by A. K. Koonce
I’m too confused by his words to move but the hands gripping my hips turn me without waiting. The two men are in sync and together in what they’re doing, but my head is so hazy with want that I feel lost between their demanding bodies.
Malek kisses my skin in a worshiping way, taking his time nipping across my smooth stomach, my breasts, my throat. His coarse beard tingles with conflicting sensations as his soft lips brush over my flesh just before teeth sink in. Over and over and over again he does that. Then he stands before me, a wicked shine in his eyes that seem more silver than brown in the moonlight.
There’s affection in his half smile but it’s an animalistic amusement. His gaze flicks to the demon standing behind me for a single second, a silent communication like they’ve known each other for a lifetime.
“Come here, mi corazón,” Malek rasps, big hands sliding around my thighs. He lifts me, bringing my center fully against him, my legs wrapping around taunt, lean hips. But he never lowers his jeans. Roughly he tilts my jaw and his hot mouth caresses my skin there, he distracts me, kissing and sucking and biting until my nails dig into his shoulders.
It’s all a building sensation that’s pounding through my chest.
And it only intensifies when steady hands cup me from behind. Phoenix squeezes my curves, thumbs teasing my ass as he kisses my spine just between my wings. It’s the slowest drawn out touch. Something cold coats his fingers as he slides deeper. My back stiffens at first but the two of them never stop their distracting kisses, their caressing touches, their consuming lust.
I moan when his wrist rolls, thrusting into me with steady pounding strokes, touching me where he’s never touched me before.
Malek’s chest shifts against me, the fullness filling me slips away and then Phoenix is holding me, my back to his front. Smooth skin brushes against me from behind. My hand lifts behind me and I shove my fingers tightly through his fiery hair just as he lines himself up. Ever so slowly he sinks in. His groan reverberates through my chest as my eyes close and I shift against his thick cock. Tighter his fingers dig into the underside of my thighs and he holds me firmly against him, filling me completely. My head throws back against his shoulder, my spine arched against his chest.
A mixture of pain and pleasure coils through me but it washes into a pricking anticipation as Malek’s warm palms hook around my thighs as well. He opens my legs even wider as they share me between them like an offering of desire. Hooded dark eyes watch me intently and I can’t wait any longer. My free hand grips Malek’s long hair and I slam his lips to mine. I pull at their hair in a demanding way. I need them. I need them to fill every lost emptiness I’ve carried around with me for the last few weeks.
Malek thrusts into my wetness in one fluid motion, filling me, making myself and Phoenix gasp into the breathy silence. Tension is replaced with soaring need within me as their hips start to work in time with one another. Their nails bite into my skin, hands pushing and pulling at my thighs as they thrust deeper and deeper. Ragged breaths part my lips with cries of reckless want that shake through my body with every pounding thrust they give. I feel them move along one another through the thin walls of my sex and I know they feel it too with every growl and groan they kiss against my skin.
I never could have imagined the brooding wolf and the cruel demon would ever share anything between them.
Especially me.
Especially my crashing orgasm.
A release like I’ve never felt trembles through every inch of my body. My sex clenches and when I cry out, it triggers them into a frenzy. Harder and faster they fuck me, building more and more untamed desire within my core. Sharp nails and sharper teeth bite into my skin. Power and lust claw through me until it’s all too much. It lashes, it throbs, it rises.
And then it crashes.
My fists pull at their hair, my body writhing between their slick chests. Malek’s release seems to have came long before mine but he never pulls away from me. He cradles me in his arms and watches me come undone.
Phoenix slams into me once more from behind and then stills. His groan and ragged breaths coat my spine just before his head rests there.
That was the most incredible orgasm I’ve ever had. I have no idea how to put that into words other than gasping for a breath I can’t seem to reach.
Phoenix, however, seems to know exactly what to say despite his breathless tone.
“I fucking should have made friends with you years ago, mutt.”
