Holy hell, that’s a lot of pressure. For a moment, I feel as if I might split in two. Dante’s chanting increases in both volume and pace. Pain morphs into pleasure. The twins fall into a synchronized rhythm that sends me crashing over the edge in record time.
I come, and I’m not sure I come down before I go off again. They tag-team me, one in, one out, make me scream so many times I lose count. I begin to wonder why the hell I resisted them for so long when the familiar sensation of Dark magick bubbles to the surface, a tar pit catching me unaware. The thick, deadly black threatens my extinction.
“I’m close,” Dante says.
“Me, too,” Derion answers.
I don’t bother saying anything. I’ve been at the finish line, waiting for them to catch up.
Something wet, tangy, and rich coats my lips. I moan as the ambrosia slides down my throat, latch on and suck at the torn flesh being offered. Every cell buzzes with energy. The chanting grows louder. It isn’t only Dante. It’s all four of them.
The bed dips, and I know the other two have joined us—one at my head, one at my feet. The old me would’ve been freaked out about my boyfriend watching me double down with two other guys. I’m no longer the old me. In three days, I might not be me at all.
The first jolt of power hits me in the gut like a fastball at top speed. I spasm, which must tip the two men inside of me over the cliff. I love it when a man’s loud. Let’s me know I’m doing everything right. By the way these two carry on, I must be a damn Goddess.
Derion and Dante both latch onto my neck, both bite into my flesh, drawing blood. It’s all I can do to stay conscious as our magick and blood combine. It reminds me of the power I wielded after my deal with Dad. Only, this promises to be much more permanent.
Once we do the official ritual, it will be.
I have no idea how long I lay there, unable to move. Never in a million would I have pegged Derion as a cuddler. It’s his arms Caleb and Callen pry me from when they carry me into my bathroom.
The problem with bathrooms is that they have too many mirrors. I catch my reflection and wince at how wrecked I look. Red coats my face and neck. Chunks of my hair have turned black. No, black is too light a color to describe it, but it’s the best I’ve got. My eyes are dull and tired, the bags underneath adding the perfect accent to the look.
At least my skin has a beautiful after-orgasm glow.
Caleb sets me on my feet. Callen turns on the shower. I know it’s him because there’s a trick to getting the temperature just right. Only Callen could nail it.
“I’m not sure I can stand,” I admit when Caleb sets me down.
“You can. You only feel drained because magick hasn’t become second nature, yet. Tap into what they gave you.” He swipes his thumb along my lower lip, rubs the red substance between his fingers. The blood of my north and south points.
With his arm tight around my waist, his breath hot on my cheek, I feel like I could do anything. And if I couldn’t, he’d do it for me. Maybe it’s stupid to be comfortable with someone I just met. Well, met again. It was also absurd to think I could outsmart the Devil, that I would never use magick again.
Closing my eyes, I lean into the current igniting my nerve endings. It’s the simplest thing to tap into that source, bend it to my will. When I open my eyes, I have enough stamina to run a marathon, which is exactly what I’m doing with these four. It doesn’t mean Caleb lets me go.
“Shower’s ready,” Callen says, stripping his clothes off and kicking them to the side. He takes me from his brother. I can tell Caleb doesn’t want to let me go.
I place my palm against Caleb’s cheek. “Don’t worry. You have me. You’re about to have me in every way. Isn’t that what you’ve wanted for the past two years?”
Caleb’s soft gaze hardens. So does the rest of him. His jaw muscle ticks. His fists clench and unclench at his sides. I want so badly to kiss him. But with Dante and Derion’s blood on my lips, I don’t.
A long, low, drawn-out moan claws its way from the pit of my stomach up my throat the instant I step into the heated spray. I know I’m in heaven when Callen steps close behind me, massages my shoulders with strong, precise fingers.
“Oh, God,” I sigh as I place my hands against the tiled wall to support myself. I’ve always thought Callen’s fingers were magick. Guess now I know that’s literal.
