“This denial of yours is precisely why Hades will have you in his dungeon before Sunday morning. The Inferno is no laughing matter, and once there, there is no way back,” Francis says.
His certainty is maddening. “What denial?”
“Your refusal to admit the curiosity that you have buried under a sea of society’s mores. In Bardo, only truth matters. You asked me about the rules. Only the gods can bring serious harm to another being. In most cases, there are laws in place that dictate the nature of the crime and the punishment. So, for example, if I tried to kill Caleb in a jealous rage, I would immediately be dispatched to the Nyx, total nothingness, for all eternity. There are decreed punishments for attempting harm to yourself or others. Otherwise, the gods compose them at whim.” Francis looks at me earnestly. “I cannot stress the seriousness of this situation. If you defy the gods, they can do whatever they like. And they do. Hades is always looking for new playthings. Do not give him an excuse. If he takes you, you will belong to him.”
“The only person I belong to is Bob, and that’s because I gave him my soul. Not even Hades can take that away from me.” More bravado, but my guts are churning. Bob got us into this mess, but I can’t blame him—his going through the portal confirmed we were reunited. Now how do I get out of this payback concocted by Aphrodite? I rack my brain for options. I snap my fingers when it hits me.
“How do I get hold of Hera? She’s queen of the gods, right? And she wants me to deal with the problem at the academy, right? Get me a meeting. This is Bardo, after all. Love has to conquer all. She’ll be all about that.”
“Tate, Hera isn’t a nice person. She showed you her good side because she wants something from you. But she likes her kink as much as Hades does,” Bob says, bursting my last balloon.
“So, you’re saying I have to have sex with one of these gods?” Just my luck, they’d be ugly as sin, too.
“Your heightened sex drive and natural curiosity will be magnets for Hades. It is precisely that part of your psyche he will find and exploit,” Francis says.
I take a beat to decide whether I’m offended or ridiculously happy that Bob bragged about me with these guys. Unfortunately, I feel no closer to profound answers about myself now than I had on earth. Sex had never been an intellectual pursuit for me. I just liked to do, not dissect why.
I sigh. Bob, Francis, and Caleb’s steady gazes compel me to admit the truth. I have fantasies. Most of which I would never want to come true, I hasten to tell myself. Liar! “I take it this is something you examiners have a protocol for.” I admit defeat. “How do we get started?”
Now it’s Caleb’s turn to get excited. He jumps up and moves to the door. “That’s where I come in. We’re going to take a fifteen-minute break, then we’ll get started.” He gives me that boy-next-door smile. “Okay with you, babe?”
I nod. Francis glides from the room in his wake.
Bob pulls me into his arms. “That was intense. You okay, sprite?”
I drop my head on his shoulder. I missed hearing him call me sprite. What we have can’t be broken, can it?
He grabs my arms. I flinch. “What? What’s the matter?” Cognac brown eyes run over my body in concern.
“It’s okay. My arm got bruised somewhere along the way, that’s all.”
“Let’s have a look.” He undoes the buttons on my suit jacket and slides it off my shoulders. I shrug out of it, and he drops it over the back of my chair. On my right wrist, raw and new, a tattoo of strands of infinity vines wind their way around the inside of my arm. One bright red flower pulses in the center of one of the loops.
“What the fuck?” I ask in shock.
Bob’s excitement vibrates from him. “It’s a unity brand. It forms when you’ve united with your destined mate.” Bob runs his finger gently over the raw tattoo. “This makes it real,” he says with reverence.
“Of course it’s real,” I say impatiently. “But it’s not the tattoo I got in the earthly realm. It’s replaced it. What the hell?” I’m angry that someone marked me without my consent, but I’m more unsettled by what I see.
By this time, Francis and Caleb are back examining my arm. We all study it, fascinated. The more we look at it, the more it seems to come to life.
“It’s is a unity brand, right?” Bob says.
“It would appear so,” Francis says.
