by Plum Pascal
“I won’t risk it or her,” I say with a quick shake of my head.
“I won’t let Sorren die, Leith,” Kassidy says as she turns to face me.
“I won’t let him die either,” I announce, almost crossly. “There is another way.”
“What other way?” she asks.
I face Sorren. “I’m willing to let you be with her if I’m there too,” I say. “If I’m able to ensure you don’t get carried away, that you won’t hurt her.”
Sorren nods. “I accept, cousin.”
I face Kassidy. “Will you have us both?”
She looks at me and there’s slight anxiety in her eyes. Then she nods.
“Go to him,” I say as I motion to Sorren. Kassidy doesn’t argue but crosses the room and approaches Sorren, throwing her arms around his neck, and kissing him fiercely.
A growl rumbles in my throat as I watch them. I have energy to spend as well, the terror of my almost-death still holding my muscles rigid.
I follow her, sweeping all that golden hair off her neck so I can adorn her skin with sharp kisses. Her back arches, pushing her breasts firmly against Sorren’s chest.
“Kassidy...” I breathe against her. “Tell us this is what you want.” I have to be sure. I have to know she’s not just doing this for Sorren, but that she wants it—that she wants us both.
“Yes,” she says on a breathy exhale. “I want to feel you both… inside me.”
And that is enough for me.
SEVENTEEN
Kassidy
I could swear they’ve done this before, because the pair act in tandem.
Leith peels the dress off me with reverence, kneeling to draw the bunched fabric down to my waist and then finally to my feet. I step easily from the pile of cloth and kick it out of the way. His broad, calloused hands slide up my calves, ghosting over the hollows behind my knees, and his nose skims across my thighs, scenting me. My legs threaten to give out from under me when he licks a warm trail along my hip.
My sex clenches tight in anticipation as he presses a searing kiss just above my mound, then slides his fingers through my slick folds. When his thumb finds my sensitive bud, I keen and my legs do finally buckle. If Sorren weren’t clutching me, I’d make an acquaintance with the floor.
“Careful,” Sorren says with a dark chuckle as I sway. His breath is warm against my throat as he moves his head to kiss and nip at the skin there. “You might want to get her on the bed. Injuries will ruin the mood,” he ends with another chuckle.
I can’t see Leith’s face, but I can tell he’s smirking—the same self-satisfied expression Nash had after realizing he’d pleased me.
Leith’s hand doesn’t stray, still rubbing small circles into my heated flesh. A whimper escapes me, and my knees once again attempt total surrender. Sorren clutches me tighter.
Leith doesn’t make any move for the bed. Instead, he lifts me off the ground entirely and wraps my legs around his neck, bringing his face level with my sex. I get an idea of what he’s about to do seconds before he does it.
His tongue delves between my folds, zeroing in on my throbbing flesh, and my hips arch. I’m afraid I’m going to break his nose with the violent motion, but he just laughs at me. Sorren echoes the sound, face still pressed against my neck, supporting most of my weight so Leith can work. The vibrations do incredible things to my body, and my thighs tremble with the ecstasy of it. I wind my hands still more tightly around Sorren, sinking my fingers into his hair just to anchor myself.
Sorren licks a trail along the shell of my ear, making my breath catch. When he rolls the lobe between his sharp teeth, gooseflesh riots across my skin. My nipples harden to fine, almost painful peaks. I fist his hair desperately, trying to keep myself from going completely mad from the pleasure of it. It’s so much. Too much. I’m going to explode if I can’t have one of them inside me soon.
Sorren trails bites down my throat to my shoulder, and I’m sure to have lurid purple bruises in a few days’ time. A fresh groan leaves my mouth as Leith squeezes my ass, drawing me impossibly closer to him, the new angle allowing him to lave his tongue across my clit with such precision, it’s almost painful. He sinks two fingers into me and pumps them in and out of my core, sending ecstasy spiking through my body. Tension curls like a spring in my stomach.