When he’s done rubbing my shoulders, he grabs the loofah and soap and goes to work getting me clean. I grab my face wash, make sure to remove the blood from my lips. Callen and Caleb may have to share me with Dante and Derion, but that doesn’t mean they want to go that far. Speaking of sharing…
I turn in Callen’s arms but can’t quite meet his gaze. “I have to know. Are you okay with—” I bite my lip. In our world, one woman shares four men all the time. It’s a world I haven’t been a part of, wasn’t raised in.
He pushes a lock of wet hair from my head before bringing his hand to the back of my neck. “I’m as okay as any man can be who has to share a woman like you. Caleb and I weren’t born soul-sworn.” He juts his chin toward the shower curtain where his brother leans against the opposite wall. “We’ve always known we’d have to share someone, eventually.”
“Yeah, but knowing it and doing it aren’t the same,” I argue.
He shakes his head. “It isn’t.”
Now I feel like an asshole. He and Caleb don’t need the reminder, and I did just get tag-teamed in front of them. Caleb and Callen may have had their whole lives to prepare for this, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
As if in response to my thoughts, magick surges to the surface, tickles the underside of my flesh. It demands I satisfy its needs. Demands I make those needs my own. There’s only one way I can think to obey.
I bring my lips to Callen’s and tell him with my mouth how much I’ve appreciated him for the past two years. I also tell him I’m pissed at him for lying, for spying on me for my father. That I forgive him, crave him, want him and Caleb to be my final two points.
With the hot water running down my back and Callen’s fingers running down my front, I reach my hand around the shower curtain toward Caleb. It’s a gesture that says join us. I hope he gets my meaning because my mouth is currently occupied.
The shower is crowded with two of us. It’s downright packed with three. Doesn’t matter. We don’t need much space to do what we need to.
“Do you have a preference?” I ask Callen when I finally break the kiss.
“No. Do you?” he asks.
I shake my head and relish in the sensation of being stuck between a rock and…well, another rock.
Caleb’s hands rub across my ass the way an art collector might touch a priceless piece. “You’d trust me?”
I turn my head so I can look him in the eyes when I say, “I’m going to have to. No better time to start than now.”
He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. The look on his face and the way he kisses me tells me more than words ever could.
Sex in the shower is hard. Sex in the shower with two men at once is almost impossible. Eventually, we find our rhythm and the best position. This time, it’s their turn to make me scream. I don’t disappoint.
Neither do they.
13
“Kate, I need you to focus. Calm down.”
Grandma’s voice was harsh as she took me by the arms and shook me. I felt like we were in some black and white movie where I was about to get slapped across the face for being too hysterical.
I was hysterical. My mom was dead. My life destroyed. I was the only one to blame.
“Move,” she said, devoid of kindness. Not that Darks were known for that.
My feet crushed dried leaves, snapped twigs. The air was thick and heavy and smelled of wet wood and fresh streams. I tried to ask where we were, where we were headed, but I couldn’t get my throat to open enough to form words.
“We’re in the Great Smoky Mountains, on the Tennessee side, but close enough to
the North Carolina border not to get too attached to which state you trudge through.”
Smoky Mountains? Tennessee? Why were we here? I’d never been before, and Mom never talked about that region of the US.
“I have a cabin close by with all the wards and protections in place,” she continued as if I’d asked my questions out loud. “Here.”
She pointed to a handmade symbol made from twigs, twine, and dried leaves. It hung from a nearby tree, seemingly harmless.
From her pocket, she produced a small silver blade similar to the one Mom used to cut me. And like Mom, she cut me in the exact same spot. I flinched, but she held tight, smeared my blood on the talisman.
“My wards don’t know you. Well, they didn't. Now they do. Had you crossed them before, they’d have fried you to a crisp.”
That didn’t sound pleasant at all.
“Come.” She drug me across the ward’s invisible line. Though I refused to use magick, I could feel the difference, as if I was born with an exceptional ability to detect such things. Maybe all witches were.
