by Kendal Davis
Things would be different now.
My hands were pressed against his chest. Moving through the heavy, hot air as if I were in a sauna, I raised one forefinger and sent a staggeringly powerful spell around the room. I was stronger now that I’d been only a minute ago. With all four elemental bonds with my mates, I could bend the physics of the world to my will.
When I stepped back from Breze, just slightly, the others in the room were frozen. I’d managed to weave a spell that fixed them in time, using all of my elemental affinities. Breze looked around and shook his head in wonder.
“What have you done to them?” he asked me, his hands sliding along my arms, bringing me back to him. He kissed my neck, his breath warm against my skin.
“It just came to me,” I said in wonder. “It’s not a spell I’ve ever studied.”
“How long can you keep it up? Four fae and one insane mortal are a lot of energy to try to bind, even temporarily.”
“Oh, it’s not just them,” I returned, a flush of triumph rising on my cheeks. “I’ve stopped the entire school. I’m thinking with a new scope. Different plans now.”
“What are they?” His lips had reached my collarbones. I couldn’t understand what had happened between us, but I knew he was deadly serious in his commitment to me. He’d held back for so long. This sudden knowledge that I welcomed our bond, no matter what he’d done, had sealed his feelings for me.
“My first plan is to...well, to rip your clothes off.” I spoke in a low voice. There was no question that my words were true, but I felt shy saying them aloud. After all, despite the three lovers that I called my own these days, I’d never touched another person until I came to the Academy.
“Let’s do that, then,” Breze said huskily. With his own magic, he wrapped a spiral of air around the two of us and teleported us to my tower bedroom.
“How’d you do that?” I asked. “It takes a lot of power to teleport another person. And you didn’t even finish at the Academy.”
“Don’t remind me,” he answered lightly. “I never got asked back, but I would have come if I’d been invited. The problem was that Hellebore needed me in the mortal world too much.”
“Is that why you’re strong, though?” I was suddenly suspicious. “Do you steal mortal life force as well? I’m starting to think that Thorn does.”
“Never touch the stuff,” he said firmly.
“Good.” I looked down at the carpet, still a little shy. “Do you want to know why I kissed you?”
“I do know,” he answered. “The bond between us is stronger than anything else we can possibly experience. If we allow ourselves to feel it, to set it above anything else that seems important, nothing can ever break it.”
“Nothing is more important, not even what you’ve done in the past. That’s what Alder was trying to teach me in his study.” I moved away from him to sit on the edge of my bed.
Breze watched me, his lips slowly curving upwards again. “This was my room, you know, when I was a first-year at the Academy. I shared it with my best friend, just as you do with yours.”
My mouth was open in wonder. “Alder never told me that, in all the times he’s been in here.” I felt myself blush again. Would Breze feel comfortable with the fact that I had three other lovers? That we had spent many long nights on this very bed, tangled with each other in passion?
He didn’t look worried. “Alder and I have known each other for longer than you know,” he said. “I’m sorry to say that I don’t think he would speak up for me, nor should he. He worked for the Queen as an Assassin for a long time, but my own sins are so much worse.”
“Isn’t that funny?” I felt genuine wonder. “The idea that making wrong choices in the past could be more important than who you turned out to be?”
“I don’t think you understand.” It was odd to see such a tall man be so tentative. He paused, then tried again. “Don’t you see what I did? I helped Hellebore destroy your mortal world; it was hers, too. All in the service of extracting power for her vanity. And since then, I’ve controlled the environment of that world to keep feeding her. It wasn’t just one time. It’s been centuries upon centuries.” He was still dignified, but there was a wildness in his eyes that I had to assuage. He still hadn’t grasped that I would accept him no matter what.
I leaned back onto one hand. How could I tell him what was in my soul? It wasn’t just the magic of the bond we shared. My willingness to see his true heart and not his errors was enormous. “I understand all that. And I still believe you can be saved.”
He watched me gravely, with no words at all.
I stood again, but I stayed there at the edge of my bed. I licked my lips in anticipation of what was to come. Willing myself not to fumble, I began to unbutton my dark blue shirt. My school uniform was perfectly fitted, as they always were. The fabric was smooth and sensuous against my skin, so that sometimes in class, I ended up shifting against it without meaning to. When I reached the last button of my shirt, I let it slide down my arms, past my hands. I wore no brassiere. I always joked to Evana that the things were uncomfortable, and she responded with mock horror that such things even existed in my world.
The land of the fae was better in so many ways. I couldn’t blame Hellebore for choosing it, as I had done so myself.
But I was going to stay here by generating power, not stealing it.
“Breze,” I whispered, loving the way he couldn’t take his eyes from my body. “You chose to let me remember that night in my room, in the Tithe’s mansion. Maybe you just wanted to get my attention. But you helped me see it. The symmetry.”
“That two of the men who love you are guilty of terrible crimes against your land?”
“No. That is beyond my judgment,” I said. “What I mean is, that night, it was just the three of us. Alder stabbed me, although he didn’t want to, and you saved me.”
“That doesn’t mean that either of us worked for you. We were the Queen’s forces, each there for a different reason, but to serve her.”
