My disappointment must have shown, because he paused halfway across the tub, already starting to reach for me. He lingered for a second, then closed the distance more slowly.
“I can’t give you that yet, Deva, and you have no idea how sorry I am. But I can tell you one thing.”
He went to his knees in front of me, only a scant few inches between us, our eyes level. He hooked a hand behind my neck and tilted my head back, staring into my eyes.
“I have never wanted another woman as much as I want you. Right now, that’s enough for me to know there’s truth to this quest of ours. I belong with you. Will you take me as I am for now?”
I combed my wet fingers through the hair at his temples, my disappointment fading. I didn’t have all of him yet, but I had everything he could give me.
“Yes.”
Heat blazed in his eyes and he slipped an arm around my waist, hauling me toward him through the water. I gasped and hooked my legs around his hips and my arms around his neck, rejoicing at the sensation of his lips against my throat. He kissed his way up my neck to my ear.
“I didn’t give you enough of this, did I?” he asked. “How many times did we make love?”
“A few, but only for one night,” I said, breathless from the unaccustomed closeness of our naked bodies.
“I want to make you come a hundred times, until the sound of you screaming my name is imprinted on my mind so deep I’ll never forget you again. I think that was my mistake all along.”
I bit my lower lip, my entire body buzzing at his promise. “What about them?” I asked.
Llyr had just undressed and quietly stepped into the tub behind Ozzie. I was hyperaware of the other four sets of eyes on us, and the collective bubbles of their auras flaring with brilliant red arousal.
“They’ve had you all this time,” Ozzie said. “They can wait until I’m done.”
“As long as you’re cool with us staying put,” Keagan said.
My mates’ desire was palpable through our bonds, but none of them made a move. Beneath the water, Ozzie slid his hands down to cup my ass and pull me tighter against him. His cock was a hard ridge of thick, hot flesh between us, and I rested my forearms on his shoulders, fingers clasped behind his head as I leveraged myself slowly up, drawing out the tight friction of my core against his shaft.
His eyes blazed sky-blue as I arched, baring my throat for his mouth. He took the invitation, pressing his lips to my skin, biting and sucking his way down until he reached my breasts.
He took one nipple between his teeth, and a charge of pleasure shot through me as he toyed with it. I loved this unshackled version of him, despite the lack of depth to his emotions. He was less restrained, which satisfied my deep need for his attention that had been starved for so long.
“You’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen, Deva. I was a fool not to pin you down.”
He moved his mouth to my other breast, and through my haze of pleasure, I managed to respond. “You had good reasons.”
He hummed around my nipple, cupping my other breast in his hand and teasing his thumb across the tip. I rocked my hips against his erection, enjoying the rise and fall of the desire pooling hotter in my core.
“Bullshit. I was a coward, plain and simple.”
It was true that the reason Ozzie had avoided me all along had everything to do with his fear of Fate’s wrath, but I would only confirm his cowardice to this version of him if I said so.
It wasn’t an unfounded fear, not after the stories he’d shared of his grandmother’s ordeal. But this Ozzie didn’t know that fear, and I liked how decisive he was about laughing at it. It made me want him even more.
I lifted higher, dislodging his mouth from my nipple and gripping his shoulders. When his cock slipped between my legs, he dropped his hands to my ass again, then lower to caress my outer folds. His pupils expanded and he let out a low rumble of interest.
“You’re so fucking wet. Are you ready for my dick?”
I exhaled a soft laugh. This Ozzie was so very different, yet still the same. “Yes. Fuck me, please.”
Taking himself in hand, he rubbed his tip against my clit before aiming it unerringly at my center. I bit my lip as I sank down, engulfing him as slowly as possible. Sure, we’d already fucked the night before, but now things were different. I wanted him to feel what it meant to make love. He might not have been able to give that to me yet, but I could most definitely make love to him.
I kept my gaze fixed on his, my hands bracketing his jaw as I took him all the way inside me. My mouth fell open with a gasp when he was fully seated, and a rush of fresh heat flooded me as I began to move.
