by Reese Rivers
He rubs his chin in thought but then shakes his head. “It’s possible but they could just as easily have been drugged in some way. No, I will have to pay the Marquis another visit to get the answers we seek.” When my eyes widen at that, he laughs and reaches out to cup my cheek. “No, no. I will not be letting you anywhere near that man again. I believe you have been corrupted enough by your time in his home.”
I roll my eyes at him thinking that the four of them aren’t a corrupting influence on me and turn my head in his hand so that I can nip at his fingers with my teeth before soothing the bite with my tongue. The action has him snatching me out of my seat and onto his lap in one smooth move that has me giggling and then gasping as his hand finds its way under my skirt and up my inner thigh. His voice is a growl against my ear that sends shivers down my spine.
“Recall the warning I gave you earlier about spreading you out on this table and feasting on your body.”
My eyes flash around the room filled with at least six servants as well as the others. I feel the heat spread between my legs at the thought of all four of them at once but the servants watching is a great big hell no. I clamp down on his wrist through the fabric of my skirt to stop his hand from going higher while frantically shaking my head before his touch makes me throw the last shreds of my modesty right out the window. His lips kiss at the delicate skin behind my ear and his voice is thick when he asks me,
“Do you see your men and what you do to them? The way you blush so prettily. The quickening of your breath as you imagine my hand sliding in between your thighs. The soft, sweet desperate moans that escape you as my fingers explore your slick, hot wetness. Look at them. Their cocks are hard and straining from what they want to do to you. For what we all want to do to you…together.”
My breathing picks up even more when my eyes take in how rigidly Luca sits in his seat. His heated eyes are locked onto my chest and when his tongue slips out and licks his lips a tremor of need rocks through me. My glance moves to Cade and I see the naked desire on his face as the fork in his hand is clenched so hard it begins to bend. Finn’s eyes meet mine with a promise of all he will do to me as he drops a hand into his lap and begins stroking himself.
My grip on Sebastian’s wrist relaxes, letting him move higher between my legs, and his thumb rubs slowly up and down against my slit. When I try and lift my hips for more friction his other arm tightens to stop me from moving and holds me closer so that I feel the entire length of his hardness pressing against my ass through my dress. I feel the smile form on his lips against my neck and want to bite his lips for the tease he’s forcing on me.
“Say you want it. Say you want all of us on you at once. Luca and I buried deep inside of you at the same time with Cade’s cock between your sweet lips and your fingers wrapped around Finn’s shaft stroking him. Eight hands exploring you. Four tongues licking you in all your most sensitive, secret places. Four cocks fucking you until you scream your pleasure to the heavens. Say you want that and it’s yours.”
And just like that, with his hot, dirty words filling my ear and the lightest touch of his thumb against my pussy an orgasm rocks through me while sitting at the breakfast table surrounded by servants. I bite my lip hard to stop the cries that want to escape but it doesn’t block the grunts and moans that my men make at seeing me come. When my eyes clear and I can think again, I feel my cheeks flush red and I shove Bas’s hand from my body and scramble to my feet, straightening my dress. I can’t fucking believe I just did that in front of six servants. When I see the cocky grins on Luca, Cade, and Finn’s faces and hear the low satisfied chuckle coming from Sebastian my face gets even redder.
“Assholes! You’re all assholes!”
I keep my eyes straight ahead so I won’t accidentally meet any of the servants’ looks and try to keep my head up as I walk toward the doors. I almost make it before the Alpha-hole calls out.
“Eden, we all look forward to…enjoying…your company this evening.”
With a shaky deep breath to fortify myself, I give a sharp nod without turning because who the fuck wouldn’t want every single thing he described done to them? I slowly walk the rest of the way out of the room, bitching under my breath about him always getting the last word when I try for a dramatic exit.
