Elements of Mischief

by Tate James

  The orgasm that he sent me crashing into was so intense it was practically supernatural. As I came, screaming my release, George joined me with several hard thrusts and his fingers gripped my hip bones so hard I knew there'd be bruises tomorrow.

  I fucking loved it.

  As George slid free of my soaked core, I stumbled a little bit but was caught by eight very helpful hands.

  “Steady on, darlin',” Shane drawled, his honeyed voice saturating me. “We ain't nearly done with you yet, girl.”

  A lazy smile crept across my lips and I drunkenly cast my gaze around us. Fuck me, not three feet from us on the dance floor was an all male threesome happening, and not a stitch of clothing was left between them. Where did the industrial-size bottle of lube suddenly come from anyway?

  “Good,” I replied, turning my attention back to my men. All four of them had their dicks out of their pants, and in their hands. Even George. That surely had to be the supernatural in him? No human man could turn it around that damn quick, and there was no mistaking the fact that he'd finished seeing as his cum was sliding down my thigh already.

  Somehow, we'd ended up near the side of the dance floor, so when Shane picked me up by the waist it wasn't far to go for him to slam my back up against a wall and sink his massive inked up pipe wrench deep into my drain.

  My arms went around his neck, our tongues tangling as he fucked me hard and fast, almost furious. It was like there was this charge in the air and we were powerless to resist it. The more Shane screwed me, the more I wanted. It was like I was insatiable. Even with one orgasm down and another fast approaching, I didn’t feel any sense of relief. In fact, each thrust of Shane’s cock was making it worse. If the growls slipping from his throat were any indication, he felt the same way.

  “Don't stop,” I breathed against Shane's lips—although I knew he wasn't going to. No, we would never stop. We'd stay here and we'd fuck until we dropped dead. That much, I knew. That much, I was fucking sure of. But in that moment, I wanted it. If I could die wrapped in the arms of these men, my body wracked with pleasure, then surely it was all worth it?

  “Arizona Morgan Smoke!” Gram shouted from somewhere nearby. I should've been mortified that she was witnessing this and instead, I felt … nothing at all. I didn't care. It didn't mean a damn thing. Hell, I just felt sorry for Gram that she wasn't getting any. “Arizona!”

  Shane slammed into me with a ferocious grunt, spilling his seed and making me bite my lower lip as I wiggled against him. I was not fucking done, damn it.

  “Reg,” I whispered as soon as my feet hit the ground, grabbing the water elemental by the face and running my tongue along the side of his lightly stubbled jaw up to his ear. “I'm not finished.”

  He didn't say a damn thing, just spun me around and pushed my face to the wall, sliding his shaft between my folds, teasing me. I wanted to fucking strangle him.

  Reg lubed himself up with several thrusts before finding my opening and entering me, taking me just as hard and fierce as Shane, as George. I could barely even breathe, curling my fingers against the wall's smooth surface and pushing my ass as hard into him as I could manage. It wasn't enough. Why wasn't it enough?!

  “There's magic here, Duckie—I tried to warn you,” Gram was saying and Christ on a cracker, if the nickname Duckie didn't snap me out of my sex frenzy, nothing was going to. Instead, I just moaned and sucked on my own lip, enjoyed the sight of Billy doing his bad boy slouch against the wall next to me, stroking his cock with sure, strong fingers.

  Reaching out a hand, I curled my fingers around his waistband and drew him just a little closer, so I could take charge. The look on his face was this heavy lidded bloom of sex, like he was about to blow his load and then fall into a never ending sleep. I wanted to join him there, drifting off into oblivion …

  “Oh, Duckie …” Gram said, and she sounded almost like she was crying.

  Couldn't figure that part out for the life of me because I was having the best fucking day of my entire life. Should've been pretty obvious at that point that magic really was, as Gram put it, afoot.

  As Reg thrust into me, and I pleasured Billy, George and Shane, well they got a little busy, too, kissing and touching one another. It was quite the sight.

