by Becca Van
“Lavinia, come and sit down,” Men said in a deep, hoarse voice.
She shook her head and continued to pace as best she could with her sore ankle.
“Why do you want to know about mating?” En asked.
She spun around and gasped when she realized he was a couple of steps away from her. She bit her cheek when her ankle protested but soon the pain was pushed to the back of her mind as she stared at his handsome face. He’d moved so quietly she hadn’t even heard him move. She wanted to answer that she was just curious and opened her mouth to say those exact words, but nothing came out. It would be half a lie. Although she was curious that wasn’t the reason she wanted to know. She was tempted to let them mate her and wanted to know the process involved. Sex was the obvious equation, but she had a feeling there was more involved.
“Lavinia?”
She looked to see Men was standing next to En. Her breathing escalated and her traitorous body responded to their handsome faces and sexy, brawny bodies, but it was also their scent. She’d been surprised over how good they smelled. Never had she been attracted to a man because of the way he smelled or the cologne he wore, but she was with these two guys. She didn’t know how to explain it other than they just smelled right.
She ducked her head and shook it, not wanting to embarrass herself more than she already had or embarrass them. The uncertainty of what to do made her ability to speak fly out the window.
When En stepped forward and grasped her chin she gasped and although she wanted to pull away from his arousing touch she met his gaze as he stared down into her eyes.
“If we mate with you, we will make love to you.” En’s voice was raspy and his eyes moved over her face hungrily. “When you’re about to come, we will bite you with our fangs and take a small amount of your blood. I’m not really sure how it works, but the way I figure it, some of our DNA must mix with yours.”
Men moved in behind her and she panted as he pressed his front against her back as he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her tightly against him. She nearly moaned when she felt the hard ridge of his aroused cock pressing into the middle of her back.
“From what we’ve heard from Set, Sab, Pen, and Paser as well as seen for ourselves, you are going to get sick for a day or so, but don’t worry because we won’t leave your side and we’ll take good care of you. We think the human body tries to kill of our DNA, but we are stronger than you are and once you are better you will be like us.” Men squeezed her waist and rubbed his chin on the top of her head.
“How?” she managed to ask in a bare whisper but knew when En frowned at her that he’d heard her.
“How what, pixie?”
“How would I be like you? Would I have fangs?”
“You would, but don’t let that scare you. We don’t drink blood to survive. You’ve already seen that we eat and drink just like you do. The only time we would consume blood is if we’re hurt badly and need it to replenish our strength immediately,” En explained.
“Have either of you ever done that?” Lavinia held her breath while she awaited their answer.
“In the five thousand years we’ve been alive I’ve only ever had to take blood twice,” Men replied.
“The same goes for me,” En said. “I almost forgot. If you agree to be our mate you will end up with the mark of Ra on your chest and back.”
“I will?”
En nodded, his gaze lowering to her breasts. When she felt her nipples harden even more she wanted to cross her arms over them to hide them, but she knew it was a useless endeavor. Both En and Men had an enhanced sense of smell and from the way En’s nostrils flared each time he inhaled through his nose, he could smell her lust.
“What does the mark of Ra look like?” she asked.
En grabbed hold of the bottom of his shirt and before she could blink pulled it up and over his head. Her breath hitched in her throat and her heart stuttered in her chest before setting into a rapid rhythm. His beautiful dark skin gleamed under the light. The urge to touch his hard, muscled chest was too hard to deny and she lifted her hand before she could think about what she was doing. Her eyes snagged on the black outline of an eye with thick dark lines curving under and over it. When she realized her hand hovered in midair she began to pull it back, but quicker than a wink, En clasped her wrist and brought her hand up to his chest. She gasped as his wonderful heat seeped into her skin and the tingle of desire grew hotter and more intense.
“You can touch me, pixie. We’ve already told you that.”
She nodded and felt his chest expand as he took a deep breath. Using the tip of her index finger she traced the lines of his tattoo. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered reverently. As she touched the mark her lust grew, but she also felt a tranquility deep in her soul. She had no idea why and although she thought about asking she didn’t because she didn’t want to sound strange.
“Show her the one on your back,” Men ordered in a gruff voice.
Lavinia lowered her hand just before En turned his back toward her. There on his left shoulder blade was the tattoo of a falcon with what looked like the sun surrounding its head. She remembered seeing both shapes in history books about ancient Egypt, but it seemed so long ago. She was going to have to brush up on her history, but she would do that later.
“You said I would get marks, too. Will they be the same as these?”
“Almost.” Men eased his hold on her waist. She tilted her head back so she could meet his eyes as he moved and leaned over her.
“Almost?” she asked and quickly moved her gaze from his lips back to his eyes, but when he began explaining, she found herself gazing at his delectable mouth again. She loved watching his full lips form words. His mouth was masculine, but she could imagine those lips kissing all over her body.
“You’ll get the eye of Ra at the top edge of your left breast. You’ll also get the falcon with the eye of Ra integrated into it on your left shoulder blade, but mated women get an extra mark.”
