Realms and Rebels: A Paranormal and Fantasy Reverse Harem Collection

by C. M. Stunich

  “Oh, she’s there,” Audax said as Kunil sat, keeping me in his lap. We must have come to another chamber. I had missed the opening of any doors, the gryphons and my explanation thoroughly distracting me.

  “I like the wild Mila,” Kunil said into my ear. “There was much blood. You did a good job.” A faint rumble of approval radiated from his chest and into me. My smile grew. “But—”

  “That is not the more immediate concern,” Orel finished.

  My smile faded away.

  Kunil growled, displeased.

  “She needs to know,” Audax said from in front of me, voice gentle. He wasn’t speaking to me, but to Kunil. “It’s hurting her, the idea that we didn’t want her, that Orel had to make us search.”

  Kunil’s arms tightened to the point of near pain, and he rocked me, a slight movement. An image came to me of a young boy gripping a stuffed toy for comfort. I freed a hand and laid it on his hard forearm, then stroked over the hot skin. Gradually his grip loosened. There was a small movement above me as his chin nudged into my hair.

  “I can tell—” Orel said. He stood to the side, removed from the unfolding scene.

  “No.” Audax laid his own hand over where mine still petted Kunil. “No, it is ours to tell.” He pulled in a breath and let it out slowly. His words started hesitantly, then gained steam. “We are not born-brothers. We did grow up in the same coalition, though, and at one point… At one point we had thought to be brothers in more than one way. We’ve always planned to form our own coalition when it was right, the three of us and—”

  “Ista.” Kunil ground the name out.

  Who was Ista?

  Audax’s hand left mine, and there was a pressure against my chest where the talisman they had given me rested. Oh.

  “Yes, Ista. She was young. We all were. But somehow Kunil and I—we just knew that she would be more to us some day. She held such fire, such bravery, wild and untamed.” He let out a laugh that was soft, but it didn’t hold sorrow. “Once, she built a mini-aerie on the edge of the main one and appointed us her guards. She was all of five years old at the time. Already a little queen.”

  “She made you two guards. I was her maid.” Kunil’s disgruntled statement startled a laugh out of me. I couldn’t envision it.

  “She sounds perfect,” I said.

  “No. She had a horrible temper and an obsession with the color pink.” Kunil’s arms loosened a bit more, and one of his hands found mine, lacing our fingers together. “If things didn’t go her way, she always found a way to punish those who went against her.”

  Orel chuckled. “I remember. You wouldn’t give her your dessert one night.”

  “And the next day woke covered in honey. It took me days to get that out of my feathers.”

  Despite what they said, she sounded perfect to me. Their tone, more than their words, told me she could do no wrong. How could I compete with that? With a memory? How could I possibly replace a girl they’d grown up with?

  “But that’s just the thing, Mila of ours,” Audax whispered. He leaned in, his sweet spice blending with Kunil’s heat. “She was a girl. And we were boys. Who knows what would have happened when we were grown? And you are not competing with her or replacing her. You are you. You are your own mix of stubborn and fight. And you show a generosity of spirit she never did.”

  I had to smile at that. “Not many five-year-olds have ‘generosity of spirit,’ as you put it.”

  “No. No, they don’t.”

  He was so close now. I turned my head a fraction toward him, and our lips met. Like him, this kiss was sweet, asking nothing more from me than what I cared to give, and offering comfort and a promise in return. I sank into him with Kunil’s arms still around me.

  He finally pulled away with a hitch in his breath.

  “I’ll tell the rest,” Kunil said, shattering the moment. Audax didn’t speak, but the sweet scent of him faded away until all there was, was Kunil’s heat. “The day she fell, I was supposed to be with her. Orel and Audax were working on their studies, but I had received a day of rest for doing well in the games. I was supposed to help Ista with her flying. She wanted to learn new tricks. But she did something to piss me off—I don’t even remember what it was now.” His voice fell on the last.

