. When my father gets back tomorrow, you and my ‘fiancé’ are going to tell him everything you planned, every horrible detail—”

  Celestine started to laugh. Real laughter, strained but loud enough to cut off my words.

  “You think I can’t make you?” I said. “I found the contract. I have the proof even if you don’t say anything. And I have enough magic to keep both of you here long enough to face whatever retribution will be coming.”

  “From your father?” she said, catching her breath. “Rosalind, this was all his idea. He’s even more a part of it than I am.”

  My mouth snapped shut as if the words had been a chilly slap across my face. I wouldn’t have thought there was anything that could have dampened my anger, but she’d found it. For a second I could only stare at her in a daze.

  “You’re lying,” I spat out. “You’re trying to confuse me. Why would he trap his own daughter?”

  “He knows the power you’re coming into even better than I do,” Celestine said. She even smiled, small and sharp. “You’re his little lamb, and he wants you on a leash.”

  No. There was no way that could be true. “It’s your name on the contract,” I said. “You met with Master Cortland to discuss it. You tried to do it while Dad wasn’t here to find out.”

  My stepmother raised her eyebrows. “All the practicalities went through me because I’m the one with the magic. And because after he gave his instructions, he didn’t want to think about the details too much. He does love you, in his own way.”

  She said the words with a mocking lilt. My hands balled at my sides. “And tonight?”

  “Do you think I want him to come home to our plans potentially on the verge of exposure? He entrusted me with the responsibility to get this done. I meant to do it.”

  My stomach had knotted, my dinner threatening to come up. I fought down the nausea. “Why should I even believe you? You could be making all this up just to deflect the blame. To try to stop me from going to him.”