Nicca held a shaking hand up and Sage laughed. "So eager, I like that."
"No gloating, Sage," I said, my voice still uncertain, as if I wasn't quite sure it was my voice.
"Oh, but Merry, I must. The donnan has paid me a high compliment."
"Donnan?" Nicca made it a question, then shook his head. "I was no one's chief, little, brown, or otherwise, Sage." His voice was shaky, but through the haze of glamour with Rhys and I beginning to fade like the moon sinking behind the trees, Nicca seemed determined not to be called what he had never been.
"As you will, then, Nicca," Sage said. He grabbed Nicca's fingers and pulled his hand across mine, so that Nicca's hand was cradled between Sage's body and my fingers. The back of his hand was hot—gliding across my fingers and palm. That one simple touch brought the fading light in my skin back to a glow as if the moon had decided to rise twice that night.
Sage dragged Nicca's hand across his own lap until he bent his tiny, swollen mouth over the wrist. He laid that red kiss against Nicca's wrist, where the blue vein pulsed just under the skin, so close to the surface it was like an eager lover waiting to be taken.
Nicca crawled up my body so that he lay half upon me, using his free arm to support his weight; for a moment I looked down the length of his body to see him long and firm and full of a golden light that began to spread through his pale brown skin, as if the sun were rising inside his body. I felt his magic vibrate just above me like a trembling sheet of heat in the air. Sage's magic had caught Rhys unawares, but Nicca had learned from the other man's mistake, if it was a mistake, and he was using his own magic, trying to work through the glamour.
Sage bit into Nicca's wrist, and the pain distracted him, closed his eyes, shuddered his breath, but he held his body above mine in a sort of one-armed push-up. I couldn't taste Nicca's pulse as I had Rhys's. Nicca was fighting the glamour.
He managed to maneuver himself over my body, between my legs, and he began to lower himself down, pushing through the vibrating heat of his own magic, shoving it into me and over Sage. It made Sage hesitate and shiver himself.
I ran my free hand down Nicca's chest, stomach, and wrapped my hand around the long hardness of him. My touch bowed his back, lost him his concentration. Sage's glamour flooded over us both, and the blood that raced through my body spilled in white light out of my skin, danced my hair around my face. Nicca's skin was the color of deep golden amber, like dark honey if it could burn. For burn he did, with a golden light that I'd never seen from him before. It was as if Sage's glamour had stripped his skin away to reveal nothing but power.
I held him in my hand, firm and real, but he glowed so bright that I could not look upon him and had to close my eyes. It was like holding onto some vibrating, pulsing, piece of magic made solid. He was hot velvet against my palm, a gliding smoothness that throbbed down my hand to dance inside my veins, to spill heat through my body, like a searching hand that touched and glided over and through me, searching, searching, searching until his power found me, found my center, found that part that nothing should touch, and the power filled me from the inside out. His golden power raced with my magic, my body, my pleasure, so that his glow ran before mine, coaxed mine to shine bright and brighter, until the room was full of shadows from the shining of us, full of shadows that had no place in this room, as if our lights showed us hints of what lay around us, and it had nothing to do with this room, this bed, these bodies. The magic spilled out of us raw and wild, and Sage burned in the middle of it.
I fell back into my body screaming, bucking, fighting the bed, the men, everything, anything I could touch. I felt my nails slicing into flesh, and it wasn't enough. Three things brought me back to myself: blood in a hot rain across my face, Nicca shrieking, over and over again, and the feel of wings under my hands. Somewhere in all of it, I didn't want to tear Sage's wings, as he'd grown large under my hands.
Someone grabbed my wrists, held them over my head, pinned them to the pillows, and I didn't struggle. I couldn't see. Blood had landed across my closed lids, and the lashes were too thick with it. There was too much blood for a little rough sex. I blinked frantically, and I thought I was seeing double. Two pairs of wings rose above me like neon glass. One pair belonged to Sage—now nearly as tall as I was, his weight pinning me underneath him. But the others were larger, almost larger than I was, brown and cream, edges of pink, whirls of blue and red like huge eyes dotting the wings. They were only half unfurled, like a butterfly fresh from its chrysalis.
