by Zandria West
‘One room, you said?’ Benedict looks quizzically at the five of us and I wonder how much he guesses.
I nod and say nothing.
‘A large party, I see, but that’s not a problem…’ He chooses a key from a series of hooks and leads us down a poorly-lit corridor. ‘Three hundred and seventy-one, three hundred and seventy-two, and here you are, three hundred and seventy-three.’
He fits the key in the lock and the door swings open, then he swipes at the wall and flicks a light switch on. I watch as Lana steps inside, her eyes widening.
‘All to your liking I hope, ma’am?’ Benedict asks politely.
She looks around, silent for a moment, then turns back to me and nods, the cautious beginning of a smile playing on her lips.
How long has it been since I saw her smile?
A horrible sense of regret burns in me for all she has experienced: the terror and pain and humiliation of her captivity. The hopelessness and degradation that must have overwhelmed her.
‘It’s lovely, thank you,’ she says.
‘Sir, you’re welcome to enter,’ Benedict inclines his head to Alex.
One by one we all cross the threshold. Alex wraps an arm around Lana’s waist and Reuben takes her hand. Benedict raises an eyebrow but wisely says nothing.
‘Six hours then? If you need longer just call reception, I’ll be there. And for you, Gabriel, everything in the bar fridge is complimentary.’
And with that, he steps out and the lock of the door clicks back into place.
For a moment there is a tense, collective silence. Reuben looks around the room disapprovingly, glaring at the painting of sailboats on the wall as though they were his most hated enemies.
‘How do we know we can trust him,’ he says. ‘He took my knives. Are you sure this is not a trap?’
‘As sure as it’s possible to be,’ I say. I have trusted Benedict Evans with my life more times than I can count over the years.
‘I don’t know what I want to do first,’ Lana yawns, ‘shower or sleep. That bed looks big enough for all of us.’
‘You’re not getting anywhere near those clean sheets without a shower,’ Alex says quickly. ‘Look at yourself, angel. You’re a mess.’
‘A tired mess,’ she says, smiling sheepishly.
‘The bathroom is this way,’ I say, opening the door.
I asked for the master suite and Benedict didn’t disappoint. While the Flight Lounge effectively gives the impression of being nothing more than run-down, uncared for budget accommodation, there’s more to it than meets the eye. Located directly between the crossing point in the Barrier and the human airport, it has always been the preferred resting place for demons, witches, and other uncanny travellers for as long as I can remember, and Benedict offers rest in style.
The bathroom that is part of our suite, for instance, is almost as big as the bedroom, and contains a huge, deep spa filled to the brim with steaming water.
‘The shower is probably the place to start,’ Alex says. ‘You don’t want to get in the bath until you’re clean.’
‘I thought the whole point of the bath was that it was for cleaning yourself in?’ Lana says.
I see Alex’s lip twitch. ‘Its purpose is for getting dirty in, angel. And it works best if you’re clean first.’
Lana blushes very slightly, the tinge of pink darkening her cheeks and throat, visible even through the dirt. I feel my desire rise. I’m not the only one who notices. Behind me I hear Reuben release a low growl.
‘Um, I’m not sure…’ Lana mumbles, looking around at the four of us.
‘How about I go first.’ Grayson strides past her and begins to strip off the little that is left of his clothing, tossing it carelessly onto the floor. He is as powerfully built and heavily muscled as I remember him, the years of regular combat clearly having left their mark, not only on his physique but also in the dozens of scars that mark his body.
Lana’s eyes widen and Alex clears his throat.
Grayson turns, his expression cold and blank like water frozen at the bottom of a deep well.
‘Is there a problem, Alexander?’
‘Always liked to show us up, didn’t you?’ Alex says, a dangerous edge to his voice.
Grayson doesn’t respond, but turns away and attends to the business of running water. Soon the bathroom is filled with the static hum of the shower and a thick, cleansing steam.
‘I will guard the door,’ Reuben says, frowning at me and stepping back out.
