Romani Armada (Beloved Bloody Time)

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Adán wrapped his big hands around her hips, his fingers meshing with Justin’s. His cock pressed against her then slowly entered her and the sensation of fullness swept over her. Deonne could feel both of them within her and she fought to keep still, to not squirm with the deliciousness of the sensation. But she began to tremble, her excitement zooming upwards even though Adán had done nothing more than push his cock into her. She tried to control her accelerating breathing, but barely slowed her panting.

  The pair of them began to rock in and out of her in coordinated thrusts and Deonne reached blindly for support, for a prop, something to help control the pleasure, to make it last.

  Justin’s hand met hers. He kissed her palm, then placed her hand on his shoulder before gripping her hip once more.

  Her climax broke, and she shuddered through it, moaning. For a small moment, they stopped thrusting, as her whole body squeezed as the waves of pleasure raced through her from her toes to explode behind her eyes.

  But then the two of them began the wonderful rhythmic thrust and counter thrust, and Deonne sucked in her breath, feeling her body tighten in response. She would come again. She could feel it in the way she was clenching around them, like she wanted to draw them even deeper into her body.

  “Faster,” she whispered. “Harder.”

  “The lady…speaks,” Adán murmured back, his breath heavy. He kissed the back of her shoulder. His hold on her hips tightened and he buried his cock deep inside her, groaning with the effort.

  Justin’s cock came to rest as deep as it was possible to go, as he raised her then lowered her down to meet his lifting pelvis.

  “Let’s make her scream,” he suggested, his voice gravelly with arousal and his eyes half-open. “I like when she screams.”

  “Just fuck me,” Deonne begged. “I’ll come, if you keep this up.”

  They rode her, their hands controlling her movements and holding her steady as they claimed her body. Held between them, she was helpless to do anything except react to the pure pleasure. In three days the two of them had learned how to maximize her excitement, to draw it out and leave her quivering on the brink while they did wicked things to her body that she would never have imagined was even possible. Being taken by both of them at once was almost pedestrian in comparison to the some of the rapturous torture they had devised.

  Adán was far stronger than either of them when Justin was in human form and he had no reservations about using his strength to deliver pleasure. He had held Deonne down, acting like live and animated bonds. He had spread her and kept her immobile, while Justin had used his mouth and hands to drive her crazy with need, until she had begged to climax, and still he had refused to let her come.

  Then Adán had reversed the roles, holding Justin in an arm lock while Deonne had brought him shuddering to near climax, over and over, until he had cried out for release.

  Deonne had watched the two of them and finally witnessed what she had not been able to see on the first occasion – Justin taking Adán in hard, deep strokes, his jaw clenched and his fists curled, while Adán groaned, his hand around his cock and climaxed with a thrust of his hips, his cum dripping onto Deonne’s belly where she lay watching them, her body thrumming.

  Adán had fucked both of them in turn. He was untiring as he explored ever more ways to share pleasure between the three of them. He was as inventive as Justin was relentless.

  Deonne had lost count of the many times she had climaxed, screamed, and thrashed upon the bed in frenzied pleasure.

  Just recalling those moments now made her orgasm leap and draw closer.

  “Now the lady comes,” Adán murmured, his body stroking her, his cock driving her pleasure.

  “Come for us,” Justin said. “Scream.”

  Deonne couldn’t help it. Her climaxed tore through her and vented itself as she cried out. Her entire body shuddered through the pinnacle and brought Justin and Adán to their own peaks.

  Afterwards, Adán lifted her gently and rolled onto the bed next to Justin with her wrapped in his arms.

  Justin rolled onto his side and threaded his arms around them both.

  For a few minutes, nothing sounded in the room but their slowing breathing.

  Justin brushed Deonne’s hair out of her eyes and back over her shoulder. He leaned forward and kissed them both. First Deonne, then Adán.

