by Ophelia Bell
“Magic, dude.”
He shot me a wry look. “You know what I mean.”
“Play it.”
The instrument gleamed in its case, his fingertips slipping over the valves. “Why bother?”
“For one, I want to hear it. Also, you desperately need to get your hands on some shiny curves. Maybe she will help get Deva out of your system for a bit.” I gestured at the instrument Llyr was now caressing like a lover.
I understood completely. After my talk with my grandmother, I craved Deva with an intensity I couldn’t fathom. I think understanding how dire the situation was only made me want to keep her closer, when it was even clearer after my discussion with my grandmother that near me was the last place Deva should be. I’d decided to give her the night before diving into the plan my grandmother and I had come up with to deal with the hounds.
To combat those urges, I’d retreated out here to bang on the skins for a while. Even though the only beat that seemed to come out of me was Deva’s song, or variations of it.
Llyr gently lifted the trumpet, which looked like a toy in his big hands. But the sound that flowed from it when he put it to his lips was as sweet as any song. He played a scale to acclimate, then the melody began to cascade into the air, a sound so similar yet so contradictory to my own song it made me reflexively pick up my sticks again and start playing an accompanying beat.
Astonishingly, the beat was identical to the one I’d been playing earlier, though the song itself was vastly different. I kept going, curious if it would change, but it didn’t. The song was slow and sensual enough that Llyr would have been better served with a mute attached to the bell, but I could hear Deva’s voice in it clearly. And it suited him perfectly.
What it didn’t do was dull any of the ache in my soul for her.
Llyr lowered the instrument and regarded me thoughtfully. “How did you pick that up so quickly?”
“It isn’t a big deal to tap out a tempo. I have an ear for it. But the truth is, I was already playing it when you came in. My song has the same beat as yours.”
He chuckled as he returned the trumpet to her case and carefully set it where he’d found it. “Not surprising. I think all five of us are bound to her in some fashion. It’s a matter of time before she learns how to make it permanent, I think. That is if she ever forgives you and me.”
“What do you mean, the five of us??” I shot to my feet, ready to shift and fly to wherever it was Llyr had left Deva. “Where is she now, Llyr? Is she safe?”
“Well, it appears she seduced a human man before she showed up on your doorstep. One of the victims of these strange attacks is utterly smitten with her, and I see it progressing rather inevitably. Don’t worry about her tonight. She’s in capable hands. Very, very lucky hands, but capable ones.”
I gritted my teeth, seething at the swirl of amusement in his hypnotic gaze. He was goading me.
“Fuck you, man,” I spat, then stalked to the corner kitchenette and poured half a glass of turul vodka. I tossed it back in a single swallow and poured another, then turned, leaning back against the counter.
Llyr crossed his arms, drilling me with a more volatile look. “I still don’t know what you did to her. That she would sing for you and yet act the way she has toward you. She has more affection for Keagan than either you or me, despite his jealousy.”
“I guess I’m just a typical asshole who doesn’t deserve her. I think you’re in touch with that same feeling.”
He nodded toward the bottle so I poured him a glass. He sniffed it first and lifted his dark brows approvingly before drinking slowly.
The man had charisma, I had to give him that. Every movement was a deliberate, sensual flow, graceful as fuck for a satyr as big as him. His hair was as midnight black and luxuriously wavy as Deva’s, though not as long, but I just knew it’d feel like silk if I touched it. Even the way his throat rippled when he swallowed had me mesmerized in a way that was completely unlike me.
What the fuck was up with me? My cousin Lukas was the sexually fluid one in our family, though I was given to understand that his brother Iszak had submitted to Nikhil at some point. Or was it the other way around? Either way, my desires had never strayed from female flesh. Maybe I was just too fucking pent up from being so near Deva again for even a little while.
