That was yet another thing Tamlen was not fond of. He called her Celena, little one. Pet names that meant something to Lena. He was definitely not fond of this newcomer. Not at all. He was unsure whether he’d ever grow fond of him. Apparently, he could get used to spending time with the man who’d killed him in his first life—even spending intimate time with him—but he could not imagine doing so with Bastian.
Tamlen forced out a smirk. “I’m certain conversing with her is the last thing you want to do right now.” He was aware of the strange look Vale was giving him, and he shrugged it off. His attention was solely on the newcomer.
“If you have something to say to me, say it now,” Bastian said, unwilling to be the first to break their staring contest.
“You hurt her. That’s something I can never forgive.”
A pained expression crossed Bastian’s tanned features, something tugging at his mouth to make him frown. “I will regret my actions for as long as I breathe. I will never touch her like that again.” Despite it all, the man seemed genuine in his words.
Vale moved closer to Tamlen as he said, “You are aware, then, we are also her…thralls, and we…” He trailed off, his blue stare rising to Tamlen, hoping he would help him choose the words to say. “We love her. As equals.”
The newcomer nodded once. “I…figured as much. I care for her as well, and I do not want to cause any problems with her, or with you.”
“How much do you know of history, Bastian?” Tamlen growled out, earning himself a glare and a shake of the head from Vale. Vale didn’t want to get into it, but he did. He wanted Bastian to know just who he would be sharing Lena with. Tamlen Grey, of the Grey Revolt, a mage of fire who could engulf entire cities in flames, if he so chose.
“I do not study history. The only art I ever studied was war,” Bastian spoke carefully. “I am a chevalier of Sumer, a double agent for Rivaini’s King in the Empress’s court. I know my way around liars and bluffs just as well as I know my way around any weapon a blacksmith can forge.”
All right, so the man could handle himself, then.
Vale was the one who spoke next, “How did you stop us from using our magic? Are you a mage? Was it some sort of mysticism?”
“That is a conversation for another time,” Bastian said pointedly. “I must speak with Celena, if you are finished with this…intimidation attempt. If you are equal, I am as well. I am not the lowest man on the pole, and I will not take insults laying down.” His light, hazel irises were intense as they glared at Tamlen. Tamlen was the tallest out of the three, Bastian the second most. Vale, the poor man, was only a few inches taller than Lena herself.
“Fine, but this conversation is not over,” Tamlen told him, stepping aside to allow him entrance to the farmhouse. “Only put on hold.” He could not help himself—he sneered at Bastian as he walked past him, leaving him alone outside with Vale. “I don’t like that man,” he muttered, once it was the two of them.
Vale was in the process of shaking his head as he said, “You, the mighty Tamlen Grey, are awash with jealousy. It is quite the sight, even though I do not agree with your envy.”
Of course, he didn’t agree with Tamlen’s jealousy. Even Tamlen hated it, but there was scant he could do about it. He’d feel however he’d feel. He couldn’t control it. It simply was what it was.
“He is with us, now,” Vale went on, holding his hands behind his back. “With Lena. You should learn to accept him.” His chest rose and fell with a sigh. “Though I am curious how he negated our magic. We’ll give him time with Lena, then he must tell us. If he can stop all magic use, perhaps we could use him against Zyssept.”
As soon as he said it, Tamlen knew it made sense, but the realist inside him knew they had no hope of beating a god. They’d try and they’d try, but if Zyssept was a god of death, they’d be powerless against him. Vale, Bastian, and Tamlen were all recently-dead, which meant the god of death might have some degree of power over them.
Regardless, Lena could not fight a god herself. Tamlen would stand by her side, even if it meant he’d die a second time. Even if it meant he’d never hold her again. He’d never had such an urge to protect someone, never felt the pull to shelter anyone from the horrors of the world. He’d only ever fought to make the world better for mages. Now, though, he wanted to keep Lena safe, to make her realize being a mage was not all bad. Magic wasn’t a curse.
Tamlen was full of useless hopes and dreams, wasn’t he?
