by Megan Derr
“I see,” Shanna said, but she also could not quite believe this was happening, despite all that had been said, all that had happened since their first encounter in the stables.
She practically stopped breathing as Kallaar offered her a square wooden box, beautifully carved with flowers and swirls. More touching still was the odd shyness that fell over him.
“I know we have been clumsy suitors,” Kallaar said. “Especially me, despite all the training that should have made me otherwise. But know we both want you very much, my queen, and would be honored if you would take the pair of us to be your lovers, even if the law says you can marry only me.”
Blinking back the sting in her eyes, Shanna opened the box—and stared at the two rings inside. One matched theirs exactly, the three stones set in gold. But the other was a traditional Remnien engagement ring, a beautiful white diamond surrounded by tiny pearls and set in silver. “They’re beautiful.” She sniffled as each man took a ring out of the box, with Ahmla sliding the Remnien ring on her left middle finger, and Kallaar sliding the Morentian ring on her right.
“So are you willing to endure us, sweet queen?” Ahmla asked.
“I hope by this point my answer is obvious, but yes, of course I accept. It would be my honor.”
Ahmla kissed her, dragging her onto his lap and wrapping his arms around her. She buried her fingers in his thick hair and kissed him back ardently, exploring every dip and curve of his mouth, addicted to the winter taste of him mingled with the spiced wine.
When they finally broke apart, Kallaar was there to offer his own kisses, surrendering first to Shanna, and then to Ahmla. After that, she completely lost track of the kisses, lost entirely to the flavor and feel of them, the way they tasted of each other, of her, of all of them together. Had anything ever been so enthralling, so wonderful?
Only the weight of the promises on her fingers, the happy knowledge that her mother had been partly responsible for ensuring this chance of lasting happiness for her, despite Mercen’s machinations.
Eventually, the three of them untangled, though it was only so Ahmla could move the table out of the way while Kallaar divested himself and Shanna of their clothes.
Ahmla stripped off his own before he rejoined them. “Kallaar, show our queen just how obedient a consort you can be when you set your mind to it.” Ahmla sprawled on the floor like he was the royal, propped against a pile of pillows. Stretched out that way, the firelight bathing his skin, his normally neat hair tumbling about his shoulders in thick, heavy waves, he also looked like a body servant of old, happily trained to give his master or mistress anything and everything they wanted.
But even he didn’t look as decadent as Kallaar, compact and lean, hair falling just past his shoulders now it was loose, wearing only his ring and a gold chain around his throat from which hung a medallion with his royal crest.
Shanna wrapped her fingers around it and tugged, falling back on pillows herself, liking the way he looked between her spread legs. “You are a pretty betrothed,” she said, touching her tongue to her upper lip. “When I was a young girl, I used to daydream what my consort would look like. A handsome man, big and strong? A pretty man, long and lean? A beautiful woman, fat and soft? A lovely woman, all bone and sharp edges? I could never decide what I wanted most, only that one never really seemed like enough.”
Kallaar grinned before dipping his head to drag his tongue up the inside of her thigh—then infuriatingly chased the path back down with teeth and lips before switching to the other thigh to do the same. Leaning further upward, he teased along her belly and then into the crevice where thigh and groin met.
When she could take no more of the sweet torment, Shanna grabbed a fistful of his hair and put his mouth where she wanted it. She felt his chuckles against her softest skin, saw the way his body rippled when she handled him, and moaned, head falling back, as he wrapped his arms around her thighs and sucked on her clit far too briefly before fucking her open with his tongue. Gods and goddesses, it had been only a couple of hours, but already her mind had forgotten just how delightful that tongue was.
She managed to look up and immediately found Ahmla’s hot gaze. They shared a look, and then his gaze dropped to Kallaar, lust and love plain on his face. Shanna swallowed, then sat up slightly, grabbed Kallaar’s hair, and pulled him away. “Delightful as you are, pretty prince, let’s see that talented mouth around Ahmla’s cock.” She shivered at her own words, her own boldness, but each time she acted so, her need to continue spiraled.
