Sitting down beside her, I lift her into my arms. I don’t know that there’s another feeling I like more in the world than having her there. Which is why I choose to carry her when I can. I never imagined that I could feel so complete as when I have her close to me. I’ll sit here as long as it takes for her to come awake, and to make sure she’s all right.
But I know she is. I feel it in my gut.
Slowly, slowly, the light under her skin fades and she’s just Kari. Kari as she once was before everything was stolen from her. She was beautiful on both counts, but I know it will make her heart easier to know that she looks like she imagines herself to be.
Lifting one of her hands, I press her palm to my lips. She moves just a little on my lap, and my cock responds. What I wouldn’t do to spread her out in the grass and bury myself in her just like I promised her I would—but that’s not what she needs at the moment.
“Kari,” I say.
She opens her eyes and looks at me. “Brae.” It’s barely a whisper.
“I’m here.” Her eyes fall closed again, like she’s been utterly exhausted from what she experienced here. “Do you want me to take you home? Or stay at the temple.”
“Home,” she says softly.
She doesn’t need to tell me twice. I don’t even put her down to dress. Lyassa drapes our clothes over her and I stride out the door. Most if not all the members of the Carnal Court have seen me naked. It doesn’t even make me pause. But I make sure that Kari is properly covered before we go. I’m not so possessive that I care about others seeing her naked, but I think she would be embarrassed if she had known she was carried bare through strangers.
Eventually I’m sure she’ll lose the timidity, but her human sensibilities are still in the forefront of her mind.
It doesn’t take us long to reach the mansion, and I don’t stop until I reach her bedroom and lay her out on the bed. She stretches in her exhausted state, curling into the pillows that she loves so much. The temptation is too much, and I press my lips to her temple as she settles. I cover her with one of the soft blankets piled on her bed before I go searching for the others. There wasn’t anyone in the common area when we passed, so I head to the line of rooms that belong to us. Aeric’s is first. His room features deep burgundy walls and dark wood, along with some interesting accessories that I’m not sure Kari knows about yet—and the thought of her finding out about them arouses me more than I have time for at the moment.
“Let’s go.”
He looks up from polishing a sword. “You’re back.”
“Yes. We all need to be in her room. Now.”
“Is she all right?”
I nod before striding down the row further. Verys’s room is empty and so is Urien’s. But Kent is writing out some kind of letter and nearly startles when I knock on the door. “She needs us.”
He doesn’t hesitate, jumping to his feet. For a moment it seemed like Kent was going to be a problem, but I’m impressed by the way he’s folded himself into us. And by the same token the more I’ve gotten to know him the more I understand what Kari saw in him in the first place. He’s loyal and kind, and once he got his head on straight hasn’t shown the same possessiveness that he first displayed.
Aeric is leading Urien and Verys back from the other direction when I make it back to Kari’s room, and they’re all looking at me with wariness. After everything that’s happened I would think the same.
“I don’t know much,” I say quietly as they gather around me. “I didn’t go into the temple with her—she wanted to go alone. She was in there for a long time, and I did feel a blast of magic, but it was light. Pure. So I didn’t interfere.
“Lyassa came out to retrieve me, and when I found her she was like this, only glowing so brightly that I couldn’t look straight at her. Her coloring is back, and she only roused long enough to confirm that she wanted to come home. Other than that, I have no idea what happened.”
I watch that sink in, and then turn towards the door. And together we go see to our sleeping mate.
CHAPTER SEVEN
________
KARI
Magic feels like floating in the middle of a galaxy. Or having a galaxy shoved into your veins and behind your eyes. It’s like seeing fireworks constantly. Like burning in a perfect way. Like sweetness and cream and honey and all good things. I’ve always known this—felt it with my little glimmer of magic.
But this is too much. This is a river where there should be a stream. I’ve been dropped off the Empire State Building and told I now have wings but I don’t know how to use them.
I’m human.
I can’t do this.