I can feel the pressure cresting in me, like a wave. I’m dizzy, delirious, the madness and pleasure swirling in my head. The muscles in my legs are jumping like mad, promising me the most potent orgasm I’ve had to date. With a little mewling sound, I yank at Sorren’s hair. I’m going to tear it out, at this rate. He doesn’t seem to care.
Leith braces his hands on my thighs as I draw nearer to release. Sorren’s hand drops to pinch one of my nipples, twisting it, and that spike of pain mixed with the pleasure makes my stomach drop and I’m in freefall, flailing wildly as my climax hits me.
I’ve not even come down from my climax before they’re in motion. Sorren sweeps me into his arms, bridal-style, to carry me toward the far end of the room, away from Nash. I’m not sure if Sorren doesn’t want to disturb Nash or just doesn’t want him to wake up. He gingerly lays me down on the mattress. For a second, both Leith and Sorren just hover above me, staring down hungrily. I’m not sure who will descend on me first.
“You need her, Sorren,” Leith says with a quick nod.
Sorren nods and clambers onto me, stretching the long, muscled line of his body over mine. The mattress sinks beneath our combined weight. My heart pounds like a blacksmith’s hammer and it’s hard to swallow.
As they’re stripping out of their clothes, it finally hits me. I’m going to do this. My second time having sex will be with both of them—two men at once. The thought excites me, of course, but I’m also nervous.
Leith stares down at me, like a collector admiring a particularly beautiful work of art.
“So goddamn beautiful,” he breathes.
Sorren braces his hands around me, and I expect him to thrust hard into me, to wrap my legs around his waist and fuck me into the straw bale the way Nash did. But instead, he flips our positions, rolling beneath me and stopping when I come out on top—his very large, very evident arousal poking me in the stomach.
I reach between us to grasp his cock firmly. His lips part in sudden ecstasy as I idly trace the underside with my thumb, gliding it through the drops of precum when I reach the tip. He groans, eyes fluttering shut.
I ease myself down onto him, my back arching and my eyes shutting of their own accord. He’s so improbably huge. He fills me so completely, I can barely separate where he ends and I begin. He’s mostly made of tight, corded muscle; it’s just the ruin of his left side that ruins the image of a perfectly sculpted demigod. But I can’t care about it. Scars are part of him, part of Leith, part of me. To throw stones just makes me a hypocrite. Beneath me, he groans, hands coming to rest on my hips. Then he thrusts his hips upward, forcing his cock deeper, brushing across something inside me that sets my toes curling.
“Fuck.”
The hoarse exclamation draws my eyes back to Leith. He looks almost... self-conscious as he watches us. He’s got a hand on his shaft, stroking himself practically absently. I’m suddenly curious. I want to know what he feels like, as well.
“Leith,” I murmur to him. “Come here.”
Sorren guides my hips in a sinuous rolling motion, taking me most of the way off his cock before slamming me down onto it again. Prickles of pleasure dance up my spine, and the sensation continues as I begin to ride him. It tingles up into my neck and into the roots of my hair, along every part of me in a blissful caress.
Leith joins us on the bed, and the frame creaks in protest. This little mattress isn’t built to withstand the weight of two werebears and a moderately well-muscled thief. I wonder if we’ll continue if it buckles beneath our combined weight? Probably.
Leith’s hand slides along the column of my throat, his lips ghosting across the nape of my neck. The touch is so sensitive, so intimate, I buck onc
e, with another moan. It drives Sorren into me at a fascinating angle, dragging across something inside me that I can’t even name. Leith’s arousal grinds against my back.
“Inside me,” I pant. “Please. I need...”
Leith hesitates for a second, and then his hands fall away from me. I almost mewl in protest when he climbs off the bed and walks away from us, but Sorren draws my attention back to him with a few particularly hard thrusts. Every part of me feels achy with need. The madness is slowly clearing, spent by passion. But what about Sorren? He took a good portion of it.
“The madness,” I start.
“You’re fucking it out of me,” Sorren responds with a deep laugh.
Leith returns a minute later, clutching something in his hand. I can’t tell what, but I’m grateful to have him at my back again. That is, until he presses something slick against my ass. He grips my hips, sliding me slightly off Sorren.
