Mac looked like Christmas had come early. “Yes, sir!” Then he disappeared up the staircase.
“Are you kidding me?” Gage yelled. “He’s too little, Hex! He’s going to get hurt.”
“He’ll be fine.” Hex clapped Gage on the shoulder. “Pop your titty out of his mouth, and let him be a man. He can do this. Show a little faith in your mate,” Hex chided.
“Un-fucking-believable,” Gage muttered under his breath before spinning around and storming up the stairs after his lover.
“If Mac’s going, so am I!” Sony yelled from the top floor.
“The hell if you are,” Gage returned heatedly.
“He-ex!” Sony whined the word, drawing it out into two syllables.
“He’s big and strong when he shifts, and he could look after Mac,” Echo said very quietly. “It’s a hard decision. I’m glad I don’t have to make it.” Then he batted his lashes at Hex.
Vapre watched the entire show with curious fascination. Had Echo ever manipulated him like he was doing to their alpha? He hated to admit it, but the answer was most likely yes, and it had probably taken very little effort. He’d give his mate anything he desired.
“Sony, pack a bag,” Hex called up the stairs. “You’ll be responsible for protecting Mac!”
“Yeah, so go suck on that, Gage!”
Vapre turned his face to hide his mile-wide grin at Sony’s words. This whole mess was getting more comical by the second. A shoulder bumped his, and he looked over to see Eyce standing beside him. “What’s going on?”
“Echo is letting Hex think he’s running the show,” Vapre whispered. “Hex is eating it up.”
“Do you think we look that goofy when we look at Echo?” Onyx stepped up beside Eyce and tilted his head to the side.
“Absolutely,” Fiero said confidently as he brushed against Vapre’s other shoulder. “Echo is everything that’s right in the world. Who cares if we turn into blabbering, mushy idiots when he’s around? It’s worth it.”
“Agreed,” Vapre whispered. Fiero had nailed it on the head. No matter what vile and evil things awaited them in the weeks and months ahead, Echo would be their light at the end of the tunnel.
Ten minutes later, everyone had assembled in the front yard, packed and ready to begin their journey. Vapre stood with Echo on the porch, an arm wrapped around his shoulders, as they watched their men disappear down the narrow drive that led to the main road.
“You’re bad,” he said, not looking at Echo.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” The smirk in his voice said otherwise.
“How many times have you used that trick on me? Making me think it’s my idea?”
Echo shrugged and turned, entering the house and sashaying across the room, his ass swaying invitingly the entire way. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“You little…”
Echo squealed when Vapre lunged for him, sidestepping the sofa and sprinting down the hallway toward the office. “Syx!”
Vapre caught up with his mate just as Syx stepped out into the hall. “What the hell is going on?” he demanded when Echo jumped into his arms, practically climbing up his large body to get away from Vapre.
“He called me stupid and said I give bad blow jobs,” Echo whispered disparagingly.
Syx rolled his eyes, trying to pry Echo off of his chest. “Whatever is really going on here, I’m sure you deserve it.” Then he paused and grinned wickedly at Vapre. “Just to be sure, though, maybe we should judge the expertise of your blow job skills.”
Vapre’s nostrils flared, and his body hummed with lust as he prowled closer to his lovers. “Yes,” he growled. He didn’t know what the hell had come over him, but suddenly he needed his mate with an intensity close to pain. Moving his gaze to Syx, Vapre took in the demon’s long, sandy-blond hair, his smooth, sun-bronzed skin, the way his eyes heated with longing and passion as he stared right back.
Pressing himself against Echo’s back, Vapre sandwiched their mate between himself and Syx, leaning over Echo’s shoulder and delivering a scorching kiss to Syx’s slightly opened mouth.
His tongue swept through the warrior’s lips, licking at the sweet depths that awaited him, and Vapre didn’t know who moaned louder—him, Syx, or Echo. Their mate squirmed between them, tugging on Vapre’s hair as he joined in their three-way kiss. “Bedroom,” Echo panted long minutes later when they’d finally come up for air.
