by Simone Sinna
Gabriella shifted uncomfortably. He had been in perfect health, but he had been unusually affected by the Richards boys. Had that led him to make some stupid misjudgment because he had not been concentrating? Had he run into the were-devils Lena and Zachary had sensed for some time in the Whitsundays?
“You said you thought our grandmother might think we were needed to help solve the curse,” said Gabriella, feeling increasingly frustrated that there were things she didn’t know and understand.
Lena looked at her sadly. “Only if we’re brave enough.”
“What do you mean?”
Lena shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know, but I have dreams of our great-aunt that really make no sense.”
Gabriella frowned. Why on earth would Lena be dreaming about Larissa, Angel’s long dead sister that they had never met?
“Promise me you’ll be careful,” Gabriella said finally.
Lena looked out across the ocean. “I will do what I have to do.”
* * * *
“Do you think she could be in some way the answer to the curse?”
It was early evening, and the brothers were working out in the gym. Everyone else on the island was either having cocktails or a pre-dinner stroll. Mitch looked at his brother, putting down the weights he had been lifting. Sweat covered his brow.
“I don’t know,” Mac replied. He kept pumping, not looking up.
“She is one of them,” Mitch said. “Even if mostly human. But she’s hot for us both, too. There must be a reason.”
“You’re more optimistic than I that fate is that kind,” Mac replied.
“This is how I see it. That damn curse was because our granddad didn’t follow his lust.”
Mac looked skeptical.
“Love then, whatever. We have a chance to put it right. Our instincts are saying she is right. Perhaps we should listen to them. Both of us. Then we get to go against the natural instinct to fight over our women as well.”
“You’re forgetting one thing,” said Mac, who had been thinking of little else.
“Which is?”
“Gabriella has to agree. We don’t know she won’t turn us over to her family, or at least be repulsed at the thought. The curse came upon us because our kind turned their backs. Who’s to stay it won’t be the reverse this time?”
“So how do we tell her?”
Mac finally put the weights down and turned to his brother. “I don’t know. But when we do, I need to be able to tell her I didn’t kill that dickhead I dumped in the cave.”
The brothers looked at each other as the reality dawned on them. They would have to go and check him out.
“The cave has a ton of water,” Mac said. “Maybe we should take food.”
They did so reluctantly. Their desire for Gabriella was the only thing that made the thought even possible.
As dusk was descending, they made their way to the cave, doused in the spray that Auntie Kate had provided. They hoped he would still be in human form as that would be easier for them to predict what he might do. If he was still alive.
They sensed Wilson from the cave edge. There was a coldness that made both of them shrink back. He was all bat. Mac hoped he was still tied up as they hovered on the outside and let their eyesight adjust. He was, and angrier than ever. He swooped at them, but the tie meant he was pulled up short of the opening.
“If it was up to me, bat brains,” said Mac, “I’d leave you to rot. Count yourself lucky we are fond of Gabriella.” He threw the food into the depths of the cave. Returning, they knew they didn’t have long. They would have to deal with Lena and Zachary quickly if they were going to. But first they needed to decide what to do about Gabriella. He had told her he didn’t do one-night stands, and he wanted to make good his promise. He wanted to offer her as much as she wanted to take. But he knew it would be better to go slowly. She had opened herself up to them both separately. Could she manage two, as well as knowing who they were?
* * * *
Gabriella felt restless. Seeing Lena, on top of the tension at her great-aunt’s funeral, had put her on edge. She desperately wanted to forget all the difficulties her family had and look ahead to a future without such feuds. She wanted to be normal and could well understand how her mother and grandmother before them had fought for normality by marrying humans.
This thought immediately took her mind to Mitch and Mac. It was a welcome distraction as she felt her body tingle all over imagining just one, let alone the two together. Though neither had discussed the idea openly, she was sure it was what they were thinking, and the idea of a life with both men was, if not normal, then the type of abnormality she was sure she could deal with.
