by Lora Leigh
To protect her.
He could not risk harm to her. He could not allow her to travel alone, with naught to defend her but her own sword.
Nay, not his Consort. His Consortress. The Sorceress destined to be Consort to both himself as well as his younger brother, Rhydan.
The woman created by magick to match him perfectly, to ease the heart and complete the soul of himself and his brother.
As the magick left his body and cleaved to her, he fell back to the furs, his hands clenching in them as he stared at her, ached for her.
Long before, he had known of love, its mysteries and its charms. And much longer before he had known the agony of her belief that he and Rhydan had betrayed all she held dear, he had ached for her.
He had watched her weep as a young child, had watched her plead with a cold and unforgiving mother. Each time, he and Rhydan had sought to comfort her, their spirits holding fast to her, their warmth wrapping around her.
He’d only wanted to hold her. To ease her tears, to ease the pain that raged at her. How it had torn at him and Rhydan to see her pain and to be unable to comfort her with nothing more than the ghostly warmth they had provided.
Then, to feel her pain these past weeks, to feel her magick reaching out to them, filled with such confusion and betrayal, had burned through their souls like a white-hot blade.
Her magick had not been the only one reaching out though. Their power had reached out for her as well. She had the ability to put a stop to the game the Veressi had all but forced them into. Her magick and her place as their Consortress afforded her the power to reveal her place as their chosen one, and as the woman they could not turn from.
Yet she had not used the power to do so.
She had ached. She had raged. She had watched them in anger and in hope and her magick had reached out to them, stroking them, torturing them with need. But she had not revealed herself to them, nor forced them to do so.
And now, she ran from them.
From them, from her fears, her desires and the crimes she had feared they had committed.
Chapter Three
Astra wanted only to run.
She wanted only to escape the pain and the knowledge of her actions, the knowledge of the emotions she couldn’t contain and feared would destroy her. Destroy her as they had all but destroyed her ancestors.
Run for the curve in the cavern that would lead to the tunnel and then to—freedom?
Nay, there was no freedom.
She was brought up short by the feeling of magick. A sensual, heated caress filled with gentleness and rich with male regret as it stroked along her arm, twining about it. There was no sense of restraint; there was only the sense of regret, hunger and a need to ease her pain.
A need to ease her pain? Their magick wrapped around her, warmed her and, surprisingly, strengthened what little magick she had left inside her.
Swinging around, facing them, her breathing harsh, tears clogging her throat as she stared back at them with a desperation born of the heartache tearing her asunder.
Why could it not be rage? She could have dealt with the rage, she had known its like before, and she had survived it.
The touch of their magick, both their magick, the palest of blue and the darkest of blue, ignited a sizzling reaction within her. As though the spores of magick that filled her being were suddenly coming alive in ways she had never known they could.
Her thighs clenched as pleasure began to slide over sensitive, reactive nerve endings.
Wizard magick, aligned with Sorceress magick, the fusion of the complementing powers suddenly sent pure sensation to wrap about her nipples, to heat her clitoris and awaken the female needs that had lain dormant in her woman’s core.
Even more shocking, more frightening in many ways was the prick of sensation at the tightly clenched entrance of her rear. The entrance that Sorceresses had once given willingly and with great pleasure to their Wizards.
She was such a traitor.
A sob hitched from her chest, and she could naught but close her eyes as she fought to convince herself to run. To leave this place and these Wizards.
Rather than running, she stood there, still, silent, feeling her feminine juices slickening her flesh, running from her vagina to lubricate the swollen flesh of her female folds, then to ease from there along the cleft to the entrance she had never imagined she would feel such pleasure at.
Rather than sending out an alarm, she was trying to catch her breath, feeling her magick rising inside her. The aligning she had felt so rejected by, fought so hard to contain, was rising inside her, slipping past all thought of control.
Lifting her lashes, she stared across the great stone room at the Wizards reclining on the thick pallet of furs she had created for them.
The babes had been gently moved, eased to a fur to the side of them, away from the pallet where the sexually charged magick whipped about them.
Torran and Rhydan reclined in the same position she had placed them in earlier, their bodies uncovered, their cocks rising hard and fierce from the openings of their breeches.
Thick, engorged crests throbbed, darkened by their lust. Heavy veins pounded in the wide shafts as her magick—merciful Sentinels—wrapped around the heavy columns, both of them, like a lover’s mouth.
Soft green magick weaved from her, flowed over them, cupped their balls and milked their dicks.
Their magick drew her closer, easing her to them as it stroked over her. Dark-blue strands of the sensual, heated power eased beneath the soft silk of her blouse, capped over a nipple and suckled with a damp heat.
As though Rhydan’s mouth covered it, his magick licked and stroked, sucked and nipped at the tender tip until she was shaking with the sensations raging through her flesh.
“Why?” she whispered, unable to stop her own hands from sliding to her breasts, her fingers touching the hardened, tight nipples as she felt the magickal caress lick over them as well.
Her breath caught with her pleasure, her knees weakening. For this moment in time, for just this touch she allowed herself to belong to them.
