by Zandria West
‘Gee really? You think so?’
‘But it is what he would have wanted,’ Gabriel says fiercely. ‘He loved you more than anything, Lana. Consider this his last act of protection.’
Tears fill my eyes.
‘Then we’d better get the hell out of here,’ Alex mutters. ‘His protection won’t count for much if we still manage to get hypothermia and drown.’
I feel Alex’s grip tighten around my waist, and he begins to swim, supporting me so that my head is above the water and I can breathe. I’m grateful for his help because the cold seems to have sunk deeper into my body now, and I’m having trouble controlling my limbs which are trembling and numb. The pain in my leg, which I’m almost certain is badly broken, has receded to a dull hum. I’m guessing that’s a bad sign.
‘There’s something just ahead,’ Grayson calls back to us from where he’s managed to swim to, further down the tunnel. ‘It looks like a ladder. I’m going to see where it leads.’
It feels like an eternity but it’s probably less than a minute before Grayson climbs back down and calls, ‘We can get out this way.’
I try to swim but rely on Alex’s help more than I’d want to admit to cover that last distance to the ladder. He lifts me up so I can catch a hold of it and haul myself up from the water. I feel so heavy and my arms are shaking. I try to keep all my weight on my good leg, letting the other leg dangle uselessly, but I keep knocking it against the ladder and sharp jags of pain shoot through me. Tears fill my eyes and I grit my teeth so hard I think they might shatter. Slowly, I make my way up the ladder, hauling with my arms and using just the one leg that can bear weight. I finally reach the top and Reuben helps me from the tunnel and onto firm dry land. I’ve never been so grateful.
We’ve emerged into a large open space unlike any I’ve seen before. It’s dark, and has the feeling of being below ground, but the ceiling is high and there are pillars lining the walls.
‘You’re hurt,’ Grayson murmurs, catching my hands and then putting an arm around me to help support me. I lean into him. He feels as solid as the rock that surrounds us, and a moment later I feel my pain begin to recede.
‘No!’ I say pulling away. ‘You don’t have to do that.’
I frown at the drawn expression on his face, the hard set of his jaw.
‘You don’t need to do any more,’ I say evenly. ‘It’s much better. Thank you.’
‘But Lana, let me –’
‘No,’ I say. ‘That’s enough. You don’t need to take all of it, Grayson. You’ve helped. I can cope with what’s left.’ I hold his gaze until he finally gives in and gives me a tiny nod. I reach up and wrap my arms around his neck and place a kiss on his cheek. He barely moves, as though uncertain how to respond.
‘Gonna need an industrial strength heater to thaw Grayson out,’ Alex says, taking his place beside me and running a hand down my back. I don’t let go of Grayson, but turn and smile at Alex.
‘How do you feel, angel?’ he asks, then scowls at Grayson. ‘And I don’t mean you, asshole. Lana. Are you alright?’
I nod weakly. We made it through the final test.
Gabriel emerges and joins us. His dark hair is wet, his clothing clinging to him. ‘I’m sorry –’ he starts.
‘It’s okay,’ I say quickly. ‘You’re right, it’s what Dad would have wanted. Hell, he loved places like this. It’s probably even more fitting than what I had in mind for him.’ Then, despite everything, tears fill my eyes. Grayson squeezes me tighter to him and Alex reaches across and brushes the tears from my cheek with the back of his hand.
In that moment, I feel so treasured, so cared for that I almost break down. But now is not the time. We’re close to our goal. Part of me is terrified about meeting my mother. Part of me is just relieved to have made it this far.
28
GABRIEL
Grayson has taken her pain, but he does not have the power to heal her.
‘Wait,’ I say as Lana begins walking again. She’s determined to keep going, but I can see how badly she’s limping. We don’t know how much further there is to travel. I don’t want her walking on her injured leg, it will only make the damage worse.
She turns to me, eyes wide. Her hair is a bedraggled mess, her clothes are damp and clinging, she looks exhausted but also more beautiful than anyone I’ve ever seen before. I want nothing more than to sweep her up into my arms and carry her like a child but that would not be right. She is not a child. Not here. She is more powerful than I think we even understand. She spoke with the Guardian. Her power was able to steady the boat where mine was utterly useless.
