Blood Feast: A Fantasy Romance

On Wing

Let go. Lio echoedhis demand with a flash of power in her mind.

Cassia’s magic flared back at him, and she let out a sharp groan.

Yes.He caressed her with his thelemancy again. Your magic feels so good.

Another measure of her power unfurled. She slid her knee up his body, the inside of her thigh rubbing his leg through their robes. He found her bare knee with his hand and pushed the fabric out of their way.

He let waves of his magic roll into her, coaxing out hers. Is this what you need?

Pleasure eddied through her aura, and her magic waxed. Oh, Goddess, yes.

You know it’s safe to lose control with me. Let’s remind your magic of that. He kissed his way down her neck.

He bit her throat slowly, not breaking her skin, and listened to the guttural sound she made. Slipping his palm up and down the soft skin of her inner thigh, he matched the intimate touches with strokes of magic in their Union. Ephemeral tendrils of power pressed up under the surface of her aura. He could almost taste it, and his mouth watered.

He cupped the tender curve of her breast through her clothes. Massaging her, he bit harder.

You’re torturing me,she accused.

He trailed his other hand all the way up her thigh and slipped his fingers into her curls. He found her warm but tight.

I want you, she protested. I want you now.

Your fear of your power is making it hard for you to relax tonight.

That’s not fair.

Our magic and our bodies are one. You have to release one for the other to follow. He smiled down at her. Fortunately, I can help with both.

He tugged her collar down and pressed her breast up out of her robes. Holding the small handful taut, he rolled her bare nipple between his fingers. The heady sensations flowed into their Union. Between her legs, he stroked into her slight dampness over and over until she was wet enough to slick his entire hand.

His body was torturing him now, ready to feel that wet heat wrapped around him. She squirmed on his fingers, and he groaned at the wanton invitation.

Unreleased magic shuddered through her, and her fear broke through the haze of their pleasure.

That made him even angrier. She should never feel fear in his arms.

Do you want me to stop? he asked.

She threaded her fingers through his hair. No. I refuse to stop.

Your determination is one of the most beautiful things about you.

He feathered reassuring kisses over her neck. Keeping up a slow, teasing rhythm at her breast, he began to swirl his fingers around her most sensitive bud.

She brought her knees up on either side of him and pushed him more firmly against the wall. Her breath warmed his throat.

He lifted his head, his eyes widening. Her feet weren’t touching the floor. An elated laugh came out of him. “Look! You’re levitating.”

She looked down at herself. Then she wobbled against him, grabbing at the front of his robes.

He caught her with a touch of his magic. “Look at me.”

She met his gaze, and he saw hope in her eyes at last.

“Forget about everything but how much you want this.” He drove two fingers inside her, stroking her kalux with his thumb. “Trust your instincts.”

She canted her hips into his touch, her knees clamping around him. Supporting her back with one arm, he lowered his mouth to her breast to suck her nipple, letting his fangs tease against her soft flesh.

The barriers in her mind fell, and all her fearsome Will honed in on them, on him. He had captured all her attention. This feeing was worth tearing apart kingdoms for again and again.

She became buoyant in his arms. He eased off his levitation spell, and she hovered on his hand, at his mouth, arching into his licks and touches with leverage from her newfound power.

He laughed again and wrapped his arm more securely around her. When he swept them up toward the ceiling, she let out a cry of delight. They spun together, floating on her power and his.

“Eyes on me,” he said.

She didn’t look away, but when he turned her onto her back, she wrapped her arms and legs around him.

“Trust yourself,” he reminded her.

They held their breaths as slowly, surely, they let each other go.

She hovered beneath him, her fangs untamed and lips rosy from their kisses. Her hair floated around her, his braid wavering on the unseen current of her blood magic. She reached out slowly, touching his chest.

“I’m not going to fall,” she said, her aura shining with wonder.

“You’ve found your wings.”

“For you,” she said.

“Will you tell me…” He hesitated, afraid of the answer. But selfishly, he wanted to know. “Does this feel as good as changing into a hawk and flying on real wings?”

