by Hazel Hunter
The safe house that Kieran led them to was only a simple cabin in the forest. The plane had dropped them off with supplies for a few days, but when they entered the cabin, it hardly seemed warmer than the winds outside.
“I’ll get the generator started,” Kieran volunteered, heading outside again.
While he was gone, Hailey looked around the cabin with her flashlight. It was a surprisingly cozy place, with a few colorful quilts thrown over the couch and a shelf of paperback books in a variety of languages.
“Do you regret coming with me?” she asked softly.
Piers chuckled.
“If you think I’m going to be driven from your side by a few mildewed books and a cold cabin, you don’t think enough of me. I have faith that things will be fine. I also don’t disagree with you on why you are here.”
Hailey looked at him with curiosity before posing her question.
“You’ve…had very little good to say about the Magus Corps since I’ve known you. Why the change of heart?”
“The Magus Corps as an institution makes me nervous. They have had a lot of unquestioned power for a long time, and they have not always used it wisely. On the other hand, there have been a number of Magus Corps officers that I have cared for a great deal, even loved. You met Stephan when you first came to the Castle, the inventor? He is a fine person, one that I wish would leave the Corps and come to the Castle. If it were him that was lost, I would want to come find him. No one deserves to be lost to the Templars, not when there is a chance that I can help win them free.”
“You sound a little like Liona when you speak of such things. She told me that the covens were designed to protect people, and so was the Magus Corps. Two different organizations with the exact same goals.”
Piers smiled wryly at her.
“That being said, I would like to point out that I would far rather enjoy your company in your quarters or mine back at the Castle. This place feels a little like a set from a horror movie.”
“Oh? Are you worried that some masked killer is going to come chase us around?”
Hailey sidled up to Piers, wrapping her arm around his waist. To her delight, he scooped her up in his arms, holding her close. She was light in his arms, but she still wrapped her legs around his waist for stability.
“Fear is an amazing aphrodisiac,” she whispered. “Perhaps I wouldn’t mind being chased around if that meant that I could collapse in your arms, hmm?”
Piers was going to reply when two things happened at once. The generator kicked on, bringing the lights up, and the door behind them opened to reveal Kieran in the doorway.
Hailey had a moment to remember how large he was, how he could fill up the room. After a frozen moment, however, he merely closed the door behind him.
“Lights on,” he said gruffly. “Heat should follow soon. I want to leave at first light, so we should likely eat and rest.”
He walked past them to pick up his bag, and then he walked up the stairs, where there was a bathroom and a bedroom.
Hailey blushed guiltily, turning to Piers, who had a strange expression on his face.
“That was awkward to say the least,” she muttered.
“You know, I don’t know about that.”
“What do you mean, Piers?”
“Nothing right this moment, but I do wonder what an aura reader or a mind reader would have made of your major just then.”
Dinner consisted of tins hastily heated up over the stove. It was poor fare, but all three of them ate like they weren’t sure when they were next going to see food at all. Hailey watched Piers and Kieran. Piers was at his ease, though perhaps uncharacteristically quiet. Kieran was as silent as a stone. There was something lost and hurt about him. Despite what lay between them, it hurt her to see it. Whoever he was, no matter how tangled his loyalties, she didn’t think she could stand to see him look like that.
“Tomorrow we are going to head north into the forest,” Kieran said after they had cleaned up. “Within half a day, perhaps a little more, we will be in the territory where the last officer was lost. He had heard talk of strange happenings out in this region, and he went to investigate.”
“Strange happenings, what does that mean?” asked Piers with a frown.
“According to his report, lights above the trees, things that were like elk walking on their hind legs, shadows that were not cast by anything people could see. He came to investigate, wondering if there was a renegade witch or warlock in the region, or perhaps even a lost coven. He never came back.”
Hailey shivered, making Kieran glance at her.
“If you want to leave, that is still possible. You are not sworn to the Magus Corps, and you have no reason to follow orders from me.”
Hailey tilted her chin up defiantly.
“I have no intention of leaving this mission. Unless you can look me in the eye and tell me that you think I will hamper you or that I will hurt your chances for success, then I am staying.”
Kieran looked at her for a long moment. Finally, he smiled, a slightly rueful thing.
“If I thought that you would slow me down, either of you, I would never have brought you. Our chances for success go up if you are both here. Even I know that. I just…”
“Don’t want to see her harmed.”
Hailey jumped a little when Piers spoke. There was an understanding there that eluded her. For a long moment, both men looked at each other across the simple wooden table. There was no anger or animosity there. Instead, there was the beginning of something that she couldn’t quite name.
Kieran nodded.
“The last thing in the world I want is to see her harmed. It…it is something I will prevent at all costs, but I know what is needed and what might happen out there. I can offer no guarantees, and for that I apologize to you both.”
“Life offers no guarantees,” Hailey said firmly. “All I need to know is that I am here, and here is where I want to be. With you. With both of you.”
Kieran looked a little startled at the emphasis of her words. There was something shuttered about him again. He stood and clear the table settings away.