“Too far,” Vapre argued. He needed his lovers, and he needed them now. Pulling Echo from Syx’s arms, Vapre set him on his feet and immediately began tearing at his mate’s clothes. Once he had his man stripped to his skin—oh and what nice skin it was—Vapre pressed on Echo’s shoulder, and the man readily dropped to his knees without resistance.
It took only seconds for Vapre and Syx to divest their own clothing, and they stood shoulder to shoulder, their hard cocks in hand, staring down at their eager mate.
Echo batted their hands away, wrapped his slender fingers around Syx’s length, and stroked him fast as his pink lips enveloped Vapre’s cock in warm, moist heat.
“Oh, gods,” Vapre moaned. One hand moved to gently cup the back of Echo’s head, while his other hand tangled in Syx’s locks and jerked the man forward to lay siege to his delicious mouth once more.
Echo bobbed his head, dragging his lips along the throbbing dick in his mouth as his tongue worked the underside of the sensitive flesh. Then he popped off, and Vapre glanced down out for the corner of his eye to see his mate dive forward to capture the leaking tip of Syx’s cock in his talented mouth.
His small hand stroked Vapre’s spit-slicked shaft while Syx fed his own cock between Echo’s lips, rocking his hips gently as he continued to attack Vapre’s mouth with enthusiasm.
Vapre disengaged from the mind-numbing kiss, watching the erotic show of Syx’s slippery prick sliding through Echo’s lips for just a moment, before he turned and hurried in through the office door. Rummaging through the desk drawers, he finally came up with a travel-sized bottle of lube. Clutching it in his hand as if it held the secrets of life, he stepped back out in the hallway and knelt behind Echo.
“Hurry,” Syx warned, both hands fisted in Echo’s hair, his face the most exquisite mixture of pain and pleasure. “Damn, he can suck cock.”
Vapre nodded once, then set to work, lubing his fingers and skimming them along Echo’s crease as he searched out the little rosette that awaited him. Ringing the muscles once, he grinned when Echo moaned, pulling a strangled growl from Syx’s lips. Then he pushed in with two fingers, swirling them around as he twisted his wrist and began pumping the digits in and out of Echo’s clenching passage.
He stretched his mate quickly, rubbing his other hand over the soft, rounded hills of Echo’s cute little ass. Then he snatched up the lube, coated his pulsing cock and tossed the bottle over his shoulder to land where it may.
Without further preliminaries, he urged Echo to bend forward slightly, lined up his demanding prick, and pushed home in one hard thrust. Echo cried out, the sound muffled around the turgid flesh in his mouth, and Syx groaned, his eyes actually rolling back in his head.
Giving Echo only a moment to adjust, Vapre began a punishing rhythm, his primal instincts taking over as he slammed into Echo’s welcoming body with animalistic force. If he worried he was hurting his mate, he needn’t have. Echo moaned and whimpered around Syx’s cock, his throat muscles working as he swallowed around the spongy head again and again.
“Fuuuuck!” Syx cried out, his only warning before his muscles tensed and his body began to shudder.
Echo braced his hands on Syx’s thighs, licking the demon clean while Vapre continued to drive his aching cock into Echo’s tight hole. Reaching around his mate’s slim hips, Vapre palmed Echo’s bobbing dick and stroked him hard and fast. “Come for me,” he demanded hoarsely.
As though he’d been simply waiting for the command, Echo buried his face in Syx’s groin, groaning and whimpering as streams
of hot semen bathed Vapre’s hand and wrist. Echo’s inner walls convulsed in waves, squeezing Vapre’s cock until he felt his eyes would cross from the pleasure. Giving one final plunge, Vapre stilled, and his hands gripped Echo’s hips in a bruising hold as his balls unloaded, painting his mate’s dark tunnel with endless ropes of sticky cum.
“Did I pass?” Echo panted a moment later as they all slumped together, trying to catch their breaths.
“Oh, yes,” Syx answered reverently. “With flying colors.”
Vapre chuckled softly, leaning over Echo and nuzzling the back of his neck. “Never doubted you for a second, baby.”
Chapter Two
“I’ve been thinking,” Syx said casually as he moved about the kitchen, preparing a late dinner for the three of them.
Everyone had left, Syn and Jinx were still sleeping, and the house felt unusually lonely. There were plenty of open chairs at the kitchen table, but Echo crawled up in Vapre’s lap and rested his head on his lover’s shoulder.
