by Claire Marta
Cayden was leaving the kitchen when she caught up with him.
“We need to talk,” she snapped. Catching his hand, she dragged him down the hall and into the infirmary. “What the feck is going on?” she demanded.
Cayden frowned. “What?” he asked, feigning ignorance.
“They know,” she grated. “Casey. Morgan. The others. They know about us. What did you tell them? What did you say?”
The medic rubbed a hand over his face and blew out a breath. “Ye’re nae gang tae like it,” he warned. “We’ve been holding off telling ye because of it, but there’s no help for it now, is there? Yer scent is enough tae make it clear that we’ve done the deed,” he told her. “Our kind can smell when a woman goes through the flux and her body is transformed. Ye need tae talk tae Morgan and Casey about what they went through, but Casey’s experience is like tae be closer. Morgan’s change was put off when she ingested vampire blood—”
“Vampires?” Raven stared at him, incredulous. “You’re telling me that there are vampires? That they’re real?”
He nodded grimly, his green eyes as serious as she’d ever seen them. “They are that,” he assured her. “One targeted Morgan. We killed it, but another one kidnapped her. We got her back and cleaned out the nest. We think we got them all now.”
“You think. You think? Jaysus, Joseph, and Mary! You should have told me!” she yelled at him. “Bloody hell! You and your mate could have told me any time, but you didn’t say a damn word, just lured me upstairs and had your way with me. You’ve changed my body without my consent. Now I’ve put my daughter in danger after thinking I was bringing her to a sanctuary. My ex kept things from me. I’m warning you right now, I expect full disclosure in the future or there’s going to be hell to pay. Do you hear me?”
She poked him in the chest to make her point.
Cayden released the breath he’d been holding. “Let me call Killian, then. Get him down here. If we’re gang tae hae a heart-tae-heart, it needs tae be the three of us.
Zana was with Willow and Prince. Free to come, Killian joined them as soon as he could make his way downstairs. “What’s up?” he asked, picking up the tension in the air.
“She kens,” Cayden told him. “Or kens the start of it, anyway. She’s demanded full disclosure. It’s better tae hear it from the both of us than tae hear it from one and again from the other.”
Killian nodded. “Ye’re the medic. I’ll let ye explain the way of things.”
Cayden heaved out his breath and started. “We’ve told ye what we are, that these robes of flesh have four strands of DNA. When a fated mate is found, the introduction of sperm starts the transformation process to change her body and make it compatible, able to conceive and bear our children.”
“I don’t understand,” Raven clipped. “I can’t have children. I told you that. It shouldn’t have affected me.”
“But it did,” Killian assured her. “We don’t understand it either, but we knew from the first that you were the one for us, the woman to complete us. The males of our kind experience what we call the quickening. It’s a physical response to a fated mate. Lets us know that she’s the one. We both felt it with ye. We will not question God’s will. Ye were chosen fer us. Transformed by us. But there are other things…”
Raven was seething at their disregard for her. “And you thought it was fine to go and do it because it’s all in the plan?” she grated. “You gave no thought to what I wanted or the fact it’s not just me. Do you know how selfish that is? How arrogant?” She buried her face in her hands. “I really can’t deal with this right now. I should get Willow and Prince, pack up the damn car, and get the hell out while I can.”
“Ye need tae listen,” Cayden told her, lowering his voice in a way that did strange things to her insides. Grasping her biceps, he pulled her easily to him. She wanted to grind against him. Use him like they’d used her. How dare they!
Raven struggled to break free, clawing at his arms deep enough to leave bloody scratches when he refused to let her go.
She went still when she saw the gouges healing before her eyes.
“Full disclosure,” Cayden growled in that voice of his. “This is a hint of my true voice. It has power… affects people in different ways. Mine will make ye wish tae obey. Doctor’s orders.” He said it half-jokingly, but the man was deadly serious. “Iosefa’s voice will put someone tae sleep. The new mothers are sure tae keep him on call when the bairns get here and they need some rest. These bodies hae regenerative powers. Accelerated healing. Lack of scarring. But the thing ye need most tae understand is tha’ ye’ll live as long as us.”
