Alister unbuttoned my blouse, one button at a time, and pulled the hem out from under me. He gently lifted my arms and pulled the sleeves off. Then he unhooked my bra and I sighed as the cups peeled away from my sweaty body.
“Beautiful,” he said. “This is where you belong. Edie…” He lifted my hair away from my neck, his hands grazing along the sensitive skin there at my hairline. I thought he would touch my breasts, but he left them alone. I could just feel his eyes on me, and I had to keep mine closed as Dante was now focusing in on my swollen clit, his tongue stroking rapidly back and forth over it.
“Ahh…” I started to feel like I was breaking open under their gaze. My hands flew to my chest to clutch at something. I covered my breasts, I guess, because I felt Alister pull my hands back away from them and hold them in his own instead. I clenched his hands as an intense orgasm ripped through me, coaxed into being not just by Dante’s tongue but by the magic that seared through my entire body. He was clutching my legs. I convulsed against their grip. I couldn’t hold back. I had never come like this before.
When it was over, I hardly even knew what to do with myself. I didn’t want to come down to earth.
“The oven temperature is perfect now. And so is yours.” Dante chuckled drily. “The biscuit dough looks sufficient, I guess.” He pulled my underwear back up my legs. “Alister, could you set the table? It’ll be fifteen minutes.”
“Sufficient?” I growled. “It looks good to me. I followed your stupid old recipe.”
Dante looked at me with a little smile and I could tell we hadn’t finished our kitchen sparring, not by a mile.
Alister pushed me into a sitting position and helped me get my shirt on as Dante got right to rolling out the dough, although I could see a bulge in his pants about as big as the rolling pin itself. I looked at him. “We’re not done…are we?”
“I made a bet,” Dante said.
“A bet?” I cried.
“That you weren’t going to stay. And if you did, Van oughtta have you because he’s the one with a little more faith in all this.”
“Oh, that really makes me want to stay. Bets. How romantic.”
“That’s what I said.” Alister scooped me up off the table as I waved my hands indignantly, whisking me out of the room. I kicked my legs. “Put me down.”
He set me on my feet. “Edie,” he said. “Dante can be rough around the edges, but it’s just because he’s right. We all know you’ll probably decide to leave. And even if you should want it, we—are unable to join with you casually.”
“You can…do that? But you can’t have sex.”
“No. There is a sacred magic to joining and we would be unable to properly erase your memories. Let’s say it’s our custom to offer a potential bride pleasure before we take any of our own.”
“That seems…suspiciously generous.”
“Well, we’d make up for it on the wedding night,” he said, lifting his eyebrows and gazing at me again in a way that made me only more curious to know what the wedding night would be like. Somehow I wasn’t at all afraid that the wife wouldn’t enjoy it.
“What did I miss?” Van asked, wandering into the room, wiping freshly washed hair with a towel. “Sounded like it was good.”
I blushed, feeling very awkward and confused all of a sudden. I was quickly growing to appreciate the charms of this place. I never wanted to go back to work. I wanted to stay—but I didn’t—couldn’t. This was vacation, not real life. And yet I had just let Dante give me one hell of an orgasm while Alister…assisted, and Van had probably heard me, and—what should have been awkward felt strangely natural instead.
I really didn’t want to forget them. I didn’t want to forget what it felt like to have men who were devoted to me. In fact, the entire island felt like it belonged to me, like I was the queen of my own tiny, perfect kingdom. Back home an endless parade of stress and work awaited me: the blog, the followers, the feed, the job, the environmental concerns, the high-maintenance boss, my own personal troll…
“It was good,” I told Van, with a hint of sadness. “Very good.”
Chapter Fourteen
Edie
After breakfast, the guys all had work to do. It was nice to be left alone for a little while, or so I thought. I tucked both mystery novels under my arm and looked for the best place to read. I wanted some fresh air, so I walked out onto the porch. It was such a broad, long porch that you could host a dance party on it, but I guess that never happened. Kind of sad, actually.
Still, it was more peaceful than lonely. The wicker furniture was arranged in several convivial groupings around tables, overlooking a view of the sea. The sky was very blue today, with just one fluffy cloud partially blocking the sun, so rays beamed down through it on the ocean and scattered it with gleaming light. I could see seals out on a rock, and what looked like maybe a raft of ducks.
#beautyinnature, my mind filled in automatically. Would make a great shot for the work accounts.
I still wasn’t used to seeing such a beautiful place and not taking photos of it. I mean, a leopard can’t change her spots in three days.
Hmm. Bad analogy. A leopard can’t change her spots at all.
I, however, was determined to change on this vacation. I had not traveled to this strange place just to chill for a couple of weeks. I came here because I knew that I had gotten deeply off-kilter in life and somehow or other, I needed to fix it. I needed to find myself, whatever that meant. The real me, not the vlog me. When I came home…
If I come home…
Deep down, I still knew I would walk away from Marchcliff Manor. It was going to kill me, but I would have to do it. This vacation was meant for me to learn some things about myself that I could carry back to my job, my friendships, my love life, my garden, and everything else. I wanted to learn to engage with people more and do things because they were fun and not because I needed to show my feed that I was cool.
