Before I can protest, his lips are on mine as his fingers trace down my arms to the hem of the tunic, drawing it from the waistband of my leather breeches. Breaking the kiss, he whispers against my lips, “Remove your clothes and get on the bed, Grace.” While I don’t understand how this will help me reach my other mates, I don’t argue. Quickly and haphazardly, I kick off my boots, shimmy out of my leather breeches, and strip out of my tunic and undergarments. When a growl sounds from behind me, I feel shy for just a moment before Baler’s body presses against mine, and I can feel the evidence of his arousal pressing against my back.
The fingers of his right hand skim along my hip bone sending tingles of pleasure straight to my core. “Get on the bed, Grace. Before I lose the last bit of control I have left. You, standing here naked before me is making it really hard not to bend you over this bed and take you right now.”
“You make it sound like that would be a terrible thing,” I reply breathlessly, knowing I’m goading him on.
He takes a small step back, then slaps my ass as he growls, “Bed.” I squeak in surprise and quickly jump onto the bed. Crawling towards the headboard before a hand wraps around my ankle, pulling me down and flipping me over. “I’m glad you got your strength, now I do not have to worry about breaking you.”
Everything he says sends waves of anticipation and desire through my system, and I squirm under the heat of his gaze. When he presses his lips to the ankle he’s still holding, I drag in a panting breath as the anticipation builds. Maddeningly slow, he trails his lips up my leg, kissing, licking, and nipping every inch of skin he can. When he bypasses my core, I let out a groan of frustration which quickly turns into a whimper when he bites down on my hip bone. Though he didn’t bite hard enough to cause a permanent marking, it was enough to quell my wolf for now. Releasing my hip, he soothes the sting of the bite by running his tongue over the mark.
Making his way higher, he flicks his tongue over my nipple, teasing it to a hard sensitive point before sucking it into his mouth. I arch my back trying to push more of my breast into his mouth. Gliding his hand up my ribs, his fingers play over my other nipple where he pinches and tweaks the point between his fingers, bringing both to hard peaks. The ache between my legs grows excruciating. Hoping to add a little friction to ease my throbbing ache, I lift my hips, trying to wiggle into a position that will allow me to grind against Baler’s thigh or pelvis, anything, as he rests in the cradle of my legs.
His hand moves to clamp down on my hip, pushing it into the bed, stilling my movements. “Baler, please.” He lifts his head, releasing my nipple with a pop, and pushes up on his other hand to look down on me, his eyes locking with mine as his hand slides from my hip between our bodies. A moan escapes me when his fingers find my clit and apply the barest-of-there touches to the bundle of nerves. My body is pulled so taunt I might shatter the moment he moves his fingers. Biting down on my lower lip, I try to find a little of the control he’s robbing me of.
He slides two fingers around the outside of my clit, giving it a pinch, then rubbing around the edge again, and that control I was maintaining begins to shatter into pieces. My hands fly to his shoulders, my nails digging into flesh, clinging for dear life, afraid I might just fly away. One of his fingers slides inside of me as my orgasm starts to build. Working me up, he adds a second finger and then a third.
“Gods, Grace.” His forehead comes to rest on my chest as he continues to fuck me with his fingers. Sliding in and out, his hips moving in time, causing his cock to rub along my leg.
“I want to feel you inside me. My mate. I need you to love me.” His fingers still as he lifts his eyes to mine. “Just go slow,” I whisper out, a blush creeping up from my chest to settle in my cheeks. “I’ve… well… I’ve never…” Baler silences my virgin confession with a slow tender kiss as he lifts one of my legs over his bent arm and lines himself up. Slowly he presses in, pushing just the head of his cock inside, and I moan into his mouth which he swallows greedily.
He pulls out the head and presses back in a little deeper. He continues this, giving me a chance to adjust to the feeling of being filled. When he presses deeper and hits a resistance inside me, he pulls back from the kiss and I give him a nod. He thrusts forward in one quick movement, breaking through the thin lining inside me. I let out a whimper of pain as tears flow from my eyes, my hands fisting into the blanket beneath me.
