"No," I say quickly, shaking my head. "She wouldn't be my mom. Just a stranger. And I doubt she'd have any answers for me. And besides, we have more important things to focus on."
"Then the offer remains open," Seamus replies, and brings my hand to his lips to kiss the back of my fingers, "should you ever change your mind."
I blush, clear my throat, and pull my hand from his, flustered. I never know how to react to this kind of suave shit.
"Let's try this again," I say, focusing on the plant.
I will my power out toward the plant again, but it doesn't work until Seamus puts his arms around me and begins guiding me. This time I don't panic when I slip into the plant and feel my awareness expand to include the taste of the soil and the trembling lengths of sunlight falling on my leaves.
"Now, tell it what you want it to do," Seamus murmurs in my ear. "Feel it, like telling your muscles to contract, your fingers to curl. And let it take the energy it needs to do that."
I give it a shot, telling my stems to grow, my leaves to open, my flowers to bloom. There's no reaction at first, even as I curl and uncurl my fingers, trying to identify the impulse and replicate it. Then, with the lightest push of Seamus's power nudging me on, the plant suddenly shoots up. I actually stumble back into Seamus's arms in surprise as the silver vervain grows all the way to the peaked greenhouse roof and bursts into explosive purple flower.
"Goodness," Seamus says, gazing up at it. "Would you look at that? You're a natural."
"That was you!" I say, thrilled and embarrassed all at once. "I felt you!"
He shakes his head, holding one hand up innocently, the other resting on my hip.
"I gave you only a push," he swears. "The rest was all you. And you're only going to get stronger."
I'm half certain he's lying, but even if it wasn't all me, it was still part me and that makes me strangely giddy. He's still peering up at the flower, whistling low under his breath.
"Lyra," he says. "I've got to tell you, between this and the prophecy, you're going to be a force to be reckoned with. Like nothing the world has ever seen."
"As long as it's enough to make Morana regret ever messing with what's mine, I'm good." I grin at him and he smiles back, pulling me closer.
"There's my fiery summer queen," he says, and kisses me deep and slow, love blooming like the vervain above us, raining fine petals down on our heads.
Chapter 5
Seamus's kisses are warm and sweet as honey and make fireworks burst in my chest like the Fourth of July. He picks me up effortlessly and places me on the edge of the high-raised flower bed, his large hands squeezing my hips. Everything about him reminds me of summer, like a languid day by the sea, lying on the sand, slow and carefree and sweet.
But I'm craving something a little less tender. I slip my hands under his shirt to drag my nails lightly across his skin. He chuckles against my lips and catches my wrists, pulling them away.
"Not so fast, love," he says. "We have all the time in the world."
I frown, but I see the glint of a challenge in his eyes.
He returns to kissing me, sliding his hands into my hair in a way that sends delicious shivers up my spine, his tongue sweet as strawberry wine on my lips. But as soon as he's invested in that again, my hands slide into the back of his pants. He catches me again, laughing.
"Naughty," he purrs against my lips. "I told you to be patient. Keep being difficult and I'll have to do something about it."
Exactly what I wanted to hear. I grin, and grab him by the bulge in his pants, giving him a long, slow squeeze.
"Try me."
He smiles back, and suddenly something else grabs me by the arms.
I flinch, startled, until I realize the culprit is a vine. It looks like a squash tendril, but considering it's coming from Seamus's bed of magic plants, I can't be certain. I watch, baffled, as it coils around my upper arm and then pulls, with surprising strength. I could break it if I wanted—it's a plant after all—but it's firm enough to make me think I'd have to struggle for a minute.
While I'm distracted a second vine has snuck up on my left and grabbed that arm, too. I yelp as I'm pulled back into the flower bed.
My head lands on a cushion of fragrant mint. The other plants in the bed move out of the way with a wave of Seamus's hand, uprooting themselves to make room as the vines secure my arms above my head, trapping me on my back, my legs hanging off the edge of the raised bed. Seamus moves closer, separating my knees to stand between my parted thighs.