There was no major event on at the resort, so short of a major disaster, Gabriella had the night off. She was not feeling hungry and decided to take a walk along the beach. On the other side of the island, accessible at low tide, was a cave halfway up a ledge where she could sit and dream as she watched the stars come up.
It was a long walk, over an hour, and she was so deep in thought that she missed the spot and had to double back. As she did so, she thought she caught sight of movement over the rocks from where she had just been, and stood still watching. But the rocks stayed in shadows, and the only movement was the rippling of the water gently touching them. She turned to the cliff and pulled herself up until she found her cave, too high for the water to ever reach. She sat there on the sand floor, looking out across the moonlit water, and let all the tension of the day seep from her. This was her home, here in Queensland, where she was at peace. Whatever the war with the were-devils brought, they would not force her to flee where she had grown up.
She was aware of them before she saw them. How they had crossed the sand unobserved she was not sure. She must have been too immersed in her own thoughts to be aware of the real world. When she first saw their silhouettes, it seemed as though they were part of her dream and that her longing for them had managed to make them materialize. She thought about yelling out to them but, not wanting to break the spell, closed her eyes and silently called them to her instead. Surely they would feel the call if indeed they were meant to be with her.
Time drifted. Gabriella wasn’t aware of any noise, no scrambling up the cliff or falling rock. But before she opened her eyes she knew they would be there.
“Are you sure?” Mac asked from the edge of her cave. He was watching her, drinking her in, looking, she was sure, for something more than just acquiescence. He had said he didn’t do one-night stands. This was a one-woman man, and he didn’t want to be hurt again.
“If you both are,” Gabriella replied.
The brothers looked at each other, and then Mac cleared his throat. “We’re sure, but you need…”
Gabriella leant forward and put her finger over his mouth. “Not now,” she said. “Later there will be plenty of time for talking.”
Mac groaned, a hand gently tracing down her bare arm. “You know I would never mean to hurt you,” he whispered.
Gabriella wondered at the hurt this man had felt and brushed her lips over his. Like a man being offered salvation, he returned the kiss with force, pulling her to him as their lips and tongues joined, warm and tasting of salt.
“My brother is very greedy,” said Mitch softly from behind her. Gabriella could feel his lips on her bare shoulder, the heat from his body cocooning her.
“Not as greedy as I’m feeling,” said Gabriella, as she sat back against Mitch, watching Mac. Both men were dressed only in shorts, their bare torsos glistening as if they had run the length of the beach to find her. Her white dress had buttons down the front, and she pulled Mac’s hands to them. He didn’t need any more guidance. As Mitch licked and traced along the edge of her ear with his tongue, Mac undid her buttons slowly. By the third one the tight dress opened and her bare breasts spilled out of its confines. Both men moaned, Mac leaning forward to take each breast gently in his hands, massaging them as Gabriella pushed her head back into Mitch
, savoring the feeling of having two men undress and pleasure her while clearly delighting in the experience.
Mac took a nipple in his teeth and pulled and licked as Mitch did the same with each of her ears. She felt hands over her legs and breasts, and she was no longer sure or cared whose hands were whose, only that the feeling was so intense that she thought she might come just from the sheer excitement of being sandwiched between two men. They had asked her what she liked, and she hadn’t known. Now she knew without any doubt that what she liked was these two men doing whatever they wanted with her.
After what seemed to Gabriella like a long, pleasurable sojourn, Mac pulled back and returned to undoing more buttons. He seemed to delight in taking his time, amused as Gabriella began squirming as her imagination inflamed her desire.
“I think she’s getting impatient,” said Mac, grinning at the effect they were having on her. He brushed a hand up her leg, and Gabriella moaned.
“Stop teasing,” she said, trying to sound petulant but only succeeding in showing just how much she wanted them.
“I wonder if she’ll get even more turned on if we go even slower,” said Mitch.
