So Dark the Night

by Elle Cross

  I sighed as he filled me, my body adjusting to his size. He rained kisses along my temple, my cheek, my lips, anywhere he could reach on me. He held his body rigidly above me, as if every muscle was flexed and controlled to keep him still as I adjusted to him. "Are you okay, my love?"

  I was more than okay. His size alone radiated tingles throughout my body. I just needed him to move. "Yes," I hissed through my teeth. "Don't stop fucking me."

  He smiled against my temple. “Yes, my queen.” He dragged his length out of me, slowly, before slamming back in to me. He did it again. And again. Every teeth-jarring thrust sent thrilling chills up and down my body.

  He readjusted my legs so that they were against his chest, my ankles resting on his shoulders, so that I was practically folded in half. This position got him even deeper into me, and I moaned in pleasure. With this type of leverage, he was able to drive deeper, thrust faster all the while playing with my clit until I screamed for him.

  He wasn’t done.

  He flipped me over so I was on my knees, then tilted my hips up. He used his skilled tongue to lick me from behind until I was a hot, gasping mess. He sank his hard length into my throbbing flesh, one hand skimming my clit while the other clamped down on my neck.

  Dark whispers bloomed in my head. I couldn’t hear it distinctly, but it almost felt like it wanted me to let go. Yes. That was what I was hearing. A dark voice filled with longing and love alike chanted a chorus of yes.

  This must be the beginnings of the bonds that formed during a sex. I opened myself to the thread that had wrapped itself around my heart and connected me to Enver. What I found there was a dark flame that would engulf the world if he let it. He contained all that power.

  Enver.

  As soon as I thought his name, pleasure flooded my body. Everything he felt, all of the sensations, he poured into me as well, and I couldn’t come close to containing it. I screamed my release into the bed while Enver roared above me.

  He gathered me, limp and gasping, to his body and toward my bathroom. I worked the shower, while he continued to caress my skin. We washed up in my shower, taking full advantage of my shower bench to make sure I was properly cleaned.

  Eventually, I slid into bed and was tucked in when there was a knock on the door.

  It was the rest of the Inner Circle. They must have been in communication in their shared threads, because the timing was perfect. West walked right past Enver, and headed straight to me to drop a kiss on my cheek. He balanced on the side of the bed. “Everything’s been scouted and the house has been readied. Have you two gotten the chance to, you know, catch up, have a little conversation?”

  Heat burned my cheeks, rushing all the way to my hairline and then down my body.

  West leaned in. “I take it that’s a yes?”

  “Well there wasn’t much talking, if you want me to be honest.”

  He barked out a laugh. “I would have been disappointed if there was.” He kissed me soundly again, this time on my lips. “I’m going to clean up and how about being snuggle buddies tonight?” he loud whispered at me.

  I shot a look at Enver, who gestured to me, as if to say that it would be my choice. I thought it would be fun to have West as a snuggle buddy. “I’d love for you too,” I whispered back.

  He rewarded me with a loud kiss and helped himself to my bathroom.

  Havoc and Taran stopped by, each wishing me good night. Havoc promised a fun time once we reached our destination, and Taran wanted a night alone with me, too. I was so hot, I was surprised that flames weren’t dancing along the sides of my face.

  I had always felt cold and numb at the Nightmare Court. Now was the first time I felt anything and it was the complete opposite of what I’d felt before. Whereas I felt like I always needed my shields up or my guard up, and I felt nothing about anyone, here and now I felt awake and aware like I was experiencing…everything…for the first time.

  I had sex with Enver before, countless times, and I at the time, I felt good. I must have. But compared to what I’d felt tonight? It was like a night and day difference. It was like I hadn’t had sex before.

  I felt like I could smell, hear and taste more. And it was not just my imagination. Colors seemed brighter, more vibrant.

  I kissed both of them again, not too much, but enough to let them know that I was looking forward to getting reacquainted soon. They seemed to like that.

  They left and soon, West came out of the shower wearing nothing but a fresh towel around his waist.

  Where Enver was broad and corded with thick muscles, West was taller, leaner, and more sinewy. He had the grace of a dancer and the lope of a predator. And that was how he looked at me now. As a predator would its prey.

  I gulped. “You okay there, West?”

  He tilted his head to the side, an animal look, the cascade of his platinum white hair rippling down his side. “Yes, my queen. Why do you ask?”

  “You looked a little predatory there, like you were about to pounce on me and eat me or something.”

  I realized my inadvertent double entendre of word choice as soon as his lips curled and his manly chuckle made my stomach clench.

  “Ah, well if that’s the case, you are right.” He stalked the bed then, letting the towel drop along the way.

  He had a different definition of ‘snuggle buddy’ than I had.

  He ripped the blankets away from me, took my legs and pulled them so that he was between them. He pulled my night shirt up, and spoke a blessing to the gods that I hadn’t heard in years when he saw that I hadn’t worn panties.

  Enver chuckled behind me. “Well, you did walk into that one, my love.”

  I was about to ask what he meant when West grabbed my neck then kissed me, demanding my attention. I was breathless.

