Maybe the Virgo bond, the rabid beast that took up a great chunk of space in my head, had some semblance of self, had some understanding of the consequences of our actions because even though I wanted to fuck her raw, have her Claim me, I knew we needed to act first.
What would her Claim even mean if she died hours or days later?
“Yes, Riel,” Noa murmured eventually.
“I need to speak with the Assembly.”
His scowl was instantaneous. “Why?”
“I have something they want, and they have something I want.” She smiled. “I won’t cause too much trouble.”
Daniel snorted at that, and I shot him a thunderous look over my shoulder—just in time to see Matt punch him in the arm in a silent warning to shut up.
Noa rolled his eyes. “You’re Gabriella’s blood. You were born trouble. What kind of war are you bringing to the Assembly’s doorstep, Riel? We are family now… Would you leave kin out in the dark?”
I grunted. “She’s left her Virgo out in the dark, Father. None of us truly know her game plan.”
Noa cut me a look. “That must be killing you.”
Baring my teeth at him, I retorted, “It is.”
Riel’s hand covered mine on her waist and she squeezed gently. “I’m not doing it to be difficult. I’m not being secretive or purposely trying to hide anything from you—”
“No? Then what are you doing?”
She blew out a breath. “Following my gut.”
A short, poignant pause followed that statement. “Indeed,” my father answered bluntly. “I’m not sure whether I should be more terrified or not.”
“Have faith, Noa,” Gabriella stated. “Her power makes her unstable, but the boys are balancing her.”
My brows lifted at that, and I felt Riel’s tension at her grandmother’s words. “I’m unstable?” she blurted out.
Gabriella shot her a look. “Incredibly.”
She huffed. “Thanks.”
With a small smile gracing her lips, Gabriella murmured, “Will you help us?”
“What reason do I give to call a session?” Noa asked instead of replying.
Riel grinned. “That’s the easy part.”
“It is?”
“Tell them you have someone in your custody who can share information on the warriors’ whereabouts.”
My father stiffened. “You know where they are?”
“Well, no, but I know they’re with the meteor they were so angry they missed.”
Frowning, Noa shook his head. “Is that supposed to make sense?”
Gabriella chuckled. “Probably not, Noa. But you have your reason. Will you help us?”
He stared at her. “Was there any doubt?”
Well, Sol yeah there was doubt. I’d doubted he’d help period. But apparently, where Gabriella was concerned, nothing was too much, and as a Virgo, I could understand that even if, as a son, I was pissed.
“How long will it take for the Assemblymen to gather?” Riel questioned.
“It will be in the morning, at the latest.” He shot me a look. “I’ll notify you of the Assembly’s location.”
Considering that was a secret known only to the Assembly and their aides, I knew he was bestowing an honor on us… if I’d given a damn about that, of course.
“Thank you, Father,” I told him formally.
He dipped his chin, but his gaze was still on Gabriella, to the point that I backed off, drawing Riel with me.
As my father and her grandparents spoke, she twisted in my arms and lifted hers to twine around my neck.
“It’s time, Seph,” she murmured, a twinkle in her eye that had me forgetting about the others in the room.
“It is?” I rasped in surprise. Sol, I’d been waiting for this since the battalion and AFata had bludgeoned their way into my Claiming, shit, since way before then, but I’d thought there’d be other tasks to fulfil, something else to interrupt…
“You’re mine,” she breathed, invading my thoughts, “and it’s time I showed you that.”
❖
Riel
It was weird.
Shit was going to hit the fan soon, and yet, there was a lightness to my heart. A buoyancy which told me that I was on the right path.
Sure, I didn’t know how I was on this path, but it didn’t matter. I was taking steps in the right direction, and I had the right people at my side.
My Virgo included.
I grinned back at him as I tugged him down the narrow, low hall and down into one of the two tiny bedrooms on the property.