“I am so sorry, Grace.” Baler’s voice sounds strained as he holds himself completely still. “The pain will pass, give it a minute.” He kisses the tears tracking down my temples, worshipping me with tender touches and caresses while whispering soothing and loving words in my ear.
The pain begins to ebb as my body conforms to the broken barrier and new sensations that come with it, with him buried so deep inside of me. “I am going to move, okay?” I just nod at his words, not trusting my voice to hold steady.
When he moves, the lingering pain quickly begins to morph into a deep seeded pleasure. Starting at our point of contact deep in my core, filling me low in my belly, and dancing up to fill a place behind my sternum where my wolf now bathes in the light of her mate as he makes love to us. He shifts his hips, changing the angle. When he pushes back in, his cock rubs over a spot deep inside me causing my eyes – that I hadn’t realized I was squeezing shut – to fly open and pulling a gasp from me. “There it is,” he says with a groan and then he does it again, pulling mostly out then thrusting back in, rubbing over that spot. His pace begins to pick up, in and out, faster, and harder, moving deeper until he’s flush with my hips.
A climax begins to build, my walls tighten around him becoming harder for him to move. I feel the ridges of his cock gliding along my walls. My moans gradually become louder as I beg for, well I have no clue what it is I’m begging for, something to push me over that edge that I’m teetering on. “Baler, oh Gods,” I cry out.
Baler kisses my lips again before he slides a hand between us and rubs at the swelling bundle of nerves. “Come for me, Grace,” he growls, and I obey. My inner walls flutter around his cock as he continues to move in and out, coaxing me through my orgasm. “Gods, Grace,” he moans in my ear as my walls slowly begin to release him.
Shifting, he wraps his arms around my back and pulls me with him as he sits up, sitting me over his thighs, straddling him as he sits with his legs folded under him. Still buried inside me, he shifts my hips, moving me in circles around his cock. I wrap my arms around his neck and picking up his rhythm, I begin to move my hips in small circles, grinding against his pelvis. Then rising up and dropping back down, pulling his cock out to the tip and pushing back in to the root.
Watching his breathing and shoulder muscles flex, I find when a move causes him to tense and gasp and remember to repeat those moves. Finding a steady rhythm, I begin to ride his cock faster, thrusting my hips forward as I rise and fall.
Baler’s arms lock around my back as he pulls me flush against him, my sensitive nipples rubbing against his pecs, and his body begins to tremble. I continue to shift my hips, working his cock, causing him to hit that sweet spot along my front wall. Another shuttering climax builds inside me, my body tensing, and my walls begin to squeeze around Baler, pulling a shocked groan from deep in his throat. This time though he doesn’t touch my clit, instead his mouth locks around the bruise on my neck, his teeth sinking into my skin as he marks me as his mate. My orgasm hits hard as he fills me with not only his cum, but with his mating bond. I scream out my release before my scream is muffled as I bite down on his shoulder over my mating mark. He shudders under me, his arms never slacking as he holds me securely to him.
14
Grace
Coming down from the high Baler sent me on, my head rests on his shoulder and my arms and legs wrap around his body, clinging to my mate. Mate, my wolf purrs in my head, sounding more content and at peace than she had since being freed.
Smiling and sounding more than a little drugged, I whisper, “My wolf is content. She�
��d been so on edge lately, not really trusting her place in all of this but she’s happy now. Thank you.”
“That’s good. I am glad she feels at peace with our bond. Now, I want you to try something. Odin told you that you could follow Riley’s uncemented bonds to her fated mates, correct? I want you to find where our bond connects to your soul. It should be relatively easy to find with how new it is. Find the other fated bonds beside it, then follow those bonds back to your other mates.”
Relaxing further into the security of Baler’s hold, I rest my mind and feel for his bond. Picturing a bright thread running from my soul to his, it’s easy to find and grab hold of, following it back to my center. “That’s it, Love. Now, find the other bonds.”