  He pulled my night shirt completely off, exposing my body. He kissed one taut nipple then the other, sucking on each one. He was already riding my body fast and high. I squirmed at the attention.

  Blessedly, he lifted my hips up so he could lick my slit, sliding his tongue so far he hit the spot inside me, flicking against it a few times before he sealed his lips around my clit. I quaked in pleasure, the orgasm pulsing from my center and rolling up my body in a wave.

  He was not wasting any time with dominance games.

  Enver stretched himself out beside me, cupping my breasts and pinching my nipples to draw out the pleasure even more, leaving West to invade my needy sex with his fingers. He found the spot inside me that his tongue had brushed upon, and rubbed against it harder while he continued licking my clit.

  His free hand gripped my hip, holding me down a moment before I screamed, fingers digging into West’s hair, holding him hostage, the pleasure too much as I bucked against him.

  Enver was breathing heavily beside me, his cock hard and throbbing as he watched West take over my body. I stroked him with my free hand, remembering the feeling of his hard cock inside me. He placed his hand over mine, guiding it to the pace he wanted.

  I was wrung out, but West was not done. He lifted my legs, spreading them wide and plunged his length inside me with one stroke. I gasped at the suddenness of him inside me.

  “By the gods, if I hadn’t seen you and Enver fucking during the revels, I would swear you were a virgin,” he said through clenched teeth. West drew back and slammed his full length into my again. He did it again and again, plowing into me like he wanted to open up my cervix. The smack of flesh filled my ears, exciting me, his balls spanking against my ass with every thrust.

  Enver shoved his length against my stroking hand. I loved the feel of him, hard and throbbing, in my grip.

  I needed to get off, the pleasure mounting as West drove for that spot inside me. A sheen of sweat formed on his body, and he gleamed in the soft moonlight that filled the room. I was so close, and I’d be there even faster if West pressed against my clit, but it was like he was determined to get me off from the inside.

  And then he angled our bodies even more
so he was pounding straight up, and I threw my head back and yelled.

  Bless the gods who made him and his stamina, because he kept pounding into me like a ramming piston, until I was a live wire arching and screaming for him. Enver growled at my tightening grip, and his strokes quickened until his throbbing cock spurted over our hands.

  Finally, finally, I felt West’s rhythm change, becoming more jerky and feral, and he captured my lips with his and growled against them as he pounded his release into my throbbing flesh.

  After we caught our breath, and after he followed up with a softer release, I washed up again and found more towels, clothes, and blankets, I laid there in bliss and let Enver and West wrap themselves around me.

  Karina

  It was dead quiet.

  Like that pressure that something is wrong with your ears or that you have noise-cancelling headphones on. You are supposed to hear something, but nothing is coming through.

  Enver and West hadn’t risen. I could feel them on either side of me. If there was something there then they would have woken first. Their easy breathing gave me comfort.

  Then I rose and realized that my body didn’t rise with me. I got up and left the bed and saw that my body looked peaceful nestled between the two men. I gasped, and had the strange sensation of seeing my body on the bed stir and gasp, too.

  West’s eyes immediately opened and he turned to my body, cradling against me and stroking my back to comfort me back to sleep. Enver did so as well, brushing the hair from my face and kissing my cheek.

  I swore I could feel it, phantom lips against my cheek.

  My body sighed and Enver’s smile in the dark did something to me.

  “That makes for a lovely tableau.”

  The rich, seductive voice of my mother. Out of the darkness, she appeared, her moonlight skin glowing in a soft focus. She left her hair unbound, as if she too were woken from sleep, though I knew that she rarely slept. The benefits of being able to walk through dreams and pull power from them.

  Dreams contained such potent energy.

  She stood there dressed in red silk that hugged her curvy body as if in perfect spotlight from the light from the window, staring down at the sleeping forms.

  I didn’t know what to say. The last time I saw her with my own eyes, it was three years ago and I was answering my duel.

  “You have bonded with them, but only through flesh and blood. You have not claimed them yet. I can feel it. Their loss.” She pouted a little looking at them.

  So this is what this is going to be like. I could not even escape my mother in my dreams. “Mother, if you will lecture me, I would wish that you do so during normal hours.”

  She snorted, the sound so completely unregal. “Darling, these are my normal hours.”

  She cocked her head, and moved on toward the window. We were over her balcony now, overlooking the roses and hedges that took up her domain. Dreamscapes from all the possible dimensions bled together to pool at her court. A nifty power that avoided unnecessary travels through the veils.

  I shivered, even in dreamscape, the Court had that effect on me. I wondered if my body echoed, and if they were comforting me yet again.

  My mother sighed. “This whole business of Oracles, love, it doesn’t have to be you.”

  “Then who? As far as I know no one else from the Fold can walk these roads. No one else seems to call ghosts and talk to them.”

  She sighed again. “I know. It’s hard for me to admit that I’d been…remiss in how I’ve raised you.”

  Whoa. Remiss? That was the closest I’d ever heard my mother admitting that she was wrong.

  “Remiss? What do you mean?”

  She stared off over her court. “I should have told you about your father.”