As I glanced around the grim interior, I had to admit, and not for the first time since visiting the finca, that it made my home back in Miami look glamorous—which was really saying something.
Shoving thoughts of the family home aside, because now really wasn’t the time for that, I squealed as I launched myself onto the bed and with starfish arms and legs, bounced once, twice, and a third time.
“Sexy, Riel. Sexy,” Seph commented, but I heard the laughter in his voice and tilted my head forward to grin at him.
“You know it’s true.”
“Anything that makes your tits jiggle like that has to be sexy,” he retorted, folding his arms as he hitched his shoulder and leaned against the doorjamb.
Sexy was him at that moment.
Sol, he looked like walking sin. His cornflower blue eyes seemed to glimmer gold as he stared at me, and the sharp angles of his cheekbones and jaw were like stone even as they made up a face that could be described as pretty.
His lush mouth was tipped up at the edges in a smile, and the way the corners of his eyes crinkled just made me feel connected to him.
It was such a private, knowing look. One that we wouldn’t have shared not even a month ago. So much had happened in such a short space of time, yet here we were in a room that neither of us had known existed, a gazillion miles away from Eight Wings, and walking down a completely different route to the one he, and the rest of my Virgo, had been on at the beginning of the semester.
A part of me, the human female part, wanted to know if he had regrets. With each step I took down this path, I was leading us further and further away from the Academy, and yet… he was still here. Looking at me like that. Standing there as though he had all the time in the world when I knew, point blank, it had to be eating at him that he hadn’t been Claimed.
The other part of me, the one that wasn’t a human female with issues, recognized that something big was going to go down when my third and final Virgo was Claimed, and the way my heart raced in anticipation was enough to have me crooking my finger at him and beckoning him close.
When he cocked a brow at me, I bit my lip. “You know what you’re inviting, don’t you?”
I smiled at him. “You?”
“I’m not going to stop until you Claim me,” he rasped. “So, be very sure that’s how you want the evening to end.”
He jerked forward when Daniel shoved him deeper into the room. “There’s a line out here just waiting to get in, dumbass.”
Seph grunted as he stepped deeper inside with Dan and Matt following him. Matt shut the door behind him, closing me into this tight space with my males.
Ugh. They were so gorgeous together. One so pretty, the other so handsome, and the final one so frickin’ fine that I had a whole trio of hunks to salivate over.
I must have been a very good girl in a past life.
With another nibble of my bottom lip, I cast a spell and dispersed with my clothes. Sure, I wasn’t exactly playing hard to get, but Seph had been waiting all day! We’d been in negotiations for hours, he’d even met my family, all while my Claim was burning its way into Dan and Matt’s systems while he was out in the cold.
Well, no longer.
I was about to make it up to my final Virgo and then some.
He sucked in a breath at the sight of me on the white cotton sheets that covered the bed. There was no comforter now, just a sheet, and with the lackadaisica
l fan that spread sticky hot air around the room, there was a sultriness to the moment that I knew I’d never forget.
As he willed his clothes away, he climbed onto the bed and crawled toward me. The move was pure predator. If I’d had somewhere to go other than the headboard, I’d have let him chase me, would have played. But now wasn’t the time.
A switch had been flipped in his head, and the Virgo in him was out and ready to party.
Good thing I was down for a wild night too.
He didn’t stop until he crawled over me, until his face was hovering above mine, until his body covered me. His hands rested on either side of my head, and he waited there, almost in a plank pose, as he hovered above me, looking down at me as though I were the sun and the moon to him.
Sol, maybe I was. I knew he was that to me.
When he sucked in a deep breath and closed his eyes, I knew he was savoring my scent. Licking my lips at the sight, I cast a quick look at my other Virgo and saw they were standing sentinel at the door. Their hungry eyes were watching every move we made, and I knew, with anyone else, it would have felt super creepy to have them watching, but this? They were keeping guard. They were protecting this moment, Seph’s right to take me and have me make him mine.
