It was very different from what I was used to, growing up. With six older sisters, I didn’t receive much attention, and when I did it came with a heavy dose of expectation that they were mostly spared.
I had seen different ways of being a family, now. It made it easier to leave the one I’d been born into. But…kids…Charlotte was ready to have kids?
Of course she is. She always has more to give.
If I touched Charlotte now, if I let her unwind the knot inside me, I wondered what else might come out. Jesus, what if I cried or something? In front of Monty and Alec and Firian? I’d never live that down.
Sure, I’d shared her. But I’d never been vulnerable.
I was vulnerable now. I sensed it, like a wound that could bleed if you moved wrong. If I was going to fuck her tonight, I had to take complete charge of the situation, but there was one person I’d never shared with, and that was Alec. I was just a normal human; how was I supposed to compete with that?
Instead I was just watching. It was easier to watch. I was so used to seeing Charlotte by day, and she wasn’t a bombshell or anything. She didn’t play up her assets. She was cute, but she didn’t look like a model. She was curvy, flexible and strong but neither toned nor especially skinny, and she had no cosmetics game like Daisy, plus her hair turned into a humid mess in the warmer months.
Objectively, she wasn’t the sort of woman I should choose. But that was probably why I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
She was fucking perfect.
So perfect.
The sight of Charlotte pinned between Alec and Firian, moaning incoherently, eyes glazed, round breasts bobbing as her thighs quivered with exhaustion and rough movements…
And then, when she beckoned to me…
Charlotte, you truly want me, after everything these other men can offer you? Even though I hardly know how to tell you what you mean to me? Even though your strength always makes me want to put you in your place instead of telling you that you impress me?
She did. Her eyes, her hand…just because she was with Alec and Firian now didn’t mean she would forget me, or Montague. We were a family now, and not just a group of friends ditching school to have some fun. That was because of her.
Her eyes shut and her back arched, a groan ripping from her as Alec and Firian were clearly getting better at synching their movements. Her hand flailed and Firian caught it in his, holding her as she screamed out an orgasm. Alec’s grunts of pleasure and pain grew into a scream as he was swept up into it and Firian, a little more shy, grit his teeth rather than make a sound.
Montague tapped my arm. “It’s our turn next, and we might have to work to tease her back up after all of that, but…” He wet his lips.
I got his meaning. Monty remembered what I wanted. He was letting me take the lead.
“Charlotte,” I said, gripping her exhausted face in my hand before Alec and Firian had even pulled out. “Monty needs a taste of you tonight.”
“Is she strong enough…?” Firian said.
“Yes. She is,” I said. “The beasts have had their fun, and you’re ours now, my dearest girl.”
“Time for the necromancer to dance with the dead.” Montague gave her a fanged grin.
Alec and Firian surrendered her, Alec sweaty from the pain of a curse that hadn’t yet faded and Firian taking his fox form to get out of our way, leaving her spent and wet, marked by their pleasure, but far from earning her rest.
Each of us understood the other. And we didn’t even have to say so. That was a place for me here, and an equal place for every person in our union.
“I’m home,” I whispered in her ear, as I slipped a hand between the swollen wet folds of her pussy.
Chapter Thirty
Montague
Four years after I turned, four years after I swore nothing about me would change, I had changed. I felt like a vampire now, not a human. I didn’t miss food anymore. What was food compared to even the smallest taste of Charlotte’s life? I traced my tongue down her collarbone and then the swan curve of her neck, tasting the salt of her sweat, knowing that soon I would have more.
Memories rippled through my mind. Maybe they always would. I had accepted that my clan was a part of me, even if we parted ways. They would be there for me again someday, I thought, or I would be there for them. I couldn’t yet accept that I might outlive my friends and my girl, that I might someday have to face the choice of letting Charlotte move on to the next world, turning her, hunting her down in her next life…
Bertie stumbled, trying to pick up an apple that rolled from the bowl in the course of tidying up the house. The lovely boy Rayner found on the western plains was getting old and frail, but Rayner never saw the age of the soul he loved. It was exciting to find Lisbeth, young and virginal, to teach her the ways of a thrall all over again. But as the years went by, Lisbeth—with luck—grew old.
