Why did I deserve one, since Beau was missing?
I shook my head.
Apollo’s brow furrowed. “Did she hurt your rascally self?” His other hand reached to cup my balls, before exploring my prick with concerned strokes. “Are you damaged?”
I batted away his hands, at the same time as my wings drooped. “It’s fine, I had a great time playing mind games with the fae who wants to force me into a bond.”
Apollo’s thick eyelashes matted with tears, but his expression hardened. “You’re keeping secrets, My Lord. Why would you hide anything from the sacred, beautiful shifter, who’d give up his life, powers, and soul just to love you for a single breath?”
“Overdramatic,” I muttered.
Apollo gripped my chin, and I met his bright gaze. “I’m not the one lying.”
“Secrets? Lies? This sounds like the start to a thrilling book,” Felix said, sleepily.
Felix was wrapped in Radley’s powerful arms; even in sleep, Radley was protecting him. Except, they were both waking up now and studying me in the dark.
Although, we’d all been reduced to shadows.
Whoops, looked like I was outnumbered.
I sighed. Felix and Radley had been sleeping by the time that I’d been allowed into the dormitory, but I couldn’t pretend that what’d happened with Emerald didn’t affect them or that I hadn’t felt a bond with her.
I didn’t keep secrets. Well, much.
The hour before dawn was the best time to confess. The song of the sun wove my magic around me in a cocoon. Perhaps, it’d protect me…?
Radley kissed down Felix’s neck, before stroking his hand casually along his sides, circling to tweak his nipples. After any time apart, we needed to connect through touch.
I wet my dry lips. “So, I had to play the Apple Game and bite the magic apple. I pretended that it’d taken me to an orgy beside the mermaids’ lake…”
Felix sat up straighter. “Oh, I’ve always wanted to screw a mermaid.”
I curled my wings around myself, avoiding Apollo’s close scrutiny. “In fact, it took me to Hope Forest.” Radley drew in a breath at the same time as Felix. I met their anguished gazes, and I could sense their homesickness because it thrummed through me as well. “It was…just how I remembered it but more. It was beautiful.”
Radley sat up, pulling Felix with him and leaning against the wall. His hands were bunched into fists.
Felix cocked his head. “Were you hunted through the forest? Did the trees explode? How many fire salamanders burst out and…?”
“Emerald appeared in a wedding dress,” I got out in a tumble of words.
I bit my lip, eying the shocked faces of my mates.
“Ehm, why?” Apollo crossed his arms.
Belenus protect me…
“It was a Pleasure Spell, and apparently she was what I desired. Hello, is anyone going to say something? Do you want to drive the gold from my wings?”
Radley studied me with an inscrutable expression. For the first time, I was glad that we were kept in the black.
Felix arched his brow. “Apollo has already said it: why?”
My temples throbbed. If I hurled, would that get me out of admitting the truth?
I closed my eyes. “I may…just a little bit…I’m not entirely certain but…I think I have a bond with her.”
Yeah, my declarations of love were every bit as romantic as Apollo’s.
Silence.
So, that’d gone down even worse than I’d been imagining.
Say something…for the love of the forest…say something.
I gritted my teeth and opened my eyes.
I didn’t expect the three wickedly amused expressions.
Apollo gripped me by the neck, dragging me against his hard chest. “Aye, of course you have.”
“What?”
“The way that you talked and fantasized about her in the orchard was different, Quince. We could all sense it.” Felix’s smile was soft. “Don’t look like we’ll snap your wings over it. She must be something special, if she’s the right bond for our leader. If you love her, then we’ll love her too.”
My eyes narrowed. “Right, nice to know. But also, I’m not buying it. We swore that we wouldn’t take bonds.”
Radley’s gaze darkened. “We swore not to take bonds that were forced on us. Is this new counselor forcing you?”