She spread her arms wide, as if testing the air, her gaze never leaving his. “This, my Grace, is better.”

“Take me like this.” His voice came out low and rough.

With fearless touches and hungry tugs, they stripped each other in midair, letting their robes flutter down to the floor below. When they were bare, she pressed herself against him, skin to skin. With a tentative push, she rolled them over, and again. A fanged smile spread across her face, and with a confident shove, she levitated them upward until she had him pinned against the ceiling.

“I hope you know this is the most erotic moment of my eternal life,” he said.

“No.” The green-gold rings of her irises shrank even further. “This next moment will be.”

She floated down his body until she was on eye level with his erection. Like a sorceress summoning him to her, she gave the underside of his shaft a luxurious stroke with her hand. He bit back an oath.

Holding his shaft, she bared her fangs at his head. Her tongue darted out from between her sharp canines to lick the damp tip.

“Your prediction”—he managed—“was correct.”

Her power enveloped him, and he floated entirely on her magic. She brought her free hand down to cup his moskos, caressing him with her dexterous immortal fingers. He was entirely in her hands.

She swirled her tongue in slow circles around his head. He didn’t breathe, didn’t move, as if caught in an enchantment. Her every careful stroke sent him spinning deeper into her spell.

Her eyes glowed up at him from beneath her lashes. Oh, Lio. This flavor of you…I’ve been deprived.

This was…worth the wait.

She hummed her agreement, then dipped lower along the underside of his shaft. She ran lascivious licks along the full length of his vein, ending with little flicks of her tongue just under the tip. He forgot what words were, riveted to the vision of his fanged Grace dining on his erection.

She adjusted her grip on his shaft, then boldly took his head in her mouth. He felt the soft brush of her puckered lips and the damp glide of her tongue, shielding him from her fangs. With exquisite control, she withdrew, then skimmed him into her mouth again.

His nails dug into the stone as he held himself still. His eyes were about to roll back in his head, but he focused on her, unwilling to miss the sight of her sliding him between her lips. A shudder went through him, and he arched into her grip. She guided him with her hands and tongue, floating back to adjust how deep she took him.

She was in perfect command of the intimate magic she was performing on him. Her every little motion seemed to anticipate his fantasies as the thoughts formed in the primal parts of his mind. Every time he thought he would explode and this would be over, she gave him a reprieve to prolong his pleasure. Then she took him again, working him nearly to his limit. Their Union grew richer still, and he tossed his head back, surrendering another, deeper part of himself to her.

Just when he thought she would withdraw again, she didn’t. She gazed up at his face and worked him with her relentless tongue until he broke. He poured into her mouth, her name pounding through his mind. Cassia. She held him through the spasms of his release, swallowing hard.

At last she pulled back, licking her lips with a moan of delight. Now I know what all of you tastes like to my immortal tongue.

He tried to remember how to speak. To think, she had been worried about trying this with her new fangs. Cassia, that was…

Amusement danced in her eyes. Orthros’s canon of erotic texts is full of excellent advice on how to manage one’s fangs in these situations. Did my studies pay off, Sir Scholar?

He pulled her up his body and gave her his answer with a heated kiss on her throat.

“Did I make you hungry?” she breathed.

When he bit her, she gave a little cry, and her levitation lifted her higher against him. He drank the afterglow of her feast on him, slipping a hand between her legs to feel how wet his pleasure had made her. The confidence she’d found in this moment was a warm, heady flavor in her blood. And beneath it, the promise of her magic, ready to be set free. His body woke to the taste of her power, ready to make her lose control in return.

He flipped her around. Her gaze fell to the room below. He felt her weight again as her levitation slipped.

“Don’t look down,” he said. “Eyes on me.”

That drew her gaze to his again. Now he watched her eyes glaze as he thrust up into her. They rode their combined levitation spells, grinding together against the ceiling. He gritted his teeth against the ache in his fangs, watching her face to see her expose her canines in a grimace of pleasure. Her hunger and magic swelled in their Union, her control slipping away.

