by Marie Mistry
I glared at him. “You were supposed to go back to Vice!” My Pride mate had been instrumental in helping me set up everything for my date, but he'd solemnly promised to go back to bed afterwards.
“Why is this the first I'm learning of this particular talent?” Blaze appeared along with the rest of my mates, circling the pole in various positions. “You were in my room and yet you said nothing? That's going to get you punished, Sweetness.”
My skin shivered from the promise in those words. “This is for Daron,” I insisted. “I'll give you all a show another time…”
Soft hands caressed my bare shoulders as a body crowded my wings from behind. “I don't mind sharing.” Daron smiled. “They can look, but not touch. How about that?”
The darkness in his voice, coupled with those palms, slowly moving lower until they were just centimetres from my suddenly achy breasts, was enough to make me want to moan.
“We'll behave.” When had Enzo come closer, crowding me? “Dance for us, Pretty Darling.”
“And then we'll all watch as he fucks you against that pole,” Kain added. “Not touching you at all…”
“You know you want to,” Jin cajoled, from where he reclined against the stone bench, one eye open.
“You won't even know we're here,” Aeron added.
I looked to the last member of my harem, the one who hadn't said anything. Bane stood on the edge, as though barely certain if he should be there at all. “I want you to watch,” I admitted and I saw his eyes flash with excitement before it melted to heat. “I want all of you. But this is Daron's date, so his rules.”
“She's mine.” I shouldn't have been so surprised by the possessiveness in his tone—he was a Possession after all—but I was.
“Fair enough.” Kain moved back to sit on the stone bench and promptly took his cock out, already hard. When everyone else just looked at him, he smirked. “Oh, come on, I doubt any of you will be able to resist doing the same when they get going. Our girl is fucking hot.”
Enzo shrugged, then undid his own zipper. “True enough.”
Daron turned me to face him, pulling me back for one kiss before turning me to face the pole. “I was promised a show. It is my date, after all.”
Someone—probably Kain—started playing music. The speakers hidden in the stone of the gazebo came to life with the sound of a sultry, electric guitar as a woman started singing.
I gripped the pole with my right hand and let it spin for a second before flicking my body around it into a knot. I hadn't done it in over two years but I'd had a practice session when the pole was put in, and I was soon twirling around like I'd never stopped. I kept my movements slow, hanging on to the pole in positions which were only possible because of the muscle tone I'd retained when I froze into my immortality.
I felt my men's nervous anticipation through their bonds, heard the way their breath caught the first few times I let go with my hands and swung with my ankles locked and my body perpendicular to my pole. When they finally trusted I knew what I was doing and wasn't going to crack my head open, they started to relax.
I danced faster, harder, the pole spinning with me until I felt a bead of sweat form on my collarbone and drip down into my cleavage. I felt their lust ratchet up but Daron was the only one I watched, the faint blush on his cheeks and the way his eyes periodically dipped down. So much so that he had to push his glasses back up his nose.
I swung myself up to the top of the pole, crossed my ankles above my head and let my body fall back, wings and arms flaring as I suspended myself by my calf muscles alone.
I'd barely righted myself when a hot, hard, tall, male body crushed me against the pole. Daron's hands went straight to the globes of my ass as he lifted me so that the hardness of his cock pressed into my core in just the right place.
His lips devoured me. Starting at my mouth, he worked his way down my jaw with tiny, nipping, sucking kisses that made me arch my back for more. When his tongue started to lave that perfect spot between shoulder and neck, I moaned. He sucked, nipped and licked, leaving what was sure to be a mark as I rubbed our bodies together.
“Daron,” I moaned.
One hand left my ass and moved up to my bra, that metal bracelet he wore liquifying and slicing open the front of the garment in his eagerness to see me. I shivered, not at the cold air, but at the look in his eyes.
Daron always managed to look at me like I was a combination of the hottest thing he'd ever laid eyes on and the most precious. It was a kind of worshipful adoration, laced with lust. The heady combination had my head falling back against the pole.
