11
Bron
The news that Esmeray is trying to find her brother’s killers is disturbing. And the idea that she stole a dagger tells me that she’s planning on killing her foe, whether her powers work on it or not.
Which is fucking insane.
I don’t know if it’s because Esmeray is my mate, or because of the lessons circling through my mind from my step-father, but I can’t stomach the idea of her hurt in any way. Part of me logically knows that Esmeray is not like my mother, that she doesn’t need me to protect her, but every instinct inside of me denies it.
The world is full of dangers that we must protect those we love from. My teeth grit together.
A memory from my childhood slams into me. Three men had followed my mother as she walked home after visiting with a friend late one night. She called my step-father, scared. The men were shouting at her, chasing her, laughing and describing what they would do to her. He played every word of it through the phone’s speaker for me to hear.
I can still remember their words to this day.
My step-father brought me with him to face the men and sent her inside the house. And then he beat the men. Not a little. A lot. I stood in my pajamas, a young boy, watching in horror as the men screamed and begged to be let go. But there was something in my step-father’s eyes that night, something that said he was the judge, jury, and executioner for these men.
And he’d deemed their crimes worthy of a slow torture.
The next day, the news talked about the men and what had happened to them. All four of them were in the ICU, unable to talk, and people wondered what mob of psychopaths had beaten them. And what weapons they’d used to deliver the blows.
I was the only one who knew the truth. It was only one man, and his fists were the only weapons. He just wasn’t human.
What I saw scared me. Both the violence of it, and the voice of doubt that whispered that I could never protect someone I loved as well as he had that night. My step-father’s influence meant that I wasn’t a light fae the way my mother was. I was something darker and more twisted, and yet, was it enough?
To this day, I can still feel my step-father’s hand on my shoulder as he staggered away from them, covered in blood, and stopped beside me. “There are bad people in this world, Bron. It’s our job to protect women. It’s our job to make certain that no one ever hurts them. You hear me, boy?”
I heard him. And I hear him now. But how do I protect someone who’s looking for trouble?
“Fuck,” I mutter, rubbing my face.
I was already worried about protecting her. The last thing I needed to do was worry that she was going to go looking for trouble. But knowing her, I should’ve been prepared for it.
“Do we tell her?” Dwade asks.
Stiffening, I drop my hands and look at him. “Are you nuts? If she even has a suspicion--”
“She’s smart,” he says, as if I don’t know that. “She’s going to find out sooner or later. Wouldn’t it be better if she heard it from us?”
Lucian leans back on the couch. “Not a chance. No matter how we explain it, she won’t understand. She’ll blame us for what happened, and we’ll lose her forever.”
I don’t say the thing we’re all thinking. That it was our fault. We might not have driven that blade into Rayne’s stomach, but we might as well have. His death lay squarely on our shoulders, and Esmeray would see it too.
“I vote we keep it a secret,” I say. If it meant we could have her, it was a secret I’d take to my death.
Dwade shakes his head. “I vote we tell her. She deserves to know the truth. Even if we lose her forever.”
The thought of her disappearing from our lives is like a knife to my gut. I realize I almost tumble off my chair, and Lucian grips my shoulders, pushing me back as I pant. “Don’t think about it,” he says. “Thinking about losing her creates a physical pain. You know that.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. Saying it and feeling it were two totally different things. I knew in my head that the power of a mate bond was a deep and complicated thing, but it didn’t stop my body from breaking out into a sweat, or mind-numbing fear from coming over me.
“We can’t lose her,” I whisper. “Even if keeping the secret destroys us.”
After a second, Lucian says, “She has nobody. Her parents are assholes. She’s been alone for too long. If we tell her the truth, she loses us, after losing Rayne. I want to tell her, but I think it’d be cruel.”
“So?” I whisper.
He closes his eyes. “May the gods forgive us. I vote we keep it a secret.”