Bob takes my wrist and runs his finger gently across the brand. As soon as he does, his eyes widen. He yanks up his sleeve, and we watch as the same unity brand winds its way beneath his skin, an open flower among vines.
He lets out of gust of breath. “So we’re done then. Tate and I are united and can apply to go to Nirvana.
“Hmm,” Francis says in a tone that clearly conveys he thinks no such thing.
“What are you thinking?” I ask. Worry or excitement rushes through my system. I’m not sure which. But a hush falls, and I know the moment that all three guys see what I see on my brand—one flower fully open . . . and three pulsing buds.
After a quick hug of reassurance and a quick pit stop, we rejoined the others in the sitting room. Nameless now graces us with his presence, probably at Caleb’s insistence. One thing we can all count on, Caleb takes his job very seriously. We resume our usual seats. Caleb sits forward, forearm on his massive thighs. People often mistake Caleb for the alpha of our clan in no small part due to his size. Now that he’s in charge, raw power blows away his cheerful boyishness. As soon as we sit, he begins.
“Here’s how I see it. Tate’s been put in our care. Regardless of what you believe.” Caleb pauses and looks pointedly at Nameless. “We’re bound to her and she to us.”
Nameless opens his mouth. Caleb’s hand snaps up in a similar motion to the one Francis makes. Nameless’s mouth closes.
“The quarantine has meant a lot of unfocused effort and squandered time. We’ve dealt with two bouts of ascension cold fever. And granted Tate can’t begin her work at the school until quarantine ends, but by now she should have been thoroughly informed about the academy and its workings, and by now we should have let her use her talents to come up with a plan.” Caleb’s voice is emphatic. “But every meeting, every effort is derailed by the fact that we can’t sit in the same room together without jealousies and speculation about destined mates. I’m as much to blame as the rest of you.” He huffs. “And now presenting her to the Tribunal is another obstacle to Tate succeeding at the academy. A dangerous one. Tate is right, we need to get our priorities straight.” Caleb stops and gives Tate a grim smile. She gives a slight nod but says nothing, regarding him with an intensity that saturates the room.
So, priorities,” Caleb continues. “We need to get Tate through tomorrow night and find out what else Aphrodite has up her sleeve. Your quarantine officially ends tomorrow, and your body will be fully healed, but we need to remain vigilant. The incubi are still a threat to you. Though he won’t admit it, we all know the incubi have come from Hades. He’s the one with the power to bespell them so they can prey even while their victims are awake. They could be present at the Tribunal event.”
“How can I recognize one?” Tate asks.
“Most incubi have overt sexual energy and presence, and—”
Caleb interrupts me. “I was thinking about the fact that the guardians can no longer identify them. They could have shifting powers.” He looks at Tate. “Do you know what that means?”
“I can guess,” she says.
“A shifter can assume the shape of just about any kind of being, but humans are their specialty, Francis says. “But I’m doubtful, Caleb. Shifters and incubi rarely procreate with each other.”
“Rarely doesn’t mean never,” says Nameless.
“This whole trip to Bardo has taught me that rarely doesn’t mean never,” Tate says under her breath.
Francis nods at Nameless. “As unlikely as the theory seems, it would explain why they have been so hard to root out. We can be vigilant, but it might not help. If you put a shifter bes
ide its human antecedent, you canna tell the difference.” Francis’s speech always goes back to his roots when he’s stressed.
I could.” Tate says this with absolute certainty. Francis gives her one of his looks. She regards him equally coolly. Those two are like fire and ice. Indifference certainly didn’t enter the equation when those two were put together.
“I’d feel the link,” Tate says. “I know it sounds strange, but I can feel all four of you. It’s almost like your heartbeat is part of mine. Bob’s is the strongest, and Nameless’s is the weakest, but you’re all there.” Tate smiles at me and reaches her hand out to mine. I wrap my fingers around hers. Her squeeze assures me of her love. “And you can all sense me, right?”
We all nod. Most of us, anyway.
“Nameless?” Tate turns the spotlight of her gaze on him.