I’m not made to contain this much power. And without being told, I know that this is only a drop. Just skimming the surface of Cerys’s true power, not even enough to cause a ripple. It’s still enough that I can’t comprehend it.
She said that it would break me, and she was right. This will destroy me. Consume me like it did her.
Will I smile when I go?
I can hear the murmur of male voices. I know those voices. They are my voices. Mine. I want them. But I can’t seem to find my way out of this maze of magic. I’m not even sure where my body is. I feel different and I don’t like it. Already too many things are different.
Reaching out with my mind, I try to find the boundaries of myself. Any little marker to show me the way back. I never thought that my own body would be a map that I could not read. I need the new code, the new flag, or the new key.
There—I can feel my fingers. Move them. Reach for something—anything. A hand takes mine, and suddenly there’s magic on magic. Cool and silvery magic meets this bright and golden flame, and steam hisses when they meet. But the magic inside me likes it. It likes to play with others, and wants to learn. Wants to know more. So as that line of silver smooths over me the dazzling brightness retreats—folds in on itself until it’s manageable and holds itself inside my borders. A solid spark of power at the core of me. So different from what I’ve recently held. This magic isn’t going to steal anything from me. It’s going to empower me and push me further.
I can’t decide if that’s what I want.
But I breathe sigh in relief all the same, because I can open my eyes and not be blinded by it. Silver magic cradles me like a cocoon along with strong pale arms. Verys’s long, lean body is pressed against my back, soothing me with that cooling touch.
There are other touches too. Hands in my hair and my feet are in someone’s lap. “Hi,” I say, opening my eyes to the concerned ones of my mates and lovers.
Brae reaches for my hand, and I let him take it, savoring the warm honey sweetness of the power that he adds, testing and probing to see if I’m whole. He must have carried me home. His voice is soft when he speaks. “Are you all right?”
I know already that that’s a complicated question and that I do not have the answer. “I’m not hurt,” I say.
“Will you tell us what happened?” Behind me, Verys’s voice is rich and soothing, and there’s no reason that they shouldn’t know. And so I tell them. I start at the beginning and tell them everything. They’re completely wrapped up in my words. Even Aeric, who’s standing away from the rest of us against the wall. I can feel the intensity of his gaze from here.
As I’m speaking the words out loud, it doesn’t seem real. How can this be possible? My logical brain tells me that Gods and Goddesses and power of this magnitude can’t possibly exist. And yet magic exists. I’ve always had that inside me, and if that extraordinary thing can be real, so can this. I didn’t doubt the story of Cerys when they told it to me, and I don’t doubt it now. It just feels like so much. Too much.
Not one of them laughs or questions my sanity as I relay the goddess’s cryptic words. Or her benediction with her power. “I don’t understand,” I say, when I reach the end, turning my face into the pillows. “I only have more questions. What am I supposed to do?”
No one says anything, and I can feel the
fact that they’re looking between each other. They don’t have any more insight than I do. I can only grasp the fact that she gave me power. I don’t know if it’s to kill, to protect myself, or something else. But she thinks that I will need it, and that’s fucking terrifying.
The bright center of that power shudders inside me, and I shiver.
“Nothing has changed,” Aeric says. “We are going to protect you, and figure out what Ariana wants—why she wants you. It seems like that has to be the key, or at least a part of it.”
“It is a great gift you’ve been given,” Urien says, brushing his hand up and down my calf. “More protection than we alone can give you.”
I sit up and out of Verys’s arms. “I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but this is enough.” My voice breaks, and I hate that it does. Tears—of anger and panic—flood my eyes and the world blurs. It feels like everything that I was holding on to is slipping loose, and there wasn’t much there to begin with. “I’m so happy that I found you,” I say, voice catching in my throat. “But none of this was my choice, except for staying with you. This isn’t why I went to see her. What if I hadn’t gone? Would I still be this…conduit?” My breath is coming in gasps, and I’m dizzy, but I can’t seem to stop the words spilling out of my mouth. “I never wanted a huge life filled with magic and adventure and battle. I can’t do it. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.”
