by Cate Rowan
Val rose with alacrity from the cushions. “I’m heading back to my room.”
“So am I,” Jasper said, unwilling to look anyone in the eye.
Even Darius had to admit to himself that, despite his misgivings, his body ached and dessert sounded . . . delicious. But he shook himself. “Brothers, this isn’t a good idea. At all.”
“Speak for yourself,” Jasper growled.
“Jealous much, Dar?” Val asked. “She’s barely given you a glance.”
Darius recalled the dream-feel of Ina under him and bit back a retort. “Answer me this: Why are we here? Why did she invite us in, and what does she want?”
“A good rodding would be my guess,” Val said sagely.
Jasper snorted. “I agree, and she’ll get it from me.”
“Dessert with me is her choice, and I can prove it.” Val yanked his empty bowl off the table. “Look at the painting on the bottom.”
Darius stepped close to view it. The woman — Ina again, he realized — was sitting on a naked man’s lap, her head thrown back in the height of passion as he kissed her neck and cupped her breasts. Darius felt his cock pulse.
Jasper stared at the painting in the bowl, his jaw clenching. Without a word, he lifted his own bowl for Val to see.
Val’s face reddened and he shot a death-glare at Jasper. Darius pried the bowl from Jas’s fingers and looked inside.
There Ina was on all fours, her hair braided with flowers and her legs spread like a waiting prize mare, her eyes half-closed in bliss; her lover behind on his knees, his hands gripping her hips as he drove into her.
Val snatched the bowl from Darius and glared at Jasper. “She wants me. She flirted with me first.”
“Sometimes your good looks just aren’t enough,” Jasper shot back. “She must have seen something in you she didn’t like and turned to me instead. Just because you’re the baby of the family doesn’t mean you’ll always get your way.”
“Don’t touch her, Jas. She’s mine.” Val pulled his elbow back, preparing to hurl the bowl in Jasper’s face.
Darius yanked the bowl away. “Stop pissing in the sandbox, both of you.”
Sneering, Jasper raised his chin. “I’m not, Mother. Besides, Val started it.”
Val launched himself at Jasper. Darius instinctually tensed to intervene, then instead deliberately turned away and replaced the bowl on the table while his younger brothers proceeded to punch each other. Jasper had it coming. So did Valerian.
When the punching morphed into a wrestling match on the floor that neither brother seemed likely to win, Darius folded his arms over his chest and at last spoke. “Aren’t either of you interested in my bowl?”
The movement on the floor slowed. Two pairs of eyes, both a little worse for the wear, looked up at him.
“You had something in your bowl, too?” Val asked.
Darius gave a composed nod.
“What was it?” Jasper grunted.
“Get off the damn floor and look for yourselves.”
Val and Jas glanced at each other, made some sort of silent truce, and unwound their limbs from their leverage points on each other’s bodies.
Val was the first to grab Darius’s bowl and peer in. He returned it to the table, scowling. Then Jasper lumbered over. Darius detected a well-concealed limp, but Val seemed too angry about the bowl to notice that little victory. Jasper peered in and then stepped back, his expression unchanged from his routine glower.
“She played us all,” Darius said, arms still crossed.
Jasper’s glower intensified, but he still said nothing.
“Or,” Val said slowly, eyes narrowing as he stared at the bowl, “maybe she hasn’t played us. Maybe she means it. Each bowl.”
Jasper pivoted on his heel. “I’m going back to my room.”
“So am I,” Val said and hurried behind.
Darius sighed as he looked at their retreating forms. If Val was right, it might be a very . . . interesting night for them all.
Because problems came in threes.
6
Valerian, alone in his room half an hour later, stared at the window onto some other land, one of grassy rolling hills he’d never seen under a growing dusk. What adventures might come for him if he were to step through that window? If, for once in his life, he weren’t strapped to both of his older brothers like a baby in his mommy’s sling?
As they’d all grown up, many times he’d fought hard to be taken seriously.
But it was also easy and comfortable to revert to being the baby brother. As he just had with Jasper, regarding the delectable Ina. He’d felt as if Jasper had taken away his favorite toy, and he’d acted accordingly.
Hell, he knew he’d been childish. He’d like to blame the copious beer he’d drunk. But he’d spent all his life as the youngest, so childishness felt normal.
At times, he and his brothers had done without cloaks. Or socks. Or food. His two elder brothers had sometimes gone without to make sure he’d had what he needed. He was grateful for that.
But somehow it was tough to change. He figured his role in the family was timeworn, like ruts in a road. Ruts were the easiest place to be, and the road seemed to push you there.
A knock on the door set Val’s pulse spiking.
His brothers wouldn’t knock — they’d just barge in, as elder brothers took as their right.
It had to be Ina.
Maybe he’d won his battle with Jasper after all.
He strode to the door, and with only a slight hesitation, opened it. Ina stood there, clad in a tunic as dark as the blue that shines between evening stars.
He tried to stay calm. He’d had many couplings since he’d come of age.
But this was a woman more magnetic than all the rest put together. And despite his fortunate face and body, which had always seemed to attract women like heavenly fallen fruit, something about Ina made his habitual confidence falter. She kept him on his toes. Made him worry about losing her to Jasper. Or Darius. Made him wonder if it was possible to be enough for a woman like her.
