Finally Faeling: An Eight Wings Academy Novel: Book Three

by Akeroyd, Serena

  “Maybe.” He squinted at me. “You got a problem with that?”

  I sniffed. “Well, if you want me to go numb when you go down on me, then yeah, we’ve got a problem.”

  One thing that hadn’t been foreseen?

  That little ‘Rut’ thing?

  The one that had been triggered then put on hold thanks to my turning into the fucking Redeemer?

  Yup, it hadn’t gone away.

  Ever.

  In most relationships, after twenty years, I knew things got stale. Women sometimes stopped wanting sex, men started getting wandering eyes. Not with us. If they didn’t fuck me every day? Twice a day? I stopped looking like the Redeemer and started looking like a She-Devil.

  “Get that look off your face,” he growled playfully. “You only just came, baby girl.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “That was a quickie.”

  His eyes rounded. “Bullshit. There is no ‘quick’ way to have a foursome. Stop being greedy.”

  “What’s this I hear about being greedy?”

  I sighed with delight as Matt’s dulcet tones slipped into my ear and a deliciously hard cock nudged against my butt.

  The Rut wasn’t exactly how any of us thought it would be. Instead of just being like animals twenty-four-seven, their sex drives were tied to mine. So if I was horny? Their cocks got hard.

  Pure magic.

  The best magic ever, in fact.

  Gaia must have known I’d be a real bitch when my sex drive reached the point of no return, so she’d put a safeguard in. That safeguard involved lots of yummy erections.

  Seriously, their dicks were better than peanut butter cups.

  “She’s horny. Again.”

  “That’s because it’s easier to be horny than it is to be nice to people,” Matt said wryly, making me pull a face.

  “Stop knowing me so well.”

  I felt his smile as he pressed a kiss to my cheek. “Well, that’s a little hard to do. I mean, you’re mine so I was born to read you. I can’t forget what I read.”

  Stupid photographic memory.

  Heaving another sigh, I whispered, “I really am horny, though.”

  “Stop pouting. We’ll take the ache away later. For now, you have to eat turkey, stop being a grouch, and be nice to people you won’t see again for another year.”

  “But that’s a lot to ask!” I whined, hiding a smile when Matt tweaked me on the ass before copping another feel.

  “Which part?” Dan retorted with a laugh.

  “The ‘being nice’ part. I love Seph, guys, but sheesh, his family are dicks.” And mine weren’t that much better.

  Their mutual grimaces said it all, though, when I cast them both looks. There was no denying that truth, and what sucked the worst was the fact we had to come to Landgow to partake in the meal because it was the only place big enough to fit all of us. What with Darwich, Linford, Noa, and Gabriella, as well as my mom and dad, my brothers, their wives, and then their heathen spawn, throw in Dan’s parents, Matt’s mom as his dad had died about eighteen years ago from the pox, and his siblings, then Seph’s horrendous brothers? Sol help me, it was a trying time.

  Genuinely, genuinely, the only person I liked around the table were my Virgo, my kid, Ril, Matt’s grandfather who I might have helped by extending his time on the mortal coil because he was too cool to die, and then my dad.

  That. Was. It.

  Everyone else?

  Yeah, I wasn’t grateful to be eating dinner with them.

  Nope.

  Call me bitter, call me too hard, and say that I held a grudge… whatever.

  The past twenty years of ass-licking and butt-kicking politics had forged me, made me into the woman standing here today because those two decades had been the opposite of easy.

  We’d fought for the peace that was around this table. In fact, my Thanksgiving table was like a bubble, a glance into society as a whole. Thirty years ago, the witches would have told the Fae to go fuck themselves before they could even have taken a seat, and the Fae would have asked the witches and the humans where the next course was because they’d have been the servers.

  Instead of warring over politics, it was one big mash up of races, where the arguments were about who had hogged all the cranberry jelly and the usual BS that families tended to fight over.

  We’d done that.

  This table, the miserable day ahead of me, wasn’t racial. It was about family, character. Personality. I didn’t dislike my in-laws because they were Fae, I just hated them because they were assholes. Simple.

  “Why do I have a hard on?”

  The words came out of nowhere, but they made me snicker because Seph sounded perplexed as all Sol.

  “My dick is literally still wet from the last time you were riding it, Riel. Gaia help us, do the doctors even prescribe Viagra for the Fae?”

  I pouted. “Most people wouldn’t complain about their wives wanting them.”

  “None of us are ‘most people,’ Riel,” he said dryly. “And you more than want us. I swear, you’re starting to strain my dick and I didn’t even know it was possible to get whiplash in your cock.”

  Though the other two snickered, I frowned at him, then turned to glower at them all. “That isn’t funny.”

  “It is,” Dan said around a laugh.

  “Yeah, it is, babe, because he’s right,” Matt retorted with a snicker.

  My lips pursed, but my cheeks grew hot at their amusement. Uneasily, and with my gaze still on the cacophony ahead of me, I fidgeted.

  Was I hornier than usual?

  I mean, I didn’t think I was. I just wanted them.

  Okay, so I wanted them all the time. But not like that aforementioned beast who needed sex twenty-four-seven… Although… Just the thought made my nipples bud and my belly burn.

