by Eva Chase
I should be out there too, searching for more information that might help, doing something to combat the demon’s threat. But my legs balked at the thought. What if I’d already hindered our progress there more than I’d helped?
My father had told his interrogator everything. He’d had to, once they knew the right questions to ask. He’d had demonic power in him when he’d gone to my mother the night I was conceived. He’d planned the timing; he’d sent that unnatural magic into her womb to encourage a child to grow—a child who’d have even more capacity for magic than any witch should. He’d kept encouraging it, with little boosts of power as he touched my mother’s growing belly, until just a few weeks before I emerged into the world.
Apparently he’d said he’d done it to free witching kind from the influence of the demons. He’d hoped that a witch with the enhancement of demonic strength would be able to seal the portal and prevent the Frankfords from ever reopening it. Maybe he’d told himself that was why he was doing it at the time, to get around any guilt he should have felt. I wasn’t sure I could believe he’d ever meant to attempt that plan once he realized how much he could enjoy the extra power himself.
Even if he had meant to go through with it, he’d planned to enslave me to a consort who didn’t give a shit about me and then force me into following his scheme, rather than telling me the truth and asking for my help like a halfway decent human being.
“Rose,” Seth said softly where he was sitting at the edge of the king-sized bed. He held out his hand to me. “Do you need to talk some more? Or just sit with me. You know you’re not in this alone.”
A pang ran through my chest, all the love I felt for him tangled with my horror at what I’d discovered. At what I’d allowed him and the other guys to bind themselves to. But it wasn’t as if I could hide my distress from him. I sat down next to him and leaned my head on his shoulder, as much for him as for me. His arm came around my waist.
“Maybe it would have worked,” I said. “What we tried this morning. Maybe if I hadn’t been there, if the demon hadn’t sensed that I had some kind of connection to it… Maybe the magic I sent into the mix actually worked against our purpose, since I didn’t know my spark might be tainted.”
“The demonic power from those two guys who went with you helped you push the demon back,” Jin pointed out from the armchair he’d settled into. “Any of that influence in you probably helped too. Maybe in this one case, it’s not a taint, it’s a bonus.”
“And there can’t be that much in you,” Damon said, stopping in the middle of his own restless pacing to fix his gaze on me. “I know what that monster feels like, being close to it. I’ve never gotten even the slightest hint of that feeling from you.”
“That just means the influence is buried deep. Or so merged with my spark it wouldn’t show unless I tried to bring it out.” I bit my lip. There was something in me, something twisted, strong enough that the demon had noticed from thirty feet away.
“It came at me, but it didn’t hurt me,” I said in a thin voice. “As if it saw me as an ally, not an enemy.”
“It doesn’t matter what it thinks,” Damon said. “You know you’re going to take it down. Fuck it and the whole Assembly.”
Seth gave him a chiding look and nestled me closer against his brawny body. “You know now,” he said. “You didn’t realize before, but now you can use that power to your advantage. Turn it against the demon. You won’t run out of magic the way the men who stole some of that power will.”
“If the Assembly decides to trust me enough to let me get involved again at all,” I said. “If the influence I’ve grown up with even works that way. Those men were regular people who took a little of that energy into themselves. I was made with it. I…”
I was a monster too, wasn’t I? Some element of that creature that made my stomach turn and my nerves shiver ran through every particle of my being. I restrained a shudder now.
“You,” Seth said, soft but firm, “are still exactly the same woman I fell in love with. Nothing we found out today changes that.”
I looked up at him, needing to see the honesty of that statement gleaming in his gray-green eyes. He traced his fingers along my jaw and kissed me.
There was no reluctance, no hesitation in that kiss. His mouth met mine with all the hunger and affection he’d always shown me. It was a relief to lose myself in that heat, in the trickle of desire that turned into a flood as his tongue teased past the seam of my lips and his muscular chest brushed my breasts.