Gabriella turned her head, trying to frown at him, but Mitch answered the look by bringing his lips down over hers. She lost herself in the kiss, in Mitch’s hands cupping her breasts, and then finally in Mac licking her belly button that was now exposed. She felt totally in their control and was more than willing to be so. The feeling was exquisite.
Mac’s hands returned to the remaining buttons. Finally, the last button was undone and Mac pulled the soft, silky folds of her dress away from her legs where until now they had hidden the sliver of her thong and the folds of her thighs. Gabriella had been kneeling until now. Mitch pulled her back into his lap, and she extracted her legs from beneath her. Mac knelt between them, and tickled the inside of her thighs, edging closer to the thong. The anticipation had Gabriella trembling, and the casual brush over the material turned it to a shudder.
“You’re beautiful,” said Mac. “I’d like to stay here forever.”
“Mmm,” agreed Gabriella, not trusting herself to say anything else.
“Do you think we should take off her thong, little brother?”
“Do you think she wants you to?” asked Mitch, one hand from behind slipping under the side of the thong. Gabriella wriggled. Yes please!
“Maybe she isn’t ready yet,” Mac teased, moving his hands down to her calves.
“Oh yes,” Gabriella said, thinking if they didn’t hurry up she might have to jump them.
“Are you sure?” said Mitch, hand now cupping a buttock and finger getting dangerously close to her asshole.
“Yes,” said Gabriella, wriggling all the more, though Mitch pulled her to him so she wasn’t about to move anywhere fast. The brothers were clearly enjoying teasing her, and Gabriella felt torn between the tantalizing anticipation and desire to have them in her. Each time Mac pulled back she could feel more juices running down her leg. They seemed to know her better than she did herself.
Mac leant down and licked her belly button again and then worked his tongue down to the edge of her thong, pulling on the material with his teeth. With Mitch working on the sides, the thong now exposed the reddish hair of her mound. Mac sat back and looked at her, hands this time tracing over the mound and then ever so slightly beneath it to the edge of her slit. The other hand slipped under the side of her thong and caressed a lip of her cunt. Gabriella thought she would come, so intense was the feeling that waved through her entire body.
But there was much more to come. Mac put a finger on either side of the thong and began pulling it down, slowly, in stages, pausing and taking in her body each time he moved it a little lower. Both men seemed mesmerized, as turned on as she was if the hardness of their cocks she could feel behind her and see in front of her was anything to go on.
Mac finally shuffled backward so he could remove her underwear entirely then knelt back between Gabriella’s knees and gently pushed her legs farther apart. She knew she was totally exposed and fought the need to pull her legs together, the idea vanishing as soon as Mac leant forward, his hands opening her up and his tongue parting her lips and circling around her clit before pushing inside her.
Gabriella found her pelvis rocking, partly as she was desperate for him to come deeper, partly because Mac was pulling her to him with Mitch’s hands on her ass from behind, lifting her up in the process. When Mitch’s finger went over her asshole, the feeling intensified, and without warning Gabriella felt her body shiver and shake as an intense orgasm swept over her.
Mac and Mitch set her back down on the sandy floor as Mitch pulled off her dress and both men dropped their shorts. Getting her breath back, Gabriella leant against Mac’s legs, which provided a cushion for her, her head now only inches from his cock that glistened in its desire for her. Mitch beside her pushed a leg between hers and, pulling her uppermost leg toward him, guided his cock, now covered with a condom, from behind over the opening to her cunt.
“Are you ready?” he whispered in her ear.
