Quickening, Volume 2

by Amy Lane

  Nicky whimpered. I watched, fascinated and dripping as he remembered to lock the door and then stripped off his clothes while we looked on. Nicky loved his clothes—he was always meticulous. He folded his pants and put his underwear in the hamper, then hung up the shirt, which was good for another wear. Then he sat in the stuffed chair he’d just vacated, cock bobbing, and spread his legs so they hung over either side of the chair.

  “Like this?” he asked huskily, the first words spoken since Bracken had given his order.

  “Yes,” Brack said, seemingly unmoved. He checked my bowl—which was, shockingly enough, empty—and then set it on the end table, taking the damp cloth that had come with the dinner and wiping my mouth, chin, and hands as I stared at Nicky.

  Boys really did know how to work their own equipment.

  His hand slid up, around the head, then down. He wasn’t circumcised, so he played with his foreskin—up and over, up and over, up and—

  “Slower,” Bracken told him. “You don’t get to come until I’m ready.”

  Nicky whined. “But you’re still dressed!”

  “Yes, yes I am.”

  Gently he stood and helped me find my feet. I was wearing a loose, flowy skirt and a long-sleeved peasant blouse, because they were comfortable and cotton and didn’t feel too condescending to my humongous body. Bracken crouched at my feet and reached up, palming my thighs and spreading my legs gently, sliding his fingers into all the teasing places in my body before he slid my pregnancy panties down to my bare feet.

  “You don’t want me naked?” I teased, threading my fingers through his hair.

  His smile—so wicked. “I know this does it for you,” he told me. And yeah, I liked being naked under a skirt. So sue me. Then he reached up and unhooked my bra in one movement, deftly pulling it out of one sleeve and then the other.

  I let out a slow breath, my body aroused by something as simple as taking off my underclothes—and watching Nicky stroking himself for our pleasure.

  Bracken stood up, being sure to palm my thighs, spread my bottom and knead, and then drop my skirt and move his hands to my midriff and my still-tender breasts. I kissed him ravenously, greedily, and he pushed me to the bed, pulling down the covers and sitting me down, then shoving me gently until I was propped up on my elbows.

  “Watch him,” he ordered. Then he pushed my knees apart and put his head under my skirt.

  Oh, it felt so wanton, so good, to be a sexual being again. I wasn’t going to get fucked sideways or banged like a screen door in a hurricane—but Bracken’s tongue, the flat of it, was dragging slowly from my backside to my oh-so-sensitive bundle of nerves, and I was heading for a short, sharp, glorious climax.

  I caught Nicky’s eyes, his hand on his midsized cock, his own legs splayed out like mine were, and we both groaned in tandem. I watched the reddened end of his member grow shiny and slick as he rubbed his thumb across the head and then sucked the liquid off.

  I screamed.

  The orgasm rocked me from core to tingling breasts, and I gushed my own come on Bracken’s tongue. He kept licking until I grabbed his head and pulled him out, still shaking with orgasm. Another climax and I might lose control of my magic—and control of what it could do to my body.

  Bracken grinned at me wolfishly, his face slick and dripping. I parted my lips, expecting a kiss, but he shook his head. “Nope,” he said playfully, and oh, it had been so long—so very long—since anybody in this room had played like that in bed.

  Nicky was panting slightly, his eyes closed, wanton, and Bracken turned from servicing me and kneewalked to service Nicky.

  I moaned, the sound soft and unnoticed in the sex-saturated room. Bracken started by parting Nicky farther and performing the same service for Nicky’s exposed parts that he’d just performed for me.

  My sex—swollen, dripping, still sensitized—shivered, and then again when Bracken very carefully took one of Nick’s balls in his mouth.

  “Brack, I’m gonna….”

  “Am I fucking you, little man?” Bracken asked. Again, it was spooky how unmoved he sounded.

  “No….” Nicky’s voice shook.

  “Then you won’t. Now stay right there.”

  Bracken stood and stripped. Jeans, sweatshirt, all of it thrown in a pile near the hamper, because clothes had never been as important to him as sex, thank you Goddess.