Damon was never one to be left out. As I fell deeper into Seth’s kiss, the mattress shifted at my other side. Damon’s hand came to rest on my waist, his lips brushing my bare shoulder.
“Whatever your asshole father did back then, you made yourself the woman you are,” he murmured. “I couldn’t want you more, exactly like this. All that crap doesn’t make a bit of difference.”
Jin settled onto the bed behind us. He eased my hair to the side with a gentle graze of his fingertips and kissed the most sensitive spot on the back of my neck. “You’re my Briar Rose,” he said. “Now and always. We’ve known you longer than anyone here, we’ve always trusted you, and do you see any of us second-guessing that now? No. And I’m more than happy to remind you just how much good we are together.”
Pleasure radiated through me with every caress. Seth tugged down the zipper of my dress, and I arched into him as he slid the silky fabric down. Damon made quick work of my bra. I yanked at Seth’s shirt, wanting to be even more swept away by the force of their desire, but my fingers twitched as I reached for his naked chest. The image rose up in my head of the faction member who’d demonstrated how he’d conducted the demonic power through his palm with a motion of his hand. My own palm tingled uneasily.
I’d never hurt my consorts with my touch before. But a cold thread of doubt coiled through my thoughts no matter how I tried to focus on their attentions and bringing them the same pleasure.
What if something deeper had awakened in me after this morning’s encounter with the demon? What if that confrontation had jarred something loose that I hadn’t needed to worry about before? I hadn’t felt any different other than unsettled by its interest, but… I couldn’t shake my fear.
My hand trembled against Seth’s abs, my fingers curling before they found the waist of his jeans. He paused, drawing back, and the other guys hesitated in turn.
“Rose?” Seth said. “What’s wrong? If you don’t want this—”
“I do,” I said quickly. “I do, so much. I just…” I looked down at my hands, palms up. “I don’t know how much I can trust myself. I can’t get that worry out of my head.”
Seth frowned, but then an almost wicked glint lit in his eyes. A husky note came into his voice. “What if we took away the worry?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, heat pooling between my legs in anticipation of his answer.
Instead of speaking, he urged me farther up the bed to the plump pillows. Desire darkened Damon’s expression as he followed us. A grin curved Jin’s lips.
Seth undid his belt and slid it from his jeans. Ever-so-carefully, he looped it around one of my wrists and slid the buckle down so the leather band held me loosely. He touched the headboard and raised an eyebrow at me in question.
Eagerness rushed through me. To give in completely—to put myself in their hands, figuratively and literally, with my own taken out of the equation. Yes.
I nodded, a flush creeping up my neck. Damon leaned in to kiss my collarbone as Seth tied the other end of his belt to the headboard. Then my rebel was stripping off his own belt, tossing his jeans aside for good measure. Damon slid the loop over my other wrist as tenderly as Seth had.
My fingers closed around the warm leather. I could tell, if I’d needed to yank myself free, I could have. But I didn’t want to.
As Jin peeled my dress the rest of the way down my legs, Damon captured my mouth. Seth cupped one of my breasts and slicked his tongue over the already pebbled
nipple. A gasp escaped me.
Every touch was heightened when I left myself to their mercy. All they wanted from me was to take whatever they hungered to give me. And by the Spark, I was hungry too.
Jin kissed his way back up to the inside of my thigh. His breath spilled hot over my core. He lowered his mouth to me, swiveling his tongue around my clit, and I moaned into Damon’s mouth. My hips bucked up in encouragement I couldn’t express with my hands.
“You taste perfect,” my artist murmured. His fingers tested my folds and eased inside me. One and then two hooked up to reach that perfect point of pleasure as he mouthed my clit.
A giddy wave of bliss rolled over me. Seth stroked my other breast as he teased my nipple with his teeth, and Damon trailed his lips across my cheek to nip my earlobe, and for a moment nothing existed but that whirl of pleasure.
“What do you want?” Damon murmured. “Let us give it to you, angel.”