Luca
The clay feels like warm silk between my fingers as I mold it to my current work in progress. For the first time in centuries, I’m not pouring agony and pain into my work. Since the blood lust left me a few years after being changed, I’ve only been able to create pieces that reflect the damage and misery I wrought upon my victims. My mind has been filled with their screams and the horror etched on their faces as they died. Eden has changed that. I will live with what I have done for eternity but for the first time since I came out of that savage haze, I now feel something other than self-hatred and loathing for the fiend that I am. I am filled with the love she has blessed me with and even though I know I’m not worthy of it, I will clutch it close to my soul and take every bit of it I can for as long as she gives it.
Everything about her consumes me. Her laugh, so freely given makes me smile where before I found nothing to ever smile about. Her compassion and understanding tempers the guilt I live with to a manageable level so that I am able to feel other emotions for the first time in what feels like forever. The way she is so generous with her affections and body is truly a gift I will never grow tired of. Every touch and kiss she bestows upon me reassures me of her love. The passion she shows at my touch is intoxicating and I want her every moment of the day and night. Now that Sebastian has finally allowed himself to love her the way the rest of us do, I know that our family is complete. For the first time since I was reborn into this form, I feel like I am truly alive once again.
As my hands mold the clay that will form her image a smile fills my face as I think of the cries of pleasure the four of us will wrench from her sweet lips when we join together tonight in loving her and her body. I’m so lost in my creation and the images in my mind of all our hands upon her tantalizing curves that I don’t hear the door of my studio opening. It takes her soft arms circling my waist from behind and her small warm fingers slipping under my shirt to trail over my stomach to bring me back. My body stills briefly but I know it’s just muscle memory of how I used to react to being touched so I relax into her before spinning around and shifting to block her view of my half-completed project. I keep my clay encrusted hands away from her so as to not soil her gown and use my body to shuffle her back towards the door with a small smile.
“Mi alma, you mustn’t come in here. You will ruin the surprise I’m working on for you!” I tell her enjoying the intrigued look that widens her eyes. With a cagey grin, she tilts slowly to the side to try and see around me but I move to block her again, causing her to laugh.
“Fine!” She tells me with a sparkle of happiness in her eyes and rises up on her toes to brush my lips with hers. “But you need to take a break and get cleaned up. We’re having a picnic, all of us! Meet us out at the back of the gardens where the woods begin. The wolves have promised they’ll shift for me and I need you and Bas to come and protect me from the hairy beasts.” She says teasingly. “Who knows what they’ll do to me in their animal forms?”
I can’t help but laugh when she wiggles her eyebrows up and down suggestively at that.
“Of course. I would be delighted to join you all but I fear you may need protection from me as well as I’m having a hard time keeping my hands off you as it is.”
I reach for her with my filthy clay-covered fingers with a playful leer on my face causing her to dance back away from me while laughing.
“Promises, promises! Round up Sebastian for me, please? I want to check on the food for our picnic.” She slips through the door at my nod but pauses and looks at me over her shoulder. Desire fills her eyes as she looks at my dripping hands and she licks her lips before meeting my gaze again and nods towards my hands. “Maybe another time you could lay me out
on one of your canvases and paint my body with your clay-covered hands.” She swallows and her voice gets breathy. “We could make some living art with our bodies.”
Her words paint a vivid image in my mind of our two naked bodies, covered in clay and pressed together, causing my cock to harden painfully as I look down at my dripping hands. When I look back up, the doorway is empty and I move quickly to the basin of water to clean up so that I can join her and the others.
Sebastian
I toss down the last report of the Marquis’ movements, holdings, and close companions that Pierre sent to me by runner. There’s nothing in the reports that tell me if he’s consorting with vampires. Other than his frequent soirées and rumors of his many dalliances, the most interesting thing about the man is that he returned not long ago from a voyage to the Orient. The last thing I wish to do is have further dealings with the deviant but I will have to pay him yet another visit. When Luca steps into the room, it’s a welcome distraction to my frustration.
