“Is that it?” Matt inquired warily.
“No. You’ll each have to take me, but I have to claim you.”
“Huh,” I blurted out. “Figures, I guess, but I thought we’d be doing that.”
“Chauvinist,” she mumbled, and when I pouted, she snickered at me. “Linford said that what happens next depends on each person.”
My brow puckered. “In what way?”
She rolled her eyes. “It depends. All he said is the Rut is the trigger for the claiming.”
“Anyone else turned on by that word? Or is it just me?” Matthew commented with a laugh, and I gave him a surprised look. Not only was the dude the most straitlaced of us all, but that he’d made a joke about sex pretty much blew my mind.
When he saw the rest of us were gaping at him, he shrugged.
“What? If your brain hasn’t switched into carnal mode, then I’m not the one who’s weird here.” He winced. “I’m also, and Gaia, I can’t believe I’m about to say this but…”
“But what?” Riel whispered.
“So tired I can’t see straight.”
A surprised laugh escaped her. “You didn’t sleep on the plane?”
I snorted. “No. We didn’t… well, Seph did.”
“Gaia grant me strength, for the last two hours I dozed. Since when was that a crime?” he grumbled.
“Not a crime, but I’m surprised you could rest. I felt like I was too big for my skin,” Matt admitted.
“Sol, me too,” Seph rasped, and his shoulders flexed. “It was weird. Must have been the bond, though, because I feel better now.”
She tilted her head back and pressed her face into his throat. “I didn’t sleep all that well, either. We can get some rest and then there’s some stuff I think we need to talk about.”
“Like what?” I asked warily.
“Things like the truth about everything?” was her dry retort. “But seriously, it can wait.”
“Yeah, it can’t.”
“There’s a lot to cover, and the stuff about the Rut is barely any of it.” She blew out a breath. “Let’s get some sleep and we’ll deal with the aftermath later on, okay?”
“Think if we tickle her, we’d get it out of her?” I questioned the others, my tone deadly serious.
“If you try, I can glow,” she warned. “And that glow isn’t always going to just be pretty.”
Seph chuckled at that, but he fell back onto the bed and drew her down. “All right, I cede defeat on behalf of us all. I’m exhausted too.”
Matthew plopped back onto the mattress, and, with a sigh, I fell beside Seph, uncaring that I wasn’t touching Riel, and that she was sandwiched between Matt and Seph now. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except for the fact that she was with us and safe.
As sleep overtook me, I allowed it to embrace me. Allowed it because I needed it. My body, since her disappearance, had been humming on a knife’s edge of tension. The release of which was enough to make me crash.
We slept hard and we slept deep, and when I awoke, I saw that I was beside Riel, and Seph was at my other side. For a second, I was disconcerted, wondering how that happened. Then I figured Seph had had to use the bathroom at some point, and that I’d taken advantage of the situation to get closer to Riel.
She was like a magnet to me. Her body, her fucking soul calling out to mine with a song that was made to please me.
This went to a whole other level.
It transcended personality, was so profound that I knew my very being resonated with hers. I knew character would eventually get in the way. Hadn’t it with Noa and Gabriella Sr.? But I refused to be as foolish as they’d been.
This Virgo bond was a gift, and anyone who refused to see that were fools.
Time… that was all we needed to make the Virgo bond more than an instinct that demanded we be together, more than an urge to be at one with her. I was coming to see how the connection was a gateway. It revealed who the perfect person was for you, one who filled all the holes in your soul while you did the same for her, but, equally, it didn’t make the path into the future any less full of obstacles. If you didn’t become a unit, a tight-knit group that was forged on more than just those instincts? You were as lost and as alone as anyone in a regular relationship.
It was down to us to take advantage of this connection, to make it into so much more, so that, no matter what the future threw at us, we could handle.
Together.