Bastian was here. He’d come back and he wanted to stay with her. Not only that, but they’d kissed, and he didn’t pull away and run again. Lena was amazed, like a child with a new storybook, amazed at how good it felt to have Bastian back in her life. Even if she’d used necromancy to get here, she was happy. So happy that she could forget about the black magic use.
She sank down in the tub, whose waters grew cooler by the minute, taking a small towel and rubbing it along her body. She should’ve asked Tamlen to re-heat the water again, but really, she didn’t plan on staying in the water for long. As soon as she was clean, she’d hop out and rejoin her men.
Her men.
Gods, sometimes it still felt like a dream, like some sort of blissful, sensual dream. She had two men committed to her, and now…now she had three? Now Bastian was one of them? It didn’t feel real. Yes, they were her thralls, but she did her best not to think of it that way. She might’ve used some necromancy spells, but she was not a necromancer.
She wasn’t a black magic user, not like Gregain.
Gregain. The High Enchanter of the College of Magi in Rivaini. A blood mage. It still gave her tremors when she thought of it, of how sick his expression had turned when he’d looked at her. When he’d said Zyssept would give him her as a reward for helping the old god return to this world, he didn’t know Lena was already promised to the god. Gregain hadn’t seen the entire picture.
Did Gregain’s little stunt actually bring forth Zyssept? Lena didn’t feel different. She assumed she’d feel the old god’s calling, but…there was nothing. She felt nothing. Perhaps Zyssept wasn’t here yet; maybe they had more time. Maybe she was freaking out all for nothing. She could only hope the worst she’d face was making her return to the College and informing them the truth about Gregain.
Lena looked up the moment she noticed someone stood in the doorway to the washroom. In his raggy, farmer’s clothes, Bastian looked the very opposite of a noble chevalier from Sumer. Still, he was handsome. His skin looked healthier, a rich and tawny shade compared to hers. His cheekbones were more pronounced than Tamlen’s or Vale’s, his chin wider, with the small cleft she liked. His eyebrows were thick and black, matching his hair—which had looked better, because her cutting skills were not great. His hazel stare popped, a startling lightness compared to the rest of him.
And it said nothing of his frame. His muscles. He was a chevalier. He could swing a sword as easily as a mace, could pick up a claymore effortlessly. His biceps strained the fabric on his arms. Bastian was most certainly a man in every sense of the word.
He walked into the washroom, saying, “Celena, there’s something I want to…” His feet halted the very instant his eyes focused on her in the tub, on the fact she was naked in the water. As if the man hadn’t realized sooner what she’d be doing in the washroom. Bastian immediately spun on his heels, giving her his back. “Apologies. I didn’t mean to…I didn’t know—didn’t expect you to—”
Lena’s lips curved with a smile. She found him oddly endearing when he floundered about. Such a switch from the confident man she knew he was. “It’s okay,” she told him. She patted the tub’s rim, which was thick and sturdy enough to be a makeshift seat. “You can sit here, and we can talk about whatever you want.”
Bastian glanced over his shoulder, just enough to see where she told him to sit. “I…”
“It’s okay,” she said again, firmer in her declaration.
The blasted man kept his eyes averted as he slowly walked to the tub, sitt
ing on its edge, giving her view of his back. She supposed he was trying to be as honorable as he could, given the situation. A shame, because while it was endearing, Lena didn’t want him to be honorable in this very moment.
When he said nothing, only rubbed his hands together on his lap, staring down at them as if they held all the answers, she said, “I hope I’m not so hideous you cannot even look at me.” Baiting him was probably not the best course to take, but oh, well. She wanted his beautiful eyes on her.
“You are the very opposite of hideous,” he was quick to say. “I do not want you to think of me a…weak man.” So refusing to look at her while she was in the tub meant he was strong? It made no sense whatsoever.
