The Heart of a Monster: The Complete Series

Chapter 14

Quinn

Any lingering anger I’d felt faded away into apprehension over the rest of the day. Rollick’s growled words to the siren echoed through my head: This is what you get when you mess with me and mine.

He thought I belonged to him, even though I’d made it clear in every way I possibly could that I wasn’t happy about being in his grasp. That I was only cooperating with him to protect myself and the people I cared about.

I was grateful for the deal he’d extended to me and the protection he’d offered, but the debt I sensed myself racking up was starting to weigh on me. Just how much was he going to end up asking for in return beyond what he’d already demanded?

I didn’t know how to answer that question, and my attempts at getting more control over my situation had only made me more indebted to him. I checked my makeshift silver dagger in my pocket, not that it’d done me much good with the shadowkind stranger, and ran through my workout routine again, but no amount of exertion could burn off the uneasiness gripping me.

So, when a now-familiar soft tap sounded on the sliding door, relief rushed through my body. Maybe they couldn’t fix everything that was wrong, but there was nothing I’d have welcomed more than the chance to spend more time with any of the three men I didn’t mind calling me theirs.

I forced myself to hold off on going over to the terrace for a few minutes, puttering around sticking my dinner dishes in the dumbwaiter and finishing the current chapter of the book I’d been reading, even though the words barely sank in. Then I ambled over to my bedroom. There, I stretched my arms leisurely and drifted to the terrace door as if the mood had just happened to strike me to take in the fresh air.

My spirits lifted even higher when I saw that not just one but all three of my monstrous men had joined me again. I hadn’t seen any of them in three days, and that past meet-up had been wrenchingly brief.

“It’s so good to see you,” I said as I hurried over to them. “How long can you stay this time?”

Torrent gave me the quiet but warm smile that he rarely brought out and that never failed to send a pleased shiver over my skin. “A few hours should be safe.” He nudged the gargoyle’s shoulder. “Rollick actually specifically asked Crag to keep watch down below while he had to zip out of town for the night. I don’t think he expected Lance and I to make it back as quickly as we did.”

“He didn’t specifically say I couldn’t watch over you from right beside you,” Crag rumbled with an uncharacteristic hint of slyness in his dark eyes. I decided I liked it.

“I can’t think of a better vantage point,” I said with a laugh.

I grabbed them each in a hug—and naturally Lance swept me into a kiss as well, tracing his claws lightly down my spine until I was quivering against him as he claimed my mouth. Torrent cleared his throat, and the dragon shifter lifted his head with a grin. “We’ve left her alone too long. Need to make up for it.”

“I’m sure there’ll be plenty of time for that,” Torrent said in a tone that managed to be both dry and laced with heat. He tipped his head toward the side of the hotel. “And since we’ve got the time, we can have a more relaxed conversation if we hop over to that other room. It’s empty again.”

Crag shifted without any further prompting, unfurling his leathery gray wings from his stony gargoyle form. My gaze lingered on the scars that gripped through the taut skin there, but he didn’t show any sign of discomfort.

The first couple of times he’d flown me anywhere, I hadn’t known whether I could trust him, whether he might be whisking me off to my doom. Now I stepped into his arms without hesitation. I couldn’t imagine anywhere I’d feel safer.

The other two men vanished into the night to travel through the darkness to the balcony around the corner of the building. Crag leapt over the railing and crossed the distance with a few brisk flaps, staying close to the wall where it was darkest. It was only a little past dinner time, the sun completely set but lights still beaming in many windows and along the perimeter of the property I could now see below me.

The second he’d landed on the balcony, Crag transformed back into his still impressive but not quite so gigantic human appearance. He’d always seemed a bit reluctant to let me take a good look at him in his monstrous form, even though I didn’t find anything about him horrifying.

Lance wavered into being next to us at the same moment as Torrent blinked into being on the other side of the balcony door. The tentacled man unlocked it and slid it open to admit us.

