And I still startle easily.
Awesome.
My hands are pressed on Arion’s sides, and he grins down at me like he’s enjoying the touch. It still feels like we’re just starting to get to know each other, and I’m already so in love I’ve tied myself to him for all eternity.
To all of them.
All. Of. Them.
Damien leisurely props up beside us, leaning over to twirl a curl of my hair around his finger. There’s immediately heat that stirs in reaction, as his lips curve up on one side.
“Damnedest thing about living forever…is you cling to anyone or anything that makes it more fun,” my deviant says, eyes on mine with far more intrigue than he’s ever shown before. “I’ve thought you weaker than you are. I’m ready to enjoy what I lucked right the hell into. We’ll help you figure this all out, sweet monster.”
Sweet.
Still with the sweet.
My monster played soccer with their ex-girlfriend’s head right in front of them, baked that head in an oven, and used all her strengths against said monster to make her the mockery for once. Yet, still, they still say sweet.
I have no idea what’s wrong with them.
Time clearly warps the mind.
There’s a thump at my other side, and I dart a look over to find Emit perched up next me, eyes hungry and lips turned up in a devilish smile.
I expected him to have more reservations, possibly even be completely wary of me for a long, painful while, given their past with a freakishly powerful alpha female and all.
His hand smooths across my stomach, as he stands taller than all of us, even at a lean. “Now that we know how strong you really are, we can have more fun,” he says, intentionally letting his eyes dip to my chest. “In many ways.”
He leans over, crowding Arion enough to push him back some. I know it’s a terrible pun to call the wolf’s expression wolfish, but there’s no other way to describe the predatory look in his eyes, the daring turn of his full lips, or the underlying mischievousness etched into his every feature.
I don’t even realize how far toward him I’ve leaned, until he’s leaning down, surprising me when his lips catch mine in a kiss so consuming that I cling to Arion, of all people, to ground me.
Damien’s power licks through my veins with a reminder of just what he can do, giving the kiss so much power that I don’t realize I’ve started digging into Arion’s skin with my nails, until Emit abruptly breaks the kiss and severs the spell.
The wolf man grins down at me, as though a message has been sent or a point has been made.
He darts a look to Arion, and I follow his gaze, watching as Arion’s amused attention stays on me.
Finally realizing my nails have started making his chest and side bleed, my eyes widen, and I sputter out an apology.
My vampire remains unfazed, still holding a sinisterly amused, somewhat scary look in his eyes.
When I chance turning my gaze to Damien, I find nearly the same look in his eyes, though he looks way more excited than amused.
I dart a look between them again, even as Damien’s power drones on through my body, making it harder to think than under normal circumstances.
When I once again look at Emit, realizing at last what they’re silently conveying, I clear my throat a few rapid times.
“Oh,” I say, glancing down at the one of me and then over to the three of them again. “Ohhhh.”
This time I gulp instead of swallowing hard, because…I’m way out of my depth right now. And a little scared.
“Best. Day. Ever,” Anna chimes in. “Please let me play too.”
Nervous.
Excited.
Scared.
Giddy.
Yeah, my emotions are all over the place, per the usual when in the presence of them.
“We’re okay with you playing,” Damien says to Anna, still grinning.
“Did you miss the memo? I’m extremely dangerous.”
Why would they be so bold as to even bait my monster like that?
Arion’s lips move to my neck, and he lifts me, pulling me away from Emit and Damien. There’s a piece of me that’s a little saddened Vance isn’t also here.
I’m sure he needs time.
It’s a lot to take in.
I’m trying to stay optimistic and not at all worried that I’ve somehow wronged him too much to ever be forgiven.
Arion puts me on the bed, coming down on top of me, and I allow my mind to shut off. Or rather, he shuts it off for me when he immediately starts kissing all the way down my neck.
My eyes flutter shut, since I can feel my whole body burning red.
Three of them.
At once.
I’m far from innocent, and admit I’ve definitely had some interesting fantasies. It seemed like a no-brainer, exciting future conquest that I was certain I was prepared for…but the reality is way more intimidating than I was expecting.
I swallow hard again.
After all that hard work getting pretty, I’m apparently going to be entirely too awkward to be sexy. I—
My eyes dart open, my thoughts cut out, and I look up to where Damien is cuffing my hand into a black, thick chain of some sort.
“Wh-what are you doing?” I ask him, as he tugs it against the very large, thick, steel wall mount that looks like it was made to hold back a herd of elephants.
My head jerks to my other side, watching as Emit cuffs that hand to the chain. The chain…that stretches across the wall to a twin mount, because it’s a very long, solid piece.
The second both of my hands are restrained, Emit smirks.
“We haven’t discovered a way to break this damn metal, as of yet. Not that we’ve had much testing time,” Emit tells me, a subtle, barely noticeable growl in his tone, while his eyes rake over me.
“Why are you using it on me?” I ask, feeling really confused, while Arion starts cuffing my legs to my wrists, using the same long length of chain, and some black cuffs.
“The shifty, possibly untrustworthy, new beta of Damien’s supplied us the cuffs. He’s also curious if you can break free. Consider this our first experiment to test your limits, strengths, and weaknesses,” the vampire answers, with far too much excitement dancing in his dark eyes.
