I look up and find Xander standing several feet from me, watching me with raw need in his dark eyes. I smile and tilt my head crooking my finger.
“Goddamn, sweetheart. You’re killing me here.”
But he’s by my side in two steps, his hands cupping my head as he captures my lips with his own. It’s just as novel of an experience as it was kissing Nico. No magic, no thoughts. Just pure, unbridled desire.
It overwhelms me, my senses spiraling out of control as I give myself over to my body’s demands.
“Yes…” I moan, wanting more and more. The feeling of physical sensations hitting me everywhere at once sends me to a plane of existence I didn’t know existed. I seriously think I could fuck all of them right here in the middle of the woods.
Then a blinding light suddenly shines on us from behind, and we all break apart, caught off guard, ripped back to reality. I lose my balance and stumble as I turn around, but Killian is there to catch me, his strong arms coming around me as I fall against his chest.
“Drew! Is that you?” The voice floats through the blinding light from the direction of the cabin.
My heart beats double-time as adrenaline courses through my veins. But it’s just Drew’s friend who arranged the safehouse for us. God, what did he just witness when that light came on?
I hold my fingers to my lips but can’t suppress the giggle. Looking up at Killian, I find him grinning as well.
“My, my. Aren’t you the little vixen?”
Shit…it sure seems like it these days. I’m a far cry from the inexperienced virgin I used to be. Maybe I do have a little vixen in me just waiting to come out. Especially when I realize that not only are all three of my guardians and Drew all sporting majorly impressive hard-ons—so is Killian.
I look up at him and bite my lip. “Maybe I am.”
But there’s no time to find out what this new flare of attraction is between Killian and myself because Drew’s friend is now bounding across the grass, coming into the light and standing before the six of us with a welcoming smile on his face.
“You made it. Come on, come inside.”
I try to rein in my out-of-control horniness. Taking a deep breath, I remind myself I can’t exactly meet Drew’s friend for the first time and then waltz into his house to get it on with five guys. No matter how much I might want to.
I mean, even if it is semi-acceptable in the magical world for me to have more than one man, it’s still unconventional. In the human world? Yeah…not quite. We’ll be falling into bed alright, but it looks like for tonight it’s just to get some sleep.
I look around at my five men and press my lips together to keep from laughing. I wonder what they’re thinking right now. There’s no way in hell Drew’s friend doesn’t notice how all five of their pants look like they might suddenly rip right open.
As we follow the man inside his cabin, I’m a little disappointed to see it’s just one big open room and what looks like a bedroom in the back—likely Drew’s friend’s room. Yep. Any chance at taking this where it was headed is gone for now.
But there’s always tomorrow.
Because tomorrow we reach our destination and collect the stones. And that will certainly be cause for celebration.
Nico
The train chugs along, picking up speed as I clasp Rory’s hand in mine and pull her onto it. Even after these weeks on the run, her skin is somehow so soft and smooth. If it wasn’t for the markings on her palms and the power that radiates so brilliantly from her core, I’d still say she was magic. No woman has any business looking that good in an oversized jacket and a pair of rip-kneed jeans—but there Rory is, placing a sweet little warm-lipped kiss on my cheek and purring, “Thank you, Nico,” in a way that makes my cock throb so hard that my heart skips a beat.
No one in their right mind hops a Regime train through the countryside if they can help it, but as the rest of our party lugs themselves from the edge of the woods after our hour-long trek from the safehouse and hoists themselves into the boxcar, it’s obvious that we’ve all left our right minds far behind us.
What’s there to say? We’re men in love—and men in love with Rory Bright can be convinced to do so many ill-advisable things. Ryker, Xander, even her pet human and tag-along traveler—she’s got us all twisted around her pretty fingers and I’m not sure she even realizes it.
That’s the worst part, I think. The women I grew up around would take a love like this and use it to fucking devour men like us. But Rory is all heart, no agenda. She tells us what she wants so stubbornly and so certainly that we’ve got no choice but to nod our heads and follow her along on whatever harebrained endeavor she’s set her soul on next.
