by Scott, Helen
Barclay’s eyes rolled back in his head as my mouth descended on his neck. I kissed and licked at the delicate skin while my teeth sharpened. My bite was clean and powerful, swiftly puncturing his skin and allowing his blood to fill my mouth. He tasted like winter and warmth, as though I was sitting by the fire, with a citrusy undertone. I’d never tasted anything like it. He was amazing.
When his own teeth struck my neck, I couldn’t help but buck ever so slightly on his lap. His hands came to my hips, pushing and pulling as he showed me how he wanted me to move. It wasn’t the frantic pumping and thrusting of before, this was a slow grind as I felt every inch of him inside me, while his blood filled me and mine filled him. I’d never experienced anything so erotic or so intimate.
Each circle of my hips brought my clit against the hardness of his pubic bone, his cock rubbing against every part of my core. The combination had me writhing in pleasure against him, even as his teeth pulled at my neck, or maybe because of that as well. I wanted to feed him, to give him the most pleasure he’d ever experienced at one time, but my focus shifted to the sensation building within me. I couldn’t stop, or second-guess as I drove myself to that peak of pleasure.
Just as I thought I wouldn’t be able to go over, his hands cupped my breasts, brushing and tweaking my nipples until my mouth ripped free of his neck, and I screamed my orgasm to the trees and sky. My pussy clenched tightly around him as my orgasm pulsed through me, sending wave after wave of pleasure washing through my blood. Within seconds, he was following me with the release of his own pleasure, his roar making mine sound quiet and timid. His cock twitched within me, and I loved it. He flopped back onto his elbows and just barely kept himself from lying down, which made me grin all over again.
Blood dribbled down both of our chests as our breaths came in great, big gulps. I felt stronger than ever before, more grounded to the earth, and as I watched my blood drip from his bottom lip, I moved forward and kissed him, tasting my metallic sweetness and the heat of my pleasure in the process. A moment later, I pulled away and licked the trail of blood off of his chest, enjoying the woodsy, pleasure-filled taste of him coating my tongue.
“You’re fucking amazing, sweetheart,” he said, between breaths.
“You’re not so bad yourself, Mr. Big Bad Wolf.” I smiled at him and gave him another peck, but then my world seemed to collapse in on itself.
Pain flared within me and wrapped my skull in its fiery hot grip until I whimpered.
“What is it Marcella?” Barclay’s voice was urgent and worried.
“Something’s wrong… It’s Keiran,” I managed, before the pain and blackness took me.
* * *
Raven
The second Keiran cried out, I knew something had happened. And I wasn’t talking about the fact I could sense Barclay had gotten his dick wet.
Motherfucker.
He had one fucking job. Get Marcella off of the Academy grounds. That did not include him schtupping Marcella in the forest.
Okay, so I wasn’t mad. Just jealous as fuck, and I really didn’t have time for envy. Even as I felt another fifth of the bond Marcella had with us slip into place, it made Keiran’s cry of pain all the more poignant.
In the dreamscape, Keiran was pretty untouchable, and for him to cry out keyed me into the fact that Winterborn wasn’t taking shit lying down. Literally. Either that or Barclay’s claiming of Marcella had broken our brother’s focus and had ruptured the dream he’d been weaving for the Headmaster.
Gideon scowled at Keiran as he fell off his chair. We’d been seated around the table, edgily watching him weave a nightmare to end all nightmares as punishment before we disappeared. But now that Keiran was in obvious pain, the smirks on our faces were dying.
“What’s happening?” Cade demanded, crouching beside Keiran. “I’ve never seen him react like this before.”
“He’s never been punishing someone while one of us binds himself to our Sixth before, either,” I gritted out, mad at Barclay once more. For fuck’s sake, couldn’t he have kept it in his pants for ten minutes longer?
Gideon clambered to his knees at Keiran’s side. “Raven, can you slip into his mind? Help him?”
The suggestion had me freezing inside. I shot a look at Cade who seemed to understand my predicament.
“You know that’s something we don’t do, Gid,” Cade told him, his tone like gravel.
“I know it isn’t, but these are extraordinary circumstances. Look, the only reason I agreed to Keiran giving Winterborn nightmares is, so it would make him sleep in, and then we’d have more time to get away from the grounds. Cade can’t slow it down for us for days on end, but a few hours of Winterborn stuck in the dreamworld would have shifted the focus from us to him for a while.
“Something has obviously gone wrong, though, because I’ve never seen Keiran react at all while he’s fucking with someone’s sleep.”