It was definitely not meant for me to hook up with a trio of hot supernatural guys.
I dropped the books on a chair, and instead I grabbed a bucket and went to go pick some blueberries all by myself. (The ones that were closest to the house, obviously, not the ones near the point.) I felt the sun on my face and smelled the sea air and I ate so many blueberries that I hardly needed lunch. Then I came back and I was so exhausted that curling up with a book actually sounded nice. I ended up taking a nap on the porch.
I dreamed that I was texting with Nicole.
so i met these guys
it’s almost like an episode of the vampire diaries
except they don’t care if I choose all of them and they're not brothers so it’s not weird
well, it IS weird but
the only problem is, I just have to live here on this island and we won’t be able to talk every day
In the dream, Nicole could only text back in emojis and her response was this confusing string of faces and symbols and I tried to call her but I only got static on the other end of the line.
I shot awake and tried to grab my phone. Then I remembered where I was.
“Man…” I shook my head at myself. I looked out at the sea.
A part of me just wanted to go home and talk all this out with my friends, and a part of me really, truly didn’t.
There was no air conditioning in the house, and despite the cross-breeze between all the windows, it was hot enough the next morning that the air felt close, and smelled sweetly of aged wood. I woke up early and left my room as fast I could. It was cooler on the ground floor.
I heard some movement coming from the library, and followed the sound to Alister. He was shelving a few books, but turned when he heard me.
“Edie. Good morning. It’s early.”
“Couldn’t sleep. Too hot.”
I flopped down into one of the leather chairs, watching him unlock the case of forbidden tomes and put something in it. “What was that?”
“Magic business. I’ll tell you if you stay,
and if you don’t, there’s no sense in you knowing it.”
“I swear, the more questions I ask, the less I get what’s going on. Can you tell me from the beginning?”
“What is the beginning?”
“You and Van and Dante were born in the Sinistral World. You were childhood friends who grew up together. You formed a bond to make your magic stronger and now you have to get married together too. Was that before or after you came to this island?”
“Before. We bonded to help us be powerful custodians of this spot. Of course, we had talked about it since childhood. It only made sense. We could have used a fourth, a wind demon, but, it’s hard enough to find two or three guys who get along as well as we do. Still, the three of us are enough to guard the island, it’s just that we’ll need descendants, of course. If the bloodline is broken, it gets even harder to find protectors for the island.”
I sighed. “Hence the need for a bride.”
“Well, it isn’t just for children. First and foremost, as far as we’re concerned, it’s for companionship, and the connection to the human world we need now.”
“When did you come here?”
“To stay for good? Almost ten years ago. We were all twenty years old, which was considered coming-of-age, old enough for responsibilities.”
“So you really are twenty-nine. You’re not actually like ten thousand years old.”
He laughed. “No. We’re not that kind of being.”
“Do those kind of beings exist?”
“Of course, yes…” He always spoke carefully, like he was deciding how much to tell me. “They don’t mess with the likes of us much, not any more than we mess with insects.”
“Creepy.”
“Not at all. We all have our place. I find it comforting that beings older and wiser than me exist out there.”
“Are they evil?”
“There is balance,” he said. “Always balance.”
“Van said you would explain demons to me.”
“Are you ready to hear it?” he asked, walking up to me and leaning down to put a hand on the arm of my chair.
“Is it a scary story?”
“No. Not scary. But it might be uncomfortable for a human girl from a small town… I have noticed that often times you girls seem so tough, often you don’t go to church, but once you’re confronted with supernatural occurrences you start to squirm and wish for the simple comforts of whatever belief your parents told you.”
I picked at my fingernails, betraying some nerves. I could see this being true for me. “I want to know what’s real.”
“The supernatural world has two sides. One is Ethereal, one is Sinistral. If you had met an Ethereal, they would tell you a different story about what is real and true. But, you’ve got us, so I’ll tell you the story of demons. The story goes that many thousands of years ago, we were all Ethereals, but one day two Ethereal clans got into a dispute, and one clan killed the other. Up until that day, no Ethereal had ever spilled the blood of another. The Symposium convened to judge the clan, and the clan said that they had no choice because the first clan had threatened their family and happiness, but the Symposium deemed that there was never any justification for killing one’s fellow man, so they named them ‘daimons’ or lesser spirits, and banished them to the Fixed Plane. Only, when the banished ones fled their home, they found their way to another realm, which had just opened its doors for them, and they called it the Sinistral Plane and lived there forever after. These were our ancestors and we have since been the folk with blood on our hands.”
“It is a little bit Biblical, then,” I said. “Sort of like fallen angels.”
“Well, all myths tend to have their roots, and many religions have the same stories for a reason,” Alister said. “Some Ethereals think we are fallen angels. And they would call us evil. But evil people rarely think they’re evil, do they?”
“So you are evil?” My head was spinning at this point.
