Sorcerous Flame

by Lana Ames

  The pain and pressure eased up; I was forcing the attack out of me, giving it everything I had.

  Then I heard the cry from next door.

  “Amory!” I shouted, and ran for the door to my room. I stumbled about in the pitch dark trying to find the freaking door, then finally asked my magical sight to reveal it. There, there was the doorknob, and I heard another shout through the wall.

  I raced into the hallway and to Amory’s door. Locked, of course it was locked, why shouldn’t it be locked?

  I yanked on the doorknob as hard as I could, rattling it, sending what power I could into it. “Amory!”

  “Grace!” I heard faintly.

  The knob would not turn. I closed my eyes and thought about it blasting apart, thought from my heart, not my brain.

  The door fell to pieces at my feet.

  And the blackness within was absolute.

  It didn’t matter. I raced inside, shouting Amory’s name. The attack had let up entirely on my own magic; and I somehow knew that was because the demon was targeting my fourth man instead. If Mundon could prevent our cohort from forming…

  I didn’t know what would happen and I didn’t care, it didn’t matter, he was attacking Amory and that was enough for me. Amory was mine, no matter that I hadn’t even touched him yet; he was mine and I would protect and defend my own.

  Suddenly, being the boss of all these men didn’t seem so ridiculous any more.

  I rushed into the darkness, heading for the bed even though I could see nothing, just going from memory. I stumbled on something on the floor, but didn’t fall; and Amory’s shouts were louder now, I was close to him.

  Then I was at the bed, and I dove onto it, my arms and my heart searching for him. I could not find him, he wasn’t there! I flailed about blind in the rumpled covers, shouting; then finally made myself slow down and ask my magic…

  And then Amory was in my arms, and the pain of the demon attack on him coursed through me once more. “No!” I screamed, holding this man as hard as I could, as he wailed in my arms. “Fight it, fight it!” I hollered in his ear as I pressed him tight to me.

  I sent my own magic into him, though it was like it was on fire, acid in my veins. I wanted to cry out again for Emma and the lady, but I could spare nothing. Mundon’s essence was all over us, like a foul oily blanket, like poison, like misery and a lifetime of suffering. All I could do was press against it. It was like holding back the tide.

  Amory clung to me, shivering, helpless. “Fight it,” I moaned at him.

  Use your strength, came the whisper of Emma’s voice in my heart. Was she coming? Oh god, please let her be coming.

  My strength? What was my strength?

  I pressed harder against the foulness that smothered Amory and me, gasping for breath. If Mundon was filth and misery and pain, then my strength was…love and connection and carnal joy.

  I clung harder to Amory and filled my mind with the images and sensations of my last few days. All the smiles, the kisses, the sex, the astonishing sex. I thought about all the hot sex I would have with Amory, and all the many days and years of amazing lovemaking all five of us had to look forward to. I took these strong visions and I felt them again, I lived them again.

  And I felt my strength grow. My magic pulsed and grew in my chest, spreading down through my whole torso, to my loins, out my limbs and back again, reverberating, celebrating life and love and happiness and joy. It was an emotional orgasm, and it was mightier than a demon…I felt Mundon scrabble against it, crying out in frustration and disgust.

  So this is what ecstasy feels like, I thought, floating in the grip of my power.

  Amory’s power sang forth, at last, welling up in his breast, meeting mine as we gripped one another. I was lying on top of him in the bed, and now I could see him a little…yes! The darkness was abating.

  I felt a last demon-scream, felt it all the way to my toes, to the back of my teeth, to the base of my spine. I cried out, then gasped for breath, but the darkness fell away and Amory and I were alone, safe, in his bed.

  “Oh my god,” I managed, gulping in lungfuls of air.

  Amory trembled in my arms. “What…was that the demon?”

  “Yes.”

  We lay there a long moment, just holding each other. At last, he said, “It had me, I couldn’t move or breathe. I thought I was going to die. I felt like it…was sucking something out of me.”

  “It was.” I shuddered and tightened my arms around him. “It was trying to take your magic away.”