After walking for another few minutes, we came to a rundown log cabin with dream catchers, freshly skinned rabbit fur, and dried bundles of herbs all hanging from the porch. Holy hell. Grandma was a living cliché. Guess if the shoe fits…
“It isn’t big city living like you’re used to, but it’ll do,” she said as she stalked past the rocking chair and opened the screen door.
I followed, not sure what I was more frightened of: wild animals lurking in the woods or the ones inside that were demon-shaped. Already, they hissed in my ear, used silver-tongued lies taught by Dad to tempt me into one tiny taste of Dark magick.
Mom, I’m so sorry. I should’ve listened. I didn’t mean for you to die. Just give me one more chance, please! Let me do it over again. I promise I’ll make the right choice. The good choice.
Tears streamed fresh. I wasn’t sure who I was talking to. Angels existed. Dad was proof of that. What there wasn’t proof of was God. Or Goddess. If there were such a thing, they wouldn’t listen to my prayers. The daughter of the Deceiver wasn’t likely to gain any favors from Heaven.
The screen door slammed behind me with a final snap. I was in her world, now. In a different world altogether, with rules I hadn’t bothered to learn, and Mom hadn’t bothered to teach me. She wanted me to grow up normal. A mundane. Away from the stigma of being a Dark.
I’d not only gone against her wishes, but I’d also embraced my destiny with all the blind, flailing grace of a headstrong teenager.
“If you want to survive and make sure my daughter didn’t die for nothing, then I need you to listen.” Grandma was a get-to-the-point kind of woman. She was right. Of course, she was, but tell that to my eyes. To my broken heart. Both couldn’t stop sobbing.
I dabbed at the wet using my sleeves. Thankfully, I’d dressed to summon the Devil, then kill an evil man. I was prepared for the chilled bite of the witching hour. It was everything else I wasn’t prepared for.
“The Devil will come for you, and he will get what you promised.” She said it with all the authority that personal experience brings. I didn’t dare ask what she’d bargained. What it was she traded for her soul.
“What are we going to do about that?” I asked as best I could with a tight throat and stuffy nose.
“I’m going to train you on how to be a witch. A Priestess. A Dark. And when the time is right, what it means to be an Inferi.”
The word made me feel dirtier than the deed already done.
“The first thing we need to do is teach you to tap into your magick. Then—”
“No magick.” It was the first steady thing I’d said since Mom had… “No magick,” I said again in answer to the questioning look on her face. “You’re going to have to teach me another way,” I half demanded, half begged, hoping there was another way. “If I never use magick, he can never find me.”
To say she was surprised by my answer would’ve been an understatement. “You can’t resist the pull of your Dark nature.” She seemed so sure.
So was I when I responded, “Watch me.”
There was something behind her dark eyes, so much like mine, that told me I was a fool. They also told me I’d have to rise to the challenge if quitting magick cold turkey was something I was actually going to do.
It was. One hit had been enough for me. Enough to know that kind of power was not only addictive but corrosive. It would wear me down, destroy me from the inside out. That wasn't going to happen. Mom had raised me without magick to keep us both off the Wyka radar. I knew how to survive. What I didn’t know how to do was survive being a Dark, or what it meant to be Inferi.
With Grandma’s help, I’d learn soon enough.
14
“Our turn.” Derion opens the bathroom door and saunters right the hell on in.
He wants to go again? Hell, I might not have the stamina for four men.
Derion throws back the shower curtain. Water splashes onto the floor and onto his incredibly sexy, naked body. “I meant the shower, Priestess,” he says, answering the look that must be on my face.
Okay, so I slump a little in relief against Caleb’s chest. His arms wrap around me, hold me in place. He was incredible. So was Callen. Both of them together was pure magick. And the magick we created? I’d be surprised if I’m not actually glowing.
Derion acts as if he’s about to push his way into a shower already way too crowded for comfort. “Dude.” Callen throws up his hands. “I’ll get out. Chill.”
I swear Callen shoulder-checks Derion when he steps out of the shower. The two share some kind of macho look I’ll probably never understand. I’m three seconds from telling them to back down when Derion shrugs it off and steps into the warm spray.