Her eyes glittered in the torchlight. “May I come in?”
“Of course, my lady.” He wondered whether his manners, copied from what he’d observed at a distance from warlords and lordlings, were laughable. Maybe she’d be so smitten with his looks that it wouldn’t matter. He could only hope.
She smiled then, as if she could hear his thoughts, and tilted her head as she looked at him. “Handsome Valerian.”
He blushed and his heart sped up. Confidence had seemed a birthright all his life, but tonight he felt shy, and flustered, and somehow unworthy.
Her gaze was steady upon him. “Don’t be uneasy. I find you fascinating. There is much you and I have in common.”
“There is?” he asked, genuinely bewildered. What could he possibly have in common with this high lady, a magic-wielder, mistress of a castle and owner of more wealth than he could comprehend?
“We both enjoy the pleasures of the world, Val. Good food, good drink, good company.” An unmistakable intensity darkened her eyes. “A good bed, and a companion in it.” She reached out and traced a finger from the base of his throat down the center of his chest. “Perhaps it’s time for us to give each other that very pleasure.”
His thoughts might have been flustered, but his body was ready. His branch was getting more massive by the moment.
Yet somewhere deep down, he was starting to wonder if this was a good idea.
Darius had said it wasn’t, again and again.
The decision was in Val’s hands, and most of him wanted her in them, too. His blood was pumping, his body aching, but . . . what if his eldest brother had been right all along? There was an air about Ina that Val didn’t understand, something that made his blood course in fear as well as desire.
Ina watched him hesitate, her eyes open, certain, maybe even entertained by his hesitation. She almost seemed to feed on it.
Almost, almost did he step back.
/> But then she reached her hands into his hair and pulled his mouth down toward her.
The moment his lips touched hers, conscious thought fled him. Her tongue entwined with his, her lush body pressed up against him like the glorious gift of a goddess, and he succumbed to want, and then to need — mindless, aching. Hot, fast.
They made it to the bed, barely. His clothes flew off him — he wasn’t certain they’d come off the usual way, but he forgot to care. He licked his way across her body, her moans egging him on and her nails raking his back. Her luscious curves maddened him with desire, her hands heated him, his breath came in ragged gasps. He sat on the edge of the bed, heart pounding; she backed onto his lap and sheathed him inside her in one sleek motion that stole all thoughts. His reverent palms cupped her breasts and he kissed the divine arch of her neck; together they rocked in an ancient rhythm. He was only vaguely aware they’d recreated the painting in his stew bowl as she screamed into the torchlit air and he spent himself inside her.
He lay mindless, after a release deeper than any he had known. And yet, somehow, the hunger remained. He opened his eyes, eager, again, but she was already putting her tunic back on, hiding the glorious curves he’d been lucky enough to see and touch.
She saw his body rising, and smiled at him. “Perhaps later, my young Valerian.”
“How soon is later, my lady?”
“Never soon enough, is it?” Her eyes twinkled. “Your eldest brother is restless, I know. Perhaps the three of you will head out soon to find work.” She tilted her head. “And perhaps I can give him that, and help all of you. “
Val sat up in the bed, unashamed of his body and still eager for hers, but her words had him intrigued. “What kind of work?”
“Oh, just some gifts for a friend. The three of you could take them to her and then return to me. And then the later would be sooner.”
She stroked a fingertip down his bicep. Not the part of himself he wanted her to touch the most, but he was glad for any touch and any delay in her leaving. “Where does your friend live?”
“It isn’t far, but neither is it an easy journey. Few have taken it; it’s an adventure like no other.”
Her words reminded him of the mirror to another land, and his eyes flicked to it. That land was in darkness now.
“You and your brothers, you would be up to a challenge, wouldn’t you?”
“For you, my lady? Anything.”
“Good. I shall think on it.” Smiling, she leaned over and held Val’s chin, then kissed him deeply. Her body language implied he was merely her plaything, but her tongue worked its own kind of magic on him, so he held his peace.
When she left, the room seemed somehow smaller and less glamorous, but the next breath he took came easier.
7
Jasper, alone in his chamber, ceased his pacing and faced the throne. He hadn’t yet sat on it. Somehow that didn’t feel . . . right. But he wished it did.
He’d felt invisible most of his life. The middle brother, taking orders from the elder and helping to care for the younger. Darius and Valerian were used to attention and used to having their own way. Some of his few moments of satisfaction came when he managed to thrash Val into submission, at least briefly. But the ladies always noticed Val first, and if not Val, it was Dar. So Jasper walked in darkness, as much because he’d always been invisible as anything else.
“Do you think I haven’t noticed you, Jasper?”
Jas swung around toward the open door, where Ina now stood. Just looking at her sped his pulse.
He gave himself a little shake. “I . . . well . . . in truth, I’ve seen you looking at my brother.”
“Valerian? Well, he is delectable. But then, so is Darius.”
He flushed. It seemed he wasn’t ever going to be noticed among their company. Always the middle child, the invisible one. Was it any wonder he was so often angry?
