by Heather Long
“Kitten,” Maddox said, almost placating. “We weren’t trying to hide anything from you. But everyone reacts to sunlight differently. It may do nothing. It might burn. It might just be uncomfortable.”
“But we don’t know,” Fin picked up the thread. “Throwing you out there without any idea is dangerous. You’re still in transition, and some people should remember how precarious that is.”
“I oversaw both of yours,” Rogue told him without taking his gaze off of Fiona. “I think I’m well aware.” They might want to patronize her, but they wouldn’t with him.
“We know,” Maddox growled. “You have to stop just taking her without waiting for us.”
“Or what?” Genuinely curious, he slanted a look toward him. Would Maddox truly challenge him over Fiona? That could almost be interesting.
“Stop running your heads together like bulls vying for her attention,” Fin stated dryly. “This isn’t about us.” And really, Rogue? You’re baiting Maddox right now?
Rogue didn’t have to bait the dragon. The dragon had already begun to stake its claim, and it would fight for its territory whether the man or the vampire realized it yet.
Trouble.
She might not fit with them the way they so clearly wanted her to, and no matter how much she intrigued him, Rogue couldn’t allow her to tear his brothers apart.
Still, she looked from them to the open door then back.
“Please, Kitten? If you get burned too badly…”
“I get burned,” she said with an almost careless shrug. “The fact that I’m half-vampire or whatever it is I’m becoming is not set in stone.”
No. She might yet die for real, and there would be nothing they could do to stop it. Her body either made the transition or it didn’t. The fact that she’d survived this long was a positive sign, but caution was the better choice.
“Also, I want real clothes.” She swept a hand down at herself. “I look like a reject from a redneck survivor convention.”
Rogue had no idea what that was, but the disgust in her tone suggested it wasn’t a good thing.
“You don’t have to wear the boots,” he offered, and she rolled her eyes. Then stepped outside. Rogue barely got his arm up in time to stop Maddox from snatching her back, but Fin vanished from inside to appear ahead of her near the thornier vines, cold and dark with winter’s frost.
The lack of smoking was a good sign. Pushing Maddox back a step, Rogue slipped through the door to follow her. The snow on the ground crunched beneath his bare feet. She held up her hand toward the sun, though the light of it already highlighted the glorious streaks of red in her hair. It wasn’t just one shade, but multiple hues of red.
If the garden’s roses were in bloom, she’d stand out amongst them as even more startling in color.
A sigh escaped her, and she tilted her head back, face up and eyes closed. Maddox came to an abrupt stop, and a muscle began to tick in Fin’s jaw. Rapture was the closest Rogue could come to describing her expression as the sun shone against her faintly golden-toned skin. Out in the light, he could see where she’d enjoyed sun the before, though her color had faded dramatically.
Dying and being hidden away in a prison would do that to a person. Still, she looked almost—happy.
More, her heart, which had been racing, began to slow as she took deeper and deeper breaths.
“It’s so fucking cold, but I don’t want to go back inside.”
Maddox brushed past him and slid right up behind her. Wrapping his arms around her, he settled his chin against her head. She seemed to melt into him, and Rogue didn’t comment on the curl of irritation working its way through his gut.
The dragon shed heat easily, and the faint blue around her lips receded to pink and plump again as she ran her tongue over it. “Okay, that’s really nice.”
“Glad I’m still around then, Kitten?” At his tease, she opened her eyes enough to roll them, and Fin snickered.
“She’s happy to have all of us around, she just hasn’t decided on it yet.” Confidence had never been Fin’s weakness. Though overconfidence could be a flaw.
Rogue said nothing, though she flicked a look at him.
She didn’t burn.
That was good.
They stood there for another ten minutes, saying nothing as she soaked in the sunlight.
“The library,” Rogue said abruptly. The sun hurt none of them, so they could open the shutters on that room. Like the bathing room, the library also boasted two large hearths. It could be warmed appropriately, and the windows on both sides allowed the most sunlight all day.