“If I was, I couldn’t possibly know, because I was born in the Sinistral plane. All of us here strive to do right by each other, by our families and by the land we’ve inherited. We don’t try to make trouble. What separates us from Ethereals is that we don’t hesitate to take selfish actions for our own, and we don’t consider death and war to be ‘evil’. We don’t try to make people suffer, but we do consider it part of a natural and cleansing cycle.”
I bristled. “Sounds like it could get racist.”
He looked surprised and then almost embarrassed. “Not that kind of cleansing. But Sinistrals and Ethereals don’t have geographical territories or nations in the same way as the Fixed Plane, so different peoples have always mingled, and yet everyone still divides along other lines—types of magic practiced and so on. We don't think it can be stopped.”
“That’s super depressing, Alister. I don’t know if I would want to be a Sinistral. Why try to fight for anything good, then?”
“This could be a very long discussion. In fact, most demons still want a good outcome for as many people as possible; we would always prefer peace, but we also acknowledge that pain makes pleasure sweeter and our will stronger, that war sharpens our minds, and that immortality would be a burden, so death is necessary. You probably have asked these questions to yourself before you ever met us.”
“I try not to think about it…really.”
“Why not?”
“Why…not? Because it’s…” I was afraid to say that I just avoided thinking about things that made me squirm. There was always something to distract me from my thoughts, and on this island there wasn’t nearly enough distraction. “Because I’ll never have an answer. I don’t like things without an answer. And this is way too much to think about before breakfast. I just wanted to get out of my hot room, you know.”
He just laughed. “Here. I’ll show you something you might like.” He reached up to one of the higher shelves, pulling out a plain black book thick with yellowing pages that sat slightly askew. A scrap book or photo album, I thought, and when he opened it, it was exactly that. Old color photos of boys here at the Manor, flying kites, eating cake, doing normal kid stuff…mostly. Everyone in the photos—including the boys, but also several adults—looked more serious and formal than they should. No one smiled for the camera unless, it seemed, they were caught on accident. They all wore dresses and suits, like the pictures were much older than color photos should be. I guess that was…demon society? It was like they were pretending to be human for the photos and they didn’t quite know how to do it.
“Was this you?”
“Yes,” Alister said. “This was one of the last caretakers.” He pointed at an older man with pale eyes that still looked dangerous in a tanned face. He was one of those old guys you still didn’t want to mess with, perpetually holding a cigarette and a bottle of beer. “And his bond brother.” The other man looked more “wizardy”, his red hair graying, his eyes almost golden, and he wore a black tunic shirt with faint designs embroidered in gold, like he bought his clothes in some other country. “They were already grooming us to take over for them.”
I could see the future men in the boys’ faces. They each looked so different from one another. Alister was tall and lean and serious, Van often blurred with slight motion and never looking at the camera, and his knees were grubby. Dante was the most disheveled and he still had those shadows under his eyes.
“Were these other people…?”
“This is my mother.” Alister pointed at a beautiful dark haired woman, impeccably dresses in a silk dress and pearls. “And that’s Van’s mother.” He pointed to a woman looking a little more relaxed, long black hair falling over the strappy back of a white sundress that gave her skin a golden brown glow. “Our mothers have always been good friends, so it was their summer escape too. They still visit sometimes, but in the winter now, so they don’t get in the way.”
“Dante’s mother wasn’t in the loop?”
Alister paused heavily. “It’s Dante’s business
to tell you what happened to his mother.”
“Oh? But I don’t when I dare to ask him.”
Alister grinned knowingly. “You’re a curious little cat, aren’t you? But I can’t tell you. It’s not my story to tell, except that Dante chose to live alone from the age of twelve. My mother and Van’s watched over him, but he was alone in Crow Cottage. That’s probably one reason he’s such a good chef, he took care of himself from a young age.” Alister’s voice had a strange bitterness to it. I felt as if something terrible had happened to his mother, but I didn’t know when I would dare to ask Dante himself.
“I guess there are no child protective services or foster care in the Sinistral World, then? What is it like?”
Alister put a hand on my head. “Have you ever read fairy tales?”
“Some.”
“You know how some things in them don’t make much sense? Like taking one step that crosses an entire sea?”
“Yes…”
“In our world, the rules of your world don’t apply. Gravity, physics, time, and space…they have different rules there. You can’t just get in a car and take this road to this place. What gets you to a place is intending to go there. We lived in a little town but if we needed to speak to the Demon Symposium we had to burn a message and if they agreed to see us, they would create a path. You would never be able to go to the Sinistral world. Even if you got there, you wouldn’t understand the rules, and you’d be killed. As far as you’re concerned, Sinistral will just be the place our magic will come from, and occasionally I might torment with you with this sort of conversation.” His tone was sort of teasing and sort of not.
“Will I learn magic?”
“Only if you stay. The more I tell you, the more trouble I make for you. The more you’ll remember. And if you leave, it will change you, like it or not. I don’t want to change you if you’d rather go home.”
“I want to change. That’s why I came here.”
“Not like this,” he said crisply. “Not until you’re ready to make such a commitment.”
Tempted by Demons: A Reverse Harem Paranormal (Brides of the Sinistral Realms) Page 9