Unless you had that cord connecting you to a dual you loved as well as desired and liked, and then the walls that normally separated human and dual could tumble.
Normally Deck kept shielded and grounded as much as possible. His magic was too unpredictable to do otherwise. But now he dropped everything, opened himself wide to the elements of his power.
Water. Earth. Electricity.
Sex and love.
Water was easy. Water was always easy, the great sacred slut ocean flowing in to offer herself when he called and sometimes when he didn’t. But this time he called more, called on the little streams and ponds in the area, on the rivers, on the rain that hovered in the air as it always did in this part of the world, even on days far clearer than this one. He called and he called, not just for himself but for Meaghan. And water answered with a rush and a crash, filling him with cool gray-blue power.
Earth was shyer, more reserved, a slower build because he didn’t work with it as much, but once he opened fully, he felt that dark, heavy energy under his feet. Not just the vast power of tectonic movement, of fault lines and potential disaster, but of all the life contained in the soil, the chemicals and minerals that made up life. Not exactly at his fingertips, not quite within reach, but close enough to taste, flint and steel in his mouth like the aftertaste of the dry German wines Paul liked.
He didn’t even bother to reach for electricity. It was there, like it always was, just waiting for the youngest Thorssen descendant to need it—whether he knew he needed it or not.
Last, he opened to red magic. Opened to Kyle, to the flavor of Kyle, to how Kyle felt in his arms, to Kyle’s keen intelligence and drive and need to be more than what either his own community or human society thought an otter could be; to the complex mixture of seriousness and humor, submission and dominance, dark intensity and playfulness that made him someone Deck loved with a fierceness and desire that he’d never known before, equaled only by his love and desire for Meaghan.
The walls crashed down between him and Kyle like a seawall giving way before the onslaught of a storm.
Images. Kyle’s heart opened to him in images. Deck didn’t even try to understand them all, because some of them were probably things only someone with an otterside could fully comprehend, but what he got out of it was love.
Love for him. Love for Meaghan. Love for what the three of them could be—no, would be—to each other: playful companions, bulwarks against danger (except when they deliberately swam into danger together to ride the big waves), warmth in the night, shelter from the storm (except when it was more fun to play together in the storm’s fury), and maybe, if the Powers and the three of them wanted, parents together, and it didn’t bother Kyle at all that the child wouldn’t have his genes. He was an otter and otter men helped raise the children of any woman they cared about and it didn’t matter if they’d ever slept together, because kids were kids.
Deck filed that away to contemplate later.
Filed the specific image away and focused on the love and desire and need that crashed over him in waves. On the connection to Kyle. On the connection to Meaghan, and even though she was far away, blocked from him by both the Agency’s and the estate’s shields, he felt her bright and brave and angry through the silver cord that linked them.
As he focused, he kissed as if he could devour Kyle with his kisses and incorporate the other man into himself that way while still keeping him individual and whole. The rain beat down cold and fierce, but Kyle was hot against him, and the water didn’t cool him off, just made him smooth and slick and even more tempting. How could Kyle be so strong and so yielding at the same time? It was part of the man’s charm and mystery, that he could be as submissive as he was yet give as good as he got and more. Deck’s jaw still ached where Kyle had punched him, although the power of the kiss allowed him to transmute the discomfort into a weird kind of pleasure. Not the kind a sub or masochist, wired to get off on certain kinds of pain, might feel, but an emotional pleasure that Kyle was that tough and brave, and yet wanted to submit to him, wanted to be his.
And wanted Meaghan to be both of theirs, for them all to belong to each other, in a gentler way, but just as surely.
That knowledge, that mutual love and desire, shot to Deck’s cock. Red magic snapped and sizzled on his skin, or maybe that was the lightning dancing in the air. Waves crashed down, big now, and close, but not close enough. He didn’t want to tear his lips away from Kyle’s, but he did, just so he could say, “Now. We need to get closer to the water now. Right where the waves are breaking.”