My smile was shaky when he opened his eyes and looked at me, his heart buried deep in them. It was too soon for love, that much was obvious. We were still learning one another, still getting to know each other’s quirks. And yet, it was close. So close. I could feel it hovering in the near distance, almost like it was waiting for me to reach out and grab it.
Weirdly enough, I was hesitant to do so. Something like this couldn’t be grabbed. It took time and patience. For the moment, the Claim was enough for me. It didn’t matter how much time I had left on this realm, it would be enough. They would always be more than I ever expected, and that was the truth.
When he dipped down, jerking me from my thoughts, I jolted in surprise, then moaned when his tongue popped out and trailed over the curve of my jaw, down my throat, and along to the ‘V’ of my collarbone. When he moved up the other side, I groaned as he bit me hard enough to sting, then sucked down. Knowing he was leaving me with a hickey, I was well aware I should have shoved him off me, but I didn’t want to. Didn’t need to.
I was one of those weirdo women who loved to be bitten. Who loved the visual reminders of sex and intimacy. Throughout the day, I’d look at them and be transported back to the moment when they’d happened, and that had been before sex meant anything to me.
Now?
When I thought about seeing the marks and being reminded of this exact minute?
Sol.
I instantly spread my legs and arched up to cup his hips with my thighs. When I hauled him down, I heard Matt and Dan chuckle a little, but I ignored them. My focus was on Seph now, and he was all I saw.
As I stared into his eyes, I leaned up and nipped his bottom lip. A growl escaped him, a deep, rumbly one that seemed to vibrate through my body. I felt it deep in my core, right where I was supposed to, and the second it resonated with me on a base level, I felt the slick gather.
With a shudder, I whispered, “Are you mine, Joseph?”
His lips curved. “I was born to be yours.”
If they weren’t words made to make a woman whimper, I didn’t know what was.
Leaning up again, this time to lick that smile of his, I whispered, “You know what that means, don’t you?”
“That you’re mine too?” His cocky grin had my nails digging into his bare back. He rocked, pushing his dick down against my sex in response to the movement, and I moaned, loving the glide of his shaft through my already wet pussy.
“Always,” I breathed back, meaning it, knowing it to be true. Everything that made me me resonated with everything in him. I was made to be his, made to be theirs. I’d just never known it… until now.
Reaching down between us, I grabbed his cock. He tilted his ass back and up, and I took advantage. Rubbing his dick in my palm, I peered down between us when he pushed higher so I could touch him better. He wasn’t being all growly, not as much as I’d expected, not like Dan and Matt had been earlier, but I wasn’t disappointed, not if it meant I could touch him this way.
With the two inches of air separating us, I used that precious space to arch my pelvis and tap the tip of his shaft against my clit. I loved that. The visual in porn always blew my mind, and seeing it in the flesh with his dick and my pussy? Definitely mind-blowing, except it rewrote the definition of the term and gave it a whole new subsection.
Licking my lips again, this time with hunger, I stroked his shaft down until the tip was at my center. A part of me wanted to use his cock to get off, to rub my clit until I was begging him for more, but I liked this sense of control. Up until tonight, I’d felt like I was being ravaged, pinned down, held down, taken and claimed in their own way.
Tonight was different.
Delicious. Dark. Decadent.
I moaned as his thick tip pierced me, and when he just stayed there, motionless, I used my heels to try to get him to move. No matter how hard I dug into his ass, he wouldn’t budge.
“Jerk!” I exclaimed on a grunt, pissed even more when he laughed at me.
“Who’s in control here?”
“I’m doing the Claiming,” I pouted.
“Who owns you, Riel?” he rasped, his voice suddenly like silk being dragged over gravel.
“You do. My Virgo does.”
His smile hit his eyes, along with a fire that threatened to scorch me. “Exactly. I do.” With those words, he thrust into me hard and fast. Hard enough to make me scream, fast enough to make me cream.
