by Ophelia Bell
The hesitance in her voice was the only thing that kept him from jumping up and demanding that she show him now. He spread his fingers and pressed his palms flat on the surface of the table, staring across at her.
“If you have a spell that does that, I want to see it. Then we can decide if I can reach Aodh.”
“I can’t,” she said. “Not yet. I haven’t reached my estrous yet, and I won’t have enough power for the spell until I do.”
“The spell is tied to your fertility, isn’t it?” he asked, beginning to understand her fear of divulging all the details. If she hadn’t reached her estrous, there was a strong chance she was a virgin. More than strong, judging from her behavior. The power wasn’t just the simple command of the life energy that permeated the world and all living things—a power even a male ursa like Cade could access at will, if they were trained for it.
“I have to … um,” she began, then shot a fearful look at them both as though she’d just realized she was sitting in a room alone with two very virile males.
Cade was the first to break the silence, and he did so with a loud laugh. “Kiddo, you’ve dug yourself into a nice little hole here, haven’t you? I’ll help you out, since you’re very new to the whole ursa gig. All that sweet power that builds up inside females before their estrous comes straight from the Source. That’s why it’s so damn dangerous. But the only way to let it out is for you to have an orgasm. Or even better, a whole lot of orgasms. I never knew it could be harnessed and reused … Mostly us males just channel it back to Gaia. So you’re telling us that you have a spell that lets you do that?”
Cade’s clinical explanation did nothing to cool Neph’s rising lust. Vrishti had come to him with this request, one that she knew required her to give herself to him. Or did she know?
“You understand this means we’ll have to fuck?”
Gaia’s tears, simply saying the words made his cock painfully hard.
Cade cursed. “Let the kid get her bearings, for fuck’s sake. Nobody’s fucking anybody.”
“It’s all right, Cade,” Vrishti said. “I … I’m aware of how I access the power. I only had an idea of how you would access it, but now I know. If it means rescuing Aodh, then I’m prepared.”
Neph let out a sardonic chuckle. “I don’t think you are.” He stood up from the table. “Let me show you exactly what you need to be prepared for, because the only way for me to use my full power is in my primal form.” He swiftly unbuttoned his shirt, then his jeans, stripping deliberately out of each item of clothing, ignoring Cade’s fountain of profanity. She had to see.
Vrishti sat stock still, her mouth slightly open and her eyes growing wider.
“You don’t have to …” she started. “I mean, I get it …” She raised a hand when he stood naked in front of her after walking around the table.
“This isn’t what I need to show you,” he said, then summoned his primal shape and shifted. In a smooth flow of magic, his body grew. Giant horns sprouted from his head, curving back from his temples in coiling ram’s horns, and his lower body spawned a coat of thick, black fleece. “This is.”
Even in his human shape, it’d been impossible not to be aroused by her. His simple nakedness a moment earlier had heightened her reaction to the point that he could easily scent her desire. But now his cock had grown in both size and need with the surge of his primal instincts. The thick length protruded from its nest of fleece at his groin, massive shaft curving up in a smooth arc that pointed directly at Vrishti.
“Are you prepared for this, girl?” he asked, voice dripping with every ounce of lust that filled him. He gripped his shaft and gave it a long stroke, enjoying how she licked her lips. He’d happily bend her over the table and fuck her now, but despite that wild craving, he still knew better—though he would have tormented her more with his satyr shape if Cade hadn’t stepped himself between them and shoved Neph backward.
“You fucking son of a bitch! Get yourself under control, man. I said, nobody is fucking anyone in this house. Not tonight. Not after all that goddamn wine, and especially not without her saying she’s good and goddamn ready for it.” He turned to look at Vrishti, and in a more comforting tone said, “He is right, though, kiddo. You are far from prepared for his crazy ass.”
Neph relaxed and let his shape recede back to the less powerful, but more palatable human form he lived in most days. The swell of desire didn’t dissipate, but he ignored it and hoped that at least his eyes would remain calm enough for her to look at him without getting nauseous. He swiftly pulled his jeans and shirt back on. Even with the roaring fire, there was still a coolness in the air that he was constantly aware of. If only it would cool off his craving for her.
He sat back down across from her and gave her a hard look. “You’re inexperienced, not only with the power you’re seeking, but with the means to create it. You’re a virgin. You’ve never been serviced through an estrous—any female ursa who has been through that experience wouldn’t have that scared kitten look you’re giving me now. One orgasm from a fertile female in the middle of estrous carries enough power to bend time. Nyx and I are the only creatures in existence who can use that power, but that should highlight to you how reckless you’re being by even showing up here. It has less to do with tempting me than simply knowing your own body. When you orgasm, how wet to you get now?”
She opened her mouth and closed it again, reached for the wine, but he was quicker, snatching it away from her. “No way, kitten. You can’t escape in the wine anymore. Not until you lay it all out for me. If I’m going to do this, I need to know exactly where you are. Have you ever even had an orgasm?”
Her throat worked silently as she swallowed and shook her head. Neph’s hands went to the table again, pressing into the surface so he didn’t ball them into fists and punch something.