I stared up into Nicca's face. A face that was half pain, and half ecstasy, and all confusion. Blood glittered across us, glowing like liquid rubies, pulsing with the magic that still rode the air. The blood was Nicca's, from where his wings had burst from his skin.
It was Rhys who held my wrists, though he was as close to being off the bed as he could get. He was spattered with blood, but even as I watched, it was absorbed, as if his skin were drinking it. "I thought you were going to tear their wings," he said, and his voice held an edge of fear. I wondered how many of us had been screaming at the end. The blood seemed to like Rhys. He was drinking the power of this strange blood, this strange wound.
I was pinned under Sage and Nicca, though Sage was closer to center, and Nicca had spilled slightly off my body. I stared up at the wings, like stained glass with its own light. Nicca's wings were unfurling even as I watched, pumping larger with each beat of his heart.
Sage's mouth was smeared with liquid rubies. I'd never seen blood glow like that. He leaned down toward me, and I felt the power, not just of his glamour, or of Nicca, but of the blood itself. He kissed my lips, and the power burned against my skin, raised my face to his mouth, and we fed. He fed at my mouth like it was a flower, and I fed at his like it was a cup. We drank, sipped, and licked the power from each other's mouths.
When we raised back from the kiss, most of the blood was gone, as if it had been something else altogether. Rhys looked as if he were carved of white light, and his eye burned like some blue sun. He slid off the bed, shaking his head. "I've had enough, thanks. I'll just watch the rest of the show."
I don't know what I would have said, or if I had any words left, but one of the men still in the bed made some small movement and I turned back to them.
I lowered my hands to touch Sage's hair. In his small form it was soft, but here like this, the softness was almost overwhelming; just running my fingers through the silken brush of it caused me to writhe underneath them both.
Nicca cried out, and I gazed up at him, watched the fear leave his eyes, consumed with something darker and brighter. His eyes glowed as he lowered his mouth to mine. Sage moved just enough to let Nicca taste me. He licked the inside of my mouth as if it were a bowl, and he was trying to get the last drops from it.
I brought my hands down to glide along the sides of both their bodies. Sage's skin was like warm silk. Nicca's skin was warmer, hotter. Sage writhed over me, impossibly soft and firm at the same time. But Nicca was like something carved of power, so that it was hard to feel anything but the throbbing beat of the magic inside him.
Sage dragged his body up mine, whispering against my skin. "Remember what you promised me, Princess?"
"Yes," I whispered, "yes."
I watched Sage move his body closer to mine, watched the thickness of him come closer to my face. Nicca had moved to one side, but he kept his hands gliding over my body so that he never lost contact with my skin. When Sage came to kneel in front of my face, I watched Nicca crawl between my legs, on his knees, so that the two of them echoed each other. I remembered the mirror on the bureau then, and I turned to see them. Sage's wings overlapped Nicca's body so that he was half hidden behind the gossamer colors. His own wings were almost full now, large and curved, luminous with color.
Sage touched my face, brought my attention back to him. I'd never seen him naked and full-size before. He was bigger than I'd expected, not longer, but wider. I flicked my tongue across the tip of him, and it was as un
believably soft as the rest of him. I ran my hands over him, the shaft of him as soft as most men's balls, and the skin of his testicles like something made of satin. I had no words for the fineness of the skin between his legs. It was softer than a dream, like a bag made to hold something magical.
He touched my hands, stopped them from moving along his skin. "Have a care, Merry, or you'll have me go before I've seen the inside of your mouth."
I pulled him between my lips, and it was like sucking on silk that happened to be warm and muscled, and alive. The sensation of the soft skin and the hardness of him made me cry out with him in my mouth. Which made him cry out, and arch above me.
I felt Nicca slide his hands under my thighs, felt him lift me a little above the bed. "Say yes, Merry, say yes." His voice came hoarse with need, and I knew if I said no, he'd stop. But I didn't say no.