“I thought we were celebrating,” I remind him, feeling all the more intimidated and super vulnerable right now.
I had more confidence before I went and dumped all my scary, cosmic baggage at their feet and started feeling all exposed.
Arion smiles at me, even as he cuffs my other foot.
“This will be the most exciting thing we’ve ever gotten the chance to do, love. It’s an entirely new world, with an entirely new type of alpha, who has gravely different instincts. Which means you play by different, yet suspiciously un-offensive, rules so far. You’re a devious little monster, and we want to explore you up close and personal,” Arion carries on, as though this is a casual sort of confession.
They’re all completely relaxed, as though chaining me up in indestructible chains was the plan all along, and they’re in complete agreement on this.
“If Hyde breaks free and claims us, so be it,” Emit adds, while shooting a daring look toward an excited Anna.
She grins, and he shrugs as if it’s no big deal.
“If your monster gets off on deceiving us in order to mate us, that’s not something we’ll have a problem with, unlike the uptight Van Helsing,” Emit adds, almost sounding as though he’s taking a jab at Vance.
My heart clenches, because I know how very prideful he is. During my trip through his memories, I watched many of the instances where Idun successfully deceived him, and witnessed his eyes get colder each time.
“I have no idea what the repercussions of claiming someone is. We really should watch how it affects Vance first,” I quickly babble, since none of them are apparently thinking very clearly. “What if he hates it after he thinks about it? What if something major and permanently eternal end
s up affecting him for—”
My lips freeze at the end of that word, and a choked, surprised sound escapes, because Arion’s head is suddenly between my legs. The chill from his breath fans me through the thin layer of lacy underwear, and he nips me in a way that causes an immediate ache.
He grins, his mouth staying over my underwear, as he teases me with what’s to come.
“I’d rather play than talk, love,” Arion murmurs against me, before casually sliding my underwear to the side.
His fingers graze my flesh, and there’s a deeper ache so suddenly that my legs tremble on either side of his head.
His mouth descends on me, and the vampire is definitely aiming to please when he strikes.
A startled sound escapes me, since I was really unprepared for this to start so abruptly.
Oh damn.
My mind blanks, as he starts doing this really amazing thing with his tongue and some simultaneous light sucking. My eyes are crossed and screwed shut in the next instant, and it actually hurts how to feel so much pleasure at once.
Damien’s mouth is abruptly on my neck, even though I can’t see him. Heat pulses through my body, racing through me, as though the pleasure he’s creating is almost an attack.
I turn my head, desperately trying to kiss the skilled deviant, only to have his touch disappear.
It reappears on my other side, as he starts working his way down, his lips dragging across my chest.
When he peels my strap down my shoulder and works the slip until my left breast is free, I make an embarrassing sound. I barely feel the caress of his lips, and then warm air breezes across my nipple.
There’s an immediate pulse right where the vampire’s mouth is, briefly distracting me from what Damien is doing, and I almost cry out, feeling myself at the very fine edge—
It feels like a cold bucket of water is dumped on me at the very last second, stealing every single ounce of pleasure all at once, and stealing what was going to be an amazing orgasm.
Anger is definitely the first emotion that surges forth, but I quickly temper it.
My head pops up, and I stare down at Arion, who is teasingly kissing my inner thigh with the most mischievous expression I’ve seen yet.
“What the hell?” I ask him, as he grazes his fingers up my thigh, remaining content to kiss me in the very sensitive area so close, yet so far away from where I want him.
Damien’s touch is gone, and he’s still invisible, his laughter sounding more distant than it is.
“Feeling cute,” Arion says, grinning like he thinks he’s adorable or some shit, as he lazily shrugs a shoulder. “May give you an orgasm. May not. I dunno.”
“That’s possibly the worst joke I’ve ever heard from an ancient vampire. This is how we’re going to spend our wedding night or whatever it is?” I ask, and then cringe when I feel like an idiot for saying that.
I wish I could knee him in the balls right now.
He continues grinning, as Emit takes a seat next to my side. Damien’s cool breath breezes against my neck on the other side, even as he remains unseen.
“Violet, surely you can’t tell us to help keep you grounded, despite all your power, and then not expect some form of punishment, after admitting to keeping this many secrets,” Emit tells me.
I cut my eyes to Emit, feeling some betrayal.
My wolf.
The gentlest, nicest, most compassionate alpha of the group, who shows more restraint than the three of them combined, says I deserve punishment?
“You’re punishing me?” I ask, my voice definitely hitting a few high, disbelieving notes.
Why is he grinning like this is a good thing?
“And testing you,” Damien murmurs somewhere near my ear, as a breath hisses between my teeth.
The heat has stirred once more, and there’s a steady pulse hitting every erogenous zone I have, and it’s all working in synchronized unison. He could easily give me hundreds of orgasms without ever touching me.
All because Talbot forgot he existed.
Instead, he’s going to deny them all.
“I feel rather special now that I know just how powerful you are,” Damien tells me. “Especially since I have power over you, which means I get to deliver your punishments. Aren’t you a lucky girl?”