Callen grabs his towel and leaves. When I glance into Caleb’s face, his features are hard, his brow creased as he glares at Derion, who’s too busy soaping up his hair to notice.
It’s time like these I wish there was a Pentagram 101 class that taught me how to handle so many strong personalities. A one-on-one relationship is hard enough. Four-on-one sounds unmanageable. Yet, Priestesses do it on the daily. Hell, a rare few form a Hex—three sets of twins to one Priestess.
Magick is so fucked up sometimes.
“Come on.” I tap Calen on the shoulder, draw his attention back to me. I’d hate for his hate-staring to pull a jaw muscle. “I’m ready to get out. I’m starting to prune, anyway. Will you help dry me off?”
Caleb plants a chaste kiss on my forehead, even though what we just did was anything but chaste. “Whatever you desire.”
“Anything?” I tease in a way sexier tone than is necessary.
Part of me enjoys getting to know Caleb, giving him a taste of what he’s missed out on for two years. The other part does it to fuck with Derion, whose dark eyes take a leisurely stroll down my body.
He wants me to know he’s looking, but also tries to play it too cool to care. As if I should pursue him the way all women in his life clearly have.
That isn’t going to happen. Not even if he were the last North point on Earth. It isn’t in my nature, and I have zero reasons to chase anything when I have three other all-too-willing men ready to satisfy my every need.
Caleb doesn’t answer my question with words. He does it with a kiss. The kind of kiss meant to mark territory. The magick I’d used to claim him, and him me, sparks a fire in my blood. My bond with Derion flames hot as well.
The two men crowd me. Their eager willingness to go for round two presses against my flesh. I want to. Fuck, do I want to. I could stay in this shower, in this apartment, all day, screw the four of them until I can’t walk.
That’s the problem. I don’t have all day. Dad only gave me three before he claims what’s his and hurts Claudia in the process. My selfish desires will have to wait until she’s safe. She won’t be safe until I learn what it means to be an Inferi, and how I can use it to my advantage.
“Stop.” I plac
e my fingers on Caleb’s lips.
As if he were a marionette, and I his master, Caleb immediately complies. Derion does no such thing. He isn’t a gentleman. His lessons come a bit harder, it would seem.
Speaking of harder…
I twist until I face Derion. One hand wraps in his hair. The other grabs hold of his balls. Water splashes over us both.
It would be the easiest thing to crush them, send a surge of electricity into them, so he’ll learn that I’m the one in charge. Not him.
When I pull on both his hair and his sack, his head twists to the side, and he lets out a whimper. I keep my voice low and steady when I say, “I said stop. When I say stop, what do you do?”
“St-stop,” he says, jaw clenched, teeth pressed tight. It isn’t the only thing being squeezed tight.
A part of me, the Dark part, wants to hurt him. Punish him for disobeying. For defying me. No one defies me, least of all my soul-sworn.
I gasp, let go of Derion, and fall back into Caleb’s arms. I tremble as tears make their way to the surface, tighten and burn my throat along with bile. The fire of rage I’d felt a moment ago morphs into the familiar heat of shame.
“I’m s-sorry.” I hold up my hands to touch Derion. He flinches away. So do I. “I’m—”
“Don’t apologize.” Derion snaps the curtain out of the way. Water splashes onto the floor and the small fuzzy carpet I have for when I step out. “Apologizing makes this worse.”
Derion storms out of the bathroom and grabs my towel along the way. His wet footprints stay long after he leaves. Dante steps up, takes his brother’s place. The hot water has turned cold. Or maybe that’s just me.
I shut it off, look down at my hands when I do. I can’t look Dante or Caleb in the face. “Kate?” The soft way Dante says my name tears a sob from my throat. The daughter of the Devil doesn’t deserve such a thing as kindness.
His hands are warm on my chilled flesh when he cradles my cheeks in his hands. “Look at me.” It’s a command without aggression. Dante has a finesse his brother lacks.
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