by Chloe Adler
We took one step toward it before a boulder fell in our path, blocking the exit.
I surveyed the scene desolately. Had we saved everyone just to lose? Small rocks were falling. Jared was lying in the pile I’d left him in but he looked more alert and the bleeding had stopped. He saw me looking at him and opened his beak. I motioned for him to fly, flapping my hands in the air and he stood up slowly, on one leg. The flapping commenced. He rose.
Katharine and I exchanged glances. We linked hands, pointed the rings on our other hands together, and in a second, we were sitting on Jared’s griffin, back in the air.
“Wait. Everyone else is still down there. Get them,” I yelled, pounding his feathers.
Katharine was crying. “I thought—“ she tried to say.
Jared dipped toward the writhing mass of human bodies and grabbed someone, I couldn’t see who, in his talons. His beak opened around another member of our crew, while his tail snaked out and grabbed someone else.
He flew toward the ceiling. The sky loomed above and I ducked my head at the last minute as we burst out the top of the cave, hoping he had our entire crew.
Jared deposited everyone on the ground outside. I looked around, counting. Everyone except Ryder was there. Dad, Iphi, Chrys, Burgundy, Ryder’s sister, his mother and me.
I was angry. Angry at Jared, Burgundy, even Ryder. How could Jared leave Ryder there? How could Ryder stay? My heart was being physically ripped from my sternum.
Katharine and I exchanged glances, her eyes narrowed. She was willing to go back inside with me. We took a step toward one another but Burgundy stepped between us, pushing us apart with her vampire strength.
Determined, Katharine held her ringed hand out to me but before I could react, Burgundy was on top of her, threatening to bite her neck. I knew it was just for show. Burgundy was strong enough to hold her in place for hours using only her pinky finger.
“Stop that,” yelled Ryder’s sister, rushing forward.
Burgundy looked up, eyes flashing. “I’m not doing anything but I won’t let her go back in there. It’s suicide.”
Katharine stopping fighting and slumped down at Burg’s feet. She dropped her head in her hands and rocked.
“Burgundy—“ I moved toward her, my hands held up. I wanted to get close enough to Katharine to activate our rings.
“Don’t even think about it, Sadie,” she said, flashing me her best warning glare.
I ran full-force toward Katharine’s body without thinking. Burgundy intercepted me and her teeth sank into my flesh. The feeling wasn’t unpleasant. A rush of something calming flooded through my body. She must have released her endorphins to make me docile. Burgundy normally didn’t use those gifts on me. She wanted her prey to be willing, and I always was. My mind remained alert, wanting to struggle and fight, but my body relaxed, turning to goo.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered in my ear, letting go of my neck for a moment before reconnecting again.
She sucked gently and I wondered briefly what she was apologizing for. Darkness bled in from my periphery, swallowing my senses. Was I dying? Blackness.
“Ryder!” I screamed. My heart seemed to dislodge as if it was beating freely outside of my body. I looked around but there was only darkness. Where was I? A bright light shone ahead of me, and I made my way toward it, unblinking. I couldn’t feel my body. I was floating. I must be dead. I had failed. Failed my love, his family, myself. My eyes stung with welling tears. But they remained dry.
A figure walked toward me through the light, and I pushed myself forward. Convinced I was dead, I expected something otherworldly. Instead, I came face-to-face with Aurelia.
“Am I dead?” I asked her apparition, confusion bubbling to the surface.
“You’re asleep.” If nothing else, I appreciated her bluntness.
“What’s going on? Why are you here?”
“You’ve always been so headstrong. Some call it brave. I call it reckless.”
“I have to be dreaming, you’re being semi-nice to me.”
She laughed, her I don’t have a care in the world laugh.
“I’ve always admired your strength and determination. Even when I’ve tried to stop you, even when I elicited Chrys to help. You forge on, generating your own path.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, knowing she wouldn’t give me a straight answer.
