“I like your dress, Mommy.”
“It was a little much for me. It came from Lord and Lady, the faery couture house. Uncle Harris’ old friend Daisy got it for me specially, and it lit up after dark like stars. It reminded your daddy Byron of the Way of Paths so I had to get it but it meant everyone kept looking at me all night because I was glowing like a Christmas tree.”
“I want a dress just like it!”
“I still have it. You can try it on later if you want, Brigid.”
She looked stunned with excitement. “Now?”
“Well, how about after dark so you can see it glow? Then you can show everyone.”
“Oooh…definitely.”
It was our wedding anniversary, so the photo albums and the mementos were out, Jake and Byron looking over my shoulders while Jasper was half-assedly sweeping up Cheerios and Graham was out picking up takeout seafood for lunch. Tonight, we were planning on hot dogs and Smores around the bonfire with as many friends as wanted to drop by—some members of the familiar council, Billie and Gaston, and Bevan and his family.
Hulda kept turning the pages when I stopped. “When was I born?”
“You aren’t born until a couple of albums later,” Byron said. “Your mama was a busy bee.”
“I sure was. Those were some exhausting years when we first got married. You know what this building is?”
The girls studied the ruins of the old building carefully. “Is that…Thoth Hall?”
“Yep.”
“It looked like that!?”
“You fixed it, Mommy?”
“I fixed more of it than anyone,” Jake said.
“Oh, that’s news to me and the hours I spent on the roof,” Jasper muttered.
“Yeah, we all fixed it. It took a whole year,” Jake said. “Wow, I forget how bad it was.”
“The building used to be an old sanitarium,” I said. “It had some bad vibes too! We had to cleanse it and cleanse it…but when it opened it was the first school and assembly hall for familiars and the familiar council. Graham was so proud of it. That was really his baby. Your uncle Firian worked hard on it too. Graham’s probably going to be bummed that we looked at these pictures without him.”
Three years into our marriage, Graham went to work full-time at Thoth Hall while our business became, more properly, a Sullivan family endeavor with Billie leading on decor, because she still had the best grasp of southern witch tastes. When I got married I did take the Sullivan name. It was symbolic for me because I wanted to start fresh with a family that loved me from the first moment, although Harris and I had been un-disowned from the Von Hapsburg-Nicolescu clan, neither of us were very excited to return. Mainly I just had dreams of getting my hands on my beloved Ladyswald when my parents died and buying it to escape the Louisiana summers in my old age someday, so I kept a toe in the door so to speak.
Thanks to us, the region between Louisiana and Baton Rouge was becoming known as a hub for familiars to gather, instead of mainly being known for vampires. We had flipped a lot of witchy homes and sold them to familiars after they got their magical education at Chester Hall under the instruction of a shy sugar glider who had seen and learned it all while serving under the boot of an ambitious former council member…
I worked my ass off for ten years before I wanted to even think about having a “litter”, but then one day I realized I was just ready.
I was still extremely relieved to find out that I was only carrying twins. Twin girls, at that. It was not what Jake expected, but he was the happiest of all fathers when the girls were born. I had no idea whether the girls were his or Jasper’s technically, but no one cared anyway. They were dark haired, bright and active just like their dads, and they were easily mistaken for Graham and Byron’s children as well. One convenient thing about the fact that my dad felt all my husbands looked like “barbarians” because they had dark hair, and too much of it, I guess.
Still, sometimes we started to think that five parents still wasn’t enough to handle twins on top of everything else we had going on.
“How did our parents do this?” Jasper would often say.
“Because we were raised by our grandma and about twenty aunts, uncles and cousins on top of our parents,” Jake said. “So we’re actually short-staffed.”
I didn’t really want more kids after that, or so I thought.
But lately I’d been starting to change my mind again. I was forty-six. A witch’s childbearing years could be stretched out a little farther than a normal human, since our average lifespan was longer in general, but it was definitely getting to the point where I should think about it. Byron needed an heir, although he never pressured me about it. Graham seemed too busy and in love with our daughters to think about having his own kid, but he would be our second…
Any kid born of those two would be too gorgeous for words.
It was almost intimidating.
But I’d accomplished so many other things by now. Plus, my brother’s family had a little succubus girl and Anna was hitting her teenage years now. So far, so good, although admittedly…the worst was yet to come.
“Here’s the baby pictures,” Byron said, handing Hulda the correct album. Hulda and Brigid loved looking at their own baby pictures, of course, and who wouldn’t? I loved looking at them too because I snapped hundreds of incredibly sexy shots of my guys tenderly holding the babies. Byron reading to them? Swoon. Graham with Brigid asleep on his chest? Adorable. Jasper feeding Hulda? Aww. Jake taking them to a Red Sox game and giving them a sip of his beer? Well, I didn’t take that one. Their great-grandma did. What an enabler.
“Where’s Uncle Bevan?” Hulda asked, as she was looking through photos from other holidays. It was the first time the girls had noticed that some of the family was missing from the early photos, that for twelve years I didn’t see Bevan and I thought he might be lost to darkness.
“Yeah, where’s Aunt Jenny and Uncle Variel?”
