by AJ Mullican
Oren doesn’t make me wait long. Once he’s pantsed me, he pushes my legs open and starts to lick my clit, tongue darting back and forth over the sensitive hub. A long, low moan escapes my lips, and my legs start to shake. Back and forth, up and down his tongue goes, alternating short, quick flicks with long, slow spirals, until I’m gasping with shallow breaths. He takes me to the brink, then plunges two fingers in my dripping pussy as he sucks on my bundle of nerves.
A hand clamps over my mouth as I start to scream, and I glance to the side to see Kalen next to me, fapping away with one hand while the other stifles my cries. The slap, slap, slap of skin on skin is echoed by Finn, who sidles up to my other side and gropes my flattened breast with his free hand. He tweaks my nipple ring with an expert touch, and I struggle to hold still. My eyes roll back in my head, and I start humping Oren’s thrusting fingers.
He releases the suction on my clit, and I whine. “Remember, my love. Don’t. Move.” With those last words he adds another finger, then another, and I cry out against Kalen’s hand as Oren finger-fucks me with his whole fucking hand, sliding in up to the knuckles with each thrust. His other hand throttles my clit, and that’s where I lose my shit. I come in a scream and a spray, and our lights flare again in a blinding glare that has me shutting my eyes. Oren continues ramming me until I think I’m going to fucking explode, and Finn and Kalen start kissing and nipping at my neck on both sides, sending sparks down my spine.
As promised, I wiggle and squirm and hump and do everything shy of disobeying his order not to back away. I can’t hold still, and even after I come he presses on, driving me to a second orgasm right on the heels of the first.
When he comes in a burst of fae light, he grunts his way through his own climax, and the sounds drive me absolutely bonkers. He licks up one side of my dripping thigh before backing away, leaving me shaking from head to toe.
“Drink up, my friends. I assure you, there is plenty of our Molli’s sweetness to go around.” He gives me another sharp smack, leaving a matching sting on the other asscheek.
Oh, God! They’re going to lick me off … Oh, shit, this is amazing.
Kalen and Finn kneel once Oren’s out of the way, and as they lick me clean, bringing on a third coming, Oren pulls my head back and dives in for a deep, sensual kiss. I adore the taste of myself on his lips and tongue, and when he disengages I stretch my neck to lick his smooth face free of my cum.
“Now,” he says with a grin as he palms his cock, stroking it back to life. “We can truly begin.”
For the next couple of hours, I completely forget my worldly problems, engrossed in the attentions of my fae lovers. That’s one thing about dating three porn-addicted former concubines: they know all the tricks and then some.
All the tricks.
When they finally exhaust themselves and collapse in a snoozing, dream-filled heap around me, I climb out from under them to go wash up. To my relief, no one occupies the Hunters’ hallway on my way to the bathroom, and just when I think I’m going to get off scot free, I open the door after my shower and bump smack into Holden. I crane my neck to meet his eyes, hoping he’s not mad that I cut out of dinner to go get it on in his brothers’ room.
“Uh, hey. You stalk your guests in the bathroom a lot?”
He grins and ruffles my wet hair. “Bit of advice for you: even if Lena wasn’t a carnal witch and tuned to those kind of energies, you’re in a house full of wolf shifters. We can smell and hear things that humans can’t. Might want to tone it down while you’re here.”
Crap. Busted.
“Holden, I—”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m teasing. Mostly.” He winks. “Enjoy it while you can, munchkin. Could be dead tomorrow.”
“Munchkin”?
Fuck. I hate being short.
Chapter 14
I wake in the morning to the sizzle of bacon, which would normally have me drooling. Instead, I fight the urge to gag at the smells coming from the kitchen. Damn this meat aversion! As an experiment, I conjure some of my fae berries and eat a few. Delicious, as I knew they would be, but more importantly they sate my hunger. Satisfied that the scents of everyone else’s breakfast won’t make me retch, I get dressed and head for the living room. Hardly anyone’s up, it seems, except Lena and a couple other guests.
Imagine my surprise when I see Beth there with baby Bradley in tow.