‘Always on duty, that one,’ Alex sighs, then pulls his own top off. ‘Well there’s no point waiting. The shower’s big enough for all of us, and we only have a few hours. Come on in, brother Gabriel. The water’s apparently fine.’
In the far corner, Grayson is sluicing himself, washing his face, scrubbing his hair, rubbing his skin as though he cannot get clean. I see Lana watching him. I sense the bond between the two of them. It has a different resonance to the rest of ours. I do not know how to explain it, but it is deeper and darker, it crackles with dangerous electricity.
‘Can I...?’ Lana asks nervously.
‘Of course,’ Alex says, as he unbuttons his pants and pulls them down and steps out of them.
I see Lana’s eyes dart down momentarily, and then back up to his grinning face. He turns and steps into the shower cubicle, turning the water on at the second showerhead and adjusting the pressure a moment, before immersing himself with a deep sigh.
‘Let me help you,’ I say, crossing the space between myself and Lana with a few strides.
She looks up at me but does not argue. I can see her exhaustion, the residue of terror and pain. All I want is to protect her, to cushion her in gentleness and love, to give her the adoration that she deserves.
I begin with the buttons on the front of her oversized grey shirt. Two are caked with blood and difficult to undo but the rest come easily. She wears nothing underneath. Her shirt falls open. I swallow, pressure in my throat matching the one that is rapidly growing in my pants. I slide the shirt off her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. I study her for injuries, and a fierce heat grows in me as I see the evidence of the brutality inflicted on her. I look up at Grayson, my eyes darkening, and he winces and looks away.
‘Don’t,’ Lana says, her voice almost a whisper. ‘Please. Don’t think of what he did to me, think of what he bore for me. All of this pain, he took it all. He suffered so I didn’t have to. Without him, I wouldn’t have survived. He saved me, Gabriel.’
I clench my teeth. I know she speaks the truth, but that doesn’t make it any easier to bear.
What would it have cost Grayson, to inflict such torture on her? As I look up and meet his eyes again, I know the answer.
Everything.
It cost him everything.
‘It doesn’t hurt,’ Lana says, giving me a tentative smile. And then she hitches her fingers over the band of her pants and draws them down. She is naked before me. Before us. Naked and broken and more beautiful than I could ever imagine. There’s a new Bondmark on her chest, arching from shoulder tip to shoulder tip, darkening her collar bones, swirling down her chest and edging onto the curve of her breasts.
An angel.
Angel. Wolf. Snake. Crow.
All four signs are complete now.
I swallow as Lana runs her hands down the front of my chest, undoing my buttons with quick, sure fingers, unhooking my belt. A few moments later, I am also unclothed.
‘Come on,’ she takes my hand and leads me to the shower.
I see Grayson and Alex watching her, the need raw and electric in their gazes. The whole atmosphere feels charged.
‘Where’s Reuben?’ Lana says, looking around as though she only just noticed he was gone.
‘Guarding the door, like a good doggie,’ Alex mutters.
‘He should be here. We need to be together, all of us,’ Lana says, and there’s an urgency in her voice that stirs me.
‘Reuben! Get in here!’ Alex
calls.
A moment later the door opens, and Reuben looks in tentatively, glancing at each of us before his gaze settles on Lana. She’s stepped under a jet of water and is washing away the dirt and blood, letting the water soak through her hair, run down her face.
She looks at Reuben. ‘I need you.’
‘I am yours,’ he says simply, then slips off his t-shirt, revealing heavily sculpted pecs and abs. He pulls off his pants, his cock already hugely erect, and walks to the shower with an easy, dangerous grace, his gaze never leaving Lana’s face.
She smiles gently, then closes her eyes.
‘Can you feel it?’ she asks, her voice soft, and as she says it, I do. I sense something. Something momentous. A kind of buzzing hum fills the air around us. It is the sound of magic, and the thrill of it washes through me, making me dizzy. I feel drugged with its power.
‘The bond is calling to us,’ I murmur, taking a step closer to Lana. Reuben approaches from behind her, and I see Alexander and Grayson coming nearer too. In a moment we have encircled her.