Stop resisting, he said. Give in to your hunger. It’s all right.

She brought her fangs down and opened his vein. As his blood spilled into her mouth, her magic broke through her fear. Her power exploded into their Union, into the stone above them and the earth below. Into him, the most exultant rush in his every vein, muscle, and bone. A growl tore out of him against her throat.

That’s my queen.

Suddenly they were no longer weightless. The Lustra pulled them back down toward the ground. They gasped together, losing their hold on each other’s throats.

He landed on top of her on the bed, catching himself on his arms. She threw her head back and arched under him on the waves of power crashing out of her. Every dark, lush crest of her magic slammed into him.

He watched her, wild beneath him, and drove deep into every undulation of her body. That’s right, he urged in her mind. No fear. Just power. Let it all out for me.

Her moans of relief seemed to well up from her very soul. He covered her mouth with his to swallow her cries and the magic. She clamped her legs around him as she climaxed, her hips bucking with one final rush of magic. The grip and release inside her pulled him out of control with her, capturing him in the current of her power. He sank his fangs into her throat again, needing to bite through the pleasure tearing him apart.

Aftershocks moved through them both as her channeling faded. They lay tangled on the creaking bed, and she framed his face her hands. “Lio.”

She flexed her power in their Union again, a bold, exploratory touch. Sensation rippled along his body, a tease where they were joined.

“I’m not out of magic,” she whispered. “Does it ever end?”

“Let’s find out,” he dared her.

A look of determination came over her flushed face. The next infusion of magic she gave him left him gasping.

They made love again, this time on gentler currents of her power, with heated sighs and soft, intense touches. They left bites on each other and blood on the blankets. At last their Craving and their magics were satisfied, and they lay still.

He rolled them onto their sides. “What you just gave me is all I need this Winter Solstice.”

She touched her brow to his. “Happy Gift Night, my Grace.”

When she didn’t follow those words with any apologies, he felt he had won a victory against her guilt.

She pushed up on her elbow, coming out of her daze to take in the room around them. “No roses have gone wild in here.”

“I told you I’m a safe container for your magic.”

She rubbed at a smear of blood on his bicep. “I suppose I should stop fearing the consequences of this particular magical experiment.”

“Try,” he encouraged her softly. “Goddess, please stop worrying about it. You know how much I want it.”

“Then I won’t deny you.” A small smile came to her face. Then her gaze fixed on something behind him. “Oh. I think the tower absorbed some of my magic, too.”

He rolled over to look. Where the new plaster was crumbling off the ancient stone, a few tendrils of ivy had sprouted out of the wall. Spreading along the cracks in the mortar, the fresh green leaves promised that the magic they had come looking for was waiting to be found.

The ivy reawakened somethingin Cassia that her fear and horror had beaten out of her in recent nights. A yearning for her power.

Lio smiled at her. “I think this is a clear sign we’ll find portals here.”

She smoothed her hair. “I wonder if it’s common to mate the portals out of hiding or if that’s our special talent.”

His smile turned to a sly grin. “I believe more testing will be required.”

She laughed. “Alas, further experimenting will have to wait. Mak and Lyros will be back anytime now, and they’ll be ready to see what’s through the portal.”

They collected their clothes, and Lio cast more cleaning spells. Just in case, they buckled on their weapons again as well. Knight padded back into the room at last.

“Ohh,” Cassia cooed, rubbing Knight’s ears. “That was rather too much magic for your keen liegehound senses, wasn’t it?”

Knight gave Lio a decidedly reproving look.

Cassia stifled a laugh. “It wasn’t entirely his fault, you know. We were mutually responsible.”

Lio crossed his arms and gazed back at her dog. “You’d best get accustomed to it, Sir Knight. I won’t have your lady holding back her power to soothe anyone’s feelings.”

Knight huffed at him, but looked away first.

Cassia covered her smile with a hand. “You just won a staring contest with a liegehound.”

“That might be my greatest accomplishment yet, after persuading him to make room on the bed for me.”