“Don’t tense,” Leith warns, his soft murmur tracing the shell of my ear.
And then the tips of his fingers, slick with what I assume must be some kind of lubricant, press against my ass.
I make it a point to question him about why he would have brought a lubricant with him on this trip unless he planned for this to happen. But that’s unimportant now.
I let out a startled sound when I feel the tip of his finger enter my asshole, not sure if I should tell him to stop. It makes a certain amount of sense, of course. I only have so many orifices he could fit in. Trying to give him pleasure in any other way would be impossible, with the way we’ve positioned ourselves.
The finger presses into me slowly, eased by whatever he’d slicked his hand with. I’m just getting used to the extra fullness when he pushes another finger in, thrusting both in deep. A fizzle of pleasure shoots straight to my sex, spilling me over the edge. My back bows with a shuddering climax. The sensation is so intense, I can’t even draw breath.
Then, Leith pushes into me, inch by inch, moving slowly.
“Breathe,” he whispers into my ear. I inhale deeply and he pushes into me fully, until he’s seated all the way inside me. I buck in surprise, and gasp in air. I’m stretched so tight, so full, and all I can do is ride out the sensation as both men thrust hard into my body. I can only wonder if they can feel each other.
And at that thought, I climax hard again, and then once more before we’re entirely spent. I collapse onto Sorren’s chest, skin dewed with sweat. He gives a husky chuckle and pulls me up to claim my mouth in a fierce kiss. Leith slides out of me, and the aftershock is enough to send more pleasure shooting through my body.
“You’re fucking incredible,” Leith rumbles.
“And you two are incredible at fucking,” I tease. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to stand up for a while.”
“We’ll stay here,” Sorren declares with a nod, “until you can eat and get some rest. We’ll need our strength to breach the castle’s defenses.”
That little reminder is enough to steal the golden afterglow and bring back the sense of clawing unease I’ve been fighting since we arrived. This isn’t over. It’s not a victory lap. This is a brief intermission, a small respite.
The battle is still to come.
EIGHTEEN
Nash
It’s hard to tell day from night in this damn mist.
After I wake and the others have sponged off the scent of their union in the washbasin, we raid the tiny pantry. Uncharacteristic guilt washes through me as we settle down to a meal of canned vegetables, stale crackers and dried beef—the only thing in the house that Kassidy and Sorren can confirm is untainted by Discordia’s magic. The owner of this home is clearly destitute, and I’m not sure the pile of gold coins we’ve left in the pantry will make up for what we’re taking.
That is, if whoever this house belongs to ever returns. But, after spying all those zombies who attacked us, I have a feeling the answer to that question is a resounding “no.”
We all need a night’s rest, but we can’t afford the time it will waste. Kassidy’s magic will keep the villagers down for a time, and it’s the only opening we’ll get. If we lay down now, we’re likely to find ourselves surrounded again—and this time, none of us will be in any shape to stop them.
But I’m lethargic, and all I want is to crawl into bed and sleep for the rest of the winter. The lifeforce Kassidy sapped from me to heal Leith is sorely missed. It’s lucky I’m sitting, because I’m as unsure on my feet as a newborn foal.
Strength does come back to me in increments as I wolf down what little I’ve been given. I prefer fresh meat when I can get it, but there’s no time to hunt. And no time for the rest I desperately need.
Leith voices my thoughts aloud. “We need to regroup and come up with an alternate plan. Storming the gates isn’t going to work; Discordia will have troops in reserve.”
“Agreed,” Kassidy says, kneading her temples with two fingers. Her face is pinched, as if she’s warding off a headache with willpower alone. “Any suggestions?”
“If Discordia is half as clever as she’s rumored to be, the walls around her fortress will be enchanted,” Sorren chimes in. “We can’t scale them. We can’t fight her armies or lay siege to the fortress. That really only leaves us one option.”
Kassidy nods. “We have to go through the gates.”
“Are you insane?” I ask, examining their faces, trying to see if they’re serious. “Leith almost died. His throat was torn open by a fucking head! With no fucking body! And you want to waltz through the front gates? She’ll slaughter us!”