“It’s a fucking spell, that’s all it is,” he says. “More like a curse if you ask me.”
For a second, I think Tate it going to challenge him on just what he has against her, but she surprises me.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” She looks back to Francis. “That has to count as some protection.”
“Maybe some, but we still need to remain vigilant,” Caleb says, drawing our attention back to him. “Meantime, I strongly suggest we treat Tate like we would any apprentice and run her through the D/s interview to help her at the Tribunal. Any objections?” He looks pointedly at me.
“Yes, any objections, Robert?” Francis asks. There he goes again, challenging me where Tate is concerned. Now that Tate is here, I want to spend all of my time with her and ascend to Nirvana together. I don’t want her to have to face off against incubi. I don’t want her to be toyed with by the gods. Independence means a lot to her. I want her to retain control of herself. It’s bad enough I got teamed with these three other examiners because we’re linked by a mysterious bond the gods said would be revealed in good time, whatever the fuck that means. But now, Tate seems to have something to do with that bond, too. This is all getting too fucked up, and it’s just the kind of thing that would have made me hide in my internal cave back on earth. Thank the gods for Tate’s no-nonsense, get-it-done attitude helping me steer the course as it’s always done.
“Agreed, Caleb.” I nod my assent. We’ve seen little of it so far during the unstructured experience of quarantine, but one of Caleb’s strengths is navigating a straight course through a minefield.
Tate shakes her head. “No questions, but I bet me being in a coma throws a wrench into the works.”
Caleb nods eagerly. “Sure does. It means we don’t know what the rules are.” He shrugs. “But we’ll work with what we know.
“What happens to those who don’t die prematurely?” Tate asks.
“Oh, they normally would go directly to the headmistress for orientation. She works with them to decide on their required courses. They get to choose their electives themselves. We’ll explain it all when we show you the school, but we’d better get your training started, right?”
Training?” Tate gives him an arch look.
“How would you prefer we refer to what we are about to embark upon?” Francis asks.
“Prep. That works for me,” Tate says.
“Then prep it is,” Caleb says.
Tate looks around expectantly. I give a mental groan. My brave, smart, talented Tate has no idea what in store for her. The examination was by far one of the hardest things I’d had to endure when I arrived in Bardo. The level of self-examination required was crippling.
“So, what’s first?” I can almost feel Tate rubbing her hands together in anticipation.
“First, we ask you a series of questions. I take the lead on questions that help categorize you as a submissive, a dominant, or a switch. Any of the other examiners can ask questions as they see fit. Francis will call bullshit if you lie, even to yourself, understood?” Caleb says.
Tate nods, albeit a tad warily. That’s my Tate, proceed with caution.
Caleb finally grins at her and opens the pad of paper in front of him. “All right, let’s get started. Would you prefer to perform oral sex on your partner, or have your partner perform oral sex on you?”
Two things hit me simultaneously, the rabid interest and desire coming from the other three sets of eyes glued on Tate and the heightened pheromones wafting from Tate. My laser focus joins the other three . . . And it’s only the first question. I have a moment of selfish satisfaction knowing that, at the end of the session, I’ll be the only one getting lucky tonight. I shift my attention from my disruptive cock and focus back on Tate, certain of what I’m about to hear.
Tate licks her lips as she gives the question serious consideration. She never does anything by half measures. “Both.” She nods. “Yes, I’d definitely say both. I love giving oral sex to Bob.” She looks at me with that mix of innocence and woman-of-the-world that was uniquely Tate.
“You have to choose,” Nameless says.
“Fine. Then done to me,” Tate says.
“Why?” Francis asks.
Tate gives him what she calls her stink eye. He seems oblivious. “Call this pretrial examination. And the consequence if you are found guilty is an eternity being whipped and caned in Hades’s Inferno.”
Tate taps her wrist where a watch would normally be and grins. “Look at the time. It’s happy hour. How does a girl get a drink around here?”
Caleb starts to object, but I cut him off. “What would you like?”
