by Kaia Bennett
“Please.” Vaughn swallowed, and then wailed, “Help. Help me. Help me. Please, help me.”
She stroked the wolfman’s furry arm. Immediately, Stark obeyed the silent request, his giant, clawed fingers releasing Vaughn’s wrists. The black pads of Stark’s hand, like the underside of wolf paws painted on a human hand, left tracks in the soil as he shifted his knees off Vaughn’s thighs. My brother immediately covered his face with his hands, but Evie sprang from her knees and moved to place one foot on either side of Vaughn’s head. His eyes bloomed black with hunger. He swept tears from his face in time for Evie to lower herself to her knees. The touch of her pussy to his lips stole a gasp from us both.
“Oh, yes. Yes.” She rolled her hips over Vaughn’s face. She grasped a breast with one hand, and then grabbed a handful of Vaughn’s hair with the other. “Take what you need. No more shame.”
My brother ran his hands over her thighs. Stark’s loyalty did war with his beast. His long pink tongue swept the length of Evie’s undulating spine while she rode Vaughn’s face, and I looked on, just a few feet away. She cried out in pleasure, Stark’s tongue grazing her spine with another loving lick, his wide wet nose nuzzling her ass while he loomed over Vaughn’s body. The wolfman nosed her shoulder. She reached up and scrubbed her hands across his furry head, accepting the licks and love bites to her neck. Stark whimpered and bucked his hips, his cock grazing the prone vampire under him. The wolfman retreated from Evie to cast his beastly stare on Vaughn’s torso, slick with pre-come and undulating to Evie’s rhythm.
Vaughn’s hips pumped at the first lap from that beastly tongue and Stark’s wolf responded to the exposed belly of the prey he’d subdued. The wolfman rumbled against the tense, pale abs, just inches from the cock curving into the vampire’s navel like a red exclamation point.
I wrapped a hand around my own shaft, the wolfman echoed my movement by grasping that long, blunt weapon between his thighs. Vaughn cried out when Stark’s tongue sought the throbbing red meat of the vampire’s cock.
He licked Vaughn thoroughly, slicking the vampire’s balls and gained access to the cleft beneath when Vaughn shoved his hips into the wolf man’s face.
“Jesse!”
Evie fell forward, bracing her hands on the ground. She panted and clenched the grass while Vaughn palmed her breasts and rode Stark’s tongue. She shivered in the aftermath of the orgasm Vaughn’s mouth gave her. He cried out into her folds and drank greedily, emptying her with every pulsing climax.
“Jesse!” She lifted her chin, this time her black gaze met mine. I sprang to her side, lifted her face and kissed her while she came over Vaughn’s tongue. She gripped my cock with the same urgency she’d used to call my name and jerked me while sucking the humming tip.
You see? Evie asked Vaughn as he devoured her, granting me permission to hear while she swallowed the head of my cock. You see how beautiful it can be when you ask for what you need? You don’t have to take what you want when I can give so freely. You don’t have to hurt others because of what Eamon did.
“Evie.” I pumped my hips to fill her mouth when she pulled me by the ass. I took her advice, I asked for what I need. “Fuck me, baby. Please.”
The last of her blood gone, Evie sat up fully on her knees, and Vaughn croaked, “Fuck, that feels so good!”
Over Evie’s shoulder I spied Stark dragging Vaughn away from Evie’s open thighs by his hips. Grabbing Stark’s not-quite-human head, he fisted the wolf’s gray fur and came in hot spurts against his own belly. Vaughn’s shudders and the pulsing shaft against Stark’s tongue only roused the beast more. The wolf nipped Vaughn’s stomach, drawing blood across his abs, to mingle the taste with the seed coating Vaughn’s still-hard cock.
“Come here.”
I relaxed in a sitting position in the grass beside Vaughn and Stark. Evie straddled my hips. The juicy, contracting walls of her cunt wrapped around my cock, the only offering I could make, and the only one needed in this sacred circle. With her arms around my shoulders and her legs wrapped around my waist, we rocked to a crazed rhythm. Cheek to cheek, our hooded eyes watched Stark scratch Vaughn’s chest with black claws. As Stark crawled up his body, Vaughn’s fangs sank into the wolf’s thick bicep, then his shoulder. Stark responded by wrapping a thick hand around the vampire’s pale throat, the other grasping the enormous shaft Vaughn had so mercilessly teased him about weeks ago.