She would be the traitor again when she could think, when she could make sense of so many emotions and sensations at once. Until then, Sentinels help her, she just wanted to luxuriate in it.
“We’re too weak to take you,” Torran whispered as she was drawn closer, her legs growing weaker. “But we can give you our magick instead, Consortress. Our touch. This pleasure that only our Consortress could know from our magick.”
A Consortress could only find the true heights of pleasure in the arms of her Wizard Twins. For a millennium Sorceresses had been denied the chance to know this pleasure. To experience this touch.
A millennium without the worry that the day would come that they would be abducted for it. Forced to have their magick align with Wizard Twins who refused to court them, refused to give them choice.
Torran bit back a groan, the feel of her magick, like a lover’s heated mouth sucked at his dick, drew at the sensitive head as a ghostly tongue licked over it, tasted it. He had to bite back a groan of pure rapture at her caress. The thought that for now she was theirs, if only by magick, was nearly more than he could bear.
Bear it he did though, as her magick surrounded the heavy, throbbing crest.
Pleasure was a swirl of pure power tearing through him, the spores of magick that infused every fiber of his being crackled with nearing rapture. A rapture he knew Rhydan was feeling as well.
Her magick was as soft and silken as the purest power. It suckled his cock, washed over his chest and caressed his thighs with shy, tentative strokes.
It nearly destroyed his control. A control both he and Rhydan knew they could not lose.
Rhydan above all felt that weakness. His magick was weakest, the power expended to save the Griffons had taken a toll neither of them had expected.
Her magick sucked at their shafts, the sensation of a wicked, hot little mouth enclosing the thickened hea
d of his cock was by far the exacting pleasure Rhydan could imagine. No other lover had used her magick in this way, nor had any other lover sent their power racing through them. Especially at a time when there had been so little power left within them.
The weakness in their bodies was dissipating beneath the infusion of strength from her magick touch. It was clenching, tightening with the need to move, to bring her to them, to cushion her between their bodies as they took her in truth rather than with magick.
But magick was all they could give.
Magick was all she would accept.
At least for this moment.
As Torran’s magick centered on her lush, wet pussy, Rhydan sent his magick to capture the second tight, hard bud of her nipple and eased along the narrow cleft of her rear.
There, his magick touched the wet heat easing from her pussy. The slick juices had the feel of a softness finer than silk, a heat more searing than the strongest magick.
Easing those juices lower with the magick touch he bestowed upon her, Rhydan felt his hips lifting, pushing against the threads of her magick as though fucking deeper into the liquid heat of her mouth.
Torran could feel the wetness of her juices against his fingertips as he watched her nearing the pallet, drawn to them as pleasure began to crackle along the magick threads binding them.
She came to her knees between them, her thighs spread as though for the touch of their hands rather than their magick, the long, soft curls of her hair flowed around her as her head tipped forward in sensual pleasure. Spearing his fingers into those curls, he drew her head lower, her lips to his as she whimpered her pleasure.
As her lips touched his he allowed his magick to thicken at her entrance, to work against it as though it were his cock taking the hot, rich depths. In turn, his magick conveyed the sensations, each snug clench of her cunt against the head of his shaft, the spill of her juices along the thick column.
His magick slipped inside her, working slow and easy, stretching the taut little hole as he eased his power into her as he would have eased his cock inside her.
The added pleasure of Rhydan’s touch at the tightened entrance of her rear had her clenching on the invasion. Torran had to fight the need to pull her to him, to draw her body over his and take her in truth.
They could take her only with their magick though. And as his magick fucked slowly into the tight depths of her pussy, he could feel the snug sheath clenching further, the heat intensifying as Rhydan’s magick invaded the tight, sensitive flesh of her anus.
She was crying between them, her head pulling away, breaking their kiss. She tipped her head back, those curls slipped over her shoulder, teasing him, teasing his touch and his hunger.
Torran felt her pussy tightening further, heard her cries as he drew her to his chest, pulling her over his body to give her a fuller sense of their possession.
Her fingers curled against his chest, little nails raking the flesh sensually. In the thrust of her hips against the magick invading her he could feel her hunger, her need for her orgasm.
And her pleasure.
The pleasure was whipping about the three of them with a fierce, sensual heat, searing in its intensity.
Astra cried out against Torran’s chest as she reached with one hand to Rhydan as well. Gripping his forearm, her body so tense, clenched so tight against the magick invading her, she became lost to the implications of it.
Magick slipped deeper inside her, stretching her pussy, her rear, thrusting into her, building her pleasure higher.
Hot. Pulsing. As though their cocks were actually plowing inside her, stretching her, burning her with their possession.
A firestorm of erotic sensations ignited inside her at every point of sensitivity. Like pinpricks of ecstasy. They were blending, each tiny flame of sensuality merging together until it erupted.
Her pussy and her rear clenched on the strokes of magick driving into them. Swollen, hot, the magick cocks worked inside her, worked her.
They fucked her into oblivion.
