Quickening, Volume 2

by Amy Lane

  Ah, yes. Bracken wasn’t talking about penetrating or being penetrated—no, elves thought beyond that when they thought of sex. He was talking about taking care of Green. Being the dominant one, being in charge of Green’s pleasure from beginning to end.

  Usually, Bracken was the one pleasured. He was the youngest sidhe, the darling of the hill—it was how he was made.

  Apparently he’d grown up, these years without Adrian—or these years with Cory.

  “Tonight?” Green suggested, feeling the low hum of anticipation fill him as it hadn’t in nearly a week. Oh, he loved his calling, loved how his body could make others feel, loved that he healed with a touch.

  But sometimes, as a vessel, he needed to be filled.

  “Yes, leader,” Bracken taunted. “Tonight. Now go do big important things, and leave us to our peace.”

  Green slid his hand down the side of Bracken’s fine, handsome sidhe face. “Of course, due’alle of my ou’e’eir.”

  “Is there a word for us?” Bracken asked, those unique, shadowed eyes crinkling at the corners.

  “No,” Green said, smiling back. He reached behind Bracken’s head and held him in place as he plundered Brack’s mouth mercilessly. That low thrum of anticipation filled him, pitched, until Bracken groaned and pulled away.

  “There’s about to be a word for me fucking you senseless,” he gasped crossly. “Now go do your thing, leader. She needs her sleep.”

  Green chuckled and adjusted his slacks. Then, since one of Brack’s hands was still carrying the plate full of tarts, he reached down and adjusted Brack’s equipment in his jeans.

  Bracken growled irritably until he was done. Green gave Brack’s impressive package a nice little pat before he sauntered out.

  “Enjoy your rest!” Green taunted. Then he left, still chuckling.

  Oh, that was a Christmas present if there ever was one. There could be no bad spirits when you were flirting with a lover like Bracken. Or like Cory or Nicky, for that matter.

  And speaking of Nicky….

  “Are we gonna?” he asked, practically skipping up to Green before the door was closed. “I mean, Brack and I were talking about it, and you know, she loves to watch, and….”

  Green turned a look of pure disbelief on the little shape-shifter, charmed as he always was by Nicky’s excitement regarding anything sexual.

  “Dear Penthouse Forum…,” Green intoned, invoking the name of the human porn icon. Porn always seemed a little superfluous to the elves—sexual experience, whether voyeuristic or actual, was for the having. But Nicky, being born and raised in the human world, had acquired most of his sexual knowledge from porn.

  Teasing him about that never lost its joy.

  Nicky nodded. “Well, duh! C’mon, Green, it’s been a week!”

  Green laughed, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and kissing his temple. “Yes, it has, my lovely boy, and to go another night would be a shame. Now come on, we need to plan an op without Cory before we retire to our bed of debauchery and lust.”

  Nicky stopped so short that Green’s arm around his shoulder almost knocked him over. “Uhm….”

  Green cast him some playful censure under lowered brows. “Oh, come on, Dominic—you’re one of the bravest warriors in the hill. Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a pregnant woman taking a nap.”

  Nicky narrowed his eyes and shook his head, causing his rust-colored hair to ruffle around his face like feathers. “You look nice and all, Green, but you are an evil, evil man.”

  Green chuckled, low and dirty, then pulled Nicky into his arms and made a positively filthy suggestion about what “evil” might possibly entail.

  Nicky moaned and melted against him. “Yeah,” he rasped. “That. That right there might make it worth my while.”

  Green laughed throatily and pulled Nicky down the corridor. He had not yet spoken at his own feast, and it was time to put some matters to rest.

  “NICE SPEECH,” Arturo said as Green sat down—finally—to his own food. “Did you rehearse that?”

  Green arched an eyebrow. “Did it sound rehearsed?” he asked sweetly.

  “It sounded half-assed. But that’s fine. They really just wanted to hear that their lady will be well.”

  Green didn’t try to hide the trouble in his smile. He hadn’t confessed half his worries, but he didn’t need to. Arturo had the same worries.