Torrent had told me last time that he would arrange fresh linens for the bed after he’d brought me back to Rollick’s rooms. We didn’t want any of the staff realizing someone had been using the suite without permission. I couldn’t tell if it’d had any guests since then. The air smelled crisp and clean but a little stale. I left the sliding door open so the fresh ocean breeze could wash through the room and sat on the edge of the bed.

“How have your investigations been going?” I asked. “Have you figured anything more out about the shadowkind who’re hunting for me?”

“We’re hunting them right back,” Lance announced, slicing his claws through the air, and shot me a brilliant grin that turned his always ferally gorgeous face even more stunning. “I found their den. Or one of their dens, anyway. We know one place they like to hang out with the poor beasties they’ve turned into slaves.”

The triumph in his tone darkened with those last few words. He bared his teeth, his dragon fangs out in his otherwise human face. A pang of sympathy filled my chest, sharper with my guilt over the way I’d been bending one beast to my will over the past few days. I hadn’t liked doing it, but I’d bowed to Rollick’s will anyway.

I tried to push those thoughts aside. “Is it nearby? Do they seem to suspect that I’m in L.A.?”

Lance shook his head and dropped onto the bed beside me, tucking his arm around my waist. “Not even in the same state. I still don’t know what exactly they are. They like mountains, and they play with rocks.”

“One of them, anyway,” Crag rumbled. “I did talk to a being that’d been around them briefly who said one of the apparent leaders gave an earthy impression.”

“It’s probably not their only base of operations,” Torrent said. “Most likely they’ve got at least a few camps spread around in this country and others abroad, just like Rollick has all his properties—as much as he likes focusing on this one for the moment.” He paused. “It is useful information, though, for making our own plans. We know where to find them.”

If we wanted to pass on a message about my current location, he meant. “Well, that’s something.” I tried to sound optimistic, but I suspected I’d failed.

“We’ll put all the pieces together and then shred them to pieces,” Lance said with typical vicious confidence. I wished I could be that optimistic.

Crag gazed down at me, his broad brow furrowing. “Are you all right, Quinn? You seem more… dispirited than before.”

It was true that my initial joy at seeing them had faded with the realization of how far we still were from a solution. I hadn’t meant to disturb him with my worries, even if it brought a pang of affection into my chest to know he’d noticed despite my efforts.

I wasn’t going to lie to him now that he had picked up on my feelings. I rubbed my hand over my face. “It’s just—there are only three more days in the deal. I don’t know how Rollick will want to change it then, or whether he’ll even agree to making another one.”

“If he won’t guarantee your safety, we’ll figure out something else,” Torrent said. “You know we can get to you and take you away from here if we absolutely have to.”

“But there’s still so much we don’t know about who we’re up against or what they want.”

“We have three more days to figure that out,” Lance declared. “We’ve made a lot of progress already. Have faith, baby girl.” He nuzzled the side of my face playfully and then trailed his claws along my arm, his voice dipping lower. “Maybe what you need is a distraction from all the worries wiggling through that pretty head.”

I swallowed thickly, but a flare of heat had washed over my body at his skillful touch. “What kind of distraction did you have in mind?”

He snorted in amusement and leaned in to nip the crook of my jaw. “I think you know. I haven’t gotten to enjoy my lovely explorer in a week. We can do all the things you like, and maybe discover new things you do too.”

The vibe in the room had shifted, the air seeming to warm despite the cool current from the air conditioning system, all three of my men’s focus narrowing down to me with an intense alertness. Another quiver ran through me, but it seemed to provoke a jolt of energy through my heart—a jolt of that sorcerer power that made my pulse shudder. I sucked in a breath.

“I’ve been compelling a shadowkind creature,” I said abruptly. “A little lesser beast that Rollick’s keeping caged. He’s getting me to tap into the magic more and more.”

I expected Lance to recoil at my statement, even braced myself for it, but the dragon shifter’s lips kept nibbling down the side of my neck. “When we get you away from him, you won’t need to do that either.”