“We’ll plan a surgical strike. Ambush some guards and go in wearing their armor,” she answers.
“Doesn’t that seem a tad obvious?” I drawl. “Discordia will be expecting a ploy like that.”
“Which is why we sell the ruse. Leith and Sorren are mostly healed, and they’ll pose as guards. You and I need time to recuperate, so we’ll pretend to be prisoners.”
I shake my head before she’s even finished her sentence. “It’s entirely too risky. What if Discordia demands you be brought before her? If she has any inkling you’re a Chosen one, she’s going to rip your throat out and feed what’s left of you to the buzzards.” I shake my head. Staunchly. “I won’t allow it. We need to find people to back us and, once we do, we return better prepared.”
Kassidy’s eyes flash and her spine straightens as she pulls herself up to full height. Defiance shines in those beautiful emerald eyes as she stares me down.
“You don’t get to dictate to me, Nash. Don’t you think I know what could happen? That I haven’t lived with that possibility for years now? I wouldn’t risk this whole mission, and all of our lives, if there were any other way.”
“I still say it’s suicide,” I argue.
She shakes her head. “You weren’t awake for the conversation the three of us had, Nash. When Sorren siphoned Discordia’s magic from me, it damaged his clock. He’s got a week left to live, and that’s a generous estimate.”
“What?” I say as I feel my stomach drop down to my toes. I look up at Sorren and he just nods. There’s no emotion on his face, as per usual, but somehow it bothers me even more now.
“We don’t have time to regroup or think up clever battle strategies,” Kassidy continues. “The people in the surrounding villages will be scared shitless of Discordia, if she hasn’t already turned most of them into those zombies or whatever the fuck they were. By the time we round up enough willing souls to fight her, Sorren… will be gone. That is something we can’t allow.”
My stomach bottoms out, nausea lurching into my throat before I can stop it. My beast rustles, a snarl of denial rising inside me. This can’t be fucking happening. Things weren’t supposed to play out like this! Time is supposed to be on our fucking side! How could it just evaporate like that?
I can’t stop my gaze from flicking back to Sorren. He’s reclining indolently in his chair, boots propped up on the table, looking supremely unconcerned. His focus is o
n Kassidy as he speculatively eyes her rumpled dress. No mystery where his mind is at the moment. I can’t say I blame him. It feels a damn sight better to be between Kassidy’s thighs than facing down the knowledge of one’s own mortality. If I could fuck away this problem, I would. Cowardly? Perhaps. But I hate the thought of losing her and I hate the thought of losing him.
I feel a headache of my own building, drumming a ball-peen hammer against the front of my skull. I cradle my temples in my hands.
“Please tell me we have other ideas,” I say, meeting Leith’s eyes with an imploring look. His face is remote, desolate. It’s like a death knell for the last hope I’ve clung to.
There is no other way. None of us is in any shape to breach the magical forces that surround the fortress. None of us possesses a form that can fly in. There’s no back entrance, so we can’t go around. Over, around, and through aren’t really options at all.
A small smile creeps onto my face. “Under.”
“What?”
“Under,” I repeat. “There are four ways you can generally tackle an obstacle. Over, under, around, and through. Over and around are out. Through is suicide, in my opinion. So, we should try to go under.”
“And how do you propose we do that?” Leith asks, frowning. “I don’t know about you, but I left my shovels and pickaxes at home.”
I frown at him. “Tunnels. There has to be at least one tunnel into the fortress—they have to get the sewage out somehow. I’d wager the tunnel is around the back way, protected by the dense forest on the west side, beyond the back entrance to Grimm mountain. Too many physical obstacles to make it worth a human’s while, and there are probably additional defenses set up within the tunnels. But they’ll be minimal. There’s only so many men you can pack into an opening that wide. Between the four of us, we’ll have the advantage.”
Sorren barks a laugh. “So, you want us to go wading through a river of shit? I think I prefer storming the gates. There’s at least a little dignity in that death.”