Raven’s solar plexus chakra closed tight enough to cause a cramp. “And how long is that?” she asked, afraid to know.
“Three hundred years, give or take,” Cayden told her.
“Three…?” She stared at him, caught in a nightmare that had just gotten worse. “You’re saying I’ll live three hundred years? And what about Willow? What about my daughter? You bastards! You bloody bastards! And don’t go using that voice on me,” she warned them. “I will never forgive you for this. Never!”
“Raven,” Killian crooned, trying to make peace. “We love you. We’d never do anything to put you in harm’s way or come between you and your child. We want Willow to be our daughter, too, the child we wished for but will never have. Tobias said there’s a chance that she’s a fated mate for one of our kind, but Theo thinks her destiny lies elsewhere with a Fae prince who’s waiting fer her to grow up.”
“You love me,” she scoffed. “You don’t know what love is. We had sex. We scratched an itch. Satisfied a physical need. I didn’t know you enough for it to be more. I still don’t.”
“Please,” Killian begged her. “We’re asking fer the chance to prove ourselves to ye.”
Raven felt anger, rage, but there was also lust. It was so fierce, she found herself responding before she was aware of it. Grabbing the back of Killian’s head, she forced his lips down on hers. There was no control. Just overwhelming attraction merging with her turbulent emotions. She wanted to make them pay for what they’d done. Show them that their desire was meaningless. Not if they didn’t have her heart. That wouldn’t happen now. Not after such a betrayal. How could she trust them?
Killian didn’t resist but responded by thrusting his tongue into her mouth. Reaching with her free hand, she fisted a handful of Cayden’s shirt and drew him to her. Two mouths fought to claim her lips. Their bodies crowded hers until her hips hit the examination table.
Fueled by anger, driven by revenge, she grabbed Killian’s collar and pushed him into one of the two armless stack chairs against the wall. Reaching down, she judged his hardness and took him out.
“I want you ready for me,” she told him. Ignoring Cayden, she stripped off her clothes and knelt between Killian’s feet, giving him a blow job he didn’t deserve but that her body needed to handle him. When he was wet enough, she stood up and straddled him like a stripper about to give him the lap dance of his dreams. Taking his erection in hand, she stroked her slit with his glans, parted her folds, and sank down on his shaft, working it like a dildo, a tool for her particular pleasure.
It wasn’t long, she grew greedy for more. “You,” she snapped at Cayden. “Pants off. Cock lubed. On the stool and over here.”
She didn’t have to tell him twice.
Cayden dropped his drawers and slickened himself up. Sitting on the wheeled examination stool, he did as ordered and rolled it between Killian’s feet. It was low enough, he was shy of reaching her. Grasping her hips, he rose from the stool and found her star.
“No! Not there,” she snapped. “I want you both in my pussy. Bang my box like it’s never been banged. Think you can handle that?”
Cayden growled and showed her that he was up to the challenge. She rose partway up and held herself still while Cayden pressed his cock against Killian’s and worked his way inside, sinking his length into her, inch by inch until both
men were balls deep inside her.
She lifted herself up and rammed back down. Killian groaned. Cayden’s stool went flying. She sank down on their cocks, again and again, using them like they’d used her, coming once, twice, three times before the men shuddered to a finish inside her. Cayden eased out and grabbed some paper towels, handing them to her to stuff between her legs. She dismounted, tossing one of the towels at Killian to use. Finding her clothes, she started dressing, wordless, lecturing herself that she had no reason to feel guilty for using them as fucktoys.
It was no more than they deserved after what they’d done to her.
“Raven,” Cayden crooned.
“No voice!” she snarled, shoving her feet into her shoes. “Not a word. From either of you! This was sex. Sex! Lust, not love. Now you know the difference. Don’t ever confuse them again.”
