Warren groaned as his body came alive with sensation. Hands roamed all over his skin, squeezed his pecs, his ass, though no one touched him. He sighed as someone stroked his cock with skill and it hardened, though really it remained flaccid in his pants. He walked through a psychic virtual reality offering supreme pleasure. He relaxed and let his senses bath in this bliss.
And as he relaxed a new vision emerged. First, he saw glimpses inside the gorgon’s mind. The energy of this council leader was so powerful it couldn’t help but leak traces of the monster’s life. He saw a child with vipers for hair playing in a cave, but then something of his own mind joined this infant.
Warren looked into the eyes of his totem animal—the spirit bear. It’s white fur shone as the cave morphed into a misty rainforest. They were on Vancouver Island.
The albino black bear spoke to him. “I have something to show you.”
It led him down a fragrant, fecund path through the woods. He smelled the sweet scent of wildflowers, and the earthy smell of wet undergrowth. Then the vegetation parted and a blocky, white building cut an ugly scar into the landscape. A feeling of utter doom crawled up the back of Warren’s neck when he looked at it.
“Purity’s secret base,” the bear said. “The heart of their operation drains our home. Kill it and you cripple their organization.”
Then the vision began to fade and the pleasure returned.
Before the bear completely disappeared, it turned to him one final time. “Now go enjoy your gift, child of wolves. You have earned it.”
He sighed and shivered as bliss flooded his body once more. It wiped away his bewilderment over the bear’s parting words. His skin jumped and tingled with erotic fire.
People of every color danced in his thoughts. They embraced and caressed skin of onyx, canary yellow, ocean blue. And, as before, it felt like these hands stroked his skin. Fingers kissed his cock and massaged it hard, yet it remained flaccid in the real world.
Wet, tender lips skimmed over his flesh. He moaned and writhed, both in this sex vision and in the gorgon’s grip. Warm wetness coiled around his cock and there was suction, vibration, the feeling of many tiny fingers manipulating the rigid muscle covered in moss-soft skin.
Something crawled up his ass and explored with gentle, skilled caresses. His prostrate throbbed from the attention. Tendril-like touches swept over his scrotum and fondled this delicate skin. He shuddered and gasped as he drifted in a fog of overwhelming sensation. Soon his orgasm broke and sent a shower of intense release through him. He trembled and groaned, falling to his knees as the climax emptied out of him.
The gorgon helped him back to his feet. “You enjoyed your gift.” He smiled.
Warren lowered his eyes in a gesture he hoped communicated respect. “I certainly did. Thank you.” He wondered if he should bow or something.
The creature put a hand on his shoulder. “Now, you know where you must go.”
He nodded. “Yes, to the island.”
“The mountain troll is granted reprieve,” the gorgon said to all in the room. “I saw who the killer is. Drake’s face betrayed him easily.” He let out a weary sigh. “We must question Bastian as well. The Purity plot thickens.”
Sid and the council leader he’d communicated with drew nearer. This beast was a stocky satyr with rich brown flesh and shaggy hindquarters that ended in cloven hooves. Its horns reached up high in twisted spires.
“I could question Bastian.” Sid wrapped an arm around Warren’s shoulders. “And train the werewolf.”
The gorgon raised an eyebrow. “You say this because your purse is low.”
“That’s not the only reason!” Sid sputtered. “Avery’s innocence is still on the line until we catch Drake.” He patted Warren on the chest. “Plus, I’ve grown fond of our latest shaggy resident.”
The gorgon shook his head. “Very well. I’m not sure a vampire should ever train a werewolf, but I’ll allow it, and see you’re paid for your services. Question Bastian and get to the island. Do not delay. Leave tomorrow.”
Then the gorgon and the satyr headed back toward their thrones. Warren and Sid took the signal they’d been dismissed, leaving Council Headquarters on swift feet.