Kallaar moaned, throat working as he crawled across the short space to Ahmla, who promptly yanked him in for a rough kiss. Shanna whimpered, fingers sliding down her body to tease where Kallaar’s mouth had just been.
Tearing away from Ahmla’s kiss, nipping hard at his lips and laughing at the punishing, biting kiss he got in return, Kallaar then worked his way down Ahmla’s body until he finally slid his mouth around Ahmla’s cock. Ahmla curled fingers into his hair and thrust his cock deeper, gradually picking up speed until he was fucking Kallaar’s mouth hard, extracting whimpers and groans. Sweat gleamed on Kallaar’s skin, come and spittle making a mess and trailing down his throat, but between his noises and the easy way he took every thrust, he obviously loved every moment of the way Ahmla used him.
Shanna moaned, rolling forward and curling against Kallaar’s backside, pressing kisses between his shoulder blades, her long nails raking his sides, and oh, how delightful it was rubbing against him, feeling every jerk and ripple of his body as Ahmla fucked his mouth.
With a groan, Ahmla pulled out, yanking Kallaar up for a wet, sloppy kiss that left Shanna whimpering. When Ahmla let him go, she pulled Kallaar to her, loving the taste of them in his mouth, the hard, wet rub of his cock against her. The aches from their earlier fucking had barely faded, and she wanted to feel him again, thighs damp and sticky in anticipation.
She tore away, meeting Ahmla’s hungry gaze. “Would it be greedy of me to say I want to feel you both?”
Ahmla grabbed his cock to keep from coming, while Kallaar’s groan filled Shanna’s ear as he shuddered against her. She bit his shoulder right where it curved into his throat, lapped the bite with her tongue, and then withdrew to spread out on the floor.
Kallaar’s hands skimmed up her legs, leaving trails of fire and making her skin prickle. He kissed her, sucking her bottom lip and then biting her right where she’d bitten him moments ago. Drawing back with a toothy grin, he shifted, lined up his cock, and slid inside her.
Shanna cried out, sank her nails into his shoulders, panted out an order for him to move. With a long, ragged groan, Kallaar obeyed, fucking her hard, pulling out nearly all the way and thrusting back in, over and over, holding a rhythm at first, but quickly losing it. As he started to tremble, he kissed her again, hot and sweaty, and she wrapped her arms around him as he came.
With a last kiss, Kallaar withdrew, exchanging another kiss with Ahmla as he moved forward. Then Ahmla’s mouth was against hers, larger than Kallaar’s, far bolder, meeting every movement of her mouth and tongue instead of sweetly submitting.
She moaned at the heavy weight of him rubbing against her, dragged her nails down his broad, sweaty back, and bit his bottom lip. “Show me what you can do, lifesworn.”
His smile hot, but also a touch sweet, Ahmla sank inside her in one long thrust that had her arching up into him, nails biting into his skin. At the edge of her vision, she saw Kallaar watching them, could feel his featherlight touches, but most of her was focused on the large cock driving into her over and over, the sweaty body against hers, the rough scrape of facial hair as Ahmla kissed her hungrily.
Another deep thrust was all it took to send her over the precipice. She clung hard as her climax washed through her but gathered herself enough to kiss Ahmla as he finally sank into her one last time and came. Distantly she was grateful she’d continued taking the elixir that would prevent children, though her chest twisted and ached at the thought of someday bearing
children that resembled her men if this strange new arrangement proved lasting.
She groaned as Ahmla pulled out of her, fuzzily mortified by the mess they’d made of the fur rug, but too sated and pleasantly aching to do anything about it. Her eyes were heavy, and it was so very easy to let them close.
When she stirred, it was because of the sudden lack of ground beneath her. Shanna jerked, gasped, and then relaxed as she realized Ahmla was carrying her. She wasn’t exactly a delicately sized woman, yet Ahmla might as well have been carrying a sack of down for all the exertion he showed. Just like the day they'd met. Shanna shivered at the reminder of his strength.
“Cold?” he asked.
“Not even close,” Shanna said, pleasure curling through her at the smile her words elicited.
Ahmla deposited her in the ridiculously large bed she had not expected to find in a remote monastery. But then, her grandmother had liked her comforts. Like Shanna’s bed back home, this one was easily big enough for four—certainly three.