I drew Sage out of my mouth enough to say, "Yes, Nicca, yes."
I felt Nicca bump against me, his hands sliding farther underneath me, lifting me higher, holding me in the heat of his hands, my legs spreading wide.
I arched my neck so that Sage could slide into my mouth, down my throat, arched my neck so that I could take every thick, silken inch of him between my lips, my teeth, and deeper. Sage was as deep as I could take him when Nicca plunged between my legs.
I screamed, and it was muffled by the sweet flesh in my mouth. Nicca held me in front of his hips, helped the arch of my body, so that Sage slid more easily into and out of my mouth.
I caught a glimpse of a sea of wings above me, like the masts of faerie ships, then they seemed to catch a rhythm. Each plunged inside my body in time to the other, as if he could feel the other's body. Warm muscled silk in and out of my mouth, caressing my lips, my teeth, gliding along my tongue, bumping the back of my throat. Nicca was like something long and hot, almost burning between my legs, thrusting inside me until the head of him bumped into the deepest part of me. Then they both drew out of me, almost pulling free, then thrust inside me again, as if it were a dance, or a race to see who could thrust himself the deepest, the quickest, and they both found their depth at the same moment. Both of them hit me deep, then both withdrew, almost free of me, then back inside, faster and faster. Until they began to beat inside me, and I felt that heavy warmth grow inside me, filling up like a pool of water, one drop of pleasure at a time, one thrust at a time, one thick taste at a time.
Sage was like a shaft of sunlight, glowing in and out of me. I could only catch glimpses of Nicca's darker light, as if the sun had swallowed something brown and was determined to burn it away. They brought my skin to a white boil, and white flames began to dance across my skin, and I saw a green-gold light, and realized my eyes were glowing so brightly it was casting green shadows on the pillows.
I swallowed sunlight over and over; and the sun beat between my legs, and above all of it their wings shimmered, the colors dancing, fleeing through the air, until I saw that the room was full of butterflies carved of neon and power.
Nicca thrust between my legs and it was as if he grew impossibly long, impossibly warm, thrusting up through my body, as if he would touch where Sage was pulsing inside my mouth, as if the two suns would meet inside my body and I would be burned away, drowned in their twin powers, and that was the drop of pleasure that filled the pool, that spilled me over, that brought me writhing under their weight, that set me sucking at the sunlight in my mouth, made me grind my hips into the heat between my legs. Sage poured hot and thick down my throat, and I swallowed that salty power, felt the glow of it travel down my throat and through my body. Nicca came in a thrust that seemed to burn through my body in a long shaft of power as if it would rend me in two, bend me into something hot, and dripping, and liquid to run over the sheets, to spill along their bodies, as they spilled along mine.
When I came to myself, Sage was lying curled on his side, trapping one of my arms. Nicca was collapsed across my lower body, on his stomach, his wings curving over his back, his buttocks, his thighs, and one long graceful curve of winged tail ran off the bed and nearly touched the carpet.
I couldn't hear anything but the thundering of my own blood in my veins. My hearing came back slowly, and the first thing I heard was Sage's shaky laughter. I think he said, "How do you sidhe survive the sex? It would kill me in a month." He turned his head enough for me to see his face, and his eyes. There was a ring of glittering black on the outside of his pupils but inside that was a ring of charcoal grey, and inside that was a ring of palest white-grey. I stared into his tricolored eyes, and wondered what he'd say when he saw a mirror.
CHAPTER 14
Sage stood on tiptoe, gazing into the bureau mirror, as close to the glass as he could get. He was gazing at his new eyes, which seemed utterly fascinating to him. I seemed unduly fascinated with him. If he was in my line of sight, I stared at him. I couldn't seem to stop myself. The soft yellow of his skin looked as if his body had been drenched in a small piece of sunlight. His body was one long line from his feet—raised high on their toes—to his calves, his thighs, the curve of his buttocks, the smooth plain of his back, the swell of his shoulders, and over all of it his wings, held tight over his back. The broad band of golden yellow with its fusion of brilliant blue and splashes of red, and orangey red, was clearer than I'd ever seen it. The black veins that held the butter-yellow tissue of his wings together seemed thick and black as miniature roads, as if I could trace my way across his wings and find myself somewhere else. Some magical place where winged lovers came at my beck and call, and there were no responsibilities. No throne. No assassins.