Something in me unwound just a little. If even Lance, who’d been tormented by sorcerers for I had no idea how long, didn’t blame me for going along with the demon’s demands, then maybe I shouldn’t blame myself either. Maybe I shouldn’t hold myself back from what I wanted out of some sense that I didn’t deserve it.

I did want this—I wanted the shadowkind men who’d stood with me through all the chaos so far. Not just to stoke the heat kindling low in my belly, but to reconfirm with kisses and caresses as we already had with words that nothing could tear us apart from each other. Rollick hadn’t been able to stop us from having this interlude, and we wouldn’t let him stop us from winning our freedom either.

For a moment, it seemed that simple. I raised one hand to stroke my fingers into Lance’s silky curls and over his scalp. He let out an encouraging hum and grazed his fangs across my shoulder. At a much more enjoyable skip of my pulse, I glanced up at my other two men.

Crag had shared me with the dragon shifter before in an encounter on the yacht, the memory of which made the heat inside me flare twice as hot. But Torrent… that time, Lance had invited both of them to join in, and the tentacled man had turned his back on us before I’d even been able to agree.

But that was before we’d understood each other better. Before I’d been able to show him that I saw him as more than a curiosity, and he’d shown me that he’d defy his own boss to protect me. We were in a very different place now, and not just geographically.

As if he sensed my uncertainty and wanted to reassure me, Torrent met my gaze and sank down onto the bed at my other side. He let one tentacle trail across my shoulder in a tender caress. “I look forward to seeing how much you can enjoy yourself with all three of us on the task.”

So did I, especially when that hungry note crept into his voice. I reached toward Crag to make sure he knew he was fully included, and the gargoyle gave me a smile that was almost shy as he knelt at my feet. “We’ll take very good care of you, Softness.”

He slipped off one of my sneakers and then the other, the undressing oddly seductive even though it was only my feet. Lance tugged at my shirt. “You don’t want me slicing this up.”

It could be thrilling having him undress me in his… uniquely savage way, but— “I think Rollick might notice if one of my few outfits ends up in shreds. And my current wardrobe is small enough as it is.”

“I’m sure we can manage to take care of your clothes too,” Torrent said wryly, tucking his tentacle under the hem of the top. With a deft tug and the lift of my arms, he pulled it right off me.

Lance had watched that motion with an avidness I didn’t totally understand until he caught my arms before I lowered them again. He glanced across at Torrent with a sly grin. “Hold her wrists.” Before I could worry that he was still nervous of me after all, he licked his tongue along my jaw and murmured, “It shows her how much she’s ours.”

Well, if that was the only reason he wanted me restrained, I wouldn’t argue about it. Especially because a giddy shiver ran through me as Torrent carefully coiled his tentacle around both my wrists, pinning them together above my head. The suction cups seemed to mouth my skin like a dozen simultaneous kisses, and the slight stretch made my breasts rise within my bra.

Lance managed to flick open the clasp with his nimble claws without severing the fabric. He tugged the bra aside with his teeth and flicked his now-ridged dragon tongue over the peak.

I gasped at the shock of headier pleasure, and there was something erotic about the way my hands caught in Torrent’s grasp. Holding me on display, baring me for my men’s attentions—making this moment all about what they could do for me without any expectation or even possibility of me returning the favor.

I did want to return the bliss as much as I could before the interlude was over, but for now, this was a different sort of fun for all of us.

As Lance worked over my breast and Crag stroked his large hands along my legs, Torrent leaned in to capture my mouth. His kiss had the passion of a stormy sea, the yearning in it leaving me breathless. When he released my lips, he eased behind me on the bed to leave more room for the other men, never loosening his grasp on my wrists.

He slipped another tentacle around my torso to pluck at my other nipple with the suckers until I leaned back into his lean frame with a whimper. The need building between my legs made me squirm. Torrent let out a heated chuckle and tucked the tentacle under my breast as if to offer it up to the man in front of me.