I dismissed the question of loyalty with a shake of my head. “But you are now bonded to me. Alder tried to kill me once,, and to complete the circle, I took his life. There is symmetry in that. And that night, you saved me.” I could feel myself glowing with emotion. “And now I can save you.”
His eyes were intent, as if there was nothing else in the world besides me. He closed the distance between us, taking me in his arms. Every part of him was rock hard against me as he clutched my body to his. He slid his hand inside the waistband of my skirt, then pushed it down over my hips to the floor. When his fingers trailed down me, he smiled in appreciation of my lack of undergarments. He held my hips against his, his hard cock pressing against me through his trousers.
“Ciara, I want you so much I can’t think straight,” he muttered. “You’ve bewitched me.”
“Show me,” I said softly, leaning back on the bed. I didn’t know how long I could keep the rest of the castle in stasis while we stole this time together.
We were going to find out.
Breze tore off his clothes in answer. He covered me with his muscular form, holding himself up on his arms and kissing me as he moved lower. When he reached my breasts, he took each nipple into his mouth, sucking on them, teasing them. I gasped, arching my back to be closer to him. It felt like a tornado of lust was tearing through me as our elemental powers connected.
His kisses were magical, making my nerve endings sing. When he reached my center, he set his tongue to pleasuring me, bringing me to a moaning peak of ecstasy. His lapping tongue moved against my wetness as I moaned. This man was nothing like the severe tyrant I’d met in the Great Hall and in his book-lined office. He was giving himself over to worshipping me and my need for him.
When I was almost to my climax, Breze slid a finger inside me, then another. I knew I was slick with wanting him in me, but I gasped as his digits filled me. He was pushing me to my limits, but I wanted more. I wanted his cock inside me.<
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I panted out, “I need you, Breze. I always have. If I can save you now, if we let this bond take hold, then I think I can save everything there is.”
Breze was pure power, focused as a laser. He watched me, his hands still on me, his fingers still penetrating me. “Ciara, this is what I’ve always wanted. You. I wanted you.”
As I felt my body tense and reach my climax, I knew I could trust him.
Well. I could trust the bond between us.
And that was almost the same thing.
18
Breze
It had been longer than I could remember since I’d been at all proud of myself. The hole I’d fallen into when I first met Hellebore in the realm of the mortals was a deep one. For a time, I’d been sure it was a bottomless pit of moral failure for me. I could remain alive. I had to, as I was an eternal fae. But I had not hoped to feel like myself again.
The moment Ciara lifted her face up to mine, there in the classroom where Hellebore watched, I was reborn. She offered me redemption.
I was more myself now than ever before. A new man, after centuries of waiting and planning. I’d plotted for this outcome so precisely that I knew any error would be fatal.
I lifted myself upwards, trailing kisses along Ciara’s belly as I did. She was hot, her breath coming in gasps as she found her way back from her orgasm. By the time I reached her lips and pressed mine against them, she was smiling. Good. I’d done what I’d dreamed of for so long now.
“You can, you know,” I said. I intended to sound suave, but it came out more of an agonized growl. “Trust me.”
Ciara met my eyes, not at all afraid of seeing who I truly was. “How’d you know what I was thinking?” She furrowed her brow playfully. “Besides, I wasn’t wondering if I could trust you. I was thinking how good it is that I can.”
“You can trust me because there is nothing in my life except you. I’ve waited a long time for this.” Again, I sounded more desperate than smooth. She had that effect on me.
Ciara leaned her head back against her pillow and wriggled against me. “You talk too much. Show me how much you want me.”
In answer to her request, I pressed my cock against her wetness. She’d seen the size of my member. I would be careful. I moved slowly, wanting her to beg. “Now?”
She moaned. “Breze, that feels so good. There. I need you.”
If she and I claimed this bond, she would have all four elements supported by a mating connection. She would be unstoppable.
It was what I had worked toward every single day since she was born.
I couldn’t hold back any longer. With a decisive motion, I sheathed my cock inside her. She gasped at the firmness of my thrust, but she lifted her hips to meet mine. Her hands pulled me against her as she opened her legs wide to bring me further into her. For a moment, we were both still, incapable of doing anything else but processing our senses. My brain was trying to untangle all the messages it was receiving from my body: the exquisite pleasure of her heat enfolding me as I penetrated her, the leaping strength of my air magic as our elemental bond grew, and the love I felt for her in my heart.
I withdrew, checking to see if she was ready for more. Then, seeing the sparkle in her eyes, I filled her again with my hardness. Again and again, we moved together in the dance of lust and elemental sorcery that I could never have had with another woman. She was my fated mate, and she always had been since the day I thought of gifting her with more than one element.
“Ciara, my love,” I whispered against her hair as I leaned down, pushing my hard cock against her core.
She opened her eyes in surprise at my words, but then allowed a grin to creep across her face. “I didn’t think you knew that yet,” she murmured. “Breze, I love you. Not for anything you’ve done, but because of who you are. I accept all of you.”
And she took all of my cock into her, as I moved inside her and brought her to a second, panting climax. She took all of me as I gasped and filled her with my hot seed. At the same time, my magic flared into a hurricane of raging ability.