“Jasper,” she repeated, gliding toward him in a gossamer fabric of royal purple. “Do you think I haven’t noticed you? You misunderstand. I notice everything. And everyone. Including you.”
She drew close, traced a finger down the back of his ear. “You are every bit as delectable. And the anger that burns just below the surface . . . I understand it. And you.” She smiled then, and as her finger glided over his skin, blood surged to his cock. “Don’t you realize I’m the same way? Never satisfied with life, Jasper. We’re always wanting more. Do you see now? I know you. In a way even your brothers do not.”
Her breath, scented like excellent beer and delights to come, warmed his mouth. And then her arms slid around his neck and her lips touched his, and his mind went blank. Their clothes went astray, and somehow the bed was beneath them.
Her body pressed against him, soft, yielding, beckoning. He filled his hands with her and tasted desire. In the void, he sensed her insatiable hunger — a burning need that wakened a starving place within himself, stoking a fire that wasn’t desire, but a craving for more. Higher. Greater. The ebony throne in its stark coldness came to his mind. Then his thoughts melted as she wrapped him in her hand.
She turned away, knelt on all fours and looked back over her shoulder, beckoning him with her gaze. Feeling as strong as a bull, he gripped her hips and filled her, just as in the painting in the bowl. Soon she arched and cried out, and then he followed his need over the edge.
Panting, he leaned his forehead against her, but there was no comfort there. She slapped his hip as if he were indeed a prize bull. “Well done,” she said, laughing.
Even as they were still joined, she was drawing a curtain between them, much as he usually did to the world. He could almost taste a loneliness within her that was inseparable from her cold power.
So he lay back on the bed, and found his gaze resting on the throne.
“It calls to you,” she said quietly. “Have you sat in it?”
He shook his head. “Why is it here?”
“Because you also called to it.” Her expression was enigmatic. “You chose this room.”
“I’m a mercenary soldier journeying to find work. I’m not a lord. Not a king.”
“You are a middle brother.”
When he drew his brows down, mulling over that, she changed the subject.
“I’ll help you and your brothers with work. I need three small gifts taken to a friend. It won’t be an easy journey.” She looked at the throne again. “But it is well worth taking. And you seem to be a man capable of handling it.”
His chest puffed a little at the praise. “I’d be honored to help you,” he said automatically, then wondered if he would regret it.
“Good.” She slid from the bed and donned her clothes, while he remained fully exposed. “Get some sleep, Jasper. You’ll want it.” She turned toward the door and looked back over her shoulder, her deep blue eyes making a promise he wasn’t sure he could trust.
8
Darius lay alone on his massive bed in semi-darkness. He’d snuffed many of the lamp wicks in the room, a process that had — out of necessity, of course — let him touch many of the golden lamps, each of which was worth many years of bread and beer and a safe roof above for three brothers. Idly, and a bit drunkenly, he wondered if Lady Ina would come to his door.
He couldn’t put away the waking dream he’d had when staring at the painting at the bottom of his stew bowl. It had conjured up the very real sensation of Ina’s silken skin under his hands, and how her breathy moan had fanned across his ear.
Yet his gut said she was dangerous as hell.
He’d closed the door to his chamber, a concession to his gut’s warning. But when the knock came, masculine curiosity and desire prodded him across the room to answer it. He was a man, after all, and desire had taken down better and higher men than he.
She stood there fully clothed in a gown that seemed fashioned of spun gold. He’d never seen the like. She was dazzling, and far above him. Words caught in his throat, and he couldn’t tell if desire or foreboding was the cause.
/>
“May I come in?” she asked, sweetly enough.
“Of course. It’s your own castle.” He opened the door wide and stepped back, speculating how the combat to come would proceed. For a moment, it seemed reassuring that he stood half a head taller than she did, but the allure she wore seemed overwhelmingly deadly.
“You waited up for me,” she said with a coquettish glance through her eyelashes.
“I waited,” he said. “For what, I didn’t know.”
She raised her chin and studied him. “You’re different than your brothers.”
“We aren’t triplets.”
His taut responses didn’t seem to faze her. If anything, she seemed more intrigued. “You’re the eldest.”
“Yes.”
“Protective,” she said, entering the room and walking a small circle around him as if sizing him up. “More cautious. Used to cleaning up their messes.”
It stuck in his craw that she could read him so well. She’d tilted him onto the defensive, so he said nothing.
“Have you ever been in love, Darius?”
He pivoted around to see her face, puzzling over why she’d beelined to that question. “No.”
“Ah. So you’ve partaken of the pleasures of the bed, but not of love.”
Of all things, at the ripe age of eight-and-twenty, he began to blush.
“I see,” she said, still studying him, and her smile widened. “Pleasures not simply of the bed . . . Also of the wall. Of the hayloft. Of the back alley. Of a newly tilled field —”
“Yes,” he said, forestalling her from mentioning all the many places desire had taken him. She seemed to be able to read his mind and his memories, leaving him defenseless.
Speaking of walls, he wished he had a solid one at his back. Or his brothers there. Instead, he stood in the center of a cavernous room filled with gold, wealth, and privilege, and pretended he belonged there.