  “I have to go back,” he told them.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chronometric Conservation Agency Headquarters, Villa Fontani, Rome, 2264 A.D.: It was a fine, late August night in Rome. Most of the rich had fled the city for the cooler rural estates in the north, as Romans had been doing for centuries. However, in the open plaza of Villa Fontani were gathered the rich, the influential, the powerful and the famous from around the world. They glistened with jewelry and couture and gleamed with careful grooming.

  A small orchestra had been set up at the far end of the plaza, tucked into a corner of the “U” shape the villa made. They had drawn a small audience and even some dancers, who were spinning in slow circles on the temporary dance floor that had been installed.

  Champagne and other drinks in elegant glasses were held in nearly every hand while political jockeying for favor took place under the guise of gossip and chat between friends.

  Justin tugged self-consciously at his leather jacket as he weaved between clumps of glittering suits and satin, trying to make himself look as invisible as possible as he made his way to the closest entrance to the inside of the villa.

  Lights flashed to his left. The media was in full force at this shindig. It was a global event, after all. It wasn’t often the Agency opened its doors to the public and invited them in, human or not. This very public opening of the new headquarters had halted most other news in its tracks as media representatives scrambled to scoop as much information as the agency was willing to hand out.

  “Justin!”

  He looked back over his shoulder, wincing. He’d been spotted.

  Nayara lifted her hand to indicate he should wait and he halted. She made her way between people, lifting her dress aside and stepping over trains on ball gowns…it was the height of fashion now to have your gown trail along behind you. Or so Deonne had told him when he had made a comment about the “haughty” couture that every new item in Nayara’s closet seemed to spark.

  Nayara smiled at him as she reached hearing distance, and Justin felt even more uncomfortable. She was wearing a dress that defied description. It was black, with a layer of heavy white lace lying over the top of the black, and her arms and shoulders rose out of it, making Justin wonder how she was holding the thing up. It cinched in around her waist and fell to the ground, which was quite far, given Nayara’s height. The black and white looked fantastic next to her burnished red hair, which curled around her elbows and fell over one shoulder.

  But there was no train.

  “You’re back,” Nayara said as she stepped closer. She held a full champagne glass in her hand.

  “You’re magnificent,” he replied. “And I feel like the dog’s dinner among this lot.”

  She smiled and took his arm and led him toward the villa doors, and he saw that the lace at the back of her dress was looped up into swirls and knots that reminded him of dresses worn in Europe during the latter half of Queen Victoria’s reign. He wondered how long it would take for trains to disappear and these new type of bustles to show up in their place. He memorized details. Deonne would want to know everything.

  “I know where you’ll feel right at home,” Nayara told him. “This is the public and formal opening of the villa and the official book launch party. But we have a private thing going on inside the villa, for family. Brenden said you were due back around now. I’m glad to see you returned when you were supposed to.”

  They stepped onto the villa’s verandah and the noise seemed to drop somewhat.

  “Brenden and Fahmido scared me into it, with all the details about stasis poisoning,” Justin confessed. �
��I didn’t dare linger more than the week he advised.”

  They stepped into the long gallery and the party sounds faded almost completely. There were people lingering in other rooms along the gallery, chatting or relaxing, but there were none in the room Nayara had led him into.

  “You look much happier than when you left,” Nayara observed, glancing at him.

  Justin took a deep breath, as a dozen different answers occurred to him. He didn’t know where to begin. It was all too new, anyway. So he simply said a heartfelt, “Yes.”

  Nayara smiled. “You will be returning?”

  “As soon as Fahmido says I can.” He glanced around for anyone within hearing distance – vampire hearing distance – as they moved through the elegant front reception area for the agency itself. There was no one within sight. “There has been no time waves? Nothing?”

  Nayara shook her head. “Not a tremor.” She placed the champagne glass down on a table as they passed by. “Have you done something you think should create one?”

  “I’ve done a lot,” Justin confessed. “I did everything I could to move the future away from that damned letter.”

  “Did it work?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I ended up somewhere I never expected to be. It’s…” It was another thing that defied description.

