by Marata Eros
The Reapers will infiltrate the Faction.
They will regain the females and kill as many of the scourge as they can.
He rushes through the door and catches sight of Kael and Siana at the other side.
He smells Kael all over her, marking her.
Baird smirks. He wasted no time in fucking Siana.
She wasted no time in letting him.
Goddess help him.
Baird does not bother with a greeting, or a deeper scent flare. He paces backward, and with a sprinting head start, he leaps across the moat, running as he lands.
He does not look back.
Only her image, like a sun that never sets, burns in his mind.
It does not leave him no matter how many times he closes his eyes.
*
Maghnus scowls when Baird appears bearing tales. There are no females, and the Druid queen is with a rogue, of all things.
Baird reads Maghnusʼs displeasure on his face.
“Why, as a Reaper warrior with Exotic blood, could you not do the simplest of procedures and bind the Druid to you?” Maghnus asks.
Baird does not have a ready answer.
“And how was it the rogue managed to snatch her virginity from underneath your nose?”
Baird ties his hair at his nape in an irritated jerk. “I thought she had already been with other males... I did not realize her—”
“Oh Baird, that is daft.”
Baird's brows dump above his eyes. “I have been blinded by many things.”
“Clearly.”
Baird grunts. “You are not helpful.”
Maghnus points at Baird. “You are the one who allowed a Druid queen to slip between your fingers. You could have pierced her cherry and closed her womb with your seed as you did with Imogen. Even now she could be with the Reapers.” He closes his fist and brings it to his chest in a swipe of anger. “Yet no. You allow jealousy to insert itself.” He sighs in disgust. “I am leader here. You are important to our species. A supreme warrior, virile breeding stock, enough Reaper's blood to throw true with just enough Exotic to have a chance at something rare.”
Baird scowls. “Siana has chosen the rogue.”
Maghnus's eyes narrow. “Has she now?” He puts his hands on strong hips.
No. “Yes.”
Maghnus sighs with disgust. “She is one in a million, Baird. Sent from the south for the express purpose of mating with a male of Exotic descent in the hopes of daywalking offspring. She is the finest stock of Druid female in existence.” He spreads his hands, brows rising.
“I apologize I cannot force a female to be a breeding machine for the Reapers,” Baird replies sarcastically.
Maghnusʼs eyes find Baird's. “I will not pat your ass, Baird. You fucked up because of who you are, despite what you are. You have to make it right. Go to Carrig and Quinn. Assemble a war party to deal with the Faction, and reacquire the Druid females—and Siana.”
Baird grunts in anger, turning to find his Reaper brethren.
He hates that Maghnus is right.
He hates Siana for choosing Kael, and for never leaving his mind.
*
Laughter finds its way to Baird, and he follows the musical sound.
Imogen, Carrig, and Quinn sit at the banquet table. It does not see a lot of use.
The table is meant to hold the laughter of many females.
That is the promise Jessamine made to the Reapers who live here. She promised to trade the females for the rite of magick.
But now she serves another purpose: taking the cock of the undead.
Though her end is a just one, the unfulfilled bargain has left them with a single Druid female. Though Imogen is with child and magick is strong within her, the Reapers need more Druids.
I need Siana.
Quinn looks up just as Baird's face is raw with his memories. He stands. “My brother?”
Carrig hears his concern and stops speaking with Imogen.
Imogen says the things her mates are unwilling to voice. “Is it Siana?”
Baird's sharp tongue begs to be let loose.
Her face is earnest and he slowly walks to the table and lowers his weight into the nearest bench.
He nods, saying nothing.
“What has happened?” she asks.
Then, against his better judgment, he tells them everything.
Imogen does not berate him with words, voice, or body. “Baird, it is not that you do not care about Siana.”
She pulls Quinn and Carrig closer to her, and they look on her with adoration.
It seems so simple for them.
“It is that you love her too much,” Imogen adds.
Baird stands. “I do not love Siana. I care about her protection.”
“Yes...” Disbelief is plain on Imogen’s face.
“Get thoughts of love out of your head, Imogen.”
Her brows pinch together. “You say that Kael partook of her body first—upon the Sacred Stone?”
“Yes,” Baird replies curtly.
Quinn scowls. “It is not Imogen you are angry with, brother.”
Baird sighs. “Yes, I am sorry. Siana makes every nerve ending I have scream like a raw wound.”
Imogen and Carrig look at each other.
Quinn says, “Perhaps you can make amends. You have saved Siana’s life twice. You have rutted with her...” Quinn spreads his hands, palms up in supplication.
Baird studies them for guile. Finding none, he nods. “Yes. But first, we must rescue the Druids from the Faction.”
Imogen releases Quinn and Carrig. “Go, bring your brothers and save my sisters. I will be safe here with Maghnus.”
They scowl, and Baird laughs. He is not the only one with jealousy issues, a Reaper mainstay.
“Do not fuck him, my Druid.” Quinn tips her head back and mauls her with a possessive tongue.