Though Kallaar crawled in beside her and kissed her cheek, Ahmla did not. Instead, he seemed to be making up a bed on the floor at the foot of the bed.
“Why are you sleeping down there?”
“Don’t try to argue with him,” Kallaar said around a yawn. “He’s infuriatingly stubborn. I constantly insist he sleep in bed with me, but this is one of the few bodyguard rules he won’t break. Half the time he sleeps blocking the door.”
Shanna’s mouth flattened. “You should be up here with us. Leaving aside we are three, not two, it’s far too cold to be sleeping on that floor—that hard stone floor, which all the blankets and bedrolls in the kingdom will not make warm and pleasant.”
“It is my duty to protect you—”
“Then lock the door. Shove the dresser in front of it. Whatever it takes to set your mind at ease,” Shanna snapped. “I can see where you would sleep apart when it was only the two of you. But if you really want me to be a part of you, for this to be three, then it isn’t right that two of us sleep together at night while one is on the floor. If you do not come up here, we will come down there.”
Ahmla shook his head. “You will sleep in that bed, and I will sleep here where I can better hear and react.”
Replying to that with the long string of invectives it deserved, Shanna climbed out of bed, dragged the blankets and pillows off it, and deposited the whole mess where Ahmla had created a truly depressing nest for himself. While her lovers gaped and scowled, she neatened the blankets, punched her pillow, and lay down facing the bed.
It was exactly as miserable a place to sleep as she had known, but she would defy the divine before she tolerated Ahmla’s stupid gestures and any half measure in their relationship.
Kallaar’s laughter filled the room, high and bright and beautiful. “I did not think I would ever see the day that someone managed to out-stubborn Ahmla.” He tried to say more but was laughing too hard to get the words out. Finally, he caught his breath. “Both of you, come to bed. I’m tired and now cold.”
Shanna looked up at Ahmla. “Are you going to join us?”
“Your point has been made, my queen,” he said gruffly and offered his hands.
Shanna took them, and he pulled her to her feet and helped restore the bedding to its proper place. Once everything was righted, Shanna reclaimed her place in the center and rolled so she could drape an arm across Kallaar, with Ahmla pressing against her from behind. They’d no doubt overheat and spread out in their sleep, but for now, this was perfect.
“So you’ll come with us to Morentia?” Kallaar asked sleepily.
“Yes. We can stay here through the winter since it’s becoming too dangerous to travel, and come spring, we’ll go to Morentia. You’re certain Penli can come?”
“Oh, I can’t wait to see him turn our proper, rigid little court upside down,” Ahmla replied. “Of course, he can come. He’s your friend and loves you dearly. We’d deny him nothing, or near enough.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry I ran away. I was trying to do the right thing.”
Kallaar squeezed her hand, and Ahmla kissed her shoulder, and nothing else needed to be said.
Epilogue
Groaning, Shanna closed the books she’d been poring over and consigned them to the chest she’d taken them from. As nervous as she was about living in Morentia the next few years, as eager as she was to improve and expand her knowledge so she wouldn’t make a complete fool of herself in front of her future in-laws, she could not concentrate in the positively unbearable weather. “Oh, my goodness, this heat.” Shanna collapsed on the soft bed set up in the corner of their large, mercifully cool and shady tent. “How do you survive in this? I will never adjust. I will melt long before.”
Kallaar and Ahmla laughed, the horrible beasts.
At the table, they sat drinking and playing some incomprehensible game with Penli, who had only just learned it but was already trouncing them every time. Ahmla seemed slightly peeved by this, while Kallaar seemed amused and vastly more interested in the way Shanna’s breasts were threatening to escape the confines of her chemise, which was all she could stand to wear unless she had no choice. As night was falling and the camp settled, she had plenty of choice.
She smirked and shifted to bare her breasts just a little bit more, not quite snickering when Kallaar actually leaned forward slightly as though that would close the distance between them.
“Kallaar!”
“Huh? Oh!”
“Honestly,” Ahmla groused. “You are the one who said you wanted to play. What are you…” He trailed off as he saw precisely what had distracted Kallaar.