“I want to be moving at first light. There is one bedroom upstairs, and the bed should suit the pair of you.”
Did she imagine the faint twitch at his temple? The black eye that Piers had presumably given him was still bright, still livid.
“What about you?” she asked. Her voice came out a little huskier than she thought it would.
“I can make a perfectly serviceable bed for myself down here. Good night.”
Kieran spoke with a finality that was meant to end the discussion. Feeling somewhat defeated, Hailey washed up and followed Piers to the small bedroom above.
The bed was startlingly large. There were sheets and blankets in the chest at the foot of the bed. As they made up the bed together, Hailey caught Piers watching her speculatively.
“What are you looking at?” she asked warily.
Piers shook his head.
“Just thinking about the things that you can learn during the course of a life as long as mine. That’s all.”
“And what do you think that would be?”
“That sometimes, the things that we want can be ours if only we ask for them.”
She watched him with suspicion.
“So I should ask?”
“It’s usually the best course. Otherwise, no one will know what it is you want.”
Hailey bit her lip. It was right there, waiting for her to speak it, but still she hesitated.
“Who won the fight that the two of you had?” she asked instead.
Piers shrugged.
“It wasn’t a fight, really,” he said, temporizing. “It was much closer to being a discussion that was punctuated by blows.”
“Uh-huh. And who punctuated the hardest?”
“I would have to say that it was him. I did get in a few good ones though.”
“Yes, I saw his eye.” Hailey hesitated, and
then she finally said what they both had been thinking the entire time.
“I don’t want Kieran to sleep alone tonight,” she said finally. “I want him to come to our bed. Is that possible?”
Piers’s face betrayed not a moment of anger or upset. Instead, he seemed calm, as if he fielded such requests all the time.
“What would you want him to do in this great big bed of ours, Hailey?”
Hailey blushed at the pictures that danced through her mind for a moment. Then she straightened, shaking her head.
“I don’t care. I want to do what he wants. If all he wants to do is to sleep, that’s fine. If he wants to…to make love with us, I want that too. Is that what you want?”
Piers thought for a moment. Then he nodded.
“He has a piece of you, Hailey. That is something that I have known for quite some time. It doesn’t bother me, exactly, but I would prefer you whole and happy. He has your best interests, your safety and your care as his first priority, and that is what I needed to know. If you want to bring him to our bed, I would welcome him.”
Hailey thought for a moment, and then she nodded.
“That’s what I want. I want to bring him up here with us.”
“Then you should go get him before it gets too late, shouldn’t you?”
Her heart pounding, Hailey turned towards the door.
“You don’t need clothes to go get him, do you, Hailey?”
Hailey shivered. It was Piers’s secret voice, the one that he used to command her when they were intimate. It immediately sent a bolt of subtle lightning through her body, making her quiver with desire.
Without saying a word, she slid out of her clothes, folding them and setting them aside. When she stood naked, she presented herself to Piers, who nodded thoughtfully.
She thought he would kiss her, but instead, he only ran his hands over her shoulders and her arms, cupping her breasts momentarily before releasing her.
“You are a difficult woman to resist at any point, my love. Like this, you are completely compelling. Go. Bring your prize to bed.”
He dropped a kiss on the delicate shell of her ear.
Shaking just a little, she walked out of their bedroom and down the stairs. It was almost completely dark in the house, but her memory was good. She managed to make it down the stairs without bumping into anything.
The fire in the seating area was banked low. By its rather sullen light, she could see Kieran’s frame curled up on the couch. Some part of her absently thought that it was just as well she and Piers were inviting him to bed; otherwise, he would have woken up quite cramped.
Kieran looked up at her approach. His eyes went wide when he realized that she was naked. He seemed frozen in place as she crossed the floor to his side.
She thought he would speak, that he might protest or send her away. Instead, he only watched her as she knelt on the floor beside him. He flinched a little when she raised her hand to stroke his hair. He didn’t move as she kissed his forehead, his cheek and the bruise under his eye. When she dropped her mouth to his, however, he wrapped his hand around her wrist to hold her still.
“Hailey,” he rasped, “what in the name of the nine hells do you think you’re doing?”
“Exactly what I want to do,” she said softly. “I want you. I love you, and I always will. Will you come back to bed with me?”
He sat up, the blankets sliding down around his hips. His chest was bare. She had forgotten how thickly muscled he was, how dense he felt when she was close to him. He had the body of a warrior. She longed to touch it the way that she had all those weeks ago.
“What does this mean?” he said softly.
She wondered if there was a little bit of fear in his voice. It occurred to her that ever since he had realized that she and Piers were together, it must have felt as if he had been looking at something he could never have.
“It means whatever you make of it,” she said. “I’m with Piers, and I love him. I love you too. I want to give you what I can give and to have you in the way that feels right to me. Will you come?”
She could tell that there were a thousand questions in his mind, on his tongue. Instead, he leaned down to kiss her with a softness and a reverence that made her want him forever. She could kiss this man until the stars fell down into the sea. It still wouldn’t be enough.