  My eyes watered with tears of pleasure as another orgasm crept up on me and broke, like waves against rocks, shattering me to pieces. But, honey, someone must've turned the water on full blast because I felt a rush of hormones take over me, twice as powerful as before. I was like a cat in heat.

  “More, Reg,” I begged, tears streaming down my face. And I never cried. It was pretty much the last thing I ever wanted to do. I didn't cry when Gram died, or when I found out I was adopted, or when I was forcibly married to four random men I didn't know, so why now?

  Because of the magic.

  It was turning me into a completely different person, and even with a veil of lusty fog over my gaze, that was a little scary.

  “Reg …” I tried to tell him to stop, so we could take a breath and see what the fuck was going on around us … all those people … all those naked people … But I couldn't make myself say it. I didn't want to stop. I just wanted fucking more, more, more.

  And then, on the verge of another mind-blowing orgasm, it all just … stopped.

  The thrumming bass above our heads, the flashing strobes, the colored spotlights dancing over the crowd.

  Everything just went still and dark—no lights, no music, just bodies and breathing and cries of confusion.

  “What the …” Reg started, and then he was pulling out of me and stumbling away as I scrambled to put my tits back in my top, pull my skirt down, wipe the sweat from my brow with a shaking hand.

  Billy created a ball of foxfire in his palm, lighting up the severe line of his frown. I could just barely make out Shane and George to his right.

  “What's happening?” I whispered, just before total chaos broke out in the room. People were groaning—not happily anymore—and screaming and shouting and cursing each other out. Personally, I don't know how they had the energy for it. I felt like I'd been hit by a fucking Mack truck. “God, I feel like shit.”

  “We need to get out of here—now,” Shane growled from behind me, curling his fingers around my upper arm and pulling me into the darkness. Billy threw an even bigger ball of fire up, lighting the way through the crowd and all the tangled bodies. Some of them were moving, fighting, putting their clothes back on, but some were also completely passed out on the floor, snoring and moaning in their sleep.

  “What the … what the fuck is going on?” I asked as Shane continued to drag me ahead of the others, straight over to an emergency exit whose sign was no longer glowing. He shoved his way through and within a few minutes, we were back out on the cold, wet New York City streets.

  “Guys,” I said, trying to remain calm as I stumbled down the sidewalk in my heels. “What the motherfucking fuck was that?” I was starting to sound hysterical, but really? Really?! I'd just gotten down and dirty in a room full of people and I'd loved every second of it. On top of that, I wasn't the only person doing it! “My head is killing me.”

  “It would,” Billy said, vanquishing his foxfire and storming down the sidewalk ahead of us, raking his fingers through his charcoal hair repeatedly, like he was about to freak out or something. Inside, even though I was exhausted and having a hard time putting one foot in front of the other, I could feel this … I don't know, electric tingle, like a sharp kiss from a lightning bolt. It both frightened me and intrigued me at the same time. “Those fucking demons were draining us dry.”

  He glanced over his shoulder like he thought someone might be following us.

  “Those … the incubi?” I asked and got a curt nod in response. “Why would they do that?”

  “Who the fuck knows?” Billy responded, walking faster, almost running. I struggled to keep up, leaning against Shane's massive muscular form to keep myself from falling over. He didn't seem in much better
spirits really, but at least he didn't have high heels on. Apparently the heels I'd borrowed from Siobhan were magically attracted to sewer grates and kept getting stuck in the metal bars.

  “This is really bad,” George was saying from my right side. As I glanced over at him, it occurred to me that we'd just rutted like animals in the middle of a New York City club. Hmm. If I hadn't felt close to collapse, I might've been embarrassed. “On top of the storm dweller, we're going to have to deal with this, too? It doesn't make any sense. They knew we were in the club tonight.”

  “Which means we were targeted,” Reg said, picking up his pace so he could walk backward next to Billy and face Shane, George, and me. “They wanted us in there.”

  “So … the incubi and the succubi … they did that on purpose? Made us … you know …”

  “Horny as shit?” Billy asked, lighting up a cigarette and pausing at a curb. “Yep.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, honey doll,” Shane said, sounding like he was about two seconds from falling face first onto the pavement. “They eat that shit; they live off it.”

