The Glittering Halo

by Liddie Cain

  “That I can do,” he said as he grinned, then tugged me forward as his mouth landed on one of my breasts. He sucked me tightly into his mouth and rolled his tongue against my taut nipple. I breathed out with pleasure, gripping my fingers into his hair and closing my eyes. “Wait, I want a turn first,” I said, pulling him away from my breast and dropping to my knees in front of him.

  I spread his knees and leaned in, grasping the halfway firm length of him and pulling him into my mouth. I listened to him take in deep breaths, moaning them back out as I worked my mouth up and down him. He was fully hard in just a moment and pulling me up off of the floor to straddle his hips. “I think he likes when you talk with your mouth full too.”

  I giggled, wrapping my arms around his neck and nuzzling my face against his. He kissed down along my jaw. The bed moved, and I looked up to find Jason laying down on his back with Song on top of him. Mac moved us up on the bed so that he lay on his back beside Jason. When I was beside her, Song reached over and trailed her hand up my back to cup the back of my head. I let her guide our mouths together and kissed her open mouth and hungry lips. Jason and Mac had both frozen beneath us. I pulled back and smiled at her. “That got their attention.”

  She grinned, her dimples making her face glow. I leaned down and over to kiss Jason first before leaning back to kiss Mac again. There were hands everywhere. Mac’s hands on my thighs, Song’s hand straying across my back and into my hair, Jason had one hand on my breast and another on Song’s. We touched and played with each other. Felix crawled up between Mac and Jason’s legs. I turned and met him for a kiss a moment before Song turned and did the same. I watched they swept their tongues against each other’s and then brought their mouths together again.

  I really enjoyed having her there, liked seeing my men touch her and be touched by her. Mac stole my attention with a firm grasp on my hips before he thrust himself up inside of me. I cried out, Song doing the same a heartbeat later as Jason entered her. I grabbed her hand, and we moved together, riding our hips on top of theirs. She leaned in and kissed me, but not as deeply as before because her fangs were extended with her arousal. I leaned back to see her fangs flash in her mouth, looking down to find Mac and Jason’s also out as they watched us.

  It really did it for me in that moment, knowing that I was so vulnerable there with these dangerous creatures who only wanted to make love to me. Felix, knowing my thoughts because my barriers were down, gripped my hair so roughly I yelped. He jerked me back against his bare chest and growled, low and dangerous, in my ear. His power simmered beneath the surface. It was a wild and threatening feel to it, meant to be a threat and show how fucking bad he was. And it made me burn with desire.

  “Touch me, Roz,” he demanded in a deep voice. I reached behind me and closed my hand around him, my eyes widening to find that he was in fact thinner than he normally was. He raked his whiskers against my neck. “I can make it bigger too.”

  My thoughts began to race at the possibilities of that, and he and Mac both began to chuckle as they picked up on a few of them. I gave them a rare blush and swatted at Mac’s chest. He caught my hand and jerked me forward, Felix releasing me enough to let me fall and brace both of my hands against Mac’s chest. “Let us both take you.”

  “Yes,” I replied.

  I felt Felix shift again. In a moment, I jumped with liquid began to roll down my ass. He smoothed it across me with his hand. I looked back to see him also rub it on himself. He watched me watch him, knowing how much I loved to see a man touch himself. His big hand stroked slowly up and down the length of him. I clenched down on Mac at the sight of him and made Mac give one solid thrust up inside of me. We both moaned.

  I turned back to look at Mac. He touched my face. “Kiss me while Felix enters you.”

  I did. Hungrily. I took his mouth like I needed it to live. I felt Felix slide the head of himself up against me. He made small movements, easing himself more and more inside of me. Song stroked my hair to make sure I stayed relaxed. I kept on kissing Mac, moaning into his mouth as more and more of Felix moved inside of me. When they were both fully sheathed in me, we just held there, breathing heavily and letting my body get accustomed to it. Then they moved together and I could no longer stay quiet.

