Fate's Fools Box Set

by Bell, Ophelia

  And give in I did—to the raw desire her nature demanded, which gave me permission to explore the limits of my own carnal appetites and show her everything we could have together.

  She will forget, and it is for the best that she does, but I hope that somehow her body remembers what it is capable of experiencing with a partner who adores her as I do. I will demand nothing less of her future lovers than that, because I know if I am going to keep her safe once the war is over and we leave this place, we cannot be together. To seal our bond with a mating ritual would draw Fate’s attention. Deva would become a target, and I cannot allow that to happen.

  She stirs against my side, and my melancholic reverie slips to the back of my mind in favor of the pleasant slide of her thigh across mine, warmth flooding my groin as my cock rouses. Her head shifts against my shoulder and her full lips part. I watch enraptured as sleep falls away from her as seductively as a garment shed in a teasing dance.

  To say I want her again is an understatement. I am consumed by need that perhaps may only be amplified by the certainty that this cannot last, but I see the same need reflected in the spectrum of her eyes. They flare with fire, betraying her fresh hunger.

  She can no doubt read my aura clearly, yet her gaze holds a question. She opens her mouth to speak, but then her cheeks darken with a flush and she bites her lip. I lift an eyebrow and wait, giving her time to find the courage to ask. Her arousal has made my already stiff cock ache.

  “Does it ever end? This wanting? Even when my body feels sated, I still crave more. Not just to join with you, to . . . fuck . . .” Her brows scrunch together as she tries on the new word, and she pauses with a twinkle in her eye and a gorgeous twist of her lips, suggesting an affinity for more salacious language. Then she continues, more earnest.

  “But to touch you in other ways, to look at you, to hear you say my name, to merge our voices in a song. I keep hoping that the next time we make love, I will have had my fill, but it only makes me want you more.”

  Her eyes have become glassy as she speaks and her voice shakes. In the breaths between her words, I hear her regret.

  “Deva,” I say, stroking her cheek and trailing my thumb down to draw it across her lower lip. “I want to make the most of this time we have. Please just focus on the moment. I love you. I will always love you, and wanting each other the way we do is proof of that love. So to answer your question, no . . . it may ebb and flow like the tide, but it will never end.”

  She inhales slowly, and I become fixated on the silent message the air from her lungs carries when she exhales. It’s like a song more beautiful than I could imagine, reflecting the soul-deep bond between us, but it isn’t just my soul she holds a piece of. She has also claimed my heart and my body, and her breath tells me that every hope and fear I have is hers to share.

  “I love you,” she whispers as she leans up and presses her lips to mine. Her desire is like a wild beast that I have only begun to tame, and I worry that I’ve given her too much freedom, encouraged this forward tendency, but I enjoy it too much to rein her in. If her true nature is to want with this much abandon, it’s too beautiful a thing to break.

  But I enjoy being in control too much to let her have her way every time, so when she slides on top of me and begins to rock her hips against my shaft, I give in to my own wild need.

  I sit up, brace my hands at her back, and spin us both. Deva gasps and her eyes widen as I pin her against the silken pillows. Her black hair fans across the silver fabric and her full, round breasts heave. I’m entranced by the ease with which she submits, letting her arms go slack above her head and her bent knees fall wide.

  I brace myself on one hand and graze the fingertips of my other down her arm, over her shoulder, taking my time at her breast to caress the outline, to align my hand with the supple curve and enjoy the soft, warm weight of her against my palm.

  I look deep into her eyes when I pinch her nipple, my cock pulsing when her pupils expand. She bites her lip and releases it with a small moan when I squeeze harder. Her hips tilt up against me, her wet heat searing the underside of my shaft.

  “Does that hurt?” I ask, breathless with wonder at what I hope is a fresh new discovery about the avenues she and I can explore.

  “No. It feels good. I want you so much.”

  Her husky words are halfway to a desperate plea, and it takes every ounce of self-control I have not to slide into her now. But I want to try more, to find out if she has a limit that matches my own.

  I bend my head to her other breast, graze my lips over the dark tip, then wet it with my tongue. She sighs and arches into me, and my entire body comes alive with the sound. I squeeze her other nipple again while I bite down on this one—not hard, but enough to elicit more than pressure.

  A sweet moan escapes her throat and my head spins. I nuzzle her breast and bite again, harder this time. She moans more urgently and my dick throbs against her. I can’t resist shifting my hips just enough to align my tip with her entrance.

  As I push in, I bite and pinch at the same time, and she utters a low affirmation. Her submission forgotten, she places her hands on my shoulders and digs in her nails. Pain spikes through me, and it’s the perfect counterpoint to the pleasure as I begin to fuck her.

  The first rough thrust forces her breath out of her, and I pull back to see her reaction. I’ve been gentle until now. We made love twice—the first time with me on top, attending to her carefully like the precious cargo she was; the second time, she was in control, and she rode my cock with a rhythm that betrayed her nymphaea dancer’s blood.

  She’s smiling and her eyes are both wild and filled with awe.

  “Do you like it hard, Deva? Rough?” I slam into her, and she lifts her hands above her head again to brace her palms against the headboard.

  “Harder,” she challenges.