  “This semester is going to be very hard on her,” he said quietly. “I think we need to start asking our sidhe women how early our children can be delivered and still maintain their health.”

  Arturo nodded soberly. “Green, we will need to keep her safe. Her power is fine—she might have taken Nimuetia out if she’d been ready for the werewolves—but her physical body….”

  Grace sat down on Arturo’s other side. “It’s rough on her,” she acknowledged. “But whatever you and the boys have planned tonight might give her more strength, you know. Sex and sunshine, Green—it’s what she runs on. We’ve taken away the sex, and we’re in the middle of winter.”

  Green inclined his head, not bothering to blush or protest about having his personal life so rudely butted into. Grace had been butting into his personal life pretty much since Cory’s arrival on the hill.

  “Are her parents still here?” Green asked, looking around.

  “They’re asleep in one of the guest rooms,” Arturo answered quietly. “Do you want us to have someone drive them home?”

  Green shook his head. “No, but if you could perhaps spell them asleep tonight, that might make everybody a tad bit more comfortable, yeah?”

  “Absolutely.”

  At that moment Green caught Teague’s eyes from across the room and gave a nod with his chin. Max too, with Renny at his heels. And then, simply because he’d been so valuable in July for a similar mission, Professor Hallow.

  “You planning anything else?” Arturo asked, truly surprised. Green ignored him and turned to Grace.

  “Grace, lovey, what can you tell me about human doctors? The ones who deliver children?”

  Grace snorted. “Ob-gyns? Well, some of them are okay, I guess. Most of the real work is done by the nurses.” She seemed to ponder for a moment. “Except catching. Apparently there’s extra paperwork if the nurses catch, so that’s pretty much all the doctors do. The nurses deal with the patient, know what’s happening, make the recommendations, understand when to push. And the doctor catches.”

  Green, Hallow, and Arturo looked at each other in horror, then looked out at the people who had once been human.

  “It’s a wonder you survived,” Green said, shell-shocked. “It’s a bloody miracle. I’m giving extra thanks to the God, Goddess, and other tonight that you all made it through your first breath.” He turned to Grace again. “That’s bloody barbaric. I can’t believe this man even touched her!”

  Grace looked surprised. “What man?”

  Well, they had been pretty preoccupied. Apparently this story hadn’t made it through the general sense of warfare permeating the hill.

  “Oh my God,” Renny burst out. “Did you miss out on that one. It was like… I mean, parental manipulation at its most extreme. Jesus, no wonder Cory was so excited about escaping home!”

  Green stared at her. “You were just lovely to that woman to her face!”

  Renny nodded. “It’s the social lie, Green. It’s what keeps us from killing each other. I know you’ve heard of it. Anyway, Grace, there was this whole ambush thing at the doctors’ back in October, are you sure you didn’t….”

  Renny launched into the story, backed up by Nicky and, after a moment, by Katy, who wandered up to see what the confab was about. (Apparently Jack really was throwing up, which considering his metabolism was impressive.)

  By the time they were done, Grace had gone from outrage to horror, and finally to thoughtful regard.

  “Children,” she said, cutting them all off in the middle of their excited chatter, “I think this is important. Green, why are we t
alking about this now?”

  Green looked at all of them. “Because apparently this doctor has not forgotten about us—about Cory—as we’d hoped. And I think it’s dangerous for her to go back there.”

  “Indeed,” Arturo agreed, appalled. “Did they manage to clear all the records?”

  “Yes,” Nicky said, “but only at the one computer terminal. We found out that a copy of the records was sent to the terminal in the exam room.” He grimaced, obviously unhappy with the mistake. “You’ve got to understand—Mrs. Kirkpatrick was freaking out a little, and Cory was trying with the brain-wipe, and there was some….”

  “Confusion,” Green allowed. “Yes, I do understand. Well, there’s no confusion about him continuing to ask about her.” He looked at all of them. “I seem to remember we had a human problem like this in the summer.”

  Hallow, Max, Renny, and Arturo all regarded him evenly.

  “I think Lambent was here for that as well,” Renny said quietly.