Into a release that had her arching, crying out to them and begging—
Begging when she had no idea what the pleas were for.
Begging when she knew, ultimately, that they would be the destruction of her.
Chapter Four
Stumbling from the bed of furs, Astra shakily stared down at the Wizards, much weaker than they were even before they had halted her flight from the cavern, and felt shock lance through her.
Her magick had aligned with theirs in ways she could not have believed possible.
Even now, light-green threads of power stroked over their sweat-dampened bodies, eased about their flesh and fought to infuse them with enough strength to protect them should they have need of it.
She was only barely aware of the Griffon babes dragging themselves back to the warmth of the Wizards, as though they sensed the magick upheaval of moments before had now cleared the air. As though they sensed their warmth, and even the magick that filled their own small bodies could be used by the Wizards who had given the last of their power to save their lives.
The Griffons settled back into their spots, sharing their warmth even as they drew from the warmth of the Wizards who had saved them.
How much easier had she gone to the Wizards?
Not once had she questioned her actions, the sanity or lack thereof in lying with them so easily.
How easily she had gone to them.
A simple touch of their magick stroking against her arm and she was panting for them? Coming to them like a bitch in heat and begging for their possession?
Had she no shame?
Had she no sense of honor?
Aye, she could have naught of either; else she would not have found herself here to begin with.
“Why do you acknowledge me, why attempt to claim me now?” How she hated the shakiness in her voice as she confronted them, so desperate for something to hold to that she would allow such questions to pass her lips. “You did not know me for what I was to you when you arrived to find a Consortress of power. Why want me now?”
The question plagued her. It was one that had left her sleepless far too many nights as she shed tears of shame that her Consorts would so look over her when she had felt such a shift within herself from first glance.
“Astra.” The conflict tearing at Rhydan was much easier to sense now that his power was so weakened. “We cannot explain this to you now, as much as it pains me. But I swear to you, soon…you will know the truth of many things.”
Later. Her life had always been later.
Later, she would be taught the secrets of the Mystic Forests she would one day command the power to.
Later she would learn the details of her father’s death and the battle with the humans that there was no record of.
One day—
And ’twas always one day. A day she feared would never come.
And she was so very tired of waiting. Especially when that “one day” was something her Wizard Consorts believed they could have as well.
“Explain now!” She needed something to hold on to. Something to assuage the guilt and the pain plaguing her. “Tell me, Wizards, did you even know your Consortress when first you faced her?”
How she had filled with excitement when she first approached them and felt her magick rising within her. How she had felt certain they would know her. Perhaps court her.
When they had turned from her, she had assuaged her hurt with the certainty that they could have not known. When they had declared their intent to test an aligning of Powers with the Guardian of the Power of Covenan, she had near screamed out her pain.
Surely they could not have known.
“We knew.”
It was Rhydan’s admission that tore her heart from her chest and left it broken and bleeding at their feet.
A sickness unlike any she had known filled her belly, souring it and leaving her swallowing in desperation to hold back the bile that would have risen
from her.
“You knew?”
Later.
Later she would hate this weakness that filled her voice, the confusion, the uncertainty that she could sense filled her expression. “You knew? Still yet you turned from me and declared your intent to align with another?”
The pain was such that it radiated inside her with a force that near brought her to her knees. An agony that stole her breath and pulled a whimper of pain from her lips before she could hold it back.
A whimper she feared she would never forgive herself for.
“We will explain, Astra.” Torran struggled to rise from the pallet, his strength all but exhausted, his magick depleting as he collapsed back instead. “Please, do not hurt so, love. Linger for a moment. Allow us to at least ease the pain we’ve caused.”
“Tell me why if you would want to ease my pain!” she demanded, the force of it causing her to clench her fists against her stomach as it tightened with her rising agony. “Tell me now why you would turn from your natural Consortress in such a way to seek another? Am I hideous?” Tears spilled from her eyes. “Am I not a Sorceress a Wizard could find pride in? Am I not one strong enough, brave enough to complement your power?”
How could she be, when even now she stood before them, begging for such answers?
“Your beauty is such that I fear we could never look away, no matter the danger that could stand before us. Your pride and strength are those any Wizard or warrior would die to possess. Ah Sorceress, you are a Consortress for whom a Wizard would kill to possess,” Rhydan whispered with such feeling, with such false truth that she would have screamed in agony did the pain not steal her breath.
“Lie,” she accused, possessing not even the strength to spit the accusation out to them as she would have wished. “Just as your ancestors lied, my Wizards, so do you. A lie without regret, else you would at least make me less a traitor by giving me something in which to excuse myself once my Guardian learns the betrayal I have dealt her.”
“Astra.” Rhydan forced himself to sit up, grimacing at the weakness that weighed him down and kept him from his Consortress. “The truth you seek is not yet ours to give. But know if I could, I would give you that and more. What I will tell you now, upon my oath as a Wizard, is that never would we have taken another Consortress. Never would we have turned aside the most precious gift the gods could bestow upon us.”