Perhaps it was the temperature of the tub, or the other gazes fixed on us, but this time, the pleasure rocketed through me faster than ever, and it was all I could do to suppress a fast climax. I wanted it to last a little longer. I wanted to come with him.
He must have sensed the moment I became overwhelmed, because he gripped my hips on a downstroke and forced me to hold still.
“I’m not going anywhere. Take your time.”
Holding my hip with one hand, he lifted his other to my breast and stroked my nipple in slow circles. The rhythmic touch both calmed and aroused me further, but my heartbeat slowed enough for me to catch my breath, and the unbearable swell of pleasure between my thighs subsided to a low, steady pulse.
I heard a low groan and a deep murmur of approval from my left when I began moving again, and from the corner of my eye, I saw Keagan shift positions, sinking a little deeper into the water. He had one arm braced on the edge of the tub, but the other was beneath the surface. The bubbling jets obscured whatever he was doing, but I guessed he was stroking himself while he watched us. I bit my lip and smiled.
Ozzie smiled back. “Yeah, they can’t keep their eyes off you. I want to watch them all have you when I’m finished. Look at them.”
He touched my chin and I turned my head, first to Keagan, whose torso glistened, droplets of water beading in the dark curls on his chest. His upper arm flexed with the movements of his hand and his heated gaze fixed on my face.
“I’m holding out for you, princess,” he rumbled.
Then I looked at Rohan on my other side, who gave me a slow smile. He wasn’t touching himself, but his gaze told me everything.
“I’m dying to watch you come, baby,” he said, the words not spoken, but reverberating in my mind.
Behind Ozzie, Llyr sat on the edge of the tub, his feet dangling in the water. He looked like he was waiting his turn, his patience tested with every second I drew this out. A small tremor fluttered my insides at the thought of how he would take me once it was his turn. He’d be rough but thorough, and I involuntarily clenched around Ozzie’s cock at the thought, making him grunt and squeeze my hip.
That left Bodhi, and I craned my neck, finding him behind me. He was also sitting on the lip of the tub, flushed with his cock held loosely in his hand.
“Don’t stop for me, angel,” he said, smiling and licking his lips.
Ozzie urged me to move again and I did, my gaze lingering on Bodhi as I lifted my hips once more. I turned to face Ozzie on the downstroke and leaned in, capturing his mouth in a kiss that turned ravenous the second he thrust into me. He slipped his hands up my back, holding me tight as we kissed and fucked, the water sloshing violently around us.
My pleasure built swiftly then, and it only took a brief stroke of his fingers against my clit before I was flying. I arched, bucking my hips, my voice carrying my climax into the wind gusting around us. It was a harsh, chilly wind, unlike the warm breeze when we’d climbed into the tub, but it felt good on my heated skin.
I unfurled my body and let my torso float on the surface of the water as Ozzie rose, spreading my thighs and plunging into me for a few more strokes as he came. He buried himself deep one last time and held, standing above me with my legs wrapped around his hips, his chest heaving and his cock twitching deliciously.
I wished I could say I hadn’t noticed what was missing, but that would have been a lie. He felt amazing—every bit as amazing as the first time we’d been together. But the power that flooded me from him was nothing more than the usual exchange of magic during sex.
I’d experienced a soul gift five times already, so I knew how it felt. I also knew how it felt to have one of those gifts ripped away. I buried my twinge of disappointment to avoid letting him see it, but he was already sliding out of me and falling back into the water onto one of the contoured benches beneath the surface.
A pair of hands slid beneath my armpits and pulled me backward. A moment later, I found myself wrapped in Bodhi’s embrace, his chest flush with my back.
“My turn,” he said.
I hooked an arm behind his head and turned far enough to kiss him, pushing against the floor of the tub to follow him back to the edge. I started to turn all the way, but he held me still, releasing my mouth and shaking his head.
“No. I want to share you with the others.”
