by Chloe Adler
He chuckles. “It is a sight to behold when it blooms.”
“Wait, you mean you have a literal family tree?”
He nods. “It’s a tree in the royal garden. We’re all connected to it by magic. When a man or a woman takes a lover, a special knotting spell is performed, twining the right branches together. You touch the three with both hands and lean your forehead against it, and the lineage spreads out before you like roots.”
“So everyone’s doing everyone but they can’t accept anyone nonbinary?” Who’s being hypocritical now?
Vasily brushes his lips across mine, less a kiss and more a sweeping gesture, as if he is willing the conversation swept away too. He squeezes my hand. “Let’s go inside.”
He slides back to the driver’s side and gets out before I can respond, walking around to open the door for me and holding out his hand. I take it and he leads me inside and upstairs to my room.
It’s almost midnight and the house is quiet, the only illumination the tiny fairy lights that line the trees and the molding at the tops of the walls. When we open the door to my room, I’m surprised to find Bodhi still curled up in my bed, sleeping. I slap my hands over my face, sliding two fingers open to peek up at Vasily. Vasily said he was fine with it, but how will he feel seeing it in living color?
Yet despite my worries, here stands the king, tall and proud, not scurrying away like a crab. No obscenities or thrown punches or tears. Instead, he crooks a head toward the bed and puts a finger to his lips.
I practically vault myself into the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face, afraid to leave Vasily alone with Bodhi in case his free-love banter is all a front. But when I come out a scant two minutes later, Vasily’s wearing only his undergarments, standing in the darkness, looking out the window. I cross to him and slide my arms around his waist. He clasps his large hands over mine and we stand there for a few minutes, listening to the wind rustle through the trees. I peer around his shoulder, squinting at the lush tree growing outside my window.
“Get in bed,” he whispers.
“Don’t you need to drink?”
“Tomorrow.”
I let go of him and crawl in next to Bodhi while Vasily goes into the bathroom. Bodhi wraps his arms around me, burying his face in my neck, nuzzling into my hair. “I missed you,” he murmurs.
Vasily comes out of the bathroom and gets into bed on the other side. He faces me, looking into my eyes and kissing me. The soft glow of the moonlight limns his features. Then he turns over and I spoon him. This is how we fall asleep. Together.
Chapter Nine
I’m completely naked, floating on a sea of desire, all five men surrounding me. We need no boat, buoyed by our hunger for one another. The stream is not made of water, it’s a thick, dense, smoky fog that swirls around my feet and arms, holding me down. Each man is focused on a different part of me. Vasily is busy between my legs, lapping at my drenched pussy. Bodhi is latched onto one breast, sucking hard, teasing me with his teeth. Forrest tends to the other breast, licking and flicking my nipple with a capable tongue. Cedar is at my feet, massaging them and running a long, snakelike tongue up each arch. Arch? The minute I wonder where he is, his face appears, hovering over mine until he drops down to kiss me. And that kiss . . . I shudder with need, an orgasm coursing through me brought on by the combined attention of all five men. Mine.
I sit bolt upright in bed. I’m alone. Dammit, of course that was a dream.
There’s a soft knock on my door and I lie back down, pretending that did not just happen. “Yes?”
The door opens a crack and Vasily peeks his head in. “Hungry?”
Yes, but not for food. Did I say that aloud? He has no reaction so hopefully not. And shouldn’t I be the one asking him about hunger after I interrupted his feast last night? The image of him straddling Jules cuts my insides and I swallow bile.
As I sit up, the comforter falls from my shoulders and I reach to cover my chest, except I’m not bare, I’m in the T-shirt I went to sleep in. That dream, it was so real, I shudder, letting the delicious images blot out the nasty ones of last night. “Come in.”
He nudges the door open with a foot and enters, carrying a tray laden with food. What? Breakfast in bed? I’ve never had that in my life. I was always the one to bring such things to my parents, treating them to breakfast in bed at least once a month, if not once a week.
I squeal and scoot back to receive the tray over my lap. There’s hot coffee, a huge omelet, condiments and a small plate of fruit. “Wow, did you cook this?”
