by D
“Do not say a word.” Marina held up one hand as she stared down at them. “Has it not occurred to either of you, that perhaps I sincerely do not wish this joining?” She asked them. “What rights have they, or even the two of you, to force a choice that I am not in agreement with?”
“It won’t be our decision, Marina,” Serena reminded her gently. “It will be Mother’s.”
“Based on your advice, I’m certain,” Marina stated. “How will you feel Serena, when your own time comes? When Mother forces this choice on you?”
Serena shrugged her slender shoulders gracefully. “My position is different. No man can petition anyone for a joining with me, except me. As heir to the throne, it is my choice alone. As third in the hierarchy of the throne, Marina, the rules are different.”
“I can see the fairness in that one,” Marina snarled sarcastically. “As heir, you are of course better than the rest of us.”
“You’re fighting us because you cannot fight the situation,” Serena pointed out aloofly. “I understand your anger, but I fear it will do you little good. As Brianna has assured myself and Mother, the truth of the Joining can only be found in experiencing it. I understand your fears, and I ache for them, Marina, but I feel you are doing yourself and the Sashtain wizards a disservice.”
“And I feel you are letting your coronation as heir go to your head,” Marina grunted. “That crown must go sister dear, its cramping your brain.”
Brianna attempted to stifle her laughter, even as Serena’s lips lifted in a wry smile.
“Perhaps not my brain, but it does weigh on my shoulders,” she finally sighed. “I still say your fears are unfounded.”
“It is not the fear of Joining that drives me from them,” she finally snapped. “I am not a child to be coddled and protected from the world your highness. I have decided my future for myself, it does not include arrogant, bossy Wizard Twins. Call them off or I may do something dire.”
“I was insane to ever agree to this plot you and the others hatched up,” Serena moaned then. “Marina, your destiny is not that of a female warrior. Your destiny is to sit on your own throne, overseeing Cauldaran lands. The Sashtain twins are one of the three highest rulers in Cauldaran. They are part of the Council of Power and one of the three Royal sets of that land. You cannot refuse them.”
“Of course I can.” Marina narrowed her eyes at her sister. “It’s quite easy, Serena, I merely say no.”
“Or so I thought,” Brianna snickered. “Trust me sister, that does not work.”
“And that is not the point.” Serena rose from the water then, graceful, royal, even nude and stepped from the pool as she pulled her own bath sheet from the shelf and wrapped it around her. “The Magick of Sentmar is not indestructible, Marina. We are the most powerful of the Covenani. The Sashtain Twins are of the most powerful of the Cauldaran. Refusing out of stubbornness is all right and well, but there is much more at stake here.”
“Then you Join with them,” Marina suggested sweetly, ignoring the flare of denial that rose in her chest.
“My Consorts have already been chosen,” Serena snapped in reply. “Do you think you are the only one to be bound into a relationship you are not certain is right for you, sister? You go to rule over a land, to become more than you are now, while I will step down in power and in reverence when I accept the Joining chosen for me. Do not dare to decide that I have somehow cosigned you to a fate that I would not accept myself.”
Silence filled the chamber then. Marina watched as her sister finally sighed wearily and sat down on the bench beside her as Brianna moved from the pool.
“It is not fear that denies the Sashtain Twins,” Marina said then, staring into the cleansing, healing pools and seeing more than just the waters there. She saw them, three sisters, their reflections moving within the soft flow of water. “It is much more and yet much less. I will not Join against my will, be it with Wizard Twins, or with a male of our own land. I will not accept that I cannot make my own choice.”
As children they had always banded together, and as they grew, they had not changed. Serena had always been their staunchest ally, and they had backed their sister at all times. Marina could remember no time before this, that she had refused the woman she knew would one day be her queen.