I reach out my hand, and Lucian puts his on top of my mine. We both look at Dwade. After a long minute, he places his hand on top of Lucian’s. We stay there for a long minute, letting the reality of our promise sink in, and then we draw our hands back.
“What now?” Lucian asks, and I can tell he isn’t happy about our promise.
“We figure out how to keep her safe.” Dwade rubs his dark, neatly shaved head, not looking at either of us.
I know he’s disappointed in our decision, but over time I think he’ll understand. “We each have a class with her. I say we just do our best to keep an eye on her before and after class.”
“And what about if she makes her nighttime walks a regular thing?” Lucian asks.
“I’d hope after the iron demon she’d stay inside,” Dwade says.
We all start laughing. Yeah, that’s our Esmeray. A woman who stays inside where it’s nice and safe. When we finish, grinning at each other, I say, “Seriously, how do we handle that?”
“Try to keep an eye on her?” Lucian asks, those blue eyes of his holding doubt.
“I guess, but I have a feeling she’ll notice.”
Dwade shrugs his huge shoulders. “So, let her notice.” But then he adds, “I think she’s already suspicious of us.”
Which is just fucking great.
“More than anything,” Dwade continues, “we need to keep her away from the tunnels.”
My gut clenches. Flashes of Rayne looking back at me and grinning before going into the darkness plays over and over again in my mind. And then those dark halls…the blood splattered. The sliding line of blood.
I’m shaking. Fuck. “We can’t let her get hurt.”
“We won’t,” Lucian says, and grips my shoulder.
“When she gets back from wherever the hell she is, we’ll watch her around the clock.” There’s no room for argument in my voice, even though I know they’ll agree.
“And if she doesn’t go along with it?”
“Then we make her,” I say.
A second later, the door to our apartment opens. We all stiffen and turn to the doorway to hear Esmeray giggle. And Esmeray doesn’t giggle.
She walks in backwards, smiling at someone, and a second later Caraway enters, grinning at our Esmeray. His blond hair, left a little long on top, is perfectly styled, and he flashes his white teeth like a prince in some terrible fairy tale. Every muscle in my body tenses. What the fuck is he doing here? He wasn’t Esmeray’s type. I knew her type. So why the hell was she leading him into our home?
She turns around and doesn’t even pretend to look surprised that we’re there. “Hi, boys. Don’t worry, we won’t bother you. Caraway, let’s head to my room.”
I stand. A second later I’m between them, blocking Caraway’s path. “You’re going to want to leave now.”
He looks surprised. “What’s the problem, Bron?”
“The problem is that it’ll be a cold day in hell when we let you in her room.”
Esmeray circles around me to stand at his side. “Since when did you get to decide who I let into my bedroom?”
I don’t hesitate. “Since you came here.”
“Like hell!”
“She can say whatever the fuck she wants, but you take another step forward and I’m going to have you flat on your ass!” I say, and damn it, I sound pissed.
More than pi
ssed. I sound like a man who just saw his mate leading another man to her bed.
“Bron, listen--” He reaches out for me, like we’re friends. Which maybe we were before, but we sure as hell aren’t now.
“Don’t touch me. Just get out.”
He looks from Esmeray to me. “Okay, well... Maybe another time.”
Esmeray plants her hands on her hips, anger in her eyes. “He doesn’t get to tell me what to do.”
Caraway is backing up, heading for the door. “Clearly there’s something going on here. Something I don’t want to get in the middle of.”
When he leaves, closing the door behind him, Esmeray’s jaw is hanging open. “I was going to feed on him!”
“No,” I say.
My legs give out beneath me, and suddenly I’m on my knees in front of her, shocked as hell. She’d used her powers on us a few times as children, but it was still unsettling to lose all control over a part of my own body.
“What is it with you and taking my meals?” she asks, and I can see the threat in her eyes.