“I did.” His eyes twinkle like the fairy lights that line the tops of the walls.
“What about you?” I steady the tray over my lap and reach for the cup of coffee.
“What about me?”
“You can’t join me?”
He slips onto the bed and leans back on the headboard next to me. “Food does nothing for me. It’s a waste.”
“I’ve seen you eat at the dinner table.”
“Yes, to make everyone comfortable. I do enjoy the taste of human food, mostly. But this moment is about you.” He reaches over and slices a sliver of omelet from my plate, feeding it to me.
Oh shit, I’ve never had anyone feed me before. Chewing, I gently pry the fork from his hand. “I don’t want to get too used to that.” I smile up at him to take away any sting.
He nods and sits with me while I eat my breakfast. But when I’m done with the omelet and coffee, he gets up and moves the tray to the nightstand and then straddles me, feeding me the fruit by hand. Peach juice runs down his arm but he doesn’t seem to notice or care. He bites a strawberry in half, then traces the bottom half of it between my cleavage and slowly up. I hold in a sigh while he runs it from my chest, up the underside of my neck and stops at my lips. The strawberry is sweet on my lips as he moves it back and forth across the crease. I dart my tongue out to taste it and he twirls it into my mouth. I bite it off and lick my lips. “If you’re trying to turn me on . . .”
Leaning down, he takes my mouth, forcing his tongue between my lips, crushing them. My arms reach around his neck to pull him closer, his cock pulsing against my heat. Our tongues twist and turn together, interlacing like the key that fits into his lock. “Drink from me,” I moan into his mouth and he pulls back to look at me.
“Are you sure?”
“Never more so.” I grind my pussy against his throbbing cock. “Just don’t leave me hanging this time, okay?”
His face lights up with a smile and he takes my wrist, kissing the inside of it.
“Wait,” I pant and he stops. “My neck, I want you to drink from my neck.”
His eyes darken and he shakes his head but I place my hand on the back of it and pull him down, exposing my neck to him. “Drink, my king.”
He latches on and I feel only a small tug as he breaks the skin with his incisors—not proper vampire fangs. The minute he latches on I’m lost to the lust once more, remembering the last time he drank from me and how quickly the need to climax overtook me. This time he presses his throbbing cock into my center as he drinks from my neck, rocking back and forth, riding me without penetration.
“I need you inside,” I wail but he doesn’t stop.
I pump against his hard-on like a hussy in heat but I don’t care. I’m lost to lust, the blood pouring out of me and into him. The orgasm builds just as quickly as it did last time, surging through me, hot and red, like a lightning storm over the Sahara at sunset. My entire body convulses with the first waves of it and I moan and writhe beneath him. Then my brain explodes as hot pleasure courses throughout every section of my being, lighting me up from the inside. I scream and climax with a wail, my body vibrating and rocking, into him, past him, into the air.
I’m flying, out of my body and around the room.
Below me, my body remains on the bed with Vasily but it’s still as he shakes me. The pulsing of life’s blood normally whooshing through my veins has slowed, grown stagnant. The red liquid cr
awls like earthworms through my arteries, wending their sluggish way to my heart. A surge like a last-ditch effort spasms through my arms, my legs, my head and then the blood ceases its flow.
“Amaya!” he screams, shaking me harder.
“I’m right here,” I yell down but he doesn’t respond.
He pushes repeatedly on the button behind my bed and then starts CPR. I laugh. I’m not dead, I’m right here, but even so, the idea of the fairy king knowing CPR is hysterical. After several moments he stops, my body limp on the bed, limbs akimbo, my eyes staring blankly at nothing.
Chapter Ten
Arch rushes through the door. “What the hell is going on?”
Vasily shakes his head. “I don’t know. She was here with me one minute and the next . . .” Tears spill down his cheeks but I can’t comfort him.
The pulse of life is gone, but I don’t feel dead. Panic sets in. Is this what it’s like? What about my life? My men? My parents? Jules?
“No,” growls Arch and he rushes over, gathering me in his arms. He holds my body up to his broad chest and leans down to place his mouth on mine.
