“I have company right here, you overbearing lout.” She levered herself up and almost off of his shoulder, only to fall heavily back onto his shoulder when her hand slid down the fabric of his shirt. “Put me down.”
“Do you think it’s going to work the second time when that demand had no effect on me the first time, te thali?” Tyral’s hand boldly cupped her ass as he turned and carried her out of the room after a nod to his mother.
“I swear I’m going to Ice you, Tyral.” She pinched his side, knowing that he had felt it when his hand tightened on her leg.
“Te tana, you know Ijina isn’t going to cooperate with anything that could get you hurt in the process.” Tyral laughed.
“I didn’t say that I’d do it now. When you least expect it, when you’re the most comfortable, I’m going to chill you.” She gave Tyral’s rear a swat.
“Rissa, te tana, I will be delighted to play rough with you later when I have time. For now, settle down.” Tyral’s hand returned the swat on the rounded, right cheek of her buttocks.
“Do you have to carry me over your shoulder like this? It’s a little embarrassing and people are staring.” She looked up as they passed a group of people and saw them turn to watch, slack-jawed.
She saw Callan look back over his shoulder and a broad smile curved his mouth as a deep chuckle rumbled from his lips. Ooh, they were both going to get it for this high-handed treatment. She had no idea what she was going to do to them, but they’d pay for carting her around like a sack of clothing. She would have to think hard to devise a punishment suitable and severe enough for such infuriating behavior.
Tyral didn’t put her down until he had her within the confines of their room. Once the door closed behind them, he slowly lowered her to her feet. Her body glided along the length of his and she felt the corded strength of his muscles and the hard ridge of his cock pressing against her slackening body. She couldn’t be this close to either of them without responding to their scent, their warmth.
Tyral’s fingers tipped her chin up and she looked up at him. The grin across his face held triumph and good humor. Sensual warmth glowed in his amber eyes and his nostrils flared as he took a deep breath.
“You will stay in this room, te thali. There will be no explorations with your friend. You’ll be safe here while we’re gone.” Callan’s body pressed against her back, his hands running down her sides, gripping her hips. His cock pressed against her, hard and insistent. He nuzzled her silver hair aside, his tongue tasting the skin just below her ear.
“You’re not asking for my word. So you’re probably putting a spell on the room.” An angry frown furrowed her brows as she glared up at Tyral and tried to drive her elbow into Callan’s ribs. “I’m not stupid. I know there is a threat to me. I’m not going to go wandering around the palace.”
Callan’s hand grasped her arm to hold her still. “Eli moru, it’s not your intelligence which is in question. Our enemies could just as easily come here to try to get to you.”
“How do you know that they haven’t been here and left something, a spelled object or such to kill me?” Karissa slipped out from between them and pounced onto the bed. She felt torn between the rebellious urges engendered by their imperiousness and the sure knowledge that they spoke only the truth.
“Because the spell you expected is already in place.” Tyral glided over to her and his hand brushed across her cheek. “We checked the room, placed the spell and then went to get you. We won’t take chances with your life.”
She frowned at the two men now facing her. They were impossible. Their nearly identical countenances were fixed into unrelenting stubborn lines. She recognized those not-going-to-compromise expressions. “So what are you to going to be doing that will take so long that you wouldn’t have time to come to get me from your mother’s private parlor?”
“We’ll be busy trying to discover the identities of the people behind the attempt on your life. Our fathers were almost certain that the last of those involved in the conspiracy against them had been killed in the rebellion.” Callan strolled over to her and held out his hand. “We have something to show you.”
She took his hand and rose to her feet. Silence stretched as he escorted her to the one doorway in the room that she hadn’t yet used. Tyral opened it and led her into a sitting room done in reds and yellows. On the opposite side of the room, Callan opened a door and showed her that it opened into the hallway.