  “Complicated?” Nayara finished. “Santiago?” she asked gently.

  Justin blew out his breath. “And Deonne. Both.”

  Nayara just smiled and squeezed his arm. “There has been no wave,” she repeated. “You have not changed anything. It appears that you and Deonne and Santiago were meant to be together.”

  “Then the letter still lies somewhere between here and where they are,” Justin said, a small chill touching the back of his neck.

  There was muffled noise coming from ahead, at the end of the big room. Nayara let go of Justin’s arm and put both hands on the handles of the big double doors that led onto the cavedium. “Come and join in the real party,” she said and threw the doors open.

  Music, laughter and light hit Justin all at once. Nayara took his arm again, and led him through the doors, into the cavedium itself.

  There was a trio of musicians set up on the verandah that led to Nayara’s office and the agency control room. Drums, pipe and fiddle. They were in the middle of a tune that was as Irish as anything Justin had ever heard. They were playing loudly and energetically, and the pounding beat made his toes twitch. It was a happy dancing tune and almost impossible to resist.

  Around, in and alongside the trees that grew in the middle of the cavedium, were dozens of people. Lights strung up in the trees let him see details and faces. Justin knew nearly everyone by sight. They were all Agency people, or aligned with or working for the Agency.

  Ryan, dressed in a shimmering evening suit and double tie, hurried over to where Justin stood taking it all in.

  Justin tilted his head. “Where’s your walking stick, old man?” he asked.

  Ryan grinned. “Packed away for now.”

  “But that’s great. That’s, shit, that’s wonderful news.”

  “I have a wonderful task master who bullied me into rehabilitating myself. It’s all thanks to her.” He picked up Nayara’s hand, his fingers stroking the back of it. Nayara just smiled.

  “I’m glad you pulled her out of the grown-up stuff in the plaza,” Ryan added. “She needs the break.”

  “You should head back,” Nayara warned him. “At least one of us should be there.”

  “In a minute,” Ryan agreed. “First, let me introduce Justin to the new people.”

  “New people?” Justin asked as Ryan pulled him onto the grass, moving toward the trees. “More employees?”

  “They’re vampire, so they’re full members,” Ryan clarified.

  “You’re recruiting travelers, even now?”

  “They’re not travelers. And I didn’t recruit them. Kieren did.”

  “Kieren? He works for us now…I mean, he left the Wardens?”

  “We’ve been busy. It happens during war time,” Ryan told him.

  “We are at war?” Justin asked sharply.

  “In all but name, yes,” Ryan replied soberly. “You’ve been through wars before. Tell me how our position is any different than England’s in the early first half of the World War?”

  They had called the first early part of that war a ghost war. There had been virtually no hostilities. Only assassinations, threats, and posturing. “I see,” Justin replied, keeping his voice down.

  Ryan smiled and gripped his shoulder. “You should stay here if you want to keep up on the gossip.”

  “No, thank you. I’m heading back as soon as I’m cleared.”

  Ryan beckoned with his hand toward someone. Justin didn’t know who, for there were people everywhere and many of them were glancing their way.

  From deep inside the trees, a man stepped out and walked toward them. He was tall – taller than Ryan. He had very fair skin and a shock of long black hair and black eyes. Celt or Briton, Justin guessed. Only, how far back did he go? Both races had been war-mongers, fighting among themselves ceaselessly until the Anglo-Saxon threat of invasion had pulled them together for one brief, shining moment in history. After that, both races had been subsumed by the Anglo-Saxon culture.

  The man was followed by another, equally as tall. This one had the same pale flesh and dark features, but he was older in appearance. If he was vampire, he had been made later in life. He wore a long black coat despite the heat and his hair was just as wild and unkempt as the first. He had a full beard that had been trimmed closely.

  Both of them stopped before Ryan. The older one inclined his head in a formal way that made Justin think of courts and pageantry. Chivalry.

  Ryan indicated the younger one first. “This is Cadeyrn Rhydder, Justin. He is the leader of our new security force.”