I follow his directions and find fainter bonds branching out alongside where his bond rests. Tentatively, I pluck at one of the bonds and an image of Killian appears in my mind. Touching the other threads, one at a time, I find Paxton, Jameson, and someone I don’t know yet. It’s the unknown man that responds to the tug. As though he can see me, his eyes turn to me, his mind connecting with mine.
“Who are you?” he asks in a deep English accent that not only could melt your panties but soothe the soul. Piercing sapphire eyes outlined in dark long lashes, search my own amethyst eyes. What he’s looking for I’m not sure. “Who are you?” he repeats.
Taken aback by this new development, shock, and confusion at how he sees me, I stumble over my words. “I’m… I….”
“I? I do not believe your name is I,” he quips.
Shaking my thoughts back into a semblance of coherence, I manage, “No. Sorry. I’m Grace. Who are you?”
He raises a well-defined brow at me as the corner of his plump ruby lips lifts. “Well, Grace,” he says my name slowly as though rolling it around on his tongue, getting a taste for it. “Seeing as you called to me, I would think you would know who I am. Or do you make a habit of drawing strangers into your dreams?”
“I… What?” I stammer completely dumbstruck. How?
“You really don’t know how you did this?” he asks, eyes narrowing in suspicion.
What the…?
“Did you just read my mind?” I ask, disbelievingly. My wolf’s growling warning at his action echoes around us.
“Love, you invited me into your mind, or rather dragged me in. I truly was not given a choice in the matter.” His tone is wry, though a smirk crosses his handsome features, broadcasting his amusement.
“Well, no, I don’t know how I did this. And no, I don’t know who you are,” I snap at him. His eyes shine with an eerie inner light causing his sapphire eyes to glow an icy blue. A mix of cold dread and heated desire sink deep into my soul. Taking a deep metaphorical breath, since it seems I don’t actually need to breathe in a dreamscape, I gather my rising temper. “Will you please tell me your name?”
“Since you asked so kindly, my name is Weylen. As for how you pulled me here, there is only one way that could have happened,” he says with a knowing smiling on his face.
“And how is that? Since it seems you won’t tell me anything without me having to ask.”
“I believe you already know. I’ll let you think that over and you can tell me what you come up with next time.”
“What do you….” I don’t get to finish my question as he just disappears, a flicker of light where he once stood. “How the hell did he do that?”
You already know. Is what he had said. I already know. How? I think back to what Odin had said, that I drew the guys into my dreams when I had been thinking about them. I was thinking about them because they are my mates. We are connected through the mate bond, even though they are not cemented yet. Maybe that’s how I drew them in, pulling on those bonds. “Only one way to find out I guess,” I say to the emptiness around me. “Here goes nothing.”
Taking a deep breath, I focus on Killian. Remembering the last time I had seen him, I was seventeen, having just graduated from high school and preparing to move to Vancouver with Riley for college. He was twenty-two, readying to leave on a special undercover mission that Jimmy requested.
“Where are you going?” I ask, feeling like a piece of me is being torn apart as I watch Killian strap a black duffle to the rear seat of his prized possession, his motorcycle, a 2014 Harley-Davidson Breakout in Vivid Black. I was honored to be able to go with him when he picked her out. His first love, and as far I knew, his only.
“I can’t tell you, Little One, it’s top secret. Besides, even if I could, I wouldn’t tell you because I need you to be safe.” His hand comes to rest on my cheek as a tear leaks from my eye. “Shite, don’t cry for me, Grace. You’re off to start a new adventure with your sister. You’ll meet a guy and fall madly in love, start a career, buy a big house and have lots of kids.”
“I really won’t,” I whisper.
His other hand comes up to mirror the first, cradling my face between his hands. He kisses my forehead before he whispers, “Grace, you are too good for this life I live. You’re only seventeen, you can’t possibly know what you’ll do and where you’ll end up.”
“If only I believed you all those years ago.” I spin around when I hear a familiar voice from behind me.
“Killian,” my hand flies to my mouth when I gasp his name, barely above a whisper as he steps up in front of me and cradles my face between his large, work roughened hands. His thumbs trace along my cheekbones under my eyes. His golden eyes, a ray of bright sunshine, search my face. “It’s really you?” It was meant to be a statement, but it came out more like a question.