“Maybe you’ll never understand, but I’ve treated you as the black sheep, because you are a constant reminder of all that I’ve lost.”
“Lost?” This was new information.
“Yes.” She took a step away and turned. “Before you, Chrys, Iphi, Taylor . . . I had another family.” Her hands moved to her mouth.
“You did? When?”
“It was long ago. So long ago. When I was a young girl.”
“What happened?”
“They died.” She turned to face me again. “They all died, and I swore I’d never let myself feel that kind of pain again.”
I shook my head. Why didn’t any of us know about this? Holding her cards close, never letting anyone in. That was Aurelia.
“Does Dad know?”
A hollow noise bubbled up from her throat. “I never told Taylor, but I did tell your father.”
“My father? My father is Taylor. Mom, what’s going on?”
She sighed deeply, fretting her fingers. “Your father is not Taylor, Sadie. Your father is the only man I’ve ever truly loved.”
“You cheated on Dad?” I couldn’t bring myself to think of him as anything but. He was the man who had raised me. Her eyes flashed in the dreamscape. This must be a lie. Some evil thing playing a cruel trick on me.
“It’s complicated, but yes, I cheated on your father with the one I was supposed to marry. He’s a sesso witch, like you, and I’ve never loved anyone the way I loved him, the way I still love him.”
“What?” I wondered briefly if the disgust I felt at her words was palpable.
Her eyes brightened for a moment, looking through me as they always have. One blue eye, the other brown. Haunting me.
“You have to wake up now. I always knew you were destined for something more. I’m sorry that I couldn’t give you what you needed.”
The funny thing was that she didn’t sound sorry at all.
Chapter Twenty
Feeling a gentle tug on my lips, I returned the kiss, unthinking. A warm tongue pushed through, opening me. I let it. A deep sigh escaped. I felt safe and whole, my identity and past briefly shrouded in love and lust. I felt the usual pull of my body reacting and let it fall over me, consume me. Without opening my eyes, I pushed my body up and into whoever was covering me but I felt nothing, only air. No warmth met me.
My eyes flew open, memory flooding back in a most unwelcome way.
Jared’s handsome face hovered over mine and he smiled. His topaz eyes brightened as he watched my mouth form an O. I looked around. I was lying on our velvet couch in the living room. Burgundy was in the kitchen. I could hear her but not see her.
“You were kissing me?” I asked Jared.
“Just the way you like it,” he replied, broadening his grin.
“You know me so well.” My eyes bored into his.
“Well enough to know what your next moves will be.”
I tried to sit up but couldn’t. I tried to reach out toward him but couldn’t.
“What’s going on?”
“You’re bound, just the way I like it.”
“Not fair,” I whined loudly. My entire body ached like I’d been fed through a meat grinder.
“Ah, sleeping beauty is awake,” came Burgundy’s voice from the kitchen.
I tried to squirm free but found I could not actually move.
“Fine.” My voice was petulant but I didn’t care. Closing my eyes, I focused on the ropes and burning or cutting them open. Tugging, nothing happened.
“What have you two done to me?”
“What needed doing. For your own safety.�
� Jared bent forward, presumably to kiss me again but I bit him before he could.
Reeling back, he yelled, “Really, Sadie?”
Burgundy rushed in. “What did she do now?” And upon seeing the blood flowering on Jared’s lips, she fell upon him. They quickly melted together onto the floor in a heap of passion.
“Hello, people,” I managed through clenched teeth. “You need to untie me now so I can save my love who, if no one noticed, sacrificed his life for us.”
Burgundy and Jared stopped macking on each other long enough to look at me.
“That’s exactly what we’re preventing you from doing,” Burgundy said, her face covered in Jared’s blood.
Strange. Burgundy was an extremely fastidious feeder. She never wasted a drop and didn’t like to get dirty. It looked like she was wearing his blood, not consuming it.
“Why? And more importantly, how?” I tugged at the ropes again, unsuccessfully.