Taking a deep breath, he said, “All right … I can’t fucking believe I’m doing this for that bastard, but I hope when we get to him he says thank you. Here’s what you need to do … You’re going to go upstairs, take off all your clothes, get into the shower, and turn the nozzle to the massage setting. Then aim the water at your pussy.”
Her gaze remained fixed on his face, her eyes as wide as they could go. She fidgeted slightly in her chair and he inhaled reflexively, hating himself for how his mouth watered and his dick pulsed at the potent scent of her arousal.
“Hold it on you for a count of ten and then stop. Get a hand mirror and look at yourself in the light, see how wet you are, how hard that tight little clit is, and touch yourself until you feel like you might explode. Feel that orgasm hanging by a thread and leave it there. It’ll be torture, but that’s the point.
“Then when you get up tomorrow morning, do it again. I don’t want to see you with clothes on until you come to me begging for my cock to make the hurt go away, because when you do hit your estrous, kitten, my cock is the only thing that’ll make it better. Don’t look at Cade … He’s a strong male ursa, but he’s not strong enough for what you’ve got buried in you. If you really are powerful enough for what we’re going to do, I’m the only one who can help you. Besides, where we’re going, he can’t follow.”
Vrishti’s brow crinkled and he sensed the question coming. She’d barely gotten out the “why” when he answered.
“You’ve got to push yourself. Your body’s sexual responses are slow. If you’d been masturbating since you were younger, you’d be ready for your estrous sooner. We don’t have time to sit around and wait. Trust me, I’ve seen some of the shit that’s coming. You say you have the power, then you need to trigger your estrous so we can get to it.”
“In the shower …” she said.
“C’mon, kiddo,” Cade said, nudging her shoulder gently with a big hand. “I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping. There’s locks on all the doors, so don’t worry.”
At the big ursa’s urging, Vrisht
i stood and followed in a daze. The pair trudged up the stairs that circled around in a spiral behind the fireplace. A moment later, Neph heard water running and then Cade returned, shaking his head.
“Don’t know what the hell her mother was thinking, letting her out of the Sanctuary with so little experience. Females aren’t even allowed out for their pilgrimage until after their first estrous.”
Neph emptied the remaining wine into his glass and swallowed it in a few quick gulps. “I don’t recommend hanging around for the next few days, if you want to maintain your own sanity,” he said to the other man.
Cade sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his broad chest, eyeing Neph. “You think I’m leaving her at your mercy? The fuck I am. I may not be enough for her on my own, but I can sure as shit make sure you treat her right.”
Neph raked both hands through his hair and speared the other man with his gaze. “You don’t get it. This is Fate’s doing … her being here, I mean. I should’ve seen her coming. I would have, if she were just after a simple quest to save a friend. But that isn’t the case … not by a long shot. She’s here because my ex is the mate Fate has marked for her.”
Cade narrowed his eyes. “So, what the fuck does that have to do with how you treat her? Is that ex of yours even going to be enough?”
“He will, but she’ll have two regardless. Because I’m hers too.”
“How do you know that? You said you didn’t see her in those visions of yours.”
“Process of elimination, sort of. I can see your future clear as day. I can tell you the day you die, in fact. But my own future is a complete blank. I didn’t see her. I can’t see her future. And I can’t see the future of the man she wants us to find. What that means to me is that the three of us share a future so closely bound my powers of foresight are nullified. And nothing has ever fucking scared me so much as knowing, yet not knowing.”
Cade relaxed and shook his head. “All right, man. I’ll be scarce over the next few days. If you need me, I’ll be at Alec’s and Julia’s. Just promise you’ll be gentle with her.”
“She’s my mate, Cade. If I fuck this up and she leaves me, I may as well die.”
“But you’re immortal …”
“I know, man. I know.”
And after pushing away one mate all those ages ago, Neph already knew what it felt like to walk through life feeling like a dead man. Not only was Vrishti here, offering him another chance at family and fatherhood with a truly worthy female, but she was also offering him a way to mitigate that ancient mistake. That simple fact made loving her a given, and there was nothing in the world that could make him jeopardize that.
Chapter Six
Vrishti
Vrishti stood under the pounding pulse of the shower, unable to get Neph’s image out of her head. Not the beautiful man she’d been too stunned to speak to in the kitchen at first, but the majestic, sexual beast he’d changed into later to make a point.
Naked bodies were a thing she’d barely gotten used to after the scant few weeks she’d spent in the Sanctuary, but the residents there, particularly around the Rainsong Clan Lodge, leaned toward nudity as a rule. So she’d seen her fair share of huge, naked ursa males recently. Cade had only shocked her because of how cold it was in the woods where they’d met.
Neph was something entirely different. He wasn’t just a naked man … even when that was all he was. No, when he transformed, he became something else—a creature whose entire purpose was sex. Cade had been right. Neph was made to fuck, and she couldn’t stop picturing that giant shaft and what he might do with it. To her.