“I’ll take care of it.” Fin brushed his knuckles down her cheek. “Don’t linger out here too long, Beautiful. You still have clothes to try on.”
“Did you really bring me clothes?” she asked, looking at him almost sleepily.
“I did.”
“Real clothes, or dress me up like a doll clothes?”
The smirk he wore was real, and Rogue rolled his eyes this time. She wasn’t wrong. Fin had likely gotten her something easy to remove or very little at all. It wasn’t like they wouldn’t be fucking her regularly, so why block access? The fact that Rogue was already wondering how long it would be until she needed one of them inside of her again and calculating how often had nothing to do with it.
“You’ll see,” he said with an unrepentant grin. A bird’s cry yanked Fin’s attention upward and Maddox’s. A murder of crows descended on the inner garden, some of them alighting on the thorny vines while others took to the walls, and still a pair circled around she and Maddox lazily.
None of them moved as the crows drifted closer, then away. Those flying landed and sent others up into the air.
“Take her inside,” Rogue said, watching the crows.
“They’re birds,” she argued. “And we just got out here.”
He was very well aware of what they were.
As Maddox started to usher her toward the door, a pair of the crows broke off and cut between them and Rogue, then circled back.
Alfred?
Rogue shook his head. It wasn’t unusual for him to summon birds to be his eyes. But he hadn’t roused when Rogue had gone downstairs. Others used crows and ravens, too.
“Inside, little sváss. You will see the sun again.”
Her mutinous expression gave way as she started forward. He didn’t assume that meant she trusted him, though when one of the crows dove at her hair, Maddox snapped a hand out and knocked the bird away. They wouldn’t kill them, because it wasn’t their fault someone used their eyes, but they also wouldn’t let them touch her.
Rogue blocked the next one as Maddox got her inside, and then Rogue pulled the door closed, leaving he and Fin to face them.
The crows rose up as one cloud of black. There had to be a dozen, if not more. Then they circled overhead and through the garden once more before ascending to disappear.
“Just letting them go?” Fin asked, tracking their progress with his hands raised and likely a spell or three at the ready.
“We don’t know who they are being used by. So for now, we keep her inside, and you should check the wards.”
“They aren’t meant to keep out animals.”
“Let’s change that for now.” It may already be too late. “After you get the library open, prepare the house on the isle.”
“You want to take her to Oileán na Carraige?” His tone didn’t convey approval.
“No, but we need a fall back point.”
Fin frowned. “You think they are coming for her.” It wasn’t a question.
“You’ve had her, would you let someone take her from you?” They’d ripped her from the shadow demon, and soon, very soon, they would have driven him out of her fully.
Expression growing cold and dangerous, Fin said, “No.”
“Then expect they won’t either. Defend against what you would do, and know that your enemies might do worse.”
“She’s ours, Rogue.”
> “That,” he reminded his brother. “That remains to be seen. She has to survive first.”
“You don’t think I know that?”
Still scanning the skies, Rogue shrugged. “I think you and Maddox have decided she is the one, and if she doesn’t survive, you may end up joining Alfred in sleep.”
When his brother didn’t deny it, Rogue nodded once.
“That is why I remain skeptical. One of us has to.”
A shudder rippled through the air as though someone tossed a stone into a placid pool and disturbed it.
“That was…”
Rogue was already moving, pausing only long enough to secure the doors before he raced to the hold below the keep. The doors were still sealed, but even as he listened, the heartbeat below had increased its pace.
Do you still want me to go to the isle?
Fin stood a half-dozen steps away.
Rogue nodded. It will take him time to awake fully.
I’ll hurry.
Then Fin was gone, and Rogue touched the doors. “Easy, brother,” he said. “No one has taken her yet.”
Still, the crows and now this?
They needed to know before Alfred woke fully.