Cassia gave Knight an abundance of consolation pats. But his anxious need for her attention prodded her worries again. He had seemed to accept her after her return from seclusion. But tonight, unleashing her magic had sent him retreating.

“His kind are sensitive to magic, that’s all,” Lio reassured her.

He was right. But liegehounds were more sensitive to their opposing magic than anything else—the blood magic that now fueled her every heartbeat.

It had taken Knight time to adjust to being around other Hesperines’ magic. Would he ever be fully comfortable with that magic being a part of her?

Lio put a soothing hand on Cassia’s back. “Come, let’s see about the portals.”

Cassia turned her attention to the ivy growing out of the stones. Her magic now saturated the walls, and another’s power had come to life in response. She could feel someone else’s spells spidering through the tower as if the ivy’s roots grew all through the stone, guiding her along currents of magic.

“Hawks hunt these woods,” she said, “and ivy thrives in the walls. Those are Ebah’s symbols.”

“I think this tower belonged to the Changing Queen, as surely as the Mage King lit the fire at the lighthouse.”

“This isn’t the portal, but it is a…” She searched for words from their magic lessons. “It’s a manifestation of the tower’s magic.”

“Astonishing.”

She put her hand over his and rested his palm amid the ivy leaves. “Can you sense that, too?”

His power flared in their Union, seeking. “I’m aware of the sheer amount of Lustra magic here, but the details aren’t clear to my senses.”

She thought back on what he had taught her about the paradigms of magic: mageia like Solia’s affinity for fire, manteia like his thelemancy, and hulaia—her Lustra magic. “This ivy is an arcane link to the various spells here. They aren’t anchored like mageic or manteic enchantments are. I would describe them as rooted, with hulaic magic running through them.”

He let out a soft breath behind her. “What an incredible discovery. These spells have endured for untold centuries without a living mage to replenish them. This tells us that Silvicultrixes have the power to create enchantments that are sustained by the Lustra itself.”

“The strongest concentration of magic is somewhere above us.”

His aura was bright with excitement. “Let’s follow it.”

Cassia took the lead up the spiral stair. When they entered the chamber at the top of the tower, Lio had to duck under the sharp slope of the roof. Knight, rather than sniffing their new surroundings, froze on the threshold, ears perked and tail out.

Dust tickled Cassia’s nose, and she wrinkled it at the piles of mundane barrels and crates. “Really? The men of this epoch turned the most magical chamber in the Changing Queen’s tower into a storage room?”

“Foolish mortals.” Lio knelt between a moldering rug and a rusted trunk and ran his fingers over the planks of the floor. “Can you feel this?”

She crouched beside him. No spell marks were visible on the grimy wooden floor, but she could sense them. “Oh, yes. There was a ritual symbol here.”

“How many nodes?” he asked.

“Three times three,” she answered.

“Another nonagram like the one Mak and Lyros found at the lighthouse.”

“Like the nine standing stones, too.”

Lio got to his feet, bracing one hand on the ceiling. “Our Trial brothers will have our fangs if we experiment on this without them.”

Cassia nodded. “Let’s wait for them.”

They had moved a few of the crates and barrels out of the way when they heard Mak and Lyros calling them from below. They headed for the stairs.

Cassia paused at the top. “I wonder if I can levitate down, on purpose this time.”

Lio gave her a kiss that left her blood pounding and her magic singing. “There. That should give your new instinct for levitation some encouragement.”

She realized she was nose to nose with him and glanced down to find her feet hovering off the floor. Blushing, she didn’t try to concentrate on the spell, but let her intuition take over. She didn’t sink.

Knight circled her fretfully, nosing the bottom of her shoes. Lio shook his head and put a reassuring arm around Knight’s neck.

Cassia managed to float down a few steps without falling and breaking an ankle. Holding her arms out slightly, she tried a pirouette. Lio caught her before she knocked one of the torches off the wall.

“Perhaps try floating in a single direction for now,” he suggested with an affectionate smile.

“Good idea.” She focused her Will on down.