  “I don’t even…know how to feel my magic. Not really.”

  I buried my face in the curve where his shoulder met his neck. Oh god he smelled good. “You will. It’s pretty instinctual, when it comes right down to it.” His arms moved up my back a little, a gentle caress. “If you let it.”

  “I do want to let it.”

  This close, I could hear his heartbeat. It had been pounding, racing; it was starting to settle back to something more like normal.

  And I could feel his arousal against me…and his heartbeat was not going all the way back to normal.

  I kissed his neck, just a tiny brush of my lips; then moved higher, kissing his earlobe. He moaned and held me closer; his erection pressed against me…oh, he was only in boxer shorts, and my robe was falling open…we were already skin to skin nearly to our waists.

  I had been so close to his magic, to his spirit, I hadn’t even noticed our bodies.

  But I did now.

  I grazed his earlobe with my teeth, oh-so-gentle, then trailed a line of kisses along his jaw, seeking his mouth.

  And he turned fully to me and kissed me before I even got there. Oh my god, how delicious this man was…I drank him in, darting my tongue in and out of his mouth, tasting his powerful magic, his soft kindness, his strong desire for me. He kissed me back just as energetically, and his hands roamed all over my back, getting tangled in the robe briefly before he growled and pushed it all the way open.

  Then he suddenly stopped, pulling back and gazing up at me in the dimness. “Grace…we can’t…we have to wait till tomorrow…?”

  I panted, gasping now from lust and desire, casting my eyes wildly about the room. To the broken-open door. To the faint lights of the distant city peeking through the curtains. To the small clock on his nightstand… “It’s after midnight. It’s tomorrow.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Oh…” he sighed softly, and then claimed my mouth once more.

  We kissed like we were drowning and each other were oxygen. We kissed like we were starving and each other were a feast. I only pulled away briefly, so I could wriggle my arms out of this stupid robe and fling it to the floor, and return to kissing him again, more, more. He only pulled away briefly to snake-wiggle his shorts off; I helped, as soon as I realized what he was doing, and oh god, there was his beautiful strong cock, lit from the faint light from the window like a magical thing.

  “May I?” I asked, and didn’t wait for an answer as I slid down his body, kissing as I went, and took that gorgeous cock into my mouth.

  “Ohhh,” he groaned, as I tasted him, pulling him all the way in, sucking gently and pulling out again, running my tongue around the head as I caressed the shaft, then going down all over again.

  I hadn’t even gotten into a rhythm before he reached down, trying to move me, reposition me…and then I understood. His strong hands finally found my hips and thighs and I was shifted all the way around on the bed, still on top of him…but now my knees were beside his head, and his tongue, oh my god his tongue…I gasped and gasped again as I tried to keep pleasuring him at the same time as his tongue was plunging in and out of me, and his hands were gripping my hips, squeezing my ass, pulling my clit to his face…he ate me and I ate him, we were a true circle of connection and desire. Just the right height to match up perfectly…oh god I could live here, forever I could live here…

  And then we found our rhythm, and it was no effort at all to let the pleasure build,
let the heat, the flames, build in our veins. I could feel the magic pouring through him almost as strongly as I felt it within me, and I now knew he could feel mine too, and I didn’t have to point it out, it was just that obvious.

  Yet I didn’t want to come this way. Not the first time. Not the sealing-the-cohort time. And he somehow knew that; we both slowed our build simultaneously, and I eased off him, climbing down and turning to face him.

  Amory smiled up at me in the ghost-light. “I thought I’d be sad to lose that view, but now it’s even better.” He reached up and caressed my face; I turned my head and kissed his palm, then straddled him, leaned down and kissed his lips as I held myself over him, hovering just shy of penetration…

  We kissed a long moment, and then he slid his hands down my sides, took strong hold of my hips, and lowered me down onto him.

  As he entered me, I closed my eyes; I could not stop the waves of ecstasy and power that shot through me. This was it: this was the moment of sealing this man to me, all these men to me. I felt all my men with me in this room, though the only bodies here were Amory’s and mine…but everyone’s magic was with us, we were all together in this bed, building something fierce and strong and mighty and fantastic.