“There you are. What say you to joining me tomorrow on a visit to the Marquis du Corbeil’s?” I ask him. He nods with a frown.
“Of course. I feel the need to settle this matter once and for all.” He looks down at his hands as his frown deepens. “I find myself overly concerned that Eden may be at risk now that he is aware of her.”
I study him for a moment before slowly nodding my head. “Agreed. Having her accompany me was perhaps a miscalculation on my part. The thought of her possibly being in danger has me regretting that I exposed her to such a man.” I look away when I see a flash of reproach in his eyes and straighten the missives on my desk into a neater pile. “I…I have come to care deeply for Eden and regret how I sometimes treated her carelessly.” I tell him in a stilted tone.
“And yet she forgave you and accepted all that you are into her heart, didn’t she?”
My eyes dart back to his and I nod sharply. He steps closer to my desk with an intent look on his face.
“She is a treasure that we do not deserve. We must stay on guard to always protect and care for her for we both know our time with Eden will be but a blink of an eye to our long existence. I plan on dedicating the short time we will have with her to making her deliriously happy and soaking up all of her love to savor once she is gone. I suggest you do the same. I do not believe we will ever find another that will so capture our hearts and complete our family, our pack, as the wolves say.”
I run a rough hand through my hair, already dreading the moment she will slip from our lives and what it will do to all of us after she’s gone.
“You can start right now. Eden has requested our presence for a picnic. Cade and Finn have promised to shift for her so that she may see their wolf forms. They are waiting for us near the woods.”
I nod in agreement. Yes, I will treasure every moment we are blessed to have her in our lives, starting right now. Luca turns and reaches for the door but I have to ask,
“Luca? Do you think it will be worth it?” When he looks back at me in question, I swallow the knot lodged in my throat. “The pain. The pain we will have to live with after she’s gone? Will it be worth it?”
A soft smile crosses his face. “It already was.” And then he leaves me to my uncertainties.
I close my eyes and remember the way her body reacted to my touch with such passion. The sound of her laughter and the way she rolls her eyes when I’m being a bastard to her and finally the truth that shone from her eyes when she told me she loved me. I let out the breath I’m holding and feel my shoulders relax as I rush towards the door to join them because he’s right. Her love is already worth whatever pain will come.
I catch up to Luca as we make our way through the maze of gardens and we hear her laughter and the wolves’ playful shouting before we come around the last hedge obstructing our view. Eden is sitting on a blanket, spread out on the grass with a basket of food nearby and is leaning back on her hands as Finn and Cade stand a few feet away, acting out something that makes her laugh. The sun shines down on her, turning her hair to a rippling fire of reds and golds and her green eyes dance with happiness as she laughs at the wolves’ antics. I want to freeze the image of this moment of perfection and hold it close. It has been so long since I felt happiness that it feels like a pressure in my chest that wants to burst free and I can’t stop the smile that spreads across my face.
As Luca and I walk the last few feet that separate us Cade and Finn freeze in place and lift their heads as one to sniff at the air. Cade’s expression morphs to one of fury and it swings my way as his eyes begin to glow and he begins to shift with his canines lengthening and fur sprouting. He manages to snarl, “Vampire!” before his wolf overtakes him and he drops to all fours beside Finn who is also shifting just as the first arrows fly through the air towards us. Luca roars in rage and dives towards Eden, taking her down to the blanket and covering her with his body as arrows sprout into his back. I let my demon come forth as I’m struck again and again in my chest and I feel the instant burn of the silver tips embedded in my flesh. It will weaken me but it won’t be enough to stop me from slaughtering whoever has dared to attack us on our own land.
I strain with all my will to move towards the threat but something is spreading through my veins and locking my muscles in place. As I crash down to one knee, fighting the poison that is keeping me paralyzed, my eyes flash between Eden who is screaming underneath a still Luca, and the woods where the first line of men step from the shadows and run towards us. My eyes search each face looking for the vampire Cade had scented and finally come to rest on my worst nightmare. She’s just as beautiful as the first time I saw her over a millennia ago and mistook her for an angel sent by God to save me.