With the knowledge making my soul feel full, I pressed my lips to her shoulder and inhaled her scent. Even that seemed Gaia sent to please me. There was the faint essence of lily, but there was more than that. Tangs of cinnamon and cardamom, a hint of clove. Sol, she was like my very own personal masala chai.
My lips curved at the thought, and I wasn’t sure why, but it disturbed her. Enough for her to mumble, “What are you grinning at?”
That she was as aware of me as I was of her shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but it did. Especially when I’d just been thinking of how linked we were.
“Your scent.”
She tensed. “My scent is funny?”
I snorted. “It smells too good to be true. You’re like my own personal drink from Starbucks.”
A snicker escaped her. “Thanks. I think.”
“It’s a huge compliment. I’m addicted to cold brew and chai lattes.”
“I’ve never seen you drink it,” she pointed out.
“How many Starbucks do you see around the Academy?” I drawled, pleased when she giggled.
Then, something changed. Her soft giggle settled down and she became more serious. “True.” She released a breath. “There’s so much I don’t know about you. I hate that. I want to know everything there is to know about you all.”
I pressed my lips to her shoulder once more. “We’ll learn everything. With time.” And together.
Tilting her head to the side so she could look at me, her eyes were dark as she whispered, “I can’t wait.”
“I’m glad you’re excited,” I whispered back.
“I-I am. I didn’t like being without you, Daniel. It was a cold place.” She gulped. “It was horrible. I felt so alone, even though I knew you were out there, coming for me.”
“I know,” I agreed, without any hesitance. It was an odd way to phrase it, but she was right. Totally right.
It had been a cold place without her.
Surroundings and location had nothing to do with it. Being without her proximity had made the world seem very lonely. Sol, it was like how I’d felt without the troupe bond. Now? I had the troupe bond and this Virgo connection. My life had never been fuller, and I’d never been more grateful for that than I was now.
I licked my lips as I asked, “Are you scared?”
She released a breath. “No. No, I’m not. I think I was before the storm. You guys were fighting so much, and it made me feel like I was going mad. Every time something went wrong, you were at each other’s throats and it was too much.” She bit her bottom lip. “Truth is, if my grandmother’s Virgos were like that, it was no wonder she wasn’t too sad about them denying the claim.”
“That bad?” I asked with a wince.
“That bad. You were only like that for a few days too, not months like I think they spent together. You guys need to control the Alpha instincts around each other. I get that sometimes you’re going to need to beat the shit out of one another, I figure that’s normal in most guys in a group—”
“Is it?” What the Sol? What kind of guys had she been hanging around?
“Well, my brothers were always scrapping, and their friends were usually involved too,” she acknowledged.
I had no idea what to say to that, and Matthew, when he broke in, apparently didn’t either, “You know Fae aren’t like humans,” he inserted carefully, his voice still thick with sleep. “We’re…”
She huffed. “Don’t you dare say more ‘refined.’”
He snorted. “I wouldn’t dare.” Matt rolle
d onto his side, and that I was looking at him over Riel’s fabric-clad tits was like a life changing moment.
I didn’t want to claw his eyes out over this intimate setting, but she was right—this past week, every little thing had set me off. Made me want to tear into both of my troupe brothers.
What had changed?
Fear of loss?
Had it asserted what we had and what we might never have regained if her grandfather hadn’t been the one to, somehow—and we totally needed to talk about that in more detail—save her?
Perhaps.
I just knew that, somewhere deep inside, I was calmer.
After hours of agitation, that part of me that had responded negatively to the other Virgos’ presence was at peace.
Maybe it wouldn’t be for long. Perhaps it would be for months. Who knew? But I’d fight to make sure that Riel never regretted what we were to one another.
I pressed my mouth to her arm once more and whispered, “We’ll do our best to make sure we don’t drive you crazy.”
A laugh escaped her. “You’ll be working very hard for the rest of your lives then,” she teased. “Men always drive women crazy. My papa makes my mama wild. I’ve never seen her as mad as she gets when he’s pissed her off. And she has nine kids, Daniel. Nine. Yet somehow, he irritates her more than any of them.”