***
As they traveled home, Sid wondered how Avery would react to the news Drake was the killer. Drake was the son of Bastian, the leader of the Council Hunters. When a monster went rogue—killing humans recklessly and making the monsters vulnerable to mass human exposure—they were executed. Execution was also the punishment for slaughtering another monster. This was the fate Avery still faced if they couldn’t bring the true killer in. Council Headquarters and the hunters didn’t take these matters lightly. Justice underground was swift and brutal. If they didn’t produce the murderer, Avery, Sid, and Warren could likely be accused of planting the images in Warren’s mind to frame Drake. The vampire had seen these things happen before, and they didn’t always end well.
He worried. He wouldn’t show it, but he worried a lot about the fate of his ex-lover. Then a voice deeper in him whispered, Maybe that’s the problem, Sid. Maybe you should show it. You know that’s how you lost him in the first place…
He shook the voice away and opened the apartment door for him and Warren.
When they entered, they found Avery sprawled on the bed with his shirt off. His massive barrel chest was on full display. Tulle had rolled into a small ball atop his stomach. He sat up after they entered, and the little dog blinked sleepily. Avery gently placed her on the bed beside him. Sid took in a nice eyeful of broad mountain troll shoulders.
“So what’s up?” His voice was extra-gravelly, as if he’d just woken from slumber. “The word from Council Headquarters is…”
Sid stood in front of him, spread his hands and opened his eyes wide. “Baby, you are never going to believe it. Drake Ellison killed your fling. The son of the hunters’ leader. Astounded? I am.”
Warren gave them a curious look, and Sid chided himself for his slippery lips. “His fling?” Warren asked.
Avery sighed, ran a hand through his long curls. “I was having an affair with Mark just before he was murdered.”
The energy in the room changed abruptly. Sid sucked in his gut and wished for a blood martini to calm his nerves, even though he hadn’t had one in over 50 years.
Warren shook his head. “You monsters just can’t keep it in your pants, can you?”
Avery glared at the newborn werewolf, fist clenching as he placed it atop one thickly muscled thigh.
Sid went into ramble mode to distract them both. The last thing they needed was a werewolf / troll tussle. “Something is obviously up with the hunters. I’m beginning to wonder if those stories of Mark slaughtering innocent humans was a set up. What if the evidence Bastian presented to Council Headquarters was just a mind plant?”
Avery nodded. “A concoction of false memories, false events, strong enough to fool the leaders. It doesn’t happen often, but if anyone could access the magic needed to concoct such a strong illusion, it would be the leader of the hunters. But why would Bastian and Drake want to needlessly kill monsters?”
“Well, we know Drake is a Purity agent.” Sid shrugged. “Maybe he wanted to be human, like you did, and got in deep with them. Maybe he’s come to believe their agenda: that all monsters must die or convert to human.”
Avery’s face tensed. Once again, Sid felt a fool for his loose lips. He cringed as the troll rose up from the bed.
“Maybe,” was all Avery said, before he strolled past him and Warren then walked through a wall to their left.
Warren ran to the wall and patted it down. “He just disappeared!”
Sid grinned. “Like you haven’t seen stranger things in the last twenty-four hours?” Then he walked over to Warren. “Another industry in monsterland that’s booming: redecorating and renovation. This here.” He knocked on the wall in a specific spot and his hand went straight through. “Is the latest in illusion carpentry. Looks like there’
s a wall where a hallway actually lies. Come with me, and pay attention to where I enter or you’ll just break your nose.” The vampire waggled a finger and slipped through the plaster.
He looked behind him a second later to find the werewolf followed, gaping like an amazed kid at the plain hallway they walked down. Sid opened the door at the end without knocking.
“We have to go to the island,” he said to the troll, who now lounged in his underwear on his massive bed. Avery kept his room sparsely furnished and his bed sparsely made. Only two sheets and two pillows rested atop a seemingly endless mattress.
The troll sat up, his huge shoulders sagged. “Great. More good news.”
“He and I can go alone,” Sid offered, pointing behind him to Warren, who just crossed the threshold. “But we have to leave tomorrow.”
“No.” Avery shook his shaggy head. “Gotta face these demons sometime.” Then he laid back down and growled. “Now leave. I want sleep.”
Sid snorted at his tactlessness. “Well, that was an abrupt dismissal.” He rested a hand on Warren’s shoulder. “Come on. The troll wants to pout. And he’ll ruin the furniture if I don’t’ let him. Nasty temper on that one.”