“And this is why Caise and Kai’el have not demanded the Joining as of yet,” Brianna spoke then, her voice a whisper of compassion. “They do not want you under duress, Marina. But they will not give up either. As I learned, fighting it brings only more fear and greater anxiety. You were not suggested as Consort to these men, because of your position or any power you may wield. The Wizard Sentinel’s came to the them, and as with all royalty, decreed the alliance they say in the crystal fountains. You may fight all you wish, but you cannot deny what the gods themselves have arranged.”
“The gods decreed nothing to me.” Marina jumped to her feet, facing her sisters, not so much in fury, as in determined outrage. “My permission was not asked and I refuse to bow down and calmly accept whatever those Wizards spew from their mouths. You may decide as you wish, Serena,” she said bitterly. “But I have other plans than to sit in boredom on a throne I do not covet. My destiny was decided years ago. By myself. No man, nor Wizard has the right to steal it from me.”
Before her sisters could argue, she turned and stalked from the pools, her head high, outrage shuddering through her body. She had believed her sisters to be the strongest women she had ever known. To see them so easily accepting a fate they had sworn years ago would never be theirs, infuriated her. Even worse, to know that the Wizard Twins were so easily taking over the ruling house of Covenani filled her with a bitterness she could barely breath past.
Arrogant. Bossy. Superior. Wizard Twins believed they owned the world. It was time they learned, no man nor Wizard, owned Marina Sellane.
Chapter
Marina knew she have expected that Caise or Kai’el would not let any opportunity slip by in their determination to convince her to give into the petition of Joining that she knew would eventually come. She wasn’t a fool, and though she had her reservations and her demons to quell, it wasn’t fear that they would harm her that drove her from them. It was the fear that they would possess everything she was.
She had seen Lasan and Drago in their quest for Brianna. The single minded determination had been frightening. The way they watched her, hungered for her, they way they surrounded her whenever Marina had seen them near her sister had sent shudders racing over her body. How could Brianna stand it? To be smothered with so much male attention at one time. It would make her insane.
Just as it was now.
She stood warily as Caise moved down the hall, his long, dark blond hair framing a face that any woman could admire. Wide amber eyes, thickly arched brows and lips that made her lick her own for some odd reason, every time she saw them.
“Princess.” He drew abreast of her as he spoke, his voice deep and sensual as it stroked over her body.
She gripped the bath sheet tighter over her breasts, her gaze flickering to the door of her room just ahead. If only she had been faster, she thought with a sigh.
“Good afternoon, Wizard Sashtain,” she greeted him formally, as though she were dressed in silks rather than thin cotton. “If you will excuse me, I’m just coming from my bath.”
She would have moved around him, but she had a feeling it would be a useless attempt. He was watching her with intent, amber gold eyes, eating her alive. Rather than terrifying her as it should have, she could feel the tingles of response racing over her body. Her breasts felt swollen, her nipples aching. And she didn’t like it. She didn’t want it.
“So I see,” he said carefully. “Allow me Sorceress to escort you.”
He offered his arm in an elegant, graceful move that she wouldn’t have thought a man of his muscular stature could pull off. Tentatively, she reach out, allowing her fingers to curl over his forearm, ignoring the impulse to test the muscles there.
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She was insane, she thought fatalistically as the door to her rooms loomed ever closer. Never let a Wizard Twin near a bed, was the advise she had been given by more than one Sorceress and Cauldaran female. Their sexual appetites of the Wizards Twins were supposed to be stuff of legends. Or nightmares.
“I believe I could have made it here safely on my own Wizard Sashtain,” she murmured as he opened her door with a flourish.
“Of that I am certain,” he acknowledge, his gaze meeting hers, striking sparks of heat where they shouldn’t. “Perhaps I merely enjoy your company.”
“Or perhaps it is no more than yet another maneuver to gain your way into a Joining,” she suggested with sweet mockery, casting him a glance from the corner of her eyes. “Really Sashtain, do you think all you must do is get me near a bed and I’ll fall into it as easily as your other conquests have?”
His eyes narrowed on her, the striking gold color glittering beneath his dark blond lashes.