  “They drained us and then just … stopped?” I asked, but the weird vibe I was getting off the men didn't seem to be going anywhere.

  “They didn't stop, Blossom,” George said, his voice filled with this quiet heat that said that even if he was a tree hugging hippie, he wanted to kick some ass. “Somebody stopped them.”

  “How?” I asked, feeling completely left out. It felt like I should know these things when in reality, I didn't know shit.

  We were in New York, so of course, even at this late hour, it was kind of loud, but the silence amongst my new hubbies was deafening. My heart skipped and lurched inside my chest and that's when I realized—that spark beneath my rib cage, that was Max. Warden. Whatever.

  “He's here?!” I chirped, and that's when I really felt like I was about to lose it. “Where?” I touched that little string of energy inside myself on accident, just sort of flicked it, and felt the answering wave of magic that traced straight to its owner.

  Standing on the opposite side of the street.

  Right there.

  Not fifty feet away … was the first man I'd ever fallen in love with.

  Max Cornwall aka Warden cursed loudly enough that it echoed in the nearly empty streets, and swung his gaze straight over to me. Crouched low in a white hoodie and jeans, he was almost invisible in the grimy New York evening. But those eyes? I'd never forget those fucking eyes.

  They were this magnificent mosaic of jade green and gold and gray, the most perfect hazel, like a spring morning when everything's covered in dew … Hey, still a barista, still not a poet.

  “Max?!” I squeaked about ten seconds before several sewer manhole covers exploded upward in bursts of water, the sound of the metal plates clashing to the street a deafening boom that made my ears ring. “That's not good, is it?” I asked, feeling my heartbeat start to thunder and my head swim. “That's really fucking bad.”

  “It's plum awful, Sug,” Shane said, jerking me close as several pairs of arms dug out of the various holes in the pavement. And the stench that came with them? It burned the hairs out of my nostrils. It was a sickly, sweet smell like death and disease and shit all mixed together. Like, well, a big city sewer might smell.

  “You need to get Arizona out of here,” Warden was saying, all of a sudden just standing next to me like he'd never left. The sight of him so close, those eyes, the curve of his lips, the spiky tuft of dark hair sticking out from under the white hood of his sweatshirt … it all took me back to my time at UCSC. That night. Those feelings …

  “Let's take her back to her slutty friend's apartment—there were wards everywhere,” Billy said, clearly speaking with clenched teeth as he glared at Max/Warden and I tried really hard not to look at the things crawling out of the sewer.

  “First off, please don't slut shame … and wards?” I managed to spit out, still desperately enthralled by Max's presence and the idea of one of my best, good friends casting spells. Siobhan had … wards? My entire world felt like a lie, like I'd been living in one big dream cloud from birth until now, a hazy fog that obscured all the things that really mattered.

  “Let's go, sweet stuff,” Shane said, pulling me away from Warden as he turned to face the monsters slipping out from underneath New York's city streets, clawing at the cement with slimy fingers and pulling their gaping mouths and rotten faces to the surface.

  What the fuck was a human going to think when they saw this?!

  I resisted Shane's grip for a minute, reaching out a hand and just barely managing to slide my fingers across the back of Warden's. Our touch … it was electric in more than just a magical sense. His gaze snapped over to me and I could see so many things taking place in his eyes, so many emotions warring for supremacy.

  “Get the flip out of here, Smokey,” he growled, looking like he was about to shit his pants. Whether it was me or, you know, the zombies I wasn't sure.

  “I …” Words failed me as Shane started to pull me away from him, down the sidewalk away from the stinking, rotting, loping things that'd just burst forth from the sewer. It didn't take a genius to put it all together—necromancer spirit elemental, undead things, zombies.

  Shane managed to get me to the end of the block, George tagging along with us, as we left Billy, Reg, and Warden behind. After being drained from those fucking winged whores (who must use glamour a lot because I like, didn't see any wings in there), I knew they weren't going to have an easy time fighting. I could barely stay awake let alone go full dragon …

  “We gotta run, babe,” Shane said, sounding like he wanted to shake me.

