The Castle of Earth and Embers (Briarwood Reverse Harem Book 1)

by Steffanie Holmes

  “Grimoire?”

  “It’s a spell book, passed down through the generations. Each coven writes down their own studies, magical workings, incantations…” I turned a page, and showed her an entry written in my own chicken scratch. “Each coven appoints one member to act as historian. I wasn’t going to trust Flynn to do it for us.”

  Maeve bent over the page, staring at the boxes and branches I’d drawn across the page. “This is some kind of family tree?”

  “Sort of. It’s tracing the lineage of the coven, and which descendants might carry the magical genes.” I pointed to the boxes. “Here’s me and my parents, and my other siblings. My mum is an Earth witch, and Dad’s an Air witch – so we have a range of different elements. Arthur’s mother is Fire, which is a dominant gene, so I always knew he’d have the fire ability. That’s why I started searching for him first.”

  “Who are these people?” Maeve pointed at five other names written alongside our parents’. I noticed she didn’t mention the big blank space next to her mother’s image.

  “Other members of the last Briarwood coven. I was trying to trace them all, find out if they had children who exhibited elemental powers. The last coven was quite large – fifteen members at its height – but many of them were killed in the last battle with the fae. Those who were left either couldn’t or didn’t want to perform magic again, so they all lost touch.”

  “Except your parents.”

  “Yeah.” I pointed to two of the names I’d joined with a dotted line. I needed to distract Maeve so she wouldn’t ask me more about my family. “Colleen and Darren Beckett. They were the second people I tried to track down. The more spirit users a coven has, the stronger it becomes. They were both spirit users, and according to the coven records, they had a child the same year my parents had me. Spirit is a recessive gene, so—”

  “So any child they had would also be a spirit user?”

  “You really are brilliant, you know that?” I grinned at Maeve, who beamed back at me. Her scent invaded my nostrils – sweet and fresh, like the first summer blueberries picked straight off the vine. Just having her so close to me wiped away my exhaustion. “Colleen and Darren weren’t recorded among the dead after the fae attack, and I managed to track them to a house in York. Unfortunately, they don’t live there anymore. No one did – the place was condemned after no one would buy it, given the gruesome murder-suicide that happened inside.”

  “What?” Maeve’s mouth hung open, her lips curling back. For a horrifying moment, I imagined what it would be like to slide my cock between those lips, to feel her tongue run down the length of my shaft…

  The air between us heated up, and I became painfully aware that the edge of her breast grazed my arm. From the sparkle in her eyes, it looked like she did, too…

  I cleared my throat. “It seemed that shortly after they moved there, Darren shot Colleen in the head, and then killed himself with the same gun. But the weird thing is, the police records didn’t make any mention of a child.”

  “That is weird.” Maeve’s words came out hushed, breathy. Her eyes smoldered. My cock pressed urgently against the fly of my jeans.

  “Maeve…” Danger, Will Robinson.

  She draped herself over the arm of my chair, her bangs flopping across my shoulder, brushing my skin, making all sorts of filthy visions dance across my conscience.

  Don’t make a move you can’t take back. Never forget what you are guilty of.

  “Corbin, I’ve been thinking…” Maeve drew a pattern on my knee with the tip of her finger, tracing a line of fire across my skin that shot straight into my cock.

  “That sounds dangerous.” This is dangerous. Maeve had that look in her eyes, the look that said she was ready to act on her urges. And as much as I wanted her, as much as I thought I’d be the best candidate for magister, she absolutely should not choose until she knew everything.

  “This spirit power I supposedly inherited from my mother, would it have anything to do with how I’ve been able to control everyone’s dreams?”

  “I don’t know. Spirit does occasionally manifest as dreamwalking and dream powers. So, ah, what happened in this dream of yours?”

  The flush on her cheeks told me all I needed to know. “You were all in them. You all kept saying I had to choose, and I… I didn’t want to.”

  Oh sweet bollocks. My cock strained at the idea that Maeve wanted something so explicit, so kinky as what the guys had hinted at happened in those dreams. It hadn’t been done in so many generations, but—

  I wish like hell I’d fallen asleep the other night. I want to see every filthy corner of Maeve’s mind.