“I’d have to say that so far, I’m the one who’s feeling the love. She’s more…”
“Feeding?” Felix crawled closer. “You haven’t forgotten our plan? I spent the entire counseling session working on it. I think she can be convinced to help. I don’t know how she’s meant to be taming our emotions though. She was…” Wait, why was Felix blushing? He ducked his head, mouthing at my neck. “…Beautiful, intelligent, and powerful. She was fascinated by Shakespeare and… Wait, when did she turn up as your bride in Hope Forest?”
Felix sucked on my throat harder, marking me. I shivered at the intense sensation. I loved wearing his bruises.
“During your session.” I stroked my hand through his tumble of hair.
Felix frowned. “She did appear to zone out, when I was explaining that Shakespeare shows not the ideal of love but rather the difficulties that must be overcome between lovers. I think I lost her to you, when I started quoting: Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind. How was I to know that succubi aren’t turned on by that?”
“More than just succubi,” Radley muttered.
I tightened my hand in Felix’s hair. “Didn’t you feel us? Her kiss and mine, together on your lips...?”
Radley growled, yanking Felix back onto his lap. Felix yelped as his hair was torn from my grip. “Did you feel it?”
Felix glanced between us. “Don’t panic, but we’re in trouble. I don’t want us to be love rivals but I may also be bonded to Emerald. How do you feel about us all sharing a harem?”
Apollo’s concerned gaze met Radley’s.
I’d expected to flare with jealous rage that Felix felt a bond to Emerald. I mean, I would if I was a Court Fae, and in the orchard, I’d hated the idea of him touching her. But now, when we were together like this, it felt natural that the fae I loved would also share in this new discovery.
Wasn’t that the exact type of love that my brother had led the Love Rebellion for the freedom to cherish?
All of a sudden, I wasn’t alone in something that was more frightening than the demon Dean, cyclops guardians who ate students, or the Paranormal Prefect Patrol (the dicks) combined. Nothing in this school was as terrifying because the risk was so huge. Yet it could also be the most amazing thing to happen to all of us, together.
Love and bonds had seemed impossible outside our brotherhood.
My magic flamed down my wings, lighting them like a call to the dawn. I grinned at my mates by their flickering light.
I’d thought that they’d reject me for the first time in my life, but instead they’d accepted my choice.
I loved them for that.
Apollo stretched out his legs, crossing his ankles. “Love, bonds, and your wildest dreams come true. I don’t want to be the one to say it, but what if this is what Emerald was brought here to do?”
“Kiss us?” I asked.
Apollo looked like he wished he still had his beak so that he could peck my balls. “Right, like that’s all she’s doing. She’s this bad bastard Emotions Counselor brought here to break you. Did she try and hurt you cute behind during the session?”
Felix shook his head.
Apollo’s butterfly lashes fanned across his cheeks, as he looked down. “What if that’s her method? You can’t think that Wells would hire someone to talk about Shakespeare or offer you pleasure? Perhaps, she’s able to read your emotions and then…”
“Offers us what we need,” I whispered.
I was shaking. Why was I shaking?
Stop it, stop, stop…
Radley tightened his hold around Felix, who was shaking as muc
h as me. “She tricks each student into loving her and then tames them.” His gaze blazed. “No one hurts my brothers in the wing like that. Let’s see how she likes it when I trick her into loving me. I’ll shatter her heart into a million pieces and then devour them.”
Wow, that was typical Radley romance. Except, I still only wanted to protect Emerald.
I wished that Apollo had never worked it out or that I could deny it. But Emerald had even been honest about it. She’d told me that she’d only been offering pleasure because we were under a spell. She’d said that it wasn’t real.
Why hadn’t I believed her?
Because it was real…and it was for Felix too.
We’d been sent away by our own people and treated as prisoners all our lives. Emerald was the first female who I’d risked loving.
I couldn’t stop, even if it was only a fantasy. The bond was real on my side. I’d just have to prove it to her.
If Emerald thought that she could play with our emotions like that and walk away, then she didn’t know the obsessive love of the Fae Three.
She was ours now, she simply didn’t know it yet.