He stayed there, unmoving, letting me feel his thickness, letting me absorb his presence. Panting, I tried to get my breath, but he’d taken me by surprise and I was still reeling, my pussy fluttering anxiously around the invader it wanted but was still taken aback by—yes, pussies could totally be taken aback when a Fae Virgo male decided to plunge into you without warning.
I dragged my nails down his spine, making sure to leave marks for the morning. I wanted him covered in them, tagged in my ownership.
As I dug the tips into the base of his spine, just above his ass, I whispered, “Are you going to move?”
Rocking my hips to urge him on, I clasped him tighter too. Fluttering the muscles around him as I tried to get him to shift, to buck into me, to fuck me as I needed.
“I never expected you,” he breathed, looking deep into my eyes. “I couldn’t have expected you, because you were everything I didn’t know I wanted.” His lips twitched into a smirk. “I’ve never been so glad to be wrong.”
Before I could reply, before he could say another word, he pressed his mouth to mine. I parted my lips instantly, letting him in, welcoming him, and clinging to him as he began to thrust, slow and deep at first. Tiny twitches of his hips that made me feel him all the way in my core. Then long retreats that had him almost leaving me before plunging in hard and fast yet again.
As he dragged me up the mountainside, taking me to my peak, I tore my mouth from his and tipped my head back. I needed the space, needed the moment to catch my breath. He bowed over me, his lips kissing my throat once more, and the urge was there—just as it had been earlier.
I needed his taste in my mouth. His pure essence.
My nails scraped up his back before settling at his shoulders where I dug in deep. He hissed, and jerked a little in surprise at the move, but before he could pull away, I dipped down and pressed my teeth to the marks.
The taste of him exploded on my tongue. Sweet Sol, it was like I could taste his personality as I absorbed his flavor. It wasn’t the first time I’d tasted it, but this way it didn’t taste of iron or that odd metallic tang that came when you sucked a cut on your finger.
This had character. A body, almost. Like a fine wine, rich in flavor and smoky with it.
As I sucked, I moaned as he began to thrust into me. The time for toying with me,
teasing me, was gone, and I’d never been happier for that.
When he dragged me toward my orgasm, all I could taste was him. I wasn’t even focused on my pleasure, just his, just him.
He was right.
I’d never expected him, them. Yet here they were.
Changing my life, one day at a time.
Nine
Riel
A soft chuckle jerked me from my slumber. It was raspy, deep, and so weirdly unique that I both recognized it and didn’t.
It was warm, reminiscent of piping hot spiced cider on a cold winter’s day, and it had a similar effect on me.
When I opened my eyes to that all-consuming darkness, I didn’t fret. That laugh wouldn’t let me. That laugh told me all was well, told me that I was safe and cosseted even if I didn’t register where I was.
“Mija, so soon you forget about me.” A tsking sound. “After we met so recently.”
The voice, tinged with the huskiness of a lifelong tobacco smoker, imbued with the lilting rhythm of a Latina, was amused enough for me to blink. Of course, I saw nothing. There was nothing to see in such Stygian gloom.
The darkness, more than the voice, brought the memory back to me. It was only a few days ago, barely any time at all for me as I’d been unconscious throughout most of the hours that separated our initial meeting, but it felt like a lifetime since I’d last encountered such a vacuum of space.
“Tatarabuela?” I guessed, wincing as I sat up. My skin felt overheated as it connected with whatever it was I laid upon. I felt hypersensitive, the very hairs on my body seeming to house a million nerve endings, each one sending the message that something was different, I was different.
“Sí, it is I.” That soft, raspy laugh made another appearance. It wasn’t delicate, wasn’t elegant. It was wholesome and full. And I knew it was nuts, but I could only compare it to a consommé, so clear and pure, fragrant with flavors but the exact opposite of a hearty and warming stew.
One so gentle. The other earthy.
Finally Faeling: An Eight Wings Academy Novel: Book Three Page 13