“You know my name.” He fairly growled the words.
“Do I?” She arched her brow as her hands tightened on the top of the bath sheet. “Identical twins are oft impossible to tell apart.”
“For all but natural consorts,” he reminded her darkly. “Do you continue to deny what is so obviously the truth?”
His hand lifted then, his the backs of his fingers smoothing over her bare shoulder as he watched her intently. She feel the sparks raging across her nerve ends. How unusual. Heat moved from her shoulder to her fingers, then raced back to strike a bolt of heated sensation to her nipples, the pit of her stomach, the aching depths of her pussy.
She forcibly restrained the shudder of feeling that would have shook her body. The response wasn’t unexpected, but as always, the pleasure from the slightest touch caught her unawares.
“It is what you see as the truth,” she finally whispered, aware that she had lost a measure of the strength she tried to hold in front of the Sashtain twins. “I see a far different course for my life Wizard. It does not include being at the beck and call of men who have no concept of a female’s freedom.”
His brows drew into a frown. “And is this how you see a Joining, Marina?” He asked her then, moving closer as she flattened herself against the wall just inside her door. Her eyes widened as he reach out and pushed the door, the soft snap echoing through her mind as she realized they were now well and truly alone.
“I cannot take you without Kai’el present,” he seemed to be reassuring her even as his hands clasped her hips and drew her closer to him. “But it is a temptation that is as much pain as pleasure.”
She could only stare up at him, but her gaze wasn’t centered on his, it was locked on his lips. The hard, sensual curve was coming closer, filling her vision, taking her breath.
“No.” She finally found the strength to press her hands to his chest, to whisper the word that her lips didn’t want to form.
But he caught the sound just as he caught her lips. Open, waiting for him, parted for easy access by his diabolical tongue, vulnerable to the firm line of his as he held them open.
Should a kiss be destructive, she wondered? Should it fill the mind with no thought other than the sensations whipping through the body, still the impulse to fight, to flee? Should it weaken, and yet leave her trembling with the blood rushing through her body?
A weak moan broke free of her throat as she felt his tongue licking over hers, her lips, tasting her, filling her with his taste. It was an insidious pleasure, wrapping around her senses with the subtle, supposedly non-threatening gentleness of the touch. Her hands curled against his chest as she fought the need to get closer, to taste more of him.
Heat was exploding in her womb, she could feel the juices trickling along the lips of her pussy. Her clit was throbbing, aching, the soft whisper touches of magic breezing over it as his hard knee parted her thighs, his upper leg pressing into the bare flesh.
Sweet Matriarch! She arched into against him, only distantly aware that somehow, somewhere, the bathing sheet had fallen to the floor and she now stood against him, damp and bare.
“I could consume you,” he growled then as he tore his lips from hers, smoothing them across her cheek, to her neck.
His hands tightened at her bare hips before one released her curled around her upper thigh, lifting it, insinuating his hard upper leg tighter against her cunt as his other hand moved her against him.
“You are so wet you burn me even through my breeches.” His teeth grazed her neck, her shoulder, moving lower, his lips and tongue striking bolts of liquid fire to the very depths of her pussy. “Tell me this brings you fear, Marina. Tell me you do not enjoy my touch.”
He was grazing her breasts, his tongue curling around the tight nipple as he sucked it into his mouth.
“Mercy,” she gasped, her head falling back against the wall as she fought for strength.
His mouth tightened on the soft flesh it held captive, his teeth rasping the tender peak, tongue lashing as the damp warmth of his mouth suckled at her deeply. She was shaking. She could feel the tremors vibrating through her body, the pleasure, mind destroying, straining across every nerve ending.
“So sweet,” he growled as he moved to the twin mound. “Sweet and soft. Feel the pleasure Marina. Feel how hot and wicked you can be. You long to be wicked, my warrior sorceress, I can see it in you.”
Wicked. Wild. A woman of her own. That had been her dream.