  I looked up and caught faces peering down off balconies, a shout here and there, the honk of a horn down the street. Like I said, it might be nighttime, but it was still New York.

  “What's going to happen to all these people?” I asked, and I really didn't enjoy the silence I got from George and Shane.

  “Pick her up and carry her,” George said after a moment, but I was already wrenching my arm from Shane's grip. There was no way in hell I was abandoning these guys to fight and possibly die, to let random completely derpy humans get killed in the crossfire—especially not if this all somehow had to do with … me.

  Before Shane or George could grab me, I went spirit elemental on their asses, letting my skin go to that dark purple color that basically turned me into a living ghost.

  Unfortunately, Gram was nowhere to be seen or else I was sure she'd have been proud.

  “Don't do this, honeycomb,” Shane warned, but I was already taking off in the direction of the zombie horde. There were dozens and dozens of them, some swarming toward Reg, Billy, and Warden, and the rest wandering off to god only knew where. A substantial portion were coming straight at me, but fuck 'em—they could try to eat these invisible brains.

  Several zombies went right through me, their clothing rotted and wet and hanging in tatters from their discolored flesh. They were fast, too, clearly powered by magic and not some weird unknown disease. These things were pawns, like a flock of birds with one mind. Sure, there were a few different flocks going in opposite directions, but I could see a single hand behind it all.

  Had to be my bio dad.

  How nice was that?

  “Arizona, what in the wicked fuck?” Warden asked as I jogged my way back over to him and the other boys. God, I'd always loved his unusual cursing habits. If I'd been wearing panties, I'd have wet them. Then again, it was already pretty wet down there as it was … Like, sort of gross wet. I needed a shower. “Get the bleeping Christ out of here!”

  “Eat a dick, Max,” I said, puffing like I'd run a marathon, barely able to tear my eyes off of him … and there were like, zombies. Lots of zombies. The man had a magnetism to him that I couldn't seem to resist.

  “Holy bleeding hell hole,” he breathed, like I was already draining the life right out of him. “You're going to get yourself killed!”

&nbs
p; As soon as those words, left his lips, he swung his arm out and all the lights on the street went out—the apartment buildings, the streetlights, even nearby cars lost their headlights. An arc of energy followed the movement, sweeping out and hitting the wave of undead things like a ton of bricks.

  The stench amplified about a hundred times, the sweet scent of decay now gently roasting in an electrical fire. Billy made it worse, taking the flames that'd sprung up from the creatures and sending them roaring into the sky. As soon as he did that though, he collapsed.

  “Christ, sugar pea, gettin' you to do somethin' you don't want to do is like herdin' cats.”

  “I have no idea what that means,” I said as Shane scooped Billy up into his arms and I felt the glamour sliding off of me like water off a duck's back. Even though I was in invisible elemental form, the runes popped up across my skin like beacons, shimmering faintly. “But can you just get him the hell out of here?”

  “We're not leaving our spirit elemental to fight alone, are you crazy?” Reg asked, panting like he'd already run a triathlon and was now being asked to do an ironman. “You die, we all die. You did understand that part, right?!” He paused and worried at his lower lip for a second. “And besides, I like, sort of like you …”

  “This isn't a goddamn Bar Mitzvah!” Warden shouted, sweeping his arm down and sending another wave of energy at the next horde of zombies. I had literally no idea what a Bar Mitzvah had to do with the situation, but that was Warden for ya. His cursing and bitching slang made even less sense than my American-Australian-British combo pack.

  “Just tell me what to do,” I said, wishing I could just fucking reach out and touch him. Being see-through sort of made that part a tad difficult. “As long as it isn't run or hide, I'll do it.”

  “For Satan's sake,” he said, nibbling at his lower lip and casting me a sharp glance with golden eyes ringed in dark liner. “Just … pick off the stray ones before some stupid flipping human goes and gets themselves killed.” He flicked his gaze away like he couldn't bear to look at me. Hopefully that was more because he wanted me than because he was disgusted with me, but I guessed romance matters were best left until after the zombies had been dealt with.