“Sangria,” Tate says.
Francis vanishes and returns seconds later, placing a tall glass of a fruit-filled red drink on the table between us. He resumes his seat. “Why?” He’s a persistent bastard, I’ll give him that, although I suppose we all are in our own right.
Tate takes a long draw of the drink and makes a happy sigh, stalling for as long as she can.
“I guess I’d say it’s because Bob pulls my will into his when he insists I do nothing but open myself to him. He takes me to another place, a place where I’m lost in him.” She takes a deep breath and another gulp of her drink. There’s no other sound in the room.
“When I give him oral sex”—it’s so cute how she trips over the words—“it’s a very different feeling. Then, I’m in charge. I take control. I get to decide when and how. Sometimes that may be a power struggle, but ultimately, I’m in charge. I love that, too. Um, plus, I love how smooth and hard he feels in my mouth. So, I don’t think I should have to choose.” She sticks that cute chin out.
We all stare at her for a moment before Caleb remembers his job. He beams at Tate. “Good job. Next, would you prefer to initiate sex with Bob, or would you prefer he initiate sex with you?”
Tate barks out a laugh, and I shift in my chair in discomfort at what’s about to come.
“Why do you laugh?” Francis asks.
“Why don’t you tell them, Bob?” Tate says.
“We had a few discussions on the subject,” I mumble.
“And what was the gist of those discussions?” Nameless asks.
“Is this about my sex life with Bob or whether I’m submissive or dominant?”
“Are they not one and the same?” Francis insists.
“I could initiate sex when it was the right time and place. So basically, when his lordship gave the signal he was in the mood, I could be all eager and everything. Otherwise, I had the world record for picking the exact wrong time. Does that about cover it?” The look she gives me is more humor than anything.
“Pretty much,” I grumble. Truth be told, I’m interested in what she has to say. One thing I’ve learned in Bardo is not to make assumptions.
Caleb checks his pad. “So, you prefer to initiate sex.”
Tate shakes her head. “No, not usually.” She looks at her lap then looks up. “But once in a while would be nice.”
Caleb ticks a box on his form. “Would you prefer to pin Bob’s hand above his head during sex or have him pin your hand above your head?”
Tate and
I answer simultaneously. “Mine.” “Hers.” She throws me a heated look and crosses her legs. Takes another drink.
“Blindfolding. You or him?” Caleb asks.
“Me, hands down.” Tate throws another glance my way, and I have to admit I’m thrilled to know I have her attention.
“Restraints. You or him?”
“Me.” Tate giggles.
“Oh do share that story with us.” Nameless’s curiosity shines through the sarcasm in his voice.
“Do you mind, babe?” Tate asks me.
I shake my head.
“We experimented a bit with kink. Restraints and stuff. Anyway, one time I wanted to know what it would feel like if I took the lead and restrained Bob. And oh, gods, did he resist.” Tate laughs and takes another swig of her drink, each ounce working its magic. “But he loves me.” Another grin flashes my way. The guys remain glued to her face. “He’d installed these hooks in the ceiling of our basement, so I hooked him up and had at it.” Another sip. “Gods, this is good. And, oh, my gods, was he tense. Not that I was any better. Anyway, it took about five minutes for me to discover I had no desire to take the reins and that Bob is no submissive.”
Caleb makes a notation. I go to the sideboard and help myself to a drink, more out of the need to get some distance from the heat building up between Tate and me . . . and the sexual energy building up between the other guys and Tate. Something I’m not willing to digest at the moment.
“So, I guess that answers the next question. Would you prefer to spank or be spanked?” Caleb asks.
It’s not as if I haven’t thought about sex before, but holy shit, this is getting intense. Sweat is blooming between my breasts. It’s right about now that being an Egyptian queen surrounded by men waving huge feather fans would come in handy. Okay, thinking about nubile bare-chested men is only making me hotter. Tate, remember that they were slaves and their serving you would not have been consensual. Okay, fantasy over. Libido under control.
Tate's Tale Page 12