  When he returned to Nicky, still splayed on the chair, he went to his knees again but didn’t squat.

  And I got a good look at his manhood for the first time in forever—huge, stiff, long, and demanding.

  “Bracken?” I asked throatily, both shy and needy. “Can I… can I taste that?”

  He looked at me over his shoulder, then stood and scooped Nicky up with his hands under Nicky’s ass, legs straddling his waist.

  Nicky let go of himself long enough to hold on until Bracken dropped him in the middle of the bed without ceremony.

  “Same position,” he said. Nicky let out a groan.

  “God, you’re killing me—”

  “Legs spread, little man. I do need to fuck you.”

  “Weak,” Nicky whimpered. “Just making me fucking weak.”

  I smiled at him, lewd, open, ready. Then Bracken approached me, staff level with my mouth, and I opened my mouth to devour him. Oh… oh, his taste, his girth stretching my lips, his length….

  He didn’t use me, which was a shame, but he thrust gently in and out, my spit and his precome making him slick and ready. He pulled away reluctantly and kissed me openmouthed, carnal and needy as hell, and I returned it. Ah… oh, the taste of sex, of juices and musk on a lover’s lips. I needed these things. I could actually feel my body growing stronger, more accepting of the twins, more powerful, from the repletion of orgasm and the joy of being touched and given pleasure.

  He moved away too soon and positioned himself to invade Nicky. His precome was so thick, so slick and lovely, I knew Nicky felt no pain at all. Slowly, gently, Bracken thrust his way into Nicky’s resisting body. When he was completely seated, they both groaned.

  I wanted to be part of it.

  I leaned over and kissed Nicky, openmouthed, giving him the same taste of carnality Bracken had given me. Nicky knotted his hands in my hair and let me, while I reached down and grasped him in a slickened, firm stroke designed to bring him off at the same pace Bracken was setting.

  I hadn’t counted on the fact that he was overstimulated as hell. That’s all it took—a few thrusts from Bracken, a few pumps from me, and he was shouting into my mouth and spilling over my hand, hot and sticky and male.

  “You’re not done yet,” Bracken threatened. Then I had to move my hand, because Bracken was a man on one single mission.

  He fucked Nicky blind. Fucked him hard, fucked him fast, fucked him unmercifully. Nicky grunted, shouted, begged, all of it for more—more of Bracken in his body, more of his spend sliding down my hand.

  I stroked him until my shoulder got tired, and then I rested my head on his chest and contented myself with licking his nipple until he whined through one more giant come. This was the big one, I guess, the big kahuna, because it rocked him up off the bed, still impaled by Bracken, and he squeezed so hard that Bracken shouted, convulsed, and collapsed on top of Nicky and me while he was still pumping into Nick’s smaller body like a man possessed.

  I pulled away slightly, resting my head on my upper arm and shivering in repletion, clenching my thighs together to stave off the aftershocks.

  For a moment the only thing in the room was our heavy breathing. Then Nicky gasped, “I feel cheated.”

  “Cheated?” Bracken asked, clearly outraged. “How was that cheating?”

  “I really did want to sit on your cock.”

  Bracken chuckled and rolled off him, leaving Nicky in the middle with the two of us linking hands over Nicky’s limp body.

  “Next time,” he mumbled. “Next time. I promise.”

  I shivered again—because, yeah, no underwear cre
ated a draft—and Bracken got us both out of bed and cleaned up and into sleep shirts. Then we all settled in for a cuddle, even though it was still early out in the front room. I was exhausted, and for once I was happy tired, and so was Bracken. Neither of us was going to break the new good thing by trying to milk one more hour out of our night. Before I fell asleep, I realized that the sprites had come to clean up our dinner, but I was beyond complaining. Thank you tiny winged people/creatures for cleaning up after us. I may have to expect you to do a lot more than that, but not right now. Not when I’m happy and replete and two of my lovers are close to my heart and the third one is working on getting home soon.

  Right now, I’ve got peace.

  SOMEONE WAS calling my name.

  I woke up suddenly, kicking at the covers on the bed, restless as fuck. Bracken was sitting up next to me, e-reader lit up but eyes focused on something else entirely.