“It’s empty,” Rory comments, looking around the boxcar with a puzzled scowl.
“’Course it is, love,” I tell her. “The city has no exports—and even if it did, the Regime wouldn’t be sending them out here.”
“Then why send a train out at all?”
Ryker grunts, crossing his arms over his chest. “No exports—but plenty of imports. From my lands, mostly.” He takes a seat in the corner of the boxcar, his behemoth body making the wood slats underfoot tremble beneath his weight. “The train goes out of the city empty, but you can bet your sweet ass it comes back in filled to the brim with stolen supplies, little witch.”
Rory curls up beside Ryker and smooths down his troubled brow.
“It has to be a little exciting, at least, doesn’t it?” She smiles at him, tired but serene. “Going home?”
And that melts even Ryker’s snarling bear of a heart.
“With you along with me, it does, little witch.” He puts his arm around her, and I feel her relax against him. He makes her feel safe—secure and treasured. It’s all any man can ask for the woman that he loves. “I’ll show you every boulder and stream of it.” Desire rises up off of Ryker like steam as an idea strikes him and he lowers his voice to an audible, sensual growl. “Then I’ll take you in the black earth beneath the moonlight with my teeth on your neck.”
Rory blushes and giggles at that. Meanwhile, waves of jealousy flash out from the rest of us like uncaged lightning. Drew, who’s obviously already been between Rory’s thighs whether he had any right to or not, burns the hottest at Ryker’s comment, but Xander isn’t far behind. Even Killian perks up and scoffs at the thought of Rory being taken by Ryker, though it’s anyone’s guess as to why.
Rory’s own reaction—hot pink wanting, the little slick of her tongue over her lower lip—tells me that she’s already had Ryker in a carnal sense as well.
It only fazes me a little, though, and for only the most understandable reasons. It’s not that I can’t stand the thought of my Rory taking pleasure from another man—on the contrary, I’m glad she’s being kept satisfied.
But from that moment on, my will is set—the next time Rory finds herself wanting, it’s not going to be the vargr’s body she goes running to.
It’s going to be mine.
I press her a little with my own desire for her—a little reminder that Ryker isn’t the only one who wants his teeth on her neck. And the things she sends back to me—the soft parting of her lips, a little moan here, a gasp there…
By the time I sit down on the other side of her, even Ryker can tell that her attention is now split. I return his scowl with a friendly smile, though. With three guardians, a pet human and a hanger-on traveler at Rory’s side—and with Rory looking the way that Rory does—he’s going to have to learn how to share just as much as the rest of us.
“How far off is your little hidey hole, Ryker?” I ask him conversationally.
If you need someone to hold onto something, you give it to a vargr—or at least, that’s what I’ve always been told. Maybe it’s because their ancestors spent too much time sharing headspace with the chipmunks and the squirrels—or maybe they’re just a bunch of protectionist, territorial fucks by nature. Whoever entrusted Killian’s traveling stones with the vargr couldn’t have
chosen a safer place for them, wherever they are.
“A few hours hike off of the last stop,” Ryker grunts, shifting Rory protectively against his side. “Then there will be the protections on it to dismantle, of course.”
“Protections? Like magic?” There’s excitement in Rory’s voice—she’s always so damn eager to learn.
“Exactly like magic. No vargr would hide something without placing some safeguards on it first. But between the five of us, we’ll make quick work of those, don’t you worry,” Ryker reassures her. “It’s the hike that will get you. Hope your little feet have finished breaking in those hiking boots, little witch.”
Rory smiles, teasing and coy. “I’m sure if they haven’t, you’ll just piggyback me there, won’t you?”
“Perhaps. For a price.” Ryker winks at her, and I’m not sure he’s joking.
Smug prick.
As far as the hike goes, Ryker turns out to be right. It’s uphill all the way there on a path riddled with jagged rocks and uneven ground. The birds all sing peacefully overhead, but the rest of us—save for Ryker, of course—can sense how positively out of our element we are.