Apollo pointed at Felix. “By my wing, your scholarly self just wanted someone intelligent who—”
“Would respect me,” Felix’s voice was soft and heartbroken, “and who I could respect.”
I clenched my jaw. “And I wanted someone who admired me and let me take the lead. She offered me choice…and I thought it was real. So, I’m an idiot, okay?”
Radley shrugged. “She’s using our desires against us. She’s a succubi; it’s what they do.”
This Emotions Counseling was worse than any punishment that’d been used before. It wouldn’t simply tame me.
It could break me.
Yet I was the leader of the fae. It didn’t matter how much this unrequited love hurt because what was real to me was only a fantasy to Emerald. She was still our best chance to escape before Saturday.
I tilted up my chin. “She doesn’t know that we’re onto her plan. That gives us the advantage to trick her back. I know it hurts like a wolf shifter bite, but even if she doesn’t know it, we’re still hers. I’d never abandon any of you.”
Apollo pounced on me, pinning my wrists and kissing along my jaw. His hard-on pressed against my thigh.
“I’m sorry,” Apollo murmured. “I’ve made you sad. Should I’ve kept secrets too, My Lord?”
I stiffened. Why hadn’t I known that would come back to bite me in the ass?
I caught Apollo’s lips with mine. He tasted of a spring day, and I wanted to fall into him and forget the damp forest and the heat of the succubus…
Only, I couldn’t because she was what had filled the emptiness that’d always been inside me. I needed her, even if she didn’t need me.
“You’re my sacred, beautiful swan who hides nothing from me. Never change. Remind me.” I arched against Apollo.
His eyes lit with excitement, and he nipped my bottom lip. “Aye, My Lord. I’ll blow you this time, but you’re doing me next time.”
Sometimes, Apollo was more practical than romantic.
When Apollo slunk down me and his silky hair caressed my skin, however, I didn’t care. I cared even less, when his cool mouth worshiped the head of my cock and his fingers played with my balls. I gasped; my skin tingled. My toes curled, as I tried to clutch against the smoothness of the floor. He licked along the length of my prick, before clasping its base loosely and pumping. I stroked my hand through Apollo’s hair, more in encouragement than demand.
Radley pushed Felix towards his prick, however, in unmistakable order. Felix grinned up at him cockily. Then he swallowed him in the familiar way bred of long practice. Radley tangled his fingers in Felix’s hair, pushing him up and down with a roughness that he saved only for Felix because it turned them both on.
I moaned, as Apollo circled his tongue in the way that I loved along the head of my cock, then he sucked. I flushed, and sweat dripped down my chest.
My magic danced along my wings; explosive joy prickled like static along every feather.
I pushed on Apollo’s shoulder. On Belenus, I couldn’t hold it any longer…
This moment of union was a bond of love. I was certain of that.
Apollo gave my prick a final lick, and I groaned. He caged me beneath him, as he kissed my wingtip, which was the most sensitive part of a fae’s wing, and then sucked on it.
My eyes widened, and I came. I bit hard on my lip to hold back the holler. A pearly stream arced onto my stomach, marking me as surely as the bruises on my throat. Apollo traced his finger through it, drawing the picture of a swan. He shot me a smug smile.
I got the point: I’d always be his, no matter what happened with Emerald. It was just that if our plan worked, then we’d also belong to Emerald.
Let her love all of us…
Radley thrust into Felix’s throat, holding him down as he came with a grunt. Radley had a thing about his lovers swallowing, and Felix took pride in having no gag reflex.
It was always the quiet ones.
I smirked, grabbing Apollo by the neck and settling his head onto my shoulder. Sometimes, as the leader, I could assert myself.
I watched as Felix raised himself to his knees with a glassy but satisfied expression. Instantly, Radley hauled him back onto his lap, smoothing down Felix’s hair. He ran his hands down Felix’s sides to calm him.
Radley always offered gentleness afterward. What would it be like with Emerald?
My still sensitive prick twitched in a valiant effort to get hard again.