Evie’s breath hitched at the sight of Stark shoving the bulbous head of his shaft against the tight fissure of Vaughn’s ass. She rode me harder as she watched Stark snarl and snap at the air. Vaughn grimaced with the pain of being stretched so wide and clawed the grass, pounded on Stark’s monstrous shoulders enough to shake their joining bodies.
“G-goddammit!” Vaughn gasped, already working his hips to fit more of Stark inside. He grabbed the still-hard flesh of his own cock, flushed and red as his chest and cheeks, and jerked his shaft hard enough to send the juicy sounds of arousal to my ears. Evie’s mind screamed, Touch me, rub my clit, fuck me harder.
I ran my hands over Evie’s breasts and squeezed, then lowered my head to suck her nipple into my mouth, bracing her back from a sitting position while she rocked in my lap. I sucked the tender flesh between my fangs. She cried with pain and arched into my bite while I thumbed her clit. Her cry of ecstasy drew Vaughn’s hooded gaze and spurred Stark on.
The wolf settled onto his strange, hybrid legs and grabbed Vaughn’s hips, I groaned at the sounds of Stark pummeling Vaughn’s ass with the same vigor as every wolf beast in the circle. The wolfman grabbed Vaughn’s cock in a grip that made my shaft flex with sympathy and envy, the padded palm dwarfing all but the tip. Evie spasmed and clawed at my back, slicking blood with sweat down the strained muscle.
Vaughn roared, “Shit, shit, ohhh shit!” Wanting to be on top of her, I lifted myself onto my knees and lay my mate in the grass beside Vaughn and Stark’s brutal coupling. Evie dug deep trails of punishment and desire from my shoulders to my ass, making me pump so hard and fast I wrenched Evie’s next orgasm from her. I shouted as I punched the ground and gave in to my vicious speed. Evie smiled up at me, kissed me hard while I pounded the vice grip of her cunt.
In the periphery, Stark pulled out of Vaughn and flipped him over like a sack of grain. The wolfman mounted the vampire from behind and shoved his cock in to the hilt. Evie hiked her legs up and panted at the sight of the engorged shaft stretching Vaughn’s tight hole. One massive arm around Vaughn’s pale torso held him in place for the pounding. Evie and I watched, a reversal of our moment in the tent. I saw them through both our eyes. The feral grace of Stark taking what he needed. The wild abandon of Vaughn letting go enough to be taken.
Evie rolled me onto my back, settling over me for a rough fuck that emulated her wolf guardian.
“Oh, yes, oh, right there, Jesse!” I thumbed her clit while she braced her hands on my chest. Tucking my legs in, I thrust my hips skyward like a piston.
“Oh, my God,” Evie screamed. My body temperature rose, taking Evie’s internal temperature higher still and I thought of Masilda’s circle. I couldn’t stop fucking Evie, I couldn’t stop dragging her onto my cock, even when she crested and scratched my chest bloody and raw. She leaned down to lick up the mess she’d made of me, gripped my neck in the vampire-strong vice of her smaller hand, and shoved her tongue into my mouth.
Mine! She growled in my mind and rode me with undulating waves that slammed my hips into the ground. I gripped her sides, slid her sweat up the smooth skin and dragged my nails down to mark her.
Mine, mine, all mine. My mate. My mind spun with her mental purr, saturated down to deepest parts of my psyche by her presence.
I sucked my fingers clean of her taste and hissed with the rising tide of an orgasm shared.
Yours, Evie. Take everything from me. My blood.
The fires raged. Drums pulsed against my spine, like a stampede of wild horses raced past.
Take my body.
Ragged
cries faded in and out. Ecstasy reached a fever pitch. The sounds of beasts and their hosts mating filled the circle to bursting. We rode energy like a compulsion, possessed by the flames. The beat, the moon, the howls of the wolves beyond the circle running free, the wetness of a tight fit, the slap of skin on skin.
And yet, her eyes kept me grounded. The thread between our hearts became the eye of the storm. Everything else existed as a cyclone of chaos around this one perfect moment. Nothing existed but her, cradled in light as all of my desires, my senses orbited her.
