32. Cress
Iwoke feeling more loved than I could imagine, drifting on the safety of my mate’s feelings through a rough return to wakefulness. My skin ached like I’d been sandpapered top to bottom, and I couldn’t lift my head from where it rested under Phaeron’s chin. The pain radiated from my shoulder like a pinched nerve.
Well, as he’d explained, we’d just swapped a tiny piece of our souls to create a permanent bond between us. Maybe this was a taste of what it’d feel like if he’d really taken a bite out of my soul as he’d craved until very recently. His brother had given him a very important gift: a true chance at his new life, not impaired by soul hunger.
Phaeron was out cold underneath me, his breathing evening out to the slow and steady of deep sleep. At some point, my memories must’ve transitioned straight to dreamland for him. I couldn’t really blame him. Compared to the pieces of his life I’d seen, mine must’ve been brief and mundane.
No one could really rival an immortal prince from another planet for interesting life experiences.
Knowing he needed rest pretty badly, I moved off his broad chest carefully. I’d been out long enough that my legs were regaining their feeling, though I stumbled upon putting my full weight on them. I tucked a layer of covers around him and took slow, measured steps toward the gifts he’d gathered overnight.
He’d known to raid a beauty store, and I could’ve wept when I saw moisturizers and makeup again, especially the expensive brand names I wasn’t able to afford. But I put it all aside, shifting through bags of nice clothes and a box full of bottles and what could be random odds and ends.
For Braza’s gargoyle form. I simply knew about it now and would help him do what it took to give her a new body.
He’d taken several different models of new phones and accessories. I fished out the one with the newest hardware and a sparkly case, setting them aside to set up soon. Ben and Geo were going to be overjoyed when they got new devices too, and they’d stop taking mine! Win-win.
Lying flat at the bottom of all this stuff was what I was looking for. “My precious,” I murmured, pulling out a new, quality sketchbook and a premier pack of colored pencils. I thumbed through the blank pages and opened the pack as quietly as possible, stealing a few glances at Phaeron’s sleeping form to ensure I hadn’t woken him.
I ran my fingers over the rainbow of pencils I’d freed and smiled to myself. It wasn’t much, but I could give him something back. I gathered up the art supplies and laid a loose blanket over my naked body before propping the sketchpad on my legs and getting to work. I scribbled away with my tongue caught between my teeth, recreating something from Phaeron’s memories before it faded and smudged like many of Braza’s recollections had.
With him sleeping away, I had a chance to take my time. I hadn’t drawn a portrait like this in a while, but I was a woman possessed. It took full form, and I was rubbing a cramp from my hand when Phaeron finally stirred.
The phantom sensation of panic gripped my chest as he shot up, looking around. When his gaze found where I’d set up, he tilted his head. I realized I was feeling his emotions, in this case his confusion. “I didn’t want to wake you. You needed to sleep,” I said.
“Silly female.” He sounded groggy. He rubbed his face, glancing down at his clawed hand and flexing it. “All I need is you.”
My heart fluttered. I quickly placed the pencils back into their slots and flipped the sketchbook closed, taking it with me. As soon as the blanket fell, the rising burn of his lust kindled across our mating bond, and I felt my sex aching for him in response. I placed the sketchbook on the bedside table and let him pull me back into bed, though he cupped my stiff neck so we didn’t jostle the place he’d bitten me.
When we lay face-to-face, he swept my hair back to look at the wound and blew cool air over it. “My mark is developing well,” he said, proud. I realized I hadn’t taken a moment to look into a mirror at it, and he responded like he knew my thoughts. “You can inspect it later, once it’s set.”
“How…” I drifted off when I realized that was the wrong question to ask. This was magic from his world, undoubtedly stronger on his end of things. “This is intense, huh?”
He nodded. “It will fade some with time. But I will always know your needs so I can fulfill them.” He stroked his thumb over the curve of my cheek, and I felt him admiring me. I could only mirror him, appreciating seeing him at ease. He really was handsome in a striking way, different yet familiar. Still a man despite every extraordinary circumstance.
“What did my soul memories show you?” I asked.
“A true understanding of who you are.” He held me to his chest when he felt how that answer made me nervous for what, exactly, he’d seen. He spoke tenderly in my ear. “Relax, bright soul. I should be the fearful one, with how many terrible decisions I have had to make and live with. First, I need you to understand that I am not ‘more important’ than you in any way. I am a prince of nothing and wish I never had the title since I’ve seen it has intimidated you. We are equals. Okay?”
