Legion dragged her up and astride his lap the moment Zavier rolled off of her, catching her hips and spearing her with his cock. She wilted against him limply, too spent even to help him, but she discovered he didn’t have need of it. Grasping her hips he lifted and drove her down over his engorged flesh over and over until she screamed hoarsely in climax, felt his cock jerk within her, bathing her in his heated seed.
She thought she couldn’t take any more, didn’t want any more, but the moment Zavier dragged her from Legion’s lap and impaled her on his own turgid flesh, the heat was on her again. He didn’t turn her to face him, but mounted her on his shaft from behind. As if Zavier was offering her breasts, Legion leaned down to pull at first one and then the other with his mouth, sending her almost instantly into another cataclysmic release.
She sprawled limply face down on the mattress when Zavier released her, struggling to catch her breath. She knew the moment she felt hands grasping her hips and lifting her hips that it was Legion despite the fact that she’d lost count of the times they’d coupled. She groaned with a mixture of need and reluctance when he entered her.
She was going to die, she thought dimly, if she had another climax approaching the one she’d just had.
She didn’t, but she blacked out. Legion and Zavier were coiled around her when she surfaced toward consciousness again, both breathing raggedly enough she realized she couldn’t have been out more than a moment or two. With reluctance, she searched for the heat that had seemed unquenchable and discovered with vast relief that it had finally been assuaged. Barely conscious, she lay sandwiched between them limply, enjoying the stroke of their hands over her quivering flesh, the light brush of their lips.
“It stopped,” she muttered, more to herself than them, trying to figure out what had happened.
“The binding is done, my beloved,” Legion murmured against her shoulder, alerting her to the fact that it was him behind her.
Binding?
Zavier kissed her forehead. “Minotez,” he whispered raggedly, “beloved mate of my heart. We are joined—heart, mind, soul—in flesh.”
A thrill went through her at his words, and Legion’s, at the sweetness of their touch, but a touch of uneasiness threaded through her, as well. Discovering she was too exhausted to examine it, she gave up and fell into the abyss that was tugging at her.
Chapter Fourteen
A delightful sense of wellbeing threaded her veins as Anya roused toward wakefulness. It vanished the moment she stretched luxuriously and felt seemingly every muscle in her body—and some things that weren’t muscles—scream in protest. “Oh my god,” she groaned. “I feel like I was run over by a truck.”
A husky chuckle greeted that comment.
When she opened her eyes she discovered she was lying flat of her back and that Legion and Zavier were lying on their sides facing her, supporting their heads with one hand and looking like matched bookends.
Almost like matched bookends, she corrected. Zavier was readily identifiable by his black eye.
They both looked supremely satisfied with themselves and she searched her mind for the reason behind it. It was a short search. Heated visions of the night before instantly flooded her mind, and also explained why she felt like someone had tried to tie her into a bow. A mixture of amusement and irritation followed the memories. “What was that all about?” she murmured, lifting a hand to stroke both men’s cheek at the same time, just to assure them that she wasn’t really mad—she ached all over, but she still felt glorious.
Their brows twitched together—in sync—and then they exchanged a strange look with one another.
Legion settled a heavy hand on her belly. “You do not recall, beloved?” he asked huskily.
She stifled another yawn, attempted another stretch and winced. “Not very clearly, actually. Well … very clearly in some respects,” she amended, then frowned, probing her memory.
“It was a little weird, actually. I was so … insatiable. I don’t remember ever feeling like that before. You didn’t spike my drink with anything last night, did you?” she asked them jokingly.
When they merely looked at her blankly, she elaborated. “Drugs? Aphrodisiacs?”
Their brows cleared magically. Amusement gleamed in both men’s eyes. “It is the mating rite,” Zavier explained. “To summon the fruitfulness requires stimulation. It was only the natural drugs your body produces.”
“Wait!” Anya exclaimed, pushing herself up onto her elbows. “What do you mean by fruitfulness? What do you mean by ‘natural drugs’? Are you saying …? Are you telling me you …?”
Zavier’s hand settled on her belly beside Legion’s. “We joined here—flesh to flesh. I gave you my son to nurture in your womb … as did Legion. We completed the mating rite.”
Anya gaped at him in dawning dismay and then looked at Legion, struggling with the possibility that they might be serious and not joking. They didn’t look like they were joking. “You can’t do that … can you?” she asked hoarsely.
“We did,” Legion confirmed, spearing his fingers in her hair and dragging her close for a kiss that scattered her wits—further. “You please me, beloved. It pleases me to know my son nestles here, to know that I will see him suckling at your breast.”
Anya didn’t manage much more than a gasp of breath to protest before Zavier dragged her close for a kiss. “As I am infinitely pleased,” he murmured. “We must see what we can do to improve the comfort of the ‘nest’ for the mother of our sons and the sons when they come. You will not mind if we use the beziartre for that?”
Anya stared at him stupidly, completely unable to grasp half of what he’d said for the word ‘sons’ that kept drumming in her head. “I have to go to the bathroom!” she said abruptly, scrambling to her feet. “Alone!”