She left them without a backward glance and headed upstairs, blinking the sting of tears from her eyes, refusing to feel anything beyond the physical release that she’d had. By the time she reached the fourth-floor guest suite, she’d sworn off all men.
“Out,” she warned Zana, giving him a look that told him she meant what she said.
The Persian was confused but obeyed, shutting the door behind him.
“How’s Prince doing?” she asked her daughter, memorizing the picture the two of them made. She’d be the one consoling Willow when she watched her puppy grow old and die. Who the feck was going to console her when she lost her child?
Damn them.
Thanks to Cayden and Killian, she was doomed to outlive her daughter. They could take their tall tales of vampires and Fae princes and shove them up their arses. If they knew what was good for them, they’d leave them the bloody hell alone.
She was here for Casey and Morgan, but Willow was her world.
They’d be wise to remember that.
Chapter Eleven
Cayden stood in the garden, tossing a ball across the expanse of grass and watching Prince race after it. A whole week had passed since they’d had sex with Raven in the infirmary. She’d been shunning them ever since, barely saying a word to either of them and avoiding them like the plague.
He still didn’t understand what had happened. They knew she was going to be upset when they explained the way of things but not this upset.
Keeping it from her hadn’t been ideal, but blurting it out had been worse.
Cayden was uncomfortably aware of how Raven must have felt after they’d fucked her in the shower. Used. Confused.
How in heaven’s name did they make this right? Getting close to her at the moment seemed next to impossible. What chance did they stand to win her heart?
Chasing after the pup that had yet to learn to return the ball, Cayden weighed his options. They needed a peace offering. Something that would loosen the armor bound tight around Raven’s heart enough to get them on talking terms.
Food?
Wasn’t that supposed to be the way to a man’s heart? Perhaps it would work on a woman, too. Mulling it over, he decided to consult Killian. He’d know of traditional Irish fare they could cook for her.
The man in question was playing hide and seek with Willow and Zana. Raven had left her daughter in Morgan’s hands while she was away working. They’d spent time in the library with Emmett looking at books. At some point, the child had worn out Morgan, who in her pregnant condition decided to take a much-needed nap. Zana had offered to amuse the little girl in her absence.
With Raven not there to interfere, Killian and Cayden had taken advantage of the opportunity and were using the time to bond with her child and the dog.
Making sure Prince was trailing him, Cayden set off in search of the others. They weren’t by the dragon sculpture or the vegetable garden. There was no sign of them in the wildflower patch where they left things to nature.
He found Zana coming around one side of the building with a faintly worried expression.
“What is it?”
“I can’t find Willow,” the Persian explained, scanning the area. “Killian is searching near the labyrinth. She seemed fascinated by it earlier. Thought it was like the yellow brick road going there and back again.”
Prince barked, jumping up around Cayden’s legs in excitement, his tail whipping from side to side. As if satisfied he’d gotten their attention, he shot off in a furry streak. As the dog vanished through the shrubbery, Killian abandoned the direction of his search and jogged toward them. “Any luck?” he questioned anxiously.
Cayden shook his head. “No, but Prince ran that way and I hae a feeling he kens where she is.”
In a group, they raced after the puppy, praying he’d lead them to the child. If this was a game, it wasn’t funny. Willow should know better. All week they’d been interacting with her, and this was the first time she’d run off on her own.
She was nowhere in sight, but the dog was. They caught sight of him racing toward the highest point on the property, a man-made hill where masons had built the powder magazine. Stone walls rose to form a vaulted ceiling that was partly in the hill, partly out, keeping it cool in summer and warmer in winter, like a basement.
Right now, it was empty.
Or it was supposed to be.
The wooden door was ajar. The lilt of a child’s voice came from inside. She was talking to Prince… except a male voice answered. Driven by the need to protect, they burst through the door and found Willow.
Alone with her stuffed unicorn and her puppy.
Cayden looked at Killian. They were thinking the same thing.
The Fae prince.
Feck.
Whoever was here, he’d disappeared into the hillside when they’d come through the door. To be certain, this place was a between—half under a hill, half out as it was. A portal for the Fae.