Crag didn’t hesitate to accept the invitation. He pushed up on his knees and leaned in to taste my breast, his tongue stretching from regular human shape to its extended, sinuous gargoyle anatomy before my eyes. He wrapped the tip right around my nipple and tugged, and I jerked with a desperate mewling sound.

Lance was still conjuring all kinds of sparks in my other breast with his own special tongue. He wasn’t diverted from finding even more ways to bring me pleasure, though. He delved his hand between us to deftly undo the fly of my jean shorts. Crag rumbled and tugged the shorts off me without pausing his administrations.

The dragon shifter stroked his claws lightly over my sex, and I spread my legs wider with an eager trembling at the delight his wicked touch provoked. Then a tentacle was slipping down my belly to pluck my clit the way it had my nipple. A full-out moan reverberated from my lungs, and Lance raised his head in time to catch the end of it with his mouth against mine.

I swayed and writhed between the three men, bliss rushing through me from so many directions that the room around me blurred. But I heard Crag’s deep thrum of a voice clear as anything when he said, “I haven’t tasted her yet.”

“Mmm,” Lance murmured. “You shouldn’t miss out on that. Better than any food I’ve ever eaten.” He laughed and began charting a new scorching path along my neck.

Crag gazed up at me as he tugged my panties down. Without the use of my arms, I couldn’t reach out and pull him to me to show him how much I wanted this experience too, but I shifted my hips toward him. “If you want to…”

“Oh, very much,” he said with an odd formality that somehow made the moment even hotter. Torrent raised his tentacle to tease across my breasts again, clearing the way for the gargoyle to lower his head between my legs.

His tongue slid over my clit, encompassing it so thoroughly another moan burst from my lips. “Even softer here,” he said with a sound like a sigh, and then he was pressing his whole mouth against my pussy.

His upper lip massaged my clit while his extended tongue delved right inside me. It had the same wonderful flexibility as Torrent’s tentacles, but the combination of his hot breath and the rocky texture of his jaw against my thighs made it a totally different sensation. A fucking amazing sensation.

I rocked against his mouth, unable to do more than that and whimper as Torrent tweaked my nipples and Lance trailed his claws over my belly and down my back. God, when had I ever felt as alive as right now, with these three fearsome men focusing all their attention on bringing me to the greatest heights of pleasure they could supply?

Whatever happened in the future, I was definitely never going back to mortal guys. None of them had ever really understood me anyway. With these three men, as inhuman as they were, I felt strangely understood. Seen in ways I’d never felt comfortable letting any person get a glimpse of.

Crag growled and lapped his tongue deeper inside me. I was shuddering with the unfurling bliss now, rushing higher and faster with every movement of his mouth and the other men’s touches. “Oh, fuck,” I mumbled as he clamped his lips even more firmly on my pussy, and arched to meet him. Then my release crashed over me, leaving me shaking and slack between the three men.

Lance nuzzled my hair. “And she does enjoy the meal so much,” he said with fond amusement.

Crag pressed one last kiss to my folds and beamed up at me, his normally hardened face radiant with his satisfaction. “Then that makes two of us.”

The dragon shifter vanished and reappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving his clothes behind in the shadows. He swiveled me toward him, his violet eyes gleaming. “My turn. It’s been too long since I got to feel her all around me. My favorite place to be.”

He grinned at me, and an urge came over me to make this my own claiming as well as theirs. If I belonged to them, then they belonged to me just as much.

I yanked at my wrists, and Torrent must have sensed there was a different quality to the motion than my earlier instinctive resistance. His tentacle uncoiled, and I swiveled around to land right on Lance’s lap, straddling him.

Surprise flickered across the dragon shifter’s face, but it came with a flare of hunger. “Our mortal wants to take charge,” he teased. “What are you going to do with me now, baby girl?”

I rocked my slick cunt against his already rigid erection, making him hiss as his eyelids drooped with pleasure. His total trust that whatever I had in mind would be just as enjoyable for him too set off a surge of twined affection and exhilaration inside me. “I’m going to let you feel me all around you,” I said with a smirk, echoing his earlier words, and sank right down onto him.