Imogen circles his neck with slender arms.
Baird's dick tingles with the need to do that and so much more with a certain Druid.
He walks out of the room with a set of blue balls. Anger and unfinished business follow him to his chamber.
CHAPTER TEN
Seraphina
Seraphina has never been fucked so deeply or completely in her time as breeder.
She is not a needy thing as some of the others, but with one rut from Altho, she is changing by the second.
He batters her with his cock, driving deeply inside the phallus. She groans, succumbing to the sensation of being filled to capacity and the simultaneous stimulation from the stub in her ass.
Technically, it is not he that impales her but the phallus.
Her eyes whip open when she realizes how closely he skates the invasion of her sex magick.
Altho smiles, face puckering where his scar tweaks his lips, a whip of red flesh against his full mouth.
He sees her looking and distracts her with a swivel of his hips. Her breath catches in her throat.
“Do not look upon me,” he says.
Seraphina closes her eyes and does the same with her legs. He forces them apart.
She wants him to, yet she does not.
His breath is warm on her face. “That is it—fight, my little breeder.”
She slams her hips against his, grabs the back of the dark hair, and rips his head backward.
He howls as he finishes, the pain she gifts him taking Altho over that edge of ecstasy. Her own release pulses around him, causing the phallus and his softening cock to move in and out.
He yells in a hoarse cry of agony and tortured surprise.
He rolls off her, taking her with him.
Altho pulls out, the phallus buried inside her like a plug.
Meeting her eyes, he flops the phallus on the bed beside them.
“I have fucked you soundly, Druid—and yet am immune to the magick of your delectable twat.”
Seraphina ignores his barbs. “Why is your face like that?”
He cannot contain his
expression.
Instead, his sorrow is something she did not expect or want. She feels sick to have caused it.
Altho is many things. Primarily, he is her benefactor and captor.
He sets her away from him and moves to leave.
Seraphina grabs his waist as he does, pressing the side of her face against his naked back.
He is a strong male, a Druid witch like herself. He has the blood of the vampire running in his veins. As does she.
Their magicks are complementary.
He could toss her away. Or, he could mate her.
He does neither. Altho sits at the edge of the bed and lets her press against his back.
The silence stretches.
Why does he want her? To use her? He could fuck any female. None could resist.
“I pay for females to lay with me,” he admits softly.
Seraphina says nothing. She remembers how acute her shock was upon first seeing Altho.
However, he was made to fuck the Druid female. He is not like the other priests. He is a perfectly balanced Druid male, all the old magick combined with the ancient blood of the Reaper.
Not her brother but a lover.
“My face causes fear.”
“Not for me,” Seraphina answers truthfully.
“Liar.”
She crawls into his lap. His face stares at a point above her shoulder.
“I do not need to lie,” she says. “You know what I am, what I can do. I am a Druid Breeder and would be with the Reapers if it were not for you. Or—the Faction.” Seraphina controls a shudder as she thinks about the wandering nomadic vampire group.
Altho's face changes at her words, becoming feral, and she flinches back.
He could hurt her because he has not partaken of the fruit of her body. He has kept the necessary distance to avoid becoming her slave.
Gripping her naked shoulders, he shakes her. “The Faction will not have you.”
Seraphina shakes her head. “No, I am with you. Had I not been—they could have.”
His tense face eases, puzzling Seraphina. Altho wants a breeder in his domicile, so that he may fuck on demand. If that is his need, why the concern over the Faction? She supposes if her body were broken, he could not use it to his satisfaction. It is all very pathetic once it is laid out in her mind.
Seraphina slips off Altho's lap, and her skirt falls into place. Her blouse is in tatters from twisting and tearing as Altho rode her hard.
She kicks his legs apart with her knees as she lets him take in her breasts.
Grabbing his face, she forces him to look at her.
Fear, wonder, and anger are rolled up like bitter herbs in his handsome face, though the scar hides some of it.
She pulls him forward slowly. When he does not object, she touches his upper lip with her mouth. She presses her lips to his scar so lightly, it is barely more than hovering heat before it is gone.
Altho's forehead rests against hers for a moment.
Then he shoves her away, and she stumbles back.
“Go,” he whispers harshly.
Seraphina turns.
Her plan is working. She will have her freedom, by any means.
*
Altho
Altho's eyes follow the small Druid. She puts a hand to her lips, looking hurt, and he keeps his face neutral against her emotions.
He loathes what he is feeling: tenderness.
He has long-buried that part of his emotions for self-preservation's sake.
His eyes rake over her lovely body. A hand-span waist cinches below a blouse he ruined with his attentions.
How hard it had been not to fuck her bareback. His dick got hard with just the slip of the thought.
Altho had prevailed.
This time.
Her sensitivity had undone him at the end. Instead of fighting him and her natural instinct to breed, she had endeavored in her soft attack.
Kissing the abuse on his face. A face he hated. One that had been dished out to him on a silver platter of revenge by the Faction.