“Kari,” Kent’s voice penetrates the fog and gets me to stop repeating the only words echoing in my mind. His hand curls around my neck and he’s kneeling in front of me on the bed, face close. “Look at me.”
I am looking at him. Clear gray eyes that bring me back to the ground, firm fingers giving me an anchor. I shake my head. “I can’t do this.”
“You can,” he says. “I’ve seen you do impossible things. Including coming back to life when we thought we had lost you.”
“I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do,” I say. Every thought feels impossibly big. Infinite possibilities are in front of us, and we don’t know which direction we’re supposed to go. I don’t survive in all those paths. The men around me probably don’t all survive in all of them either. I can’t. I need to go home.
Kent pulls me close, wrapping his other hand behind my back so that I’m pressed against him. “You didn’t know what to do after the fall, but by the time I met you you had already come back from that and put yourself back together. You’re doing it again. Aeric is right. Nothing has changed. Whether or not we had been given any hints, we would have—and still will—deal with whatever comes our way however we can. We’re with you.”
I know that he’s right, I can feel it. But the itching of power under my skin is making my heart pound, and I can’t stop envisioning the hundreds of millions of ways that things could go wrong. “I need to go home,” I say. “Please, take me home.”
He searches my face, knowing that when I say ‘home,’ that I don’t mean here in this house with them. “Do you think that’s going to change anything?”
“It might,” I lie.
“Then we’ll go,” Verys says. “We’ll take you to home. You can see your friends, visit your shop.”
I’m grateful that he doesn’t say what everyone is thinking, and that I won’t actually be able to stay there, because it’s not safe. I’m still being hunted whether I like it or not. But I need to get out of here. I need to feel something remotely normal and not be in this cycle of panic and dread that seems to be sweeping through me with the pulse of that new magic.
“Okay,” I say. “Thank you.”
Kent kisses me softly, but I don’t want soft. Neither does the magic. It craves to burn and shine and breathe. I pull back and look at him, and then the rest of them. “I know that we’re figuring things out, and that it will take time. But I don’t want to think about anything right now, and I’m tired of the last time I was fucked being to save my life.”
The air around me changes, charges, and Aeric raises an eyebrow. “Are you asking us to fuck you, Kari?”
“I’m not asking.”
I’m still naked, and when he drags his eyes up and down my body, I shudder with the need that springs to life. Aeric’s voice is low and full of sinful promise as he reaches and pulls me off the bed, away from Kent and against his body. “What kind of mate would I be if you had to tell me twice?”
Up close, Aeric’s skin has marks that I’ve never had the chance to notice. Almost like tattoos, swirling marks of barely darker green roll across his chest. I want to explore them with my mouth. I want to taste them—all of them. He doesn’t give me the chance.
Aeric spins me against the wall, and I’m trapped against it, the cool stone making me shiver as he moves behind me. He is not gentle, and I do not want him to be. His foot knocks my legs apart, and the rustle of fabric before I feel his heat pressing against me. One large hand tangles in my hair, tilting my head back so I can just barely see him. He’s hard and thick behind me, teasing me with just the edge of him.
Fuck, yes. Pleasure and magic and arousal rise up in me, and he’s barely touched me. I’m wet—so wet it’s like they didn’t pin me down and pleasure me just hours ago. Will I ever have enough of the way they make me feel?
Please, Goddess, I hope not.
“Hands on the wall,” he says, tightening his fingers. And that’s all the warning I get. I brace my hands against the stone, and he plunges deep in one thrust. All my breath is gone, my eyes closed, mouth open. Yes.
Aeric’s magic floods my senses. Mint and spices and pale green coolness. But unlike before, his magic catches the new magic churning inside me. It’s not an invasion; it’s a dance. And every movement is made of pleasure. He tilts my face back further so he can take my lips, capturing my breath along with everything else, and I moan into his mouth. This is what I want.