Stamina has never been my problem. No, it’s the damned outdoors that I’m taking umbrage with. Give me a nice, flat track, a boxing ring or a bedroom, and I can go for hours. But out here in the so-called great outdoors, I’m feeling every bit the city boy that I’ve always been.
“Tiring out, Arendale?” Rory’s roughneck, Iver, seems to be amused by the way I’m scowling at every rock, ridge and blade of grass that crosses my path, because Rory’s roughneck Iver is a special brand of asshole.
“Just bad vibes in this place.” I shake my head and inhale the air around us. There’s a lingering…a something hanging in the air. Like the feeling that you’re tumbling through the mattress as you fall asleep.
“Bad vibes my ass,” Ryker calls over his shoulder. “You feel any bad vibes, little witch?”
Rory yawns, arms draped around Ryker’s neck and legs squeezed around his middle. She gives me an apologetic shrug. “No, but I’m not really having to hike this.” She smiles at me teasingly. “Maybe you’re just tired, Nico.”
“Let us know if you need someone to carry you as well, Arendale.” Xander brushes past me, doubling his pace to catch up to Rory as she’s carried along by Ryker’s massive strides. They exchange words that I can’t quite hear—but I can feel the way Rory warms hesitantly even to our resident turncoat. She has a special smile that she smiles only for him, same as she has for each of us.
Maybe she’d be smiling that smile for me right now, I suppose, if I wasn’t so caught up in how deep my boots are scraping the backs of my ankles and how strangely the air hangs around us, empty and thin.
“You’re not crazy. I feel it too.” I startle at the sound of Killian’s voice—to be honest, I nearly forgot the fucker was even with us for a moment. His entire aura is just as empty and thin as the air is—which makes him hard for even me to track. I’ve heard that travelers can be like that—especially the ones who’ve spent a long time in the past.
I don’t know Killian’s story, and I don’t know that I want to know it. To be the only traveler left after the Regime’s rise—and previously a loyal servant of the Warden of Aisling, for that matter—I can only imagine the things that he had to do to prove that loyalty.
But at least there’s one person among us who doesn’t just think I’m having a whinge over the fucking vibes.
“Here.” Ryker brings us to the entrance of a cave at the top of the small mountain we’ve just scaled. Rory hops down off his back and he uses a massive hand to push aside a thick curtain of dark green vines.
As he moves them, something emerald and smoke-like breathes out of the cave’s mouth. It pours and pools all around us, prickling skin and sending shivers of cold down everyone’s spines.
“Well, that’s…odd.” Ryker’s gaze follows the smoke as it trails off and dissipates on the wind.
“Is it…not supposed to do that?” Rory asks, concern in her brow.
“It’s not,” Ryker confirms. He waves his hand through the entrance, bracing for resistance and meeting none. “There was a spell on this cave that should have sent anyone who tried to enter bouncing back about twenty feet or so while shattering every bone in their body.”
“It’s as if someone broke the spell then…hastily reconstructed it. Or, at least, a semblance of it. Badly.” Xander sounds impressed.
“This doesn’t bode well,” Killian says, grim.
Though I don’t say so, I’m inclined to agree.
I just don’t want to have to admit why.
“No way through but forward,” Ryker says with a shrug. “If someone broke this trap, I’m sure the next trap broke them right back.” He takes a step, then pauses and turns. “And Rory?”
“Yes, Ryker?” she replies, fluttering those long, thick lashes of hers.
“Stay behind me—I mean it. It’s dangerous in here.”
“Okay, Ryker.” But even as she says it, Rory’s green eyes are peering into the dark behind Ryker like it might be full of a great new adventure for her.
“Rory,” Ryker warns again. “No running ahead. No putting yourself in danger. Seriously.”
“Is that an order?” she asks, tucking her hands behind her back and biting her lip.