Unsure of what to say to that since my parents were very calm, very rational people, I cleared my throat. “Is that good or bad?” I ended up asking.
“She’s latina. I am too. It’s how we are.” She shrugged. “I’m sure there are times I’ll feel like stabbing you with my sword—”
“Like you did to Leopold?” I peppered with a laugh.
“Oh no, somewhere far softer and squelchier than your feet,” she replied, her tone gruesomely zealous. “But in the end, I like those parts working… it’s all about give and take.”
Seph snickered, telling us he was awake at last. “We give and you don’t take our balls from us?”
She chuckled. “Exactly. Vuestros cojones son mios,” she told him. Your balls are mine.
I snorted. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“And there are many more ways,” Riel joked, but in her eyes, there was a light I hadn’t seen before. “But I belong to you just as much as you belong to me.” She licked her lips. “I-I’ll never let you down. Any of you. You have my word.”
❖
Seph
‘You have my word.’
Funny how that meant more to me than anything else she could have said.
In the grand scheme of things, we weren’t worth much else other than the value of our word, and I had a feeling that Riel’s was stauncher than most.
She came from a background clouded by secrets, had somehow managed to get through her life as a human when she should have been raised in witch society, and that she made the promise to us?
It alleviated a gnawing ache in my soul that I hadn’t known existed.
I’d been ‘nurtured’ in a cold-blooded, sterile environment but I knew that whatever the future held, it was the exact opposite of the parentage I’d been raised with. So I’d take everything this fiery Latina could throw at me, and then some. Sol, I’d welcome it. Let her burn me to the ground only for me to be reborn amid the ashes.
Desire flickered inside me. After a long rest, after a long scare, it felt wonderful to feel anything other than exhausted and panicked.
We’d been separated for less than a day, and it had felt like a lifetime. I wasn’t certain how my father had coped without his Gabriella, but now that I knew how it felt to be without mine? I totally comprehended why he was a mean, old grouch who made power plays because he’d lost his real purpose in life—to serve as a Virgo to this incredible woman’s grandmother.
I knew I wasn’t the only one to feel the sparks of fire at her words. Daniel had reached over and was pressing a kiss to her mouth. I regretted having to use the bathroom earlier, because if I hadn’t, I’d have been there, the one kissing her.
Sharing wasn’t natural to us, and it would definitely take some getting used to, but I’d take it any damn day of the week if it meant I never had to endure the past twenty-four hours again.
With a grunt, Daniel’s hand began to slide up under the shirt Riel was wearing. As it moved, it revealed her ripe curves. She wasn’t rail thin like most female Fae. She had a little pooch that was soft under his palm, and just as she arched her back, her clothes—all of them, and ours too—disappeared.
Daniel snickered and pulled back. “Spoilsport.”
She giggled, and the sound set me alight. I’d never heard her this playful, had never known her to be this soft and unprickly, but the way she was at that moment was like kindling to my desires. “If you wanted to waste time undressing, then I can always clothe us again.”
“No!” the three of us declared in unison, making her giggle even more.
“Thought not,” she said breathily, dipping down to press a kiss to Matthew’s mouth now that Daniel had lowered his head and was tonguing her nipple. The sight of that taut flesh in the palm of his hand as he sucked on the nub had my cock going from half-mast to total erection. I shuddered when she did, feeling her arousal deep in my own being.
Was this another development?
I had to wonder what else awaited us. The Rut wasn’t something that would be wise of us to trigger for a while, and yet, the desire to be claimed by her, for the bond to be cemented, was just as imperative as the need I felt to get inside her.
Gnawing on my bottom lip as Matthew tongue-fucked her mouth and Daniel sucked on her breasts like an overgrown baby, I didn’t exactly feel left out, but I knew I was on the edge.
I’d been that way all my life. Always on the outside looking in, and I refused, point blank, to be like that in this relationship.