Take my breath. My mind. Take everything I have, baby. What does any of it matter without this connection? What am I without you?
She abandoned her hold on my throat and touched my face instead.
My back arched, her hips slammed down on mine and we groaned against each other’s mouths as the rocks containing the circle caught fire. Ancient stones the size of my feet, one after the other, lit up like torches. The night sky shuddered with heat, the stars spun, and the world tipped upside down. I held onto Evie for dear life as we spun out into the wildness we’d created with our bond. We watched the blaze reach higher and shared a moment of fear, a moment where I stared around the coven to see if the witches were rushing to douse the flames.
The hazy world of witches, vamps, and wolves fucking in every configuration, for every reason under the sun, continued. The circle still remained intact, full of pleasure and love, healing and hope.
The night raged on.
Evie kissed my lips sweetly, drawing me back to the merging of our bodies. The fires grew, flames streaking higher, and so did the fire within. We came and came and came, as if exhaustion were the only illusion. We fucked frantically, tenderly, violently. Stark and Vaughn drifted away at some point, seeking pleasure now instead of healing. Pleasure without shame and without rage. But, they didn’t come back to us. I understood why. I’d barely survived the storm myself.
We parted, only to test a new position, to taste another angle we’d missed, to kiss skin we couldn’t reach from the former position. We spent the night saying goodbye. The moon shifted in the sky, the flames dwindling like sand in an hourglass. We’d stalled death for so long and so hard that when sleep finally came, I simply slipped out of consciousness, still buried inside of the woman I’d give everything to.
Not until the first rays of dawn woke me with Evie nestled into the crook of my arm, did I realize time had run out. I knew she was awake because her thoughts rang in my head, clear as the gray sky speckled with stars overhead.
It hurts.
Her tears pooled on my chest. My heart ached, sore as my body, but I didn’t understand why. We were supposed to be unraveled. I still felt connected to her, but with distance now, with blessed autonomy. I had control of my mind, my body housed my own spirit and not the wailing ghost of Evie’s torment. I understood the lies and legacies in my blood. I should’ve felt like myself again, stronger even. But I felt forever changed, forever something else.
Like clay in a kiln, Masilda had said.
Must’ve been why the new priestess wanted to see us after the circle. We’d cleaned up the bond, drained the infection from the thread. Now came the cut.
Just like I had the night I killed her, the night I bit her and she screamed, It hurts! in her mind, I held Evie tight and cried silently. I scrubbed her head with my chin and masked every thought of holding onto her, of begging her to stay with me. Instead I gave her the same answer I had the night I turned her.
I know, baby. I know. It’ll be over soon.
37
The land in the circle warmed my skin with residual energy when we finally rose to greet the day. Even though winter still crackled in the air, warmth followed the gathering of witches, human-shifted werewolves, and vampires all the way to the stream beyond the tree line.
East of the sacred ground, we met a hot spring beneath a waterfall. Cool water from the stream above rained down into the pool. Rising steam revealed where cold water met the coven members’ bodies. Slivers of natural soap waited in several wooden buckets for us to clean ourselves before wading into the soothing heat of the spring. I grabbed soap for myself and Evie, searching for a spot beneath the waterfall full of bodies spinning, laughing, or recovering from their healing in quiet contemplation.
Evie paused beside the edge of the water, staring with muted panic at the clear surface. The water at the foot of the falls, assuming she couldn’t find rocks to stand on, would reach her knees. The hot springs were deeper. Steam curled off the surface, fog pooling around the base of the falls where cold water merged with the potent heat of the coven’s magick.
I swallowed and held out my hand to her. She hesitated, touched the water with her toes, and took a step back with a shiver. In the shallows, I spied tiny, bright colored fish darting over iridescent stones, their fins and scales shimmering with miniature rainbows in the crystalline clarity of the pool. How they managed to survive in such a hot, mineral-heavy habitat I didn’t know. But, I’d never seen the like before. The small critters nibbled lightly at the skin of those lingering near the entrance of the pool, then flitted away.
“Look down, Evie. Really look.”
She peered down at the point where earth met the lapping waters of the pool. Tender shoots of fern and herbs that should’ve been smothered in snow, or dormant in the chill Canadian air, caressed our bare feet. Moss-covered stones breached the surface of the water, surrounded by violet and pale pink flowers still in bloom. She inhaled deep and blinked at the sultry floral aroma mixed with sharp, clean minerals and fresh spring earth.