He lifted me higher and sucked my left nipple, before releasing it to blow a cold breath over my left breast. Daron and the others all watched with fascination as the nipple tightened in response. Then he repeated the motion on the other side.
I heard the others groan, even Aeron's whispered curse. They were tormented by not being able to touch me but at the same time, I could see them all out of the corner of my eye, stroking their cocks with their eyes fixed on my tits.
My skin felt like it was alight with electricity, every cell in my body charged and waiting for whatever he would do next.
I gasped as his tongue flicked over my tortured bud, then swirled. The warmth of his mouth contrasted wonderfully with the cold night air. He took his time, sucking and licking like it was his favourite treat before moving across to the other.
He slowly let me back onto my own two feet, just to lower himself to his knees. Those metal bracelets came out again, slicing the panties from my body with a deadly efficiency.
“Mine,” he growled.
“Ours,” Aeron grumbled, but someone shushed him.
Long fingers spread my lower lips, exposing my core to the cold night. His hands shifted my leg over his shoulder. When he blew another warm breath directly over my clit, I clenched. It was all the signal he needed to dive in.
If I'd thought the attention he paid to my nipples was extreme, the study he made of my sex was more so. He alternated long licks with suckling kisses directly over my clit, each one driving me closer and closer.
My hands rose to my breasts, kneading the abandoned flesh in the search for the nirvana that was so close and yet so far. I wanted to touch Daron, to lick and suck him as he had me, but his hand on my ass was like a steel band.
One finger slowly circled my entrance, teasing me with the possibility. His patience was going to be the death of me.
“Daron, now,” I demanded.
He smiled and his finger finally sank into me, curling just once to find that elusive spot.
I shot over the edge like a rocket, my knees going weak as I screamed out my completion to the stars.
There were matching groans from around me, and I knew my other mates had come. My pleasure shooting down the mating bonds set them off but Daron hadn't taken his pleasure yet, and I was determined that he would.
I dragged my Envy mate back up to my level and took his mouth in a wild kiss, tasting myself on his tongue. His hands gravitated back to my ass, squeezing and petting. I only pulled back when we both needed air.
My hand gravitated to his fly but his hand stopped me. I met his blue eyes. Why was he stopping me?
“I want you to fuck me.”
His hands tightened against my ass. “No.”
Everything in me drew up short. I'd been so sure he would, even with the others there. “What?”
He smiled shyly, even as he picked me up once again, turning towards the house. “Our first time is going to be in a bed because you deserve that. I'm not going to fuck you; I'm going to make love to you, body, heart and soul. And we're not going to do it because you think you're going to die and you're worried I've been left out. We're going to do it because we're mates and I love you.” His long legs were eating up the distance between us and the manor, and I kissed his jaw as I tried to swallow the butterflies he'd given me.
My heart stuttered and I kissed his jaw. “I would never, ever let our first ti
me happen out of fear,” I promised. “I want to do this because you're my world and it feels so right.”
He pushed open the door of the house and I barely noticed anything about the interior. I was too consumed by kissing every part of him I could reach. When he lay me on the silk sheets, I didn't even bother to question why it was easily the size of three California kings pushed together. I was too busy ripping his shirt from his body and running my hands over every exposed inch of his chest.
His fingers breached my opening, scissoring inside me, stretching me for what I knew wasn't going to be an easy fit. When I finished battling with his belt buckle, I didn't even bother shoving his boxers and trousers down, just out of the way, so I could draw his cock out.
The angle was wrong and I was getting impatient, so I flipped us, moving so I was straddling him on the bed. His fingers slipped out of me as I moved, but I had plans to replace them with something better.
I held myself over him, coating his cock in my wetness. When I finally lined him up with me, he looked as lost to the passion as I was. His hair rumpled, his glasses completely askew. It was a sexy look for my nerd, and I grinned.
“I love you,” I whispered, lowering myself onto him.