Covering her face with her hands when she’d flopped on the toilet, she struggled to thread her way past the shock and comprehend the incomprehensible. The ache ‘below’ completely diverted her, however. Spreading her legs, she looked down at her poor, abused, red, swollen pussy. It wasn’t just the flesh that ached, either. The tendons between her legs hurt and so did her pubic bones from the vigorous bumping and grinding they’d been doing half the night.
When she’d finally managed to coax her bladder into letting go, she hobbled to the shower and turned it on, brushing her teeth while she waited for the water to reach a comfortable temperature.
The mundane chores soothed her, helped her find her equilibrium, but she discovered she wasn’t any closer to accepting what they’d told her. Despite what she knew they were capable of, she still couldn’t comprehend that they’d—somehow—coaxed her body into her fertility cycle—enhanced it if they were to be believed—and then spent half the night making sure they fertilized the two eggs they’d coaxed from her.
That had to be what they’d meant! They wouldn’t have just thought it would happen because it would be convenient to their plans. They had made it happen!
In a way, it was completely believable. She distinctly recalled that she’d felt insatiable and that certainly wasn’t ‘natural’ for her!
She supposed after a time that she actually did believe or she wouldn’t be in a state of shock.
The hot shower took some of the ache from her muscles and joints, but certainly not all of it. Dressing was still an exercise in torture. She didn’t see any sign of either of the men when she left the room and headed into the kitchen, but she was only peripherally aware of that fact. She was still more focused on what had happened the night before than anything else. Going over and over it in her mind while she was burning breakfast, she finally managed to recall some of the things they’d said to her.
She couldn’t accuse them of not telling her what they had in mind, she realized angrily.
Of course, by that time, she’d been in no condition to object. She thought if they hadn’t willingly mounted her over and over again, that she might have been desperate enough to try to hold them dow
n and rape them. In made her shudder all over in after-quakes just remembering how she’d felt.
It was unnerving to think they could make her feel like that as easily as they could slake her desires.
Discovering that Legion and Zavier had ‘appeared’ to eat when she turned away from the stove with the burnt offerings, she plunked the skillet down on the table between them instead of heading to the garbage with it, and wandered out of the room again. After moving restlessly from one room to another for a while without actually accomplishing anything except walking off some of her soreness, she left the house and wandered across the pasture to the tree where Legion and Zavier had made love to her the first night.
She’d thought that was a test of endurance! Little did she know!
Settling with her back against the tree, she stared blankly at the scenery, her thoughts completely focused inward. After a while, her focus shifted from the ‘mating rites’, as Zavier had called the night of wild sex, to the results they’d been so happy about.
Despite everything, warmth filled her when she remembered the way they’d touched her, looked at her, the things they’d said. They were delighted to think of their sons growing in her womb, not just pleased with themselves, or just sexually sated, but happy. She’d seen it in their eyes.
Dragging in a shaky breath, she looked down her stomach, remembering the possessive pride in them when they’d settled their palms on her belly above the womb that held their sons. Unbidden, images filled her mind of the two young children Zavier had shown her and then morphed into infants, cuddled to her breast—breasts! How was she going to manage two?
Maybe she shouldn’t have told them how exciting the idea of having twins was, she thought ruefully?
Had they taken that as consent on her part? Or had they already planned it anyway?
She knew they’d planned it all along. Legion had told her almost from the first that he’d decided she was the one he wanted as his mate. Zavier had even mentioned the mating rite!
She didn’t know how long she sat beneath the tree wavering back and forth between fear and shock and tentative excitement when she noticed that Legion and Zavier had come to stand nearby and were watching her. Hours, she felt certain, if the numbness of her butt was any indication.
When she finally acknowledged their presence, though, they approached her and dropped down on either side of her. Legion lifted her hand after a few moments, toying idly with her fingers. “Is it the custom of your people for the female to withdraw from the males after the mating rites?” he asked, keeping his voice carefully neutral.
She met his gaze, wondering for a moment what he was talking about. She saw doubt flicker in his eyes, though, uneasiness. She saw the same in Zavier’s eyes when she turned her head to look at him.
She thought about telling them that she was trying to come to terms with what had happened, but she realized abruptly that they needed reassurance. Whatever her feelings on the subject—and she still wasn’t entirely sure—they needed her to tell them that she’d accepted them.
Because they loved her, she realized suddenly. Despite the many times they had gazed at her with warmth in their eyes and called her beloved—minotez—she’d dismissed it as nothing more than a meaningless expression of endearment. It wasn’t meaningless, though. They meant it. She would’ve realized it earlier if she hadn’t been trying so hard to keep her heart out of their reach.
“I was thinking,” she said finally.
Zavier lifted a hand to her cheek. “Of what, minotez?”
She covered his hand with her own and then curled her fingers around his hand and carried it to her belly, doing the same with the hand that Legion held. “How can you stay after … after what happened in the city? I’ve been so afraid they’d come. They will, you know. I wasn’t exaggerating the danger.”
Looking relieved, they settled closer. “I told you we took care of that, beloved,” Legion said almost chidingly. “We are slow to learn at times, but we do learn. We took the memory of it from them when we had repaired the damage.”