  “She painted your chamber door pink, marking her territory,” Orel said. He was closer. “She did it to all of ours.”

  Kunil’s chest shook, and a deep chuckle gained momentum. “Yes, that was it. And in my own youth and foolishness, I stormed away. She still went to practice on her own.” The mirth fell away, and his fingers tightened on mine.

  “We’ve been over this.” Orel was closer. “She was often on her own. If you had been in studies with us as you usually were, she still would have gone out.”

  “And as I have said before, even if you are correct, it is not such an easy thing to know that I could have saved her if I had been there.” He fell silent, and I caressed the back of his hand with my thumb.

  I sat in his lap, one arm trapped against his chest, the other captured by his hand, completely surrounded by him. And all I felt was protected and… needed. That was what it was. The slight whine of sorrow in his tone, the extra hint of strength in his arms, the way his shoulder hunched forward around my own, all told me he needed me in that moment.

  “And then—” He swallowed. “And then an elder had the audacity to tell me that it was fate. That Ista was never meant to grow beyond a child, which was why she had so much fire. That she had to get it all out while still young.”

  The rest fell into place for me. “So when Orel spoke of dreams you didn’t remember…”

  “You are not the only one who can be stubborn, stala.” He shifted under me, and warm lips, slightly dry, fell against my forehead. “The fledgling was simply following my lead.”

  My lips ticked up at Kunil’s name for Audax. It wasn’t the first time he had used it.

  Kunil’s lips skimmed against my temple, then pressed to my cheekbone. They met the tip of my nose and then finally found my own lips. Orel’s kiss had made me want and given me hope. Audax’s had been sweet, with the comfort of home and even love. Kunil’s was all heat and need and wild fire that would burn if handled badly.

  Three gryphons, three men, all different, and all offering me something I needed.

  “You are not a mere replacement, Mila. Maybe if she had grown… I do not know. Nor does it matter. I miss her. The hijinks, her laugh, even her be-damned love of pink. But I miss her as a friend or even a sister. I long ago finished mourning what she could have been. And when we came to this empire, when we met you… Maybe the elder was right. Maybe fate played a hand. Because what I feel for you, I never felt for her.” His words were whispered against my ear, so low I could barely make them out. “We need you back,” he finished. “We need—”

  “Yes.” The hole inside me that had formed when I hid myself from the other seer’s sight now screamed to be filled. “But I don’t know how to undo what I did. That’s what I was saying. I don’t know how to fix it.” I twisted my head in the direction I thought Orel and Kunil stood. “I want to—I do—but I don’t know how.”

  “There is something we could try. Orel let out a dry laugh. “It is a bit simplistic, but… why not?” Wind rushed and spice blew. A talon nudged my hand. Would that work? Again? Could it be so simple?

  A pinprick later, the connections snapped into place. Orel’s white-violet gryphon visage, ears perked forward, filled my sight. Audax, glowing gold, stood just behind him. I glanced down. Copper arms wrapped around me.

  They were back. I sobbed out a laugh. They were back. And they were mine. If I was theirs, it was only fair, after all. I glanced down to where the talisman rested against my chest. The little claw shone up at me, but I felt no resentment or doubt. Maybe it was because I could sense them once more or because of their earlier words, but Ista really was their past.

  I was their future.

  In that moment something
new bloomed, something that may have been love. But it was nothing I had felt before. Certainly not what I had held for the emissary, nor what I felt for David and Katelyn and Jamie and the other flawed.

  No, this was something deeper.

  This was a surety that they wouldn’t leave me. That they would hold my interests to heart and listen to what I had to say. They would seek me out and treasure me, sometimes to the point of annoyance. They would come for me when I needed them, and even when I didn’t. They would—I swallowed—they would cherish me for exactly who I was. Seer or no. Powerful or no. Flawed or no.

  And I wanted them to. And I wanted to do the same for them. Not because of destiny or fate or mystical sight or impulses I had no way to control. Simply because I wanted them, and no other reason.