I grimaced because he was right on all scores. “Keiran might attack me,” I told him quietly. “Another walker encroaching. . . . We might end up with two of us down.”
Just then, Keiran’s eyes popped open. But they weren’t his usual jewel-like irises that stared back at me. These were. . . .
Mine flared at the sight of the black orbs. We all reared back, landing flat on our asses as we stared at Keiran, whose hands shot up in front of him. The move wasn’t defensive, not if the grin on his face was anything to go by. One hand stayed flat, the other curled somehow, the pointer and middle finger staying straight while the rest were furled. He shot them forward, making a pincer movement of sorts, then his hand curved about something and that shit-eating grin on his face morphed into something I’d never seen on my most zen brother’s chops.
Before Gideon had to ask, I reached forward and pressed my fingers to Keiran’s brow. I dove straight into his mind, uncaring of the dangers, just wanting to know what the fuck was going on.
Maker mine, Keiran was supposed to be the most normal of us walkers. Cade and I were the fuck-ups, not sweet, old Keir.
The second I dove into his psyche, I saw the nightmare-scape he’d built. It was a pit of flames, and that told me not only was Winterborn afraid of fire—interesting fear considering fire couldn’t actually hurt us—but that something else was going on here. As I turned around, I saw where Keiran and Winterborn stood in the center of the pit, and I also saw huge looming figures around the choppy circle.
I scowled at the sight of them.
What the fuck were the—?
Demons?
Fucking demons?
Winterborn was. . . .
I half-sniggered. Trust Keiran to pick up on that when I hadn’t.
There were some weirdos among our people who didn’t believe in the Maker, but who’d been converted along the way to human religions.
Winterborn was a Catholic, and Keiran had plunged him into hell. He’d also, I grimaced at the sight, plunged his fucking hand into Winterborn’s chest.
I squinted at the sight, my brow beading with sweat from the flames—that was how life-like the fire was, I was sweltering already. Whatever had happened that gave Winterborn the advantage changed, and the tides had turned once more in Keiran’s favor.
The only trouble was Winterborn should have woken up by now. Not even Keiran could hold someone in a nightmare. He could try to extend the dream, but he couldn’t keep them in stasis when they were in pain, and from the rictus on Winterborn’s face, he was in agony.
And, wait a minute, for Winterborn to have attacked Keiran, that meant—
Maker mine.
I grabbed Keiran’s shoulder and shook him. Those black eyes darkened further, turning an unholy shade of obsidian as he turned to look at me. I felt the walker-spirit’s outrage at my proximity, but then I murmured, “Keir, it’s me.” He heard my voice, both my friend and the walker-spirit, and that outrage turned to the regular attitude we had between us.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Raven? Get out.”
/> “You looked like you were in pain. We came to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m fine. I have this fucker exactly where I want him.” He bared his teeth and Winterborn whimpered. “He thought he could attack me. He learned a-fucking-gain.”
My eyes widened at all the cussing. Keiran, of us all, was the most soft-spoken, but his walker was out and partying, reveling in it, too, by the looks of it.
“You’re not attacking his subconscious,” I breathed into my buddy’s ear. “You’re attacking his conscious mind.”
“Oh, I know,” came the cheerful reply. “The fucker shouldn’t have messed with me.
“The idea was to buy us time, not send the dogs after us,” I growled at my friend. “If you kill him, Gideon is going to be pissed.” Maker, it was a fucking understatement. Pissed didn’t sum it up.
“It’s too late,” the walker purred—definitely not Keir. “His heart is in my hand, and I’m just making sure the bastard knows that if he’d not been a perverted cunt, if he hadn’t sold his soul to whichever line was buying and had let us have our rightful Sixth, he’d still be walking the earth and wouldn’t be destined to live in this pit for the rest of his miserable existence.”
When Winterborn gasped at the words, I glanced at him. His mouth was an open maw with soundless screams pouring from them.
“What are you doing to him?” I asked, uneasy for the first time.
“He doesn’t deserve the peace of death,” Keiran murmured. “He will die, but he will live in this endlessness I have crafted for him.”
What the fuck did that mean?
“You’re putting him in a coma?” I surmised, because that was the only thing that fit the bill here. Except . . . “How the fuck will you do that?”
Those black orbs shot to mine, and I felt them connect with me like an electric shock. “Do not worry about it, friend. Be gone.”
And like that, I was pushed out of the nightmare-scape and back to my brothers.
The minute I was back in my own skin, I blurted out, “Keiran’s gone fucking rabid. Or some shit like that. Maker dammit.”
Gideon scowled. “What are you talking about?”
