by Mima
She swallowed convulsively on his finger again and again. He took his hand from her mouth, despite her teeth attempting to hold him quite cruelly. His palms settled on her shoulders, steadying her wavering body. His lungs were as scorched as when they’d denied him water for a week.
Her smoky voice drew his gaze to hers. “Mine.” Her face was fierce, wide mouth grim, eyes narrowed, elegant brows together, chestnut hair totally mussed, bangs stuck to her forehead.
His balls seized again, straining through another orgasm with nothing left to share. Moriko. A growl tore from him as he went way past his tolerance level.
“Bear. Come here. Right now.”
Her words were imperious, calm, and resolute. Between one searing breath and the next, Donte was shoved inside his own mind. Bear was around him, a cage of fur. He collapsed, muscles gone with the relief, gripping fistfuls of Bear’s essence and burying his face in it.
Outside his skin, there was a thud and then Moriko wrapped her smaller, soft arms around their trux shoulders. As Bear leaned Donte’s body into her hold, he saw the ropes were shredded and guessed Moriko had used her earthcraft to free herself. Bear gripped her hips, face against her hair. They stayed like that as the room grew warmer. Her heart fluttered against his torso. Donte stroked his hands through their internal world, doing his best to pet Bear himself.
When she pulled back, it was her turn to cup his face. Donte didn’t like that. He was hideous, his face a map of a whole bunch of shitty choices. But Bear did not withdraw or deflect as Donte would have. He remained still under her regard.
“I missed you.” She pressed a kiss to his left cheek. “Welcome back.” She brushed her lips in a soft nuzzle to his right cheek. “Is there anything you need from me?”
Bear sat back on his heels, drawing Moriko with him so she straddled their thighs. He picked her up enough to set the tip of their aching cock to her entrance and then let go. Their flesh slid home into her body. Her hands clawed into their hair, clutching their skull, her body jerking and writhing against them. Bear held her securely, arms surrounding her. When she settled with a shiver, he exhaled in a deep, long breath.
There was nothing for him to do but feel. Moriko around his skin. Bear alive between them. He was as weak as after a week-long session with Thad, but he’d never felt stronger. Which was the greater truth?
“I’ll stay here with you as long as you need, Bear. Whatever you want. We’ve been so worried about you.”
Donte echoed her words with thoughts. He sent all the respect and sorrow he could to Bear. There was no point in asking for forgiveness. What Donte had done was impossible to forgive and he’d do it again soon.
He had to fight them. Had. To. It wasn’t a need or a desire, it was an absolute. There was regret for what he was doing to Moriko and Bear, but they were part of him, and so they were condemned as well. They would all suffer together, because the darkmages must fall. But in the end, Donte was working very hard for the possibility that perhaps his innocents didn’t fall as well.
Bear squeezed Moriko until she laughed. The sound was like a blast of sand in his face, on the heels of him thinking about giving her to Thad. Even though Bear hadn’t fucked her, he lifted her off their cock. Donte groaned. Bear hissed.
He stood and led her to the bed. Wrapping her in the light blanket hanging off the side, he led her out the door, still nude himself. Donte caught the stench of the beach. He crouched inside his own body, frowning. Bear led Moriko past several surprised Royals who enquired if Moriko was alright and if she needed help. She passed a message to her assistant and to the Captain waiting for him that they’d be late, but Bear never slowed his steady, heavy tread.
Their enemies called to him, but he couldn’t insist Bear leave their mate now, when he’d just emerged. The next time they walked out of the Royal compound could be their last. Whatever Bear needed would be given him, right now. Even when Bear emerged from the Royal apartments onto the terraced gardens overlooking the long strand and began to lead them down the wide stone steps to the water.
By a fuzzy’s sizzle, Donte couldn’t imagine why Bear tossed Moriko’s blanket to the smooth sand, snarled a guard away, and waded into the swelling waves. How many times had Donte literally dragged his broken body into the stinging surf to scour his unhealed wounds with the salt water? In the fortress, where none of the six elements functioned, if the darkmages hadn’t wanted him to heal, he hadn’t. His ribs were almost perpetually broken there. This time, the salt stung less than the memories.