My hand whips up to my face to cover my eyes, and I shake my head to get my hair to fall over my ears. “Oh! Beth! Hi. Um, I didn’t know you were here.” I start to back out of the room, wishing I had my sunglasses with me, but Lena stops me before I get too far.
“She knows, Molli. I told her everything.”
I drop my hand, along with my jaw. “You what?”
“Now, before you get mad, she has a right to know. If you can heal Bradley like you did Cal, then we have an obligation to do that. He’s just a baby, Molli. He shouldn’t have to grow up with these infernal marks on him. The least we can do is remove all but the lifeline, like Callie’s.”
Damnit. Fucking guilt trip first thing in the morning. That’s not fair. I’m about to say that much when I catch Beth’s eyes, and the unspoken plea I see there shuts me up.
Sigh. “Can I grab some coffee first?”
Beth follows me to the kitchen, making my coffee break super awkward as she stares me down, waiting for me to fix her child. The anxious lip-biting is enough to drive me nuts, and I’m a habitual lip-biter myself.
“So, Beth, no hard feelings about all the lying? You know, me saying my fae boyfriends were punk rockers and all.”
She blushes and tucks her hair behind her ear. “No, no hard feelings. I suppose I understand. I would have a hard time explaining any of this to anyone else myself. I don’t see how anyone would believe it if I tried.”
I sip my coffee and eye her over the lip of the mug. “What made you believe it, then?”
Bradley babbles baby nonsense and tugs on Beth’s necklace. She untangles his fist from the jewelry before he chokes her with it. “I’ll believe anything that will help my Brad. The poor boy’s been through so much, more than I even knew about, and I’d hate for him to carry these marks his whole life. Whatever it takes, I want to help my son get better. If that means believing in fairies, then I’ll believe in fairies.”
I’d be a little bit offended if I hadn’t been a disbeliever myself, once upon a time. When I met Kalen, Finn, and Oren, I didn’t believe they were fae. I figured they were hallucinations brought on by eating what I thought at the time were wild berries.
Funny how a little thing like that can change your whole outlook on life.
I set my mug down on the counter with another sigh. “All right. First off, I know Lena mentioned this already, but I can’t remove all of the tattoos. The spiral on his back is tied into his life energy, and as a life-touched fae, I can’t undo life. It’s counter to my nature. So, while I can erase anything else done to him, that part I won’t do.”
Beth nods her understanding.
“Cool. So long as we’re on the same page with that. As far as anything else that was done to him, I’ll do my best. I’ve barely been a fae for twenty-four hours, though, so I’m by no means an expert.”
With trembling hands, Beth holds Bradley out to me. “Please, Molli. Do whatever you can for him.”
The hand-off is awkward in more ways than one, because not only am I so not a baby person, but I also realize just how much pressure sits squarely on my shoulders with this. Beth is literally placing her only child in my care for the sake of improving his life, and that’s too much responsibility for a young person like me. I’m barely responsible for my own life.
By the time we get back to the living room—because it just feels weird trying to perform a magical healing in the freaking kitchen—Kalen and Oren have woken and dressed, and they sit on the couch playing the game console, their second-favorite human pastime … next to the porn, of course.
“Molli, my l
ove! Do you need help?” Oren drops his controller and moves to get up, but I wave him off with my free hand.
“Nah. I got this. Go back to your game, baby.”
“He’s the one with healing magic, right?” Beth twirls a lock of hair in her nervous fingers. “Can’t he help in case something goes wrong?”
I try to ignore that comment, as it doesn’t instill the greatest of confidence in me to have that little thought running around in my head. “Nothing’s going to go wrong. I can do this. I just need some space.” Not really, but Beth’s damn near crowding me as it is, and if she backs off when I say that, all the better. My anxiety has me strung tighter than the Lycra in Lena’s leggings, and she’s about to pop.
Oren sits next to me, tucking his long, lean legs under him. “May I watch?”
I wish he wouldn’t do that. My nerves are damn near thrumming with tension, and I swear I’m gonna snap. “Sure. Fine. Just give me some room.” He scoots back but stays within arm’s reach.