And yet, I’m not thinking about what other parts of my body she could destroy. I’m thinking about when she was feeding on me outside of the club. The rush I’d felt when my mate touched me was like nothing in this world. I wanted to fuck her against that alley wall. I’d wanted to sink deep inside of her and hear the sound of my balls slapping as I brought her gasping over the edge.
“Then feed on me.” I don’t know what I’m saying until the words leave my lips.
But I don’t regret them. The memory of her body pressed against mine burns inside of me, consuming every logical instinct within me. All I can do is stare at her and wait.
“You’re serious?” she whispers after a long moment. “You think you can handle that?”
I nod, even though I’m not sure I can.
“Fine.” She walks past me.
The strange feeling in my legs suddenly disappears, and I have control of them once more. Ignoring my raging hard-on, I climb to my feet.
She stops in her doorway and says, “You coming?”
I study her. From that soft brown hair of hers to her remarkable grey eyes. This woman, she’s my everything. I don’t think I have it in me to deny her anything.
My gaze slides to Dwade and Lucian. They look as shocked as I feel. There’s no way she’s actually going to go through with this. Is she? She’s just trying to push me, to see if I’ll relent and then forever have to allow men into her bedroom. Probably. But either way, I won’t back down.
She smirks and heads into her bedroom, and I look at the guys.
“She does need to feed...”
Lucian lifts a brow. “I guess we’ll handle that from now on.”
He doesn’t say what we’re all thinking. There’s no way we’ll ever let anyone else touch her, so we might as well not back down now. We would be her food source while at the academy. We just couldn’t lose control and let things go too far.
Not yet. Not until she sees us as more than just her brother’s friends.
I feel strange as I walk through the living room and enter her bedroom. My thoughts are racing a thousand miles a minute, fighting the overwhelming need to touch her, and the knowledge that there was more going on here than I knew.
This is a game of chicken, right? Maybe in the future she was going to use us, but right now she was pissed. So I need to tell my dick to calm the fuck down and try not to completely fall at this woman’s feet.
I was a Drake after all. Wasn’t I?
She sits on the edge of her bed, slowly drawing those sexy-as-fuck boots of hers off, then tossing them like she didn’t give a shit. I follow her movements with so much need that I have to make certain my emotions are firmly hidden, or else have her sense just how badly I want her. My gaze follows the swell of her breasts and the way the fabric of her clothes hugs her body.
When she finally looks up, she lifts a brow, her gaze challenging. “You going to come closer, or stay there all night?”
I take a deep breath and reach for the door handle.
“No, leave it open,” she says.
Fuck. I move across the room and sit awkwardly beside her. Light fae don’t need to feed like this. Usually the happy emotions of the fae around us are more than enough to fill us up. I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I felt hungry, but I imagine that Esmeray doesn’t have a lot to pull from here unless she consciously feeds. Still, I worry it’ll be like that moment in the alley. The moment I almost fucked her against that wall.
“Open yourself up to me,” she says, and her voice is low and seductive.
Damn it. There’s no way to do this without her realizing just how aroused I am. But I said I’d do this, and I couldn’t back down now. So with effort, I try to control my raging hormones and slowly slide down the wall around my emotions.
But the instant I do, I feel what she tastes. My jealousy and anger at the man she’d brought home. My desire as I sit next to her on her bed and try not to touch her.
She inhales sharply and reaches for me. Her hand slides down my chest, and my cock strains inside my pants, longing to feel her touch on my hard length. I squeeze my eyes shut and try my hardest not to put my walls back up.
“Oh,” she moans.
My cock twitches.
And then her hand wraps around it. My eyes fly open, and she leans closer, her breath hot on my neck. I turn, and don’t know what I’m doing when I kiss her.
For a second, she almost pulls away, her surprise echoing through me, and then she kisses me back. Hard. Her mouth sears my own, and her tongue darts into my mouth, drawing a groan from my lips. One of my hands weaves into the back of her hair, tilting her head so that I can have better access to her, my tongue tangling with her own.