‘Let me try healing you,’ I say.
‘I thought your magic didn’t work here,’ she frowns.
‘It didn’t work in the tunnel, but I guess that was because of the presence of the Guardian. Ancient creatures have a way of resisting magic, which is why they were not captured by the Barrier spell. I should be able to help you now, though.’
She waits as I kneel beside her.
‘I’ll go ahead and scout a path for us,’ Reuben says, ‘Alex? Come with me?’
‘Angel? Do you mind?’ Alex asks. I restrain a smile. To hear our vampire asking anyone’s permission to do anything is… well, unusual would be putting it mildly. He’s clearly beyond smitten.
‘That’s fine, go. Thank you,’ she says, meeting his eyes and giving him a reassuring smile.
Alex and Reuben vanish quickly into the darkness of the cavern ahead. Grayson stays beside Lana, hovering over her protectively. I can’t help but notice the way she leans into him, accepting his support.
I close my eyes and begin the incantation. The words echo in the space around us. For a few moments I feel nothing, then the warmth begins to tingle in my palms. It grows quickly to an almost uncomfortable heat, and I know my magic is working. The relief I feel is so intense it surprises me. To be unable to even cast a simple illumination earlier shocked me. To be powerless to help or protect those I love is not something I am accustomed to, and I hope I never have to become accustomed to it.
Lana lets out a sigh, and I open my eyes.
‘That’s so much better, thank you,’ she breathes.
I run my hands slowly up the length of her leg for a final check, the magic still flowing through my palms. She makes a little noise that has nothing to do with the healing.
To my surprise, desire rises fiercely in me like a volcano readying to erupt.
Grayson trails his fingers down her arms and she lets her head rest back against his broad chest, watching me all the while.
I don’t step back, but lean in, placing my hands on the curve of her hips. I lower my mouth slowly to hers, drawn by a desperate compulsion to remove the distance between us. Our lips touch and she moans gently. A fire moves through me. I part her lips and my tongue dances in her mouth, finding hers with a jolt of excitement. Grayson begins kissing the side of her neck, biting hard, running his fingers over her shoulders and down her back. Crushed between the two of us, Lana meets my kiss with rising passion, her hands reaching and tangling in my hair, her whole body pressed to mine.
Oh God I want her like I have never wanted anyone before. I slip a hand down the waist band of her pants and between her legs. Her sex is deliciously smooth and wet as it parts under my fingers.
‘How long do you think Alex and Reuben will be?’ she murmurs.
‘I don’t fucking care,’ I say finding the button on her pants and undoing it, then tugging them down and running my hands over her exposed ass.
Grayson fumbles with her top then somehow manages to pull it up over her head from behind.
He captures her breasts in his hands, squeezing and kneading them, pinching her nipples into hardness. I lift Lana up and she wraps her legs around my waist, and moans as Grayson takes advantage of his position behind her to reach through and stroke her wide-open pussy. She clings to me as I undo my own pants. My cock is hard as a fucking rock, and I’m desperate to be inside her. I�
�ve never wanted anything more. I thought I’d lost her, I still can’t get over it. She’s here. She’s real. She’s fucking perfect. I need to be inside her right now. She shifts her hips against me, writhing into Grayson’s touch.
I angle myself and lower her down onto me, shivering with intense pleasure as the hot, smooth pressure of her cunt grips me.
‘Fuck –’ I moan and begin moving inside her. I’m vaguely aware of Grayson grasping her hips from behind, helping her move.
‘Oh my god,’ Lana moans. ‘Oh god that’s incredible.’
I can feel her melting into me, I’m losing my fucking mind from the pleasure. I fuck her harder, closing my eyes and gritting my teeth to hold back the orgasm that’s already threatening to overwhelm me.
‘Gabriel,’ Grayson says.
‘Not now,’ I groan.
‘Gabriel, look what’s happening,’ his voice is urgent.