I frowned and put my hands over my eyes to block the seemingly gorgeous view of Sage at the mirror. This wasn't what I really wanted, but of course, that wasn't entirely true. Wasn't my deepest desire to have a life where whoever came to my bed came out of lust, or true love, or at least friendship, and not because I was daughter of Essus and heir to a throne? The best glamour, the best enchantments feed off your own needs and desires. The more personal, the more secret, the harder it is to resist.
I concentrated on my breathing in the cool darkness of my closed eyelids. Not being able to see Sage helped. I could think about something other than the sex we'd just had, wanting more of it, and wanting to touch his wings, wanting to see if the thick, black veins were truly paths that led to my heart's desire.
Stop it, Meredith, stop it. I tried not to think, but only to count my breaths. I took air deep into my body, and let it out slowly. When my pulse was calm, I started to count not the deep, even breaths, but just to count. When I reached sixty, I lowered my hands slowly.
I was staring into washboard abs so sculpted they looked artificial. I knew that stomach. I gazed up and found Rhys's chest, and finally his face. "Are you all right, Merry?"
I shook my head. "I don't know." My voice was only a whisper, as if I was afraid to talk louder. It wasn't until that moment that I realized I was afraid. But afraid of what?
I felt the bed move a moment before I felt Nicca's presence behind me. He wasn't a burning heat now, but it was as if he were the warmth of the earth itself. The warmth that lives down in the rich brown soil, and keeps all the seeds, and all the small creatures safe and warm through the winter. When his hands touched my shoulders, it was like being wrapped up in the warmest, softest blanket in the world. So safe, so warm, as if you could snuggle down and sleep for months, and wake refreshed, whole, and the earth would be made new again. The magic of spring itself was in the touch of his hands.
Something must have shown on my face, though whether it was fear, or longing, or something else, Goddess alone knew, because I surely didn't. Rhys asked again, "Are you all right, Merry?"
I whispered, "Get Doyle." It was all I had time to say before Nicca turned me in his arms, and planted a kiss on the bend of my neck. I was suddenly drowning in the scent of fresh-turned earth and the rich, green scent of growing things. His mouth tasted like fresh rain. My hands slid over his shoulders, and found the arch of his
wings. It made me open my eyes and pull back from the kiss enough to gaze down his back at the newness of them.
When the wings had been only a pattern on his back, the details had been blurred. Now the sweep and color of them spread over his body like twin cathedrals. The main color was a pale buff tan, like the fur of some pale lion, and the tips of the forewings looked as if they'd been dipped in pink and violet-red. The deep violet-red wove down the edges in a scalloped pattern that mixed with white and purple, and was edged on one side with a reddish brown, like a braid of auburn hair laid across all that golden tan. That line of rainbow colors — violet-red, white, purple, and reddish brown — traced a second scallop on his lower wings, with a line of more golden tan on the other side of that run. There was an eyespot with a blue-green center larger than my hand in his front wings, edged with black, and a yellow that was almost an echo of his overall pale buff, then an edge of brilliant blue, and that violet-red repeated above that pool of eye color like some psychedelic eyebrow. The second eyespot on his hind-wings was larger than my face, like a pool of blue-green iridescence, with that outline of black around every color as if to emphasize every shade. The pale yellow ring around the pool of sparkling blue-green, the thin gleaming line of blue and reddish violet arching over all that color. There was a heavier black ring around the larger eyespot, so that the thick velvet black that surrounded all that color sat in a pool of pinkish orange. The scalloped line of colors flowed down the edge of the rear wings as it did the front—red-violet, white, purple, and reddish brown tracing the edge of all his wings downward past the brilliance of pink and orange to spill on long curved tails so that that last grace of wing was thick with dark stripes of color.
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