by Tamsin Baker
I whimpered as need harsh and powerful rose within me, taking me to the delicious precipice I rose towards. I whimpered as he stroked me.
“Shhh, Ella. I want to touch you. All of you. I want to touch your beautiful arms, your legs, your belly button. I want to touch every part of you inside and out. In your pussy and in here. I want to touch every part of your beautiful body. We all do.” He prodded my backside and the ring of muscle opened a little.
Panic startled through me, but was quickly washed away with their gentle touches and their clever, clever tongues. A second passed and I relaxed into the sensation. Cassius rolled my clit between his lips before laving it with the flat of his tongue.
Xander did no more than massage my back entrance. Nothing more. He kissed my ear, my neck, my shoulder, nuzzled me with his lips and tongue. I relaxed, caught up again in their ministrations, my arousal rising once again.
“May I touch you here, Ella? Please?”
Sensation built within me, and the extra caress on that forbidden part of my body added a dimension I never knew existed. The entire underside of my body, from my backside to my pussy, throbbed with arousal. Higher, greater, darker…more.
“What is your answer, Ella?”
It was the only answer I could give. That I wanted. They wanted to please me, pleasure me and I wanted to please and pleasure them back. I loved them with my very essence, mind and soul. They could take whatever they needed to take of my body as well.
I arched against Xander, opening up all parts of my body. “Please. Take me. Take all of me.”
They groaned as one. A needy, guttural sound that brought me closer to the precipice of bliss.
“You honor us, Ella. Our mate. Our love. Our forever. Our One,” Xander said.
Cassius sucked my clit into his mouth and speared me with his fingers. Davon pulled on my breast and caught my nipple with his teeth. Xander sank his teeth into my flesh at my neck and pushed a finger into my rosette.
I screamed as I rushed towards my climax. I broke through a barrier of golden light, my body soaring as electric sensation pulsed through me. I didn’t know how long I was out of my body, but when I drifted down, soft lips kissed me. On my legs, my belly, my breasts, my shoulders.
Cassius stood. Xander held me as Cassius lined up his cock. “May I make love to you, Ella?”
His face was a mask of tension. A drip of perspiration slid down the side of his face as he waited for my answer. The answer I wanted more than anything myself. “Yes, Cassius. Yes, a thousand times.”
We both groaned as he slid into me. He pushed through my sensitive flesh and I closed my eyes as he filled me, sinking deeper and deeper until his pelvis greeted the inside of my thighs.
“You are heaven, Ella.”
I gasped when he slowly withdrew to the tip before sliding back inside. Filling me with his body and his love. “More, Cassius.”
He gripped my hips with his long, lean fingers and thrust into me. I hooked my ankles behind his thighs opening myself up more to his attentions.
“As you wish, Ella.” He pounded into me, his pace increasing, his face a mask of pure pleasure. It was heady, knowing I was putting that look on his face. The friction built until blissful pressure exploded. My mind and body fractured as Cassius groaned. His fingers tensed on my hips as he slammed into me one last time. Wet heat exploded inside me and sent me over the edge once again.
When I was able to open my eyes, Cassius slid from me and captured my lips in a beautiful kiss, brimming with love. I tangled my fingers in his hair, kissing him back. It was a sated kiss. One of deep contentment.
He let my feet slip to the ground. Davon’s hands replaced Cassius’. When Cassius had finished kissing me, Davon’s mouth caught me up in a kiss that was filled with unsated heat.
As quickly as I had calmed after my release with Cassius, Davon’s desire rolled through me, igniting me again. Desire streaked through me as he led me towards the sofa. I followed him down, my knees straddling his thighs.
His shaft stood hard and long and thick and proud, pulsing against his stomach. He stroked it, the silken skin moving over hardness. Suddenly I didn’t want his hand on his cock. I wanted my hand on his cock.
I fitted my palm over his, entwining my fingers through his as I stroked him up and down. He groaned, his head tilting back against the cushions. “Gods, Ella. That feel so…” He couldn’t finish the words. I felt his composure breaking and I had the sudden urge to completely shatter him.