Daron moaned and bucked under me, trying to rush the slow slide of my body onto his. “Fuck, I love you too.”
I kept tormenting him, keeping my movements slow as I pumped myself down onto him. The friction and the fullness felt amazing and the moment I was fully seated, I lifted again, needing more.
Daron reached up and pulled my upper body down, arms coming around me as he stroked my back, my thighs, anywhere he could reach. We kissed again, languidly this time, as our bodies slowly rose and fell in sync. The brush of his skin on mine was poetry, each sigh music only we could hear.
He was right; this wasn't fucking. This was deeper than that.
Daron was making love to me, taking my heart with every thrust.
We came together, rocking and shuddering our way to completion. I slipped off of his body and tucked myself into his side, snuggling closer.
“That was perfect,” I told him.
He just smiled down at me. “Not bad for my first time, then?”
I shook my head. “Not bad at all. If you improve with practice, it might just kill me.”
“Death by orgasm,” he chuckled. “What a way to go…”
Chapter 28
Bright lights tried to blind me for a second when I woke and for a long moment, I wondered where I was. I'd gone to sleep on soft sheets in a huge room, but this looked a lot more like…
“You're in the infirmary.” I rolled over to find Enzo standing in a corner, darkness almost radiating from him as he stood sentinel over the room. “In the middle of the night, you started having a seizure and your organs began failing.” He jerked his chin toward one corner, where my Envy mate was sleeping in the visitor's chair. There was a blanket over him and I wondered idly if Enzo had been the one to put it there. “He called me and we got you here. Rezinax and I spent four hours trying to stabilise you.”
“But I took power from Daron and Jin yesterday,” I argued, my voice hoarse. “I had it under control.”
“Rezinax said that the amount of the toxin in your blood increased. You were dosed again and, because the damned stuff is slow-acting, we have no idea when.” The tendrils of darkness writhed around him, showing the turmoil his closed-off expression tried to hide.
“I feel fine.” I tried to reassure him but, if anything, it only made his jaw clench.
“You aren't.”
His voice was enough to wake the two imps I hadn't noticed on my pillow before. Onyx and Ivory flew up and buzzed around me, checking I was okay on the physical plane, as well as the psychic, and letting me feel how worried they'd been. I'd just finished reassuring them when I heard a rustle from the corner.
“Lilith?” Daron's groggy voice floated over from the chair. “Thank the Strange God, you're awake!”
I smiled at my Envy mate as he dragged himself over to my bedside, his face pale as he examined me. “I'm trying to tell this knucklehead that I feel fine, and he's being stubborn.”
Daron's eyes darkened. “You're not fine. Rezinax patched you up but…” He took a deep breath and bit his lip before continuing. “I don't think you should come with us tonight.”
“What?!” I sat up fully, sending my imps flying away in my shock. I'd expect this kind of caveman behaviour from Blaze or Aeron. But Daron always supported me when I wanted to do something. “I'm going. It's my body that's being poisoned. I'm not going to sit back and let you put yourselves in danger. What if you need help? What if I find something you all miss?”
Daron waited for me to run out of objections, then stroked a tangled piece of hair out of my horns. “Remember how Rezinax gave you months to live? Well, with this latest dose, that went down to weeks. Another dose and she doesn't think you'll live through it. What if you encounter a different poison, something worse, at Craven Hall and your body can't handle it?”
“The same could be said about any of you!” I growled. “If anything, I'm being given the poison at Vice. I'm safer from another dose if I'm out of here!”
Enzo groaned. “She has a point, and we're wasting time arguing with her.”
“Easy for you to say,” Daron retorted. “You didn't wake up beside her when she was dying!” A pulse of fear hit me down the mating bond, and I straightened my spine a little more. Daron was petrified and I supposed I would be too, if our roles had been reversed.