  “Do you hear that?” I whispered.

  He looked at me, chewing on his lower lip. His elongated ears were practically twitching.

  “Cory. Corinne. Corinne Carol-Anne. Lady Cory. Corinne Carol-Anne Kirkpatrick.”

  “Stop that!” I muttered, and he jerked his attention to me like a laser.

  “Stop what?”

  “Someone’s calling my name,” I said, swatting at my ears. “But they’re doing it wrong.”

  Bracken let out a long, slow breath.

  “Where’s Nicky?” I asked, somewhat suspiciously. We’d gone to sleep all sexed out and happy. Why wouldn’t Nicky be in bed with us?

  With a frown I looked into the closet where he’d been keeping his clothes. The shirt he’d hung there when he’d undressed for Bracken—that shirt was gone.

  So were his carefully folded jeans.

  “I don’t know,” Bracken said, clearly as alarmed as I was. “But that’s not the real question. The real question is, why is it so quiet?”

  I closed my eyes for a moment and listened past the annoying buzzing in my ears. The hill was never completely quiet. Thousands of people lived there—it was an apartment complex with inhabitants who had a lot of sex. There were usually voices in the common rooms, and there were two on our level, or people in their own rooms watching television or getting off or arguing or….

  “It’s not empty,” I said, pondering. “Just… half-capacity? A third?” Okay, folks, someone had to have answers. “Grace?” No answer. I sat up in bed abruptly. Fuck. Grace wasn’t answering. How could she not answer? I was her fucking queen!

  “Corinne Carol-Anne Kirkpatrick, Queen of the Vampires—”

  “Stop that!” I snarled it this time.

  “Marcus? Phillip?”

  “Not so loud! We’re almost there!”

  I opened my eyes and looked at Bracken, tugging on his sleeve. “I’m gonna fuckin’ kill them,” I said. His look of outrage told me all I needed to know about having secrets kept from you.

  “They went without me?” he gasped, sounding hurt and outraged at once.

  “Yes, Daddy Bracken, they went without you. And….” I looked at the closet where Nicky’s clothes were. “And Nicky sexed us both up so we’d sleep through it!”

  Bracken blinked. “That little fucker….”

  “Corinne Carol-Anne Kirkpatrick, Vampire Queen, lover….”

  Oh no. Oh, no. “Shh!” I hissed in annoyance, even though I didn’t think it was going to stop.

  “I didn’t say any—”

  I held a hand up to his mouth.

  “I’m being quiet. No words.” Marcus and Phillip both turned part of their attention to me. I put a picture of Grace in their minds. What I got back was an image of Grace and Arturo watching quietly as shape-shifters and vampires filed quietly out of the shape-shifter common room, all of them heading down to the garage.

  Grace was in the hill, but she wasn’t answering.

  “Bracken,” I said quietly, “you and Arturo link a lot. See if you can find him.”

  Bracken closed his eyes, then opened them and shook his head.

  “Corinne Carol-Anne Kirkpatrick, Vampire Queen, lover of two men, wanton slut, student….”

  I didn’t shush the voice this time. It was getting shit wrong. I didn’t correct it in my head either—that shit was important. The elves believed that names held power over us, and I believed it too. This voice thought it knew all my names, but the more it got wrong, the clearer-minded I could be.

  “You and me,” I said, voice so low Bracken had to lower his head to hear. “We’re going to try really hard to connect with Green in a minute. Then I’m going to connect with the vamps and see where we are.”

  “What’s—”

  I held up a finger, this time just mouthing my words. “She is in the hill.”

  Bracken’s look of fear and revulsion was reassuring. I was literally scared pissless, and that hadn’t happened in seven goddamned months.

  Nicky: Not a Moon

  LEAVING THEM was hard.

  I can’t lie—I almost backed out. Teague gave me the option—called me Daddy, told me seriously that I was part of the expectant family and should stay home. And seeing them sleeping—truly sleeping—for the first time since Green had left for his business trip, I almost did. Teague was right. I was an expectant daddy.