His cock filled me so well, even more so when I felt the head swell larger inside me into its dragon shape. My breath caught, and Lance smirked right back at me, knowing the effect his monstrous features had on me. He glided his claws up and down my thighs as he gazed at me.

There were other benefits to sitting up instead of being pinned under him, I realized. As I found the best position over Lance’s lap, swaying up and down over his cock experimentally, the other two men drew closer on either side of me. They’d only meant to keep up their assault of pleasure, Torrent trailing his tentacle over my body, Crag capturing my mouth, but it occurred to me that in this position, I could bring them all with me and Lance on this ecstatic journey.

“Both of you, clothes off too,” I mumbled around a groan as Lance pushed his hips up to meet me, filling me deeper than before. They performed the same trick the dragon shifter had, shedding their clothes in an instant and revealing their own sculpted bodies to my eager gaze.

I kissed Crag again, stroking my hand over his bulging arm, and then turned to where Torrent was kneeling beside me. With my other hand, I traced the rows of suckers that protruded from the back of his upper arm—the one shadowkind feature he couldn’t leave behind completely, although his tentacles were almost essential now to support his legs. He brushed one of those beneath my chin to giddying effect, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t tasted him yet. His cock was standing at rigid attention within my sights.

I twisted at the waist and lowered myself carefully, stretching my arm to trace my hand down Crag’s body at the same time as I dipped toward Torrent. Catching my intent, Lance leaned back on his hands and both of the other men shifted even closer. Torrent’s chest hitched as I flicked my tongue over the head of his erection.

“Quinn,” he muttered, nothing but longing in the way he said my name. It made me twice as eager to take him.

I wrapped my mouth around his cock and my fingers around Crag’s thick shaft at the same time. Lance had held still, watching my progress with apparent delight. As I found a rhythm with the other two men, he started to roll his hips against me again.

“That’s right, baby girl,” he said, his voice becoming strained with need. “You were meant for all of us. Look at you.”

His last words cut off with a growl. He thrust into me more forcefully, and I gasped around Torrent’s cock. Rocking with the dragon shifter, I slicked my tongue around Torrent’s length to lap up the salty flavor that tasted so much like the ocean and gripped Crag’s shaft tighter with the pump of my hand.

The gargoyle groaned and pressed kisses over my back. Torrent looped a tentacle all the way around my waist, the tip dropping to stroke my clit just above where Lance and I were joined. I moaned and sucked him down as deep as I could without choking. His hips jerked toward me with a growl of his own.

It was a maelstrom of desire and bliss, and it wrapped around me so thoroughly that everything faded away except the joint motion of our bodies and the pleasure blazing through me. Crag’s fingers dug into my hair with a grasp that was just shy of painful. I squeezed him harder, and he came with a grunt and clamp of his mouth against my shoulder blade.

Lance hummed encouragingly and rocked with me faster. Torrent’s tentacle tightened around my waist, the tip strumming my clit into a chorus of ecstasy, and I swayed with them both, driving us all toward release.

Despite my intention of getting the men there before me, I broke first. Lance surged up inside me at just the right moment with the flick of Torrent’s tentacle, and pleasure exploded through my body.

My pussy clenched around Lance, and he came with me in a spurt of heat. My mouth closed more firmly around Torrent too, and he grasped the back of my head. “I’m going to?—”

Good. I sucked him down, and he emptied himself into my mouth with a ragged cry that nearly tipped me over the edge all over again. I’d brought him that much pleasure.

I’d taken all of them, my monstrous lovers, and shown I could handle it. Shown just how good we were together in every possible way. They understood me, and I understood them. Maybe we’d all become something more by finding each other.

Lance yanked me down next to him on the bed, and the other men tucked themselves close. Surrounded by their heat, I let myself doze for just a moment, adrift on the satisfaction of knowing this one thing Rollick couldn’t steal from us.