“I’m going to learn your secrets,” Llyr announced, holding the glass just shy of his lips and speaking past the rim to me, his eyes swirling disconcertingly. “Something about your timeline is broken, and I’m sure it has everything to do with Deva and whatever you’re hiding. Time doesn’t fill in the blanks. He doesn’t give a shit about what we do to manipulate Fate’s plan. Everything has a tendency to self-correct eventually. But your future is a big fucking blank slate and I would love to know what you did to make it that way.”
I didn’t want the fucker nosing into my future any more than I wanted Deva getting a look at my soul. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the skills to stop him. “Keep that River of Time link of yours fixed on Deva. It’s her future that matters here, not mine.” The observation still left a cold feeling in my gut. As much as I knew entertaining a future with her was dangerous, I would have liked to hear that the two of us had some future together. A blank slate could mean anything. But Nanyo had said she was a wildcard. Maybe simply being close to her had that effect.
“I’ve seen her future too, at least pieces of it. All three of those men I left her with will be in it in some fashion. They already love her.”
I snorted. “Unlikely. Keagan’s ready to throw her out of the house so he can have Ro back.”
“Don’t be so sure.” He tilted back his vodka, took a measure into his mouth, and savored it, nodding as he swallowed. “He is hurting right now, that’s undeniable, but I believe he’s more conflicted than he seems about which of them he wants more. I think the new guy, Bodhi, will be the balance for the four of them. He’ll set Keagan straight. But where does that leave us?”
He finished his drink and licked his lips. My gaze fell to his mouth and I found myself strangely transfixed by the fullness of those lips. Kissable.
Fuck. I shook my head abruptly, forcing my attention away. My hand shook when I lifted my glass to my mouth again. The alcohol burned going down, fortifying my resistance, but did it matter? Satyrs had a reputation for being more than satisfying lovers. And Llyr and I were both on the outs with Deva. Not to mention, the breath between his words tonight had been laced with just as much need as I had endured all day, ever since that goddamn kiss in the closet.
Maybe something different was what I needed to get her off my goddamned mind. Something different enough to shock my system out of its damn spiral of longing and regret.
A deep chuckle tugged my attention back to his face.
“Don’t hurt yourself trying to decide whether or not we should fuck.”
Llyr’s eyes were a hypnotic swirl that reminded me of the hurricane on the cover of the last Fate’s Fools album. Dangerous, yet deceptively serene at its core. How in the world had I believed I could trust this man with her?
“What the fuck makes you think we will?”
He stepped closer, eyes hooded as his gaze slipped down my frame. “Nothing. You’re as much an enigma as she is, which is why I’m dying to learn more about you than the fact that you have excellent rhythm, a foul mouth, and you drink too damn much.”
“You’d probably be disappointed.” I shifted to the side, but Llyr followed, mirroring my shift as adeptly as if we’d begun to dance.
The taunting look was what did me in. The son-of-a-bitch wanted to tango? I’d show him what I was made of. With a sneer I smacked my palms into his shoulders and shoved back. “Not fucking interested.”
He didn’t so much as stumble. Instead, he took a quick backward step that looked entirely choreographed, but he’d already gotten my blood pumping for something physical and I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of giving in to his suggestion. When he stopped movin
g, I lunged, finally taking that swing at his pretty face that I’d been itching to do for the last day.
I wasn’t ungraceful. I knew that. Like he said, I had rhythm, and was adaptable, but he was better. Fucking nymphaea and their fucking dancer instincts.
The next thing I knew he’d grabbed my arm, pulled it behind my back and spun me around. He shoved me hard against the counter of the kitchenette, trapping both my hands between us in a grip too strong for me to escape. His hot breath gusted across the back of my neck.
“I could easily have my way with you now and you know it. Would you spill your secrets with my dick in you? Tell me what the fuck you did to Deva to make her mistrust me so much?”
“You did that yourself, asshole.” I craned my neck around and glared at him over my shoulder. His face was close enough to see specs of vibrant aqua light sparking through that whirlpool gaze, and a wave of acute vertigo overtook me before he blinked and looked away. He still held tight to my wrists, his pelvis pressed into my ass hard enough that I was aware of his erection. It shouldn’t have made me hard, but it did. The ache in my groin returned as acutely as if Deva herself were right in front of me.