“He’s putting the Headmaster in a coma of all things.”
“He can do that?” Cade demanded. “Since when?”
“I don’t know. His walker . . .” Uneasily, I stared down at the still staring black eyes, and then I realized what was happening. “Shit. Marcella is making us stronger. Fuck. That means we have no idea what he’s capable of.”
Gideon ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe we can make this work for us. If Winterborn isn’t dead but won’t wake up, that’s going to cause a panic. The finals can’t start without him there. Without him setting things off and without him declaring the winner.” He released a shaky breath. “As messed up as this is, maybe it’s for the best? It will certainly buy us time.”
I stared down at my brother, aware of the grimness settling in my soul. “I guess it might be.”
Ten minutes later, when Keiran awoke, his eyes remained black. I stared at him, unease slipping inside me as I wondered exactly what changes Marcella’s powers would bring to me. Would bring to us all. I hadn’t noticed any changes in Cade, but had he? Or had he not told us, too freaked out by how he thought we’d react? It was a distinct possibility.
Maybe with each male she claimed, each brother she made hers, our powers would change then. That meant each time she had sex, we’d all be waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Great. Just fucking great. Exactly what we needed when we were going rogue.
Keiran’s voice was deeper as he sat up, smooth as silk, like he hadn’t just put a man in an endless living nightmare, and said, “It’s time to get the fuck out of Dodge.”
My nostrils flared at his words, and I stared at my brother, then cast glances at Cade and Gideon. They were as uncertain as I was at Keiran’s ease. This wasn’t the slightly awkward man we’d come to know and, fuck, love. This was. . . .
A stranger?
I pursed my lips as I got to my feet. When the others were standing, too, I murmured, “Marcella is worth this.”
Even with what had just happened, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that she was. We’d be stronger for her presence in our lives, but more importantly, we’d be more than just the salsang brotherhood. I didn’t give a fuck how unique we were, the LeFauvre line would only ever see us as mongrels. With Marcella, we had a chance for. . . .
I gritted my teeth, trying not to feel like a complete sap as I realized how badly I wanted Marcella’s love.
I didn’t just want a fuck buddy, someone who would make me stronger in battle, who’d give me unknown talents—the talents I really wasn’t sure about, especially if it meant my eyes would be turning a weird color in the future—I wanted more. I wanted a connection. I wanted someone to ground me. To want and need me for me. Not for what I could do, for what I could bring to the brotherhood.
And I felt like Marcella could give me that. She’d been reared without love, without tenderness and affection. She was as lost as we were. As accustomed to being hurt and abused and mistreated as any salsang was. Though I’d have given anything for her not to have experienced such pain, I truly believed that made her unique.
“She’s ours,” Cade stated, seeming to understand where my mind had feared to tread.
“Not fully, not yet,” Gideon murmured. “But yes, she will be.”
Something inside me settled. We’d always been on the same page, but I sensed they wanted what I did, but we’d never say it. What guy would be happy talking about their need for love with their brothers?
But as we shared a look, one that spoke of those needs without words, we nodded.
And with that, the first chapter in our new lives started.
TO BE CONTINUED
Also by Helen Scott
Four Worlds
Water
Fire
Air – Coming soon
Earth – Coming soon
Cerberus
Daughter of Persephone
Daughter of Hades
Queen of the Underworld
Cerberus Box Set
Wardens of Midnight
Woman of Midnight (A Wardens of Midnight Novella)
Sanctuary at Midnight
The Siren Legacy
The Oracle
The Siren’s Son
The Siren’s Eyes
The Siren’s Code
The Siren’s Heart
The Banshee
The Siren’s Bride
Fury’s Fire
Fury’s Valentine (A Fury’s Fire Novella)
Also by Serena Akeroyd
Kingdom of Veronia
Perry & Her Princes
Her Highness, Princess Perry
Long Live Queen Perry
QUINTESSENCE
Charmed by Them
Healed by Them
Worshipped by Them
Protected by Them
Loved by Them
QUINTESSENCE: The Sequels
Sawyer
Andrei
Kurt
Anchor Pride Series
Claimed by Caden
McKinnon’s Mate
The Corsakis
Three’s Never A Crowd
Old Enough to Know Better
The Federation
A Menage Made on Madison
La Belle sans La Bete Series
Menage Material
A Thoroughly Modern Menage
Forever Theirs
Secrets & Lies
The TriAlpha Chronicles
Trinity
Triskele
Triad
Triumph
Trierna
TriAlpha
Los Lobos
The Raw Touch
books on Archive.