“Alert the media,” Vapre teased, his hand drifting up to comb through Echo’s long hair. “What’s going on in that sexy brain of yours?”
Syx snorted at the compliment as he added more spices to the sizzling pan on the stove. “We’ve been assuming that these”—he waved a hand around without turning—“tests, I guess you’d call them, will come in the order they were given.”
Echo’s brows drew together, and he scrunched his nose. He didn’t know about the others, but that’s exactly what he’d been thinking. Upon closer inspection, he realized how naïve that might be. Knowing what was coming, or at least having an idea, was an advantage that he’d seize with both hands. What if they were wrong? What if the tasks came out of order—without rhyme or reason? That certainly fit in with what Echo had learned about the Oracle and the world his demons inhabited before their escape.
“So, you think that maybe we need to be prepared for anything?” Echo sat up straighter in Vapre’s lap and leaned his elbows on the table. Resting his chin in his palms, he studied Syx’s back, watching for the telltale signs of stress and tension.
Syx seemed completely at ease, though. He shrugged dispassionately, finally turning to face Echo. “It wouldn’t hurt.”
“Good call,” Vapre said. “What brought this on, though?”
“A couple of things.” Syx removed the pan from the burner and flipped off the stove before leaning back against the counter and crossing his arms over his chest as he addressed them. “The Oracle said that the crops will die. If we assume the prophecy is ordered, this would be the fourth task, beginning at the rise of the new moon on April third.”
Echo didn’t understand. “So?”
“The growing season in northern Montana is short and doesn’t begin until mid-April,” Vapre answered.
Looking over his shoulder at Vapre, Echo’s mouth dropped open in a little O. “Is there anything else?”
“Yes,” Syx and Vapre said simultaneously. “The bleeding moon,” Syx continued after a pregnant pause. “From what I know of literature, and from the research I’ve done, this most likely refers to the war.”
“The red moon is symbolic of the blood spilled during battle,” Vapre said almost to himself.
“There was another warning after that, wasn’t there?” Echo recalled something about those born of the first, but he didn’t know what the hell it meant.
“Right,” Syx answered, but said no more. His face looked pinched, and his shoulders seemed tense. Then he spun around and began digging plates out of the cabinet. “Echo, can you go get the vampires? The sun has set, and I’m sure they’re hungry.”
Echo wasn’t stupid. He knew he was being dismissed so that Syx and Vapre could talk privately. Sighing, he rose reluctantly and started toward the basement door. “Have you guys figured out how to set up a light-tight space for them?”
“I’ll make some phone calls in the morning,” Vapre answered readily. “We’ll have them moved into the main part of the house by the end of the week.”
Nodding, Echo offered a small smile as he opened the door and a breeze of cool air hit him in the face. He shivered and looked over his shoulder again. “Any way we can have it ready sooner?” Though he hadn’t much cared for the vampires upon their arrival, he now considered them friends—family even—and it made his heart hurt to think of them in the dank, drafty basement.
Vapre’s brow wrinkled, and he rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. “Maybe I can come up with something a little less drastic than steel plates on the windows. Let me think about it.”
Echo snorted and rolled his eyes as he shut the door quietly and crept down the basement stairs. Steel plates, indeed.
* * * *
“Okay, so why did you want him out of the room?” Vapre rose from his seat and sauntered over to Syx. He stood toe-to-toe with his lover where the man still leaned against the counter. “Talk to me.”
“Did you know that Fiero is in love with Eyce?” Syx said out of the blue.
Vapre’s eyes rounded, but he couldn’t think of a thing to say. Was Syx jealous? Was he angry? The demon didn’t look to be either of those things. In fact, he looked almost melancholy. “Well, I know there’s been a lot of changes going on around here,” Vapre said carefully. He couldn’t read Syx’s mood, so he figured treading lightly would be the best course to follow.
Syx sighed and pushed away from the counter. To Vapre’s further shock, Syx stepped forward and dropped his head to Vapre’s shoulder. “Some days I wish things would go back to the way they were. Things were much simpler then.”