“True, I had a part in it, but she’s been lied to and I have a feeling it has everything to do with what the two of you are to each other.”
“And you think fucking me is going to give you answers?” I barked out a loud laugh.
“That would just be a bonus.” With one hand still restraining me, he lashed something cold and flexible around my wrists. Then he slipped a hand around my waist and unbuttoned my fly. I hissed as his fingers grazed my bare cock when my jeans fell open and he chuckled. “You are as capricious as your namesake, Ozzie West. Your protests contradict your body’s reactions.”
“It isn’t for you.”
He stilled behind me, his breath slow and soft against the back of my neck as he lightly drifted his knuckles along the aching length of my erection. “You’ve been this hard for her all day, haven’t you?” he murmured. “What is she to you, really?”
I didn’t have an answer that he’d like, but even if I’d wanted to respond, the tight grip on my cock stole my breath. He wrapped his fist around my shaft and squeezed, eliciting a low curse from me. I braced myself for him to assault me further, to pull down my jeans and mount me, but all he did was tug my fly open all the way and pull my balls out with his other hand. The combination of attention on both cock and balls had my head spinning and I groaned, pressing my forehead into the cabinet in front of me and involuntarily tilting my hips into his hands.
“Tell me the truth, Oz. Was she willing when you fucked her? Did she beg or did you fall to your knees and worship her the way she deserves? Did you taste her sweet cunt before shoving your cock into her the first time and stealing her virgin’s essence for yourself? Look at me.”
My breathing came in harsh gasps and I obeyed, desperate for release but beyond understanding what it was he was after. I didn’t care anymore, and when I turned my head and met his eyes again, all I saw was her. Deva’s face looked back at me and I broke.
I knew it wasn’t her, just some shapeshifter trick of his to make me believe it. But the sensations of his touch had changed, the pressure at my back smaller, softer, with full breasts a pleasant, pliant pressure against me. The invasive pressure of his erection gone, his rain-shower scent replaced by Deva’s heady, spicy mixture that I wanted to drown in. I wanted it to be her. Wanted her hands on me this way. Fuck, she could even tie me up like this if it would help. But it couldn’t happen.
“What did you do to me, Ozzie?” she asked, an almost plaintive plea.
It wasn’t a question I could answer. Not now, not ever.
“I’m sorry,” I croaked. “I love you.”
Her hand slid up my shaft in a delicious, slow stroke and back down again. “If you can’t tell me, will you come for me?”
My entire body shuddered under her touch. I wanted to give her everything, but couldn’t even tell her the truth when I had the chance to say it to a doppelgänger. I could come clean and ease my burden, but I wasn’t sure I trusted Llyr enough to keep that secret.
I could definitely fulfill her other request.
I groaned, pushing my hips into her hand as she stroked faster. “Please let me see you,” I pleaded. “Touch you. I don’t fucking care that it isn’t you. I fucking need this so goddamn bad.”
“I think I like torturing you too much.” She laughed, the movement pushing her breasts into my back, then she bent her head and bit into the fleshy muscle of my shoulder. Hot saliva bled into my shirt, cooling when she moved away and her breath met my ear again. She’d shifted just slightly to the side, enough that I could turn and look into her eyes.
Her strokes slowed to maddeningly arousing, twisting motions around my shaft, up and down. “Please?” I said again.
“No touching.” She released my cock and allowed me to turn, but before I could take her in, she was on her knees taking me between her lips.
I let out an agonized groan at the exquisite pleasure of that first hot slide of tongue and lips against flesh. She gripped me at my base with one hand, cupped my balls with the other, and sucked slow and hard.
“Fuck, Deva,” I gasped, blown away by the skill with which she swallowed me. I wanted to tangle my fingers in her luxurious black silken locks but my bindings still held my hands behind my back. All I could do was watch as my length disappeared between her perfect lips until my cockhead nudged the back of her throat. Within seconds I was flying, my fingernails digging into the counter behind me and my back arching as my cock spasmed and erupted, filling her mouth with every last ounce of pent up need for her.