"Comfy?" he asks casually, giving me a chance to protest. I just laugh. It's hardly the first time I've been tied up, though never this creatively.
"Very," I assure him.
"Good," he says, spreading my legs a little wider suggestively. "Because you're going to be down there a while."
He divests me of my shoes and pants with businesslike efficiency, but leaves my underwear.
"What happened to being patient?" I ask, heart skipping a beat as he runs his hands over my legs, thumb rubbing circles over the soft skin of my inner thigh.
"Oh, don't worry," he says, giving me a little pinch. "I intend to take my time."
I'm half thrilled, half terrified.
"The safe word is wolfsbane," he declares, and with a gesture, one of the vines unfurls a large leaf over my eyes, obscuring my vision entirely. I am suddenly worried I may be in over my head. That worry becomes a certainty as I feel his nails drag up the soles of my feet.
Or at least I assume they're his nails. Something brushes the outside of my calf that might have been a sleeve but also might have been fur. I flinch, surprised by the contact. Something cold touches the underside of my knee, making me jump and mutter a curse under my breath. I hear him laugh quietly. What is he up to? I remember what he said earlier about casting glamours. Is he using illusions to make me feel things that aren't here?
The strange touches keep coming, some sharp, others feather light, some unmistakably his hands, others too strange to identify. Before long I'm on absolute edge with anticipation, preparing myself for where the next touch will come from and what it will be.
A series of feathery touches along my inner thigh, something cold sliding against my hip, sharp little points like the tips of claws dancing over my stomach.
I inhale sharply, back arching, at a sudden swipe of hot wet contact against my cunt, dulled by the fabric of my underwear, but only just. I'm so geared up, so focused on my sense of touch because of the slow, teasing stimulation, that such brief, simple contact feels like a bolt of lightning through me.
"Seamus," I gasp, my voice shaking. But he doesn't answer. In fact, the touches have stopped completely. I wait, tense and excited, but nothing happens.
Just as I start to worry that he's left me like this, I feel his hands, warm and reassuring on my thighs, squeezing for just a moment.
And then it's back to the feather touches and teasing brushes. I groan in frustration, my head falling back into the fragrant mint.
"Seamus," I beg, pressing my heels into the side of the flower bed in order to raise my hips toward him. "Please!"
"Still impatient, are we?" he teases, but draws his finger over my underwear, tracing the place his tongue had been a moment ago. "You really must work on that. It doesn't do for a queen to be so rash."
"Seamus," I plead, shameless.
He pulls my underwear aside and my heart jumps into my throat. I freeze, my pulse beating in my clit.
Claws tap against the sensitive edge of my lips, just beside my entrance. Fur brushes the top of my mound, ghostly against my clit. Cold metal slides briefly between my folds. I curse a blue streak and Seamus laughs, his breath warm against my inner thigh. He kisses the soft skin, as though in apology, but doesn't stop. His teasing only becomes more direct, spreading my lips open to press fleeting contact to the very edges of my entrance, rubbing and stroking and teasing every centimeter but the one I want him too, until I'm more desperate than I think I've ever been. More
than once, I feel his breath against me and ache to feel his mouth, his tongue, take me apart. I nearly beg him again and bite my lip till I taste blood to keep myself from saying anything.
"All done begging?" he asks, so close I can feel the brush of his lips against me. "You sure you don't have something to say?"
"I'm fine," I lie, my voice breaking. "Take your time."
"So you've learned your lesson then?" he asks, thumb rolling gently over my clit. It's barely anything, but after so much teasing it practically undoes me.
"Yup!" I squeak, not daring myself to say anymore.
He laughs, and presses a kiss to my clit. "Then I think you've earned a reward."
I tense, waiting for it, and I hear him move, a shuffle of fabric, and then I feel the hot weight of his cock fall onto my belly. He slides himself against my lips, a worse tease than anything previous. He nudges against my entrance only to retreat and slide against my clit again. I can't help a groan.
"Ah, how silly of me," Seamus says, and I hear the grin in his voice. "I've kept you waiting all this time and almost forgot the best part."