I open my eyes and glance over Lana’s shoulder and gasp. All around us on the walls and ceiling and pillars, symbols and patterns are visible, emitting a strange yellow light. The rocks themselves seem to glow. Many of the symbols I do not recognise, though they look like scrawlings in some ancient language, but the pattern that we saw when we completed the binding is also prominent, writ large on the walls, glowing brightly.
‘What the hell?’ I gasp.
‘Don’t stop,’ Lana murmurs in my ear as she continues to move against me. ‘Don’t you fucking stop, Gabriel.’
I couldn’t, even if I wanted to.
Lana leans in to kiss me again and our teeth clatter from the movements of our bodies. She tastes so sweet, her tongue exploring my mouth.
A moment later I can’t contain it any longer. An orgasm explodes through me. I moan with the pleasure. Lana grips me tighter as I pump into her a few times, emptying myself completely. The lights flicker and then glow brighter. I release my grip on her as Grayson lifts her off me and lays her gently down on the ground, my long cloak already spread out there to cushion the hard surface. My body misses hers the instant he takes her from me. Grayson spreads her legs wide. He trails his fingers over her sex then finds her opening and sinks two fingers deep inside her. I watch as she watches him, a look of such profound hunger in her eyes that desire stirs within me again. A moment later he withdraws the fingers and leans forward pressing them to her lips, forcing her mouth to open and take them in. His fingers are glossy with her juices and the air is filled with her sweet scent mingled with the salt of my cum.
Grayson takes hold of his thick, hard member, rubs it a few times and then I watch as he plunges into her, her opening stretching to accommodate his swollen girth. Lana looks so small and slight compared to Grayson, and it drives me crazy to see the two of them together like that. She moans, eyes rolling as he starts to move. I feel their pleasure through the bond, and it stirs me again, even though it’s so soon since my own orgasm. Grayson looks up at me as though reading my mind.
‘Join us, Gabe?’ he says, his voice husky, his eyes ice-blue and unreadable.
‘I…’
I watch as he withdraws and then flips Lana onto her hands and knees so her beautiful ass is high in the air. He enters her again. She looks straight at me. Her cheeks are flushed, and her eyes are wild. Her small breasts move with each of Grayson’s thrusts.
‘Let me take you in my mouth,’ she says. ‘I want both of you in me. Now.’
My member responds very obviously in the affirmative, pressing so hard against my pants that it causes me physical pain.
I stand beside her and drop to kneeling, pulling myself free again. I can only groan in ecstasy as her lips close around my cock in a perfect embrace. Seeing Grayson fucking her at the same time makes me even harder. The ridged surface of her upper palate provides the perfect friction as the warmth of her tongue presses into me. I move faster, gasping as I feel the scrape of her teeth dragged along my length. It’s heaven. I cannot imagine any greater pleasure than this. I twine my fingers through her long hair to guide her and sink myself deeper into her, searching her limits. The lights around us glow so bright now, part of my mind that is still capable of rational thought understands that some magic is acting on us – not that we do not feel the desire and pleasure that we are experiencing but that our willingness to respond to it has been magnified and our inhibitions decreased. I wonder whether this should concern me, but am unable to give it any more than a momentary thought.
Power flows between us, igniting the bond, creating an intense feedback loop as my connection to each of their pleasure builds my own and vice versa.
I feel the moment Grayson begins to come. An instant later Lana follows, moaning against my length, even as she continues to suck me off. The sound of her moan undoes me, and I’m shaken to find my own desperate release rushing through me again, so soon after the last time.
We all crumple into a tangled, gasping heap.
‘What the hell was that?’ Lana murmurs, wiping a trickle of cum from her chin. She looks at us and then around at the brilliant lights that illuminate the cavern.
‘That, my child, was the final test,’ a voice booms in the air around us and I startle and sit up, wrapping my arms around Lana as though to protect her, though from what I’m not sure.
At the far end of the corridor a woman stands. Though grey-haired, her resemblance to Lana is unmistakable. She has the same tilt to her chin, the same brightness to her gaze, the same confident posture and stance. It has been many years since I’ve seen her, but I would know her anywhere.