Twenty
Syko
On whisper quiet steps, I stalk the vampire. What’s strange is he too trails stealthily through the forest leading to the back campus of Academy of Six. At the thin edge of the treeline, he halts there in the shadows. On slow steps I make my way to his side but he never glances over at me. The shine of his pale eyes glisten with a white appearance, like a predator peering through the moonlight at its prey.
“Someone was watching us,” he finally says in a low ominous tone.
Now I’m the one searching the empty school grounds for any shadow that might feel out of place.
“Who?”
Saint shakes his head. “I didn’t see them but I can smell them.”
He breathes in deeper through his nose, every hard muscle in his body flexes as he inhales what once stood where we’re standing now.
“Smokey. Dark. Deadly,” he lists.
He can fucking smell all that?
“Which way did they go?” I look around at the several towering buildings of Academy of Six. He doesn’t glance that way at all though.
He points in the opposite direction. To the faculty building resting alone in the back.
Shit. Here we go again.
I don’t have to flirt with Professor Henn this time. Thank fuck. Saint breaks the front doorknob with a harsh twist of his wrist. We pause, shoulders stiffening for an alarm that never sounds.
On soundless steps we slip inside. Saint’s head tilts to one side, and he looks up the stairwell to the right. Cool fingers wrap around my wrist, halting me in place.
“If guards come, ditch me. I can get out of trouble. You can’t.”
My eyes narrow on him and his serious features.
Ditch him. Bullshit.
I harshly shrug off his grip as well as his warning. “I can take care of myself, thanks.”
“Just because you can take care of yourself doesn’t stop me from also taking care of you.” He smirks at me as we climb the dark stairs.
It’s odd thinking about someone looking after me. Worrying about me. Maybe because no one has in a long time. It’s always been me and Kayos. Me looking after her, protecting her. It’s nice to be on the other end of it.
We don’t stop walking until Saint’s scent leads us to the fifth floor. Specifically room 606 B.
Shade’s apartment.
Again.
Shit.
Saint twists the handle casually, as if this is now his home too. Honestly, we’ve been here two too many times in my opinion, but it seems I’m the only one who feels this way.
When he strides inside to confront the spying professor, the living room is empty.
That burnt smoky smell he described assaults my nose the moment I walk fully into the apartment. A single armchair and a coffee table sits vacant in the corner where we met the Professor last. I don’t know why I expect him to be there waiting for us now. Maybe because Shade just gives me that vibe that he always knows what people will do before they do it.
Like a dangerously curious cat Saint prowls farther, into the kitchenette and past the small two person dining table. My nerves itch with every step he takes deeper and deeper into the dark apartment.
Voices shake into the darkness, aggressive and deadly. The slamming of my heart stops me in my tracks.
“I told you to alert me if she came to you!” a voice growls.
I take a step back from the open door leading to a dimly lit room but Saint’s such a sadistic fuck he takes a quiet step closer.
>
Fuck!
My jaw grinds and I sneak closer, my palm gripping around his bicep and squeezing there to get him to pull away from the argument that’s blazing through that room right now.
But he ignores my silent pleas.
The thin wall between the kitchen and the room shakes violently. My pulse is like clawing nails raking through my veins.
“Saint,” I hiss as loud as I dare, barely a breath at all.
“Do not insult my power by treating me as if my vacancy is permanent, Azazel.” The speaker’s tone is filled with disgusted anger but it is without a doubt Shade’s.
“Yes, Master,” a humming, unknown voice says with shame.
“Leave. And when I see you tomorrow, I expect better this time.”
Footsteps sound immediately.
Shit.
I tug on Saint’s arm once more but his head’s still tilted as if he wants to listen fully to their warm goodbye.
My palms grip his hips and he doesn’t even make a sound when I fling the man over my shoulder and haul ass out of the apartment, down the stairs, and out the fucking door before I even take a full breath.
Only when enough trees surround us do I toss his careless ass to the dirt. He lands like a leaf floating with ease to the ground. That shitty smile is still a permanent feature on his perfect face.