“Your friend will be brought to this door when she leaves my mother’s parlor. This is the only room of our quarters that she’ll be allowed to enter. The spell will keep her and all others from entering our rooms. There is wine and also some fruit, cakes, cheese and bread on the table for a light snack. It’s safe. Enjoy your visit. We’ll be back.” Tyral hugged her close for a moment before he and Callan left to begin their search.
* * * * *
Rana arrived at the door, escorted by a Volirian warrior. For a while, Karissa and Rana talked of everything that had happened since they had last met at the Frejan Court. Before Rana’s arrival at the Volirian Court they hadn’t seen each other in over forty days. So much had happened in that time they both had plenty to tell the other.
“I could hardly believe it when I returned to the Frejan Court this last time and heard the news that you were in Volir. You caused a real scandal with your announcement that you had realized you were mated to the two Princes. All the matrons were talking.” Rana sat back, sipping at her wine, a smile tilting her lips, but her eyes revealed the questions that she hadn’t asked.
“They always talk about someone.” Karissa shrugged and took a drink of her wine.
“Well, they were talking about your brother before your news hit the court.” Rana smiled.
“About what? Which brother? Of the four of them, I could see Carik or maybe Tovan making a scene. What did they do? I didn’t hear anything about it.” Karissa’s smile widened.
“It wasn’t Carik or Tovan. I never mind seeing either of them. No, they don’t always obey the rules, but they’ve always been nice to me. In fact, for a while, I thought I was in love with Tovan. When I first came to Court, he was one of the first to make me feel welcome.” Rana leaned back in her chair, a smirk curving her lips.
“Not either of them?” Karissa frowned.
Rana shook her head.
Karissa didn’t know what either of the other two could have done. Markan always seemed so busy helping their father. He was a bit of a perfectionist and tended to expect it of others. Sometimes, he seemed a bit stiff and unbending, but that formality was just his way of dealing with pressure and the expectations placed on him. And Niels just seemed to walk through life on a placid cloud. He hardly ever became nervous or excited. The calm patience that was so much a part of him had been rewarded. He’d worked his way up through the Guard and was now a commander.
“Well come on, tell me. What happened and how did Niels or Markan get involved?” She pressed.
“It was Markan. He apparently had several encounters with a woman visiting from the Tieran Realm. And I’m not talking sexual.” Rana traced a finger along the arm of the chair.
“Good, because the last thing I want to hear about is my brother’s sex life.” Karissa waited to hear just what had happened that had made her upright, proper brother a subject of gossip.
“The woman’s father is the Healer in the Teiran Court. He’d come to talk with our healer. Well, apparently your brother was in a rush one day and barreled into her. She was holding a cup of wine and they were both doused in it. Markan didn’t pause to do more than glare at her.” Rana chuckled softly.
“That’s really not like him. He must have been thinking about something else and was already angry.” Karissa bit her lip. Markan wasn’t intentionally rude.
“If that was all that happened, it would have barely rated a mention. Well, he ran into her again later that same day in the hallway. Again a glare and he walked off without even apologizing. By this time, ev
eryone knew that something had to be wrong with Markan. Well, they collided again. This time your brother tore into the woman. When he left, she was crying.” Rana’s mouth pursed and she seemed suddenly very interested in the carpet.
“What had my brother so upset that he was that bad-tempered?” Karissa folded her arms across her chest and frowned at her friend.
“Well, no one knew exactly why your brother acted like he did. He certainly didn’t provide any explanations. But in the weeks before that he’d been meeting with the King. The King and some of the advisors were a little shorter-tempered than usually, but no one knows why.” Rana shrugged.
“When my family gets here, I’ll have to see what that was about.” Karissa looked past her friend for a moment as she thought about her brother. What had really been behind those incidents?
“The last time we’d talked, your plans seemed set. You were determined to fight for as much time as you could get before you began your Ra’Asien,” Rana reminded her.
