That wasn’t true.
Unelected warriors were merely shuffled around, and pressed into troupes that had lost a member to death.
She would never be free.
Now that she was a warrior?
Her life was tied to the Fae until she passed, and that was the harsh, unavoidable truth.
I sucked in a breath. “Okay, we need to try.”
He shot me a look, then murmured, “On the count of three, grab his hands and try to dislodge them, yeah?”
I nodded. “One, two…”
“Three.”
7
Seph
The exquisite pain that flooded me wasn’t enough to take me to my knees as it evidently had Gabriella. But it was enough to give me a hard-on.
The glow had spread to encompass all three of us. The second we’d touched Daniel, it had extended over our forms, surrounding us in a pink hue that was anything but manly.
As we worked to tear Daniel’s fingers from his hold on Gabriella, I could feel the peculiar sensations spreading through me.
My body identified it as both pleasure and pain, and that was why it was confused. It felt good, but equally, I knew it should be hurting. The erection was inconvenient, especially since the longer the glow held me in its clasp, the more fiery the feeling became.
I gulped as I tore at Daniel’s fingers, scrambling to break the magnetized grip he seemed to have on her.
“Thank Sol!” Matthew gritted out, and I flashed him a look and saw that he’d broken Daniel’s hold on his left hand.
That seemed to be the trigger, because the instant his left hand was free, I managed to tear into the grip on his right.
As we all staggered back, the glow didn’t instantly die, but Gabriella finally fell to the ground with enough of a jolt that I felt it in my own bones. I winced, and though my instinct told me to go to her, I didn’t, because I knew, deep down, that the glow would appear once more.
“What the fuck was that?” I growled, eying her crumpled form on the ground. Her wings were splayed at an awkward angle that had me pitying her plight when she awoke. Not being able to lay them out flat would give her a hell of a crick in them.
“Her powers.”
I snorted. “Helpful, numbnut.”
Daniel smirked at me, but his skin was pale. His face bleached of all color. “That was surreal,” he admitted after a few seconds.
It definitely was.
“I saw something…” He rasped.
My eyes flared wide at his tone. “What?” I hadn’t seen anything. I’d felt plenty, sure, but maybe because he’d been holding her longer it had affected him differently somehow?
“I-I don’t know.”
Matthew grunted. “Don’t bullshit us. You saw something. It’s okay. Whatever you saw, it’s evidently a manifestation of the magic.”
He reached down, and dragged his tunic up so he could wipe off his sweat on the neckline, and slowly, carefully, admitted, “It was…. I saw us having sex.”
I snorted. “I got a hard-on. That’s probably all it was. Your imagination—”
“No. I saw us all having sex.” He gritted his teeth. “You know we don’t share.”
“And, what? We were sharing her?” Matthew questioned with a frown.
“Yeah. All of us. It was… odd.”
Uneasily, I mumbled, “I’ll bet.” Then, thinking about my conversation with my father last night, and just as uneasily, I questioned, “You know witches have mates, don’t you?”
Matthew frowned. “Yeah. What do they call them? Virgo?”
I nodded. “Last night, it was weird. My dad called…”
Daniel scowled at me. “That’s weird? Hell, my mom calls me every night—”
“Yeah, well, my family doesn’t really give a fuck. They just care that I’m not destroying our rep. That’s pretty much it.” I blew out a breath. “He said something disturbed him. That it was…” I couldn’t explain when he hadn’t explained it either. “Anyway, he mentioned he was a Virgo to a witch, but he’d rejected her. My uncle too.”
“It’s a sick twist of fate that for two races who hate one another, we’re mated from time to time,” Daniel whispered, his eyes on Gabriella’s crumpled form. The way she was splayed out made her look boneless. I felt uncomfortable just looking at her.
“Yeah. Want to know what’s even weirder?”
Both my troupe brothers arched their brows in answer.
“I think she’s the granddaughter of my father’s witch mate. I mean, I don’t think they’re related. He’d never have rejected the bond if that was the case. But… their names are the same and when he saw her photo, he looked like he was going to pass out.”
Matthew gaped at me. “That can’t be possible, can it?”
“Why not?” I tugged at my tunic, feeling like it was suffocating me. “He seemed to think it was.”
“You think my seeing that was… what? A sign?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know what it means.”
“You wouldn’t have mentioned it if you didn’t think it was important.”
“True,” I conceded. “I just—I guess I thought it was pertinent.”
Matthew rubbed a hand over his head. “Well, only time will tell whether it is or not, but the glow means something and the only person who might know is currently passed out cold.”
“Someone’s going to come soon,” Daniel replied. “They’ll make us take her to the infirmary.”
“We can’t do that. If she’s weird, then…”
“The Assembly will be called,” Matthew stated grimly.
I blew out a breath. “If we fly fast as fuck, maybe someone—”
“Won’t notice four neon pink Fae?” Daniel scoffed. “Guess again.”
“Not sure we have much choice,” Matthew muttered.
I winced. “I don’t think we do.” Before they could argue, I stepped over to Gabriella, squatted at her side, and reached for her.