The water was a lot easier to stand in here. At the island, the rocks had been covered in slick algae and debris. He’d had to watch for sharp shells and the bodies of spined scuttling creatures. Here the sand was like hard silk. The waves still required him to brace, but it wasn’t a problem.
Bear got out a fair distance from the shore, the waves slapping at their chest before sinking to their waist. Moriko was a small weight pulling on one arm as she jumped to stay above the foam, laughing.
Bear faced the horizon, the direction of the fortress, and roared.
Moriko’s laughter broke off. Alarmed, she asked, “What is it, Bear?” She pulled herself forward, letting the waves drive her into him.
She studied the expanse, but of course there was nothing to see. To her they were in a wilderness she was familiar with. To them, they were facing down a direct boundary with Thad’s fortress.
Bear scooped Moriko under her fantastic ass and held her hips to his. They’d softened during the walk and the ocean didn’t excite them. Bear drew her hand down to their pelvis and pressed her palm to their cock. Under her touch, the water went from disgusting memory to a warm torrent of soft pressure, with her fingers a massaging counterpoint. Donte went blind for a minute.
When he came back, Bear’s hand was working with hers, stuffing their nearly hard cock into her heat, her muscles clenched and their hips hammering. Finally, they were hard and swollen and lodged firmly. Moriko clung to him, her arms wrapped around his shoulders and neck. Bear pressed her face to her throat, protecting her from the slap of the waves.
He began to time their thrusts with each strike of the sea, so that the sea driving her forward met with their own immovable form. Sweet Mist, it was like he had a fireball eating at the tip of his penis. Her breasts shifted softly, flattened between them, and Bear toyed with her ass, working both cheeks in his grip.
Just as Donte was beginning to seriously enjoy Bear’s bizarre ocean fuck, Bear pulled on the slave spell.
Donte barked a hoarse cough. The grinding pain was a constant, a throbbing he functioned with. Lately it had been worse, closer with Bear’s absence. He worked to keep it contained or at least at bay from his closest thoughts.
Bear yanked it down into their presence. Donte almost wretched, but swallowed down the agony of holding onto Thad’s will. The pretty, golden-haired, well-dressed prick overwhelmed a human’s spirit with his slave spell and then left a little piece of himself inside, whispering commands, leaving physiological punishments for defiance. Donte had grabbed onto the slave spell to convince Thad to let him live, and still held it as his secret to tracking darkmages who’d disguised their scent with a cloaking spell. But it had gone two ways in the fortress, a place completely devoid of the natural elements.
There, as long as Donte held the slave spell, he’d been held by it as well. He could fight it to some extent, ignore it as a very minor and rare occurrence, and was generally bound to the same rules as most of the slaves. No escape. He’d maintained his free will inside. Taking turns sharing the burden with Bear had definitely held his sanity, but it had been a long journey between when he’d decided to get out and when he’d managed it.
Since he’d been out, it hadn’t touched his will at all. His actions were his own, although it had begun to whisper to him. Bear thrust into Moriko as the ocean pounded her down, and at the same time, pulled on the spell, spilling it through their muscles.
He would never have believ
ed it possible to forget, but he had. He’d forgotten just how nauseating the spell was. Thad’s fury and greed hammered at their bones, but Bear ground Moriko’s pelvis in a circle, pushing the pleasure back at him.
Donte was on his knees inside Bear. Please. Don’t share this.
Bear ignored him, throwing down his own challenge. This one involved no blood, no death, nothing that could inadvertently strengthen the darkmage. Donte had been working and scheming for days to draw Thad’s notice through stupendous violence. And yet when Bear wanted to use Moriko to do so, he cowered. For Bear’s technique was so much more direct, more daring, more defiant. This one involved joy and confidence so resolute, Donte bowed his head. Donte had been so afraid to face pleasure himself, he couldn’t see it for the incredible weapon it was.