I moved my knees off the cushions and bent so that I could kiss the tip of his cock. Davon hissed. I glanced up to see his teeth extending over his lower lip. Oh, yes, he was losing it fast.
A large hand cupped my pussy from behind. A finger slid through my slick folds as hot skin folded over me from behind. “Naughty, Ella. Teasing Davon like that. I think you need a bit of your own treatment back.”
I groaned as Xander entered me with one finger, then two, his digits slicking through my combined excited wetness and Cassius’ release. “Kiss him there, Ella, Take him into your mouth. Treat him with your attention.”
I couldn’t deny Xander’s words or Davon’s obvious excitement. Davon’s fingers tangled in my hair as I opened my mouth and took him in. I slid my head up and down, stroking him with my tongue and lips. I wrapped my hand around the base of his cock and squeezed him as I sucked, teased and played.
Xander’s fingertip traced my spine, up and down as he fingered me relentlessly. Davon’s thighs strained, his fingers tensed. “Ella…I’m going to…”
That’s exactly what I wanted him to do. I licked my way up his cock, swirling the tip of my tongue along his slit. I licked away a salty drop of flavor before I devoured him again.
Xander slid free of me. His hand gripped my hip as his other hand that was on my spine moved to my other hip. His erection slid between my buttocks, gliding through wetness.
His cock slid right over the rosette he’d played with, the ring of flesh sensitive to the hot silk of his cock. I lifted my head. Xander wrapped a commanding hand around the back of my neck, stopping me from moving.
“You’re going to take Davon in your mouth again, Ella and I’m going to take you from behind. Is that what you want, Ella? To have both of us at the same time?”
Xander’s word slid like silk through me. I shivered as I was pounded with the combined forces of Xander’s and Davon’s desire. It spiked my arousal, building an answering indescribable hunger within me.
Xander eased my head forward and I gladly took Davon back into the heat of my mouth. I suckled him like he’d suckled my breasts, the flames of his arousal combusting mine.
My whole body turned into liquid need as Xander’s cock prodded the entrance to my body and slid right in without hesitation. His thick length filled me, the tip of his cock kissing the top of my womb.
I groaned around Davon’s cock, his unique salty essence coating my tongue as his cock swelled and twitched. The vein running along the side throbbed. I tightened my grip around the base and devoured his shaft as Xander pumped into me from behind.
His hips slapped against the back of my thighs as he drove into me again and again and harder and faster. My excitement escalated, building, taking me higher and higher.
Xander bent over me, his hips hammering into me, increasingly faster. “Your gift is truly amazing, Ella. You are truly amazing.” Xander’s voice was no more than a growl. He kissed the back of my neck, a tender moment at such odds with his hard, commanding thrusts. “I’m going to come, Ella. Come with me. Right now.”
Davon groaned. His shaft pulsed. “Gods, I’m coming, Ella.” Salty heat exploded in my mouth as Davon climaxed. His cock throbbed as he gushed into my mouth. My fingers clenched his thighs, clawing his skin as tension rose and built inside me. I drank him down, taking what he offered, needing, yearning, craving him. Wanting to give him – them all – anything and everything.
His fingers clenched on my flesh. His lips latched onto my neck
. Davon tugged a wrist to his mouth and Cassius kissed the other. As one, their teeth sank into my skin. My body tensed as I hurtled into intense ecstasy. I exploded into a million pieces, came apart at the seams and floated in an unnamed space where the four of us merged and became one, true soul.
“We love you. Ella. Our One. Our Soul. Our Savior.”
Their words surrounded me, caressing me, filling me with warmth and love. So, so much love. “I love you all. Xander. Cassius. Davon. You are my all. My everything. My beginning and end. You saved me. You are my soul. My Saviors. I am truly blessed.”
And I was. Truly. Blessed. And thankful. Grateful. Joyous.