“Aurelia said—“
“Screw Aurelia,” I hissed, and suddenly I was bucking hard and pulling at the ropes.
“She’s only doing it because she loves you, and Taylor agrees.” Burgundy was using that tone on me. Her placating, yet authoritative tone. The one that said matters were closed.
“Not okay,” I answered back, hot and consumed with anger. “When did it become okay for everyone else to make my decisions for me?”
“When you fell in love,” Jared said, looking at me with raised eyebrows.
“Something no one saw coming, let alone thought would ever happen,” Burgundy added.
“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked, my tone sharp and off-kilter.
“It’s affected your sane decision-making skills,” Jared supplied.
I tugged again and tried unsuccessfully to use my magic to free myself.
“Why can’t I spell myself loose?”
“That, too, would be Aurelia,” Burgundy said. “She’s got your number.” Burgundy’s tone was slightly condescending, something I had never heard from her before.
I slumped, trying to fight back the tears. How could these people, who claimed to love me, let my soul mate die?
“What if it was one of you that was taken? Hell, it was both of you, and who came to your rescue?” My voice was weepy and sodden, the tears seeping through.
Burgundy walked over and sat beside me in what little space there was. She reached out and stroked my hair. I tried to pull away.
“I know it’s not fair, sweetheart. Who can say one life is worth saving over another? But the fact is that you’ve only known Ryder for a short time and . . . He’s only a human.”
I strained to pull away from her but only managed to jerk my head so hard I pulled a neck muscle.
“Not you too. You’ve never been prejudiced against humans. Burgundy? What’s really going on?”
She got up just as abruptly and walked away. “You’ll thank me later.”
My eyes widened at that sentence. Was Aurelia controlling her? Why hadn’t I seen it sooner? Had my mother always possessed this ability? I was completely lost. My best friend and my twin flame were gone to me. Why did my mother have to ruin everything? I now vaguely knew why she begrudged me my happiness but this was out of control.
As soon as Burgundy retreated back to the kitchen, I called Jared over.
“Aurelia has taken over Burgundy,” I whispered into his ear.
“I thought she was sucking me differently,” Jared said, peeking toward the kitchen, “and wasting all my blood.”
“Eww.” Mother and Jared . . . just eww.
He reached down to untie the ropes and yelped, holding up his hands. They were scalded and smoking.
“A burn spell,” I whispered through clenched teeth.
“Sucking me, and then this? I feel violated,” he murmured close to my ear. “Hey, let’s see if we can return the favor.”
Before I could ask him what he was talking about, Jared straddled me as he wrestled the clean blouse they’d dressed me in over my head. He was careful not to touch the ropes.
“Burgundy,” he called, his voice sliding over me like fingers on velvet.
As soon as she peeked into the living room, Jared put his hand under my skirt, rubbing my thigh and kissing my neck. With his free hand, he crooked his finger toward her.
My eyes, trained on her, watched her visibly stiffen.
Turning my head away in order to keep a straight face, I called out, “Burgundy, come lick my pussy like only you can.”
Either way, it would be telling. If it really was Aurelia and she was determined to carry this through, I would back out at the last minute.
Burgundy/Aurelia stiffened even more in the doorway, putting her hand to her head. “I’m not feeling well. I’ll be in my room.” She practically ran down the hallway.
“Ha,” escaped my lips before Jared covered them with his own.
“Quiet,” he growled. His deft fingers pulled aside my panties, dipping into me.
“What do you think you’re doing right now?” I asked him, trying both to buck away and buck into him. My brain and my body were not on the same page.
“You’re a sesso, right?”
“That’s what I’m told,” I hissed through clenched teeth, trying not to moan. For a gay man, he sure knew how to digitally please a woman.
“It would stand then,” his tongue hit my ear in its closeness, sending shivers down my channel, “that if you have an orgasm, you can break Aurelia’s spell on you.”
“That may only work with Ryder,” I tried to hiss into his ear, but my moans betrayed me.