“Okay,” I answered. He rewarded me with a kiss.
“To put your mind at ease, I saw your early childhood and the abusive rages of a man your mother made the decision to leave. May I kill him?”
“What?” I practically yelped.
“I didn’t think you’d agree to that,” he said, sounding a little disappointed. “You survived growing up with very little, doing your best with what you had, and took a job early to support your mother and sister. Discovering that you’re a witch was a twist of good fortune until it came with the baggage of political plots and assassins. One of your biggest regrets is misjudging me and my intentions at first.”
That was an understatement. He kissed the apology off my mouth before I could say it, as I’d started to do with him. “I could have stayed and done a better job convincing you of the circumstances,” he murmured.
“But you were depressed,” I added.
I reached out and brushed my fingertips over his cheek. He closed his eyes with a sigh, tilting his face for more. All this time, he’d been waiting for me to reciprocate those tender touches.
“Incredibly. Yet I found it within myself to go on,” he said.
“I’m glad.”
He breathed a soft sigh. “Me too.”
“I saw you talking about it with David. Did you ever find out what a fortune cookie is?”
He cracked open one eye to squint at me. “He wasn’t making that up?”
“No, he just explained it really badly,” I said, muffling a laugh at his disbelief. “They’re folded around a slip of paper that holds a generic statement about the future.”
“Hmm. Would I do a good job making fortune statements, bright soul?”
“I think so.”
“David also thought most of the things I told him about my past were from video games.” I got the distinct feeling his thought at the moment was whatever those are and had another chuckle over that. “Thank you for reminding me of him. I’ll have to check on him when we return.”
“Maybe he’s moved on to Aurora Heights,” I said.
He shook his head. “Wanting your family to wake up and see how they’ve wronged you is one of the strongest desires one can have.”
“Spoken from experience.” At this point, I was exploring the curl of his horn. It was hard and smooth.
“They never saw me, bright soul. I found more fulfillment in moving on and being the father I’d never had.” He took my wrist and placed my hand on his cheek again, nuzzling against my palm affectionately.
“Speaking of which,” we said at the same time.
“Jinx. You go first,” I said.
He already had that uncanny way of looking right through me, and now he had insider knowledge of the depths of my soul. “I think you will make a great mother one day, when you’re ready. Your circumstances are going to be much different from your own childhood.”
“You know I want kids.” I definitely wasn’t ready to get pregnant, to the point where acquiring the pill had been a huge relief, but it went a lot deeper than that. “I’ve had a strong role model. My adopted mother is my hero.”
“But you haven’t known a positive father figure. You’ve been afraid of marrying a male like her ex-mate?” The concept seemed to puzzle him.
“It’s a human thing. I don’t want to give any kids of mine a father like that. And”—I held up a finger—“I realize it’s a silly fear when I know now that I’d make a dad of Ben, Geo, or you. None of you are like that.”
“The babe would have three fathers. Practically tripping over us.” He stole a wistful rub of my belly.
“I have a little gift for you,” I said, seeing that it was time to show him. Nerves fluttered in my belly at my last-second doubts that he’d find it a meaningful mating gift.
He reassured those nerves. “You don’t have to give me anything. You are gift enough.”
“It’s in the sketchbook. There was a memory… You looked into the Void,” I said clumsily.
His pupils narrowed. “I have only done that willingly a handful of times. Was Auric there?” Shifting to lie on his back, he reached for the sketchbook.
“Yeah. It was the first time, I think,” I supplied. That meant, to him, that the Void had been honest with what it’d shown.
He flipped up the front cover and looked at the portrait I’d made. The kid was unmistakably Phaeron’s son, I thought, if a shade like his mother too. Lighter gray skin; straight, dark brown hair, and slitted dimensional eyes cooled to orange embers. He could’ve been ten, with the points of his horns starting to emerge from his crown and baby fat that could give way to high cheekbones one day.
Maybe I was wrong and Phaeron had already met this boy and said goodbye to him without it appearing in his memories or regrets. But the way he froze with a sharp inhale, the phantom of his emotions cycling between surprise, realization, and yearning erased my doubts.
“Is this…?” He reached out to touch the paper.
“I think so,” I answered in the same hush.