Rayner didn’t see the wrinkles just as he soon forgot that his Bertie was a boy. In private, he whispered the same words as always. My precious tulip. He was her lover, always.
Yes, it was only moment like this that he remembered that Lisbeth would leave him again soon, and that was the thing that brought him pain. He never allowed that to show. Nor did Silvus, Jie, or Thom. This was their pact: to give her a beautiful life until her last day, whether it was tomorrow of an untimely fever, or at a ripe old age.
“Here, dear, let me help you.” Rayner plucked the fruit and put it in Bertie’s hand.
“I’m getting old.” Bertie shied back from the touch, just a bit, but Rayner never allowed that. He clutched the hand and kissed Bertie’s palm.
“Humans do that,” he said. “It would be very inappropriate if you didn’t. I would keep you with me forever if I could, but since I can’t…I do expect you to follow the natural order.”
“I’m not that pretty anymore.”
“I’ll smack you if you talk that way.”
“But—“
“Do you think I follow you around the world for a pretty face? You were a fine boy, but I don’t even like boys. There were prettier people than you ever were in every city in the world. It’s you I want. You who captivates my soul, and if there is a god in heaven someday he will let us be together forever without all of this trouble…”
Rayner put the apple to his lover’s lips and Bertie, with a slight flush, took a bite.
“Then again, perhaps, we will never get to heaven. We know too much.” Rayner slid a tongue along an ear, his touch more gentle than rough these days, mindful of what a fragile creature every human was, but all he ever wanted was to see pleasure of his tulip’s face.
I had seen Rayner’s rough and possessive side more than his tenderness, but now the hot-burning memories were starting to make space for the softer ones as well. I didn’t mind the memories of my clan anymore. They showed me ways forward. How to share my love with my own clan, how to give and take. I hoped that Rayner had found his Lisbeth again.
Right now, I had my Charlotte.
“Be gentle,” she pleaded. I forced myself to stop drinking of her after just a small taste, giving the wound a lick before I spoke a healing spell to stop the bleeding.
Harris leaned close, watching me lick her blood off her lips. His eyes hooded as he moved his focus back to Charlotte.
“Gentle…,” he said.“Like this?” He lifted the tender skin of her wrist to his mouth and kissed it, gentlemanly, in the spot where I had just bit her. My mouth watered, still wanting more. Always wanting more. It was my lot in life to never be satisfied anymore, so I had to take what I could get.
Now Harris and I drew closer to her, handling her softly after Alec and Firian had wrung so much pleasure out of her already. I pulled her backward, almost into my lap, and leaned down to kiss her and then, to nibble her breasts. Don’t bite. Don’t bite, Monty, you would never hurt her.
Harris went the other way and slipped a tongue between her folds. That was one place I didn’t dare to use my tongue. She smelled so delicious
between the legs that I knew I could never hold back; she had other mouths to please her there. Whatever he was doing, her little sighs and moans soon turned to more desperate breaths and cries. I heard her pulse in my ears, the beat of her heart.
She was licked and kissed and nibbled on until she was begging us for more and we were happy to give it. I rode her until her heat was like fire in my own veins, and she passed out within seconds afterward.
Firian and Alec were asleep already. Amateurs.
Nothing like before-battle sex, I guess.
Pretty soon I was the last one awake. Charlotte’s head was resting on my stomach and I was slowly stroking her hair.
Deep inside of me, in the place where buried thoughts live, I think I already knew the answer. I would protect her as long as she loved. I would be what she needed and wanted, even if it meant that someday I might live without her. Someday, she might be gone, but this love would last forever.
Chapter Thirty-One
Charlotte
I was stirred from my plastered state by a very annoying sound. My brain registered as a bird tapping a beak on the window.
“Charlotte?”