“I already tried CPR,” says Vasily but Arch is not breathing into my mouth, he’s kissing me. I can feel his lips against mine even from above, and I respond, kissing him back.
I’m slammed back into my body and a second later I can see through my eyes and into his. Deep and green. Fathomless and strong. But we don’t stop kissing, even when he knows I’m back. I wrap my arms around him. His beard scratches and tickles and I love it. My body revs up again like the gallop of a drumbeat and I begin to sing. In his mouth.
I’m singing?
The bizarre nature of the situation hits me like snare drum over the head but I’m unable to stop. Vasily pounces. “Amaya, my queen.”
Arch lets him hold me too but only halfway. Both men wind their bodies around mine, but I throw my head back, close my eyes and sing. Without fear, without restraint, without concern. I’m dead, after all. But each verse causes the blood to move. First a trickle, then a stream and, finally, a river. Every stanza invigorates the liquid until it’s dancing in my veins, nourishing my body, strengthening the sinews, flooding the tissues. Each surge plumps my muscles, jumpstarting my now-pumping heart and slamming me into my body. The tiny bit of self that inhabited it before flares out now, as though this tiny vessel cannot contain the newfound bulk. My mouth opens, tongue darting out, then closes again but not before the intake of breath stings my lungs, which stops the singing. They fill, expand, contract, fill again. A baby learning how to breathe for the first time.
Arch’s fuzzy face, too close, comes into focus. His eyes holding mine, he pulls me up to sitting. “What happened?” He’s asking me and not Vasily. I crane my head to look at the fae king, standing above us now. His jaw is set, his eyes dark, but he remains buttoned-up. Silent.
“I’d like to know the answer to that as well,” I add.
The darkness in Vasily’s eyes shifts, then clears, his brown irises replaced by a smoky gray.
“Did I just die?” My voice comes out garbled around my thumb as I gnaw on the cuticle. “Why do I react this way when you drink from me? You’ve told me that other humans don’t climax, yet both times . . .” I break eye contact with him and look to Arch, who remains seated next to me. Maybe he can supply the answers.
His thick red brows knit. “It must have something to do with your own personal magic and Vasily’s connection to you.”
“Why did your kiss bring me back?”
“It wasn’t the kiss. Or at least, not just the kiss. Your singing . . . I could be wrong, but I think your singing is tied to your powers. It . . . healed you. Maybe it can heal others too.” Arch looks up at Vasily.
He nods. “Who knows what else you’re capable of? We’re in unchartered territory, discovering as you do. I don’t have the answers you seek but I believe if we go back to Tara, we can find them there. Together.”
Arch nods.
“Why?” I ask.
“You have a strong connection to my homeland, and that’s where everyday magic happens. I can’t promise Tara will provide all the answers you seek, but I think we have a better chance there, than we do here, of exploring your full potential.” Vasily sits on the other side of me, placing his hand on the small of my back. My entire body shivers with anticipation. “I need to get back there. I’ve been trying to get back for years but without the right synergist, it’s proven impossible. But now that you’re here and you’ve traveled there once with Candy, I’d like to try going back with you. Just the two of us. That way you can explore your magical connections there as well, with my help.”
I jut out my chin. “Let me ask you something before I agree.”
“Anything.”
I snort. Anything safe enough to actually answer, he means. He’s never outright lied to me but so much has been withheld that it’s hard for me to believe him. But he waits, coiled like a snake ready to slither away, not pounce. “Once you’re in Tara, can you eat the food there and gain sustenance?”
He nods, slowly, never breaking eye contact with me.
“Good. Then I’ll try and take you there on one condition.” I hold his fierce gaze with an even fiercer one, my nostrils flaring.
He stiffens. “Yes, of course, and what would that be?”
“There are two, actually.”
He crosses his arms over his expansive chest.
“You fill yourself up on food there so you don’t have to drink from another when we return for a while.”
“Done. Next?”
“When we return, we figure out how you can drink from me without killing me because I don’t want you drinking from anyone else.”
