And a child?
It fucked with all of that.
My heart began to race and I could feel sweat beading on my brow as though my panic was physically manifesting. And just like that, Gabriella, who hadn’t stirred all night, who looked as though she hadn’t moved an inch, began to move.
More than an inch.
She twisted on Matthew’s chest, her gaze pinpointing me without a second’s hesitation.
It was like she’d known where I was all along.
And the second our gazes clashed?
My heart ceased racing and a calm spread through me because this was right.
This was so fucking right.
I released a shaky breath and asked, “Are you well?”
She tilted her head to the side. “I need to eat and shower, and not in that order.”
Underneath her, Matthew rumbled out a laugh. “Shower first. You weren’t the one lying in the wet patch.”
Her nose crinkled a second before she began to laugh. “True. Remind me to always sleep like this.”
Matthew released a heavy sigh and his hands came up to cup her curves. “I won’t complain about that, Riel.”
She cocked a brow. “Since when did you call me Riel?”
“Since I fucked you last night,” he retorted with a wry grin. “And you’re not a Gabi.”
“I’m not?” She frowned. “Why aren’t I? My mom calls me that.”
“You’re too weird to be a Gabi,” he murmured, his eyes closing as he began kneading her ass cheeks. The movement reminded me of a cat making the motions in a cushion or in their owner’s arms. Except this cat was huge, had wings, and weighed nearly three hundred pounds of pure muscle.
Some housecat.
I rubbed my chin as I thought about his words. “I can see that too.”
“See what?” she inquired, her tone accusative. And it was actually pretty nice to see that she still had as much attitude as ever, and that fucking her didn’t fuck the sass out of her, but brought it back to life.
“That you’re not a Gabi.” I shrugged. “Gabis are nice. You’re not nice.”
She huffed. “I can be nice.”
“Since when?” Joseph mumbled, then he groaned as he began to sit up. “Sol, let’s do this on a bed next time, yeah?”
“Why, Grandpa, are you too old for sleeping on the floor?” she teased then grinned when he gave her a sharp look.
“Next time, you can sleep on the floor and I’ll sleep on you,” he replied easily, and I couldn’t deny that the ease with which they were talking calmed something inside me. A part I hadn’t even known was riled up.
As I’d awoken this morning, I guess I’d feared that there would be recriminations and regrets. I knew how much such acts as we’d engaged in last night were loathed, and if Matthew and Seph had walked away from this?
I wouldn’t even begin to know how to rectify things.
Riel curled back down on Matt’s chest, but her eyes were on me as she nestled into him. There was no sex kitten moue on her lips, no enticing sparkle in those beautiful brown eyes of hers. There was just a warmth I felt like I’d been searching for since forever.
“You okay?” she queried softly.
The question made me feel a bit like a pansy. I’d had the best sex of my life last night—I was more than okay. But she wasn’t asking about that. She was asking, without saying a word about my moment of panic, if I was feeling better.
Gratitude filled me. I wasn’t sure how she’d seen it, considering she’d ignored us most of the time since she’d become a part of our troupe, but I looked up to Matthew and Seph.
Both came from renowned warrior lines, even if one was shunned, and their reputations traveled far and wide with a sword. Warrior sons often took part in tourneys and competitions, and I knew Seph and Matthew had known each other a long while, even if they were from opposite coasts, from those tournaments alone.
My smile was barely there, but I nodded. “I’m good.”
She sighed happily and closed her eyes. “I’m glad.”
We all settled into a kind of daze. I leaned back against the sofa, Joseph slipped his arm along the sofa cushions and rested his head back on it too, and Matthew and Riel just dozed.
The sense of peace in the air hit me, but it didn’t stop my mind from switching off. Last night, what had happened had been necessary. The link between us was more tangible than ever.
The troupe bond had connected me with Seph and Matt, but not with Gabriella who, even though she’d started opening up, hadn’t exactly tried to form a connection with us until her magic had started acting up.
Then, after the glow had permeated the three of us, I knew another bond had begun its formation. A bond that was cemented a little more firmly into place thanks to last night.
But that didn’t take away from what Seph’s father had discussed with us.
Gabriella Senior had lied to her family for decades. Why? She’d hidden in the States, had made her daughter hide from the Conclave when that was the key to poverty—no witches could earn positions that utilized magic without being tested by the Conclave—and had messed up her own personal timeline.
Why?
Wishing I was like Gabriella and could use magic to do my bidding, I got to my feet and went in search of my phone. Fae magic and witch magic were unalike. Though ours was mined from theirs, we couldn’t use it in the same way. We tended to create illusions—the Academy, for example, didn’t actually exist. It was just a great big simulation. That was how it could shift and morph into what the faculty required.
Only the old families like Seph’s had proper houses, and even then, they were propped up through illusion too.
Our magic could also inhibit other races’ senses, making them feel something more or less as we required it. The most magical thing about us were our wings and our blood. But the magic? That was borrowed, or as Riel would have it, stolen. So, unless I wanted an illusion of my cell, that would get me nowhere.