How is he this calm all the time?
“If you wanted to get me alone, you could have just said so. No need to manhandle me, Syko.” His long fingers dust off his shirt sleeve, all the while my heart’s hammering a mile a minute.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
His smile softens but it still clings to his lips. “Anxiety is something of the heart. And my heart is dead.”
That’s it. That’s all he says for several passing seconds.
And then it slowly makes sense.
“It’s hard to feel fear when your pulse doesn’t jump. Terror is there. It is. I’m not an idiot, Syko. It just takes me a bit longer to find the fear within me. But it also allows me to think clearly during times like that. And Professor Shade, he’s one shady motherfucker.”
He pushes off the dry ground, coming up chest to chest with me, my rapid breaths making my body brush against his. It calms me a little, being close to someone so clear-headed.
“We have to get back. We need to tell the others. I don’t know what he was talking about but it involves us. That demon was watching us.”
It was definitely a demon. It smelled like it once I was close enough.
Then more stress slips in as I think about what he just said.
My fingers grip his wrist, stopping him all over again. “Not tonight. Tomorrow. Tonight—tonight is Izzy’s night.”
“You can’t be serious,” Saint hisses.
“We’re dicks all the time. Bickering and mocking and flat out fighting all the time. Just—just give her one night to show we can do this as a... five-some.” My lip curls on that term. Surely there’s a better name for a five way relationship, right?
Saint’s crystal like eyes narrow on me as his head shakes back and forth. But then he gives in. “Fine. But I’m waking everyone up at dawn to get this shit out there.”
“Fine.” I nod.
His chin tips up to me with mock confrontation. “Fine,” he says as if he absolutely has to have the last word.
With one step my body is fully against his. Tension snaps through him. My lips almost brush his. The heat of our chest melding blazes with zapping warmth.
But I never fully kiss him.
“Fine,” I whisper.
And then I walk away, nothing but stunned silence trailing me.
And then he curses and follows after me.
Twenty-One
Izara
The night is perfect and the five of us stay up late into the night.
Then we fall into a heap of tired limbs and into a steady sleep. Dreams claim me for their own, images that quickly become nightmares.
I haven’t had bad dreams since I came back. Not really. Just a clash of memories with reality when I hear snarls or loud, triggering sounds.
PTSD, I’ve heard people call it. I don’t want to say I have that, but I have to admit that when I see a winged Prod shoot down from the sky, my mind flashes back to those dinosaur demons with eyes on their tongues and I steel myself for an attack that never comes and feel absolutely useless afterwards when I never feel the stirring of power within me to begin with. Sometimes the harsh screeches of fighting and shifters remind me of the ice cold hands that shredded my wings. Other times, the stomping footsteps of the Academy’s trolls remind me of my father’s.
Most times, I feel like my father is watching me; or at least, his lackeys are, waiting for the perfect moment to whisk me back and chain me to that hell throne.
The only reprieve I have from the fear and yes, even anticipation, are in my dreams.
Not tonight.
Tonight, the nightmares invade. In them, I’m in the sixth circle and Osmodeus is forcing the fast flickering images of me slaughtering my loved ones in cold blood. It’s like a fucking movie, and I can’t seem to look away.
The power of my Prod is uncontrollable once more. It’s consuming and I watch and smile as it unleashes a fiery blade straight towards Syko’s throat. His neck arches back to reveal the cruel slashing line curving up his neck, like the sick parody of a smile. Blood pours from the wound and he can’t heal himself fast enough because my power is destructive. Chaotic. Deadly.
Syko falls to his knees, and he dies.
“No!” I reach for him, but the scene changes all over again. Osmodeus is over me, laughing as those flickering shadows he has for fingers reach out to choke me. They feel solid as they grasp for me hard enough to leave bruises. Those pitless eyes stare at me, seem to cleave straight through to my soul. They redden in the way they did when I shoved the force of my power straight into his body. Liquid fire pours out of his eyes and that wide mouth opens in a disturbing smile.
