Bryn sank her chest against the cushions and reached far beneath her, past his cock, to his balls. She gripped them, massaging them, sending out a flash of witch’s heat.
“Fuck, Bryn. Don’t…” He dug his fingers hard into her fleshy hips, pulled back, and then slammed forward.
She released his balls, certain he wouldn’t stop until she’d achieved her goal. She’d unleashed his passion.
His hips moved faster, his cock cramming deeply, whipping back and shoving forward again. The sheer fullness made her want to shout. Her back arched, and she pushed backward, trying to break his hold, but he began to move her, bringing her back as he thrust, pushing her away as he withdrew. He hammered her. Jostled her. Roughly, so deliciously, she was on the verge of exploding.
And then he began to move his hands on her skin. He reached up one hand to grab her hair and force her back to arch more, gliding another on her skin, raising gooseflesh. Her hair was lifting and prickling on the back of her neck. Static charged the air, and her eyes widened.
She knew at last why he’d been so attractive, why she’d been inexorably drawn to him. Why she’d craved this union.
Demon! she screamed inside. But it was already too late. Heat swept through her, electricity crackled. Her core convulsed, her orgasm exploding outward, weakening her limbs, stealing her mind.
She slumped against the floor as he thrust twice more, and then his seed jetted inside her. His shout as he came was filled with triumph.
When at last he grew still, he released her.
She crawled forward on her hands and knees and rolled to stare up in horror as he braced his hands on his thighs and met her stare. Her heart thudded dully against her chest.
His eyes glowed green in the darkness.
Not just demon. Troll!
Chapter Four
‡
Ethan braced himself for her screams. She was a witch. Delicate. Meant to be protected from rough souls like himself. Tales of trolls kidnapping witches were told by mothers to daughters as cautionary tales.
Trolls devoured witches. Trolls broke their birdlike bones in their stony fists.
And yet she lived. She lay against the cushions, her breaths coming in quick pants. Her thighs still spread. The wet gleam of his seed drying on her luminous skin. Not only did she live, she’d shouted her pleasure, despite the fact she’d figured out, there at the end, that she’d been tricked.
He wanted to shout. To drag her up and over his shoulder. To carry her into hiding, away from Others. To have her at his mercy again and again. Her heat was addictive. Like heroin to a human. He understood that now. He’d never willingly release her.
And yet his satisfaction with his victory was tinged with regret. Bryn’s face was pale. Her eyes watery. Her mouth trembled. Her entire body was shivering in the aftermath.
He reached for her, intending to draw her against his chest to comfort her, but she scrambled backward. “Don’t. Touch. Me.”
His face hardened. “You do understand what this is? What I’ve done?” he said, keeping his voice even.
Her head shook. “It’s not a claiming.”
“And yet you’ve taken my seed.”
“And I can fix that,” she ground out.
He went cold. “You will not!”
Again, she shook her head, this time so hard her hair waved around her shoulders. “I don’t concede.”
“Those aren’t the rules. Concession isn’t required. I marked you.”
“And yet,” she said, tilting her head to glance up at him from beneath her lashes, “there was no echo of your victory.”
Ethan held still, realizing what she said was true. The skies weren’t rumbling. The ground didn’t shake. He sucked in a deep breath. “You’ve already been claimed. By whom?”
Her smile was without humor, a thin-lipped curve that made his chest tighten nearly as much as her brimming eyes. “I was claimed by Merrick.”
Ethan sat back on his haunches. “The hellhound?”
Bryn nodded. “I escaped. We all did.”
“Your sister witches were also claimed?”
She shook her head. “Betrothed. When they saw how I fared with Merrick, we plotted.”
“It’s impossible to escape the bond. How could he not track you?”
“We made use of another blue moon. All our entreaties concentrated on one desire. Freedom. And now, you’ve ruined it all.”