  Jason began to slam his hips up into Song. She answered his every thrust with her own. Mac and Felix found their rhythm together, Felix holding my hips still so I would let them keep control. I cried out with every thrust, watching Jason and Song when I could manage to keep my eyes open. Jason reached over, gripped his hand around my throat, squeezing enough to make me look at him with wide eyes. He grinned at me widely, fangs shining. I had been so into watching how rough he was with Song, and he picked a perfect moment to give me a taste of it too.

  “Touch her,” Song panted out, taking Jason’s wrist and pulling his hand off of my neck and shoving it down to where Mac’s body joined mine. Jason slid his fingers between us and pressed his middle finger up against the most sensitive part of me. He circled it firmly, unrelenting, while he and Song both watched my face. I went over that sweet edge of pleasure and screamed out my orgasm. Mac and Felix paused while my body took over, bucking back against them and riding wave after wave. It was too much, and I jerked Jason’s hand away from me before laying down on Mac’s chest the best I could without moving the position of my lower body.

  Mac ran his hands over my hair while Felix ran his up and down my back. They waited until the tremors in my body had slowed and I was somewhat recovered, then they started to move together again. Mac gripped my arms and held me up while Felix lifted my hips again. They pounded into me. Mac’s face was tight with concentration as he fought for control.

  Song climaxed. I reached over and dug my nails into Jason’s chest. He snarled in response before he went over that edge with her. His hips moved so quickly I couldn’t see them. Seeing them go together brought me back up to that peak again. I looked down at Mac, then my face was lost in my second orgasm. His grip tightened as he surged faster up into me, crying out as he came with me. Felix followed a moment later. They spilled themselves inside of me, both of them filling me. And they held me as they did.

  They loved me, all of them. Caressing hands stroking along my skin. Murmured words of affection. Even Song’s fingers threaded through mine as the men touched and kissed us reverently. Mac and Felix withdrew themselves from my body and laid me next to Song, Mac holding me while Jason held her. Felix nestled his head against my stomach, his hot breath sweeping across my skin as I threaded my fingers through his dark hair. Surrounded by these beautiful immortals and safe in their arms, I dosed off with my heart full.

  ***

  I woke alone on the bed, but everyone was still in the room. Song crawled up on the bed and snuggled up against me when she realized I had woken back up. Mac, Felix and Jason smiled down at the two of us.

  “I think they like seeing us here,” Song said with a grin.

  “Will I kill the mood if I want to ask,” I paused, sitting up and not minding that the covers slid to my waist and left my breasts bare before continuing, “What are we?”

  “What do you want to be with Song?” Felix asked as he walked over and sat down on the behind me. I leaned back against him and watched Song’s face.

  “I want you with us,” I told her.

  “But you want to make sure I know you’re mostly straight,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “I know you aren’t romantically interested in me, Roz. I’m intrigued by the fantasy that you would be, but I want to be in a relationship with Jason more.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at Felix, who lifted his eyebrows at me as if to say it was all on me. I frowned as I thought about it. Song groaned and flopped back on the bed, covering her face in her hands and speaking through them with a muffled voice. “You’re thinking about it too hard, Roz.”

  “Am I?” I asked, looking over at Mac and Jason.

  “Yes,” Mac responded. “You’re afr
aid you’re going to hurt Song’s feelings by not being in love with her.”

  “And you don’t have to be in love with me for this to work,” Song added. She dropped her hands and sat up in front of me. “I interest you enough physically that you like me to be in the bed with you and share me with your guys. We like each other enough to enjoy sharing Jason.”

  “Just Jason?”

  She glanced at Felix, then Mac. “I could physically be with both Felix and Mac, but I only have feelings for Jason.”

  “If any of that ever changes, we would just talk about it,” Felix said.

  “Mac?” I asked, because he hadn’t given me enough to know what he was thinking yet.

  “I want Song to be a part of our polycule, Dove.” Then he shot her a taunting look. “And not tell me how to run my district.”

  She immediately rolled her eyes. “I’m not the one whose district got their blood medium kidnapped then taken over by a power hungry demoness.”

  “I change my mind, kick her out,” Mac joked.