‘Oh sweet Jesus,’ Grayson whispers, obviously coming to the same conclusion as I have.
For a moment I wish the stone floor would collapse so the ground could swallow me entirely.
‘And who the hell are you?’ Lana says, sitting up taller, pushing me away, showing no sign of embarrassment or fear despite her post-coital nudity.
‘Lana –’ I try to warn her.
The woman smiles and begins to walk towards us.
‘I’m Graciela. Your mother.’
29
LANA
For a moment I’m speechless. I vaguely register Grayson passing me some items of clothing, and Gabriel helping me to put them on. The trip has left me so drained I can barely move. The insane orgasm has turned my brains to mush. And to have my mother standing there, smiling as though there was nothing weird about the fact that she just found me fucking two men in the middle of an ancient temple ruin, surrounded by glowing symbols…?
I straighten my top, wipe my mouth again, paranoid that I’ve got something extremely inappropriate on my lips, then stand up to face her.
She’s smiling. My mother is smiling. For a moment, all I can do is stare. Her hair is long and streaked with grey. Her eyes are silvery and lined as though she has had more than her fair share both of laughter and of grief. She’s wearing a strange combination of a cornsilk-blue top embroidered with tiny crystals along with hiking pants and sturdy boots. She looks both like me and unlike me.
It’s the strangest thing.
She’s real. She’s here. For so long – years and years – I believed that she had died. Some nights I lay in bed crying silently, wishing that I could have met her just once. Wishing for one chance to speak with her. I dreamed of her often when I was younger. I dreamed she was holding me and that somebody, I could never quite see who, was pulling me away, tearing me from her embrace. I’d always wake up sobbing.
Suddenly, all the anticipation and fear and excitement I’ve felt until now turns to a white-hot rage.
‘How could you?’ I say, taking a step towards her. I feel Gabriel’s hand on my arm but I shrug him off. This is between me and her. ‘How could you have left me alone all those years? You let us all believe you were dead. Do you know how much that hurt Dad? Hurt me?’
She watches me steadily, her expression unchanging. Her calmness only makes me angrier.
‘I won’t say I’m sorry, because I’m not,’ she says finally. Her voice is rich and low, like
the darkness of a night filled with stars. ‘I fled to draw the danger away from you, Lana. Once I realised what had happened, I ran. As far and as fast as I could. I didn’t stop running for years. I had to make them believe that I had found something in the temple the day of the accident, and that I was trying to keep it hidden. I had to ensure that their attention was on me, at all costs.’
‘But I needed you,’ I say, frowning as tears fill my eyes.
‘And I needed you to live. For your own sake, but not only for that.’
I rub a hand over my eyes, trying to press away the feeling of an impending migraine. ‘I came because Dad told me to find you. Can you tell me more? About… about what I am?’
‘Soon,’ she says. ‘But first, I would ask that you follow me. I promise, in time, I will explain everything.’
I look to Gabriel and Grayson, who are dressed now and standing, shamefaced but protective, behind me.
‘They can come too, that’s not a problem. Gabriel it has been too long.’ She smiles and I see him flinch. I’d forgotten that they knew one another, back from before I was even born. The weirdness of that thought makes me queasy.
‘Graciela,’ Gabriel inclines his head in a slight bow, a gesture of respect. ‘I have kept her safe. I have tried to do what the Professor asked of me,’ he says in a low voice.
My mother raises an eyebrow.
‘The Binding…’ he says awkwardly. ‘It is necessary, you understand, but when the magic acts upon us…’
They exchange a long stare. I feel as though some agreement is reached with that look that I don’t understand and am not privy to. They are kindred, in a way, almost more than my mother and I. They have both given their lives to magic, to its study and practise and the responsibilities that come with those things.
The moment is broken by a sudden movement at the far entrance to the cavern as Alex and Reuben come rushing in.
‘Angel! Are you alright? What happened? We felt your shock…’ Then they see my mother and stop.