Something cool and textured touches the edge of my lips and then turns on with a distinctive hum. I gasp, every muscle tensing, as the vibrator sends pulses of electric sensation through me. Seamus moves it idly over my lips, avoiding direct stimulation.
"Is . . . Is that my . . .?"
"That cheap little rabbit you keep in your pillowcase? Of course not. I only buy the best."
He turns it up and I throw my head back as the deep, rumbling vibrations shake me to my core, the toy sandwiched between his cock and my folds.
"Now, let's really put your patience to the test," Seamus says. "Let's see how long you can wait before you come."
He presses the vibrator directly to my clit and I swear loudly as the direct stimulation overloads my senses. It takes me maybe thirty seconds.
"Ah, looks like you haven't learned the lesson yet after all," Seamus teases as my toes curl and my hips rock up into the vibrator, riding out the wave of pleasure. "Well, maybe you just need more practice."
He keeps the vibrator exactly where it is while his cock finds my entrance again. I start to ask him to wait, my words slurred by the hazy film of orgasm, but by the time I get the words out, he's already halfway in, and I'm caught in the delicious pain/pleasure of overstimulation. My nerves are still raw from the recent orgasm and as he slides in, pressing against all my sweet spots, the vibrator still hums against my clit. The pleasure stays, like a suspended high note, a bleeding edge of raw ecstasy that almost hurts to maintain.
He starts slow, letting me come down just a little, before he begins thrusting in earnest, rocking into me deep and hard. He squeezes my hips, pulling me back into him, making every impact sharp. Pleasure builds quickly between him and the toy, its vibrations strong enough that I'm sure he can feel them from inside me. I struggle to hang on despite the overstimulation, because now this is my pride that I can handle his stupid lesson. I refuse to come again until he does, even though it's killing me trying not to.
"Finally getting the hang of it?" he asks, a little breathless, still teasing. "Let's see."
He turns the vibrator up another setting, to my intense pleasure and frustration, and begins moving it in small circles over me. He switches to short, deep thrusts, grinding inside me in a way that makes me want to scream. Instead I just groan his name, straining against the vines holding me and fighting the pleasure coiling too tight in my belly, begging to be released.
"Maybe you're starting to get it after all," he says, thrusting faster. "But I think you could still use a little more—"
I take control of the vines, so quickly and instinctively that later I couldn't even say how I'd done it, just long enough to make them release me. I lunge upward, grab Seamus by his shirt, and shut him up with a long, hard kiss. He twitches inside me and his groan is muffled by my hungry mouth. I guess I broke his concentration. I finally let myself come a second later, moaning in relief as pleasure washes through me like fire.
A few minutes later, we settle on the greenhouse floor, leaning against one another. With a gesture, he turns a part of that spiky purple plant into a cigarette and lights it. The smoke is blue and fragrant and, judging by the mild contact high I'm getting, probably illegal.
"Is that magic weed?" I ask, wondering if this ridiculous shit will ever stop surprising me.
"Want some?" Seamus offers, his grin too mischievous for my liking.
"No thanks," I say quickly. "I've learned my lesson with Fae intoxicants. Lysander's Fae wine kicked like a fucking racehorse. I don't want to know what Fae weed would do. I've got places to be tomorrow."
He laughs.
"Suit yourself," he says. "Some other time perhaps."
"You're just trying to get me in trouble, aren't you?"
"Only because it's so enjoyable to watch you get yourself out."
I chuckle, leaning up to kiss him again, when I hear the greenhouse door open. I freeze, embarrassment ruining my ability to react quickly, before I realize it's Damon.
His expression is stony, quickly taking in what obviously went on. For a moment I think he'll get angry, but nothing happens.
"Damon—"
"There's news from one of the messengers," he says. "He's waiting in the guardhouse. You should get dressed quickly."
He turns to leave as I scramble to get up.
"Wait, Damon! Where the fuck are my pants? Hang on!"
I mouth an apology to Seamus who waves me on with an understanding expression, then I hurry after Damon, still hopping on one foot as I try to get back into my jeans.