He set the sketchbook aside and rolled onto me, framing my face and peppering it with kisses. I felt his joy like my own but winced when he put me on my back. My neck was still quite tender. “Thank you,” he said, touching foreheads with me. “I don’t know how, but…it must be possible.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I promised.
“Someday.” He went for the mating mark next, licking the tender space and blowing another cool, soothing breath over it. “Would you like to try my animaris? It might overtake the pain of this setting.”
“Sure,” I said but swatted him when he bit me none too gently. Ow.
The new wound stung for a few seconds. “You’re responding to it fast.” He gave my hip a squeeze, watching my reaction closely.
Warmth replaced the pain and swiftly met my bloodstream, spreading from there. It hit my heart and radiated out from my chest, soon feeling like a pleasant flush. He palmed one of my breasts and tweaked the hardened bud, grinning as I nearly arched off the bed. I felt so sensitive all of a sudden, tingling from the brush of his skin on mine. “Phaeron,” I moaned.
He hardened against my thigh, responding to my sudden surge of need in kind. “Is this normal?” I asked breathlessly.
“Completely.” Despite how he throbbed against me, he pinned my hip, making no move to claim me. “I only gave you a bit. It should wear off…about now.”
I did notice it fading, but I still ached for him. That was all me, jumpstarted by his animaris. I touched my shoulder, feeling the mating mark tingle with discomfort, but there were no open bite wounds. “It healed me,” I said.
He nodded, saying, “I gave you a tiny amount of my life force. It’ll fix up superficial wounds and bruises, but it’s meant to excite you. Now that you know what it feels like, do you want more?”
I checked myself on agreeing enthusiastically, wiggling underneath him. “Depends. Are you going to deny me again?”
He lifted my hips and thrust with little preamble. It was a relief to feel him fill me again. “I have not the strength nor will to deny you anything,” he growled.
“Then I want more. A lot more.” I tilted my head, and he kissed his mark before biting down.
I drew the short straw to go find out where Cress and Phaeron had gone and deliver a message. I was only a bit grumpy about it since I knew they were probably fucking, and there were only a few safe places around to do that.
She’d been making bedroom eyes at me, damn it, and he’d stolen her away before I could. I was just a little jealous. It felt like it’d been ages since we’d had some bonding time…and I didn’t want Big P biting my head off for interrupting them with the news.
The run to the library was uneventful, though. I didn’t have to worry about unnaturals. According to our spy extraordinaire, Grant, there were no more animal unnaturals. Myuna had eaten them all to cast a huge spell that was bad news for us. The torchbearers seemed to be waking up from their zombielike state and practicing their magic again.
“Just knock,” I told myself as I navigated the wreckage of the first floor and took the stairs down. “The worst that can reasonably happen is he tells you to go away. Again.”
And I would not. We needed tall, dark, and terrifying to help us plan the upcoming offensive, and the meeting was scheduled for tomorrow. He needed to know that before he got back to hoarding our girl in his shadow dungeon or whatever.
I didn’t worry for long that he’d taken her someplace new. The scream I heard came from the same room where I’d last found them. As expected, it sounded like they were having a good time. I rolled my eyes and knocked.
No answer.
I tried again. Knock. Knock. Creak…
The door seemed to have unlatched and opened on its own. “It’s Ben?” Cress was asking.
“I can wait for you guys to, uh, finish,” I said, peeking inside anyway.
Shadows obscured more than their outlines, but the slap of skin on skin was pretty distinctive. My pants got tight fast from her breathy moan. “Ben,” she called, sounding more than a little lust-drunk.
“You can be here if you help pleasure our mate,” Phaeron added in a tight growl.
“Oh! C’mere, Ben,” Cress cried out.
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” I said, jolting into the room and locking the door again behind me. Phaeron retracted his shadows and helped lay Cress down at the foot of the bed. She was giggling and flushed, watching me strip avidly with eyes more dilated than normal.
He sat behind her, waiting with impatient flicks of his tail. But I didn’t pay much attention to him, more worried about what was going on with her. “You okay, babe?” I murmured, bending down to kiss her.
“Better than okay. Touch me,” she demanded, meeting my lips with open-mouthed passion. Phaeron also answered her need, running his palms up the back of her legs and squeezing her ass.
While I moaned and met her tongue for tongue, he said, “She’s under the effects of my animaris. She consented to it.”
I broke off the kiss with a, “Your what now?”