Lena sat up, moving to hug the rim of the tub on his right. She gazed up at his profile. Just looking at him caused a flurry of butterflies in her stomach. He was, without a doubt, one of the most handsome men she’d ever seen. “You can be weak when it comes to me, can’t you?” She smiled when he glanced at her. “And I don’t think looking at me would make you a weak man, anyway. You are one of the strongest men I know.”
At that, his thin lips spread into a grin. “You flatter me. I don’t remember you flattering me so much before.”
“What can I say? I missed you, and now I’m old enough to realize how strong of a man you are.”
Bastian moved one of his fiddling hands to her face, grazing his fingertips over her cheek. “I fear you’re right. I am strong, but when it comes to you…” His eyes darted to her shoulder, traveling down her back in the water, at her legs. He didn’t see much; all of her most private bits were either against the tub’s rim or blocked by her torso, since she sat next to him in the water.
“You could always come in the water with me,” Lena suggested. It was something she never would’ve thought about saying a month ago, but here she was. She had most definitely changed, but for the better. Now she understood why Ingrid chased after men. It was almost addicting. “Then you wouldn’t have to worry about looking at me.”
“If I got in the water with you, the least I’d do is look at you.”
“I wouldn’t stop you.”
“Celena…”
She rose her eyebrows. “Bastian. I thought we were over this. I thought you decided I’m not a little girl any longer?” Lena leaned back, which gave Bastian a good view of her breasts under the water. “I’m not, you know.”
He swallowed. “I know.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“I…I don’t know.”
Lena shrugged under the water. “I won’t make you, but the invitation is there. Do with it what you want.” She ran her hands along her body with a sigh. Neither Vale nor Tamlen would’ve made her work this hard to get them to come to her. Bastian was an enigma. She did notice, though, his eyes followed her hands beneath the water.
“And what,” his voice was low, husky, “do you want?”
“I thought I made that obvious. I want you.” Lena once more sat up, but instead of leaning on the tub’s side, she simply sat straight, bringing the top half of her torso out of the water. Her nipples immediately hardened at the switch of temperature. A familiar ache settled in the pits of her loins.
She wanted him completely.
Bastian let out a soft moan as his eyes roamed across her chest. “You do know how to make a man weak, don’t you?” Before he said anything else, and perhaps before he changed his mind, he stood, practically tearing off the farmer’s clothes. He was, unsurprisingly, already hard.
Smiling as she moved forward in the tub, Lena waited until he’d gotten in before leaning back, resting against his chest. Such a strong, solid chest. He wrapped his arms around her, and she lightly ran her fingertips along the top of his forearm. Bastian was a bit hairier than Vale and Tamlen, but it did not take away from his attractiveness. If anything, it made him manlier. Even the center of his chest had a layer of short, black hair.
He was an impressive specimen of the male gender.
“So what is it you want to talk about?” Lena asked quietly. She felt his chest rumble behind her, as if what she said had been funny.
“How do you expect me to concentrate on anything other than you in this moment?” Bastian bent his head toward her neck, laying a series of kisses along the side of her throat and on her shoulder. The feeling of his lips on her skin sent waves of tingling pleasure coursing through her. Gods, she wanted those lips everywhere. “You are perfection personified, Celena.”
That was a compliment she had no response to. The way he spoke it, she knew he thought it to be true. A strange thing to hear, and an even stranger thing to believe—and she was starting to. Believe it, that was. Vale, Tamlen, and now Bastian; they made her feel perfect, made her forget her flaws. They made her feel as if she were the only woman in the kingdom. Which was a good feeling, truly.
Lena had never felt special. Not in a good sense, anyway. After setting fire to her parents’ farmhouse, she’d always thought her life would consist of repentance and the avoidance of magic. She’d only entertained thoughts of sex and men when she was alone, those nights when she yearned for more in her life. But until recently, they’d remained thoughts. Now…now her thoughts had turned into actions, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.
His arms loosened around her, his hands starting to travel along her body, touching her in places she never dreamed he’d touch. Over the smoothness of her stomach, between the sensitive skin of her chest, and, finally, stopping only when they cupped her breasts. His thumbs ran over her nipples, and she let out a fluttery sigh as he toyed with them. She bent her neck, which gave him easier access to it, a larger area to shower with kisses.
