by Lora Leigh
Reluctant Consort
Lora Leigh
Book four in the Wizard Twins series.
Arabella da’Alistair is aware of her fate. The daughter of an evil king, she knows she must be sacrificed to allay the people’s fear she will become a creature of magick. But suffering so at the hand of her father is more than she can bear. She wants one more chance to be wrapped in a magickal ménage with the warriors she has been meeting in secret. Warriors who have no idea who she truly is.
Caedan and Daelan of the Ogre house Dungarrin agree to save a woman destined for horrors, as demanded by their two kings. She may not be the woman they long to possess, body and soul, but they will follow their duty. But fate shines on them and the twins will do whatever it takes to save this woman—their woman—and deliver her to the safety of their arms, and the pleasure of their bed.
A Romantica® fantasy erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave
Reluctant Consort
Lora Leigh
Prologue
The Vale.
It was a place of pure magick. A place where magick was rumored to have been birthed.
Spora, the crystalline spores of dried liquid magick, drifted on the breeze like playful feathered seed as it danced about on currents of magick-scented air. It was said to have once filled all of Sentmar. That it fell as the flakes of snow fell upon the Glacial Mountains and filled the valleys like a heavy magick fog.
That was before the Sidhe tricked the magick sects and placed the humans within the most distant mountains of the planet. Those creatures who were not natural to the lands, their evil was like a plague, like a sickness that arose from the magick and the lands they inhabited became imprisoned within.
The Vale was to most, even those of the magicks, known to be only a place of legend now. Only a precious few knew the Vale still thrived, the magick that sustained all of Sentmar flowing from it to those created to be sustained by it.
To the warriors of the Causeway, the Ogre, it was a place where no taint of human darkness could be found. A place of primitive, powerful magick.
Within the Vale the Ogre could heal, surrounded by pure magick pools, or bathe in heated streams of magick-infused waters. They could find ease for their desires with the priestesses they could call to them, provided by their Guardian Selects, the demi-gods the One chose to protect the magick of Sentmar’s lands.
And once, long before, when the mists separating the lands were first formed the One had whispered the secrets of Ogre warriors’ ability to draw their magick females to the Vale. Magick would always breed magick, the One had sworn. The Ogre, great of power, filled with honor, created to endure both the magick realms and the human lands, would not be forsaken in claiming those women filled with the magicks the Ogre was to protect. They too would have the ability to draw and claim their hearts and desires—or so legend once said.
But that was long ago—
*
Arabella da’Alistair, daughter of King Herndon Alistair the Perverted of Yarba’s Eldorah Province, paused at the edge of the Causeway, her gaze searching both the mists as well as the land behind her for any hidden dangers. And there were many dangers that could be enemies. Enemies who would eagerly see her destroyed for the crime she was about to commit once again.
Were she to be caught here, her sentence would be death, no matter which sect found her.
Should her father’s forces glimpse her then he would sacrifice her to allay the people’s concerns that she would become a creature of magick. Should the fearsome Ogre find her, then she would be driven mad by the sight of their grotesque visage just before being roasted upon their fiery pits to feed their depraved legions—or so the Wise Fathers had always taught.
But should she be lucky once more, she would slip through the mists to find that place time and land had forgotten and the warriors she could feel pulling her to them.
For but another moment in their arms she would brave her father’s evil as well as the Ogre pits. For but one more touch, a single caress from those males, she would brave evil itself.
Oh how she ached to hurry to them.
It seemed ages since she had laughed with them, felt warmed by their caresses and entranced by their kisses. And this could be the last of such times they would be permitted to share. Come the morrow she was to be presented to her future husband. A man she knew to be wizened and nothing like the warriors she craved nightly.
She might never see nor touch the warriors she thought of as hers ever again. She could not consign herself to such a fate without seeing them one last time.
Stepping into the darkening swirls of magick-laced clouds, inhaling as a drunkard did when given his first drink in days, Arabella once again tempted all the forces that would see her destroyed should they learn of this heresy.
Magick was forbidden to find a harbor in any human in such a way, especially one whose Halfling roots were so far removed from the hierarchy of true magicks. Humans were forbidden to touch, to taste or to draw the scent of the spice-laced spores into themselves. To do so was a crime upon both magick as well as humanity. But there were those, so very few within the human lands, whose blood craved the magick that swirled about the Causeway. Those who felt a hunger for it far worse even than a drunkard’s need for his drink.
Humans such as Arabella.
A thousand years past her ancestor, a Spry prince with no twin still living nor chance to rise above his brothers to the throne, had slipped to the human lands. His desire for his human lover had consumed him, causing him to cut all ties to his magick roots.
The legacy of his birth had left his line with the power to survive within the mists and turn away the creatures of dark magick that inhabited them. It had also left them in true danger of meeting the fate of so many others her father Alistair the Perverted had managed to uncover.
Moving quickly along a narrow, almost hidden path, Arabella found the entrance to the valley she sought. Stepping past the rising obelisks inscribed with graceful script of a long-ago language, she nearly staggered from the feel of magick suddenly surrounding her.