I feel the magic thrumming through me, filling the air, gaining strength by the moment: Lana is the beating heart, the centre of our everything. I cannot believe we almost lost her. I will never, never let her go.
‘I’m ready,’ she says.
19
LANA
This is not affection or lust or anything I recognise. This is something deeper, more alien. Undeniably powerful.
Gabriel loops his arms around me and runs his hands along my waist, leaning in to kiss the side of my neck. I close my eyes and rest back into his kisses, enjoying the sensation of the whole of his body pressed against mine, the smoothness of his skin made silken by the water, the urgent intrusion of his cock against my lower back, the solidity of his muscles. I groan as he palms my breasts, teasing my nipples between his fingers as the water runs over us.
‘Angel,’ Alex murmurs, taking a step closer to me. ‘And I don’t mean you,’ his gaze is fierce for a moment as he looks across at Grayson. Then a moment later, his mouth is on mine, pressing my lips apart, his tongue searching for mine. I open completely for him. As he kisses me, he edges my legs apart with a deft hand, his fingers gliding against my clit, a shock of desire moving through me. ‘Angel,’ he breathes into me again and I throw an arm around his neck and pull him closer, spreading my legs even wider as Gabriel’s erection presses more firmly into my backside.
Oh god, I’ve never felt so desperate for anything in my whole life, and I don’t even know what I want. No, that’s not true, I know exactly what I want. I want them: all of them.
Alex places a line of kisses down the centre of my chest.
My Bondmarks are burning with a desperate, urgent need. The binding is so close to fulfilment.
Alex grins at me and takes a bar of soap from a shelf, running it between his hands until a white foam is visible. ‘I said you needed to clean yourself up before you touch the sheets. Well, soon I’m going to carry you into the bedroom and throw you onto the bed and fuck you, so I figure I’d better do some cleaning in preparation…’
He takes hold of my shoulders and turns me around, and I find myself face to face with Gabriel, whose eyes look darker and deeper than I’ve ever seen them. We fall into a drugging kiss as Alex begins to soap my back, using long, slow circular strokes that release the tension from my muscles just as they clean my skin. He moves lower, and begins to rub my buttocks, his hands sliding smoothly, holding and releasing me in an exquisite rhythm that my body responds to, my hips swaying despite myself.
Beside me, Reuben growls, a low, thrilling rumble that moves in the pit of my stomach.
Alex drops to his knees and he works his hands down the lengths of my legs, lifting each foot and scrubbing it, then working his way back up and paying extra attention to my inner thighs. I’m pretty sure my whole body is about to turn into liquid and splash into a puddle on the shower floor.
Then Alex stands and turns me around again to face him, and the shock of being so close to him, of his holding me face-to-face, every incredible inch of him, makes my heart race. How can I feel like this with each of them? Every moment is a thrill. Every touch is close to ecstasy.
‘So, angel, are you clean enough yet?’
He gives me a wicked smile. The kiss he places on my lips takes any words away that I might have spoken in reply.
‘Better to be safe than sorry,’ he rubs the bar of soap against one breast and then the other, and then gently lathers me up with his free hand, sliding the soap lower over my belly, before letting it nestle against my sex.
I swallow.
‘Perfect,’ he whispers in my ear before taking hold of the shower nozzle and unhooking it. He directs water over my body, washing the soap off and leaving me exquisitely clean and humming with longing. The sharp needles of the water pass over my breasts, down my stomach before he directs them to my pussy. He leans in and takes my mouth as the water does its work on my most sensitive parts. I step my legs wider apart and just make out the sensation of Gabriel’s hands on my buttocks, and over the length of my back, as Alex directs the jets of water with relentless persistence. I feel the pleasure rising from my core, an unstoppable wave of it. I hold onto him, gripping his shoulders so tightly I’m sure I’ll leave bruises.
‘It’s okay, just let it happen,’ he murmurs in my ear. The wave breaks and I hear myself cry out, my voice echoing loud in the tiled confines of the bathroom. Reuben groans and Gabriel sinks his teeth into my shoulder, flicking my nipple with sure fingers, escalating my pleasure to a height I’d never before imagined.