  Two nights before, I had gone down on my knees in front of Bracken while she watched and approved. After Bracken spent in my mouth, he’d pulled me up and kissed me, then left us both doing homework while he made his nightly rounds and touched bases with everyone Green and Cory usually spoke to on a normal night. He’d been so tense, so worried—giving him my sex, my mouth, my attention, felt as natural, as necessary, as it felt with Green or Cory or even with Eric during our intense whirlwind weekends together. Seeing Bracken’s face relax, even for that moment after climax, was all the reward I needed, all the proof I ever would need that I was family.

  After he’d left, I spent an hour sitting next to Cory and reading my history homework, my hand resting gently on her stomach. The twins were dancing up a storm.

  At one point, after what probably felt like a barrel roll to her, I looked up and saw her eyes, sober and bright, resting on my face.

  “They like you,” she said, her voice whisky rough. “They only do that for Bracken and Green.”

  My smile—I felt it to my gut, to my groin, even to the place where my shape-shifting rested.

  When we’d first bonded, I’d told her she would need to have my baby. With my hand on her stomach, Bracken’s seed still on my tongue, I knew she already had. These babies were mine. She wouldn’t need to have a baby with my DNA to answer the call in my blood. Maybe that was just a myth, a legend, a boogeyman that all Avians believed. I’d tell Green that later, but right now?

  Right now I knew these babies were mine. They had answered that thirst in my blood, and there would not need to be another child.

  I thought Cory might want one anyway. She’d reached out and touched my cheek with her fingertips, as gentle and tender as any man might want from a lover.

  When I’d first met her, I thought she would be the only lover I’d want or need—but now, now I knew I wouldn’t have been happy with only a woman in my bed for “as long as we both shall live.” But she loved me for who I was, for what I desired, and I wouldn’t trade being her husband for all the cocks in Green’s hill.

  But then, thanks to Bracken and Green, I wouldn’t have to.

  So when Teague gave me the way out, the daddy escape, I could have taken it.

  But why?

  Why would I not go fight, when I was aching to fight back? When Cory was suffering and Green and Bracken were worried, and all the people I loved were in danger from this woman and her frightening tainted werewolves?

  No. If the shape-shifters and vampires were going to bring the fight to the bad guy, my family had to be represented. I was there to represent.

  They didn’t stir as I slid out of bed and got dressed, and I thought that was pretty telling. Cory had been
sleeping in hard little spurts, probably because she had to get up so often, but she’d been restless too. Without our little adventure—and I never got tired of those—she might have caught me.

  And Bracken—whom, it seemed, almost never slept, especially when Green wasn’t there—definitely would have.

  But I’d done my job and tuckered them out, and I was free to join the stream of people walking quietly down the hallway from the first-level bedrooms to the staircase. There was also a back stair from the darkling, and I’m sure there was a river there too.

  “Not everybody,” Teague had warned, looking Arturo and Grace in the eye. He’d been planning this for a week—had sent out vampire scouts at night, telling them what to look for this time—and yes, we’d discovered the grim little chapel. The outside had been Tuff Shed, of all things, but vampires are pretty sensitive about blood and bone. They’d definitely been sensitive about this.

  “It smells… like the opposite of Lady Cory,” Marcus had said, shuddering when he’d returned. “Cory… she smells like flowers, and she tastes like lilies and lavender, which is gross, but….” He and Phillip locked eyes. We got it already. Whatever feelings Cory’s blood evoked, they were powerful and personal. She’d blooded a couple of vampires each night, and the experience had consistently knocked them into euphoria until their next rising.

  It had also made them stronger, faster, more powerful, but not even Grace had told Cory that.

  “She’d feed us more, or hell, probably get knocked up more, if it meant she could keep us strong.” Grace had been mumbling it to Arturo one night, but I’d heard her and agreed. We didn’t need Cory pregnant again, or weaker in this pregnancy than she already was.

  What we needed was our enemy gone. What we needed was some breathing room.

  Teague’s plan to give us that was simple.

  “The way I figure it, Cory’s shields send the enemy to sleep, right? Well, that’s great. The shields are up, so—”

  “The shields aren’t up,” Arturo said grimly.