“That lasted until shortly after I met the two tyrants. Talking with them helped me sort out my fears and uncertainties. I knew before I left them that I’d stop trying to fight the inevitable. I would be going on my Ra’Asien soon.” Karissa relaxed back into the cushions of the comfortable chair, a reminiscent smile on her face.
“But you did leave them. They’re your mates.” Rana’s brow furrowed in confusion and her blue eyes conveyed that emotion with clarity.
“I didn’t know that they were my mates when I left them. They certainly provided no help in my journey to that revelation. They kept silent about so many things that when I arrived here I wanted to strangle them.” Karissa marveled that she could now see the amusing side to the situation that had, up to a day ago, only infuriated her.
“Yet you are here and happy not very long after leaving them and returning to the Frejan Court. How did you realize that they were your mates? Did they finally send word to you?” Rana sat forward, her interest stirred by the subject. “You know that hardly any information at all is given about how one recognizes their mate. Teachers, mothers and fathers all basically say the same thing—it’s a feeling you can’t mistake when your spirit bonds with another.”
“I got smacked in the face with the truth of the situation and everything suddenly made sense.” Karissa answered honestly but couldn’t keep the laughter out of her voice. “I’d like to tell you that I noticed the connection between Ijina and their spirits, but I didn’t. When I was with them, I was much too involved with them and what they were doing to notice how Ijina was reacting.”
She briefly explained about discovering Ijina’s pregnancy. A blush rose on her cheeks. That still embarrassed her. She should have known.
“What did you think was going on between you and the Princes if it wasn’t a mating?” Rana raised her brows.
A rueful chuckle rolled through Karissa. “I thought it was just great sex. I was determined to put as much living, as much enjoyment as I could into my life. Before I was sent on my search and had to settle into the staid, boring life of a married woman, I wanted an adventure.” Karissa threw out her hands and shrugged, a tinge of red coloring her cheeks as she remembered her blindness in that situation.
“Staid, boring.” Rana gave her smiling friend a knowing once-over. “Somehow those two men don’t fit those words. You aren’t exactly a shining example of the conventional either.”
“About them, you’re absolutely right.” Karissa’s eyes twinkled with remembered pleasure at the emotions, the sensations they could draw from her. “Sometimes they’re wild men. At other times, they’re so attentive, so caring that it brings tears to my eyes.”
“From their ever-so-correct behavior, I would never have guessed that they were wild men,” Rana teased, her white teeth flashing as she laughed.
Karissa blushed. “I can’t ever remember feeling as satisfied, as content as I am sometimes with them. I never thought that I might find two mates or that Ijina would bond with two spirits. I always thought of a mate, singular, in spite of the number of groups in Freja that practice these kinds of matings.”
“Then these two Princes really do make you happy?” Rana stared into Karissa’s eyes, trying to see if the words were truth. A spiritual bonding didn’t necessarily equal a happy mating.
“By the Veil, Rana, you need to find a better word—but yes, I’m happy. Before I met them, I’d never had sex that was about anything more than the release, maybe a little physical comfort. I’d never played and laughed with a partner.” Karissa frowned trying to find a way to explain the things that they gave her.
“And they give you this?” Rana tilted her head to the side.
Karissa nodded. “Before them, it was just physical—two bodies. With them, mind, body, emotions—everything is tied together. I’ve never been so involved. Maybe that’s just because they’re my mates…or maybe it’s them.” She smiled.
Rana grinned. “I wouldn’t have guessed that they stirred your emotions from the little scene I witnessed.”
“I hope you find someone who will play, who will expand the way you see yourself and life. I’ll leave it there and let destiny take care of you, because I wouldn’t wish anyone as stubborn as my two men on my worst enemy—much less my best friend.” Karissa leaned forward and took Rana’s hand, squeezing it. “I hope your search leads you to find as much happiness in your future marriage as I have found.”
Rana raised her eyebrows, casting Karissa a challenging look as she settled back in the chair. “So, have you learned to manage those two Sobrin yet?”