  I give her everything, and in the process learn she can still take more. Moments later, I find myself rolled onto my back with her astride me, having her way with me in a much more desperate show of passion than the first time. She looks hungry now, wild with a need that seems as unquenchable for her as it is for me.

  We don’t stop even after we climax together. She sinks down beside me for a moment, catching her breath, but the moonrise catches my eye out the window, reminding me that time has not halted for us here.

  I roll her onto her belly and she laughs softly.

  “What are you doing?” she asks, peering over her shoulder at me as I move between her legs.

  I grab her by the hips and pull her up so she’s on her hands and knees. She complies easily, still watching me.

  “If you need me to stop, just say the word,” I say.

  “Are you going to fuck me again?” she asks, the word now integrated seamlessly into her vocabulary.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I don’t think I want you to stop.”

  There’s a catch in her voice when I spread her ass and slide my dick along the crease until I’m aligned with her folds. Even though I’m in the position of power now, she’s the one who pushes back onto me, taking me to the hilt and letting out a long groan of pleasure at the fresh new sensations.

  I fuck her hard again, my blood heating with every word she utters, every filthy bit of encouragement that sounds all the sweeter for how brutally honest she is. I am left with absolutely no uncertainty about what pleases her and what doesn’t, and it seems everything pleases her.

  When I begin to rain light smacks on her luscious ass, then harder ones, she only grows hotter and more demanding. When we slow to catch our breath, she reaches curious fingers between her legs to fondle and tug at my balls.

  She shoots me a questioning look over her shoulder, and I chuckle. “That feels fucking fantastic,” I say. “Keep it up and I’m gonna come.”

  “Touch me back there again. My other hole.”

  I slow my thrusts and raise my eyebrows. “You want me to play with your ass?” I ask, my cock somehow getting eve
n harder despite having lost count of the number of times I’ve orgasmed.

  “It felt good when you rubbed yourself on me.”

  I squeeze both her plump cheeks and slip my thumb down to where I’m buried in her tight heat. I gather some of her copious wetness and glide it around her puckered rosebud. She clenches, then relaxes, the tightening of her sheath around me making me hiss from the pure pleasure. When she moans, I suddenly care nothing for my own climax anymore. I want to make her come while toying with her ass.

  “Touch yourself,” I say, my voice hoarse with the need to explore this new avenue of pleasure. Deva obeys, and I begin fucking her again, slowly and a bit distractedly, fixated on her reactions to the attention I give her ass.

  I shift from light caresses to more deliberate ones, adding more pressure, stroking up and down, then in circles. Then I push my thumb gently past the barrier.

  She cries out. The arm she’s braced herself on goes rigid, and the fingers she’s stroking her clit with stop moving, but she’s already lost it. Her body is wracked with an intense orgasm that wrenches a surprised climax from me. Her sweet magic floods me, and for a moment, we’re both too stunned to move or speak.

  Gradually she relaxes and I ease backward, sliding out of her and supporting her as she lowers herself back to the bed.

  She stares at me as if I’ve somehow unlocked the secrets of the universe.

  I’m so bewildered by that look that I laugh. “What is it?” I ask, crawling up the bed to lie beside her and pull her into my arms. She resists being spooned, however, and remains facing me.

  “Everything you do feels good. Is that how it’s supposed to be? Is it like that for everyone? Even when it causes pain, I like it.”

  “There are limits to everyone’s pleasure, szívem. Part of the fun is learning what they are. Not everyone likes the things you and I enjoy, but I have a feeling you’re unique. Actually, I know for a fact you’re one of a kind, so I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  She smiles. “I’m not worried. Not about that, anyway. I thought it might be because I love you so much and you feel the same way, so whatever we do to each other feels good.”

  “I’m bound to do something you don’t like, at some point. Nobody’s perfect. Except for you . . . I’m fairly certain you could never turn me off.”

  Her expression clouds and she lifts her gaze to mine. My heartbeat speeds up.

  “Even the fact that I’m going to forget you? Forget everything that happened in this room while we’re here?”

  I close my eyes and breathe, gathering my courage to address her worries. “Nothing will make me not want you. And you won’t forget me entirely. You’ll just forget what we’re doing in here. It’s for the best—for your safety that we remain apart outside these walls, as if we never shared a soul.”

  “But we won’t know!” she says. “What if we see each other and can’t help but want to be together? I can’t imagine going through life being near you and not being able to have you. If we both forget that it’s not safe, what’s to stop us? What if you look at me after forgetting and think I’m the One you were always supposed to be with, not someone you broke that bond to protect?”

  I start to voice an argument that’s mostly platitudes meant to soothe her, but I stop, my heart lurching in my chest. She’s right.

  “I haven’t made my request to forget yet,” I say. “I just won’t do it. I’ll remember for us both. If I keep my memories, I’ll know to stay away.” I hook an errant strand of hair over her ear and peer deep into her eyes. “Will that work for you?”

  “I wish it could be different,” she says in a small voice. She twists in my arms and nestles back against me. I tug the blankets up over us and kiss her temple.

  “So do I, szívem. But there is more at stake than our hearts if we fail.”