Hell naw, my subconscious said, continuing to dream stubbornly.
Taptaptap. “Gentlemen?”
I felt bodies stir around me, and my comforting cocoon unraveled. I was forced to rejoin the waking world as I heard rustling clothes. “Don’t open the door, I’m not decent!” Harris snapped.
“Oh, who cares,” Alec said.
Montague zipped up his pants, gave his hair two finger-comb swipes, and opened the door while Harris yanked a blanket over both of us.
“We have trouble,” Lord Cyrus said. “Get dressed. I would guess you have five minutes.”
“Until what?” Montague asked.
“Until the warlocks are here to fight with you.”
“What happened to sabotaging the road and waiting for backup?” Montague asked. “How many warlocks are you talking? I count about three dozen staff members but I doubt they’ll all lift their wands to battle other former students. How many fae warriors do you have?”
I was glad he was awake enough to take charge because the only content in my brain was a dancing coffee mug. And I was concerned—nay, terrified—that no one was going to make me coffee before this battle.
I was still more awake than Firian, who was in his fox form but drooling slightly. I elbowed him. “Conjure me some coffee,” I whispered.
“They have doubled their number,” Lord Cyrus said. “I’m not sure how. No one got in or out through the roads. We’ve been watching. The additional fighters seem very brazen and skilled, but a little uncertain as well.”
“That many witches and warlocks were able to travel through Etherium?” Harris asked. “That seems impossible. Who are these people? What are their names?”
“I don’t read minds,” Lord Cyrus said. “Just emotions.”
“Yeah, right,” I said. “You knew I thought you looked like a Battle Librarian!”
“Well, occasionally I read loud thoughts.”
“It is possible, isn’t it, that they could travel through Etherium?” Alec asked. “I was able to travel through Sinistral.”
“Yes—once you became a demon.”
“But Ignatius was with me.”
“All right, it’s possible,” Harris said. “But that would mean the Ethereals must have helped them. It’s very difficult for humans to use Etherium as a method of physical transportation. It’s more of a spiritual realm, so we can only go there when accompanied and supported by the natives.”
This was true; I couldn’t just go to Etherium. Firian took me there. It was a strange place where the normal rules of time and space didn’t quite apply.
“What?” Firian said. “You’re claiming that humans traveled through Etherium? How many?”
“Thirty or so,” Lord Cyrus said. “Which you would already know if you weren’t sleeping. If you’re going to have sex before a battle at least reserve enough energy to focus.” He looked at me and snapped his fingers near my nose. “Stop thinking about artificial stimulants and start thinking about our impending battle and the fact that you might very well die, then let it light a fire beneath you. We’re heading toward the buildings within ten minutes. We fae will be busy enough trying to cast spells to claim the land for Wyrd, so we expect you to be ready for the fighting.” He left the room, his leather armor making slight groaning noises as if it was as tired of him as I was.
“Ten minutes?” I grabbed my clothes. “Did he just say he wasn’t even fighting?”
“You can’t count on the fae,” Harris grumbled.
Firian conjured me a cup of Starbucks coffee with the name SHARLETTE written on it. At least I could die amused.
“Well, we always knew Etherium could be a potential hole in the plan,” Firian said. “If I was still an Ethereal familiar, I’d be able to check on what happened, but…since last night I officially became a Wyrd familiar…” He paused. “I bet they were waiting to see if I’d leave. That way they could attempt to sneak up on us.”
“It doesn’t really matter,” Harris said. “We’ll just have to deal with it. If the council is here, the council is here.”
When we fought the Withered Lord, we’d been all prepared and together. This was another story, because we were on the defensive, waiting for the spirits to show up. I didn’t feel a thing yet, so I would have to make do with the spirits that were around the school grounds. We didn’t even know who we were up against. I thought it would be Piers and the professors, and I wasn’t that scared of them.