  Song slithered up against me and laid her face up against my breast. “She doesn’t want to.”

  Mac’s green gaze grew heated again. “Well, when you put it that way…”

  I lifted my hand and stroked Song’s cheek, watching as she turned that startling blue gaze up to look at me without removing her face from my breast. “Will you be our girlfriend?”

  The smile that transformed her face stole my breath like it had every time I had seen it. Her dimples were quickly becoming one of my favorite things. “Yes, I will.”

  I leaned down and laid my lips against hers. Felix shifted so that he could lean around me and kiss her next. Jason moved up behind her on the bed and mirrored how Felix was holding me, kissing Song against her temple and smiling down at her. Mac stood at the foot of the bed. He didn’t try to come in for a kiss like the other two had, but he looked happy.

  “Alright, let’s get ready to raid Hell, I guess.”

  All three men groaned at me.

  I stood on the front porch of what was technically my and Darby’s house. I didn’t actually live here anymore, but the house was still in my name. The front door stared back at me as I started and restarted the conversation with Darby about Song in my head. This shouldn’t be an issue. I kept reminding myself of that. Darby had reassured me that she didn’t think of me in a romantic way. Darby was my sister, even if we weren’t related by blood. I was in love with her brother. It was all sensible.

  But I was still nervous to open that front door.

  It opened for me. Aurnia, Queen of the Gloaming Court, with her golden hair, golden eyes and sun-kissed skin, lifted a perfectly arched eyebrow at me.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  I sighed. “I asked someone to be my girlfriend.”

  “If it was Song, that’s great!” Darby called out from behind her. I winced because I hadn’t want her to hear it that way. She appeared in the doorway beside Aurnia. Her red curls seemed to have a little more gold in them when they were beside Aurnia’s golden glow.

  “Why are you stressing over this? I already told you it wouldn’t be weird for me.”

  “I don’t know,” I answered honestly.

  “Just get in here, Roz,” Darby said with a roll of her eyes. “You might be my soul mate, but I don’t like you that way.”

  I stepped forward and caught Darby as she turned to walk back in the house. She looked surprised at first, but then realized I needed her to hug it out with me. “Roz,” she said with a shake of her head. Then she pulled me up against her and hugged me hard. I hugged her back just as tightly. Whatever tension had been plaguing me lifted in the middle of that hug, and I let out a relieved sigh.

  “Better?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “Can we be normal now?”

  I laughed. “Define normal?”

  “True,” she said, laughing with me.

  Aurnia clasped her hands together in front of her. “Kenna is waiting for us in the master bath to help both of you with your hair. Bayla as well.”

  I was excited to see both of them and rushed up the stairs to what was once my bedroom. Kenna turned as we came in the room, her lavender eyes flashing with warmth as she stepped forward and hugged both of us. Bayla, a young Brownie, reached out and took my hands after I stepped out of Kenna’s hug. Brownies were Fae. She was small, under five feet tall, and her skin was a nutty brown with a noseless face. Her eyes were black with lashes that were much longer than human. It was tradition for Brownies to wear their hair, which they never cut, in long, thick and intricate braids. Bayla’s hair was braided to perfection in a sweeping network of braids of various sizes.

  Kenna was the Gloaming Court’s social secretary. Bayla was my personal assistant at Court. “I understand we are getting you ready to take on the bosses of Hell, hmm?” Bayla asked.

  “Pretty much,” I replied.

  “We should get to work then.”

  I grinned as Darby was shooed into the bathroom by Kenna. Bayla had me sit down the chair for my vanity table and set a bowl in front of me filled with a sweetly fragranced water for me to soak my hands. Aurnia sat down on the bed behind me as Bayla tilted my head back and started plucking at my eyebrows with a pair of tweezers.

  “I am sorry that your angel father was taken to Hell.”

  “Me too. I’m still not sure what his motivations were.”

  “Hanna has been lost without him, but having Eziel and Ariel with her has seemed to help.”

  “And then I got rushed to the hospital and scared her even more.”