  “I’ll always love you, even though I won’t remember,” she tells me.

  “Me too.”

  I hold her tighter, my insides burning with the agony of what I just promised. Forgetting would be so easy—not easy to accept now, but afterward, we wouldn’t know the difference.

  Remembering makes sense under the circumstances, at least for me. One of us needs to know to keep our distance, and I’m already used to the futility of my love life, always seeking but never finding. Simply knowing Deva’s there and safe will have to be enough for me.

  It will be enough.

  I slowly slip from the bed as she sleeps and make my way to the door. I stand there, staring at the milky stone for a moment, gathering my thoughts for my request before I make it. Then I touch the smooth, warm surface and it lights beneath my fingertips.

  “Greetings, guest. What is your request?”

  “Can I make a request now that only comes true if the right circumstances are met in the future?”

  “Any request you make shall be granted.”

  “I love Deva with my entire being. If I ever lose her . . . truly lose her from my life entirely . . . I wish to forget she ever existed.”

  “Your request is granted.”

  The stone brightens, then dims and goes dormant. I stand there with my heart pounding in my throat for several moments, then hear a soft call from the bedroom.

  I blink hot tears from my eyes and wipe them swiftly, then touch the stone again. I hurriedly request a spread of food for us and a hot bath.

  The food materializes instantly on the dining table near the window. I retreat to the bedroom, my heart aching, but secure in the knowledge that my memories of her in this place will be enough to endure being apart.

  And if I ever truly lose her, I will not be burdened by them again.

  * * *

  “Fate didn’t do this to me.” The words came out sounding like another voice had spoken them. The war inside me raged, but I had no outlet here in this room, staring at this bed where I’d shared my very soul with the woman I believed I would somehow never completely lose.

  “Do what?” Rohan asked. His voice was so strained, I turned to look at him.

  He stood in the doorway where he’d waited while I explored the room where every single memory had flooded back. They’d first come with a trickle, then a steady flow, and finally a deluge that left me paralyzed.

  “It was the promise I made in this room that triggered my memory loss. Fate was only the catalyst. It wanted to teach me a lesson—send me to a world where it didn’t exist, and where Deva didn’t exist either—but it must have counted on me remembering her. I’d have been in hell, had I had any recollection of being soul bound to her. But the second I lost her, every memory of my time with her was lost as well.”

  Blindly I climbed onto the bed and grabbed one of the soft pillows. I buried my face in the soft silk and inhaled, and was immediately awash again in her scent.

  A roar of agony wrenched itself free of the tight hold I’d managed to keep on my emotions so far. To feel again was both a blessing and a curse. I dropped the pillow and clutched the silken covers, bellowing my rage, my hurt, and my love.

  By all the gods, my love.

  “What have I done?” I shook my head, unwilling to accept the truth, even though I remembered every decision with utter clarity. It all made sense, but I could never have predicted what Fate would subject me to.

  All to protect her—I had to remember that. I had done it all to protect Deva, and how had that turned out? She was being held captive by the most hated god of our kind, a fate worse than Fate.

  My groan of despair degenerated into a mirthless laugh. “I am such a fucking fool!”

  I scrambled backward off the bed and turned to Rohan. “Sorry you had to witness that.”

  He looked surprised and confused. “Uh, welcome back? I take it this means you remember who you are?”

  “Every last agonizing minute of my fucked up life, Ro. I remember.”

  I stalked toward him and he stepped out of my path. As I passed through the door, I stopped and turned to face him.

  “I remembe
r the finer moments too,” I murmured, then grabbed him by the back of the head and kissed him.

  He licked his lips when I released him, his stunned look fading into pleased understanding. “Hell yeah,” he said, grinning at me. “Now what?”

  “Now we go get our girl,” I replied, grabbing him by the biceps and calling on the River that, thanks to Llyr, now flowed in my veins.

  24

  Deva

  The last time I’d tried to reach out to the hounds, I’d been unable to find any of them. Blaze’s sudden appearance had given me hope, and this small sign he’d left behind was the push I needed to gather my wits and get off my ass.

  I stood and secured the towel around myself. I didn’t waste more energy conjuring a new outfit—not when I didn’t plan to go anywhere again for a while.

  Sitting on the bed, I closed my eyes and focused, humming a soft melody I had learned the hounds responded to. Then I reached for the part of my mind where the threads of those connections burned bright. The bloodline lit up, its web of connected souls a comforting brilliance. In a different tier of my consciousness were the four violet lights that represented the hounds.

  I emitted a soft sigh of relief, but when I closed in on them, they separated. One hound, Blaze, was far away from the others—which confused me, since I’d just seen him—but what I’d seen had really been no more than a mirage.

  The other three felt close, very close, which confirmed Sophia’s news that the god had captured them. If I could find them here, perhaps they could lead me to wherever Ouranos was holding Fate and I could get more answers.

  I called to them silently, mentally urging them to come. They responded with desperate whines, but didn’t obey.

  More concerned than disappointed, I reached deeper into the mind of Jewel, which was little more than a purple cloud of sparking impulses I couldn’t quite decipher. Her consciousness flowed around mine, making room as I inhabited her ethereal body and commandeered her senses.