‘I think she’s clean now,’ Gabriel says, and I barely recognise his voice, it’s rough and husky with desire.
‘I think she is,’ Alex smiles, and then, as my legs give way beneath me, he picks me up in his arms like we’re newlyweds. He carries me from the shower then tosses me dripping onto the bed, as promised.
The bed is enormous and is fitted with pristine white sheets that smell like sunshine and lavender.
I close my eyes for a moment and let my body rest. This is crazy, part of me is coherent enough to think. I’m naked. I just had a mind-blowing orgasm in front of four guys, and now I’m fully prepared to fuck each and every one of them for the next as many hours as it takes. Something in me tightens at the thought, and Alex lets out a low growl.
He heard my thought. And he liked it.
‘I’ve waited so long for you…’ he says.
I’ve missed them beyond words.
I pull him onto me and kiss him in a frenzy. Every part of us is touching, our legs are tangled, our arms wrapped in a tight embrace, our tongues dance together. I don’t want to wait a second longer.
I wrap my legs around his waist, reach for his long, sleek cock and guide him into me. Oh god it’s perfect. We belong together. He enters me slowly and as he does the snake on my arms flares with a pleasure so intense that it is almost impossible to tell that it’s not pain. I lift my hips to meet his, wanting him deeper, always deeper, and together we begin to move. I close my eyes, breathing in his scent, feeling the weight of him pressing me down. I lick his neck and nibble on his ear, I love the way he tastes – a taste that is absolutely, undefinably Alex.
He searches for my mouth again and kisses me, his kisses frenzied and desperate as he fucks me harder. I don’t know how I ever lived without his kisses. I feel closer to him than I’ve ever felt to anyone in my life. Our rhythm rises, the pace becoming faster and more urgent. My spine arches and my hips lift off the bed as I try to capture him completely.
‘My turn, Alexander.’
It takes me a moment to register what I’ve heard Gabriel say.
For a moment I think it’s a joke, but apparently he’s not kidding.
Alex groans and raises his eyes skyward, but concedes, pulling out of me and moving across the bed to make space for Gabriel. I watch as my beautiful vampire, flushed and desperate, begins to stroke his cock as Gabriel approaches me on h
ands and knees.
‘How do you feel, Lana?’ he asks me, the touch of his hand tracing the length from my collarbones to the ridge of my hipbones, the sensation gentle and burning both at once.
I open my mouth and struggle to get any words to come out.
I feel incredibly fucking turned on right now. I can’t take my eyes off the impressive length of Gabriel’s member as he readies himself to enter me. He lifts my feet up high, spreading my legs wide, and forcing my hips to rise from the bed. Where Alex glided in smoothly and slowly, Gabriel is all power and fury. He pushes himself into me without hesitation.
‘Had enough of watching, Gabe… you want to live a little for once…’ Alex says.
Gabriel holds my gaze and I think I’m falling under some kind of dark, dangerous spell. As he begins to move inside me, he uses one hand to hold my legs and the other to stroke my swollen clit. ‘You’re dripping,’ he says looking down at my sex, his voice tight with pent-up longing.
‘You feel so good inside me,’ I groan. His thrusts go so deep, filling me, I grind myself against him, wanting more, always more. I feel the crow on my forearm sparking with pleasure.
‘Whoa,’ Alex says. ‘Um, Gabe, did you see that?’
Gabriel groans, ‘Not now Alex…’
The feeling grows, becoming so intense that I can no longer even pay attention to Gabriel’s movements, all I am aware of is the sensations in my skin – burning heat, powerful energy, dangerous electricity…
‘Gabe, you might want to just take a moment…’
‘What!’ he roars, stilling inside me. Then, more gently, ‘What is it, Alex?’ I see beads of sweat forming on his forehead, his pupils hugely dilated, his cheeks flushed.
‘Um, the Bondmarks were actually sparking. I thought you might want to know before you accidentally set the bed on fire.’
Gabriel sits back, pulling out of me, and looking at me with a mixture of wariness and wonder.