Her long black hair streams to her waist in a waterfall of shine and when her cornflower blue eyes meet mine across the distance, her plump red lips lift in a smug smile that shows the demon she truly is. As I topple sideways, I manage to whisper a curse before my lips freeze. I had hoped to never see this demon again. Keket, goddess of the darkness and my maker.
Eden
I can’t stop screaming their names. It happened so fast. One second we are laughing and the next my loves are being shot full of arrows. Luca is a heavy dead weight on top of me pinning me in place but my head is turned enough that I can see Bas on the ground. He’s so still and with his eyes wide open I’m terrified that he’s dead. My screams turn to whispers as I say his name over and over again like a prayer. I manage to free one arm from under Luca and I stretch it out toward Sebastian but there isn’t even a flicker of life as I reach for him causing my whispers to turn to sobs. I don’t even turn my head away from him when Luca’s body is dragged off of me, I’m so frozen with grief at losing them all so abruptly. Whoever has attacked us and killed my loves can do whatever they want to me because without them I am nothing and I won’t go back to that dark place again.
“Oh, how poignant and pathetic.” A female voice mocks me causing me to finally turn my head away from Sebastian’s blank stare. I look up to see who is responsible for my heartbreak but the sun has backlit her and I’m forced to squint to try and make out her features. The woman crouches down beside me and her hair, eyes, and features come into focus and I recognize the beauty I had seen at the Marquis’ party. I shake my head in confusion.
“Why? Why did you kill them?” I cry.
Her expression fills with mocking compassion. “Oh, no, no, dear girl. I didn’t kill them! They are merely disabled for the moment. Gelsemium, a darling little plant I picked up in the Orient. It causes paralysis. That combined with the silver-tipped arrows will weaken them long enough for my men to shackle them properly. I’m sorry darling but I have need of your pets. Sebastian especially. But don’t worry, I will bring you along as well. All the better to control them with the threat of your life in the balance.” She leans forward with her sickly sweet smile and pats my cheek before the smile slides into a snarl and she barks, “Now go to sleep!” I try and fight it but m
y eyes drop closed and darkness takes me.
“Wake up!”
I jerk awake like a bucket of water has been thrown at me and blink my eyes to try and clear the haze from them. My head turns from side to side but it’s dark and damp wherever I am. The only light is from a sputtering torch against a far wall so I push myself to my feet and stagger in that direction until I come up against a wall of iron bars and that’s when I realize I’m in some kind of cage or prison. My fingers whiten as I squeeze the bars holding me in and memories of what happened rush through my mind. Not dead! My loves, my men, she said they weren’t dead! I need to get out of here and find them! I rattle the bars as hard as I can but the iron is set snugly and I know I’ll have to find another way.
A door slams closed further down the dark passageway to my right and the sharp click of heels heads my way. I know it’s the bitch who did this to us before she even steps into the dim light of the torch.
“Well, hello! I’m so glad you could join us. You look refreshed from your little nap. Let me introduce myself. I already know you are Eden, my name is Keket.” She scans me from head to toe while tilling her head from side to side before meeting my gaze again. “You are a pretty little thing. I can see why my Bastian would enjoy playing with you but alas that time is over. I’m afraid I don’t enjoy sharing. At least, not with other women anyway.”
She pauses for my reaction and the only thing I can do is laugh. Seriously? A psycho, jealous ex? Why the fuck not, I’ve lived through everything else so why not this too. At first, my laughter takes her by surprise and her eyes go wide in shock but they quickly narrow in fury as she steps towards the bars.
“You won’t be laughing once I’ve had my fun with you!” She spits at me. “I won’t kill you as you are an easy means to controlling Bastian and the others but you will wish I would before I’m done.”