Fuck’s sake. Someone needs to fuck this little minx soon—and good. Preferably, that someone will be me, but at this rate, she’s going to become intolerably sexy if something doesn’t change fast.
“Yes,” Ryker tells her in all seriousness. “And if you disobey me, I’m not going to be nice and spank you like you want me to, either.”
“Well, fuck then,” Rory swears.
Fuck indeed, love.
One by one, we each follow Ryker into the dark.
Rory sticks close to Ryker all the way in, using the glowing markings on her palms to light the way. As she does, the markings on our chest’s—Ryker’s, Xander’s and mine—glow too, bathing our little party in a soft, soothing white. I take up rear, watching carefully as Rory obeys Ryker’s order. She never passes him in the tunnel, never runs ahead or questions his pace.
Not that it matters. Twenty feet in, another wall of emerald smoke dissipates as we reach it. As does the next. As does the one after that.
“Someone’s fucked with this,” Ryker says after the fourth would-be trap turns to smoke at his approach.
Then, the fucker disobeys his own orders and goes barreling ahead, with Rory running along on her tiny feet just behind.
The others follow at a more cautious pace—it’s obvious that whatever protections were supposed to be on this place are there no longer. But me—no, I stick behind.
I examine the areas that the dummy spells have been erected, searching the traces of magic that linger there, reading the emotions that hang in the air behind the group and filtering them out, one by one.
Ryker’s frustration. Rory’s excitement. Xander’s cautious annoyance. Drew’s bravado. Finally, Killian’s worry—all of them, I taste for myself and let go of.
Their discarded feelings aren’t what I’m searching for here. No, I know exactly what I’m looking for once I’ve blurred out everything else: the taste of baked apple pie on my tongue and the smug sense of satisfaction felt when a dirty job has been well done—or at the very least, sufficiently half-assed.
I find it almost instantly. Emotions linger in some places longer than others—in airports and train stations, they come and go as quickly as the planes and trains themselves. But here in this tunnel, the path is not so well traveled.
And though the emotion is faint, obviously having been left there years and years ago, it’s still there.
The taste of tart apple, brown sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon encased in a butter crust, with that satisfied smugness mixed in between like a secret ingredient in Nana’s cookbook.
Only then do I jog ahead to find Ryker furiously lifting a small boulder and c
hucking it across the expanse of a small cavern like it’s no more than a skipping stone.
It doesn’t take an empath to tell that the prognosis is grim—it’s written all over every single face present.
“The stones are gone,” Killian says distantly. His words seem to hold more meaning than they ought to—mysterious fucker he’s always been. “They’re gone.”
“But who would have taken them?” Rory asks, peeking around all the little nooks and crannies of the cave as though perhaps a little bag of priceless gems could have been somehow overlooked.
If anyone else would have asked, I might have held my tongue. I might have kept my damn mouth shut and let them go on wondering until the ends of time.
But it’s Rory who asked. And it’s Rory who will get her answer…though it might not be one that she likes.
“I know who took your stones, love,” I call out to her.
Like magic, the words summon her immediately to my side.
“Really, Nico? You do?”
There’s so much excitement in her voice—and I wish there wasn’t. Everyone else’s ears are perked up to the little tidbit of information I’m about to divulge as well—even Ryker, shoulders still heaving and steam snorting out of his nose like a bull seeing red. But Rory—Rory looks up at me like I just told her I could pluck the moon from the sky and give it to her on a silver chain.
She looks up at me with those pretty green eyes of hers, and just like that, it’s all over.
“I do,” I confess, feeling her hands fold gratefully against my chest. “I know who took them, love. I know for sure.”
“Then let’s go find the fucker,” Ryker growls. “And let’s make him regret the day he was born.”
I grimace, knowing that what comes next won’t play well at all. “That won’t be quite so easy, I’m afraid.”
“And why the fuck not?” Ryker’s rage is so boiling hot that if he was a pot of tea on the stove, he’d be whistling like mad right now.
Emerald Vows: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (Marked Souls Book 3) Page 2