Hiding my own shaking hands behind Bradley’s wiggling body, I reach inside myself to the magic lying there and poke it. My inner vision flares, and I see the same latent demonic magic in Bradley’s body that Callie had. I don’t even need to strip him of his baby clothes at this point; my eyes recognize the red haze without me having to physically see the markings.
Bradley’s tattoos are far fewer in number than Callie’s, and I wonder if that has anything to do with how much more powerful Lilith was than Rukhsana. Some of Callie’s tattoos had binding properties in the leftover magic, probably to control and contain the Mother of all demons. Since a lesser demon inhabited Bradley’s body, he must not have needed the same kind of spells imprinted on him.
My guess about the spokes equaling years proves right as I take in the twenty-some-odd rays on Bradley’s back. I notice something off, though, and I stop myself from removing the spokes until I can study the tattoo more closely.
What I see in Bradley’s lifeline has me sweating, and my heart drops into my stomach.
Lena gets up from her seat and lowers herself to the floor on my other side as I try to figure out what to do about this new development. Her voice comes to me as though from a vast distance, faint and quiet.
Don’t react. Beth can’t hear us right now. I’m using an old witch trick to talk to you mind-to-mind. If you focus your thoughts, I can understand you without you having to say a word.
Trippy.
Is something wrong? It went quicker with Callie last night.
Focus my thoughts, and she’ll hear me? Worth a shot, because I don’t want Beth to know what I think I just found out.
It might be nothing. I mean, I’m new at this, so…
Lena rolls her eyes, and I’m glad Beth can’t see her face. Just tell me already.
It’s Bradley’s lifeline. The spokes of the aging spell go out past his lifespan, according to the tattoo. I’m afraid I know what that means, but I don’t want to say anything to alarm Bethany.
Shit. Lena takes one of Bradley’s waving arms and makes nonsense noises at him, seemingly playing with him while I work. Are you saying that Bradley’s not meant to get as old as I saw him? He was probably in his mid-twenties, physically anyway, when I met him as an adult possessed by Rukhsana. How far past his lifeline do the spokes go?
I swallow past a huge lump in my throat. More than ten years. If I’m right, Bradley’s not supposed to live past eleven.
Chapter 15
What?! How am I supposed to tell Beth that her kid’s gonna die before he’s a teenager?
It’s hard not to glare at Lena while I stall, but I don’t want to let on that we’re having a side conversation right in front of Beth. You think it’s gonna go over any better if I tell her? I didn’t make the damn tattoo; I’m just reading what I see. If you want, you can take a look at it yourself.
Lena reaches out and rubs Bradley’s back. On the surface, it looks like she’s just reassuring him, but I notice her surreptitiously slide his shirt up off the tattoo and back down with the motion. She can’t have seen the mark for more than a fraction of a second, but I can tell from the blanching of her skin and the dimming of her life-light that she saw enough.
Shit. Poor kid.
That’s all she has to say? “Poor kid”? Lena’s the brains of this operation here. She’d better come up with something to say soon, because I can’t keep this up forever.
Well? What do I do?
With a gentle pat on his back, Lena scoots away from Bradley and me. Just do what you can. I’ll figure something out.
Crap.
I take a deep breath before I plunge headfirst into my magic. One by one, I remove the spokes of the aging spell, trying not to cry as I take away the extra years he was given by Rukhsana. Am I condemning him to an early death by doing this? Would the spell have kept him alive past his eleven short years, or would he die then regardless?
The process drags on seemingly forever, though I know in reality it only takes seconds. Beth shrieks when my light flashes at the end, cleansing the last vestiges of the spell.
“It’s okay, Beth. That’s just what the magic looks like. He’s fine.” I hold the baby up for Beth to take him back, and she cradles him close. Bradley, for what it’s worth, just wiggles and coos and babbles on like nothing much happened.
My shoulders sag, and I let my head hang down. Between the stress of Beth’s scrutiny as I worked and the effort of performing the healing, my energy level has dropped. I fight to keep my eyes open, and when my searching gaze meets Kalen’s eyes, he drops his controller and joins me, Oren, and Lena on the floor.
“My love, are you all right?” He rubs my back, and I lean into the touch.