A shaky breath spilled out of me. “More. Faster. I’m almost—”
Jin sped up his pumping before I’d even finished speaking, suckling me with greater intensity, and ecstasy spiked through my veins. My hips rocked into his touch, and a second later that bliss burst through me, leaving me clenching around his fingers and crying out. Seth groaned at the sight and kissed me again, hard.
“I want you inside me,” I said, breathless with the need still pulsing through me. “Please.”
My stalwart guardian was already stripping off his pants. Jin moved around him to claim a kiss as Seth bent over me. Seth trailed his fingertips over my folds, slick with my release. I spread my thighs as I whimpered.
He palmed his thick cock, teasing the head over my clit and down, and my head bowed back into the pillow. My grip on the belts tightened. Jin kissed his way down my neck and Damon was fondling my breasts and, oh, Seth surged into me as if he couldn’t wait for us to be made one. The heady burn of the penetration spread through my whole body.
Seth tucked one arm under my hips, angling me to meet him even more closely. A moan slipped from my mouth as he filled me deeper and deeper again with each thrust. Pleasure trembled through my limbs, but it wasn’t enough.
“Damon,” I said around a gasp. “I want you too.” I turned my head toward him, my gaze going to the bulge of his erection through his boxers.
“Fuck,” he muttered. He kicked the last of his clothes off and knelt by the pillow, just close enough that I could swipe my tongue across the head of his cock. He groaned.
“If it’s too much, just pull back,” he said in a rasp. He guided his length past my lips, the musky salty flavor of him filling my mouth. His fingers tangled in my hair. He started to pump his hips with gentle strokes, his breath stuttering.
My spark danced in my chest in time with the rhythm of Seth’s cock driving into me, the rocking of Damon fucking my mouth. Every part of me was flooded with heat. Jin twisted my nipple, a jolt of near-pain amid the pleasure, and I soared even higher. Right then, in that embrace with three of the guys I’d have given my life for, I didn’t have the slightest doubt about who I was or what I was capable of.
Seth bucked into me faster, his thumb flicking over my clit. Another wave of bliss coursed through me, building higher. My lips closed tighter around Damon’s cock, and he swore with a hiss through his teeth. He gripped my hair as his hips jerked, a creamy spurt hitting the back of my mouth.
“Oh, angel.” He slumped down next to me, kissing my cheek, stroking my neck. “What do you need? I want to see you come all over again.”
All I needed was those words in that wanting voice. Seth drove into me one more time, and the wave crashed over me. Light crackled behind my eyes as my second orgasm sent me flying. Seth hunched over me with a few last frantic thrusts, following me and filling me with even more heat.
Damon tugged my wrist free from his belt and pressed a kiss to my palm. My heart fluttered as I drew him to me, hugging him close. Jin released my other hand and settled into my embrace on the other side, my fingers coming to rest against the smooth skin of his back. With a contented sound, Seth rested his head on my belly.
Sudden tears pricked at the back of my eyes, but they were mostly happy. I trusted my guys—and they trusted me. Why should I doubt that trust? Jin was right: They knew me better than any person in the Assembly did.
I couldn’t be certain how much of the demon’s influence I carried inside me, but I’d be damned if I let an enemy lurking within destroy everything I’d fought so hard for.
Chapter Ten
Rose
“I don’t get it,” Naomi said through the phone. “Why did they drag you all the way out there just to tell you to back off?”
I sank into the pillows on the hotel bed, rubbing my forehead. I’d wanted to talk to my cousin, mainly to find out how things were going back on my estate, but I still hadn’t figured out how much and how soon to tell her about the past day’s revelations. All I’d vented about so far was the fact that the Northcotts had asked me to step back from their strategy meetings.
“There’s just been stuff that’s come up,” I improvised. “With my dad, and my childhood—he raised me to be demon chow, basically, right? They hadn’t thought through all the implications.”