In a few more strokes, Thad noticed them. Pain flayed, stripping their skin from the inside.
“Come now, mate. As I came to your call, empty your spirit into my keeping.” Bear’s voice rumbled over the relentlessly shushing waves. He stuck one finger in Moriko’s ass, rubbed their own cock through the thin skin and made sure all three of her new rings ground hard into their form.
Moriko shattered in their arms, head thrown back, throat straining, eyes on the blue sky and piling clouds. Bear tracked Thad’s spell, followed the command to return to him enough so that he rotated to the southwest, and then slammed the sensation of Moriko’s bliss right up the connection, like a shield smashing into a youngling’s nose.
Thad’s rage went solar-bright and Bear chuckled, stance perfectly balanced, untouched by it. He fed several fingers into Moriko’s clamping hole, thrust wildly with all his power in her slick grip, and came with complete satisfaction, pumping their cum hard into her womb. The slave spell stabbed and demanded and scoured them. Donte was useless as a buffer, on his knees, gagging and choking to stay aware.
When the height of the pleasure passed, Bear yanked out the shards of pain, crushed the slave spell back into writhing ball, and spit into the ocean. He rolled up Thad and put him away, tucking him high into the canopy of their magescape, caged in vines. Thad’s echoing demands cut off entirely, the slave spell fading to a faint sting, the nausea washing away with the hit of the next wave.
Bear gripped Moriko along her ribs and straightened his arms with a very different roar than the one which had started this showdown, tossing her high. Donte looked up at Moriko’s face glowing against the open sky, her eyes thick with lingering pleasure, her mouth curved in a sweet smile, her hair swinging against her face in wet strands that reminded him of his own tattoo.
What have you done? Donte asked Bear, truly bewildered.
Bear gave a mental shrug, dropped Moriko into his arms and waded toward the beach. You always make everything too hard.
His voice was so much the same, so familiar, confident and deep, powerful and calm. Donte rolled to his feet, his throat thick with emotion. Well it’s certainly harder without you.
All that hunting might be satisfying, but now that you are ready to end it, there’s no need for so much fussing. You don’t need to go out and about and wait for him. I brought him to you. Simple.
And you enjoyed our mate.
Also simple, but so much more. Bear left the water and set Moriko down.
She looked up into his face. What Donte saw there made him tired.
“Bear.” She dusted her fingertips along his jaw. “Donte wants to fight your captors openly now. Will you help him?”
Bear nodded. He picked up the blanket and wrapped it around her.
“And after the fight, will you help me?”
Donte froze, studying her, studying the amusement in Bear.
Bear nodded again.
What is she talking about?
Bear ignored him, blotting Moriko dry.
“Where did you go, dear one?” Moriko smoothed her touch around their face, pushing his hair back up into spikes, studying him with that deep-seeing knowledge Donte never knew what to do with. “We know the banishment they carved around you hurt you, but we didn’t know how to help. We touched you and fucked around you and fixed your magescape, but nothing helped.”
“All of it helped. I am very damaged still. My Alpha is not my source now, my man is. It is hard, different.”
Donte sucked in a breath in time with Moriko. Bear…
“Donte is not afraid to be alone, but I was. It took awhile to adjust.”
“But you’re not alone. You always have each other, forever. And me.”
Bear took her hands in his. In the shadow of the blanket draped around her shoulders, they studied her small, calloused fingers, straight and strong. “I understand. I used to scold him for worrying about honor. But now I see just how hard it is to be cast off.” He folded what was left of their own fingers through hers. “No one wants us. Just you.”
Her grip tightened. She stepped in against their body, growing sticky from drying salt. “Yes. I want you. Both of you. Never doubt that. Never forget it.” Her hands scrambled from Bear’s grip and grabbed his ears, jerking his face around. “Hear me, Bear-Donte. Remember. I want you. And Donte-Bear, too.”