His gaze flickers past me to Arch and then back. “I can’t promise that, Amaya. I just killed you and I won’t take that chance again.”
“Then you don’t have a deal.”
Arch puts his hand on my shoulder. “Amaya, we can work something out. Vasily can drink from another while you watch or you can pick the person he drinks from. It can be someone you trust like—”
I hold up my hand. There’s no one I trust with my king, but if I say that, I’ll look like a jealous teen.
“I won’t ever drink from Jules again.” Vasily keeps his eyes on me, dark and somber, truthful. “I promise.”
Or any other eligible female, I want to scream. How about straight men only? I sigh. I can’t give my pathetic worries away, not now. He thinks it’s only Jules I’m jealous of and that’s bad enough. “I’m sorry.” I look down at my hands. “It must be the death talking. I’m shaken and scared. Of course I’ll take you to Tara, no conditions necessary.”
Arch wraps a brawny arm around my shoulder. “Vasily will do whatever you want as long as he doesn’t hurt you again.”
“Yes,” Vasily echoes and winds his arm around my shoulder as well.
Chapter Eleven
The men retreat to their rooms and I ready myself for Candy’s wedding. The last thing I will do is ruin their special day. And besides, though I’m a little freaked out, I’m perfectly fine now. Totally in my body and not floating on the ceiling.
I have to push the swirling thoughts aside. Push them out. But of course, once those thoughts are out, others rush in. I hop in the shower, where I hope the warm water will wash away the visual of Vasily planted on top of Jules. His hand wrapped around the back of her head thrown back in ecstasy. His mouth pressed to her neck, her lips parted. It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t sex. It was just as intimate, maybe more so. I splash warm water over my face, letting the droplets run into my mouth . . . which does not help when trying to forget the visual.
The look in her eyes when I threw her off the bed was worse though. That note of shock and betrayal. I’m the one who’s been betrayed, not her. She knows perfectly well how I feel about him. Why would she let him do that? I shudder. What if it was her idea, not his?
Shutting off the shower, I go through the rest of my rou
tine by rote. The towel, the makeup, fixing my hair with more product and pinning up the frizziest parts of my afro. I could pick it out and wear it down. Wear it wild. The men have said they love it that way, but I don’t want to steal the show from Candy and my hair does indeed steal the show. Plus, who am I to walk around looking like Macy Gray? If only. If only I could sing like her.
By the time I’m finished and spinning around in front of the mirror, I’m tired, but no way am I letting it show. I put on a plain sheath dress. The men bought it specifically for Candy’s wedding, but other than a couple of items, the walk-in closet isn’t close to being full. Maybe it’s time I bring more stuff from home. The thought invigorates me.
Walking down the stairs into the atrium, I plaster a smile on my face for Candy and Sabin. The bride looks breathtaking, like a fairy mermaid dressed in body-hugging white lace. This fairy has always been model gorgeous, but the light in her eyes has tripled since she and Sabin got engaged.
Here’s hoping that’s due to Sabin and not just the prospect of impending freedom.
The atrium is decorated with silvery crepe streamers and extra fairy lights. Everywhere I look pops with living color. The men are so attuned to the environment that the expanse of the atrium is filled with natural materials only. No balloons or gaudy plastic decorations. Instead, the bursts of color are from flowers of all shapes, sizes and types. There are bloodred roses and royal-purple snapdragons. Regal orange birds of paradise and dwarf conifers create an aisle. Along with the silver streamers are oversized decorations, fairies and bells, made out of a soft, fluttering paper. The ornaments appear to float above everyone as though buoyed up by an invisible wind.
I stop in the middle of the stairway when I spot Jules.
Shit. I forgot I’d invited her before our fight. I’m not sure what it means that’s she’s here. Is she here for me, to apologize and make up? My stomach does a little flip. What if she’s here for the opposite reason? Whenever Jules is pissed at someone and feels righteous, she doesn’t back down, she rubs it in their face. A quality I’ve admired in the past because I’ve been on the right side of it. She’s my oldest friend and our friendship outweighs everything. Why, then, am I having trouble believing that?