Shanna rolled to her side, propping her head in one hand, further upsetting her chemise.
Penli snickered as he wiped Kallaar from the board. “Two moves from taking Ahmla, so I believe that is my cue to depart and leave the matter of taking to other people.”
Shanna cast him a quelling but amused look as he fled with a waggle of his fingers. Unlike her, Penli seemed to be taking to the heat as easily as he took to everything. Jerk.
“Why must you dress that way?” Ahmla asked.
“Why must you dress that way?” Shanna retorted, gaze running up his bare, smooth chest, still scored with the marks she’d left there last night. “If you are going to keep taking clothes off, so am I. How else am I to endure this wretched heat?”
They both laughed at her. “It’s still spring, what we call the ‘late cool season,’” Kallaar said when she scowled. “We are not remotely close to the hottest part of the year.”
Shanna moaned and flopped onto her back again. “I’m going to shave my head and walk around in my underthings, I swear—”
“No!” Kallaar and Ahmla said together, looking devastated.
“You can’t shave your head,” Kallaar said.
“Is there some cultural taboo against it?”
He pouted. “No. But it would break my heart.”
Shanna smothered a smile. “Maybe you’d better come convince me I should keep it long and hot and bothersome, then.”
Both men promptly abandoned the game they’d been half-heartedly setting back up, losing clothes as they crossed the tent. Ahmla dragged her to the head of the bed and deposited her against the overabundance of pillows there. They settled on either side of her, kissing her, each other, back and forth in a wet tangle of mouths and tongues and eagerness. As Kallaar continued to kiss her, Ahmla worked his mouth down her body to lavish attention on her heavy breasts, his fingers and mouth working together to leave her a keening, writhing mess.
Kallaar nibbled at her jaw, one hand scattering random caresses across her body. “What would please my queen most?”
“I want to see Ahmla fuck you.”
Both men groaned, and after a last sucking kiss to her stomach, Ahmla reared up and dragged Kallaar to the foot of the bed, pulled him flush, and kissed him hard. He bent Kallaar backward, arms pinned at the small of his back so he was helpless to do anythi
ng but take what Ahmla gave.
Shanna moaned, skating her fingers down her body to work herself as she watched them.
Finally releasing Kallaar, Ahmla turned him over and spread him out on his hands and knees and then shifted so he could fuck Kallaar with his tongue. Kallaar bellowed his name, skin gleaming with sweat, hair coming loose from the braid and bun he’d put it in, sticking to his face and neck.
Rolling forward, Shanna trailed kisses along Kallaar’s spine, reaching a hand beneath him to scrape and pinch his nipples, enjoying every shiver and moan. She wrapped a hand around his cock, rubbing a thumb over the tip just as she bit his ear, making him swear and jerk. Ahmla swatted him and then drew back and slicked his cock with the oil Shanna had retrieved from the depths of the pillow pile. She shifted back as he thrust deeply into Kallaar, as intoxicated as ever by the beauty of her lovers lost to lust.
After a few more thrusts, Ahmla withdrew, causing both Kallaar and Shanna to whine in protest. Giving them a look, he said, “I want to see you fuck our queen while I finish you, little prince.”
Mollified by that command, Shanna returned to her place against the pillows and drew an eager Kallaar into her arms. He rubbed her clit, pressing in that way guaranteed to make her moan, and sucked at her pulse—then withdrew with a yelp as he got another smack. Rubbing his ass, grumbling at Ahmla even as a smile tugged at his mouth, Kallaar shifted to line up his cock. Shanna dragged him forward, rolling her hips to take him deep as he pushed inside.
Kallaar moaned in the hollow of her throat, and she laughed breathlessly as she carded fingers through his tangled hair, watching avidly as Ahmla gripped Kallaar’s hips and slid back inside him.
The first couple of times they’d done this, finding a rhythm had been tricky, and more failure than success. By now, however, after months in the monastery and more traveling, moving together was as easy as breathing. She clung to Kallaar, meeting each of his thrusts, locking eyes with Ahmla as he fucked into Kallaar, driving him into Shanna.