Only fools rushed in, but only a fool wouldn’t rush into this situation. Before I could second guess myself, I slipped down the bed. When I was at the foot of the mattress, I grabbed one of her legs, raised it slightly and pressed my mouth to just above her ankle. At the touch of my tongue against her skin, she jolted, but when Matt wouldn’t let her up for air, she moaned into his mouth and rolled her hips, silently telling me that she liked the caress.
Taking that as a positive, I began to move my mouth down over the arch of her firm calf, to that tender space behind her knee. I tongued her there, let the moisture dry before tickling the sensitive patch of flesh again and again until her leg was quivering. That I’d found an unexpected erogenous zone was a boon, and one I intended to claim as my own.
With one leg relatively high, I had a clear view of my prize—her pussy. It was wet. Glistening slightly from my touch and the others’, and the sight of it made me hungry. I wanted a taste, wanted her cum in and around my mouth.
Grunting as my own mind worked against me, I moved away from the surprisingly sensitive area of skin on her body, and began to drift farther up. When I made a place for myself, she spread her legs wider for me, tilting her butt into the mattress and opening herself for my touch.
I hovered above her ripe flesh, loving how juicy she was, how fucking wet she’d become for us. I blew a breath over her sex, letting the cold torrent sting, then I called on some magic. The second the gold dust floated through the air and drifted over her, something changed.
Her moans became deeper, more rounded. They escaped her in long, deep grunts, and there was something about her that seemed to be more aroused than before.
Knowing that she was more sensitive now thanks to my casting, I went to work, and fuck if the gold particles didn’t taste like her.
When she started sobbing as I sucked on her clit, I felt pride stir inside me. Tonight, I wanted in this juicy cunt. I’d felt her mouth on me, had experienced that bliss, but sweet Gaia, I needed inside her more than I needed my next breath.
As I slipped my tongue into her pussy, I felt her clench down around me. She wanted more. I knew that. Sol, I did too.
But I needed to make sure she was ready.
She was mine.
Ours, sure, but to each of us, we came first. I wanted to make sure she felt the imprint of the pleasure that was unique to me and her before I came inside her. Wanted her to know my personal brand.
I let my tongue slip down to her ass. From the little she’d said, and the ease with which she accepted us, I had a feeling we weren’t the first guys she’d had group sex with. Did that make me jealous? It sure as fucking Sol did. I wanted to kill any fucker who’d touched her, but those feelings were ridiculous and unnecessary. She was ours now, and no one would ever touch her again.
I’d kill anyone who did.
The beast inside me, the one that the Virgo bond had stirred to life, responded with an internal snarl. One that demanded we make sure this woman was ours. One that commanded me to act.
Fighting that beast, the one that wanted to rut more than it wanted her pleasure, I let my tongue drift down along to the pucker of her ass. She moaned long and low, and I smirked as I flickered the tensile muscle there.
When I looked up, I saw that all three of them were watching me. Daniel was no longer sucking on her tits, and Matthew had let her start breathing on her own. That they were watching me ratcheted up the beast’s tension and this time, when it snarled, I realized it escaped my lips. And the weirdest thing of all?
Matthew and Daniel snarled too.
It wasn’t a challenge.
If anything, it was an acceptance.
A trio of pissed off beasts that were having to shove aside their possessive tendencies to make this incredible witch theirs.
For her, they’d sacrifice their need to own, but for her, they’d make sure she bore their brand. Their claim just as much as they wore hers.
And suddenly, it made sense. Our acceptance with one another fit because I realized what she was doing. At first, my ears had been overloaded with Dan and Matt’s matching snarls, but then it hit me.
She purred.
She fucking purred.
Again.
The gentle rumble hovered in the air, echoing through space. The strange vibrations that escaped her worked their wiles on us, calming us down like the feral beasts we were, ones that were in need of pacifying, in desperate need of her loving touch.
Faeling Hard: An Eight Wings Academy Novel: Book Two Page 10