“There was no echo when we climaxed. If you and your coven already broke the bond—”
“We broke nothing,” she shouted, her voice harsh. “We simply hid our trail. Muted it. But now, you and your friends know our secret. The truth will leak out.”
Ethan squared his shoulders. “Then I’ll face Merrick. Force him to release you.”
“He’ll kill you,” she said, her voice thickening with tears. “And then he’ll kill me. For betraying him and making a fool of him when I escaped. And my sisters will be returned to their owners.”
“A witch bond isn’t enslavement.”
Bryn snorted and a tear ran down her cheek. “It is when you belong to a council member. They’re entitled bastards. They don’t respect us.”
His jaw tightened. “And how did you fare with the hellhound?”
Her glance fell away.
His stomach dove. “I meant no harm to you.”
“And yet you have.” She scrambled to her knees and wiped her eyes with her fingertips. “Renner?”
“A draugr.”
Her mouth curved into a bleak smile. “And my sisters are all bent on seducing him.”
Ethan raked a hand through his hair. Damn, he wished Renner hadn’t been so eager to lay claim to the coven. “We should get back. You’re about to have more company.”
Her eyes rounded. “What have you done?”
“I invited friends of ours.” Her expression was bleak, but when he stood and held out his hand, expecting her to ignore it, she laid her hand inside his.
“Ethan?” she asked, raising her face to stare him in the eyes.
“Yes, Bryn?”
A shaky breath blew through her pursed lips. “You have to protect me.”
“I will.”
She squeezed his hand hard. “You have to protect my sisters. You stole my choice and have likely filled me with your child. But I will make a bargain with you.”
A flare of elation filled him at the mention of a child. And something in the set of her chin, in her stiffening posture told him she wasn’t going to lament her fate any longer. There was hope she’d agree to their union. “What do you ask?”
“Don’t give them away. Accept that you’ve become my family, just as they are mine. And that it’s your responsibility to protect their free choice.”
Such a bargain was unheard of. Free choice? For witches? “You’d sacrifice yourself for them?”
Her gaze locked on his face. “Will it be a sacrifice, me giving myself to you?”
Ethan reached out both arms, challenge in his eyes. Bryn didn’t shrink from him as he brought her against his chest. He bent and brought his face close to hers. “If you surrender everything to me, I will fight with my last breath to give your sisters the choice of their mates.”
“And if they don’t want to accept one?”
“Then they will become part of our household.”
Still studying him, her gaze narrowed on his eyes.
He held his breath, not wanting to let her see the snarling beast inside him. She stared so long, he began to worry.
But then she rose on her tiptoes and reached behind his head to bring him the rest of the way down. Her nipples scraped his chest. Her mouth was an inch from his. “Then I am yours.”
It was a dangerous bargain. Outside the strictures of their society. But then he was a troll. Already an outcast, damned by his birth. “We’d better hurry.”
The house was eerily silent when they stepped inside the kitchen. Bryn gave Ethan a questioning glance, but he shook his head. He
took her by the hand and pulled her behind him as they made their way to the parlor.
Inside, she halted. The room was crowded with men. Others. She knew because each was perfectly formed as only otherworldly creatures could be. They appeared happy to see Ethan. So, they were friends of his. She hoped he’d stay true to his word. Although now, she worried he might be torn to pieces when he told the group they couldn’t take the women.
Her sisters sat, four in a row on the couch, their hands clasped together, eyes wide as saucers. When they saw her, they all began shouting.
“They’re demons.”
“Ethan’s one of them.”
“They’ve come to claim us.”
“Fucking bastards.” That last comment came from Darcy whose green eyes flashed.
Bryn shook her head, telling them silently to be quiet. Then she bowed her head.
Her sisters gasped at her submissive gesture.
Ethan’s arm encircled her waist. He tipped up her face. “We made a bargain, and it didn’t include you bowing to my will.”
Her gaze clung to him. What was he doing?