I was also aching all over from last night, but you know what? Not sorry. It was a good reminder of what I was living for. Although I wasn’t so happy about the fact that I was queasy again. I scurried off to the bathroom to retch out my nerves. It had to be stress. I hadn’t gotten my period either, but we’d been so careful, and I was definitely stressed.
The guys dressed up in their usual outfits. So, a designer suit for Harris, a more casual suit for Montague, and for Alec, athletic shorts and a t-shirt so thin it was ready to be ripped against his pectorals.
Damn! I wish I had my phone for one pre-battle selfie with my boys.
“Firian!” I snapped, noticing that he had conjured himself a shirt that said I FOUGHT THE WITHERED LORD AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS STUPID T-SHIRT.
“Charlotte, I have to work on my dad jokes,” he said. “Since you could have a little scone in the oven as we speak.”
“Aww.” I wrapped my hands around his waist and slipped my hands in his back pockets. “I’m still waiting for the night you promised me.”
“It’s a date,” he said.
“Deal.”
He kissed me, easing the flutter of fear in my stomach as Ignatius came to the door.
“We have to go,” he said.
We stepped outside. It was late morning at this point. Maybe almost noon. It was still winter, but the trees were starting to get a little color as their buds began to appear, so spring was in the air. About a dozen faery warriors were posted around the cave, weapons at their waists or in their hands. Some had swords, others pikes or twin blades. The most strapping one, who was built more like Orson, held a battle axe. Generally, the fae were tall and thin, their muscles graceful like a dancer. Most of them had beautiful hair that fell to their shoulders. Waiting for battle, they looked gorgeous, like a fantasy painting, and at least they didn’t look like they planned to be useless. I hoped Daisy was happy during her first day in the faery realm checking out smexy fae left and right.
The weather was brisk and gorgeous, blue skies and puffy clouds, a gentle wind stirring all the trees throughout the forest. You could hear it moving over the mountaintops, beyond what we could see, coming closer.
Lord Cyrus and his men came running through the woods. They were light on their feet, but the forest was so thick that Lord Cyrus still had to swat a twig out of his way. “My kingdom for a horse,” he muttered befo
re saying, “They’re coming very fast. It’s not wizards; it’s an army of familiars.”
“Familiars?” Harris said. “No way.”
“Do I seem like I would lie?” The faery’s lip curled. “Birds. Beasts. All manner of creatures.”
“That’s such a taboo to other wizards,” Firian said. “To send their familiars to fight without them?”
“You’re a taboo,” Harris said. “So maybe they figured all bets are off.”
“Damnit,” Firian said. “I’ve never known a familiar to come out alone!”
That was all the time they had for discussion. Cyrus drew his sword as the birds—plus, a bat—swept in. One was a bald eagle. Bald eagles are fucking huge, y’all. You really don’t realize until they’re flying toward your face. I screamed as it swept low and landed on my head. When I tried to throw it off, it scratched me with its talons before rolling to the ground into human form.
The familiars varied widely. A female cardinal, a mallard, a hummingbird, and the aforementioned eagle and bat. But all the familiars shifted easily between human and bird forms when we tried to get a handle on fighting them. Ignatius whipped up an elemental attack that swirled air around him and Ina, keeping them off. This was devastating to the birds, but all they had to do was turn into humans and battle the rest of us who were outside of the swirling air.
“Has anyone seen the movie ‘The Birds’?” I yelled. “Because I haven’t. Do they ever defeat the birds?”
“It’s a Hitchcock movie,” Montague said. “I don’t think it ends well.”
The bat had turned into a beautiful but definitely older woman with two long dark braids. “Miss Halt,” she said. “These children will be hurt. Call this off now and the council will have mercy.” She sounded stiff. Familiars weren’t usually used to talking, and she looked like she would rather disappear.
“Sorry,” Ignatius said. “For one thing, all of you know I answer to Ignatius Blair by now. So why should I even begin to negotiate with this kind of passive aggressive bullshit? Tell the council that the faeries are here and our alliance with Wyrd is already complete.”
Battle of the Hexes Page 20