“An aphrod—”
“His sexy venom,” Cress interrupted.
I felt my face light up. Oh, I was going to have fun with that. “Just full of tricks, aren’t you, Big P?” I teased.
“An understatement, Little B,” he replied in kind. “But enough talk. Join us…or don’t.” He lifted her into his arms and kissed her with the same level of passion she’d hit me with at the door.
Like hell I was going to choose not to join them. I climbed onto the bed behind her, smoothing my hands down her back and leaning in to kiss her unmarked shoulder. There was a new pattern of dimensional magic on the other shoulder, looking like fancy scrollwork stretching a couple inches in a circular pattern around two points where he’d obviously bit her. Maybe that was where the “sexy venom” thing came from.
His mark on her was a light gray, unlike the pair of black and purple bat-like wings over her shoulder blades, where Braza had tethered to her. The magic was dormant, the skin pebbling with goosebumps in the wake of my touch. I could get used to her being this responsive. I loved hearing how much she enjoyed having us both kissing and stroking her all over.
I’d gotten used to navigating around an extra pair of hands with how often she preferred to have Geo and me at the same time. Phaeron cheated, though, using his shadow magic to leave lingering touches on her legs and arms where we weren’t concentrating much attention. I focused on stroking her hips and belly, feeling her quiver between us, almost like she’d come from touch alone.
My fingers dipped toward her overheated core. Fuck, she was already soaked. “Ben, wait,” he said, cupping Cress’s cheeks. “Look at me, bright soul. Ben’s here now. You’re about to have us both.”
“Oh, yes,” she said dreamily.
“Any preferences?” he asked.
She leaned back to look at me over her shoulder. “How do you want me?” she asked huskily. With those lidded bedroom eyes on me, I would’ve said any way she wanted, but it was clear she was offering it back to me since they’d been at this a while.
“You know I can’t resist that pussy, babe,” I answered.
Without missing a beat, Phaeron put in, “And you’ve made quite the mess of me.”
“Oh no, we can’t have that.” She leaned back further into my arms, threading her fingers into my hair as our lips met for a hungry kiss. I took the opportunity to shape the familiar curves of her body with my hands.
As impatient as he’d been to have her again, Phaeron sat back and watched us with a hungry expression. When she pulled away with a lingering graze on my bottom lip, he stood and helped her balance on her hands and knees, using his tail to prop her up around the middle. She moaned into his cock when I ran mine through her slick folds.
“Hey, Big P,” I said, reaching for his tail. “Could I borrow this?”
With a wave of his hand, he’d made a cushion of shadows for her middle and held his tail at an angle for me to take. The bunch and flex of muscles under the skin suggested he could’ve done this for himself, but I was in the business of pleasuring Cress right now, so I teased her with him, drawing a few inches of tail over her pussy.
She moaned into the cock she now had half in her mouth. He cupped the back of her head, testing her with a couple shallow thrusts. “She’s going to love this,” I said, grabbing her hips and sliding myself home within her easily. She jolted and arched back to meet my hips, fists clenching on the bedsheets.
He waited to see what I was going to do, which was place the tip of his tail at the entrance of her ass. It was perfectly shaped for such a task. “Good.” His usually smooth voice was little more than a growl as he slid the first inch within her and twisted it. “Then she’ll enjoy all three of us at once someday.”
“How the hell is that going to work?” I asked to myself. I was more focused on staying steady for her despite how she came hard, making me ache to spill early.
“I have a few ideas,” he said.
“Of course you do.”
“Jealous of something, Little B?”
“Yeah, actually. I wish I had a flexible tail for situations exactly like this one,” I said. He was keeping pace with me with it, driving several inches of tail into her. If her mouth wasn’t occupied, she’d definitely be screaming right about now.
“I have to have some assets to please her with, besides my wit,” he said.
Cress breathed a distinct little “hehe,” giggling like she did when I coaxed Geo into bantering with me in bed. Maybe whatever venom he’d given her was wearing off, as she was clear-eyed and calm once he and I finished and lay out on either side of her.
Phaeron touched the mark on her shoulder. “More?” he asked.
“Wait, wait,” I put in. “I came here to tell you two something.”
“Can it hold on for a couple hours?” she asked.
I scratched the back of my head. “I guess?”
“Awesome, because I want to ride you both for at least that long before letting reality in again.” She tilted her head for Phaeron. “More animaris, please.”