She sighed out his name, “Bastian.”
His legs moved, hooking her feet around his ankles, pulling hers apart. His attention moved from her chest to someplace lower, somewhere more sensitive. A place aching for his touch. While one traveled down, the other went to her neck, tilting her so he could brush his lips against hers.
“I want to feel all of you,” he murmured, ending his words with a hard, passionate kiss that forced away all her conscious thoughts.
All she knew was she wanted him as desperately as he wanted her.
His fingers slid between her, making her squirm against him, grinding her lower back against his erection. Bastian knew exactly how to touch her to get her body to react. Or maybe everything felt heightened because this—their joining—felt like a long time coming. Lena didn’t need much stimulation to reach the precipice of her pleasure. She shook, breaking her lips off his to moan as she came, her body tensing in his grip.
Her skin grew hot. It happened so fast, it was almost…embarrassing.
But Bastian did not seem to mind or care that it had happened so quickly; he did, however, seem smug it happened at all. “My beautiful Celena,” he whispered to her ear, nibbling her earlobe. His hands slid against her, moving until they once more were massaging her breasts.
She unwound her feet from his ankles, turning to him. “I want you inside of me.” So forward, so unabashed.
He held the back of her head as he said, “I find myself needing the same thing.”
Needing. Not wanting. Lena felt her stomach burning at his choice of words. Without hesitation, she grabbed him beneath the water, gripping his thick length tightly, watching his eyelids grow heavy as she positioned herself and the tip of his dick. She came down on him, arching her back out of the water as he entered her, filling her up.
It was better than she imagined it would be. More sensual, more erotic since they were in the tub.
He started moving his hips, muttering, “Gods. It is beyond words, how you feel.”
Lena set her hands on his chest, stopping him from thrusting below her. “No, let me,” she said, moving her lips to his neck, kissing him as she rocked on his dick. In and out he went. Anytime his length left her, she felt hollow; when he was inside her, she was whole. She would do the work here; she would make him come.
She most certainly was not his little one anymore.
Every time he let out a moan, she found herself working a little harder. Each time he whispered “Gods, yes,” she rocked a bit faster. She felt his hands roaming her back, stopping only when they reached her ass, squeezing her cheeks. She moved her lips to his mouth, taking his bottom lip between her teeth.
Bastian’s hips started moving, and the man bucked beneath her, his eyelids slamming shut as he came. The hands gripping her ass tightened as he moaned, his cock throbbing and pulsating inside of her. Once the orgasm had released him, he was sluggish in opening his eyes and staring at her.
A smile met him. “Remember,” Lena whispered with a gentle kiss on his lips, “you are as much mine as I am yours.” She slid back, slipping him out of her. Instead of getting out of the water, she snuggled against his chest, breathing in his musky, manly scent.
His arms hugged her closer, and he leaned his cheek on the top of her head, near the bun of her hair. “I shall let you know whenever I need a reminder.”
They sat in silence for a long while, enjoying the feeling of each other’s skin, but Lena knew he’d come into the washroom for a reason, and it hadn’t been sex, even though it was beyond nice.
“What’d you come in here for?” Lena asked in a whisper, tracing his knuckles with a fingertip. She was comfortable in his presence, not ashamed at all of what they did. Some people would think of this entire situation as wrong, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. If she did, then her rosy view on her life would fall apart, and she’d be forced to face reality.
And reality was not pretty.
“I…” Bastian trailed off, turning his head to gaze up and out of the nearby window, at the clear blue sky overhead. “It’s something you’d think foolish.”
“Try me. As you can see, I’ve matured somewhat since our last meeting.” She’d said it as a joke, but her teasing attitude faded when she noted the solemnity in his expression. Whatever it was, he was deadly serious about it. It churned her stomach, whatever it was.
Blood and Sorcery: A Reverse Harem Fantasy (Unfortunate Magic Book 2) Page 7