She swept along the curve of the stairwell while Lio walked down with a very puzzled Knight.

They found Mak and Lyros waiting on the first floor. When Cassia floated in, Mak beamed at her. “Well, look who learned to levitate!”

She gave them a bow midair, and they all clapped for her. Looking down, she tried to lower herself to the floor again. She floated a bit higher. “Oh dear.”

Lio pulled her down and held her until she was sure she wasn’t going to float off again.

“Good timing,” Lyros said. “That will certainly be an asset out here. How did you manage it?”

“It turns out I simply needed motivation,” she replied.

Lyros looked at Lio. “Did you toss her off the top of the tower?”

Mak shook his head. “We would have heard screaming.”

“Not under my veils,” Lio said innocently.

“He did no such thing.” Thorns, Cassia really needed to learn veils next so she could conceal it whenever she blushed like this.

“Ahh.” Lyros gave a knowing nod. “That kind of motivation. Clever, Lio.”

Mak snickered. “That was certainly a more pleasant way to learn than jumping off Wisdom’s Precipice.”

“We also looked for portals,” Cassia interjected.

Lio held up his hands. “And we waited for you before experimenting with anything.”

“Diligently searching for portals this entire time, were you?” Mak inquired. “Mmm hmm.”

“Say you two,” Lio replied, “returning from a one-hour watch that lasted much longer than an hour.”

“My Grace is very diligent in his duties,” Lyros said with an amused tilt to his brows.

They climbed the stairs, finding nothing but more abandoned rooms on their way up. At the top of the tower, they gathered in the center of the chamber where everyone could stand up straight.

“It’s definitely like the nonagram we saw at the lighthouse,” Lyros agreed after Lio had explained their findings.

“Any ideas what to do with it?” Mak asked Cassia.

She opened her senses to the faded ritual pattern still perceptible to her mind’s eye. Nothing happened.

Lio took up his position behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders. “Ready to try an active casting?”

Her fears stirred again, but she drew a steadying breath and leaned into his hands. She sank into herself, and her connection to the Lustra felt like a steady stream, not a river raging out of its banks during flood season.

Lio squeezed her shoulders. See how much better you feel when your power isn’t bottled up inside you?

I suppose we’ll simply have to wear it out in bed prior to any spell I cast.

Your magic tutor approves this plan. I would also like to point out that channeling into me when we feast does more than take the edge off your power. That helps you build your intuitive ability to manipulate the magic, the same way rigorous training exercises teach a warrior’s muscles what to do in battle.

In that case, you’re welcome to train my magical muscles anytime.

You know I always make our magic lessons as pleasurable as possible.

The Lustra’s power seeped up into her. Beneath that gentle trickle, she sensed a deep, vast reservoir.

“The tower is built on a letting site,” she realized.

She was unprepared for Lio’s reaction. His determination hit their Union with a force she felt to her toes.

“We found one.” His voice was tight with emotion. “Is it damaged like the one at Paradum?”

“No.”

“Kallikrates never got to this one. Can you sense the beast magic and soothsaying in it?”

She hesitated, also unprepared for her own deep sense of frustration. “I don’t know. It all feels like power to me. It’s not like my letting site, where I can feel my blood magic and plant magic. My real affinity.”

“The completed triune affinity is your real magic. One of the Silvicultrixes’ original, intact letting sites could hold the key to awakening the rest of your power.”

“Right now, the key to that door is what we need to focus on.”

“We’ll talk about this more later.”

Cassia bit her lip and opened herself cautiously to the new and unknown letting site. The power she left untapped loomed below, tempting, terrifying. She let a mere rivulet of Lustra magic flow through her and Rosethorn into the nonagram.

The fabric of the world shifted. The stones beneath their feet turned to rich soil. Vines snapped around them, and the walls were gone, replaced by walls and arches of ivy, so tangled she could see only glimpses of a strange sky above them.

Lio, their Trial brothers, and Knight were still beside her, trapped with her in a labyrinth of her ancestor’s making.