Donte squirmed, turning around inside Bear. The Queen wants us. She wants us to kill. We know where he is now. Time to go. The swelling creature of feeling he’d weathered back in Moriko’s room whispered seductively. He didn’t know what to do with it. All he was good for was surviving pain.
Bear’s amusement swelled enough to twist their mouth into a smile.
Moriko laughed at the effort, playfully pulling at the corners of his mouth. “Maybe this way? No, not any better. No matter. Your smile will always be stunning to me.”
And there was such truth in her words Bear shivered. Tucking her against him, Bear said gently, “Take me to your armory. We need to face Thad now.”
She froze and then it was her turn to shiver. “All right. But I insist you put some pants on first. I’m beginning to think you’re an exhibitionist, Bear.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Dom strode to meet Laing. Both of Rowan’s guards had standing permission to bypass any gatekeepers at any time. Today he’d been in a meeting with several clan Alphas and council warriors in charge of the chaos in the Royal City.
“What is it?” he asked the guard, who had never come to him of his own accord before. His heart thumped hard, worrying possibilities exploding.
“She’s had a vision and insisted I tell you.”
Relief almost brought him up against the rough stone wall of the hall. Was that all? “What is it?”
“‘The Bear’s woman eats the head of the shadow today.’”
Dom exchanged a disbelieving stare with the groundbear. “Is that prophecy as clear and direct as I think it is?”
Laing spread one hand. “We won’t know until it’s done, as always. But yeah, it seems pretty clear. The rogue’s princess is going to take down the darkmages’ leader. Today.”
Dom didn’t trust it. “Where was she when it came? What was she doing? Has there been any change in the status of her collar?”
“She’d taken a short walk to her favorite statue, the one of the wolf running. She was just standing there, looking at it. No one but us was around. Her collar is the same.”
Fury flashed white through him and his lizzeed hissed in tandem with his owl. She was still mooning over that damn prophecy of hers, where she’d been mated to Wolf. Lately she’d transferred her hopes to William, the black pack’s Alpha. Which was good because he’d had to step in to keep Neena, Wolf clan’s Domina, from storming Rowan’s room when she wouldn’t stop asking to see Wolf. But it was also bad because Dom would prefer she never meet the very handsome, very honorable, very capable warrior William.
“Please thank her for the information and tell her I look forward to our elemental dice rematch tomorrow.”
Laing gave him a pitying look. “You lost seventeen to three.”
“I’m known to have good nights and we both know winning at dice isn
’t my goal.” Dom escorted him out and asked the guard in charge of keeping his messages for an update.
The warrior shared Aidan’s report. Dom’s assistant had gone into the Cities to isolate the supply lines of the scent-cloaking potion. Aidan confirmed total control of two key ingredients. Unless they had vast stores already made, it would be a matter of days before the guilty holdouts still using the potion would be revealed. Donte wouldn’t be their sole hunter anymore. But the better news was that success in the mission meant his white wolf Aidan would soon come home to him. A knot eased inside.
He also gave updates on the number of darkmages killed in other Cities yesterday and the number of riots. Upon hearing the wildlings outside all the Cities had rioted last night, Dom understood their work among the long-ignored banished would be a long, difficult fight. Practically the entire population was ripe for darkcraft.
His head whirling from so many fronts, he sent a message to the martens watching Donte at the compound. Let Moriko pass. So far she hadn’t tried to leave the compound, so there’d been no showdown against Dom’s order of protection. But today, if she ventured out, she’d never know he’d blocked her. Today, if she ventured out, maybe she’d save them all.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Moriko’s stomach growled. This was bizarre and funny. Apparently, lunch time had fallen while she sat on top of the City Wall, senses dazzled from close contact to the powerful magecraft.
No one touched the Walls. Ever. It was taboo. Most kids did, of course. It gave you a woozy feeling, a little like being drunk, only it faded with a full body sting and left a horrendous hangover that throbbed for days. She didn’t look forward to getting down. It wasn’t going to be pretty.