  And then the moment of transcendence was gone and in its place was solid, astonishing fucking. I ground my hips against Amory’s as I drove him deep into me. He gasped and thrust back against me, gripping me hard, moaning with desire and delight. I now gazed down at him, into his magical hazel eyes as they gazed back up at me, drinking me in, learning me, knowing me all the way to my core.

  “Oh Grace,” he breathed as I fucked him. “Oh Grace, oh Grace.”

  “Amory, beloved,” I whispered, driving down as hard as I could, taking him, all of him, claiming him, owning him. My pussy gripped at his cock as our heat grew, and my body was filled with flames, magenta flames of magic and regular flames of just plain old funky sex. We were here and not-here, our bodies fit together perfectly, as if an artist had created us to go together. To fuck.

  I began to growl as my climax built, I couldn’t help it, I could just feel it in my throat, as if something other than me was in charge now. And yet I was totally in control, riding the best wave of all times…I closed my eyes again and arched my back and saw the wave, saw it approach, and stepped onto it, and—

  —I came, crashing into ecstasy and screaming his name, the power and the joy flowing through me, sealing our bond—

  —and Amory came too, clutching my hips to hold himself fast to me as he filled me with magic, with cum and magic, and safety and love and desire and joy—

  And I felt the rest of my men with me as well, briefly, but they faded to the background as the orgasm reverberated through me again and again. I rode the wave, rode it like the queen of all surfers who ever lived, I could live and die on this wave, live here forever, and everything was going to be all right…

  I floated gently back down to earth after uncountable minutes. And earth was this bed, with this man, and it was a good place to be, the very best place to be. I rolled off him and lay beside him, pulling him to face me. My veins were humming with song, and I could not stop grinning.

  Amory grinned back at me, and put his hand between my breasts, then picked up my hand and put it on his chest. “I feel it,” he whispered.

  “Yes.”

  I kissed him, and we wrapped our arms around one another, and held each other, just held each other.

  It was a long, long time before I began to wonder where everyone else was. I opened my eyes and looked over Amory’s shoulder at the shattered door, the darkened hallway beyond.

  He followed my gaze, then turned back to me. “Um…that’s weird.”

  “Yeah. You think nobody heard us? Felt us?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I sat up in the bed and looked around for my robe. Some crazed sex maniac had apparently flung it all the way across the room. I got up and pulled it on, and headed for the doorway. Amory put a hand on my arm. “Hang on. I’m coming with you.”

  He found a robe in his small closet, pulled it around himself and tied the belt. “Okay.”

  We stepped out in the hallway, pausing in the darkness and listening. Nothing.

  “This room is Javier’s,” I said, pointing to the one just across the hall. I crept to its door and put my ear to it.

  Inside, I could hear soft snoring.

  I ‘looked’ with my magic, probing gently for Javier’s essence. I found it at once, and shied back so as not to disturb him. “He’s sleeping,” I whispered to Amory. “He’s having, um, a pretty good dream, I think.”

  Amory stifled a smile. “I’m glad to hear that.”

  We tiptoed to the other men’s doors, and each in turn proved to be fast asleep…dreaming erotic dreams.

  “Hmm,” I mused, as Amory and I headed back to his bedroom. “I guess they were kind of with us after all.”

  “I appreciated the illusion of privacy, though, I have to say,” he murmured, kissing me behind the ear and then pulling me back into bed with him.

  ~*~*~*~

  We slept peacefully after that, curled into one another’s arms, soaking up one another’s body heat, and probably sharing dreams as well. I must have only slept a few hours, though, because I awoke in the earliest part of dawn, with grey foggy light filtering in past the curtains.

  “Mmm,” Amory murmured, pulling me closer in his sleep. I snuggled against him, enjoying his soft skin, his delicate yet masculine scent. He smelled like green grass on a summer’s day, and hard cider, and cucumber: fresh and sweet.