Gabriella could feel the tip of his cock against her, and as he pushed inside from behind she gasped, her legs clasping around his and drawing his cock deeper into her pussy. Mac from the front leaned down, one hand finding her clit and rubbing firmly as his lips drew her nipple into his mouth. Gabriella, reveling in the pleasure of being filled, turned her own mouth to Mac’s cock, licking the pre-cum before taking the head into her mouth. All three moaned as they enjoyed the pleasures that coursed through them. Gabriella was amazed that the sensations blurred into one, blissful feeling of being as one with not just one, but two men. The intensity of her cunt being filled and Mitch’s thrusts seemed to merge with the sensation of her mouth also being filled. It was as if her body was on fire, an electricity coursing through her that kept her just on the edge until as she felt Mitch pulling her pelvis into him she clamped harder, sucking, too, as she did, and all three let themselves give in to a pleasure that felt like it would ensure they would never be apart.
* * * *
Whitby, England, 1940
“Are you sure this is the right place?”
Charles looked around dubiously. In the moonlight there were no signs of anyone or anything. As there was a curfew and no lights were allowed, it was hardly surprising everyone else was indoors. In October the night was cold and the fog was coming in rapidly off the water.
Adam stepped out of the shadows of the cathedral ruin and looked down to the water and the town in the darkness.
“He’ll come.”
Adam was certain because he knew a good deal more than he was telling his brother. Arranging the meeting hadn’t been without difficulty and risk. Quite aside from the time pressures—they were being deployed to Europe in two days—there was not much good will between them and their distant cousins. The details of how they had parted, the vampires and the ghosts, more than a century earlier, had been lost in time. But enough animosity was left that it was generally believed that the former should stay in the Northern Hemisphere and their kind in the Southern. Adam was banking on the mutual dislike of the were-creatures as being a uniting force.
It was after midnight. Charles was on edge. Adam fought to remain cool. It wouldn’t do to show fear to the vampires when they were on their territory.
They both felt the temperature drop, just seconds before the men appeared from nowhere. Two cadaverously thin men in black, faces gaunt in the moonlight. One had a hooked nose and thin lips, the other sharp eyes and long, black hair. Unlike the ghosts they were neither fair, nor green eyed.
“Greetings, cousins,” said the hook-nosed man. “How…interesting…to have you here.”
Adam didn’t like how he said the word interesting and knew Charles was ready to pounce. He sent his brother a message and hoped these creatures could not read it. Not now.
“We are most humbly your servants,” said Adam, bowing, “and expect to leave soon your fine
land.”
“You are going to the humans’ war,” said hook nose disparagingly.
“We are,” Adam agreed. “But we have business back in Tasmania that we must deal with.”
“And you think we will help?” Long, black hair sneered.
“Perhaps we might be able to help each other,” said Adam evenly, hoping his research would prove accurate.
“What,” said hook nose, folding his arms, “makes you think there is anything you can help us with?”
Adam took a breath. “We have a little problem with some were-devils. I believe you have a problem with a vampire breakaway group in the north of our country.”
Charles looked at Adam in surprise. Whatever was his brother referring to? But the vampires knew. Slowly as they looked at each other a smile formed on their faces.
“Shall we adjourn somewhere more comfortable to do business?” Hook nose smiled.
Chapter Seven
Queensland, Present Day
“You seem very happy,” Angel said to her granddaughter.
Gabriella smiled. “I am. Well, mostly.” She frowned. She had come to her grandmother for advice but wasn’t quite sure if she could ask about anything more than Lena. Her grandmother was a formidable woman. She had studied law at a time when there were few women at university and with two young daughters. Most women couldn’t manage that in modern times.
“But?”
“I worry about Lena.”
Angel sighed and shook her head. “I know, I worry, too. Adam doesn’t seem to realize how much his anger is hurting everyone. If we miss this chance for an end to the feud, who’s to say how many more generations we might have to wait?” She looked closer at Gabriella. “You’re in love.”
Gabriella blushed.
Angel smiled and patted her granddaughter’s hand. “Love is good. Don’t get confused by the family issues. Your mother and I have been very happy.”
This was true, but then they only had one partner. Gabriella guessed she’d work it out in time. Perhaps Mac would be the true love, and Mitch? She wasn’t sure though she sensed he was a good deal more committed than he had been to anyone before.