Finding it on the stand beside the door, I sought out information on the Bay of Pigs Invasion where Gabriella’s grandmother’s name was heavily featured in the article. There was even a picture of her there, her hair swirling around her as she called on the water to repel the invaders.
It was hard not to be impressed at the sight of her. Her arms were raised as she called on the water, her hair a wild tangle from the wind that whipped at her, and she just stood there, one woman against the wilds of nature.
It reminded me of ‘Tank Man,’ the guy who’d walked out in front of a line of tanks during the Tiananmen Square Protests.
The picture sent shivers down my spine, and as I carried on reading, I saw that my history had failed me—in 1961, that was when the Bay of Pigs Invasion had gone down. So Noa was right. How could Gabriella Senior have been a small girl when she went to the States? But be a fully-grown woman in time for the Bay of Pigs Invasion…?
She’d lied about her age.
Why?
What purpose would that serve?
Human women were funny about age, I knew that. They lied and knocked off a few years as though that would evade the passage of time, but witches weren’t like that. With age came wisdom and more control over their powers. But Gabriella had lied. Repeatedly, and over something that shouldn’t have mattered.
I blew out a breath as bewilderment filled me. Whatever was going on with Riel’s grandmother, whatever the purpose for her making all the decisions she had, I knew there had to be a reason for it.
And, call me crazy, but I had a feeling it was tied to the raven who’d come calling for Riel…
❖
Seph
As I showered away the night’s excesses, I pressed my hands to the wall and let the water slough off my neck. It coagulated around my wing stubs, easing some of the ache that gathered there from being pressed into the floor all night long. But the heat simply felt good on my bones.
It didn’t come close to the heat I’d felt l
ast night, and maybe that was why I felt so cold.
As the water pooled around my feet, I heard the shower door open. The scent of her hit me first, and when her hands slid around my belly, I couldn’t stop the shudder from hitting me. Her effect on my nervous system was like nerve gas. She got to me in ways I’d never experienced before, and though I wasn’t acting like the fiend Daniel was, had enough reason to see my dad’s point of view, equally, I knew I couldn’t live without these feelings.
Without the heat of her, the intensity of her, the power and madness of this bond that had sparked to life thanks to a manifestation of magic. And these feelings were after a short while. How had my father managed to tear himself free for duty? How had they abandoned Gabriella with a daughter?
“What’s wrong? You tensed up.”
I heard the nerves in her voice, so I grabbed her joined hands that were connected at my waist and clung to one.
“Just trying to understand my father. I feel like I’ve spent half my life trying to do that and constantly fail.”
“You think I understand my mama?” She snorted. “I barely understand my dad, and he’s the one who’s normal.”
“Men are never normal,” I said dryly. “At least, not to women.”
“The one comfort in life,” she teased.
“I don’t know, there are always death and taxes.”
A laugh escaped her. “Cheerful.”
“I try,” I mocked, then I sighed. “I just…”
“It was a different time, a different place, and they’re different people,” she said softly, like she knew what I was going to say. “This is only the beginning, Joseph. You have to recognize that we’re all changing, and at the moment, we’re willing to live with those changes.
“But, after a few months? A year? Will we like who we are? Evidently, my abuela and her men didn’t, and that’s reflected in their decision.”
My throat grew tight. “Maybe.”
“No maybe about it. That’s what happened. The way she lived out her life tells the truth of that.”
I twisted around in her hold so that I was staring down at her. It seemed surreal that I’d gone from thinking she was a major pain in the ass to needing this intense connection with her, but also, it felt right. I felt right when these overpowering feelings were coursing through me.
It was like, until this point in my life, I’d only been living a half-life.
I knew that sounded crazy, and that kind of intensity was undoubtedly what my father was warning me against, but he wasn’t like me.
He’d never be able to understand.
I’d been raised in a marriage that was loveless. A lot of kids were, but there was usually some kind of affection, be it from a nanny or a sibling. My father had refused to let us have nannies, and the affection any of my siblings had for one another started and ended with familial obligation.
We weren’t close. Never had been and never would be. We just hadn’t been raised that way.
My earliest memory of my father was of him encouraging my brother and I to fight. He’d given Lucian pointers on how to properly slice into me with quick, whip-like motions that had the end of his foil flickering back and forth faster than a butterfly’s wings, and he’d told me Lucian’s weakness was his ankle—one he’d broken during his first flights after a bad descent—and to use that against him.
That was pretty much all the affection my father had ever shown us—encouraging us, sure, but to hurt one another…
Noa, after doing his duty and denying his witch mate himself, had turned into a cruel man. Perhaps his cirque du freak wasn’t as bad as I’d always believed it to be, maybe he was trying to help the witches, but he was inherently cold, and now I’d felt the scorching blaze of the Virgo bond, I could understand it.
I reached up to cup her cheek. “I think my father made the wrong choice.”
“You say that in hindsight,” she corrected, but for the first time, I saw a flicker of something in her eyes.
Vulnerability?
Insecurity?
I couldn’t say, didn’t know. All I knew was that since she’d told us we were her Virgos, she’d acted as though she hadn’t cared whether we rejected her or not.