He snaked his arms around me, helping me onto his lap where he sat just out of the water. His cock pressed hotly against my ass and he dropped his mouth to my neck, groaning softly into my ear. “Jesus I need to be inside you now.”
That was an easy enough request to grant. I lifted and tilted my hips, then sank down, sighing at the wonderful sensation of his thick cock gliding into me. He slid his hands around and cupped my breasts, thumbing my nipples as I began to move.
My eyelids fluttered closed at the fresh surge of ecstasy he invoked, and when I opened them, three big, muscular bodies were crowding in around us.
Rohan dropped to his knees between my spread legs, his dragon tongue snaking out to toy with my swollen clit. I let my head fall back against Bodhi’s shoulder, enjoying the waves of pleasure that flowed through me. Llyr and Keagan bracketed us on either side and I reached out, taking each of their cocks in my hands. They didn’t hesitate to slide their hands in where they could, caressing my shoulders, my breasts, my stomach, and taking turns covering my mouth with theirs in drawn out, hungry kisses that left my lips tender, yet aching for more.
When Bodhi’s climax hit, I joined him quickly, and before I could come down from the high, Rohan pulled me into arms. He settled on the edge of the tub with me astride him while Llyr’s firm, smooth chest pressed against my back.
“Got room for more, sweetness?” he rumbled, stroking his big hands down my back where he cupped my ass and spread me. Rohan lay back on the stone tiles and pulled me with him, my eyes fluttering closed at the shift in angle of his cock inside me.
I let out a moan when Llyr’s fingers stroked over my rear opening, then down to penetrate alongside Rohan’s cock. Sweet Mother, yes.
A moment later, Llyr’s long, straight shaft joined Rohan’s, pushing into me slowly. I clung to Rohan, nails digging into his shoulders at the delicious, tight stretch of the two of them filling me up.
I came again while the pair of them pistoned into me, and lost all sense of boundaries as Llyr’s magic consumed me when his climax hit. Keagan took Llyr’s place, bringing me yet again to a glorious peak before pulling me backward and cradling me in his arms. He laid me flat on the warm stone at the edge of the tub for all my mates, and Ozzie, to take turns either tasting me or fucking me, and I reveled in every ounce of their gifts.
Once again I found myself gazing into Ozzie’s eyes as he hovered above me. His face looked raw and wild as he fucked me for the second time, more desperate than before.
“I wish I knew how,” he said, shaking his head before burying his face in my neck. “I would love you if I could. I promise.”
I wrapped arms and legs around him, pulling him into me as we shared another body-shattering orgasm.
When it was done, he helped me sit up and we melted back into the hot water. Ozzie cradled me in his lap, nuzzling my hair and letting out a murmur of satisfaction as his tension eased.
I still didn’t have a piece of him, and that emptiness twinged, but the ache didn’t bother me as much now as it had before. I had him back. Even if he wasn’t back completely, the part that was here wasn’t going anywhere.
“I missed you so much,” I said. “But I admit, I’m a little afraid of losing this version of you now. Maybe you don’t know how to love me yet, but you are everything else I need. Everything I hoped for that you refused to give me.”
“All but what matters, you mean,” he said, his expression grim.
“This matters too, and I wouldn’t give it up for the world.” I stroked his cheek and kissed him.
The others had all settled back into the water with a chorus of satisfied and weary groans. Ozzie tilted his chin toward them and raised his voice.
“If I fail to give her what she needs after I get my memories back, you all have my permission to kick my ass. Got it?”
Keagan snorted. “Maestro, I wouldn’t have even asked for permission.”
I gave him a perplexed look. “You have to admit, it’s odd. You claim you don’t love me, yet here you are giving me everything the old you refused to give. Everything I wished you would.”
“Honey, one of my mottos—in music and life—has always been fake it till you make it. I guess I’ve gotten really good at faking it.”
17
Ozzie
If I could have stopped time at that moment, I would have. I think the others would have too. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was part of something bigger than myself, something worthwhile. I’d never felt that way before—not with my family, not even in the military.