  A groan escaped Dan. “Stop thinking about sex.” His cock dug into my side, thick and hot and hard and so perfectly ready to ride.

  As slick gathered between my thighs, my brain came to a mental halt.

  Shit.

  Was there something wrong with me?

  “I’ll try,” I mumbled, suddenly feeling guilty. I’d never thought too much sex would be a problem.

  Turns out I was wrong.

  I sensed my guys realized they’d hurt my feelings, but before they could say a word, either in apology or justification, Ril called out, “Riel, girl. Help me to the table.”

  Matt grabbed my arm as he snorted. “Old bastard doesn’t need your help.”

  I pulled away from his grasp, though. “Can I help that I’m his favorite?” I retorted, relieved to have an excuse to get out of here and away from this conversation. That wasn’t something I was used to, either. Most of the time, I couldn’t get close enough to my Virgo!

  I slipped away, aware that they were watching me, and if I punished them by swinging my hips that little bit harder, then so what? They deserved it.

  What kind of man said their wife wanted them too much?

  More than a little pissed now, I stalked over to Ril but my mother grabbed my arm along the way. She had a glass of white wine in her hand, and the sight of that made me want to groan. Shove a little Chardonnay into her and she made sour Altoids look sweet. “You act like a slut when you’re around them.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “They’re my Virgo. How would you like me to behave? Like a frigid bitch with a block of ice up my ass?”

  Luisa’s mouth pursed. “There’s no need for such crudity.”

  “There’s every need.”

  I remembered last Thanksgiving when she’d chided me for getting my tubes tied, and I sought calm and quiet. The last thing we needed was a repeat of that when she’d stormed out, my father chasing after her, because I’d told her opinions were like assholes, and hers was bigger than most.

  Determined not to ruin this Thanksgiving, I sighed, “Ril wants me.”

  “He covets you.” My grandmother tinkled a laugh as she shimmied up beside me. “Luisa,
are you making mischief again?”

  Relieved that she’d saved me from my mother, I cut her a grateful look. My abuela and I didn’t always see eye to eye, and I did hold a grudge against her, enough to always call her Gabriella to her face, but we were a united force against Mama.

  “Yes,” I grumbled, at the same time as my mother blurted out, “No! Of course not.”

  “Apparently I’m too lax around my men,” I informed her grandly.

  She immediately scowled. “They’re her Virgo,” Gabriella repeated, pretty much as I had. “She’s supposed to—”

  “Oh, I knew I’d get no sense of decorum from you! You’re just as bad with those three old perverts.”

  “My three perverts look younger than your husband!” was her instant retort, which drew every ounce of my mother’s attention from me and onto my grandmother—just as she’d intended.

  Taking full advantage of that, I slipped away, shooting my abuela a grateful if apologetic look, one that was received with an amused smile she sent my way.

  That, right there, was my Christmas and birthday present all in one.

  I swore, no matter how much my mother and I tried, we were destined to never get on well.

  Sliding between two of Seph’s brothers who were arguing about the cost of doing business with the witches, a group of kids who smelled like sick—I really didn’t want to know why—and Dan’s parents who were the only ones I actually liked—enough to swerve in and give them a quick hug—I eventually made it to Ril. Who, when he looked at me, cocked a brow.

  “I know being with these asses isn’t great for the digestion, but what’s put you in a snit? I could see it from all the way across the room.”

  I huffed. “Your grandson.”

  He waved a hand. “Husbands do that.”

  “True.” I bent down and helped him up. My control had grown over the years, so I could ease pain and extend life without making someone twenty again. I’d done that with Ril half a decade ago when I’d sensed his time on this realm was drawing to a close.

  Not only would my ever-serious Matt have been devastated, so would I. Ril was sense and sarcasm amid the chaos of our extended family.

  I cut my mates a look, saw they were watching me, and I noticed their concern. That alone had me sighing. Matt hadn’t calmed down over the years, he was still as logical and rational as ever, but he’d been cheerful before I’d derailed things. That I’d taken that rare smile of his and turned it upside down pissed me off because I hated feeling guilty.

  Blowing them a kiss to prove that I wasn’t that mad at them, I focused on Ril who did like to hog me.

  We were in the massive dining hall of Landgow. It was like something from a castle, with its walls lined in armor, oil paintings of hunting dogs that were standing on poor stags they’d just slaughtered, and a hearth you could stand in—if the fire wasn’t burning full blast.

  Well, if you weren’t me, that is.

  I could have walked in there, warmed myself up, and leaped from the flames without a hair on my head harmed.

  Another strange perk to being the Redeemer.

  I couldn’t drown, could grow anything I put into soil and have it flowering in days, and the wind never messed with my curls.

  At the head of the table that served eighty people—yes, eighty people—Noa would sit pride of place now his wife had perished last year and he could return home without casting even more shame on his line, with my grandmother at his side. But, beyond his throne-like chair, and yard after yard of silver cutlery and dishes, there were sofas and armchairs beside the fireplace. That was Ril’s spot, where he watched everything until the butler hit the gong and we all took a seat at the table as dinner was served.