I once thought my life was cursed, until I saw what a real curse was. I learned from the three magnificent souls who were now joined with me that being cursed didn’t mean you had to be bitter and dead inside.
It just meant you had to open your heart and let love in.
I had the three best men – Vampires, no less – to love me. So lucky.
Being cursed happened to be the best thing for all of us. We’d been cursed, all of us in our different ways. And now?
Now we were blessed!
Phoenix Rising
by Jess Devine
Chapter 1
Detective Hana Poncoyo was at her makeshift desk in the heart of downtown Jade City, the wickedly beating heart of the southern continent, mainlining her third coffee for the day.
It was barely midday and already she’d dealt with a gamut of crisis. Slug demons sliming up the River Bridge where Turtle Clan youngsters liked to swim, creating a toxic hazard. A werewolf tenant in Snake Quarter who howled all night despite the no-howl clause in his rental agreement. Vampires scaring hawker-market vendors to get their meat at half price.
And now, her bosses—Dragon Clan members who were mostly big, burly and not so bright men—were literally climbing the walls of the precinct with quick, deft movements. One, a hulking beast of a man called Pedro, was hanging upside-down on the roof, padding along on his hands and feet. He dangled above Hana and poked out his tongue in a flash of green.
Imbeciles.
The New Year carnival was in full swing outside the precinct. Through the small, grimy square that passed as a window, Hana could see the bright orange lanterns crisscrossing the laneways at street level, and hear the noise of children practicing their drumming and tiger roars.
The celebratory mood was clearly rubbing off on her colleagues. She didn’t know how she’d put up with this for another ten days, until the celebrations peaked in the New Year celebration of the Clans.
Well, if your Clan was deemed worthy of celebration, that is.
Hana had a long and boring list of busy work to occupy her. She didn’t mind the slab of wood on crates that doubled as a desk, or the third generation screens. She’d even put up with her idiotic colleagues. Anything that allowed her to keep an eye on the downtown goings-on was okay by her.
Hana brushed a hand over the deep green ink circling her upper arm. It marked her as loyal to Dragon Clan. But Hana had to stymie allegiances—deadly, dark secrets that ran deep below the surface—to keep that band glittering on her arm like the chain that it was.
Her life and her people’s future depended on it.
Irritation flashed through Hana as the dragons started growling at each other, drowning out the footage she was watching of the wayward vamps. Pedro—the big, dumb lizard—had a firecracker in his mouth and was taunting the others with it. She was half tempted to pull out some anti-stick gel from her drawer and shoot it at the buffoons through her Taser. It would serve them right.
The firecracker exploded and Pedro yelped, sending the other dragons into fits of laughter that had one tumbling to the precinct floor.
Hanna rolled her eyes.
Clearly, no one cared if any work got done today, unless it was something that got in the way of the top end of town. The Clan had its foot on this continent’s neck for decades now.
The Tigers were the masters of the Jade City, their reach extended all over the southern continent. If they gave the Dragons—the so-called head of justice in this town—orders to quell anyone or anything that got in the way of their domination—that was when you’d see some actual work getting done around here.
Corruption was an invisible, toxic presence in this city.
Hana’s hand-held beeped with a message.
Her least favourite captain. Vincent.
Request clean-up crew. Deceased female by the banks of the Indigo River in Turtle Quarter.
Hana felt it like a punch to her gut.
Not another one.
Chapter 2
Hana had noticed a trend in the city over the last few months. Her soul was heavy with it. Young men and women would go missing on their way home from work or school, turning up dead days later after succumbing to mystery illnesses and accidents and a variety of harder-and-harder to believe disasters.
None of the Clans were immune. Turtle, Snake, Dragon, Tiger.
It smacked of the Tiger underworld.
But it made no sense. The Tigers held downtown in a fierce grip, and they dealt with business competitors in their lucrative underworld trade ruthlessly, with often brutal outcomes. But Hana knew from working in the precinct that there were no current turf wars, no disruption to the illicit substances market, no political turmoil that might have caused an upswing in Tiger violence like this.