As they walked out of the room, Warren asked, “He still lives here with you? I thought you were split up?”
Sid shrugged and felt weariness settle around his heart. “He stays here from time to time. I keep a room for him. Avery doesn’t like to keep permanent residence. He’s a wanderer of sorts, although he’d accuse me of the same thing.” He smirked sadly. “Seems we both have commitment issues.”
Sometime after, the werewolf fell asleep with his little dog tucked close. Sid slipped from the bed and returned to the troll’s room. He knew something was up with Avery, and it was more than the mere mention of the island. The revelation of Drake’s involvement had triggered it. And no surprise, considering Mark’s ex-lover, Ethan, had run into Drake’s arms after he found out about Avery and Mark’s affair. Had Drake and Ethan planned this murder with the intent to frame Avery all along?
The troll lay on his side. His silhouette looked like the mountains he once called home. Sid sat on the bed and shook one shoulder. “Avery, wake up.”
The troll growled and snorted, but finally he rolled over. In the soft light of the bedroom, Sid took him in. Love he left unspoken punched him in the heart. Lust he wanted to act on slithered up his groin. The troll was a fine specimen of muscled monster. He was built thick all over, from his neck, to his dick, to his quads. But not bulky and ugly, Sid has always thought. Rather, the planes and curves of his massive form made him look like a giant sculpture. And Sid had always loved the shaggy look. Avery had just enough hair covering his head, face, and body to be sexy.
“What do you want?” the troll murmured.
“Something’s bugging you.” He touched the troll’s temple, concentrated, but only saw blackness inside his ex-lover’s mind. “And you’re shielding so I can’t see it. Why?”
The troll grumbled and threw an arm over his piercing yellow eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Sid huffed. “Well, you’re going to.” He lay down, pressing his naked flesh against the troll’s side. “I’m not leaving until you tell me.”
“I could use sex to distract you.” Avery coiled a beefy paw around Sid’s cock.
His penis twitched and began to harden, but he removed the troll’s grip just the same. “If you’re hungry, we can fuck after you talk. I’ll feed you, but spill first.”
“I haven’t fed in months,” the troll whispered, then he nuzzled Sid’s neck.
The bristles of his beard tickled deliciously and Sid shivered, but he pushed him back. “Talk, Avery.”
Avery snorted. “This is a change. Usually you avoid confrontation and jump on fornication.”
“This is serious business.”
“Fine.” The troll sighed. “Ethan came by while you and Warren were gone.”
The vampire’s chest squeezed tight. If his heart still beat, it would be racing. “That’s awfully convenient, don’t you think?”
Avery met his gaze. “It is, considering what you and the werewolf learned at Headquarters.”
“You think he and Drake had this set up planned all along? Kill Mark and make you their scapegoat?”
“It’s beginning to look that way, isn’t it?” Avery scratched his massive pecs. “Ethan wanted us to bring Warren in for werewolf training, and he wanted to join our investigation.”
Sid snorted. “Fat chance on both. He can kiss our collective asses. As far as I’m concerned, he’s in the ‘do not trust category.’“
Avery hung his head. “I slept with him this afternoon. It was … unexpected.”
Anger flashed through Sid. He clenched his teeth. “Oh, so you’re allowed to fuck untrustworthy werewolves, but I can’t bring home strays? How hypocritical of you.”
“He initiated it,” Avery growled. “Now I wonder if he did it to peek inside my mind. Scan my thoughts for info.” He slammed a fist down on his meaty thigh. “Fuck, sometimes I let my cock make me way too stupid.”
Sid rubbed his leg, sighed. “We’ll fix this. Don’t worry.” How could he not have compassion for the monster he loved? Despite all their recent fights, the heartbreak they’d thrown at each other, Avery still meant a lot to him.
Avery turned his head slowly and pinned him with those blazing yellow eyes. They shimmered with vulnerability, Sid swore, and it made his heart open wider for the troll.
“You’re being awfully kind tonight,” the troll said. “Fall and hit your head on the way home?”