Then Felix became ashen like all his post-orgasm calmness had been chased away. “Pluck my feathers, where’s that Court Fae?”
He meant Beau…
My throat became dry, and I swallowed with difficulty.
“He was taken away by Wells and he never came back.” It sounded stark put like that. Felix’s eyes widened. “You know, it doesn’t matter how many rules we try to follow, this whole place is set up for us to fail. If even Beau can’t pass their tests, then we don’t have any hope.”
Felix’s lips curled. “We may have to work on your motivational speaking.”
“On my feathers, I’m making a point here.” I stroked Apollo’s hair, and he glanced up at me through his thick lashes. “Four days left and then on the fifth day… Well, most guys don’t know the day that they’ll die, but we do. So, why don’t we at least have a bucket list.”
“Don’t,” Apollo pleaded. “I won’t let you die, and if you do, you’re killing me too.”
“I’m letting us live.” At last, after centuries trapped at the Court and in the Wicked Reform School, I understood that. “Friday is Beltane Night, which marks the start of summer. Number One on our Wicked Bucket List is to celebrate the magical rituals of our god, Belenus, like we did as kids. Don’t you remember how special the night was with our families before it was taken from us?”
Felix leaned towards me; his eyes were bright with both excitement and fear. “B-but it’s b-banned. The C-court Fae don’t allow such savagery.”
I’d make the Countess suffer for both Felix’s stutter and ever making him think that the Forest beliefs were savagery.
“It happens on Friday night.” My grin was dark. “What will they do to us if they catch us? Threaten to execute us?”
Radley’s grin was even darker than mine. “If we’re going to die, then we die as Forest Fae. We do that through the rituals of the Beltane.” I shivered at his intensity. “But that’s Number Two because the top spot goes to experiencing a true bond.”
More than anything, I craved to live. But the other paranormals had already given us odds of 200:1 against last time, and I believed that they’d be worse on Saturday. But at least we could all feel a true bond, before we died.
Then I noticed how Apollo had tensed in my arms and realized that he thought we weren’t including him.
I gripped his chin. “So, what’s Number Three?”
Apollo blinked. “I can choose, My Lord?”
I nodded.
To fly with the phoenixes (or break their wings, I was never sure how competitive the swan shifters were with them), go skinny dipping in the lake under the moonlight, eat his own weight in pizza…
Apollo bit his lip. “To free the cygnets.”
Radley looked like Apollo had slapped him. Then Radley’s gaze fell on the sleeping cygnets, as if he’d snatch them possessively to his chest.
Apollo ducked his head onto my shoulder. Yet I burned with pride. I knew that he’d suffered from being stolen as a kid and now he wanted to save our cygnets.
I entirely claimed the credit for his leadership qualities.
“Done.” I kissed the warm crown of his head. “It appears that we’ll have to break out.”
Apollo twisted, bouncing onto his knees with a joy that made even our impending danger worth it.
Felix cast a fond glance at Odile, before his brow furrowed with concern. “You do know how your wild schemes always end up.”
I shrugged. “Of course.”
“That’s okay, just needed to say it.”
Radley simply grunted.
The fire, however, that lit Apollo’s eyes made my own fire within me surge. I needed to make someone happy at least. I’d had enough of grief.
The fae had taken the cygnets, and now I was giving them back.
First, I had to risk breaking out of the House of Fae. The dawn sang to me, tempting me into its forbidden light. Yet what would happen if I was caught?
CHAPTER SEVEN
Wicked Reform School, House of Fae Grounds
Tuesday 27th April
Dawn’s light crept around the House of Fae’s tower, as I crept from shadow to shadow. My stomach fluttered with a mixture of fear and excitement as it always did when I broke the rules. Felix and Radley prowled at my shoulders. I shivered in the breeze.
I glanced in the thin light of the morning across the grounds. They looked different like this: wilder and free. The trees were sleeping. I clutched Apollo’s feathery body closer to my chest. Felix had snapped on his collar, despite Apollo’s protests, before we’d lowered the wards that trapped us inside at night.
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