Led by the Fae prince, Willow had found it and her puppy Prince had found her.
They needed to let Raven know. Make certain that she kept up her guard, lest they snatch her child and leave a changeling in Willow’s place.
“Ye scared us, lass,” Cayden chided. “Ye must nae run off like tha’. Ye scared the bejesus out of us when we could nae find ye.”
Squatting down, she hugged her puppy and scratched his ears. “I was looking for a playhouse and found this. Can I use it? Please, please, please?”
“Nay!” Cayden softened his tone when she flinched and shied away from him. “Nay, lass. There’s…” He cast a quick glance heavenward, asking for guidance. He needed a reason a child would accept for making a place off-limits. Blessedly, a web of white silk was woven in one corner, plainly visible and therefore inarguable. “There are spiders here,” he told her, pointing to the web. “Some can bite ye and make ye sick.” He told no lie, even if he misused a fact to keep Willow away from here. “We’ll hae Malik and Iosefa or Killian build ye a pretty playhouse out of wood or stone. It will be all nice and clean where it’s safe tae play. Near Elijah’s flowers. How would ye like that?”
“Near the dragon and his crystal cave by the house,” Killian added. “Ye don’t want to be way out here on yer own. Prince has all that lovely hair that spiders can hide in. They’ll bite him before either of you can see them—and we wouldn’t want that now, would we?”
Willow pursed her lips, her brow puckering. “Can I play with my marbles there?”
Cayden frowned. “Marbles?”
Producing a black velvet bag from the pocket of her jeans, she tipped the contents into her delicate palm. Five orbs tumbled into the center. Perfectly smooth and each one different. Cayden recognized black coral. A fire opal. Blue amber. Real rose gold. And heavenly celestite.
Physically, they were worth a small fortune.
More than that, they could be used to command the elements of water, fire, wood, earth, and air. He could feel the energy radiating from them.
“Where did those come from, lassie?”
Willow raised innocent blue eyes to his. “Calodin. He says now that I’m old enough,
I’ll get one every birthday. Aren’t they pretty?”
Calodin?
So the Fae had a name. And he’d been aware of her longer than they’d feared. Grooming her to become his mate. Letting her get used to his presence. Cayden and Killian shared an uneasy look. Even Zana glanced around with an air of apprehension.
Would he pose a danger to her? Take Willow to his realm? They’d have to guard her. Tobias would need to be informed.
“Ye can play with them,” Cayden agreed, motioning her to put them away. “Let’s get ye out of here before the spiders decide they’re hungry.”
Willow put her treasures in her pocket and allowed them to lead her from the structure. They couldn’t get away from it fast enough. The child didn’t seem bothered, chatting away about the kind of playhouse she wanted them to build.
“Do yer think he drew her out there?” Killian muttered when they had her settled near the dragon cave and Zana had gone to search out cookies.
“Aye,” Cayden replied, watching the girl with her stuffie and her pup. “I dinnae like it one bit. We’ve never been bothered by Fae before. This one has been attached, it would seem, tae Willow since birth. We’ll hae tae be on our guard.”
Killian nodded. “Tobias might know of some way to keep him out.”
Great. Not only did they have to scare off those accursed ravens, now they had to Fae-proof the property as well.
Both needed to be done for Willow’s safety and everyone’s peace of mind.
Across the garden, several ravens sat perched like parrots on the shoulders of the scarecrows that had been erected. They had not deterred them. If anything, the creatures had grown bolder.
Cayden wondered if they were linked to the Fae. He knew they had sway over certain beasts.
Zana emerged from the house, shadowed by Emmett and Gael. The French chef carried a tray with sandwiches, carrots sticks, sliced apples, assorted other fruits, a stack of plates, and a pitcher of orange juice.
Emmett brought a bowl of dog biscuits for Prince.
“We thought the four of us could have a picnic,” the Frenchman announced, sparing the little girl a half-smile when her eyes lit up at his words.