Wrapping his arms around me tightly, he rests his now very bearded chin on my head. “It’s me, Little One. I don’t know what the feck is going on but shite, whatever this is, I am happy to see you. I heard you had fecking died.”
“I’m alive, sorta,” I say as I wrap my arms around his waist, fisting his shirt and rub my cheek against his chest. His solid, wall of a chest, I might add. “Gods, what happened to you Killian. You’re like a solid wall.” I look at his beard and long brown hair with various shades of red highlights. I flick a piece of his hair over his shoulder. “And your hair. Your beard. It’s so long.” Poking at his neck, my fingers trace over a tattoo peeking out the neckline of his plain white t-shirt. I raise my brow and add, “And you’re decorated now.” Killian laughs at my descriptions of his latest look.
“We have all changed, mo chroí. You more than I.” He leans down and runs his nose from my shoulder up my neck to my ear. “I don’t understand how this works, but I can scent you. Feck, you smell amazing, like home and,” with a deep inhale he finished on a low throaty growl, “mine. How?”
“I recently shifted,” is my only response as heat floods my veins and my cheeks.
Shaking his head, Killian takes a small step back, never dropping his hands from my body. “You have a lot of explaining to do, mo chroí. Where have you been, where are you now, and what is this place?”
“Let me try to get the twins in here first, so I only have to tell this story once,” I respond as I force myself to take a step out of his embrace and turn my back on him, so my brain can think properly.
“The twins, as in the Barns twins?”
“The one and only set.” I look over my shoulder with a smirk.
“Of course,” he utters, exasperated. To say the twins’ early year antics grated on Killian was putting it mildly.
Closing my eyes, I focus on a time when the four of us were all together to ensure I kept Killian here with me. As images of the tribal lands take root in my mind – the bright vibrant forest greens, the small huts, the smoky scent of the large fire pits, and the sounds of chanting groups and playing children – I hear Killian’s gasp of shock from behind me.
Opening my eyes, I look around and a slow smile crosses my face and tears prick at my eyes. Every sight, sound, and smell is magnified in this place. A sob rips free of me when a vision of youthful twins chasing a giggling younger version me through the tribe’s graveyard with Kil
lian close on our heels, yelling at them to stop plays out around me. Two sets of deep toffee tone – compared to the cool butterscotch tones from their youth – muscular arms wrap tightly around me from each side, one around my waist and the other around my shoulders. A third set of arms comes around me from behind. “Gods, I’ve missed this.”
Three sets of lips connect with my cheeks and the crown of my head. “Grace, I think it’s time to explain what’s going on,” Killian says from behind me.
I nod, “Yes, let’s sit.” Paxton clings to my hand and leads me over to sit next to the fire. Where, after getting a good look at my twins, I jump right in.
I tell them everything that’s happened since moving to Vancouver after graduation. I tell them about college and getting engaged. The beginning plans of a double wedding, to finally finding out about the cancer. I tell them about my dreams and what I saw. About my death and my rebirth in Valhalla. I explain my bloodline, with Fenrir being the beginning, and the blessings from Odin.
Standing up from my seat between Jameson and Paxton, I begin to pace in front of the fire. “The scariest part about all of this though, wasn’t learning about the prophecy or even breaking the curse and let me tell you, that hurt like hell. No, it was finding out that I could have something I always wanted but never thought possible and the fear I may never be able to go after it.”
“What is it that you always wanted?” Jameson asks.
I stop pacing and look at the three men sitting in front of me. Three men I always felt connected to and never understood why. Three men I can call mine, if they’ll wait for me. Taking a deep breath, I answer with just one word. “Mates.”
“Did you say mates? As in more than one?” Paxton chimes in. He has been oddly quiet this whole time, so at odds with his normally cheerful, bubbly, loud personality.
Allowing my eyes to drift over each of the guys, I nod my head. “Yes, mates, five to be specific. Well, based on the vision Odin shared with me before I broke the curse.”
Death's Gift: Norse Blessed Book One Page 12