"Are you OK?" I ask Damon as I catch up with him outside of the greenhouse.
"I'm fine," he says, obviously lying. "I already knew you were together. It's not a surprise."
"It kinda seemed like you were surprised anyway."
"I wasn't. It's not important."
"It is important if you're upset."
"We have more important things to—"
"Damon."
I force him to face me but he won't meet my gaze.
"Look," he says quietly. "This is our life. This is the price of being with you. I get it. That doesn't mean I have to like seeing you with other people, all right?"
"I'm sorry Damon," I say, caught between guilt and defensiveness. "I'm not trying to hurt you."
"I know," he says. "But it hurts anyway. I just . . . need time to get used to it. Just give me time."
He pulls away from me and hurries off, leaving me behind, the high of intimacy thoroughly killed by guilt. I struggle with the urge to follow him, to make him talk this out, and I shake it off. He needs time. I'll give him time. For now I've got a messenger and a war to deal with.
Chapter 6
A sense of dread settles over me as I hurry to meet the messenger in a room just off the front gate, followed by Aura and Callahan. Concerned faces and worried murmurs follow us all the way into the gatehouse, only amplifying my anxiety.
"Carver!"
Aura shoves past me through the door as soon as she sees Carver at the wooden table inside the small, bare guardroom. His skin bears the telltale burns and blistered lacerations of UV and silver weapons. He is gut shot, a hand over the impressive wound to hold it together, and he nurses at least one puncture wound from a silver knife or possibly an arrow.
"Jesus Christ," I say, approaching slowly as Aura, tears already in her eyes, takes his face in her shaking hands. "What the hell happened? Did the Aspen put you through a meat grinder? Hey!" I snap my fingers to get the attention of one of the gate guard. "Get this man some blood! Can't you see he's not healing?"
"What happened?" Callahan asks, alarmed.
"I'm fine," Carver lies, much less convincingly than I was used to, putting on a brave face for Aura. "This will heal within the hour."
"Don't be stupid," Aura counters immediately. "You're on bed rest for a day at least."
"I don't need—"
>
"Carver," I cut him off. "You're holding your guts in your hand right now. You're going to be shitting silver shrapnel for a week. Consider this an order from me as well. Bed rest. Now tell us who the hell did this to you."
I circle around the table to sit down opposite him and he rubs his jaw with a bloody hand. Aura sits beside him, clearly distressed by seeing him in this condition. Callahan takes the seat beside me, face grave and prepared for the worst.
Before Carver can speak, the guard returns with a blood pack and he thanks the man quietly, taking a long, deep pull, draining half the pack all at once. I don't interrupt, as he clearly needs it. Some of the smaller cuts close up immediately, though it will be a while before the deeper ones heal. He'll need a proper vampire medic to get the shrapnel out and his insides back in the right places before it heals over and leaves a chunk of intestine hanging out or fused to his stomach or something.
"You're back sooner than expected," I say when he pauses drinking. "I'm guessing it was a pretty vehement no from the Aspen."
He shakes his head.
"No, there was no chance to ask," he explains. "The Aspen elder, their leader, disappeared shortly before I arrived. Kidnapped, no more than a day ago. They were in chaos, trying to determine who was in charge, what they would do. I spent all the time I was there trying to help them find him, to organize. Then Morana appeared."
I swore under my breath. Aura's hand on the table clenched into a white-knuckled fist and Callahan drew in a sharp, tense breath. Of course it was Morana.
"She swept in with an occupying force," Carver continues. "The Aspen were so unprepared, so scrambled by the loss of the elder, they barely even put up any resistance. She had this speech prepared—how she was there to help them, that she'd heard they were without leadership and she wanted to offer her assistance. But of course, then she saw me. In all the chaos, it was trivial for her to convince them I was responsible for the disappearance of the elder. I'll be honest, I barely escaped alive."
Callahan leans back in his seat, running a hand through his short, graying hair. "This is bad."
Fury : The Kresova Vampire Harems: Lyra Page 4