She took his hand in hers, pulling on it so that he stood. When he did, she realized that he was as naked as she was. Silently, she led him up the stairs. Together, they entered the bedroom.
Inside the door, Piers had dimmed the lights. He was stretched out on the bed, the blanket thrown across his hips the only concession to modesty. He was leaner than Kieran though still quite muscled. Hailey realized that it was fairly impressive that he had tried to stand against the bigger man at all.
“I was beginning to get worried,” he commented.
“That I would stay gone?” she teased.
“That you would freeze,” Piers retorted. “Are you both ready to come to bed?”
In response, Hailey slid in beside Piers. Then she turned and offered her hand to Kieran, who stood at the edge of the bed. He wasn’t a man given to embarrassment or shyness, but now he couldn’t seem to meet their gazes.
“Come here,” Hailey said, her voice nearly a whisper. “You’re wanted, you’re loved.”
Piers nodded behind her.
“Come to bed. There’s nothing keeping you out but your own fears”
Hailey wasn’t sure whose words it was that convinced him. With a breath that was almost too soft to be a sigh, he slid underneath the covers with them. He reached for her. She rewarded him by moving closer to his body. It was at once familiar and new to her. She pressed her face against his chest, simply taking in the scent of him and the feel of him.
“Oh I have missed you, love,” she murmured.
She felt him shift against her before he ran his shoulder from the point of her shoulder down her arm to her hip.
Piers chuckled softly as he came to press against her back.
“I like this,” he said, his voice just a hair off from a growl. “I like having people around who want to please Hailey.”
“That’s what I want to do. I am not as interested in pleasing you,” Kieran said with a hint of heat.
“Oh? That’s a shame.” Piers’s voice was innocence itself. “I don’t mind the idea of pleasing you at all.”
Hailey didn’t know what Kieran’s response to that was going to be. She decided she didn’t much care. She squirmed up to place a deep kiss on Kieran’s mouth. At the same time, she reached behind her to slide her hand down between Piers’s legs, wrapping her hand around his half-hard erection.
Both men gasped and were wordless, which was what she had intended. She drew back from Kieran and pulled her hand away, smiling even though she knew that they couldn’t see it.
“We do have to be up early in the morning,” she commented. “I think that it would serve all of our best interests if we started doing what it is we want to do right now.”
The words were barely out of her mouth when Kieran’s hands ended up in her hair, holding her still while he kissed her mouth hard. There was a barely restrained savagery to his motions. He had been without her for a long time. She could feel his erection against her thigh. She moved her leg enticingly against him. She wanted to let him know that she wanted him, that there was nothing that was barred from his touch and his want.
With Piers’s hands running up and down her body, she put her focus into kissing Kieran. It felt as if it had been years since they last touched like this, since they had drowned in each other’s bodies. He was dense and powerful in a way that Piers wasn’t. He could be overwhelming.
After the first onslaught, his mouth gentled against hers. He kissed her with care, but there was still an urgency to it. He wanted her, but he wanted to please her more. There was something almost beseeching about the way he touched her.
Encouraged by Piers’s
touches, she pushed herself over him, straddling his hips. His cock was trapped against her belly. She ground down on him, forcing a groan from his lips. There was something wild about riding him like this. She held his satisfaction in her hands, but she didn’t have to give it to him, not yet.
She felt Piers move behind her. He wrapped her wild red hair in his fist, pulling it away so that he could kiss the back of her neck. She shivered when his wet lips touched her sensitive skin. She was so taken with Piers’s mouth on her that she flinched when she felt Kieran’s hands come up to cup her small breasts. He ran his calloused thumbs over the erect peak of her nipples, making her writhe and press down on him.
“I can feel how wet you are,” Kieran murmured. “I can smell how much you want this.”
“I want both of you,” Hailey found herself whimpering. “I want both of you so much…”
Piers’s laugh was dark and full of promise.
“Then that’s what you’ll have, little darling. We want to give it all to you.”
She could feel Piers’s cock pressed against her back just as she could feel Kieran’s on her belly. She blushed furiously at the sensations, but they were far too intense to deny.
“I…I want to use my mouth,” she stuttered. “While one of you takes me from behind.”
She felt as much as heard Kieran’s breath go shallow and fast. Piers’s cock grew even harder.
“Well, well, I do like a woman who knows what she wants,” Piers said, a laugh in his voice.
“Come on, let’s get set up for that.”
“You speak as if we’re setting up camp,” Kieran said, his voice barely above a growl. Piers seemed unperturbed.
“Sex is an activity, and like any other, when you make the right preparations and do the right setup, things can go very well. For example, come here.”
Hailey watched, eyes wide and mouth slightly wet as Piers reached for a condom in the night stand. Instead of handing it to Kieran, however, he opened it himself. Kieran was as still as a statue as Piers smoothed it down Kieran’s cock. When it was on, Piers ran gentle fingers down Kieran’s erection, a slight smile on his face.