Should any place hold true magick then it was here, in this place. It infused her. She grew giddy within its fold, drawing it into her, feeling it rise around her, inside her, as though welcoming her once more.
Beauty surrounded her in the form of great rising trees whose leafy abundance parted in a multitude of steps to catch the rays of the sun beaming overhead and spill them to the lush grass beneath.
Fabled tweeterlings flew overhead, their wings stretched wide to catch the warming currents of magick that flowed through the land.
Blooms of all shapes and sizes, all manner of colors and designs filled bush and brush and through it all a many-layered path of marble said to enhance all forms of magick spread out between lush greenery and blooms in all directions.
Winsome, fluttering puffs of seed resembling puffers, the tiny feathery flowers that as a child she had made wishes upon before they flew free of their stems, filled the air. The incredibly soft forms never fell to the ground. As though moored to the breeze itself they danced with capricious abandon about her as she hurried along the path leading to the heated springs where her warriors always awaited her.
She knew they awaited.
She always knew when they rested within this place of magick.
She could feel them calling for her in a way that reminded her that her magick might be separated by at least a thousand years but still it pulsed within her. A fragile spark mayhap but a spark that grew ever brighter here, within this magick realm.
Lifting her long skirts, she moved ever faster, the blood coursing, pounding in her veins as heat began to infuse her entire being.
How she ached for them.
&n
bsp; How she longed for them…
A sudden band about her waist drew her to an abrupt halt as she passed yet another obelisk rising to the brilliant, blue sky.
Her back met the muscular breadth of a powerful chest as her fingers curled over the iron-hard forearm shackling her close.
A smile curved her lips as a moment later her head tilted up, resting against a warrior’s chest as his brother stepped slowly from behind the rising fronds that sheltered the pools from prying eyes.
“Sweet little heart,” said the darker warrior who held her and lifted her until her feet no longer touched the ground.
“You wear far too many clothes.” The other, her dark warrior’s brother, his black hair shot with golden hues, caught her to him then as the other lifted her knees to clasp his brother’s hips.
“The days have been far too long,” the warrior groaned behind her, quickly unlacing the snug ties securing her dress at her back. “How we hunger for you.”
She was undressed quickly as the now-familiar crackle of power began to ignite within her body. She could feel it awakening, warming, heating beneath her flesh. It invaded her bloodstream, striking sparks in the tender flesh between her thighs.
Between rising magick and impatient male hands she was quickly undressed before her golden-hued warriors bore her to the heavy, moss-laden bed they often laid her upon.
“Dearest heart.” The shifting star-studded black of their gazes stared down at her in hunger as she was lowered to her feet before easing her to her knees. “Ease me, love. I ache as a warrior mortally wounded.”
Sweet mercy, the pleasure of these stolen, forbidden hours.
Drawing her nails down the rock-hard planes of his tightening chest to the muscles below, she quickly found the formidable strength of his shaft as it rose to meet her touch.
Curling the fingers of both hands around the width, she leaned forward, her lips parting over the flared, pulsing cap of his erection.
As she leaned close to taste her warrior’s desire her knees were pressed farther apart, the feel of course strands of her dark warrior’s hair smoothing over her thighs. His head moved between her spread legs, strong hands catching her hips as Arabella parted her lips wide enough to take the fierce dimensions of his brother’s throbbing erection. Her lips tightened around the heavy crest, her cheeks hollowing to suck at the throb of hunger against her tongue as a harsh moan rasped her throat.
“Easy, love.” A strong hand clasped the side of her head as her knees trembled.
Between her thighs a wicked tongue tasted her with such intimate devastation her senses exploded with agonizing pleasure.
Heated, diabolical, the tip of his tongue rasped over such sensitive flesh, flicked and relished the taste of moisture that had gathered in slick layers upon the feminine folds.
As she suckled greedily at the thickened flesh moving between her lips, her warrior tasted her with heavy male hunger.
Magick flowed then.
It burst from her, from her warriors and wrapped around the three. Blunt male magick found the clenched entrance as his lips found the little bud of exquisite sensation at the apex of her folds.
Heated spirals of darker magick slid erotically between the curves of her rear, caressing slowly, needily to the tighter, puckered entrance below. They had accustomed her to their magick invasions in the months past. Made her ache for it.
Thrusting shallowly between her lips, one warrior possessed her mouth with such gentle hunger he shackled her senses. Between her thighs the other began suckling firmly at the little bud he’d captured, piercing her senses with rising ecstasy.
Magick slowly, heatedly penetrated the slick depths of her feminine heat as threads of powerful heat worked slowly into the tightly puckered entrance of her rear.
Burning heat, a painful pleasure she sought more of each time she felt it invading her, pulsed through her. Locked between the width of the fierce flesh shuttling between her lips, the hungry kisses and tastes of the warrior between her thighs, and their combined magick penetrating each entrance below, Arabella could feel her own magick building, rising. Here in this place she was one of great power, matching the warriors who drew her to them.