  Green looked up to the far table, where Lambent was busy teaching Kyle a drinking song. He had two puncture wounds in his neck that were dripping just a tad, probably because he’d let Kyle feed until Lambent was light-headed from blood loss and Kyle was light-headed from elf blood, and neither had remembered to be neat.

  Lambent was drinking mead fermented with wildflowers, available in limited quantity. It was one of the few things that could get an elf drunk. While Green looked up, Lambent smiled sloppily and raised his mug.

  Green inclined his head and smiled sadly, urging the elf to grieve in the way that suited him best.

  “I think we can leave Lambent out of this one,” he said, and the others nodded in agreement.

  “Right, then. We need to make sure the records are wiped, and we need to make sure this doctor can’t remember Cory’s name, or our appearance.”

  “Green?” Max said cautiously.

  “Yes?”

  “I think we should wear masks, whoever does this. If magic hasn’t wiped his mind yet, it might not. We might need to come back with some sodium pentothal and a rubber mallet. You’ll need someone who knows what cops look for at a crime scene. And I think we should do this when the nurses aren’t there, because we don’t want them in any danger of seeing. And perhaps we should wipe his mind at home—a two-front operation, where someone breaks into the clinic at night and—”

  Green held up his hand. “Arturo, would you have any objections to taking orders from Max in this matter?”

  “None at all,” Arturo said, inclining his head.

  “Good. Then we’re going to put Max and Teague in charge here. You have any vampire you need at your disposal—”

  “I’ll do it,” Grace said. “Or I’ll grab Marcus and Phillip. We’re good.”

  “Thanks, lovey.” Green nodded. “Then I’m going to leave the logistics to you, Max. Pick your team and run it by Arturo and me tomorrow night.”

  “Can we have Arturo and Hallow?” Max asked before Green could add anything else.

  Green looked at Hallow. “Are you up for another round of this?” His old friend—his oldest friend, truth be known—had related the grim details of his last attempt to excise the memory of elves from a stubborn human. Hallow had done… unforgivable things to that cockroach of a man, and his heart had been troubled.

  Hallow looked at Max, whom he had worked with during that venture too. He blinked his wide-set azure eyes and shook out his silver-spangled hair, not preening exactly, but more… settling things inside himself. Hallow was thoughtful that way.

  “Of course,” he said soberly. “Only….” He grimaced. “I would rather not kill again.”

  “No worries,” Max said, sounding completely at ease with the thought. “That’s why we’re bringing Arturo. He’s got no problems with that at all.”

  Green stared at him. “And neither do you?” he asked to make sure.

  Max didn’t even think about it. “Since August, Green. Those fuckers have been attacking my home since August. And you guys are great—it’s all ‘Protect the were-animals! Bad blood! Bad blood! Alert alert alert!’” The once very human Officer Max pulled back his upper lip and exposed growing incisors. “I have a body that’s made to protect people, and I haven’t been able to protect my queen. Let me protect my queen!”

  Renny snarled in agreement, her own incisors permanently pointy.

  Teague and Katy followed suit, and Grace exposed her own feeding face to hiss intimidatingly. (Green could smell Arturo’s arousal from across the table. She was formidable, his vampire warrior.)

  Green nodded. “So may it be,” he said simply.

  He let them chatter for a few moments as they got into the planning, but at the first lull in the conversation, he spoke.

  “It’s Christmas, children,” he said gently. His voice carried, though—it quieted all of them, including Arturo and Hallow, who were very much older than he was. “It’s Christmas, and for tonight I think we should revel. Teague, Katy, by all means see if Jack feels better. Everyone else, I wish you a warm bed and a full heart this night. I wish you peace and joy and kindness. Tomorrow we can fight to protect our own, but tonight let us enjoy what we have.”

  He stood then, full of noise and party chatter, full of the excitement. He had not realized how much he appreciated the excuse that afternoon to simply sit in a quiet room and watch women execute a time-honored craft as well as share the common moment of being young women of a certain time.

  It had been peaceful. He needed more peace.