His glance swept the men gathered in the parlor. There was over a dozen of them—dark and fair, burly and lean, all with shining eyes. Renner’s sea-bright gaze was so intense, she wondered how they’d missed the fact he was Other. All of the men shared the same hard-edged, feral look. Their expressions had grown shuttered, their gazes watchful. Even Renner, who had seemed so easygoing, was frowning.
“There are complications,” Ethan said. “Bryn was already claimed. But we’ve mated. She tells me she may already be pregnant. Her sisters,” he said, nodding to the quiet women, “are mine to protect.”
Renner stepped forward. “You’re keeping them? All of them?” he asked, his voice rising.
Ethan’s frown was fierce. “I won’t be bedding them. But they will remain in this house with us. And they have my protection. I’ve promised Bryn that her friends will be given their choice of mates.”
The expressions of all the men darkened, fierce scowls that made gooseflesh rise on Bryn’s arms.
Ethan squeezed her hand and glanced down at her. “Bryn was previously mated with a hellhound. Merrick, to be precise. And since you all know his reputation, you know that when he finds us, he’ll try his best to kill me. You have no obligation to stand with me. If you leave now, you won’t be implicated.”
Bryn offered him a small smile, and then they both turned back to the group.
Renner’s gaze shot to the women. His frown eased as he gave each a thorough glance.
Bryn knew what he saw. Four very frightened but determined women.
He raised his head to meet Ethan’s stern glance. “I’m staying. I’ll help you protect them.”
There were murmurs from the group, but they stepped forward one by one and gave the same pledge.
Renner smiled ruefully. “For a low-life troll, you’ve certainly reached high.”
“As a bottom-dwelling draugr, you aren’t exactly standing on my shoulders.”
In truth, if all the men in the room were friends to a troll and a draugr, they were from the lowest echelons of demon spawn. It was easy to see that ambition to rise higher than their birthright and their kind had bonded them.
Ethan gave a nod. “So be it. Every woman will have three guards. You’ll work in shifts. One at night, two during the day. And we have to continue the bridge project.” His gaze went to Renner. “You make the assignments.”
Miren cleared her throat, drawing all the male gazes to where she sat on the couch. “Since we’re the ones who have to put up with you constantly underfoot, don’t you think we should choose our own bodyguards? I run a shrimping outfit. Who among you doesn’t lose his breakfast on a boat?”
Renner’s grin stretched. “I’m a sea-draugr.”
Two more raised their hands. “We’re mer-folk.”
And so the assignments were made, according to common interests and powers.
Finding beds for all of them proved more challenging. The women took Bryn’s remaining empty rooms. Pallets were made up for the men in the upstairs hallway and on the porch, with one man stationed inside each of the witches’ rooms. Something the women seemed entirely too excited about.
“Sisters,” Bryn hissed after she pulled them into the kitchen for last-minute chat. “I know we’ve been without male company for a while, but you’ve been offered a gift. Don’t allow them to romance the right of choice out from under you.”
“So says the woman who has twice been claimed,” Darcy said with an arch of her red brow.
“Claimed once by a monster. As you well remember.” She sighed. “Please, take your time. We don’t know these men. For now, Ethan seems to have them roped in, but they’ve all caught your scents. We can’t have them challenging each other for your hands.”
“It’s not like we have to choose only one,” Miren said, but then pressed her lips into a narrow line at Bryn’s frown. “Just sayin’.”
Her sisters giggled.
“True,” said Darcy. “And how does one choose between a dragon and a gargoyle?” Darcy ran a crafters’ cottage, complete with pottery wheel and kiln. Her choices had naturally aligned with stone and fire.
Radha giggled. “The satyr offered to let me sheer his fur to make yarn on my spindle.”
Bryn couldn’t help it, a smile tugged at her mouth. “So long as you realize that the moment you accept a mate, and he claims you, that the echo will sound.”
“Merrick and his friends might already know,” Aoife said. “How can we trust that every one of Ethan’s friends will keep his silence?”