She was meant to be theirs, yet birth decreed otherwise.
“Ah yes, my sweet,” the man before her groaned as he thrust against her lips. “Such tight, sweet lips. Suck me, beauty. Take what only we can give your sweet hunger.”
Her lips tightened further, her moans rising in lush hunger as the magick they shared sped through her veins, creating a need, a brutal desperation for the taste of his seed filling her mouth, caressing her tongue.
Between her thighs magick stroked into her nether regions, stretching her inner muscles, stroking her flesh with burning stokes. Within that place where she was taught none should touch, magick lashed at her with fiery sensation. It stretched the small entrance, drove into it with powerful strokes and filled her with an agonizing need to be taken fully.
Not by magick alone. To be taken by their bodies, by the hard shafts they had yet to penetrate her with, with the heavy release of their seed filling those places that no other had ever touched.
Pleasure became a creature of such greedy hunger, such aching need that their surroundings disappeared and all their passions knew was the explosions, the rapid-fire strikes of ecstasy consuming them.
*
Muse stood still and silent, her gaze narrowed on the trio, her own senses not unaffected by the Dungarrin warriors and their little hidden sorceress.
How had the princess’s power survived the human lands? That place where no magick, save the darker arts, were known to exist?
Was this yet another example of the lessons the One had decreed that those he’d placed as the protectors of magick must learn?
The fusion of magick building in the hidden realm of the Vale, within the Gardens of Nirvana sparked and spiked with such greedy passion now that even she, said to be the least passionate of the Guardian Sentinels, was not unaffected.
But then, since arriving in the Ogre stronghold of the Obsidian Fortress, many things now affected her. Come the new moon phase she was to leave for the Covenan castle while her sister Nemesis would depart Cauldaran for the bleak shadows of the Causeway, and their younger sister Nyx would depart from Covenan.
How long had it been since she had seen her baby sister? Or even the older of her siblings? It had been even far longer since she had seen her parents, the Guardian Select who oversaw Sentmar from the twin moons and the brilliant light of the sun said to be Musera’s glory.
In truth, the three traveled between the two moons, using the sun’s brilliant light to watch the children of the One and to protect them in his stead.
Before she could leave this place though, this passionate trio must be certain to persevere. That battle she sensed would not be the easiest she had yet faced, for it was her mission to ensure their magicks became fully aligned. She must ensure the princess’ survival and her escape from the human lands even as she guided the Dungarrin warriors to claiming the magick and the female, as only the males of Sentmar could do. As only their magick could claim her.
Together.
Chapter One
The mists of the Causeway surrounded him, the screams and moans of magick souls lost to dark magick following his every step. His heart was racing, fear snaked through him, making mockery of the sword he carried. Though that brave blade would do him little good without the knowledge to wield it effectively, he knew. Still, he hoped but for a moment, with the blade shielding him, to convince the Ogre to hear him out.
He would die in this place either way. He was only twelve cycles old, and his sister Arabella was always telling him he had a great and wondrous future ahead of him, if he swore to the One to never follow his father’s path.
He hadn’t followed that path. He’d resisted at every turn. But his great and wondrous future would end here.
Darkness shrouded him, though it was early morn
in Eldorah. The lands of Yarba that his father, King Alistair, ruled were shrouded in light until it met this dismal place. Here there was no night or day, there was only the freakish mists and shadowed forms that followed his every step.
The Ogre.
He nearly choked on his own spit as he spied yet another huge form crouched and moving along his periphery. Was this not how all twelve-year-old princes dreamed of meeting the afterlife, he asked himself caustically. At the end of an Ogre’s sword?
He was the son of a king, Quin reminded himself as the hulking demon shapes surrounded him, the mist obscuring their features as they brought him to a stop within the circle of their gathering bodies. He would not beg for mercy for himself. He would not plead for his own life. He prayed to the One and the magick Guardian Selects that his sister would appreciate this sacrifice one day. He had yet to even taste his first woman, and now, he would die instead.
“We have us a human.” Amusement filled the booming voice, though from which beast it came from, he did not know. “A boy human at that. What manner of men are humans who send their children to the Causeway?”
“Men? I thought that title exempt from those lowly forms,” another boomed with an edge of laughter as Quin lost his ability to control his flinch of fear. “And here this one carries a blade? Think you he can wield it? Or shall he fall upon it?”
Their laughter only grew, flooding his face with shame.
He was his sister’s only hope. He could not fail her.
But he was so frightened, his knees shaking with such fear that he wanted only to cry, to hide behind Arabella’s soft skirts as he had in years past.
Ogres were said to be horrifying creatures to behold. Quin kept his gaze trained below where their faces might be. His uncle Finn said no creatures could be as terrifying as legend portrayed the Ogre. But his luck had not been going so well this moon phase, as his sister often said, so he preferred not to chance it.
One-eyed, grotesque and misshapen, the sight of them was said to drive grown men to madness. What would it do to a boy, he wondered, flinching as one shifted closer to where he stood.