We held hands as we lay there, for all the time until we did it again.
It did not take long until we were ready.
The second time we made love was slower, more sensual, and filled with gentle laughter as we learned each other’s bodies. Ciara did not ask me to tell her anything about myself, for she knew what she needed to know. Somehow, all the mistakes I’d made, all the terrible choices that I’d thought were the right ones, were obviated in her mind because we were a pair.
I realized that wasn’t quite right. We were more than that. “What’s it like?” I asked her, when we’d collapsed together in a sweaty pile once again. “Having so many lovers? Do you know them all as well as you know me?”
“Yes,” she answered dreamily. “I’ve never been able to ask anybody who has more than one fae mating bond, as there isn’t anybody else in the world like me.”
“That’s true,” I said, running a fingertip along the curve of her breast.
She drew in her breath and I saw that her nipples were hard. “Breze, if you keep going with that, we’ll need to make love again. Now.” Her hand strayed below my waist. My body was happy to comply with her urgency.
“Will we all be together at the same time?” I said slowly. I rolled back and pulled her onto me.
“Yes,” she said seriously, as she lowered herself onto my cock. Watching my face to see if I minded what she was saying, she went on. “I need all four of my lovers with me, together, filling me with their essence. That is who we are.”
I had no qualms about that. My need for her was just the same, an unquenchable thirst that would last as long as I did. I did my best to show her how I felt.
When we exhausted ourselves, we slept. As my eyes opened, I saw that the sky outside Ciara’s room was dark. So. She had frozen the castle, but not the entire land of the fae. Time passed around us. It was not sustainable, but the miracle was that she had maintained the bubble for so long. Her power was beyond imagining now.
She saw where I was looking. “It’s been hours and hours, hasn’t it? I didn’t know if I could keep the spell going, but it was easy. I feel like I could extend it farther if I needed to.”
“Do you?” I kept my voice as level as I could. “Could you weave a spell that would enchant all of the land of the fae?” It sounded like a crazy idea, encompassing so much more than she was doing right now. But I thought she could.
Ciara sat up in the bed. We’d managed to kick most of the blankets to the floor, and what was left was damp and disheveled. She did not answer me. Instead, she pursed her lips, deep in thought.
After a moment, she lifted her chin. Her face was taut with anticipation of what she had to do. “Yes. Is that what you want?” She had understood. There was only one way to get the fae people out from under Hellebore’s thumb. It would take a staggering magical ability.
And a recklessness that only Ciara had.
When she stood from the bed, she was slick with a sheen of power. Her hair was bright with fire. Her movements tugged against my eyes as magic trailed from every turn she made. The tips of her fingers sent tendrils of elemental force every time she moved them.
She lifted only the tip of a pinkie finger, and we were dressed. Just like that.
Her powers wrapped around me and we snapped through blackness, emerging with the hollowness in the stomach that was the hallmark of teleportation, even for short distances.
We were back in the little classroom where Queen Hellebore had thought she would force Ciara to become her minion. It could never have happened. Hellebore was just too stupid to know that.
With a wave of her hand, Ciara released the magic that had enspelled the room, freezing it and everything else within the castle walls. Classes would resume, conversations would flourish again. Impossibly, most of the school was pursuing their business as usual. There might be a few students who were attending new classes today, or gossiping about the
Queen. But they had no idea what the stakes were for our small group.
The others breathed again, time moving forward for all of us now.
“What did you just do?” Rook was looking at Ciara and me, noting our flushed cheeks and surmising correctly that we’d been lovemaking until we were exhausted.
Owain, however, was looking at Ciara only, then out at the window. “It’s dark now,” he said sternly. “Did you need to take so much time?”
Alder held back, staring daggers at me. He hated me. But when he saw the light in Ciara’s eyes, he relaxed.
Hellebore was the only one who spoke aloud about the spell. “Girl, you are unwise. You waste your power at the moment you will need it most. How do you think you will win a battle with me?”
“By being stronger in every way,” Ciara snarled. “You were a fool to give me all four elements in my magical gift, knowing you would need to fight me to steal them.”
“You forget yourself,” the Queen said simply. “You are sworn to me as an Eternal Assassin, as my Slayer. Your oath binds you. You cannot fight me, therefore you cannot win against me.” Hellebore looked tired, but not in the least bit deterred from her plan to siphon the life force from Ciara. She fiddled with something in her hands, low in her lap, bringing everybody’s attention to it without speaking aloud. It was the golden bracelet whose sole, evil purpose was to destroy fae magic.
I knew she would use it. “I should never have told you about that damned thing, so very long ago,” I said. “Once you knew where it was hidden, you saw only possibilities for limitless power. A mortal who could kill the fae. Such a person could control both worlds. You began with your sob story of admiration for our kind, and wishing you could make your world better. Then when we offered you a taste of fae magic, you stole away our decency.”
“And now I will steal away the girl you love.” She regarded each of us, then Ciara. “Girl, stand down now, or I will kill your fae lovers.”
It was her usual threat, and it was hard to deny its efficacy.