“What?”
“You’ll have a very faint outline of an angel on your right shoulder blade.”
Lavinia nodded before licking her lips. “Will it hurt?”
“No,” En said, drawing her gaze. She watched mesmerized as the muscles and tendon in his neck moved and rippled as he shook his head. “You’ll feel a slight warm tingling sensation but no pain.”
“Okay.” She sighed. Her gaze wandered over his broad, muscular shoulders, thick bulging biceps, pectorals, and ridged abdomen. She licked her lips again wishing she could trace each delineated muscle with her tongue. That thought caused her mouth to water. When her eyes wandered down to the waistband of his jeans and the prominent bulge at his crotch, her eyes nearly rolled back in her head. The man was hung and he couldn’t be wearing underpants, or maybe he was wearing loose boxer shorts. His cock was tucked down the inside of his left leg. It looked long, thick, and hard and she wasn’t even sure if he was fully erect.
She wanted to see, touch, and taste, but that wasn’t all. She wanted En and Men to make love to her and claim her as theirs. However, since she’d never had sex with a man she was as nervous as hell. Especially since they seemed to be above average in the penis size department. She wasn’t naïve and had seen pictures of cocks in all shapes and variations of arousal but never had she suspected a man could be so large. She shouldn’t be surprised though because they were a lot taller, and bigger in the muscle department than any man she’d met in her lifetime. She didn’t even notice that she’d licked her lips again until she heard En groan.
Her face once more suffused with heat when she realized she’d been staring at his jeans-covered dick. Her eyes flicked up to meet En’s gaze and the lust she saw in them made her knees begin to tremble. The hunger was vaster than what she’d seen in his gaze before and her body responded in kind.
Liquid heat pooled in her belly causing her womb and cunt to clench. Cream dripped out onto her folds to soak her panties.
“Yo
u’re killing me, pixie.” En licked his lips, leaving a sheen of moisture behind. “If you aren’t willing to mate with us, then you need to stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?” she asked breathlessly.
“Like you want us to fuck you.”
Lavinia nodded because she couldn’t find the words she needed to tell him that was exactly what she wanted. She continued to stare into his eyes, hoping he would see the answer in her gaze.
Her whole body was trembling with desire and need. Need to have En and Men touch her and ease the ache deep inside of her, which seemed to get stronger and stronger the longer she was in their presence.
She was nervous, and although a little worried about getting sick once they claimed her, she couldn’t make herself walk away from them.
They were the sexiest men she’d ever laid eyes on, but that wasn’t the reason she wanted to be theirs, nor because of how they lit her body up without even touching her.
They were the kindest and most honest men she’d ever met. She knew from the story of how they’d saved their fellow slave so long ago that they were compassionate and just. These two men and the other sentinels had been fighting to keep humanity safe for millennia without any recognition for their jobs. She’d been so lonely since her parents had died, but that must pale in comparison to how alone they must have felt. They’d only had each other to keep the darkness at bay and yet they fought dark evil every single night.
How they’d managed to do that for so long she had no idea, but her admiration for them grew with each second.
She wanted them and they wanted her. They hadn’t hidden what she was to them, what they wanted from her. They’d been upfront, honest from the start and although it had been hard to fathom at first—who wouldn’t when she hadn’t known another species of humans even existed—she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life without them in it.
Lavinia couldn’t walk away because she was already beginning to care for them.
She drew in a deep breath and jumped off the cliff, secure in the knowledge that En and Men wouldn’t let her fall.
“Yes.”
Chapter Six
Men wanted to shout with joy but he bit the inside of his cheek. He didn’t want to startle Lavinia by making a sound. The sexual tension in the room ratcheted up until he swore he was going to be roasted alive and although he wanted to scoop her up into his arms and race toward the bedroom, he clenched his hands into fists so he wouldn’t.
He met En’s gaze over her head and nodded to his friend to ask what was on both of their minds because he was so twisted up inside he wasn’t sure he could speak coherently.
When En cupped her cheek and stared deeply into her eyes, Men wrapped his arms back around her body and pulled her snugly against him. He inhaled her honey-vanilla scent, taking her perfume deep into her lungs and holding it there. She smelled so sweet and the underlying scent of her arousal caused his dick to throb in his pants. When she leaned back against him, all of her tension leaving her body, he knew they didn’t have anything to worry about. Lavinia might not have said it, but her actions spoke loud and clear. She trusted them. If she didn’t she wouldn’t still be here, nor would she be leaning against him.
“You need to say the words, pixie. I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings.”
She nodded and drew a deep breath. When Men saw her little tongue at the corner of her mouth, he knew she’d just licked her lips again. She had no idea how sexy that action was, but every time he saw the tip of her moist, pink tongue all he could think about was having her lick and suck on his hard cock.
“I want you to…mate me.”
Men unwrapped his arms from around her waist and moved to stand beside En. “Be very sure, little one, because once we start we aren’t going to stop.”