It was both an order and a cry of raw need, both magical and erotic. When Kyle jumped to obey, Deck felt like some of his skin peeled away along with Kyle’s, leaving him alone, vulnerable.
He wasn’t alone, though, not with the power swirling around him, crashing over him, rumbling under his feet and through his body. And he and Kyle had done nothing so far but kiss.
A few steps and he reached the surf line. Reached Kyle.
The waves lapped at his calves as he pulled Kyle against him. For a few seconds, they clung together and Deck drank in Kyle’s warmth and the fierce, wild presence of the elements.
But his magic—and his body—demanded more. “Suck me,” he ordered over the surf and wind, stunned by how authoritative and potent with magic he sounded. Him, Deck Donovan.
Kyle looked up at him, dark eyes shining in the greenish storm light, then knelt in the foam and rushing water. Hip-deep—a human might have balked, certainly would have flinched at the cold as it hit his cock and balls, but Kyle was at home in cold water and if he thought twice, he didn’t let it show.
Just fisted Deck’s cock at the base and guided it into his avid mouth.
Kyle swirled his tongue around the head, then sucked deep. Swirled and sucked, swirled and sucked. A whirlpool, a vortex of pleasure, and Deck grabbed the pleasure and transmuted it to magical energy. Already, power buzzed under his skin until he felt swollen with it, and it felt damn close to perfect. Lightning struck the distant cliffs and far out to sea as some of it leaked out. Deck bit his lip, mustered the control he usually exercised over Kyle and used it on himself instead, pulling the power inward so he could use it when he needed it. The thunder and lightning didn’t stop, though, so it wasn’t just his magic talking, but nature doing a light show.
Good. He could use that.
Kyle’s mouth on his cock was almost too hot and sweet, Kyle’s hands, one on his shaft, the other on his balls, almost too skilled. If they’d been playing just for fun, Deck might have let go and shot down his lover’s throat.
But sex magic was different, and Deck reluctantly pulled away from that talented mouth.
Only to order Kyle to his feet while Deck went to his knees.
Deck wasn’t an otter and he spat out a curse as the cold water struck his sensitized cock. But the magic heated him, in several senses of the word. The cold water, after the initial shock, was energizing rather than painful, and his arousal didn’t falter.
He took Kyle into his mouth. Kyle tasted rich, like musk and salt and light. Like Kyle, when all was said and done, and his uncut cock was so beautiful, felt so perfect in his mouth that Deck wondered why he wasn’t doing this all the time. When Deck began to suck him, Kyle went very still, almost as if he were afraid to breathe, let alone move, except for clasping his hands into fists at his side. Deck sensed, through their link, how good it felt, how right and natural it felt, and at the same time how Kyle itched to grab Deck’s long hair, to take control of this moment, if only so Deck could steal control back later.
It’s all right, it’s all right, love, Deck thought as hard as he could. I won’t break and neither will the magic. Kyle’s hands relaxed, which was something, but he still didn’t reach for Deck. Finally Deck stopped what he was doing long enough to say, “Touch me, Kyle. Touch me however it feels right. It’ll be what the magic want
s.” He trusted that, although he didn’t know if Kyle was as sensitive to the flow of magic as another witch would be.
In response, Kyle moaned as he put one hand on Deck’s shoulder, the other behind Deck’s head, fingers weaving into his long, blond hair. Not taking charge, just taking part, letting Deck know how good it felt and how eager he was for more.
Red magic whirled around them, adding its own faint whirring to surf, rain and thunder. Deck couldn’t use his normal sight anymore. Everything was witch-sight, auras and faint shapes and pulsing, vibrating energy. Not that he cared, because he felt more with his eyes closed: Kyle’s life force and the whirls and spirals of magic, and the energy of ocean and earth and storm gathering around him.
Kyle’s cock was sweet and thick and heavy in his mouth. Salty hints of precome tantalized him, urged him to keep going, taste his lover’s come this way.
But the magic demanded something else and, right now, the magic was in charge. He let Kyle’s cock go with a pop. “Next time,” he said, “you’ll give me your come.”