She was sure the Tigers were behind it—there was nothing that went on in downtown Jade City that they weren’t into up to their necks. The Tiger Queen never came down from Jade Palace on the hill, but she had her claws all over the continent just the same. The only time she showed her face was from the safety of the palace wall, every New Year.
This reeked of Tiger control. Hana just didn’t know what drove it. The message came in the same way each time. Clean-up crew only, no investigation. Hana couldn’t openly question this if she didn’t want to end up the next body floating in on a king tide. But she noticed every detail, every potential clue.
Her Clan might have been in exile, hidden, secret—some even ignorant to their dangerous heritage until it was too late. They pledged their loyalty to other Clans to survive, but there was no getting around the whisper in her soul: The fire of the Phoenix, invisible but burning on her back in glorious scarlet red and gold.
The ancestors of all the Clans had once been Fae. And the Phoenix Fae had once been the guardians of justice, before an ancient queen had ruined it all by succumbing to a passion that had almost set the world on fire.
Now, the Tigers and Dragons held the most powerful remnants of magic from their Fae ancestors, and with it, proclaimed their rightful place as rulers of the rest of the Clans. So Hana would go on the clean-up crew, and she might not ask questions, but she would stand in solitude with another lost soul for a few moments, and she would note every detail that might give her a clue as to what the Tigers were up to this time.
The girl was young. Ropes of wet hair that was a vibrant honey-gold even in death stuck to bare, slender shoulders. Only just out of her teen years, if Hana had to guess. She was half submerged in the river, her upper body sprawled across the bluestone gutter, arms stretched out above her. One hand caught in an elegant parody of a flourish, as if she were dancing or about to take a bow.
Hana stared at the girlish pink that tipped the young woman’s fingers and tried to get her breathing, her emotions, herself under control. Control was a mask that Hana must wear everyday if she was going to do this. Some days the mask felt heavier than others, like today.
One of the clean-up crew, a Snake by the name of Charlie, fluttered his fingers to reinforce the glamour that hid this sorry story from the general populace of Jade City. A transparent wall shimmered in a great circle around them. Not out of respect for the poor girl that lay at Hana’s feet. No, this was pure damage control, part of the cloak-and-dagger that kept downtown ignorant to what really went on in their town. No doubt the parents and frie
nds of these poor souls, if they had any, were too scared to make a fuss at what had happened to them.
“Get her up, get her out,” her captain ordered.
The others on the clean-up crew talked loudly as they lifted the girl out of the water, then put her in the back of the clean-up vehicle. Hana hissed as they roughly bumped her into the van.
“Careful.”
Vincent smiled at her with glittering malice.
“What’s the matter, Poncoyo? Your breakfast about to come up?”
She didn’t bother responding, just made a rude gesture at him, before catching up with the rest of the crew in the front of the van. Hana knew that she couldn’t stop her captain from disposing of the body any way he saw fit. Or the way he’d been ordered to by whichever Tiger was holding his leash today. But she’d worked hard to be reliable, always saying yes to any task she was given, no matter how trivial, or grisly. So when she offered to be the one to prepare the body for whatever awaited it next, he agreed.
She took her time washing the girl’s body, trying not to grimace at the lacerations and chunks missing from the violent way she’d met her end and the time she’d spent in the river.
Hana rinsed out her washcloth, brushed it gently across the girl’s high cheekbones, her honey coloured eyebrows, down the eyelashes.
“There now,” she murmured. “That feels better, doesn’t it?”
She’d not been given the gift of doing this for her own sister, who had met her fate so young, all because she was born with scarlet and gold raging in her veins. Her body had not been able to contain the fire of the Phoenix. Hana had been only twelve years old when Lylah had met her end. It was this misery that had finally prompted her grandmother to include her in the family’s rebel Phoenix Clan activities. The legacy she carried on, for Lylah and her grandmother, who were both now free to fly with their phoenix wings in the next realm as they had not been able to do in life.