I paused. “They were living in Etherium.”
Someday, maybe they would hear that story. But not today. The girls didn’t understand a lot of rules of the magical world. Like how demons could enslave people, or covenants could bind one race to another, or a nymph had to marry just to gain a soul and freedom. When I was a little girl, my parents taught me that even though we had lost our kingdom, it was still our right to rule over lesser beings. I didn’t want them to think about any of that. They still thought the world was fair and good, and I would keep that safe as long as I could, although I knew it might not last much longer. They’ll be ready for the world when it comes, I thought. They have all of us to support them through anything.
Later, I pinned Brigid into a starry wedding dress that was way too big for her, and Hulda made enough Smores to feed everyone twice over, and they ran all around the maze and the graveyard down to the water with their friends until they were all tired out, but just in case, I put a little sleeping potion in their juice.
When we were all turning in, the moon was full, and I knew Jake and Jasper had to be feeling frisky and sleepless. Then I had my two incubi, as devastatingly gorgeous as ever. Just the sight of them made me feel sparks like the first time we’d ever met, every damn time.
“Byron…” He was going to go to bed alone. Usually full moon nights were for the wolves. “I’ve been thinking…I want another baby.”
I turned to Jake and Jasper. “And I want us all to be together. I think I might need…you know…a lot of stimulation…”
“Tonight?” Graham sounded a little wary, but that was just his old human side popping up. He was looking at me like he was already ready to tear my clothes off. “A baby?”
“Yes. If you agree.”
“You don’t need to ask,” Byron said. “As I told you all those years ago, whenever—and if ever—you are ready.”
“I’m ready. And I think it’s a pretty romantic night to start trying.”
“I don’t think trying will be necessary,” Byron said. �
��If I want to get you pregnant, you can set your clock starting tonight. One of the perks of being on a higher level than everyone else…”
“Oh, well, we must nearly be gods ourselves because it didn’t take us long either,” Jasper said.
“No competitions tonight,” I said. “Just…cooperation. I mean, I know what’s involved here.”
“We’ll make it pleasurable,” Byron said. “But you’re right…foreplay is needed. That’s never been a challenge, has it? I hope you can still handle a night without sleep at your age.”
“At my age? You’re one to talk, old ghost…”
Byron laughed. “You know, sometimes I forget I was a ghost for a while.”
To conceive a demigod or demigoddess who could watch over the Way of Paths, Byron and Graham had to climax inside me in demon form, within moments of each other. Considering how big Byron was, he usually went pretty gently with me, but that would be hard in this case, and then Graham would have to come too before I got a break.
“I see that look on your face,” Byron said. “But by the time we get there, you’ll be begging for it.”
“Oh, really?”
“Have we ever lied when we said you’d be begging for it?”
“I have to admit, the answer is no.”
“It’s our twentieth anniversary anyway,” Jasper said. “So it’s about the journey, not the destination. Maybe we should recreate every sex act we’ve ever done…”
I laughed. “Well, we don’t have that long.”
Byron pulled me into the bedroom. We didn’t turn on the lights, but moonlight streamed in the tall windows and gave their skin a beautiful cast, the tans of too much outdoor labor softened by the bluish romance of the full white sphere. It softened all the little wrinkles that popped up over the last twenty years too. Of course, they were all as handsome as ever to me, and if I dared to suggest I might not be as beautiful as I was when we met, they shut me up fast.
I opened the buttons of Byron’s dress shirt even as Jasper unzipped my dress and Graham pulled down the edge of my panties. Soon our clothes were just a pile that looked as entangled as we would soon be, and Jake pulled down the braids that I wore heavy and coiled on my head. I had grown them out very long since my trip into the past; it felt like my one vain nod to my royal past, a crown of my own making. He grabbed my comb off the bedside table and ran it through the strands to settle them from the braids, and I sighed.
They were all beginning with gentle, almost tentative caresses, not yet touching the most intimate places of my body but stirring the skin of my shoulders and arms, back and stomach. My hands were kissed, and my ears, and my neck.
I shut my eyes. I always knew whose hand was whose, and whose mouth, but sometimes I loved to let it all blend together, to feel all the hard work and the small worries of the day collapse against their touch.
I let them worship me for a few minutes before I began to return the favor and touch them back, now shifting to the different and equal pleasure of feeling their warm skin and their hard bodies, of pulling them all closer, meeting their mouths with my own and enjoying the way they each tasted different and equally delicious. As I kissed them, and the kisses got deeper, I felt an increasing wet need between my legs, and I could tell they were struggling to hold back now, but they let my hunger grow for several long moments.
Now Byron pulled me closer to the bed, in anticipation of what was to come, and the Sullivans spread my legs a little wider with their hands as they stroked my inner thighs and then my breasts. Byron was kissing me as Graham’s tongue traced the lines of my body and then Jasper’s tongue was between my legs.
This was the part where, if I spent the night with all four of them, I could barely keep up. It started slow but then the slow part didn’t last long. Once they got a taste of me, they wanted more. I pressed my hips into Graham and felt his hard cock stroke against me, as I moaned at the pleasure of Jasper’s slow exploration of my folds, and then Jake pulled me from Graham to him and kissed me so that I was whimpering into his mouth. Then Byron’s hands wrapped around my hips and caressed my bottom, and I put my hands against his chest.