It came off as a demand, a threat, and Kyle drew in his breath harshly, then gasped out, “Yes…of course…yes,” in a voice so hoarse and urgent that only magic’s needs—and more to the point, Meaghan’s danger—held Deck back from finishing Kyle with his mouth on the spot.
Instead, Deck pulled Kyle’s legs out from under him, though Kyle seemed to expect it and was already getting ready to fall. They tumbled together into frigid water, sputtering when a wave broke over them.
When power broke over them. Each wave pumped Deck’s magic, and with it, his arousal. But he needed the grounding fire of red magic to control the power he was building and store it for later. Needed to contain the power, contain himself.
And what better way to contain himself than to bury himself deep in Kyle’s body?
“Need you.” He wrestled Kyle into position, on hands and knees, knelt down behind him so surf caught them both. “Need you to open for me, Kyle. Need to fuck you. And need us both to remember that there are two of us together now, but we’re three. Three.”
As he spoke, he opened up Kyle’s ass with his fingers. No resistance, even without lube and with the chill salt water, no resistance at all, as if the magic acted as lubricant. For all he knew, it did, because for all his sexual and magical experience—and he had plenty of both—Deck had never been this deep in the red magic before, never this lost to himself and open to the power. As open as Kyle was to him, Deck was to the magic, and if submitting to a lover felt anywhere near as good as it felt to be magic’s bitch, he understood Kyle better now.
“So hot and tight,” he said, and the words sounded more like a spell than like standard dirty talk, “but you’re ready for me, aren’t you?”
Kyle didn’t speak, maybe couldn’t speak, but he nodded and Deck felt assent pass through the smaller man’s entire body.
“I’m taking you, love, and the magic’s taking me, and together we’ll bring our Meaghan home. We will, Kyle.” Deck’s dick pressed against Kyle’s ass, which fluttered and opened. “Because we are three and we’re going to stay that way. Three.”
And on the second three, he thrust and Kyle pushed back to meet him. Nothing subtle, nothing careful, just two bodies crashing together. As they did, lightning crackled and thunder exploded, too close even for Deck’s comfort.
Except that right now, his dick buried in Kyle’s hot body and waves breaking over them both, Deck didn’t fear the lightning, as a man or as a witch. He seized it, drew it into himself.
Saved for later, when he and Kyle and Meaghan might need it.
Drew in the cold fierceness of the water and the solemn, ponderous power of the earth.
Drew in Kyle’s love and desire, and in return sent his into Kyle and out into the world in search of Meaghan.
Pulled in magic and love and touch, and the elements and the power of the storm and Kyle’s power too, the power that he willingly gave over to Deck when they had this kind of fierce, claiming, kinky sex and that Deck returned to him with loving, erotic interest.
Focused on the power. Focused on the waves, getting fiercer all the time, pushed by the storm and the incoming tide and at the same time focused on Kyle, Kyle’s body under his and tight around him, Kyle’s heart and mind and spirit that he’d entrusted to Deck. He fucked fiercely, fucked hard, hit places in Kyle he was pretty sure he’d never hit before, and at the same time found that with each stroke, the gripping pleasure as Kyle tightened around him reached previously untouched places inside him.
He was coming undone, so full of magic and love that he was going to fly apart, and it didn’t matter to him, not really, except that it would be a waste when he needed all this energy for Meaghan.
Kyle hissed, “Control.” At the same time, he clamped down with his inner muscles as he came himself and control became impossible.
Impossible and at the same time, possible again. Deck wasn’t coming undone anymore. He was just coming, coming deep inside Kyle, and with that explosion he grounded, pulling all the energy he’d collected into himself and integrating it so he could store it for later.
He collapsed on his lover, pulling them both down into the water. His shoulder twinged, still tender despite magical healing. Probably more than twinged, but he was too high to tell, riding the lust and the magic like the best waves ever.
“Okay to move?” Kyle’s voice drifted in over the surf from a million miles away, but it made its point.