  Okay, it was time she knew the rest, before the strain in my cock tore my whole body apart. I flicked back through the pages in the grimoire, flipping between herbal recipes and birthing rituals. “I want to show you something,” I said. I located the page I was hunting for and let the book fall open.

  Maeve’s lips pursed as she took in the drawing. It was a highly detailed scene, drawn by one of the grimoire’s earliest owners – a witch named Agnes from the Middle Ages. It showed a troupe of witches – mostly men, but a few women – all naked and writhing against each other in a great, heaving orgy. In the center of the image was a voluptuous woman reclining on a sofa, her head thrown back in ecstasy as five men pleasured her body. Her hands were wrapped around two hard shafts, and a third was being held out for her waiting mouth to accept, while the other two men penetrated both her holes.

  Usually, seeing that picture had no affect on me – it was just an historical curiosity from a time when the church’s puritanical ideas about sex hadn’t quite penetrated pagan society. But now, I couldn’t help but seeing Maeve’s long neck bent back, her body writhing in ecstasy as the members of our coven worshipped her body.

  And her expression didn’t help. Maeve stared at the picture with wide eyes, her lips rounding with an O of understanding as she took in the details of the erotic scene. My gaze darted down to her cleavage spilling out of her thin dress. A dark nipple – hard and round – jutted out from the fabric. Maeve’s hand gripped my knee hard, her fingers brushing within inches of my—

  Oh bollocks. Be strong, Corbin.

  I took a deep, shuddering breath, and continued, reminding myself that it was my responsibility to give Maeve this information. “Unlike Judean religions, where the male desire for progeny dictates all carnal activity, in pagan rituals like ours, a woman’s pleasure is vital to the success of all magic. The High Priestess is the center of a coven’s power, and therefore, her orgasm is the height of the ritual. Does this look like your dream?”

  Maeve nodded, biting her lip in this way that drove me totally crazy.

  “In the old days of the coven, everyone participated… like this image. It’s the best way to raise the power needed for complex rituals. But as Christian ideas became more ingrained, covens stopped practicing polyamory. In order to be truly strong, the High Priestess chooses a Magister.“ I glanced at Maeve, but she was still staring at the erotic drawing. Something flickered across her face. “The magister is like the second-in-command – a trusted council and powerful witch in his own right who pairs with her in the rituals. Most high priestesses in the last two centuries opted to make their magisters their chief consort and draw their power that way.”

  Maeve’s fingers trailed across the high priestess, tracing the line of her ecstasy. “So is this why I’m dreaming so… so…”

  “So filthy?” I laughed, but the sound came out more high-pitched than I expected. “Ever since you got here, this whole house has been in a constant state of arousal. Your power has already begun to grow now that you’re back inside Briarwood’s walls. All the members of the coven can feel it, and we’re drawn to you. That’s why there’s this tension in the air.”

  She gave a throaty laugh. “I thought that was just me.”

  “It’s definitely not just you.”

  I placed a hand in my pocket and withdrew the co
ndom, setting it down on the table in front of her. “I made sure all the guys had some,” I said. “So that if you decided to choose one of us as a consort, we’d be ready.”

  “What if I don’t want any of you as a consort?” Maeve’s words were angry, but the look in her eyes was pure hunger. “What if I’m angry with all of you for lying to me, and I want to shag some random dude I meet at the pub?”

  “You can do that, of course.” I tried not to let my face show how much the idea of her being with someone who wasn’t me appalled me. “Whoever you sleep with – whether they be mortal or witch – will increase your powers. The important thing is that you orgasm, and the more times the better.”

  I let that little nugget of information sit in her mind. Maeve blinked, her face bone still, but her eyes exploring all the possibilities of what I’d just said.

  “How do I choose?” she asked, her voice tight.

  “By creating a blood bond. I can show you the ritual if you like—” I grabbed for the grimoire.

  Maeve wrapped her hand around my thigh, snaking her fingers closer to my throbbing cock. I groaned as her fingers scraped along my bulge, sending arcs of fire into my skin. I dropped the book.