Getting turned on wasn’t an issue. She’d become more aware of her body’s cycles and strange new fluctuations since entering the Sanctuary. She’d finally learned how to shift just before she’d left. She could reach her inner beast simply by sinking into that awareness, as though it were second nature to be something other than what she was. She was no stranger to craving a transformation of her entire body, and her bear form was a welcome escape from the uncomfortable desires of her human flesh. Ever since the day Aodh had kissed her and said those beautiful words—the ones that made it as clear as day how much he wanted her—she couldn’t fall asleep at night without imagining his hands on her.
But she’d never seen him naked and aroused, so in her head it was only his hands on her body, his mouth on her skin, and his voice whispering in her ear how much he wanted to bury himself inside her until she screamed his name.
And she’d certainly never touched herself while having those thoughts. She’d just let the desire crash through her, clenching her thighs to stave off the worst of it until she fell asleep. But the need would rise in the dead of night with the dream of Aodh’s mouth on a part of her body that had never seen the sun, much less the gaze of a man.
Often she would wake up and find she’d unconsciously summoned a bed of flowers to grow around her, straight from her mattress. That was when she learned she could channel that desire into creating living, growing things, and had focused her studies from that point forward on understanding how that magic worked. She still had a lot to learn about the magic, but it had at least given her an excuse to avoid dwelling on the desires that triggered the magic. Now she had no choice but to face those desires head-on.
At least Neph hadn’t asked her to get naked in front of him. But to do what he asked, simply knowing he’d told her to do it, was too much.
Wasn’t it?
To have Aodh back, safe, her promise kept … She’d already risked everything by leaving the Sanctuary to try to find him. Was her virtue too big a sacrifice? She’d known it was going to happen one way or another, but for some reason, the logistics hadn’t occurred to her. Somehow the concept of sex was still alien to her despite her aching need. It was something that happened separate from her … to her body, but not to her.
To give herself an orgasm … or, no, that wasn’t what he’d told her to do … She was to play with herself to the point that she was close, but not actually come. That was just a little too much to conceive of.
But she had to do it. Nyx had said that her brother would have all the answers, that Vrishti might not like them, but she had to do as he asked if she wanted to find Aodh. “Finding your love is never easy once you’ve lost it,” Nyx had said, pressing her hands to the invisible barrier of the magical cell that held her. “I’m the perfect example. Neph will know what to do. Obey his commands if you wish to find your dragon.”
Her hands shook as she reached up and grasped the handle of the shower head and removed it from its bracket. The hot water beat harder against her skin the closer she brought it. Sharp pleasure burst through her nipple when one strong jet passed over it, and she gasped.
The goal was to tease her estrous into showing itself. Pleasure was how to reach that goal, but not too much … not enough to actually orgasm.
Experimentally, she aimed the shower stream at her nipple again, deliberately moving it into a slow circle and focusing on the warm spread of sensation that moved down her body, pooling between her thighs. Without even trying, she pictured Aodh’s mouth again. He’d barely touched her beyond that one farewell kiss, so his mouth had been burned into her mind. The sharp sensation of the shower jet became his lips and teeth sucking and toying with her nipple.
Vrishti sighed. Good. It felt so good. Even better with the fantasy of his touch, of his pale eyes gazing down at her with both adoration and wicked lust. She redirected the flow to her other nipple, aiming until the point of discomfort. The jet blasted a hard, unrelenting pressure, and Neph had asked her to put it between her thighs.
Just like that, Aodh’s face faded and Neph’s replaced it with that carnal glare he’d given her while in his primal form, his hand fisted around his massive shaft. Her vaginal walls clenched hard, and she moaned aloud at the overwhelming ache that took up residence in her core.
; “No,” she groaned, wishing for Aodh’s image to return. She couldn’t pleasure herself thinking about another man, even if she had to eventually fuck that other man to save the one she loved. She shook her head and opened her eyes, hoping that by being more present she could get this done. She stared down past her heavy breasts and round belly to the thatch of black curls between her thighs. If she couldn’t have Aodh, she would do this for herself. Not for either of the men—the one who was lost, and the one whose help she needed to save him.
This was her problem, her task, her quest. If training her body to do what she needed it to do was what it would take, she should be all in for herself.
“Right. You can do this,” she murmured, then dropped the nozzle and reached for the soap. She drizzled a measure of body wash into her hands, then lathered them up and cupped her heavy breasts, exhaling softly to focus. This should be like any other learning experience, similar to how she began each day over the past few weeks of lessons to understand how her magic worked. She’d been trained to find her center, to focus on the present, avoid distractions and be in her body. From her body, she could access the magic of Gaia through her connection to the Earth.
This should be no different, yet when she rubbed her nipples with soapy fingers and watched herself do it, she must have been too focused on the act, because she didn’t feel the same spark of desire she’d felt from the jet of the showerhead while her eyes were closed. The sensations were nowhere near as pleasurable as when she’d imagined Aodh doing it to her. Still, it was nice, and her body responded.
When both nipples were hard, dark peaks, she bent to pick up the nozzle again. A count of ten, Neph had said. Holding her breath, she braced her feet wide and aimed the stream at the top of her cleft. She bit her lip and stared down at the pulsing jet as she slowly lowered it, the hard pressure of two of the trio of streams parting her lips for her and the third suddenly blasting right atop her tender clit.