She gave a thin smile when her gaze caught sight of the fish, dancing their unnatural dance against glittering silt.
When we were awaiting entrance to the coven, Evie had chosen to wash up in shallow waters she could kneel in, but still escape. I assumed she was being careful not to get carried by the current. Or didn’t want to face the phobia I’d given her.
Her whispered, “Gorgeous,” gave me hope she could combat her fear and see beyond the cold cruelty water used to symbolize for her.
Vaughn approached, looking thoroughly wrung out, with his hair streaked at odd angles from a rough sleep to follow his rough fuck. Only red welts remained where Stark’s claws had marked his skin. I gave him a warning glance as he approached with a weary but devilish smile. He glanced at Evie, trapped in memories she nursed alone, her mind closed off, but her shallow breath and racing heart exposing her panic.
Vaughn paused and tilted his head, then looked at the water. To my surprise, he reached out, slowly, like he would with a skittish horse—I thought of the mare at the Gate—and touched her shoulder.
She snapped her gaze to him. He lifted his chin, putting on a hard face.
“Don’t make a big thing out of it, witch. Just a little moral support.”
His gentle touch slid to the small of her back, but no further. I reached for her hand and took her damp palm in mine. Stark met us at the edge of the stream, taking up his place at her left side. Two hands rested at the small of her back now, and I held her hand in mine.
“We got you.” Stark rolled his eyes at Vaughn when the vampire winked at him.
Her inhale lifted her breasts, but rather than dwell on that delightful sight, I sensed the fear she tried to dispel with that deep breath. One step. Then another. I walked her into the fray of bodies wading into the falls, making space for her as I led the way to a spot of our own. Her body quivered violently when the water reached her knees, and she ducked her head.
“I won’t let you go under,” I promised softly. “Never again.”
She gave me a tight smile, and the fear in her stare broke my heart. But she clutched my hand while I walked backward. Her fingers trembled inside my careful grasp, but she allowed Vaughn and Stark’s silent reinforcement, my smile and tight grip on her hand, to give her the courage to move in the direction of our urging, to the water tumbling down the sheer rock face that soared high above our heads.
; And when Stark and Vaughn let her go, when her knees knocked against my legs as the water fell over her, I lathered and washed her. I kept her afloat when she might’ve drowned in her trauma. I cursed myself for every shiver I caused and tried to soothe her fear with a gentle touch. Fossils, from ancient shells to delicate bone, dotted the rocks like calico print. Rather than inspiring thoughts of long-dead creatures, the relics made me think of lineage, my bond witch’s and mine. Thousands of years of steady, unrelenting water, thousands of years of death and struggles for power. Yet, here we stood, cocooned in the warmth of magick made by joining the disparate species in the circle.
I placed Evie’s hand on the ancient stone and savored the look of awe that drowned her fear, hoping she could hear my thoughts.
When I’d finished washing us, I walked her into the deeper spring, into the heat that would sooth away the aches of the night, and all the nights before this. I felt as though a balloon pushed our bodies to the surface, the buoyancy of the physical water rubbing off on my psyche.
The refracted light of the rising sun merged with moisture in the air, painting the serene grotto with rainbows, more than I’d ever seen in one place.
With my hands around her hips, I pulled her close and walked out up to our waists. At first, she wrapped her arms around my neck, locked her ankles behind my waist, and held tight as a barnacle. I stroked her shoulder blades, her hair, and tread water out to my diaphragm. Lifting her up so she never had to sink below the waist, I kissed her belly and she giggled at the nibble I sneaked in.
“Let me lie back. I want to float.”
I lowered her shoulders to the water’s surface, bracing my palms under her so that the soft lips of her pussy rubbed my stomach. Muscle by muscle, her tension eased. Shuddering breaths became deep inhales and exhales. The tautness around her mouth diminished as the water lapped her skin. The pool cradled her, lifted her as I did with my hands, and eased her straining muscles into pliant, supple limbs. I didn’t realize how much tension I held in my own body until she looked up at the clear sky, closed her eyes, and smiled. I braced her, my thumbs skimming her softness, and kissed her navel through undulating waves.