Anya sucked in a sharp breath, hardly daring to accept the tentative unfurling of hope within her. “You didn’t tell me that!”
Zavier shrugged. “We thought you might not like that we had, so we did not.”
Anya felt a swelling of warmth inside of her that made her breathless with the possibilities clamoring in her mind. Remembering the chaos the city had been in when she left, though, she struggled to reconcile what they’d told her with what she’d seen. “It’s like it never happened then?” she asked a little doubtfully.
This time Legion shrugged. His lips twisted wryly. “Unfortunately, not entirely. We were already too weakened from our battle to do what we might have otherwise. We only reversed time to the beginning of the battle … before there was very much damage or any that were injured. Although, in truth, your military did a great deal of damage themselves.”
Absorbing that, Anya settled her head on Legion’s shoulder, struggling with tears of doubt and relief. “You don’t have to leave?”
“We would not—not without you, beloved.”
Anya closed her eyes, allowing herself to absorb that and truly believe. “I love you, Legion.”
She drew back and met his gaze for a moment, and then leaned in to kiss him before she turned to Zavier. Catching his face between her palms, she kissed him, as well. “I love you, too, Zavier.”
He grinned at her. “You will have to tell me first next time,” he said teasingly.
They settled beside her companionably, shoulder to shoulder with her, and stared speculatively at the old farm house. “There is no part of it that is really big enough,” Zavier said after a few moments. “We will have to expand it all.”
“Oh! We can’t begin knocking out walls!” Anya exclaimed. “The boys will each need a room of their own—at least when they get a little older—and there are only the three bedrooms.”
Zavier and Legion exchanged a look above her head. “He said expand, beloved,” Legion murmured near her ear.
Anya looked at him. “I’m not sure I’ll ever really get used to the things you two do.”
“The boys will help you grow accustomed,” Zavier said, chuckling.
“Oh god! They’ll be like you two!” she exclaimed, more than a little dismayed at the thought.
They both looked at her with raised brows.
“Which will be wonderful!” she added. “But unnerving, too.”
They dragged her down onto the lush grass between them. “You will grow accustomed,” Legion assured her, “to being surrounded by comptz, for now there are four.”
* * * *
“Four,” Zavier said, obviously both awed and unnerved as he studied the four wriggling bundles on the bed.
Anya lifted her head wearily and stared at the infants with a sense of misgiving, regretting the fact that she’d forbidden them to ‘introduce’ themselves to their sons before she could. If she hadn’t been so insistent on enjoying the anticipation of their arrival, they would’ve known long since that they were going to get a much bigger surprise than any of them had expected. On the other hand, it wouldn’t have changed anything, she supposed, since the ‘deed’ had been done the night they were conceived. “When you said four,” she told Legion crossly, “I thought you meant including the two of you!”
He looked at her uncomfortably. “I did mean … they are twins. I could not have anticipated that … dearest.”
She glared at him, but despite the fact that they’d helped her with the births, easing her pain to a level of mild discomfort, she was too exhausted from giving birth to put much of a punch behind it. “Well, as long as you both realize that you’re going to be as busy tending them as I am, we’ll muddle along I suppose,” she said sleepily. “It’s a good thing you both have that handy little beziartre. It’s worked very well in discouraging the military from nosing around all this time. I’m sure rearing four comptz infants will be a breeze.”
/>
Legion and Zavier exchanged a panicked glance, but then firmly tamped it. Scooping up a pair of infants, they carried them to the nursery and returned for the other two.
When they had settled the four in the two cribs, they stayed for a while admiring their handiwork, struggling with a mixture of pride and uneasiness. “Mine have the look of our mother,” Zavier said after a while.
Feeling an abrupt jolt of alarm, Legion straightened and moved to stare at them. “You are right.” He frowned. “Mayhap we should place a field around them and separate them from anything flammable? Mother was particularly gifted with fire.”
Zavier paled slightly. “Good thinking! And, perhaps, since yours have the look of our father, a shield to keep them where they are? We do not want them wandering about without the bodies.”
“Anya would not like that,” Legion agreed uneasily. “It is just as well. They are tiny and weak now. They will need a good deal sustenance. We will check again in a little while and see how much they have drawn from the fields and then we will have a better idea of their strength and needs.
“In any case, Anya is weakened from her trials. She will need the rest to regain her strength.”
She was asleep when they returned to the room they shared, but since she had been heavy with child for months and they had not shared a bed with her in all that time, they decided to join her.
She woke, staring at them without recognition for a moment. “The babies are alright?”
“Sleeping,” Legion said promptly, nuzzling his face along her neck. “I am proud of my sons, beloved.”
Anya managed a smile and looked at Zavier expectantly. He grinned at her. “You know that I am as proud of mine as I can be.”
Relieved, she snuggled between them. “I’m glad we decided to mate,” she murmured sleepily.
“I am glad we convinced you, beloved,” Legion murmured, laughter threading his voice.
“Had we realized we needed only you to begin our own tribe, we would have started sooner,” Zavier added with a chuckle.
Lords of Mayhem Page 21