  The breath left my body. “My father? You knew who he was?” The faces of her various consorts and guards over the years fluttered through my mind. I loved them all, in their own way, and they all claimed me, though that was not quite the same as really knowing.

  “Yes,” she said without excuse or adornment.

  I needed a moment to digest this information. I know I never directly asked if I could meet my father, but she always said that she didn’t quite know who my father was.

  I repeated the often repeated lie, and wondered how I could contain the anger that grew from a simmer to a boil.

  “Well, that still is more or less true. I do not quite know him. But I know the man who fathered you. I’m not even sure if he mentioned a name…”

  “You slept with someone you didn’t know nor knew their name?”

  “Darling, there was no sleeping there.”

  Ew, how weird it was to have this kind of conversation with my mother. Not the first time that I felt like the prudish parent and she was a wild child.

  “Well, what do you mean then, Mother, aside from completely icking me out discussing your sex life with my father? Which PS, if I ever survive this conversation I’m not sure I can have sex ever again.”

  “That would be a shame. Your men have delightful pleasures waiting for you, my love. Can you imagine what Havoc will do to you? And, Taran, that beast!” She laughed, low and sensuous.

  Again. Ick. I shook my head, trying to get mother-approved sexual relations out of my head. “So you were saying? You know who my father is?”

  “Yes. I may not have his name, but I know him by his power. He’s a being of sun, and of the raw power of the sea.” She ticked off those traits as if they were more important than hair color or facial features. “We passed a lovely captured moment during twilight on some far off beach. When our union resulted in you...” she refused to meet my eyes.

  I steeled myself for the reason why my mother would never speak of my father to me, and would instead have me attach to her men. “Did he reject me?” I asked in a small voice.

  She cut off that line of questioning really quickly. Her face warped into her war goddess aspect. “He would die a slow death if that were to happen.” Then she reverted back into a serene goddess of night. “No, he didn’t reject you or me. I never told him that I became pregnant with you. He doesn’t know you exist. I’m sorry, Karina. I didn’t think that you would need to know. Any one of my men could have been your father as easily as he was.”

  And in all the ways that mattered, they were. “Then, maybe?”

  “No, I know he is your father. It is in your powers. It’s in your eyes. It’s in how you feel the cold of my court, and how you channel the moon for our revels.”

  I flushed at that. I was in my least control during those revels. Being the conduit during those times ever since I was blessed with power was a rush. I was always the most affected by it and it would take all three days of the full moon to get over the effects of the magically induced aphrodisiac. Enver never complained of the physical exertion.

  “The power you give…it’s of the moon, yes, but more so the sun.”

  When I cocked my head to her, not understanding the significance between one source of light to another, she spelled it out for me. “Fertility, my love. The light you call down as a conduit is always more potent than anyone else’s in the court because yours has the gift of life and fertility.”

  The truth started dawning on me then. “By the gods, are you telling me that I’m descended from a fertility god?”

  She see-sawed her head. “Basically? Yes.”

  And here I thought that sexual expression was just celebrated in my mother’s court. She had multiple lovers and made no pretense about who she took to bed, and no one cared. None of her men as far as I knew felt any jealousy when she chose someone for one night over the other.

  She bit her lip. I’d never seen her unsure before. “I may not have used as much as the power available to me to discover your father’s identity either. I was selfish. I wanted you for myself. And I didn’t want him to take you away.

  “Your sister’s father was easy. He was from the court, so it’s not like he was going anywhere. But I saw
you, Karina, my heart.” She laid a cool hand on my cheek. “I saw you always cold. Never comfortable. I tried to make your life comfortable.” She did, too. Fires were always burning, soft cloaks and fur-lined dresses. I loved all the fingerless gloves I wore too.

  “It was not that bad…”

  “Darling. You say these things because you are nestled between two men, awakening into your true powers, speaking to me in dreams. Remember, you faked your death to leave my court. Do not tell me that your life was ‘not that bad.’”

  I opened my mouth to refute, but shut it again. My mother wanted to have a moment, I would let her.

  “I didn’t realize that the challenges and duels and destruction…that was not part of your nature. You need…softer things.”

  I bristled at that.

  “Now do not misread me. I didn’t say you were weak. But darling, I see now that we have different views, different…powers. I glory in chaos and destruction and revels and kills. They make me stronger. I celebrated and thrilled when you won your duels. You…didn’t.”

  She touched my hands. “These hands are meant for a different type of destruction. One that has meaning and justice and hope.” She was reaching for words that were foreign to her. It was odd seeing her unsettled. “It gave you anxiety to fight and kill. It gives me joy and power.” She was willing me to understand. And that was part of the problem. I could not understand because I could not feel it.

  And she knew that too.

  “I should not have kept you from your father or your origins, since I do not exactly know who your father is, I knew where I found him. Maybe if you spent some time in the Shadow Realm with him, you would have felt more balanced. More…not alone.”

  That was a nice way of saying that I didn’t fit in. If I hadn’t been the Queen’s daughter I would have likely been cast out a long time ago. Or dead. Most of her visitors didn’t last long. They either were too cold or grew slowly insane living their worst nightmares.

  My mother’s court was of course unaffected by her power.

  Except…