Sid punched him in the shoulder, but kept the jab light. “I care about you, you big sonofabitch.”
Avery shrugged. “Not often that you show it.”
Sid cupped the troll’s chin. He tugged on the tip of the monster’s beard. “Let me show you right now.”
He put all his love, all his lust, into the kiss. He showed the troll he was hungry for his lips by licking and sucking them until his lover returned the attention. His tongue plunged into his mouth, and he pushed the huge man back on the bed. He explored his teeth, teased his tongue into submission, then nibbled along his lower lip before he pressed his lips to Avery’s grizzled throat.
“I’ve missed being with you,” he whispered into his lover’s ear, before he flicked the tip of his tongue into the canal. He nibbled along the shell until Avery moaned.
“I’ve missed you too,” the troll confessed in a throaty voice. “No one fills me up like you do.”
His long, huge arms slid up Sid’s back. Wide palms molded to the vampire’s shoulders, massaging the lean muscle there then working down to his ass.
“Take as much as you need,” Sid breathed against his collarbone. “Nourish yourself. I’m full. Did you feed off of Ethan?”
The troll flinched beneath his touch. “I wasn’t going to chance it. What if he tried to implant something in my mind when we exchanged energy? I tried to keep it to straight up sex. Purely physical.”
Sid drew back and looked at him in concern. “Do you think he left anything behind? To track you maybe?”
The troll shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
Sid brushed stray curls from Avery’s wide forehead. “I’ll check in there, just to be sure.”
The troll gave a rare smile. “Thank you.” Then he pulled Sid back down to his lips. He flipped the vampire so he now straddled him.
“I should really be on top, pleasuring you so you can feed,” Sid protested.
The troll gave a languid, sexy smile. “I can feed from giving pleasure as well as receiving.”
“True, but I can’t scan your mind for a homing device as well.” The vampire reached up and squeezed his beefy pecs, then his hands moved lower to trace along his ribs, down the flat plane of his stomach.
“We’ll change up the giving and receiving then.” The troll tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and absorbed the vampire’s touch.
&n
bsp; He dipped his head and tasted Sid’s nipples, flicking his tongue over the sweet peaks until they rose stiff. His lover sighed and writhed beneath him. Fingers buried in his long curls and palms pressed against his temples. Sid tried to concentrate on the troll’s mindscape as well as take this pleasure. He could feel Avery siphoning nourishment from his enjoyment already, and that was good, because it took the edge off the bliss enough to help him concentrate.
Avery’s teeth grazed along his ribs. He nipped tiny bits of flesh, then licked them, as he moved closer to Sid’s belly button. Images and color burst behind the vampire’s closed eyes, and he pumped his hips up so his erection brushed over the troll’s sweat dampened skin.
The troll twirled his tongue in his belly button. At the same time, he wrapped a large, calloused hand around the vampire’s dick. He began stroking it slowly, up and down, up and down, while he peppered bites and kisses over his lover’s pelvis.
Sid struggled to stay in Avery’s mind as the physical sensation amped up. His cock demanded his attention, and his mind tried to zone in on the silky / rough combination of Avery’s skilled grip working him. His balls tingled with delicious pressure. He went deeper into the troll’s mind just as he wrapped lips around his throbbing glans.
“Ummmm…that feels good,” he moaned, pushing his palms tighter against Avery’s temples as he struggled to focus.
His lover traced a tongue beneath his ridge, teased his sweet spot, then lapped at the length of his shaft before he sucked at his balls. He worked his slippery cock with a meaty paw as he licked up and down the vampire’s crack. With a free hand, he nudged his lover’s ass cheeks wider apart so he could tongue fuck him. He poked his tongue in and out the vampire’s puckered, tight anus, pushing it in as far as he could and curling it toward the prostrate. His lover writhed and bucked beneath him, struggling to keep his hands tight against Avery’s head.
Then he licked back up the length of his lover’s cock before he gobbled it to the root. The vampire let out a long, shrill moan and his ass lifted high off the mattress.
“Let me taste you now,” Sid whispered. “I need to suck you to see better.”
BDSM Romance Collection Page 20