He releases my hair just long enough to catch my wrists where they’re braced against the wall and hold them there. I’m pinned by his hands and his body as he plunges deeper, every stroke a beautiful friction that’s making me shake. The way he’s holding my arms still reminds me of that night with him in the Crystal Court, when he held my wrists much like this and pleasured me until I could not breathe for the sensation.
I’m almost there again.
Aeric is entirely pressed against my back, hard muscle and feverish heat sinking into me as he drives upwards, into me again and again, sending spears of magic up into my gut. They swirl and amplify and I’m hanging onto the edge, about to go over for the first time, unable to keep silent. Telling him yes. And more. And again. Harder.
He obliges. Teeth on my neck scrape my skin while he fucks harder, hands like bands of iron on my wrists. It feels good to be taken. I’m not sick. I’m not dying. This is what I want. Just us. My mates. They belong to me just as much as I belong to them. The thought sends me over, shattering into screams and fractures of light.
I can taste his magic on my tongue, as if I’d swallowed a little piece of him. Spices like Christmas, rich and heady. He doesn’t stop, rhythm never faltering and taking me higher. And higher still. Until he thrusts so deep I rise up on my toes, head falling back on his shoulder as he comes, pouring heat into me. Still, I can’t move, trapped by his cock and his grip and his mouth on my neck.
He jerks inside me, wave after wave of heat flowing into me. And when he makes a sound so low, so feral against my skin, I nearly come again. Sagging against the wall, I lean into the fact that he’s holding me. He slips out of me, and I feel the remnants of him spill down my thighs. “I love that you’re mine,” he says, turning to face him, and before I can say that I love that too, he consumes my lips.
I kiss him back, and put everything I feel into that kiss, because I love him. I love his protective streak and confidence, and the fact that he treats me like I’m not made of glass.
More heat appears at my side, and more hands on my skin, and I’m pulled into another kiss just as fierce. Urien. I gasp into his mouth, and when I pull back I see the res
t of them looking at me. Hunger in their gazes. I shudder under the sheer force of it, and this new magic unfurls inside me, purring and reveling in the attention. It stretches like it’s waking up fully, and I don’t want that. Not now.
No. I tell the magic inside me. No. This is for me. Please.
Without warning, I find myself reaching out to the Goddess. I know she’s real, and I know that she’s listening. I don’t know what to do with this power. Not yet. But I want the magic that’s between me and my mates. Something that’s ours and no one else’s.
That fierce glow inside soothes and settles, and pulses with what I feel like might be an understanding so deep that it brings fresh tears to my eyes. And like a miracle, it fades into nothing but a faint shimmer. Dormant. There when I will need it but not pressing against the edges of my skin. It’s like a sudden return to myself, and I nearly collapse in relief.
Wrapping my arms around Urien’s neck, I pull him close and kiss him fiercely. Yes. More.
A second set of lips grazes my spine between my shoulder blades, and a third on my shoulder. Urien guides me back to my bed, and we collapse together onto it. He rolls me on top of him with ease, my back against his chest as he fits himself against me and thrusts in, his clear magic blowing through me like a cold wind of first frost and nightfall. He curls his arms around me, squeezing my breasts, teasing my nipples until they’re so hard that they ache.
Urien thrusts into me with smooth, steady strokes. I’m already so sensitive that I’m half-way there, and the hands on my ankles startle me. Brae is over us, pulling my legs apart, watching Urien fuck me with dark eyes and a cock so hard that I want him too. Oh Goddess, is that a thing? I’ve never had more than one of them inside me at once. Never even thought of the possibility. But the thought now, the image that appears in my mind of being crushed between them with two hard cocks fucking me sends a rush of wetness to my pussy, and Urien slips deeper into me with a whispered curse.
Euphoria: A Reverse Harem Fantasy Romance (The Carnal Court Book 2) Page 5