My hand hovered above her flesh for a handful of seconds as, warily, I prepared myself for the connection to stir between us. The pleasure/pain wasn’t that distasteful a sensation, but the notion of seeing a vision of us all having sex?
I mean, I liked porn as much as the next man, but that kind of shit was too freaky, even for me.
Sucking in a breath, I bit the bullet.
“Thank Sol for that,” Matthew mumbled when I touched her and a glow didn’t emanate.
“The glow must have been triggered by her anger, and it was powerful enough to keep the glow churning along until we broke contact,” Daniel guessed. “Because she’s knocked out, there’s no emotion to fire her up. Maybe?” He pulled a face, as unhappy with his supposition as I was.
Nothing about this was making sense.
Carefully starting to shuffle her into my arms, I tried to stand upright but couldn’t. Her arms and legs flopped every which way but loose. Seeing my struggle, Matthew and Daniel approached and began helping me too.
Within seconds, she was in my arms, and we were flying out of the stadium.
The arena seated over four thousand, but those seats were rarely filled. The initial mid-semester trials gathered a couple of hundred, but the final trial at the end of the year? They gained more interested viewers because people wanted to catch a glimpse of this year’s best fighters. Warriors who, once they passed this trial, would be sent out into the world to deal with strife.
It reminded me of a football stadium, except for the fact its bleachers were forged from stone, and instead of turf at the center there was sand, which could and would morph into whatever the judges deemed fit.
At the moment, we had it simulating a course that had been used a few years ago. It was like a maze where each troupe member set off at north, south, east, and west points. The goal was for all four to make it to the center… along the way, of course, there were nasty surprises.
As we passed the arena, we continued our flight past the administrative area of the Academy where
the instructors and various faculty were housed.
If anyone saw us carrying her, it would not only bring shame on the troupe for her weakness, but it would also raise questions—even without her glowing, the last thing we needed was for her to come under scrutiny from the medics who might or might not discern her oddities.
As we headed past the central courtyard, and the miles of gravel that separated the sleeping quarters from the admin block in the west wing, I breathed a sigh of relief as I sought my balcony.
Making an abrupt landing, I willed the doors to my apartment open and rushed inside. The second I could, I placed her on the bed, sensing the presence of my troupe brothers at my back as I did so.
When she didn’t stir, I stepped back and murmured, “Do we just let her sleep it off?”
“Not sure there’s anything else we can do,” Daniel rumbled, but I could see he was eying her differently.
A lot differently.
There was affection in his face as he looked at her, affection and a tenderness that hadn’t been there before. If anything, she’d always mildly irritated him.
Why?
Because, like the rest of us, he had goals to achieve that she was getting in the way of. Her obstinacy was helping no one, and though we had asked her to join our troupe for a very specific reason, she was going out of her way to be difficult.
Now, however, it was like she wasn’t a pain in the ass.
Whatever he’d seen?
It was affecting him.
That in and of itself interested the fuck out of me, even as it put me on edge.
“I think we need to agree on something,” Matthew said softly, his gaze on her just as ours was.
“What?” I questioned.
“If, in twenty-four hours, she hasn’t stirred, we take her to the medics.”
Though I wanted to argue, I couldn’t.
“Even if they can’t help her?” Daniel argued.
“Even if. They’ll call someone in from the Conclave to help. That’s more than we can do.”
Daniel shook his head. “I don’t agree. You know what they’ll do to her. Until she proves herself, she’ll be poked and prodded—”
“Don’t pretend like you wanted her on the troupe for her good,” I grumbled. “We selected her for purely selfish reasons.”
“Yeah, and that’s changed now,” he ground out.
“Why? Because you had a vision?” I snapped, jutting my chin out.
He went to shove me, but Matthew grabbed his arm and hauled him back. “There’s no use fighting over this.”
“Yeah. There is. You know what happened to the first human born,” he rasped, and there was pain in his voice.
Fucking pain.
“What the Sol did she do to you?” I grated out, eying him askance.
“I don’t know.” He blew out a breath. “I don’t know,” he repeated. “But what I do know is that I don’t want her to be hung, drawn, and quartered all in the name of understanding what the fuck she is.”
Matthew winced. “Me neither. Okay, we don’t—”
“How about we call her parents? She said they’re not talking to her, but if we text them and say ‘SOS,’ surely they’ll respond?”
“She said they were overprotective,” I reminded him.
Matthew rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, she did. Except we don’t have her PIN.”
“She uses her fingerprint,” Daniel muttered. “I’ve seen her unlock it.”
“Stalker,” I rumbled, earning myself the bird he flipped my way.
“Are we agreed?” Dan demanded. “We call her parents first?”
On a sigh, I nodded, and Matthew did too.
It was in Gaia and Sol’s hands if she awoke before that became a necessity.
❖
Daniel
I woke up with a hard-on. Sure, it was morning wood, but it was more than that. There was a sense of urgency in my blood, a desperate fire that had never been there before.
Each morning, since my body had realized my cock was for more than just pissing, I’d woken up with a hard-on. It was hardly news. But this?
It was different.
I didn’t just want sex.