“Boring, you mean,” Vapre teased, trying to lighten the atmosphere. Reaching up, he curled his fingers around the back of Syx’s neck and massaged gently.
“Predictable,” Syx countered. “I don’t like not knowing what’s going to happen from one day to the next.
Yes, that sounded like Syx. The demon thrived on regimen and organization. There were some deep thoughts going on inside the warrior’s head, and Vapre wondered how long Syx had been thinking them. “What’s going on?” He spoke quietly, barely more than a whisper.
“I think Echo should leave,” Syx mumbled.
Vapre’s fingers paused mid-squeeze around Syx’s neck. Surely he hadn’t heard that right. “You want him to leave?”
“I don’t want him to, but I think it’s for the best.”
They stood there for a long time, neither saying a word. Vapre felt torn between the man he’d loved for centuries, and the little sprite that had blown into their lives and insinuated himself in Vapre’s heart in a matter of weeks. How was he supposed to choose between two people he loved more than anything?
“I can’t live without him,” Vapre finally whispered. Closing his eyes, he rested his forehead against Syx’s temple. “Don’t ask me to do that.”
“Something bad is coming.” Syx’s voice was tense, strained, and sounded nothing like its usual mellowness. “And it’s coming for Echo. I don’t want him to leave either.” He pressed more firmly against Vapre’s chest. “Gods, it hurts to even think about him not being here, but I would die if anything happened to him.”
“What’s coming, Syx? Talk to me.”
“We have to get him out of here,” Syx continued, ignoring Vapre’s pleas for more information. “It won’t be forever. Just until after the war. They can’t have him. I won’t let them take him!” He growled the last part, vicious and animalistic, and Vapre jerked his head up to stare at his lover.
“Who’s going to take him?”
“No one!” Syx shouted.
Whoa! Someone had woken up on the crazy side of the bed that morning. A soft noise behind him drew his attention, and Vapre looked over his shoulder to find Syn and Jinx standing near the door that led down into the basement. Jinx looked embarrassed at having walked in on what he took to be a private moment.
Syn, on the other hand, looked pissed.
Vapre patted the side of Syx’s neck and turned around slowly. “Syn, cal
m down,” he said gently. “Take deep breaths.”
The vampire’s face had turned a mottled red, the vein at his temple pulsed, and his fangs elongated to protrude over his bottom lips as he snarled.
Oh, this is bad. Vapre didn’t know what had happened to sour the normally cheery vampire, but if the look on Syn’s face was any indication, he was working himself up to an all-out rage. “Syn.” Vapre still spoke calmly, soothingly. The last time Syn had gotten himself worked up the entire house had erupted in pandemonium. “Look at me.”
Syn wasn’t looking at him, though. His eyes were trained just beyond Vapre, locked on Syx, and there was menace in his gaze. “Why?” Syn growled heatedly. “He loves you. I’ve never seen anyone more in love in my life. He’d do anything for you, and you don’t bloody want him?”
That’s when Vapre realized that Echo was suspiciously absent from the room. Darting his eyes from side to side, he scanned everywhere for his mate as though Echo might be hiding in the corner of the kitchen somewhere. “Where is he?” he asked finally.
“He left.” Some of the anger seemed to deflate from the vampire, and his eyes held a sadness that hurt to witness. “Just like you wanted.”
“What?” Syx jumped forward to stand beside Vapre. “I didn’t want him to leave. Didn’t you hear anything I said? I just want him to be safe. It’s not safe for him here!”
Syn’s eyebrows drew together, and he tilted his head to the side. “Truly?”
“You were standing right there!” Syx bellowed.
His eyes downcast, Syn chewed on his lip as his face flushed. “I, um, well, see, the thing is, I got a bit perturbed when Echo stormed out of here. He’s been good to me, and I could see he was right upset. I didn’t much like that, ya know?” He wrinkled his nose, looking contrite and embarrassed. “I may have tuned you out after that,” he mumbled.
Hoping to avoid another blowup, Vapre pushed Syx behind him with a hand to the center of his chest. “Where did he go?”
Evans, Gabrielle - Hell's Tempest [Fatefully Yours 4] (Siren Publishing LoveXtreme Forever ManLove) Page 2