“You are safe in my arms, Tempress,” he swore deeply. “You know our laws. I cannot take you alone. Be my wanton, Marina. Show me your power.”
She could. He was alone. Kai’el was not here, they could not force the Joining, and they could not take her separately until after the Joining. Her hands smoothed along his chest, her fingers clumsy but determined as she pulled apart the small metal clasps of his tunic shirt.
It parted, revealing the hair spattered, broad expanse of his chest as his head pulled back from her breast and he watched her with hot amber eyes.
Her lips moved then to his chest. Her tongue stroked over the warm flesh, curled over the flat, hard male nipple and reveled in his muted moan.
She hadn’t expected this. Control. She was in control. He could not force her, he could not demand no more than she was willing to give in this situation.
Her nails raked over the hard muscles of his abdomen as her lips went lower. What was it she had heard Brianna tell her sister? That when she took the length of one Wizard’s cock into her mouth, and the other was not present, then he could feel it. He knew the pleasure, the ache for release?
She could torment both, tease them, make them regret the ache that was making her life misery.
Her lips trailed lower, her tongue painting a trail as she pushed at him until he released her from the wall.
“You would not.” He stilled as her hands went to the clasp of his breeches. “I warn you Princess, you know not what you tempt.”
His voice was tortured, as tortured as her body had been over the past nights, since the swirls of their power had caressed her, sank into her.
His breeches parted as she went to her knees, her eyes staring up at him, seeing the dark, never ending hunger glittering within them.
“What do I tempt?” She questioned him as the broad, hard length of his cock was revealed, jutting forward from the flaps of the material, the tip glistening damply as she licked her lips.
His hands were in her hair now, his fingers bunching within the strands as she circled the base timidly. She had never touched a man in such a way, except in her dreams. In her darkest fantasies.
“Do you wish to be wicked, Marina?” He taunted her then. “Do you know what happens to wicked little girls?”
Her lips curled into a smile as she licked her lips again. “Do they get spanked?” She taunted him back, knowing he wouldn’t dare, and yet feeling the excitement that filled her ass he spoke the words.
“They get many things,” his voice was strangled, hot. “If one wicked li
ttle girl is not very careful, she will get her mouth filled with my cock. Or is that what she wishes?”
Her lips parted, her tongue swiping over the flared head as he flinched, a groan rumbling through his chest as his hips pressed forward.
“I will watch my cock take you like this again one day,” he growled as his erection stretched her lips, the crest buried past them. “But it will be your soft, sweet pussy I pierce rather than your soft pink lips.”
Her pussy gushed at the words. She felt the slick fluid ease from her vagina, coating already wet feminine lips before dampening her thighs.
Her lips tightened as he thrust deeper, burying the head of his cock nearly to her throat as she began to suckle at him hesitantly. She couldn’t describe his taste, though she tried. It was male, electric like a storm, rich like pleasure. The thick shaft tempted her, taunted her with its width and the emptiness of her pussy as she felt the deepening presence of his power swirling around her.
“Ahh, good girl,” he crooned, his hands pulling at her hair as he eased back then forward once again, thrusting in and out of her lips as the wet sounds of her suckling sent her senses spinning. “Perfect perfect lips, Marina. There is a good girl. Good girl. Suck my cock, sweet one. Suck it deep and hard.”
She was insane. That distant thought whipped through her mind even as she drew on him deeper, her tongue lashing at the flesh, licking and loving every fierce throb beneath the satiny flesh. Her head bobbed as she followed the movements of his hands in her hair. Her lips gripped him wetly, her mouth sucking him deep as his body tensed, his cock tightening further.
“No more.” He pulled back, breathing harshly, his muscles trembling beneath the flesh as he pulled her to her feet and his lips covered hers again.
There was no asking in this kiss. No soft gentle licks or waiting for permission. He pushed his tongue past her lips and devoured her as one hand cupped her breasts, his thumb rasping over her hard nipple as she arched mindlessly to his touch.