  When she spoke, her voice was choked with desire. “I’m no Christian, Corbin, and I don’t want to choose any of you. Right now, what I want is for you to fuck me senseless.”

  28

  MAEVE

  Those words – so crass, so forward, so totally unlike me – had barely left my throat when Corbin mashed his mouth against mine. His fingers wove through my hair, wrapping around the back of my neck and pulling me against him.

  My whole body hummed with need as I climbed on his chair, straddling his body and wrapping my legs around him. Corbin moaned against my lips as he ground his hardness into me, and the heat in my veins surged to feel the size of him through his jeans.

  Corbin’s tongue pummeled mine, assaulting my mouth and leaving me gasping for breath. His teeth tugged at my lip, biting a little. I yelped at the pain, but my protest turned into a murmur as his fingers snaked down my sides, grazing my already hard nipples through my thin dress.

  His body against mine… it felt so good, so right, so powerful. Heat surged down my arms, drawing my hands to explore his skin, to cup his chin, tangle my fingers in his hair, drag my nails over the skin at the back of his neck until he shivered with delight. Corbin ground against me harder, and I mashed my weight against his, the ache inside me begging to be filled with him.

  Never in my life had I wanted something as much as I wanted Corbin inside me, right now. And that included the telescope that I’d begged the Crawfords to buy for Christmas for six years.

  Corbin tugged his lips from mine, trailing kisses along my neck, leaving a blaze of shimmering flutters in his wake. His hands tore at my dress, finding the zipper, his fingers stopping just short of grabbing the clasp.

  “You definitely want this?” he asked, his eyes blazing. Just his breath touching my skin made my body pulse with need. “You don’t want to wait until—”

  “Correct. I don’t want to wait.”

  Corbin’s fingers closed over the zipper and he yanked it down. I lifted my hands and he pulled the dress over my head. I was dimly aware that I should feel nervous about what Corbin thought of my body, all the lumps and curves and bulgy bits, but then his lips were around my nipple and all thought ceased.

  I moaned as Corbin’s tongue darted across the sensitive bud. Just like in my dream, he licked and sucked and teased me until I yelped. But this was a hundred times better than any dream, because I was awake, and my body was on fire, and Corbin Harris smothered me in pleasure.

  His mouth still wrapped around my nipple, Corbin picked me up as though I was made of paper, and laid me back across the desk, draping me over the lewd drawing in the open grimoire. I went to sit up, but he pushed me back down. Corbin’s hands shoved my thighs apart, cupping me under my ass. His face twisted into a look of such exquisite joy that it shook me inside and out. Before I could say anything, he dived between my legs.

  His tongue found the source of the pounding, throbbing ache, and he attacked it with the possessive dedication he gave to everything in his life. He drew long strokes across me, then touched only the tip of his tongue to that spot, vibrating it in place and reducing me to a gibbering mess as an orgasm tore through me.

  At least, I think it was an orgasm. My whole body shuddered and jets of molten pleasure flared through my whole body. The world spun and red dots appeared in my vision.

  “Whoa,” I moaned. I wanted to say it was my first, that I’d definitely never had one of those with Andrew, but all that came out, again and again, was “whoa, whoa.”

  “Plenty more where that came from.” Corbin grinned, his mouth finding mine once more. He leaned over me, one hand cupping behind my neck, while his other hand reached between my legs again. He pushed one finger inside me, stroking my wall as his pinkie snaked up and swirled around that spot once more.

  Moments later I died and was reborn again in a fire of pleasure and ecstasy. My body slipped off the side of the earth and plunged into nothingness, weightless and breaking into stardust. I clung to Corbin until the trembling subsided and my veins stopped burning up in the sun.

  “That’s two,” he grinned. “Can you feel anything magical?”

  “Mmmmm.” I held him. “I feel like I just saw the center of the Sun.”

  “I mean, can you feel your power?”