  “Why are you getting up anyway?” I queried. “The meal won’t be ready for a little while.”

  He patted my hand as he tucked my arm in his. “I wanted to talk to you. In the garden.”

  Frowning, I shrugged and said, “Of course.”

  As we headed out of the hall together, Olivia caught my eye and she half danced over to us. “Everything okay, Mommy?”

  “Sure is, baby.” I smiled down at her as I ran a hand over her mop of silken curls. She was the mirror image of me—before the Day of Redemption. All chocolate and espresso, unlike this pansy vanilla version that had overtaken me. I hated that I didn’t look Latina anymore, but my daughter was going to pass on the heritage and then some.

  She beamed a smile at me, revealing two missing spaces where her milk teeth had fallen out a few weeks ago.

  “She’s growing up,” I murmured sadly, watching as she skipped away to partake in the chaos. Sure, I loathed this, but she didn’t. That was pretty much the only thing that made it all bearable.

  “They all do. But you’ll get to see her shine.” He patted my hand. “That’s some consolation.”

  “Is it?” I wasn’t maternal, at all, and I fully admitted that she was a mistake, but Gaia help me, she was the apple of my eye. I’d fucking kill for her, and coming from me? That shit meant something.

  Almost like he was reading my mind, Ril chuckled. “Woe betide the first boy to break her heart. His daddies will only want to castrate him. You’ll want his blood.”

  My jaw clenched. “My thoughts exactly.”

  Another chuckle escaped my grandfather-in-law. “I do like a bloodthirsty woman.”

  Snorting, I grumbled, “Matthew says I need to tone it down or she’ll be single until she’s our age.”

  “Gah, the youth of today. What’s becoming of them? Now it’s all peace and love, when before—”

  “It was war and hatred,” I said dryly, quirking a brow at him. “Don’t go all old school on me. You know as well as I do that things are better now. Especially for you. The vil der Soes aren’t outcasts anymore, are they?”

  Patting my arm, he conceded with a huff. “I suppose things are better.”

  My lips twitched at that ‘concession.’ Moaning old coot.

  The older generations, as expected, were the least content with the status quo but it was tough shit. Things weren’t going to change because they were old dogs refusing to learn new tricks.

  As we wandered out of the festively decorated hall, past a Christmas tree that was twenty feet tall and still didn’t touch the arched ceiling, which was lit up like it was the Eiffel Tower, and moseyed into the grand foyer, I asked, “Why did you want to go out to the yard again?”

  “I want to get away from all the scents.”

  My brow puckered at that. “Huh?”

  “There are too many scents in there. It makes it hard to discern between one smell and another.”

  “Is that supposed to make sense to me?”

  His lips curved in a quiet smile. “Not now. But later? Maybe.”

  * * *

  TWO DAYS LATER

  “That’s impossible.”

  Ril had told me that his nose was better than a bloodhound’s, but Sol help me, my mates could scent my arousal from forty feet away, but they couldn’t tell if I was pregnant?

  “I’m afraid it isn’t,” the cheerful-as-fuck doctor said, beaming a bright grin at me like I was supposed to be happy about this. Sol, all I wanted to do was throat-punch her until that grin died a death.

  “I had my tubes tied,” I ground out, wishing my old doctor hadn’t died because he’d know to be freaked out! I deserved a medical freak-out.

  “No,” my new doctor, who looked about ten, spluttered, “that isn’t possible. Your blood work shows—” She cleared her throat when I glowered at her. “Your hCG levels show you’re at least eighteen weeks pregnant.” More blinking, and this time, she turned white when I carried on glaring at her. “We can have a sonogram to make sure everything is okay in there?”

  “Let’s,” I hissed, and when I looked at the screen twenty minutes later after three nurses had almost fallen over themselves rolling the cart in, I could only gape at the heartbeat that was pounding merrily away in my chest.

 
; I didn’t want more kids. I didn’t. I didn’t like them. They smelled and they got in the way of all the sex I wanted, and they needed to be looked after all the time. Olivia was different. She was cool. She liked reading, never got dirty, and ate fucking spinach and broccoli without complaint.

  What if this one didn’t do any of that?

  And how in Sol’s name did tubes untie themselves?

  Feeling faintly sick, I felt even sicker when, after prodding my belly for a few seconds more, the doctor beamed yet another smile at me and murmured, “Look, she’s a girl.”

  For a second, I thought I was losing it. One girl per generation. That was the rule of the first families, right? That was why my mother had borne a battalion of boys in her hunt for a daughter with more magic than me.

  A chuckle sounded in the surgery. Echoing around the walls in a way I recognized. I’d heard her several times throughout my life, my tatarabuela did like to check up on me from time to time. Usually at momentous occasions like when we’d struck the first Accord between the witch and Fae communities, a charter that set down fair rates for the trade of magic as a commodity, or when we’d celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Day of Redemption, or, even, when the Assembly had finally given in and had allowed me to take one of their ‘seats.’ I’d heard her voice in my head, just as I heard it now, and when her words hit home as she whispered in my mind, I closed my eyes, because fuck…

  “I told you you’d bring change.”

  THE END

  Afterword

  So… take a breath.

  How are we feeling? :D

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