He nodded, unable to find words just yet over the roaring in his blood.
Just as silently, Kyle stood, then helped him up.
He still couldn’t see, not in the normal sense, and he couldn’t find the words to explain it, but Kyle seemed to know anyway.
Chapter Twenty-Three
After a tense flight made worse by having two nervous duals on board, and a long drive in the dark, they rumbled into the ruins of the logging camp—or maybe it was a mining camp, no one seemed sure—in rented SUVs arranged by Akane’s friend. In semidarkness, it didn’t look like much: a few ramshackle wooden buildings, one with a tree growing through where the roof used to be, a few vegetation-covered mounds with random boards or pieces of metal sticking out where other shacks had lost their battle with the elements.
But Paul’s dreams had led them here, and Paul’s dreams were never wrong.
Hard to interpret sometimes, but never wrong.
Deck’s skin prickled as he stepped onto the earth, but it wasn’t because he sensed the Agency or felt Meaghan almost close enough to touch but trapped in some ghastly lab.
It was because he felt nothing, even with all the power he’d banked. No magic. No natural energy. No life, although birds chirped and twittered and flitted among the trees and insects buzzed around them. The whole place was invisible to his witch-sight. Even his companions were dim outlines, except for Akane, and even her colors were muted. Freaky-ass shit.
He should at least pick up subtle vibrations of earth energy through his hiking boots, know where the nearest spring or mountain stream was. Demons and devas, they’d crossed a stream not a quarter of a mile from the site and even on his worst days, the stream would resonate in his blood. Not now though.
“Are you sure this is the spot?” Kyle was right in Paul’s face, tense with fury.
Akane stepped between them, or maybe she just materialized there because Deck didn’t see her move with his normal sight, but his still hyperaware witch-sight caught a blur of russet. “Calm down, otter. Of course Paul’s sure.” She placed one hand on Kyle’s arm. Her aura flared.
Kyle shouldn’t have been able to see it, but maybe his keen dual senses picked something up. He took a step back and his voice sounded much less fierce when he said, “Sorry to doubt you, but I expected to see something. This is deserted.”
Paul and Akane said some variation of “no, it’s not” more or le
ss simultaneously.
Kyle gestured around him at the few tumbling-down buildings and empty cellar holes.
“Too empty,” Deck said. “If this were just an abandoned settlement going back to the forest, Paul and I would pick up all kinds of life energy from plants and animals. Instead there’s nothing.” He crouched down and put his palm flat on the ground to test, then shook his head. “Not even earth energy.”
“Whatever is here is so strongly shielded it seems magically null,” Paul confirmed. “And nothing is magically null, except objects mass produced without love. I know we’re in the right place because it’s like being in Walmart without any of the workers there. But if I kind of look at it sideways, I can make out really bizarre magic, not exactly witch magic, not exactly sorcery, but with elements of both, and some high-tech cloaking mixed in.”
A weight lifted from Deck. He wasn’t alone in feeling the freaky blankness, and Paul, bless his theory-geek heart, had figured out what was causing it.
“Now that we all know the emptiness is an illusion, maybe I can fix it,” Paul added. “I’m pretty good with illusion magic. But this goes beyond anything I’ve ever seen.”
Deck jumped at the sound of a chuffing fox, which turned out to be Akane laughing, a full-bodied, outrageous laugh, not the polite titter behind her hand that she’d cultivated to help pass as a human woman in Old Japan. All three of her tails were twitching. “Sorry,” she choked out. “You’d think after all these years I’d remember mortals have to do everything the hard way. Let me fix this.” She gestured with one graceful hand like she was wiping fog from a mirror. The hand morphed into a white paw as she brushed the air.
Light flashed in the rough-grown clearing and searing pain stabbed into Deck’s eyes. He grabbed Kyle’s hand and screwed his eyes shut, but in the time it took him to do that, the pain vanished as if it had never existed, replaced by a euphoric adrenaline rush like surfing a sweet wave that was almost too big to manage.
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