“I want my demons now,” I whispered.
“Already?”
“Yes…yes…I don’t know how long I really want to wait…”
“Longer yet,” Byron said.
But he transformed for me, and so did Graham, and as I was admiring them, they stepped back for a moment and let Jake and Jasper take over.
Jasper’s tongue was still fluttering over every sensitive inch of me between my legs but before I came, he stopped and dug his fingers into my hair. He was asking for me to return the favor and I agreed with my eyes. We didn’t need to communicate with words about things like that anymore. I started to sink to my knees and wrap my mouth around his cock but Jake stopped me.
“Bed,” he said. “Then I can have my way with you too. I want that sexy ass.”
My pussy pulsed with desire, knowing Byron and Graham would love to watch, and realizing that we really didn’t do things like this much anymore. Sure, with two incubi in the house, there were still plenty of quickies, but not so many…slowies? And definitely not so many moments of luxurious admiration of each other.
I remembered the first time we were ever together. The way Byron had to lead us. The hesitation as none of us knew how it should work. That had all vanished long ago, replaced with the comfort and honesty of many years together.
I knelt on the bed, my ass in the air, while Jake fucked in me in the same rhythm that I pleasured Jasper. I really thought I was going to come just from that, but Jake knew me too well. He knew when I was close, and he would change his rhythm and keep me on the edge.
After they both came, they pushed me down onto the bed, pinning my hands.
“She’s as ready as she’s going to get,” Jake said.
“Pull her legs up too,” Byron said, taking charge like he still did when needed. “After watching that, I don’t think it’ll take long for me.”
“Nor me,” Graham said.
“Part of the magic of conceiving a child with both of our blood is being completely in sync,” Byron said. “But I feel confident in our bond.”
“I’m not worried.”
Byron and Graham were so close I felt like they were going to fuck me at once, something we had briefly discussed but that I decided was sadly beyond my physical limits. It would be a stretch if they were in human form. In demon form, hell no.
Byron pushed his way into me, and however many times I took his demon cock it was always intense, but even through the pain, the pleasure seemed to sweep my entire being. As soon as he was in, he pulled out, and then Graham thrust into me in his place.
Their second round was faster.
I was already drenched in sweat and Jake and Jasper’s hands were keeping me spread as wide as I could go. There was no escaping it. My clit was still throbbing with the memory of Jasper’s tongue, my nipples hard with the kissing and nibbling and touching they had given me, and Jake had nearly made me come from behind. I was so close, so stimulated, that the rapid, driving motions as they fucked me, the complete loss of control as I gave in to all-consuming pleasure was sending me racing toward a climax.
“Close,” Byron said.
“Me too.”
“She’s close too.”
“Fuck yes…”
“Come on, angel—let’s make a demigod.” Byron could still sell a cheesy line like nobody’s business.
A scream of pleasure tore out of my mouth as I hit my peak. Byron came inside me and as soon as he whipped out of me, Graham followed. Even after they were done, I felt so full of them. Byron lifted my feet up and lifted my hips off the bed, giving me a little shake. “Make sure we get in there. Even I may be getting too old for this kind of coordination night after night.”
“Yeah, right,” Graham said. “You looked like Superman.”
“Superman? I’m much hotter than Superman.”
; “That’s true,” I groaned. “I’m pretty sure only a sex demon can pull that one off and not look completely ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous?”
“I said you don’t look ridiculous!”
“I feel a little bit ridiculous, if I’m being completely honest,” Graham said.
“You are still a terrible incubus after all these years,” Byron said.
“How long before you think you’re ready to go again, Hel?” Jake said. “Or are you also getting too old?”
I let out a shuddering groan that was both very eager for more (somehow) and…maybe feeling like I might pass out. “I don’t want to mess up the magic or something,” I said. “But I give you permission to wake me up any way you want.”
“I’ll definitely take that deal.”
“But these two demon monsters have to get the girls ready in the morning,” I said. “Set your alarm. I don’t want them waking us up.”
“We’ll do it,” Graham said, so agreeably that I found that as sexy as anything. He was great at keeping the kids on a schedule and making sure they ate proper meals when the rest of us got caught up in work, while Byron played with them and helped them with homework, true to his word to be a stay-at-home dad when he wasn’t helping establish a familiar library.
“Mm, goodnight,” I said, closing my eyes. “I hope it worked.”
I didn’t need to worry. Byron was right. Nine months later, almost on the dot, our son was born. We named him Fiore, which seemed like as good a demon demigod name as any, and despite having the blood of two dark-haired dads, he had golden hair when he was born like me. i had given up my royal blood, but I felt more like me than ever before, and Fiore’s sweet little face reminded me of when Harris was born. But he also had a tail and one black wing and one shimmering Ethereal wing in his pure form, and before long, even as he was learning to walk, his sisters would be giving him wolf-back rides and trying to encourage him to fly, which seemed like a very bad idea.
Phantom of the Library (Paranormal House Flippers Book 3) Page 21