  This was love.

  There was no way I would allow that to escape me or be taken down by a petty empire that couldn’t see beyond their own noses.

  Audax stepped forward, shoving Orel aside, and knelt before me. “Do you mean it?”

  Should I tease them?

  His eyes narrowed.

  “Can’t you tell?” I asked.

  He rolled his shoulders. “We’re going to have to have a long discussion when this is over.”

  I raised a brow. “Do we really need a discussion?”

  He froze, then looked to Orel and Kunil. With a wry smile he shook his head. “After this? I guess not.” He leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to my lips. “I’m glad you’re back, stala.”

  7

  “Thank you, Mila.” A worker—I think this one was Tim—sipped at the water he’d ladled from the bucket I bore.

  I nodded and waited for him to finish. “The fortifications are going well?” I knew they were, but I found it helped with morale to converse with those who labored sunup to sundown to make Eusos and the other compounds safe.

  “Do you really think the walls will hold?” he asked.

  I smiled. “Of course they will.”

  I did not know this for a fact. We’d been working for a week now. The gryphons had made quick work of the guards in the other compounds. A good portion of the fields in Saar had been lost, but the salting had been halted before too much damage was done, as had the whippings. Orel had spent his time helping to heal those he could.

  Two days after the last compound was secured, we returned to Eusos to see that all was progressing well and to gather volunteers, then had gone back to Saar, where the emperor’s soldiers were sure to hit first. We’d set everyone to dismantling the guards’ barracks and building walls with the stone.

  It was a paltry defense.

  I continued along the path. My sight had not returned to the point it had gotten to, but it was there in outlines of gray. I had learned the area quickly.

  “Mila,” Kunil said from behind me. “Audax has sighted them. We have a day, maybe two. He estimates three hundred, including archers and a company of cavalry.”

  “I’ll take the bucket, Miss Mila,” Jamie said at my elbow. She’d appointed herself my attendant, refusing to be left in Eusos.

  “Thank you.” I held it out, the handle digging into my palm. She took it from me with a small slosh and crunched away down the path.

  A new sound, the rush of sand-filled wind, reached me. At first I thought it was Audax or Orel, but it was too far away.

  “Do you hear it?” I asked. My heart sped. Hope filled me.

  “Yes.” A satisfied grin grew on Kunil’s face.

  “Is it…” I hesitated. “Is it more gryphons?”

  The sound built to a faraway roar, steadily moving closer.

  “Yes.”

  I smiled. “Thank the Great One. We have a chance now. No matter what, we have a chance.” A thought followed on the heels of my relief. Other gryphons were coming. What if mine decided... I shoved it down. They’d kept faith in me. I could do no less than the same for them.

  “I don’t think they will be here in time. And I do not know their intentions. Audax put out a general call. They could be coming to see if we are strong enough to hold the territory. It is new, and there are always those who are willing to poach when a coalition is weak.” His hand settled on the back of my neck, reassuring. “We are not weak, though.”

  Well, that wasn’t something I had considered. I’d been so worried about the soldiers and the empire I hadn’t even thought of the danger posed by other gryphons. I let silence overtake us as we walked. Soon we reached the central overseer’s building, which we had turned into a kind of headquarters. Kunil guided me up the steps and through the door. Audax and Orel stood over a map spread over the central table.

  “The soldiers will reach us by the morning.” Audax spoke. His head cocked. “The others will not reach us by then.”

  “Have they given any indication of their intentions?” Kunil asked. I wanted to know the answer to this one as well.

  “Not yet. One is an older mated pair. I suspect they will join us. The rest are a mated trio, but young. They could be ambitious and seeking a place of their own, just as we did.” Audax stepped away from the table and paced.

  “Either way, they are too far out to make much of a difference for us at the moment.” Kunil walked us to the table.

  I peered down. There stood the five compounds. Someone had drawn a line representing the edge of the land we had demanded. A figurine, I assumed representing the soldiers, stood on the other side of that line.