Lavinia looked from him to En and back again. “I’m sure. I don’t know how it happened and I know we still have a lot to learn about each other, but I know deep down in my soul that you are both good, kind, men. No other man has affected me the way you both do. I have these feelings…feelings I’ve never felt before and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering if we could have built a solid, loving relationship.
“The compulsion to have you both make love to me is too strong to ignore. I’m an old-fashioned kind of girl and want to know I’ll have an emotional connection to you both, not just physical.”
Men took her small hand in his. “We’ll have that, Lavinia. When we’ve mated you and you’ve gone through the transformation you will be able to feel some of what we do. We can already feel some of your emotions and although they’re faint, once we’ve claimed you the connection between us will only get stronger and stronger. Are you prepared for that, to be able to feel what we do?”
Lavinia opened her mouth to reply but En beat her.
“Some women find the thought of such a strong bond disconcerting. We don’t want you to be scared by that or by becoming as we are.”
“I’m not scared,” she answered and her voice cracked on the last word.
“Bullshit!” Men crossed his arms over his chest. “I can see how scared you are by how tense you are. You’re shaking, little one, and not all of that is because you want us.”
Lavinia looked away, but Men palmed her cheek and brought her gaze back to him. “We need you to be honest with us at all times, Lavinia. We’ve been around the block with the opposite sex, but neither of us have ever had a serious relationship. We don’t want to stuff anything up, but I know that we will. We won’t mean to, but we have no idea what we’re doing.”
“Are you shitting me?” Lavinia’s mouth gaped open.
“I just told you we will always be honest with you. Why would I lie?”
Lavinia waved her hand up and down his and then En’s bodies without touching either of them. “Look at you. You’re both very good-looking men with big muscles and tall, buff bodies. What woman wouldn’t want to have a relationship with you?”
“I’m sure some did,” En said. “We were the ones who didn’t want to get involved too heavily with them, but we made sure they knew that before we…interacted together.”
“Why?” Lavinia frowned.
“Why what?” Men asked.
“Why didn’t you want to have a relationship?”
“How were we supposed to do that when we had to hide who we were from the humans?” En asked.
Lavinia sighed and pushed her hair back from her face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think of that. It must have been really hard for you all to live for so long without anyone to love you.”
“It was but it wasn’t.” Men smirked when she gave him a puzzled look at his contradictory statement. “It was hard because we yearned to have someone to love just like anyone would, but it wasn’t so bad since we hadn’t found the right person to want to have a relationship with… Until now.”
“We’ve digressed,” En said, taking hold of her chin between her finger and thumb. “Why are you scared?”
“I’m not scared. I’m just nervous since I’ve never had sex before.”
“We won’t hurt you, pixie. We’ll make sure you’re ready before we penetrate you.”
“I know you won’t hurt me, but I can’t help being nervous. This will be my first time and you’re both…so big.”
Men grinned and, when he looked at En, saw he was smiling, too.
Lavinia folded her arms beneath her breasts. “I’m glad you find this so amusing,” she snapped and glared at them both.
Men liked it when she got that fiery gleam in her eyes. She wasn’t afraid to stand up for herself and that was a good thing since they were dominant men. They were used to taking care of others weaker than they were, but they were going to have to change tactics where Lavinia was concerned. She was their equal in every way except for her gender, size, and strength, but she was as sharp as a tack, no matter what she thought about herself. They were just going to have to make her see herself the way they saw he
r. It didn’t matter what job she held or what her education level was. There was a keen intelligence in her eyes that they would delve into later, but right now they had a mate to claim.
“We weren’t laughing at you, little one.” Men moved fast, scooping her up into his arms before striding toward his bedroom. “We were pleased with the compliment you gave us.”
“Oh.” Lavinia sighed and looped and arm around his neck. The tips of her fingers caressed the skin on his nape before moving up to his head. He shivered and goose bumps raced over his skin. “I love touching your skin. You look so hard, but your skin is soft, warm, and smooth.”
“It’s not as soft as yours is, baby.”
“I can’t wait to touch, caress, and kiss every inch of your body,” En rasped and moved closer as Men lowered Lavinia to her feet.
He vowed to be gentle with her. Standing next to her tiny frame made him realize just how big and strong he was. That was a good thing when dealing with the shadow demons, but he and En would have to temper their strength so they didn’t end up hurting their mate while making love to her.
Starting right now.
* * * *
Lavinia clenched her hands so she wouldn’t grab hold of Men or En and jump their bones. She wanted to kiss them but didn’t have the confidence to make the first move. She’d been rather disappointed when Men had set her back on her feet, but she was going to have to learn to be patient.
She shivered when En moved in close to her back and although she wanted to rub her body against his, she refrained. When En wrapped an arm around her waist and the other around her chest her breathing sped up. His dark muscular arm was around her shoulders and over the top of her breasts. She shivered when she felt his warm breath caress her ear and then he licked at her earlobe before sucking it into his mouth, before his lips began nibbling and licking along the side of her neck.