“Let’s find out,” he inserted a finger.
My back arched, taking his finger deeper.
“Remember,” he growled in my ear, “I know how you like it.”
I was unable to stop myself from bucking while my eyes rolled back into my skull. Oh yes, he most definitely did.
The ropes pulled taut against my wrists and ankles. The pain heightened every sensation.
Struggling tightened the bindings but I couldn’t let go, not with Ryder imprisoned. Trying to enjoy the experience or ride the lust brought a pang of loss. And then the guilt. What if Ryder wasn’t okay with this? He’d said he was good with me and Burgundy, but we hadn’t talked about Jared and that look he’d given him—us.
What was I supposed to do? Stop myself from enjoying a sexual moment because he’d been imprisoned? What if I didn’t tell him?
I need communication and honesty, his words rang in my ears.
I’d tell him the truth. I was doing it to save him. I had to. The lust. The orgasm. It all made my powers stronger. I needed this like a wanderer in the desert needed water. Would I be all right with saving him from the Scrim only to lose him because he couldn’t handle my sexual appetite? It wouldn’t be the first time. But Ryder was different.
The bite on my ear brought me back.
“Stop thinking and ride it, Sadie. You need this to help him. Don’t worry about what he would think, not right now. Right now it doesn’t matter.” Jared’s face echoed my thoughts, hovering over mine for a moment before sucking my lips into his mouth.
He was right. My heart broke a little as I closed my eyes and let him take me. His mouth was hot and full, pressing over mine. His stubble scratched my face as I let myself fall into it.
His expert fingers pumped into my wet pussy as his palm rode against my clit. He did know how I liked it. I had barely managed to form that coherent thought when his other hand played with the entrance to my ass.
I moaned and ground against him as he mashed my breasts with his chest. I kept my arms stretched high so the ropes wouldn’t burn him.
“I’m going to tease you and not let you come so that when you do, your orgasm will free you from your binds.”
“Yes,” I hissed, my rising lust pushing away the guilt. “Don’t stop.”
His mouth suckled at my neck before moving back to my ear. I trembled when his tongue shot out to lick
the tender spot just behind it.
“You are amazing,” I groaned. “Are you sure you’re not straight?”
“My pleasure stems from being able to control people. I like playing you. It gives me pleasure to watch you squirm, controlling your outcome. But sexually . . .”
He stopped what he was doing and sat up so I could see that there was no bulge in his pants. Having seen his member in the mouth of a man on more than several occasions, I knew he was very well-endowed. His tight jeans could not hide a hard-on.
“Thank you for being so altruistic,” I said, liking the feeling of being topped by my male BFF. Guilt over what I was, who I was, melted away. This was my nature. I tried it on and it fit. “Now get back to it, please.”
He put his fingers, the ones that had been in my pussy, into my mouth. “Suck,” he commanded, and I did.
Removing them, he plunged them back inside of me, deep and hard with the perfect pumping motion. He curved them upward to find my G-spot and the pleasure mounted.
His other hand twisted and pulled on my nipples, hard. The harder he twisted, the greater my pleasure built.
“How long can I keep you on the edge of delicious release?”
“Don’t you dare,” I moaned as he removed his hands and I stretched out toward him. My flesh was on fire, burning me from the inside out. Lust coupled with my wounds.
“Finish . . . me . . .” My voice was hoarse, my breath coming quickly. I sounded like an animal, guttural and base. I didn’t care. I was incapable of caring. Incapable of rational thought.
By the time I realized I was pushing my groin into the air, dry humping nothing, he replaced his hands, plunging several fingers inside me at once.
The small part of my brain remaining conscious wanted to strangle him for knowing how to keep me on the edge for so long. Instead, I took several deep breaths, relaxing into it. Closing my eyes, I let the pleasure wash my mind clean. My lips felt dry as my head arched backwards and my extremities strained against the tightening bondage again.