Even though I believed I could have even more with this group, the fear Deva conveyed so subtly with her words managed to scare me too. I couldn’t love her the way I was—something was fundamentally broken inside me. But she had no such issue loving me, and the other four men clearly loved her, and I knew none of them were faking it.
That she knew I was only pretending, but still wanted to be near me gave me hope. Maybe I could find those lost memories and be worthy of her.
So despite my wish that we could freeze time, there was more to do. We had to go farther back until we hit the memory that struck hard enough to break open whatever was locked away inside me.
A bitter wind blew through, inciting goosebumps to rise across Deva’s bare shoulders. She shivered and I dipped a hand into the hot water, pouring more over her skin. But the mood had already shifted from lethargic, post-sex satisfaction to alertness and determination.
The wind kicked up again, rattling an umbrella collapsed over a nearby table. Something wasn’t right about that wind.
We all went still when the timer for the jets turned off and the surface of the water settled. Steam rising from the tub swirled in a dozen tiny cyclones. My own skin prickled and I held Deva tighter to my body.
I glanced at Llyr, my gaze drawn by our connection. He was the oldest, most powerful member of the group, and his dire look didn’t put me at ease. He stared at the water, seeming to concentrate, and I had a sense that he was working magic of some kind.
The others remained still. Bodhi swallowed, his brows tightening with worry. The intricate tree tattoo on his chest rippled in the wind as if it were real and he idly rubbed his fingertips over the moving branches. These weren’t the Winds causing a magical stir in the air—we’d left those four back in the Haven. Whatever was filling the world with air magic now was something much more sinister. When the sun disappeared behind the horizon and a dark bank of clouds gathered above us, I knew we were in for something seriously fucking scary.
“Get into the house, now!” I yelled, hoisting Deva out of the tub and onto her feet, then scrambling out behind her.
The others lurched up just as the surface of the water iced over, the water dripping off their bodies shattering on the ground.
We made it only halfway before the frigid wind blew through again, slamming us from all sides at once. My skin tightened and my muscles seized, and before I knew it, I was fr
ozen mid-stride with one foot on the ground and the other raised behind me.
Ahead of me, Deva’s plump, round ass was coated in a thin veil of ice, as if she were clad in another see-through outfit from the Haven. She’d stopped moving as well, the dark tendrils of her hair coated in a rime of frost.
The windows of the house trembled in the powerful gusts. Waves rose up off the pool, casting sprays of chlorine-scented water. Behind me, Llyr bellowed, “Show yourself!”
A cyclone of gray mist formed on the surface of the pool, several feet wide and more than twice as tall. I couldn’t move my head, but my eyes tracked its movement across the flagstone patio that stretched between us and the house. The mist grew more opaque as we watched, soon taking on the shape of a man who towered above us.
I struggled to break free before the figure formed completely, but the ice that coated my skin only grew more rigid. What I saw was not a man at all; it was a god, and not one I was particularly happy to see.
Ouranos.
His eyes flashed with lightning that also crackled just beneath his skin like veins of pure energy. He looked over the group while the rest of his body formed, as huge and foreboding as a thunderhead. His hair materialized in a gunmetal cascade to his shoulders, settling into loose waves, and he was shirtless and barefoot, clad only in plain gray pants embroidered with silver thread along the seams and cuffs.
Finally his gaze landed on Deva. His eyes went dark and he lifted a hand, rubbing it over the singular silver strip in his dark beard, then flashing white teeth in a mirthless smile.
“Is this the famed chimera that has Fate all twisted in knots?” He took a step toward Deva. “I find it hard to believe that such a slip of a girl could wield so much power over one of the divine.”
“Leave her alone!” I yelled, straining harder at the icy prison he’d put me in.
Ouranos shifted his gaze to me and frowned. “Who are you to command me? I am your god, fool.” Narrowing his eyes, he tilted his head. “But how did you avoid my curse, little turul? You still have your voice. Do you still have your wings as well?”
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