“You thought you could kill me?” he demands in a booming, threatening voice.
“Let me go!”
“Now, you’ll spend eternity killing all whom you love.”
“No! No! No!”
“Izara!”
I shoot up in the dirt, my chest heaving, my mouth opening in gasps that can’t seem to take in any bit of air my lungs desperately need. No. Nonononono—
Blood. My vision is clouded with it, it taints my hands, a stain on my soul. Not just Adam’s, but theirs too. I killed them. I killed them each time and couldn’t stop myself. And my Prod? She enjoys slicing them open and no matter how hard I fight against her, she doesn’t relent.
Not even for the men I love.
“Izara! Breathe. You’re okay,” the soothing voice whispers.
The haze along my vision fades slowly at the sound of Syko’s voice. Cool hands press against my skin, a touch I recognize as Saint’s, but it carries with it the traces of worry.
No. Nonono.
“Breathe.” It’s a firm command that my body obeys. Syko’s voice is like a tether that pulls me back to reality, and when it does, it’s to taste the salt of my own tears sticky against my lips. As if I’ve been crying for hours.
I suck in a grateful heave of air. In. Out. In. Out. I focus on this task alone until my breathing has become a steady thing, even while my heart thunders dangerously against my ribcage.
Malek and Phoenix sleep on the other side of the campfire. Syko and Saint were still awake and oddly alert when I fell asleep. I can’t help but wonder if they’ve slept at all.
The flickering fingers of the flames before me drag me back to reality, but the memories are still prominent in my mind. The blood, Syko’s blood…
My head snaps to the side where he’s sitting up, staring at me with an infinite amount of worry in the depths of his gaze. Behind me, I feel Saint, his hands a steady beacon on my bare hips.
My fingers tremble as I reach for Syko, as I touch hi
s neck where the gaping hole I caused had been. An illusion, it had been an illusion. But even those words don’t bring me comfort. They bring fury and they bring heartbreak. If only I had the power to rid myself of nightmares like I rid the sixth circle of its lord.
“An illusion…” I whisper, choking the words out. But it didn’t feel like an illusion. It was real. That’s the most disturbing part, I think. That my Prod enjoyed the torture, the kill.
But I am not that cruel, and it was just a dream. But I have to make sure. I have to know.
My tremble fingers settle on Syko’s stomach. His smooth muscles jump beneath my touch. He’s here. He’s warm and comforting.
And looking at me with a mixture of concern and lust in his sleepy eyes.
Maybe he did rest after all. And what was my nephilim dreaming of?
My heart calms with a new sensation pulsing through me. My fingers slide down lower. My palm slips beneath his thin boxers and my finger wrap slowly around Syko’s cock. With a few rolls of my wrist, I pump him up and down and he hardens in my hand almost instantaneously. His hips jerk in an unconscious move that I relish in, a shaky sigh pushing past my lips.
“Izara…” His voice is hoarse. He wants to talk about my nightmares, about my tears. I don’t know if I can even bring myself to relive them. I can’t. I can’t.
I push my other hand against his chest, pushing him down to the earth and in a quick move, I straddle his body. My knees press into the dirt on either side of him, my slick heat hovering inches above him.
His palms go to my hips, steady, his fingers dig into my skin and I feel the slightest scrape of his nails, the only evidence that he’s losing control. There’s a war of emotions on his face that I feel within myself too. To give in to his desire, or to stop me and ask me what’s wrong.
I don’t give him a chance to choose.
With my hand gripping him tightly at the hilt, I guide him towards my entrance and slowly ease my way down onto him. I groan as he fills me, palms bracing my weight against his chest.
I need this. This realness to chase away the most traumatizing part of hell. That experience should be reason alone to keep me from wanting to go back, and there’s a war within myself as well. The thirst for power and the violence against me.