  Audax crossed the room to me and pressed a quick kiss to my forehead. “I would not worry about them. Plus, how can they resist our beautiful seer?” he whispered before spinning away and resuming his pacing.

  I was a seer, wasn’t I? Whether my visions ever returned or I’d managed to cut myself off from them permanently didn’t matter. I was still a seer, even if I had only received visions for a week.

  With that thought, something snapped into place with an almost audible click in my mind. Maybe being a seer was no more than believing in yourself and your inspiration. Or maybe it was more than that. I didn’t know and I didn’t really care, but I saw what I needed to.

  A wall, the color of sand but strong as stone. It stretched across the horizon and climbed to the sky. Behind it were waves of sand. And beyond those waves were fields, some tilled for planting and others sectioned off for grazing. In the middle of those fields were low, square buildings with people, purposeful but calm, walking among them. I flashed to a new scene. Another set of buildings behind a wall of sand. Women and men both worked the looms and herded the sheep. The images came fast after that, but in each was the stone wall and a new compound—more than the five there were now. And visible beyond them all, set in a sea of sand, was a building made of stone-sand towering into the sky like an aerie. Colored glass reflected in the shining sun, and gryphons flew above it, their wings spread to cover all they saw in a protective embrace.

  “Is it possible? The wall?” I asked, still caught up in the fading vision. Audax paused in his pacing and turned to stare at me. A moment later, Kunil and Orel did as well.

  You’re brilliant, Audax sent. “It won’t be easy. None of us are well-skilled in stone. And we won’t be able to do the whole thing at once. But we may, we just may, be able to pull it off for Saar.” Audax turned to Kunil, who didn’t take his gaze from me.

  An eager glint entered his eyes. “If we go tonight, we can bring the wall up on the edge of their camp and take out a fair number of the soldiers, if not all of them.”

  “Bring it up on the boundary of what we claim.” Orel traced a finger along the line sketched on the map.

  I leaned into his side, and he wrapped an arm around me. “It will work,” I said. “It has to.” I had seen it in my vision, after all. And every single thing I had seen had come to pass, in one way or another. There would be a wall, and my gryphons would have their aerie. More would come, and they would join us.

  Yes, they were mine. If I was theirs, it was only fair, after all.

  Audax swooped i
n on me from behind and lifted me from my feet, spinning me in dizzying circles. Then he set me down and, while my head still reeled, pressed a heated kiss to my lips. I gasped, and he deepened it, our tongues meeting and tangling. I pulled away and gasped in a breath.

  He grinned down at me, and I couldn’t help but match him.

  I’ll go get started gathering the sands and marking the boundaries. Another quick and hard press of his lips and he was out the door. As it swung closed, he transformed and leapt into the air, crying out in triumph.

  “Fledgling hothead,” Kunil murmured next to me. “I suppose I should keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn’t wear himself out before the real work has even begun.”

  “I would have thought you to be the hothead,” I teased.

  He, too, pressed a kiss to my lips. “Maybe.” When he pulled back, he grinned at me, the rare kind that called for an answering smile. Then he tuned and left.

  “Do you need to go as well?” I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with myself now. The workers needed to be alerted, and we needed to check that the weapon and supply stations were set up, just in case soldiers made it through the wall. There were so many things to ensure were in place, but where to start?

  “No. Not until tonight,” Orel said. He tilted his head, his gaze unfocused. “Will you make sure we have provisions and a place to rest when we are done? We will need to be able to recover rapidly. And many will have to work through the night to get the fortifications in place. I will head to the healers and check that they have all they need as well, then do a patrol of the walls and assist there as needed until it is time for me to join Audax and Kunil.”

  I sighed in relief. Audax stirred in the back of my mind, sending reassurance and warmth. “Maybe we can just set up in the dining hall. Bring in some of the cots and the healer there as well so everyone can just go to a central location?”