  “She knew you were physically well enough that she would be able to heal your mortal flesh.”

  “Thank you for keeping them with you in your Court,” I said.

  “It is your Court as well, Lune Weaver.”

  “So that nickname is sticking?”

  Bayla frowned. “It is a great compliment. Do you not approve of it?”

  “It just feels like it gives me too much credit.”

  “You bring back the Trooping Lunes to the Unseelie Court. You cause the creation of the Gloaming Court. Your soul was created by the angels in Heaven. When are you going to give yourself credit for a few things?” Bayla chided me.

  “None of it is on purpose, Bayla.”

  “But it is with purpose that it happens. You care for others, Lady Rozalyn. It is why the magic around you does wonderful things.”

  “This is true,” Aurnia said.

  Bayla tilted my head back up as she finished plucking my eyebrows. I looked in the mirror to meet Aurnia’s gaze, where she smiled at me. “Take the credit, Roz, for you simply being you.”

  I nodded at her, but still believed I had only been a catalyst for the things they spoke of. Bayla started parting my hair into sections so she could style it. “Fairy will be happy to see you again even if it is only a brief stay before you descend into the lower realms.”

  “I am looking forward to being back and bringing Mac and Jason to see our Court for the first time.”

  “The vampires?” Aurnia asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Having vampires as guests in the Gloaming Court will turn some heads among my Seelie brethren,” she mused, before lifting her golden gaze to meet mine again and saying firmly, “They will be welcomed as guests of honor, though, because they are a part of you.”

  “And you enjoy being a bit of a rebel,” I said, laughing.

  “That too,” she replied with amusement lighting her face.

  Bayla worked her nimble fingers through my hair and quickly had it woven into multiple braids for the top half of my hair. She curled the lower half, letting it sweep across my shoulders. Kenna and Darby emerged from the bathroom with Darby’s makeup done, and Kenna waved for me to switch places.

  “Your turn, Roz.”

  She had one of the kitchen chairs sitting in the bathroom with a wide range of makeup products laid out over the counter. I sat down and
got comfortable, closing my eyes as she got started.

  “I heard you had an interesting night with a couple kings of Fairy,” she said in a whisper. I cracked open one eye and grinned at her.

  “Interesting is one way to put it.”

  “I don’t know Drest well, but Conall has spent plenty of time at the Seelie Courts over the centuries. He and I have shared a couple nights together ages ago, before I married Fergus.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I said with surprise.

  “Mmhmm,” she made an agreeable sound. “His first Queen was a Seelie noble and is still a friend of mine.”

  “Conall said he was on good terms with his past Queens.”

  “Definitely. He is a very attentive partner and is good to them even after their time together is done. Nuala was his first Queen and is the mother of his two daughters. She is still fond of him. You may meet her eventually because she has spoken to me about becoming a part of the Gloaming Court.”

  “Do his children live at the Unseelie Court?”

  “His second daughter is married to a Seelie noble, but the other two do live at the Unseelie Court.”

  Kenna leaned back a bit to look over the eye makeup she had just finished. She gave a little satisfied nod and turned to look through the lip glosses. Part of me wanted to ask more about Conall’s family, but it’s not like I was interviewing to be his Queen. He was the only one of my lovers that had children though, and it made me curious.

  I watched Kenna bite on her lip as she lined my lips, then filled them in with gloss. By human standards, she looked like she was late twenties or early thirties, but the reality was that she and Conall had been alive for thousands of years. So had Felix, and all the angels I was descended from. I had missed out on centuries of time with Felix because of Devina.

  “Okay, you’re finished. Let’s go get your gown on so we can get back to Court for the meeting with the angels.”

  My stomach tightened at the idea of what faced us, but there was no way I would be backing out now. I followed Kenna back out into my old bedroom and looked as Bayla held up my gown. It was very modern looking. Aurnia tended to wear historically styled full gowns that looked very eighteenth-century French aristocrat. The gown she held for me was a strapless floor length. It was a dusky lavender color that had woven layers around the bust line, fitted through the waist, then a full skirt of dreamy layers of tulle.