  “Is it not an army, my lord?” the older one asked, his tone polite and enquiring. His eyes were riveting, drawing the attention like a magnet pulled filings. Justin fine-tuned his focus and saw what the dim light had been hiding. His eyes were not the true Celtic black. They were blue or grey…almost colorless, like a washed-out sky after rain, except that each iris was bordered in black.

  “We are not formally at war yet,” Ryan told him. “So for now we use pretty euphemisms.”

  “You are at war, whether you wish it or no. Call it whatever you want, people have died, anyway,” Rhydder said, his tone sharp. “You might want to get used to the idea, or it’ll roll you into a paste because you hesitate to deal with it or acknowledge it for what it is.”

  “Cadeyrn forgets your own history, of course,” the older man said, his tone conciliatory. Yet his attention-getting eyes did not appear to be at all apologetic. He seemed to stare right through them.

  Rhydder almost, but not quite, rolled his eyes.

  “And this is Llewellyn, an associate of Rhydder’s,” Ryan said to Justin. “I still haven’t figured out where everyone fits in Rhydder’s organization.”

  “Llewellyn is my advisor,” Rhydder said shortly.

  “You’ve known each other a long time?” Justin asked curiously.

  “Yes,” Rhydder replied flatly.

  “Justin!”

  The call pulled Justin’s attention back to the trees in the center of the cavedium, where he spotted Demyan and Pritti stepping around a larger group of people that included Tally and Christian. Demyan had hold of Pritti’s hand. It appeared that he was no longer bothering to hide their relationship, even though nearly everyone in the Agency had become aware of it over the last year or so despite their coyness.

  As they drew closer, Justin saw why he was holding onto Pritti so tightly. He was helping her walk.

  “Perhaps you should unpack your cane once more,” Justin murmured to Ryan. “She is…” He hesitated to say it aloud.

  “I know,” Ryan said just as softly in return.

  Llewellyn looked at them both sharply, t
hen turned to face Demyan and Pritti, openly examining them.

  Pritti smiled at Justin, making him blink. Pritti rarely offered friendship in any way. She was too used to being the hated psi-filer. She looked at him shyly. “Your blackness has gone,” she told him. “There is warm red goodness in you now.”

  It was an odd way to describe it, but Justin understood what she was saying, anyway. “Yes, the blackness has gone,” he agreed.

  Llewellyn was studying her with deep attention. “You are a psi-filer,” he said, his deep voice making it sound like a regal pronouncement, full of rich cadences.

  “This is Pritti,” Ryan said quickly, intervening. “She has worked for the Agency for over ten years and is one of us.”

  Llewellyn continued to study her and Pritti shifted nervously. Her smile had gone. She tried to move behind Demyan, to hide, but Llewellyn did something unexpected. He reached out and lifted her chin, very gently, with two of his fingers beneath it.

  Pritti drew in a breath and gazed at him. “Oh!” she breathed. She tilted her head, a small puzzled frown between her brows. “Oh…” she repeated, this time with something like awe in her voice.

  Llewellyn got down on his knees, there on the grass, and looked at her. “You are a most precious one,” he said, his tone very gentle and soft. Even on his knees, he was almost taller than the diminutive Pritti.

  Pritti smiled at him and threw her arms around his neck, holding on tight. Llewellyn hugged her back.

  Demyan crossed his arms, looking from Pritti and Llewellyn to Ryan. Ryan shrugged. Rhydder’s attention was on the pair and he did not look up.

  Pritti stepped back, still smiling, with some of the old joie de vivre and energy Justin remembered. When had she stopped dancing and spinning? He had failed to notice. She patted Llewellyn’s cheek and he smiled, too. His smile changed his appearance radically. He abruptly looked younger, while the flash of even white teeth make him look far less grim and intense. He got to his feet while Pritti tucked her hand under Demyan’s arm once more.

  “It is a very great pleasure to meet you, my lord,” she said.