  I lay there a long time, wondering if I would fall back asleep, letting the whole experience of these past few days roll over me, through me. Our cohort was now complete, and I could not deny how right it felt. Even now, from the bed, I could reach out a tentative magical ‘finger’ and find my other men, sense their emotions, even as they slept. Perhaps it was easier while they slept; their thoughts and feelings were unguarded, dreams roaming through their minds.

  No wonder the demon had come for us in the deepest part of the night. I’d had no idea that we were so vulnerable while sleeping, so wide open.

  Would it be smarter to all sleep together? Or to take turns sleeping, leaving someone always on guard over the rest of us? I had so many questions for Emma and the lady.

  I turned my questing mind to the two women. Emma sent me a thought back at once: Yes. In the morning, we will talk then. And then she closed me out of her mind with a solid snap. But not before I got a whiff of what she was up to.

  Yep, some things one doesn’t really want to know details about.

  ~*~*~*~

  And then it was full morning, and I must have slept some more, because now here was Javier at our open doorway. “Oh my,” he said, grinning across the pieces of shattered door and the abandoned robes. “I would ask what I missed, but I think I can guess.”

  “Um,” I said, sitting up in the bed and resisting the urge to pull up the sheet to cover myself. “We didn’t do it till after midnight.”

  “I know.” Javier’s hand grazed his own chest briefly, unconsciously. “Everything’s different now. Everything’s…settled, I think.”

  “Not entirely settled, but stronger, I would say,” came Jorge’s voice from behind him.

  I nodded. “Yeah. Do you guys feel the solidity of the binding?”

  “I do,” Jorge said, as he and his brother both walked into the room and sat down, Jorge in one of the chairs, Javier on the little sofa. “And I can feel…some of what you’re thinking, too, maybe. Like you want coffee, and are wondering how to ask for it politely.”

  I laughed out loud. “I…didn’t even know that, consciously, but you know what? You’re right.”

  “She likes it with cream and lots of sugar,” Mahlen said, also appearing at the doorway. “I’ve already called room service for breakfast. I don’t know how the rest of you take your coffee, so they’re just sending everything and you can work i
t out for yourselves.”

  “Genius,” said Amory, who had been watching the whole exchange with a bemused smile. “Are they bringing tea as well?”

  Everyone turned to stare at him. “And here this was going so well,” I finally said, deadpan. “Who would have thought we’d have a member of the tea tribe in our midst?”

  “It’s the fourth man in the cohort who always causes such trouble,” Mahlen said, shaking his head sadly.

  “Fortunately, we have a strong woman at our center who should be able to shape him right up,” Jorge said, glancing around the room. “Strong enough to blow the door apart in the middle of the night to get to you, Amory.”

  And that drained the amusement right out of me. “Guys, this is serious, actually,” I said, getting up and pulling my robe back on. Sure, I could be comfortably naked in front of all my men (and how weird was it to realize that?), but it was a little chilly. “I didn’t defeat the demon last night any more than we did yesterday, or than Emma and the lady did last week. We just keep pushing him back—but he returns quicker every time.”

  “Yes,” came Emma’s voice from the doorway, where she stood holding a tray full of coffee and its attendant fixings and additives. She walked in and set the tray on the dresser. “We need a much more permanent solution to this problem. Lady Periwinkle is out right now working on this, but I thought we could at least start talking about this.”

  “With caffeine, we can talk about anything,” Jorge said gratefully, grabbing a mug and pouring two packets of sugar in it.

  “I didn’t realize you also worked for room service,” I said to Emma as I got my own coffee. “But thanks.”

  She grinned at me. “I felt what happened last night, and figured you all needed this as soon as possible. So I stopped by the kitchen on my way over here. Don’t worry, they’re bringing you a fussy, elegant breakfast on silver platters—” she glanced around the room “—so you might want to think about what you want to use as a common area.”

  “Well, Javier’s room is one of the largest…” I started. I felt strangely reluctant to share my own room; I liked the idea of having a private retreat. The whole four-boyfriends thing was surprisingly easy right now; what would it be like when the novelty wore off and my introvert nature reasserted itself?