Arion teasingly blows a chilled breath of air on the most sensitive part of my body, and my back bows in response to the overstimulation all happening at once.
“Vance is going to need some time to come around, because it’s hard to go through what we went through with Idun,” Damien tells me, his voice growing sober.
I take that in, letting it really settle on me how much this amount of power is truly going to impact everything we have. I wish I never had to tell them.
“You’ve tricked us, lied to us, and hidden a lot of secrets this past year. Then you pushed us away. Then you kept breaking one time after another, pushing us farther away, instead of telling us the whole story,” Emit adds, as one of his calloused, firm hands lifts mine to his lips.
He places a soft, chaste kiss on it.
“We’ve let you get away with so much in the past, because we thought you weak,” Arion states, smirking as he ghosts his lips over me once more, teasing me with every single, unsatisfyingly brief touch.
“Now that we know you’re not, it’s only fair to hold you accountable for your transgressions,” Arion continues, his tone almost sounding as though he’s gloating.
I dart a look between them, slowly coming to grips with what they’re doing.
“On my wedding night, the three of you are going to punish me with orgasm denial? You’re serious?”
They all smile.
“I expect this out of them, but you?” I ask Emit, not understanding why he’s so proud of this.
He slowly kisses his way up my palm, and then drags his lips back down to my wrist.
“Arion did something awful, and I had to bury him for a hundred years because of it,” Emit tells me like he’s explaining something important. “Tensions between my people and his have been at an all-time high, and the mutinies have piled up as a result. I do punish people, little monster.”
I say nothing to that. It feels weird that he’s using Arion’s offenses as a comparison, since…my ‘crimes’ are way less offensive.
“The last thing I ever wanted to do was fall in love again, because it’s never made me anything but fucking miserable,” the wolf adds very seriously.
He levels me with a look.
“You came along during the middle of all this, and I’ve seen you as almost human. You’re very soft, Violet. We keep telling you this, but you don’t understand it. Because you’re soft, I’ve been exceptionally soft toward you. I don’t keep betas around. They stab me in the back. I’m used to soft omegas, who always washed my back for me.”
For the first time ever, there’s a tiny pang of envy. I immediately cast it out, because I love those omegas. I don’t fault him for wanting them around all those years.
“Never once has any woman ever again tempted me into falling in love across these many centuries,” he carries on, giving me a pointed look. “Now I know you’re an alpha. I never would have believed it, and I’m still struggling to wrap my mind around it. It certainly changes all the rules.”
“If you’re a good girl and accept your punishment, Vance will likely take your words more seriously,” Arion tells me, placing another small kiss on the inside of my thigh, while keeping his eyes on mine the entire time.
Damien becomes visible, drawing my attention, as he gingerly strokes my cheek, while giving me a serious look.
“Vance has been duped, deceived, and made to feel inferior all in one night. You claim you’re willing to prove you don’t want us submitting to you. You claim you’re not seeking dominance. You claim a lot, even though you have an unknown amount of power resting inside you,” Damien states. “Yet it seems your monster is indeed calculated and devious, and you already know about our grea
t deal of trust issues.”
I mull that over in my head.
“You don’t want to be feared, so prove you’re willing to surrender to consequences. Your monster is devious. The best way to learn control, is to be humble, Violet. Can you accept your punishment?” Arion asks me.
I hesitate, mostly because it doesn’t make any sense. I’m still trying to learn monster logic. Alpha logic is even harder to understand.
“Orgasm denial on my wedding night is my punishment? For how long?” I ask, trying to be as reasonable as possible, while stretched wide, chained, and feeling really vulnerable.
I knew there were going to be some hurdles to jump once I revealed the truth, which is one of the reasons I held back, so I should have expected at least some backlash.
“Not orgasm denial, Violet,” Emit says, grinning as his lips press to my wrist again. “Delayed gratification.”
I feel weird talking about this so casually, but I aim for steady and in control of myself, instead of a blushing, somewhat irritated, slightly insecure girl.
Damien’s lips stay quirked up on one side, as he adds, “It’ll only feel like punishment for a little while, sweet monster. By the end, it’ll feel like a rather fine reward. Promise.”
“I think I just came,” Anna says from somewhere in the room. “I guess that’s insensitive to say, since you can’t do the same. Hey! That rhymed!”
I’m going to kill her.
“Ever notice how Anna does that any time Violet’s faced with any sort of decision that takes her some serious thought,” Damien notes, making me feel even more vulnerable, since I knew they’d do this.
They’ll overthink and overanalyze every single thing Anna, my deranged, mildly sociopathic monster, says. They’ll inspect the words and actions down to the smallest detail.
I force my thoughts to Vance, and what they just said. I feel the weight of the ring on my finger—the one he gave me when he was offering forever.
I didn’t know then what I’d done. I also didn’t know about it when I planned my big romantic gesture for the Monster Olympics. I was going to enjoy the day, and tell Arion I’d be his, while also wearing Vance’s ring so that no one had to be left out.
Gypsy Truths (All The Pretty Monsters Book 6) Page 50