  I closed my eyes, drawing myself into my body, searching for some deep-hidden power. But I didn’t even know what I was looking for, how I was supposed to feel. All I knew was that warmth pooled in my limbs, my brain surged with disjointed thoughts and half-articulated flashes of brilliance. I knew there was an ache in my belly and between my legs that still demanded to be sated, and that was more important than anything else right now.

  “Maybe it needs a little something extra,” Corbin said. I nodded, reaching down between us and grabbing the belt of his jeans. I slipped the buckle through my fingers and tore it open. Corbin moaned as I reached inside and drew him out.

  I lifted my head so I could see his cock, and wasn’t surprised to see he was exactly the same as in my dream. Huge and long and glorious. I wrapped my fingers around his shaft and gave him a stroke. Corbin’s eyes fluttered closed, and he growled deep in his throat.

  Corbin’s hand was on my thigh again, and with his other hand he reached behind me and grabbed the condom from the desk, ripping it open with his teeth and rolling it over his bulging dick. I helped him roll the condom on, then leaned back against the book. Corbin spread my legs again, and entered me with a deep thrust.

  I cried out as half Corbin’s length slid inside me, filling the ache that had begged for this for so long. I wrapped my arms around him, digging my fingernails into his back. Corbin gripped the end of the desk with one hand, the other holding up my thigh, his fingers spread across my ass cheek.

  “You feel amazing,” he puffed, as he drew out and then sank into me again, our bodies moving together, rising and falling with each long, glorious thrust.

  He kissed me, his tongue playing at my lips as his body moved against mine. My legs fell open, begging for more of him. My ass rubbed against the edge of the book. Is this disrespecting the Briarwood grimoire?

  No. I thought of the erotic drawing upon which we were grinding. If anything, this is exactly what that book is for.

  The desk creaked as Corbin thrust harder, building up a steady rhythm that made the ache inside me pound with anticipation. He angled my ass up and thrust in deeper, filling me, giving me exactly what I needed.

  I clawed at his back as the ache climbed inside me, the pressure like a pot reaching the boil. Corbin ground his pelvis against mine, driving deeper still. His thrust tore through me, sending the pot screaming as it boiled over, and molten hot pleasure poured through my limbs. My muscles clenched and unclenched around him, clamping onto Corbin’s cock as I rode the thir
d orgasm until the room swirled in a haze of color.

  Corbin stiffened, his muscles clenching. He buried his face into my neck, his teeth scraping my skin as he shuddered with his own orgasm. His body tightened into knots, a snake coiling to strike, and then, with a cry, he pounded into me one final time and collapsed against me.

  “Shite,” he whispered, his arms encircling me. His thick muscles embraced me, keeping me warm.

  I giggled. “You Brits and your quirky words. I can’t wait to tell my sister I just had my first shag on foreign soil.”

  Corbin’s eyes warmed. “How did you rate it, Maeve Moore?”

  “A solid ten out of ten.”

  Corbin sighed. “You’ve no idea how chuffed I am to hear that. Are you tired? I’ll take you up to bed.”

  “I don’t know if I am tired, but I’d like to go to bed.”

  I snuggled against Corbin’s chest as he scooped me in his arms like I was a little kitten, and wobbled out of the library. He wasn’t as steady on his feet as Arthur, cursing as he stubbed his toe on the bottom of the stair, but the kisses he trailed across my face while he carried me upstairs were uniquely his own.

  Corbin pushed the door of my room open and laid me out on my bed. He stared down at my naked body, his eyes filled with a mix of awe and desire and sadness.

  “I am not worthy of you,” he said.

  “Don’t talk bollocks.” I grabbed him, yanked him down, forcing my tongue between his lips. It only took a moment for him to yield to me again.

  Corbin always looked after everyone else, and he never asked for what he wanted. He just thought about what was best for the coven, even if it left him without anything at all. Where was his family? His parents were the ones who watched over me until Corbin was sixteen, and from the way he talked about them, they were still alive. So why weren’t they still here at Briarwood, helping him fight off the fae? There was more than enough room for everyone. And why did Corbin think he was ‘unworthy’ of me? Why did that impossible sadness flash in his eyes when he thought no one was looking?