I’m panting against her lips, and she begins to stroke my cock.
I don’t know if I’m in heaven or hell, but it’s like my body is alive. Every nerve, every cell, is crying out for my mate to keep touching me. To meld with this woman. To bring her pleasure and claim her as my own.
My head is spinning so damned hard that I don’t even realize she’s unzipped my pants until her skin touches my own, and then I groan, ripping my mouth from hers. She licks a trail down my neck, then yanks my shirt over my head, before continuing to work my dick.
A second later, I hear her whisper, “Come here. I want to taste your cocks.”
I look over and see that Dwade and Lucian are in the doorway, their erections tenting their pants. Their desire so clearly written on their faces that no one could miss it.
They move closer to us, and she releases my dick and stands. “Take off your clothes.”
Dwade and Lucian react like it’s a command, stripping off their pants in a hurry. She kneels down in front of me and takes my cock into her mouth. A shudder wracks my body, and she takes me so deep that I feel my tip hit the back of her throat.
I’m barely breathing when she reaches out and grabs my friends’ cocks with her hands and starts to work them too. But the room is filled with the most unbelievable desire. My senses stretch out, and it’s startling to realize that Esmeray is still locked away behind her walls.
“Let us in,” I pant.
I want to feel her pleasure. I want to connect with my mate on all levels.
Instead, she pushes Lucian and Dwade down on the bed beside me. She takes a few seconds to suck each of us, before working our dicks with her hands. And in this moment, we’re open, more open than we’ve ever been, our emotions swirling around us like a storm.
“Did you kill my brother?” she whispers.
The emotions in the room change. “What? No,” Lucian whispers, as she continues to pump him.
“Do you know who did?”
I tense. We suspected. “Esmeray…”
“Who?” she whispers.
“Stop,” Dwade groans.
“What are you hiding from me?” She leans over me and tongues the head of my cock.
“Shit,
” I mutter, then press my hands to my face. “It’s not safe.”
“What’s not safe?”
“This place. Under the school. Everywhere. Leave it alone.”
“Under…?” She trails off.
Suddenly, something in the air changes. I drop my hands and look up to see Esmeray walking out of the room, her boots in hand.
“Where the hell are you going?” I call after her.
She doesn’t answer, but I hear the door slam.
I look at Dwade and Lucian. “What just happened?”
Dwade shakes his head and grips his dick, looking miserable.
Lucian releases a slow breath beside us. “She just used us for information.”
Damn it. As we sit up and all start to dress, I curse myself and Esmeray. Of course she had to know that the only thing that we couldn’t handle was her seduction, and we’d fallen right into her hands.
What had I told her? I didn’t know. But I knew it wasn’t good.
12
Esmeray
The salty taste of their cocks lingers on my tongue, and my pussy feels swollen and uncomfortable. When I’d come up with the plan to make them jealous and get information from them, I’d never meant to let it get that far. I’d never planned to enjoy touching them so damned much. So after I stuff on my boots, I find a quiet corner on campus in a wooded area and unbutton my pants. As the sun sets, I work my wet pussy, sliding my fingers over my clit and dancing around it, drawing out my arousal.
I think of the three men lying on my bed, completely at my mercy. I think about the fact that I’d felt their emotions in a way I’d never felt any man’s. Usually when I used my powers, I felt a man's jealousy and desire, and I siphoned it until it was gone. Then, if I was in the mood, I slammed down on top of their cocks until I got off. After I orgasmed, I left. Rarely did I ever think of the men again.
But with Dwade and Lucian and Bron, the way they wanted me felt like...a tornado I was caught inside. My body couldn’t seem to tell the difference between their desire and my own.
A whimper slips from my lips, and I stroke myself faster. I hadn’t expected the way their emotions would affect me, but I also hadn’t expected that the three were so damn hot naked. Their cocks were fucking perfect. Long and thick and beautiful. I don’t think I’ve ever had to suck a man before, but I had to suck them.
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