I raised my hand to cup his face. “I'm sorry I scared you,” I whispered. “But I have to do this. I can't just sit back and let the Syndicate poison me. I need to feel like I'm doing something to stop it, otherwise I might as well just give in.”
Daron just looked away, clenching his fists.
It was Enzo who sighed and offered me a hand up from the bed, which I took. “Come on then.”
“If this doesn't work, then what?” Daron demanded. “If you survive this, what's the plan?”
I didn't like this distance between us and I quickly closed it. His arms wrapped around me automatically and my head fell to rest on his chest. “If this doesn't work, we try something else. I'm not going to lie down and die easily. We'll do whatever it takes.” My voice was muffled by his clothes, but I knew he heard me because his arms tightened around me.
He sighed, picked up a bag from the floor and put it on the bed. “Viv and Rina picked out some clothes for you.”
Understanding that this was as close to acceptance as I was likely to get, I kissed his heart through his shirt and moved over to the bag. Rina had obviously found the clothes we'd ordered from filukinetics in my wardrobe. The skin-tight, black catsuit was made of a fabric imbued with their power to be as impervious as possible. The matching gloves and boots would mean I was covered from neck to toe, hopefully preventing me from coming into contact with any of the poisonous traps around the mansion.
The one thing we couldn't cover were my wings and I reluctantly bound them to my back with thick straps, then covered them with a leather jacket.
It wasn't much but hopefully, it would do.
The finishing touch was my spear strapped easily over my thigh. As soon as I straightened, my imps landed on my shoulders, clinging to my earlobes to hold themselves in place.
I turned to Enzo, expectantly.
“The others are already on their way in the van. We'll meet up with them there.” His eyes roved my body, evaluating me, I knew, for any weakness. “The moment you feel anything wrong, you will tell me.”
I nodded. “I'm stubborn, not suicidal.”
Even Daron cracked a small smile at that.
My gut twisted as Enzo dragged us through the shadow realm and into the back of the van. For a second, nothing happened, then I was in the centre of five male bodies. Surrounded and hugged from all sides, I smiled and let them figure out I was okay before shooing them back.
“Alright, so what's th
e plan?” I asked.
“Bane and Enzo will get us in,” Blaze began. “Then the five of us will search the place while Jin and Kain keep watch. Daron is our eyes and ears through the cameras. If anyone sees anything wrong, the headsets will let us communicate but don't use them otherwise. We don't know if the rooms are bugged, so it's better to relay messages mentally through Lilith. Worst case scenario, Kain uses his gift to create a flash to distract everyone while we escape.”
Aeron took over. “Once inside, search for anything that might link Craven to the Syndicate. Photos, letters, anything. Our best bet is probably the office, which is why Bane, Lilith and I will focus on that area. Blaze and Enzo will search the other rooms.” Aeron shrugged a mask over his face and held one out to me.
It was a full-face thing, made of clear plastic with a seal around the edges and a filter at the mouth. Slipping it on around my horns took work, but I managed. It made me feel like I was preparing to go diving, not burgling. The others slid theirs on, except for Daron who was already tapping away at his keyboard.
“I'm in,” my Envy mate said. “I'm seeing ten security guards on camera, which is double what we saw last time. Six in the grounds, one in the garage and three in the house itself. Stay safe and stay quiet out there, all of you.”
I smiled and sent a caress along our bond. “I'll be back before you know it.”
He returned the psychic hug, the feeling of him lingering even after he stopped. “You'd better be.”
The others were already piling out of the van, vanishing into the darkness of a cloudy night. Jin and Kain were gone before I could wish them good luck, their psychic kisses down the mating bonds saying everything for them.
I returned the emotional goodbye before setting out after Bane.
My Greed mate stopped a few paces away from the van and knelt, pressing his fingers into the earth.
A set of steps descended one by one into the grass, revealing a dark, foreboding tunnel, just big enough for us to walk single file through.
“We're going to come out in the wine cellar.” His voice was crackly, the static of our mating bond distorting the words, but I understood and relayed the message.