“There are plenty of games we can play without risking an echo,” Darcy said with a graceful wave of her hand. “A little play might bind them closer to us.”
A rap sounded on the kitchen door. Ethan pushed through it. “The men are ready to bed down. It might be best for the women to retreat to their rooms.”
The sisters shared charged glances. “If anyone cries out,” Bryn whispered, “we shall all answer.”
They nodded, and then the women trailed out of the kitchen, leaving Bryn alone with Ethan.
Bryn sighed. “This is—”
“Complicated,” he finished. “I know. But you can trust me.”
“And should I trust the others?”
He arched one brow. “You don’t think they all fear a troll?”
She shrugged. “I suppose. I’ve never seen you in your true form.”
“And you won’t. Not unless I have to protect you.” He held out his hand. A hint of his earlier arousal was there in his dark eyes. “I’ll be staying in your room.”
Not a question, but she nodded, agreeing. “Of course.”
“Kahn and Sigurd understand that so long as they watch over you during the day, they are free to woo the others.”
She jutted her chin. “You didn’t offer them the chance to share?”
His grunt was wickedly masculine. “Do you really think you could handle more than me in your bed?”
She remembered the immense pressure. She was sure, once she was accustomed to his girth, that just the act of him entering her would be enough to set her off. “No. I don’t want another lover. And we have a bargain. You’re free to include that stipulation.”
“Then I will. Come to bed.”
As meek as a lamb, she allowed him to lead her through her house and up the wooden staircase. She passed the girls’ rooms, heard laughter, smelled the heady mix of testosterone and estrogen, of arousal so thick her own body began to warm, her breasts and pussy to thicken with her stirring blood.
She stepped around the pallet of blankets and quilts that Kahn had made for himself outside her door. He was jinn, and his talents would have more naturally aligned with Radha’s, but Bryn understood her sister’s reluctance to accept his proximity. He was seduction incarnate when he smiled. His mouth was sensual and mobile, his black eyes filled with mystery. He’d probably scared the dickens out
of Radha.
“Sigurd’s on the porch,” Kahn said. “He wants to run in wolfskin tonight.”
She nodded, uncomfortable with the way the men talked openly about their true selves after having suppressed her own for so long, except in front of her sisters.
Ethan followed her into her room and began to disrobe.
She stiffened.
He studied her face and stopped when he was wearing only his boxer briefs. “I’ll sleep on top of the covers.”
She shook her head. “We’ve passed that point. But this is an adjustment for me.”
“And I told you before we mated that I’d respect your right to tell me no.”
“I can’t tell you that,” she said, her eyes beginning to well with tears. Her need was strong. And he knew it. A tremble shook her frame, and she gasped.
There was understanding in his eyes. Perhaps a little sympathy. A witch’s heightened state of arousal when in the company of a mate wasn’t something she was prepared to fight. Especially not when she knew the pleasure he would give her.
She turned and lifted her hair. And just as he had in the gazebo, he moved closer and pulled down her zipper.
Chapter Five
‡
Ethan stripped her quickly, taking care with her pretty dress, but not so much with her underwear. It lay shredded on the floor at her feet.
“You’ll have to replace those,” she murmured as she glanced over her shoulder.
“You won’t be needing them again, ever.”
While she’d been frightened the first time she’d seen the greenish glow in his darkly hooded eyes, now the intensity of emotion that forest-green light betrayed only fueled her own passion. “You’d allow other men, human men, to see the prick of my nipples?”
His response was a deep, rumbling growl.
She smiled and turned to face him. “Can I tease you? Or will you unleash your inner self?”
“I’m in control. Always, Bryn. You’ll come to no harm with me.”
“And if I want a glimpse…?”
He gave a curt shake of his head. “You should know I’ve worked hard to curb my impulses. I don’t pounce, even when provoked. I don’t accept that side of me. I’ve seen the wreckage of lives a troll can leave in its wake.”
Beaux Rêve Coven 01 - Once in a Blue Moon Page 4