After last night? I felt certain that had changed.
I pressed my lips to her temple, and murmured, “No, I say that having lived with my father for eighteen years. He was a miserable man. Utterly miserable throughout all of my childhood. I can’t remember ever seeing any softness in him. Not when he was with his children, not even when he was doing something he proclaimed to love like chess.
“Living without her gave him no joy. Sure, he did his duty, but if anything, he’s proven to me that there’s more to life than that.”
“Don’t offer promises you’re not ready to make,” she warned, but her eyes had darkened, the faint chrysalis that spun her chocolate brown eyes into amber had tightened and woven into an intricate light display that turned her irises into gemstones. “I don’t need you to. You’ll know when you’re ready, and you’ll have to make the decision as a group.”
My thumb stroked her chin. “Are you sore?”
She blinked at the rapid change of subject, but she didn’t, interestingly enough, blush. Instead, she grinned. “Yeah. I feel like I’ve gone ten rounds with Mohammad Ali.”
“Only ten?” I winked at her. “Then we didn’t do it right.”
Snickering, she shook her head. “I don’t think you could have done it better.”
My lips twitched, my pride adequately stroked as I reached for the razor in the dish. When I drew it to my forearm, she frowned. “What are you doing?”
I scuffed the top layer of skin on the underside of my arm until it bled blue.
“What in Gaia’s name did you do that for?” she ground out, glowering at me.
As a few beads of blood began to form, I dug my nail into the slight wound until it tore open a little more. Gathering a few drops on my fingers, I moved my hand between her legs. She grabbed my wrist and grumbled, “No fucking way.”
I cocked a brow at her, and before she knew what was what, pressed her into the shower wall. With her hold on my wrist, I used momentum to twist her arms overhead and pinned her in place.
Though she glowered, when I pressed my thigh between hers, she gulped and her eyes flashed pink. Somehow, however, I knew she wasn’t emitting anger.
My lips curved as I tutted her. “Let me tend to my mate.”
She shivered at that. “You can’t put blood down there.”
“Why can’t I?” Smirking, I used my injured arm to hold her tightly. With my free hand, I collected a few more drops of blood and slipped it between her thighs. “I’d rub your clit if I could,” I rasped, “but I don’t think that’s the sore part.”
Her swallow was thick, audible enough to be heard over the shower. “N-No, that doesn’t hurt.”
When my fingers circled her pussy, she whimpered and her head fell back, tilting onto the tiles.
“Gaia, that shouldn’t feel as good as it does.”
Her whispered admission rocked me, but what stunned me further was how slick she was. Sol, with barely any touching at all, and she was ready to fuck.
This bond of ours was certainly fucking magical.
I collected blood a few more times, until my forearm was coated in remnants of her wetness and her pussy scented of blood.
By the end, she was writhing against the wall, but I knew, even though it was exquisite torture, that the blood wouldn’t heal her that quickly.
She clung to me when I washed the rest of her off, making for a very awkward shower, and yet, I loved it. Loved how she stuck to me like glue. I held her close, rubbing her hair clear of shampoo before gently massaging her head. As I moved down to the base of her neck, her knees almost gave way when I pinched a particular spot.
She staggered into me, giving me all her weight. The move was so unexpected that my wings flared out and flapped quickly to keep us both upr
ight.
“What the Sol was that?” she whispered, her eyes dazed as she stared at me.
I’d released the spot the second she’d tumbled into me, but now? I pressed it again.
It happened again.
“Gaia, what on Earth?” I mumbled to myself, adding it to the list of weird-as-shit things that were going down in my life, but I stopped rubbing the area and returned to cleaning her up.
By the time we were done, there was no more hot water left, and Riel looked even shakier than she had last night after she’d orgasmed around Daniel’s cock.
Whatever the Sol that was with her neck, it put me on edge. We weren’t animals. We were higher creatures. The Fae were, as my father had said last night, the apex predator. But the way she’d responded reminded me of a puppy being carried around in its mother’s mouth.
With a sigh, I dried her off. I fabricated some clothes that would be adequate for the day’s training—Sol, I loved magic. Even if it was only an illusion—and murmured, “We must eat now.” She nodded and made to pull away, but I tutted. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To eat,” she replied drowsily.
My lips twitched. “Not without me.” Summoning some clothes for myself, I hauled her into my side so we could walk into my quarters together.
A feeling of possessiveness stirred inside me at the weakness I’d just discovered in her make up.
Was that a witch born thing? Or a witch who had Virgo mates thing?
As we headed into my room, I scented the male before I heard him. An acute rage snapped into life as I heard him talking with Daniel and Matthew, and the desire to tear him to shreds for daring to be close to my woman was a living entity inside me.
Without even meaning to, I’d drawn her into my arms and was using the weakness I’d just discovered to my benefit—to keep her limp in my grasp without argument.
The desire to take off from this place, to fly into a nest of our own was overpowering. I didn’t want any male’s eyes on her, none save for her other Virgo, and knowing that some stranger was in our private space, where we’d consummated the bond for the first time last night?
The Ascended: The Eight Wings Collection Page 20