When I looked down again, my body still awash with tremors and my cock twitching with the last few spurts of semen, she’d gone. Llyr’s broad-shouldered body had taken her place, his dark cascade of hair a curtain around his face as he finished sucking me off. I was too dazed to care and had the strangest thought that he genuinely looked like he enjoyed what he was doing. He was a fucking master at it, at least, and you don’t get that good at something without enjoying it.
He opened his eyes as he slid his lips back along my shaft and glanced up at me, a devious glint in those aqua swirls. Releasing me, he stood, as graceful as a swan, his expression gradually darkening with uncertainty as he licked his lips and looked down at me.
“I don’t understand,” he said, brow furrowing. He shook his head slowly, a look of utter astonishment taking over as he stared at me.
“What? That you could make me come while pretending to be her? Why is that such a fucking stretch? Your mouth was apparently made to suck dick.”
“No. Your essence . . . I expected it to reveal your secret when I tasted you.”
My blood turned to ice-water in my veins. I was such a fucking idiot to trust this asshole. I clenched my teeth and pulled at my bindings but they didn’t budge. I wanted to grab him by his fucking perfect hair and smash his face into the wall. I forced myself to stop struggling. I’m sure I looked like a goddamn fool with my pants hanging off my hips and my limp, wet dick still dangling out.
I’d forgotten that nymphaea had that talent: the ability to learn a person’s secrets simply by tasting their bodily fluids. Normally a kiss was enough but I suppose that’d have been too easy for him. He had to go and fucking meld me halfway to get into my head. My gut clenched at that thought and my eyes widened. Could the bastard control me now?
“Don’t worry, I can’t read your fucking mind.”
“How—”
“Your face doesn’t exactly leave much to the imagination right now, Oz. You just remembered what I can do and you’re flipping out. Understandable. But that’s not how we work. You would need to take my essence for the meld to be complete, and the mind control shit only works if blood is exchanged. If I gave you my blood, I could take over. Only Meri ever went to that extreme though. All I got was a piece of your truth, and it was . . . unexpected.” He frowned
at me and stepped closer.
I blanched, sliding away from him and he grabbed my arm. “Chill for a sec. I just want to untie you so we can talk.”
Turning, I glanced over my shoulder while he undid the random extension cord used for binding and let me loose. My blood pressure was through the roof, and I braced myself for his questions about what I’d done and why I’d done it but he only gave me a sad look that made no sense.
When I’d turned around and stowed my junk, he handed me a fresh glass of vodka.
“Why didn’t you tell me she was your One? And Dion’s balls, man, why the fuck are you not with her? You had to have known the second you set eyes on her. That’s how you lot work. I’d have never let her go if it were in my power and I knew she reciprocated, which she does, by the way. She fucking loves you.”
I blinked at him for several beats, exhaling the breath I’d been holding, then took a long drink. Thank the fucking Winds that was all he’d gleaned from his mouthful of my seed. I wasn’t about to clue him in on the truth, though.
“It’s a little more complicated than that, and not really a priority under the circumstances. When you hear what I learned from my grandmother today I think you’ll get it. The creatures Deva’s been watching are hounds of Fate that have gone rogue for some reason. I have a plan to allow the rest of us to see them, and hopefully catch them and figure out what’s making them behave the way they are.”
“And you didn’t come find us right away? The hounds were at this party we were at tonight, according to Deva.”
I shook my head. “I just needed some room to breathe for a bit. And despite what you learned just now, there are reasons why I’m keeping my distance. We’ll get everyone together tomorrow first thing to do this. Willem and Sandor are bringing the big guns.”
He raised both eyebrows. “Friends of yours with firearms? How is that supposed to help? The hounds are incorporeal.”
“A dragon and a turul with nearly two thousand years of magic between them, and a whole stockpile of charmed instruments. The hounds respond to music, and thanks to the lovely Sophia North, I have just the song to reveal them to us.”