Karissa burst into laughter and it rang through the room. The idea of those two men being managed was so ludicrous that it was hilarious. With tears in her eyes and a hand clutched to her aching side, she finally regained control of herself and shook her head at her friend. “You needn’t taunt me, you drali rat. I know that I lost our bet.”
“It’s not like you to concede defeat so easily.” Rana grinned at Karissa.
“Manage those two?” Karissa grinned. “I’d have more luck casting a spell to create perpetual summer. I’m not even going to contest the one about having them wrapped around my fingers within a year. It’s not going to happen. They don’t play fair.”
“When do I get my—” Rana’s eyes twinkled and then grew wide as the door opened.
“Hello, ladies.” Callan’s rich, deep, gravelly voice boomed cheerfully into the room as he and Tyral sauntered through the door leading into the bedroom. “The time for the evening meal draws near. Both of you will need time to get ready for it.”
Chapter Twelve
Karissa could almost feel the good mood rolling off of the two men. The laughter in their eyes and the smiles on their faces were genuine and infectious. She didn’t question that happy mood. Smiling at them, she rose to greet them. She strode over and met them. Reaching up, she wrapped an arm around Tyral’s neck, brushed a brief kiss across his neck and then turned and did the same to Callan.
Rana curtsied to Callan and Tyral, said goodbye and then left to go get dressed for the formal meal. Karissa chuckled as she watched her friend leave. In her opinion, both men were far too accustomed to getting their own way, but changing that would be next to impossible.
She turned to go into their bedroom to begin her preparations, but stumbled to a stop. Tyral and Callan were right in front of her, broad smiles tilting their blue-green lips. Their eyes were alight with laughter. She frowned when they showed no sign of moving to allow her to get by them.
“I thought you said it was time to get ready for the meal.” Rissa raised her brows, waiting for their next move. She tried to keep her lips in a firm straight line, not wanting to encourage them. Sometimes, Callan and Tyral were unpredictable. At other times, they were just outrageous and impossibly male.
“What did you lose to your friend when you conceded to the bet?” Callan folded his arms across his chest and chuckled as he watched her face flame crimson as she realized they’d heard he
r conversation.
“Listening to other people’s conversations is a bad habit and rude, my Princes. Surely you’re not saying that you’ve behaved that way.” She gave them an indignant, narrow-eyed look, raised her chin and tried to walk around them and into the bedroom.
“No, no, no.” Tyral’s arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her back around in front of them. “You aren’t going anywhere just yet. What do you owe her?”
She stared at them and kept her mouth closed.
“That stubborn look isn’t going to work, eli moru. Tell us.” Callan reached out and brushed her hair away from her face.
“A necklace.” She crossed her arms and stared straight ahead as she noted their open-legged, not-going-anywhere stance. Her eyes took in the wide expanse of Tyral’s chest as she tapped her finger against her thigh.
“What exactly did you bet her and when?” Callan brushed the soft, spiral curls away from her cheek.
She raised her eyes to the heavens and gave in to the inevitable. They weren’t moving until they had their answers. “We had just become Aliaras when we made the bet. I said that I would marry a man whom I could manage with ease, that I’d have him thoroughly entranced within a year. She said that with my temperament I was more likely to find myself bound to a stubborn man, a warrior who’d be accustomed to control in all things. She was right except for the singular man part, and we were both wrong there. If she was right, I’d give her my necklace. If I was right, she gave me her bracelet.”
“What necklace do you speak of? I haven’t seen you wear any jewelry other than what we gave you the other night.” Callan’s grin turned wicked as he slid his eyes to her wrists and then up to her neck.
Karissa heaved an exaggerated sigh. “My brother Niels is bringing my jewelry. I’ll give it to her then.”
“If we’d known of this bet, we might have tried to appear more amenable.” Tyral slid his hand over the curve of her buttocks as his mouth tilted into a warm smile. His hand patted her rear.
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