“Just tired, baby.” I yawn. “This takes a bit out of me.”
His light flares, and I smell his sugary fruit.
I hold out my hand, and Kalen deposits some berries in my palm. As I eat them, I note that I don’t get overwhelmed by desire like usual; instead, I’m bombarded with feelings of concern, a deep worry that gnaws at my gut. I raise my chin to look him in the eye, and he caresses my cheek with a gentle touch.
“Your skin is so pale, Molli.” He shifts his gaze to Lena, brows furrowed. “This drains her too much. We shouldn’t make her use her magic like this anymore.”
Lena frowns. “I’m not sure it’s solely the use of magic that’s doing that.” She points to him and Oren. “You guys are pale, too. I think she’s changing more. Look.” Her hand reaches out and brushes my bangs aside.
“What? What is it?” Damnit, where’s a mirror when you need one?
Kalen gapes, and Oren touches my hair. “Your hair—it’s turning white.”
Oh, God damn it.
“Well, nothing to do about that now. Point is, I feel better, and Bradley’s as good as I can get him.” I scramble to my feet and make a show of dusting off my pants, although there’s nothing to clean off. “Can we all please stop staring at me?”
Beth grabs my arm. “Thank you, Molli. I feel like you saved his life today.”
Bile rises in my throat as I think about that short coil on Bradley’s back, and I rush from the room without another word, heading for the hall bathroom. I damn near bowl over Rick on the way, and he shouts at me as I blow past him.
“Yo! What the hell?”
No time to apologize. I slam the door behind me and flip the lock, falling to my knees in front of the toilet and retching. With nothing much in my stomach, though—I don’t even know if I can puke up Kalen’s berries—I end up dry heaving.
I damn near jump out of my skin when someone starts pounding on the bathroom door.
“What? What do you want?”
Rick’s voice drifts through the door. “Are you okay in there? I don’t need to get one of your dudes, do I?”
The discomfort in his tone would be funny if I didn’t wonder the same thing myself. Am I okay? It’s not like me to have a weak stomach, but between my hypersensitive gag reflex and my frazzled nerv
es, I can’t seem to settle my churning gut. “Um, can you find Finn, please? He was still sleeping in your room when I last saw him.”
I feel like a dork asking for him to go get my boyfriend, but I suspect Oren’s magic won’t fix this. I’m not sick; I’m heartsick. Two different things.
Rick’s footsteps recede down the hall, and I push myself upright. Looking in the mirror, I study the new white streak at my hairline. If I flatten my bangs, it’s hidden, but if I fluff them a bit or brush them aside, the white stands out against the darker brown. It’s kind of cool. Almost looks like I dyed it, but there’s no way I’d get this pure white with hair dye.
Maybe I shouldn’t reject the changes I’m going through. I mean, for once in my life, I have magic. Motherfucking magic. I can do things like heal infernal tattoos and juice up my guys with my conjured essence and read peoples’ life-lights.
I’m not helpless. I have more than my martial skills to help me contribute.
After digging through the drawers for a few moments, I find Cherry’s drawer and snatch one of her hair clips. I brush my bangs back and clip them, making my streak more prominent.
Time to stop being a whiny brat about this. Time to own it.
Time to embrace the fae in me.
Finn’s purple light shines on the other side of the door, signaling his arrival. He knocks gently and waits for me to answer.
“Be out in a second!” I study myself a little more and decide my light opal irises need some dark eyeliner to accentuate them. I grab my makeup bag and get to work. After some of the most even cat-eye liner I’ve ever drawn, I swipe some mascara over my lashes and pick out a dark, glossy red lipstick. The otherworldly paleness to my skin pops with the addition of the darker makeup, making my skin and eyes seem to glow.
Fuck yeah! Now we’re getting somewhere!
“Molli? Rick said you needed me.”
I do need him, but not like I did. A new confidence surges through me, brought on by my stubborn decision not to give in to despair when there’s so much good to celebrate.
I’m still changing. Still coming into my own, which means using this magic should get easier with time. That means I can start thinking about using it offensively, not just reacting to magics that have been done.