  He bowed slightly and looked across the table to where Nicky had just stopped an animated discussion with Teague as to whether or not it would be simpler just to go in through the skylight of the clinic building. Nicky caught his eye, grinned, and stood. As they left, Nicky slightly behind Green, they both heard Arturo say—for their ears alone—“Now that was a speech!”

  NICKY TORTURED him on the way up the hall. Tantalizing touches down the line of his back, in his hair, along his backside. As they neared the top of the stairs, Green whirled, lifting the smaller man by the waist and pinning him against the wall.

  “Growing impatient, darling Nicky?” he purred, and Nicky opened his mouth in a smile.

  Green kissed him hard, plundering and taking, tasting sugar and surprising steel and an incredible joy.

  Cory had been in awe of Nicky’s sacrifice—giving up his boyfriend for his family unit. Green was grateful, but unsurprised. Green, Bracken, Cory, they could be enough for their darling Nicky, and now was the time to prove it.

  Nicky groaned, lifting his legs to lock around Green’s hips and grinding his erection against Green’s stomach.

  “I’m never patient,” he whispered against Green’s tongue. “You took me to your bed, and I can only want more and more and more….”

  Green laughed, feeling wicked and… young. Goddess, Adrian had been gone from the grove for months, and he’d felt that loss keenly. He and Adrian had been young in this hill, and they’d fucked like gods, like the touch of skin and the joining of bodies had been invented for them. War, worry, impending parenthood—it had pulled the youth from their bones, from him and the lovers in his bed.

  He wanted to claim it back.

  “Want more? Anything you want more of, Nicky?”

  “Nungh….” Nicky arched his body into Green’s, but Green knew what he loved the most. Oh, how he loved to be possessed, taken by a man, pounded hard and used well. Green and Nicky had used each other many times thusly, and it had never gotten old. Sidhe were famous for using and abandoning lovers, and Green had enjoyed his share of bodies who were, quite simply, not Cory, not Adrian, not Bracken or even Mist. But Nicky was not one of those. He was a lover to savor, to enjoy, to be grateful for, and Green showed his gratitude in this darkened hallway by shoving his hands under the boy’s jeans and reaching back to spread his bottom, using his longer arms and fingers to tease Nicky’s crease suggestively and taunt him with what was to come.

  Nicky’s lov
e bite on his neck stung deliciously, and Green probed harder, grinding against Nicky, occasionally even putting pressure on his own prick as they rubbed.

  “I want it all,” Nicky begged. “Oh Goddess, Green, fucking use me….”

  “Is that what you want?” he whispered. “A quick one in the hall? Or do you want to be truly used, boyo, on hands and knees—me reaming your arse, Bracken rammed down your throat, groaning between us while our queen watches and pleasures herself?”

  “I heard that!” Bracken demanded in his head. “Get a move on!”

  Green chuckled, egged on by his own filthy words, by his lover’s hands shoved between his sweater and skin, by a need they’d all denied too long.

  “What?” Nicky begged. “What’s funny?”

  Green opened his mouth above the boy’s jugular and sucked hard. He released the sweet flesh with a pop and licked a line up Nicky’s ear. “Bracken is listening in on our thoughts,” he taunted. “He’s watching us… wanting us….”

  Nicky moaned, bucking against him. “Green, I’m gonna cream my fuckin’….”

  Green blurred—ran so fast even other sidhe couldn’t see him, but could only feel the wind of his passing. Six stairsteps, three around the corner, and Bracken was holding the door.

  Green slowed down enough to move to the front of the bed, Nicky still held to his chest. “Did our beloved make your sweater?” he asked, pretty sure it was so, because the wool was fine, rust-colored cashmere with bronze highlights and fit tight against the young man’s chest.

  “Yes,” Nicky hissed. He held his hands above his head, tightening his stomach muscles while Green supported his lower back with one hand and helped him strip off the sweater with the other. Bracken took the sweater from his hands and then, Green noticed, crouched by a now awake Cory, whispering in her ear, murmuring against her temple, probably arousing her with his words as Green had aroused Nicky.

  “And the jeans?” he asked, licking a line down Nicky’s hairless chest, teasing a cinnamon-colored nipple with his tongue. “Do you—”