“Well, I still think that’s a ridiculous reason to shut you out. You’re the one who got to the bottom of this whole scandal in the first place, and you and your consorts risked your lives to do that while they sat there oblivious. They should be kissing your feet in gratitude that you’re still helping them at all.”
I had to laugh a little at her no-nonsense tone, so very Naomi, even though my stomach was still knotted tight. A couple months ago, I hadn’t known I had a cousin, but she’d staked out a spot in my life with immediate spirited determination I couldn’t help appreciating.
“I wish you were here,” I said, frowning at the molded ceiling.
“Well… You might get your wish very soon.”
The sly note in her voice made me sit up. I knit my brow. “What do you mean? You aren’t thinking of—”
The roar of a gunning engine carried through the phone line. My eyes widened. “Naomi, where are you?”
“I, ah, might be in a car just making our way through Portland right now,” Naomi said. “Surprise!”
For a second, I was speechless. Then my mind latched on to one part of her comment. “We?” She obviously wasn’t the one driving.
“Lesley wanted to come along—and who can blame her. I didn’t want to leave her on the estate with no company. And my mom flew in after she heard. And, ah, so did Aunt Irene.”
My back tensed. Aunt Irene, older sister to my late mother and to Naomi’s mother, my aunt Ginny, had almost definitely tipped the Assembly off to some of our plans back when we’d been labeled as criminals and in the enforcers’ sights. She might not have known me well, but she’d betrayed me just to make sure she stayed out of the line of fire. I could only imagine what she’d think of this latest discovery if she found out.
“What’s she doing here?” I said. “What are either of them doing here? The Assembly has been trying to keep a close lid on— You didn’t tell them the whole story, did you?”
“Not exactly,” Naomi said. “Do you really think the Assembly could hide something this big for very long, after all the arrests, and with all the enforcer movements on the coast? Everyone’s buzzing about something going on. I told Mom a little, hoping she’d worry less, and, well, it kind of backfired.”
“You’d better believe it did!” Aunt Ginny’s voice carried faintly from somewhere near Naomi.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay.” My pulse was skittering. They were coming here. I was going to have to explain everything else somehow. I could already tell if they didn’t understand the Assembly’s decision to shunt me over here out of the way, they’d probably march right over there in protest, and then they’d hear about my demon-tainted magic from someone like Lady Northcott. At least if they got the story from me, I’d know they had m
y side.
My fingers gripped the phone tighter, and Naomi let out a pleased exclamation. “There’s the Assembly building now! You want to come meet us out front, cuz? I don’t know if the security people are going to be super happy with us marching right in.”
“Oh,” I said, my heart jumping. I had to explain things now. “Er. I’m not actually at the Assembly building anymore. They ended up moving us to a hotel down the street… It’s a long story.”
“What?” Naomi said. “I guess we’d better hear that long story when we do get to you.”
Despite my dread, I gave her the directions to the hotel. With her promise that they’d be here in five minutes, I hung up the phone. My throat had constricted.
I’d only just reconnected with my mom’s family. They were the only family I’d been able to trust after what Dad had put me through. Was I going to lose them too now, as soon as I told them the truth?
Out in the suite’s living room, Kyler was peering intently at his laptop screen—surprise, surprise. Jin was sketching something on a pad of paper, and Damon had passed out for a nap on the couch across from him. Gabriel turned where he was pouring himself a cup of coffee in the kitchenette area. Seth had gone out about an hour ago to check about supplies for a plan he’d been working out—one he hadn’t wanted to even tell me much about until he was sure he could get the materials he needed.
One the Assembly might not even bother to try, the way things were going.
“How are things back home?” Gabriel asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Naomi’s on her way here, with my aunts and Lesley. I have to go down and meet them in the lobby.”
He set down his mug, his expression showing he’d already guessed my fears. “I’ll come with you.”
“It’s okay, really. I—”
“Rose. I’ll come with you.”