With Fin preoccupied, Rogue made his way to the library and found Fiona standing in the center of it where two beams of sunlight crossed. Maddox already had most of the windows open and fires going in the hearths. She was still dressed in the oversized robes and Rogue’s boots.
The expression of pleasure she still wore flashed through him. The dust was heavy in the room, and it would take some time to clean it up, but she didn’t seem to notice them as she soaked in the light.
Fiona belonged in the light.
For her sake, he was glad she could tolerate the sun.
It would help settle her…they could hope anyway.
Though it also meant one less barrier to prevent her escape.
Well, they would just have to give her reasons to stay that outweighed the primal desire to flee.
Or chain her up.
What a sight she’d make for them.
The image threatened to stagger him, and Rogue scowled.
The last thing they needed was for him to fall prey to her, too.
One of them needed to keep his head.
Chapter 12
“A cage made of gold and silk is still a cage.” - Unknown
The next few hours passed in relative peace. Fin left and returned with food. Maddox and Rogue opened the library, and I didn’t want to leave the windows, even after the light waned from the setting sun. Torches and candles illuminated the room. They really were trapped in some other century.
I’d kill for a big screen television and a marathon of Property Brothers. Or maybe Fixer Upper. Anything. Even focusing on my house on the cliffs seemed too distant to achieve. While I consumed the saffron rice and curried chicken Fin had returned with, he’d gone down to fetch the bags of clothes he’d bought me.
The first two outfits barely qualified as clothes, unless I planned to be the main attraction as a stripper in Vegas, right down to the floss and feathers. The fact that Rogue rolled his eyes at the second outfit made me actually consider it for thirty seconds.
The third and fourth were moderately better, but both were dresses. Cute.
Not my thing.
I preferred clothes I could move in and wouldn’t likely tangle around my legs. Also, call me quirky, but I also liked dressing myself. The whole ‘guys put a woman in what they want to see her in’ thing just squicked me out. I wasn’t a possession or a prize. I dressed for exactly one person.
Me.
“No,” I said again and again in between bites as he held them up. The way he deflated with each rejection almost made me feel bad for him. Almost. If we weren’t in a dusty library that smelled of old books, woodsmoke, and age, I might have. But we were, and they had zero intention of letting me leave.
The minute I said something about going to pick out my own stuff, Fin told me to give him a list and he’d get it exact.
The fact that all three had been right on me when I went out into the sun earlier suggested I’d merely upgraded one prison for another. Color me not shocked.
Down to the last outfit, I studied it musingly. Not bad. Tight leather pants, a black camisole top, and a leather jacket to throw over the top.
“Sold,” I told him. “For now, I’ll wear that.”
He looked so earnestly crestfallen that Maddox chuckled. “You’ve disappointed him. He truly thought you’d like the peasant dresses he bought.”
“You mean the itty bitty ‘look at my ass’ dresses that would work for a striptease if I didn’t want to have to take anything off?”
Rogue smirked and Fin scowled. “They weren’t that bad.”
“No,” Rogue said blandly, lifting a mug of ale he’d been drinking slowly while I ate my weight in curry. The food was amazing, the flavors intense and sharp on my tongue. “They were much worse. She’s not a prostitute.”
Maddox and Fin both wheeled on him, and I hid my own smile. “No,” Maddox snarled. “She isn’t, and those clothes didn’t suggest otherwise. A lot of women wear them these days.”
With a shrug, Rogue said, “She’s not a lot of women, and clearly she doesn’t think much of the outfits.”
Fin opened his mouth to argue, then seemed to think better of it. Finally, he glanced at me.
“If you don’t want me going to stores, do you get the internet in this backwater of time and space, or is that still a few centuries off?”
The corners of Fin’s lips twitched. “Make me a list. I have your sizes.” Or he could just go get my own things. “I would,” he continued. “Get your own things, that is, but they were collected when you were sent to Nightmare Penitentiary. I have no idea where they are.”
With the way my luck had been going? Probably burned.