The only way for him to have a companion is to keep her here against her will. Prostitutes are all who are willing to lay with a male whose face is as disfigured as Altho's.
Yet, Seraphina had taken all he could give.
Altho longs to take her as a male ought.
He stands and walks to his cleaning chamber. It will be a long time before he forgets how soft her lips were against the roughness of his past.
Altho will forget what has happened, but not her.
When Seraphina mentioned the Faction, his blood ran cold. If they were to get a Druid female, it would end badly for her.
He did not want any female subjected to what he had been put through.
Altho swallows, the lump of anxiety sticking in his throat like a burr.
As is his habit, Altho delays his bathing as he moves through his fortress, visually securing each portal. Thankfully, his eyes remain perfect. He sees every entrance and exit, high stone wall, iron bar, and other barriers are secure.
Uncompromising.
He lets his senses settle and reach out, feeling for the breeder's magick.
There. He senses her energy like warm candy. He rolls the beauty of its unique taste around on his tongue, loving her perfection in his home.
He loves to possess a rare Druid breeder to fuck at will. A warm body to lend companionship.
But Altho is displeased to feel other things.
Passion and care—protection.
Though he gave a blood bond to keep her safe, it was merely show. He is Druid, but unlike the priests who met a handy end just a day ago, he is of different genetics. His brand of Druid male is rare, bred to protect and breed with the Druid female.
Even now, he feels the pull of that unique calling. He will shy from it. He does not want to care about anyone or anything.
If anyone attempts to take Seraphina from him, they will wish they were dead.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Siana
Siana sees Baird immediately.
Their eyes lock, and she knows what he will do before he crouches in tense readiness.
Baird sprints from the broken door of the temple and sails over the moat gracefully.
His dismissive glance moves over her body while he is midair.
Baird lands and does not look back.
She swallows her sadness and presses forward.
*
She and Kael are quiet as they fly, hand in hand, across the murky and treacherous water encircling the failed Druid priest temple.
The Druids who were held in the cells are now gone.
The doors have been ripped from their hinges, an impossible feat for humans. It speaks of supernatural invasion.
Faction.
Rogue and Reaper alike would not think to do that. They were not feared by the Druid. Only the priests and Faction hope to gain control of the Druid females: the Faction to force breed, and the priests to rape, plunder, and rob the magick of the more powerful female Druids.
The priests in this region are no more.
The Faction are the likely culprits.
“What do you propose?” Siana asks.
Kael makes a face. He is as unhappy with the inevitable as she.
She needs to move to the Reaper's fortress. Hopefully, there could be an alliance to gain back what they had lost. If it is not too late.
*
Siana is tiring. They do not have horses, and they have been traveling non-stop to get to Magnus's stronghold.
Blood is scarce, keeping to the back roads as they have been.
“We need to feed,” Kael announces.
Siana slows from a dead run, her hands coming to rest on her knees as she leans over, gasping.
“It is not good that you push in your condition.”
Siana shoots him an amused look and smirks. The confusion on his face is nothing short of adorable.
“You, good sir, are wonderful,” she says
.
Kael smiles. “I know you be early in the way, but you carry a precious life. An Exotic life.”
Sadness sweeps through her, hollowing Siana out like a corn husk.
Kael wraps his strong arms around her. “I jest. It is my way. It does not mean I cannot be serious.”
He pulls away, finding too many tears to easily wipe. He seeks her eyes until she gives them. “Take heart, Siana. I have looked these many years for a female I could breed with. And not any. I am a mongrel rogue by most standards. It is only by the grace of the goddess I am not with the Faction.”
Siana shakes her head and searches his features, finding what marks him as Exotic.
Finding it fine.
“However”—he cups her face—“if my mongrel genetics sought yours and we have made a life to perpetuate the rareness of the Exotic, it is a destiny beyond denying.”
He kisses her forehead, each eyelid, and when his mouth hovers over hers, she takes it, hard.
Kael responds.
Tired, hunger and dirty from travel, Siana feels his stiffness between them.
“Take me here, Kael—now,” Siana begs.
He does not need a second invitation.
Kael rips open her breeches, scoops an arm underneath her naked ass, and lifts her. He walks short paces to a tree trunk and presses her against the rough surface.
Their eyes meet, his like ice and hers captured fire.
His pants are at his ankles, and he spears her before they finish dropping. Siana moans as he moves deeply inside her. She folds her arms around his neck, one ankle caught in her breeches and swinging as he rocks inside her.
“Hang onto me.”
Siana tightens her grip, wrapping her strong legs around his waist.
Kael presses his palms against the furled bark above her head and beats his cock inside her, stabbing, swinging, and plunging. Siana hangs from him as he loves her with every bit of himself.
“Siana,” he growls against her neck, so tightly pressed against her body, nothing is separate about them.
They are one body, hot and slick and whole. Siana moves with each plunge, taking him deeply.
She groans, her head falling to the side as hot jets of his seed warm inside her.