My body wanted Gabriella.
It wanted her, and nobody else.
After rubbing my eyes, I stared up at the ceiling and tried to think about anything other than the fact she was in the room with me.
I could hear Seph shuffling around, and by the sounds of it, he was doing push-ups. Matthew… I didn’t know where he was, and wouldn’t without tilting my head so I could look around the room, and I didn’t want to do that since I knew I’d see her.
Lying on Seph’s bed.
Asleep and unconscious.
My mind was scared for her, scared when, until yesterday, I’d never felt anything more than mild irritation that could flare into strong irritation depending on whatever shit she came out with. And she came out with a lot of shit.
Gabriella wasn’t particularly likeable.
At least, the side she’d shown of herself thus far wasn’t likeable. She’d engendered no loyalty in any of us. Nothing about her had encouraged us to make friends with her.
Granted, it could be said that Seph and Matthew weren’t friends of mine yet either. We’d gotten along well enough together throughout the past eight months, but we hadn’t been here to form bonds. We’d been here to study, to advance to the next phase of our instruction.
Now we were a troupe, and the bond and the link could flutter into life and be welcome. The best troupes were like brothers. They lived together, worked together, fought together. The only thing they didn’t share? Their women.
And yet, what I’d seen yesterday had been the antithesis of that.
I’d seen her sucking off Seph, her mouth on him as I’d been deep inside her pussy. And Matthew? He’d been in her ass.
She’d been stuffed full with all of us, and an image that, until yesterday, would have revolted me, now had my erection aching all the more.
What the fuck had she done to me with that vision?
Fae didn’t see, but that glow had…
The door to the suite opened, breaking my thoughts, and with it came the scent of breakfast. I leaned up and saw Matthew coming in with cartons of food.
I was hungry. Just not for food. Still, our bodies took four thousand calories a day to maintain our weight, so food was imperative.
Rolling off the sofa, I rubbed a hand over my hair to settle my bedhead and headed over to where Matthew was dumping the cartons on the table.
“Porridge, bacon and eggs, and sausage sandwiches.”
“I call the sandwiches,” I declared.
“Yeah, figured as much.” He rolled his eyes. “I got us what we eat pretty much every day, dude.”
Taken aback that he’d noticed, I blinked at him. His lips twitched.
“Yeah, I noticed.”
Kind of touched, I grinned at him as I peered into the cartons and found mine. Grabbing the baguette that was loaded down with meat, I took a large bite then wandered over to the bed where Gabriella rested.
“She hasn’t moved,” I rasped, the food lodging in my throat at the sight.
“No, I noticed,” Seph replied uneasily. He had his porridge in his hand, and I realized that, yeah, he did eat that every morning.
With maple syrup.
Huh.
Seemed like I remembered shit too.
Even though my hands were greasy from sausage fat, I couldn’t stop myself from reaching over and pressing my hand to her lower calf. The move felt skeevy, considering she was unconscious, but the need to connect with her was imperative.
The second I did?
My heartbeat calmed down—I hadn’t even known it was racing, dammit. Which meant it had probably been like that for a while. And I just felt a lot more at peace.
At my touch, she stirred, making both Seph and me jump and Matthew rush over, just in time to watch her roll over onto her si
de.
We all pretty much held our breaths, hoping to Gaia she’d open her eyes. When she didn’t, we grunted.
“It’s a step forward?” Matthew hesitantly said, carefully taking a seat on the edge of the bed.
“Yeah, but…” I winced. “I think we need to get in touch with her folks. Let’s not let any more time pass. If we do, then fuck knows what it might mean.”
Seph blew out a breath. “I really thought she’d be awake by now,” he admitted.
“Me too,” Matthew concurred.
Knowing her phone was in her pocket where it pretty much always was—if it wasn’t in her damn hand, that is—I reached for her cell, not letting them prevaricate, and grabbed her hand. Twisting it awkwardly so I could press her finger to the monitor, I waited for the screen to unlock.
With it now open, I found the contact list, and rather than send out a text, I sought the number for ‘mama’ and grabbed my own phone.
“What are you doing?” Matthew queried.
“She said they aren’t talking to her.”
“Thought you were just sending a text.”
“I was going to, but I think we need to talk.” Tapping in the number, I hit the connect button and waited for her mother to answer.
“Hello?”
Her voice was husky, faintly tinged with Spanish, and it reminded me of Gabriella. The warmth that spread inside me was unnerving.
Gabriella hadn’t done anything to deserve that feeling, but here I was, going gaga sentimental over her mom’s faintly reminiscent voice.
What in Gaia’s name had Gabriella done to me?
“Hi,” I replied brightly, trying to sound as normal as possible—normal, yeah. When her daughter was passed out in front of me, and somehow, after coating me with a neon pink glow, had made me see group sex and orgies… “You don’t know me—”
“No hablo inglés.”
My lips twitched at the abrupt turnaround. “I’m not selling anything.”
Silence, then, “Good, because I’m not interested in buying.”
“I know your daughter.”
Faeling for Them: An Eight Wings Academy Novel: Book One Page 11