Food finished, I rose and slid my feet out of Rogue’s boots. The fact that I’d worn the ginormous things even after we’d retreated inside meant nothing. It was a bit like having clown feet. If clowns had sexy, large feet that matched their rather well-endowed physics. Hard to miss the latter anyway. The minute I started moving, I had their attention.
“Before I get dressed, is there going to be draining going on tonight?” I put a hand on my hip because I really wanted real clothes on, but I wasn’t an idiot. If they started on me, I was gonna end up riding all of them again.
Hey, if you couldn’t be honest with yourself, who could you be honest with? As it was, Fin studied me.
“It is my turn,” he said softly.
“And you need it,” Maddox added, but the flash of heat in his suddenly slitted eyes had nothing to do with me feeding.
For some reason, I expected both answers from them. Yes, they wanted to help. They’d made that abundantly clear. But they were both rather fond of my body, and they’d made no pretense of wanting their hands on me.
Not complaining. Just an observation.
The one still keeping his distance, at least at the moment, however, was the one I focused on.
“You need to rest. Tomorrow is soon enough.”
You could almost taste the surprise in the room, and I nodded. Worked for me. Crossing over to the clothes Fin had stacked on another table, I dropped the robe without a second thought. The bite on my neck was still puffy and more than a little sore. The one on my breast had gone the same way as had the one on my thigh. Wherever they drained me from, it would seem, had grown inflamed in some way. The fact that Rogue had done it twice was also not lost on me.
The dead silence as I flipped through the clothes for underthings had me glancing over my shoulder. All three gazes were pinned on me. “Oh please. All three of you have gone down on me, and I know at least two of you were under me when another of you was in me. This is not a new sight.”
I stepped into the panties and tugged them up. They were pure lace and blood red.
Subtle.
I didn’t car
e, since leather pants over a bare pussy was gonna pinch and sweat. I’d pass. The lack of bra also didn’t faze me. I didn’t like the damn things anyway. I tugged the black camisole on, but when I reached for the leather pants, Fin pressed up behind me.
“Are you planning to sleep in them?” The question whispered against my ear sent a shudder skating over my skin. It didn’t help that he’d slid an arm around me and rested his hand on the thin sliver of flesh between the edge of the camisole and my panties. “It’s getting late, and you still need to rest.”
The invitation rolled through me like spring storm. Leaning my head back against his shoulder, I cut my gaze upward to find him smiling at me. Maddox was rugged, tough, and now that I knew about his dragon, I could see it in how he moved and spoke. He was a creature used to control.
Rogue? I still had no idea what he was, but powerful didn’t begin to describe. The elements didn’t touch him. He’d walked out into the snow in the garden without flinching. He moved faster than I could perceive. His demeanor? Quiet, reserved, and far from the argumentative and playful natures of Maddox and Fin respectively. The tattoos scrawled over her Rogue’s biceps and shoulders meant something, but I didn’t know what.
But Fin was just adorable. Sexy. Beautiful. It hadn’t taken me long to figure out his gifts. Druid. There was something just utterly compelling about him.
Thank you.
“Bite me,” I teased, and elbowed him. He brushed his nose against my cheek as he slid his hand along my torso.
“Do not bite her,” Rogue ordered abruptly, and Fin made a little huffing noise.
“He’s a killjoy.”
“You know, I already figured that out for myself.”
Maddox chuckled as I untangled myself from Fin’s grip. He gave me a hint of a pout as I faced him. The fires burning on either end of the library had turned the room toasty. Still dusty, but definitely warmer. Or the fact that Maddox was a little bonfire all by himself helped, too.
The fact that desire had already begun to curl in my stomach irked me. I wasn’t hungry at all. In fact, I was full and replete. Oddly, the blissed out sensation from the prison was missing though. I was comfortable. Not that I probably couldn’t snuggle up in one of their laps or even on a chair by myself and doze. Be better with one of them.