Chapter 26 #2
His fingers reached the band on my jeans, probing, wanting to take a dive. My heart raced with his skin on mine, my cock at its hardest point. Precum seeped into my fresh boxer shorts, every inch of me ready for the clothes to be torn off, my naked body at the mercy of this man.
Carnal lust pressed my lips harder to his, a soft moan passing from me to him.
His hands slid deeper into my jeans.
I broke the kiss, panting for air. “Miko…”
His lips found my neck. He sucked greedily.
“Miko…”
“Yeah?” The vibration of his voice on my skin pushed me closer to the edge of climax.
“Not here… Oh… Oh… Not…” He sucked and licked, teasing me. I wanted to cry out his name at the top of my lungs, push him to the floor and impale myself on his delicious cock.
But not here. Not with so many shifters in the house.
“They might hear us,” I managed. “Please…”
“I want you so fucking much,” he breathed against me.
Pixie balls. How was I supposed to resist? And why should I? We had to grab the opportunity for pleasure whenever it reared its head.
Miko gave great head. So did I—and I hadn’t had the chance to show him yet.
But. Not. Here.
Stars! “Miko. Stop.”
He stopped, lifting his head, licking his lips to drive me crazy.
To the hells with it. Fuck me on the sink! “Not here.”
He glanced at the door behind him. This house was pretty big, yet not big enough for us to screw in a distant east wing.
“You’re right,” he said, removing his hand from my jeans.
I whined, balls throbbing with achy need. “Crap.”
He smirked. “You’re the one who wants to be sensible.”
“I’m starting to regret it.” I pulled at the crotch of my jeans. “It’s the Gilded Tower in there.”
“The what?”
“A royal monument in Faery. About the same size as Nelson’s Column.”
He looked down. “I like the sound of that.”
“Stop teasing me.”
He wiped his lips with a finger, the action super seductive. “I know.”
Maybe a second, cold shower would help.
He nodded. “Don’t worry, Ori. No nookie here.” He reached for the door handle. “I’ll see you out there.” With one more glance at my bulge, he left the bathroom.
It took my penis three long minutes to soften enough for me to join the others in the large living room with four three-seater sofas.
Miko, already seated, patted the spot next to him. Slightly fearful I might jump in his lap and put on a sex show, I sat next to him. Even the bumping of our thighs aggravated my cock.
Get a grip!
I focused on the room around me. The largest room in the house, according to Malorie, with a dusty TV on the wall at the right position to cater to each sofa.
A shame it was out of action, too much of an energy drain.
Paige, Cate, and James sat on the sofa opposite ours, Trev on the floor next to Paige, eyeing up a bounty of snacks on the coffee table.
He stuck a violet thumb up at me. “Fresh as a daisy, eh?”
“Amazing, isn’t it?”
Trev sniffed his armpits, making Paige laugh. “Orange. Nice.”
“Lemons here,” I answered.
“Rose,” Basil said, alone on the sofa next to ours. He even smiled.
Wow. A nice thing to see instead of his disapproval and scowling. And it was also nice to know we were safe for the time being, freshly scrubbed and dressed.
Best not get too comfortable…
This wouldn’t last. As much as I wanted to cling to a glass-half-full mentality, it was with slippery fingers.
Malorie entered the room carrying a tray with a teapot and cups. “Rose is my favorite scent.”
I wanted to cry again.
“Freshly brewed tea.” She popped the tray on the coffee table. “No fresh milk, I’m afraid. But we do have an abundance of those long-life things you find in hotels.” She arranged the cups into a line, each one white with pink flowers.
Steam curled from the spout, a tantalizing spiral in the air.
“Who wants a cup?” Malorie asked.
Everyone did.
She chuckled, pouring out the brown goodness. “I’ll leave you to doctor it as you wish. Please help yourselves to the snacks. I can cook you something on the gas stove later.”
Cookies, cakes, crisps, most of them long past their use-by dates. I grabbed a cookie, nibbling around the edge while waiting my turn in the tea queue.
Andrew and Arlo entered the room, taking a seat on the fourth sofa. Malorie sat with Basil.
I added a sugar cube (an actual sugar cube!) and a tiny pot of long-life milk to my tea. Then I sat back, sinking into the softness of the sofa, shuffling closer to Miko.
“No milk?” I asked him, eyeing his beverage.
“Prefer it like this.”
“I’ve learned a new fact about you.”
With snacks and tea in hand, we got down to telling our stories as the night grew longer. Each werewolf took their turn to talk about their specialist fields; Cate’s story of her expertise in weapons of particular interest to Arlo.
“I’d love to talk more about this later,” he said. “If you don’t mind.”
“Of course.”
“We’ve got a decent weapons stock here, even a couple of guns. No ammo, though.”
The family already knew a lot about Miko’s rise to alpha at the age of twenty, but they let him tell the story anyway.
“The final fight for the alphaship came down to me and Shelly Field,” he said. “She was brutal, but too cocky.”
“Way too cocky,” James interjected.
“And a dirty fighter,” Paige added.
Miko nodded. “Proved to be her downfall.”
Andrew steepled his fingers. “Wasn’t she Lance Forest’s lover?”
Malorie pulled a disgusted face. “I never liked either of them. Trash.”
She had that right.
“Yeah,” Miko answered.
“I’m glad it was you,” the lion said.
Miko spoke about losing most of his pack in the apocalypse, his sentences clipped and to the point.
“Our condolences to all of you,” Malorie said. “How sad.”
“Shitty world,” Arlo added.
Miko sipped his tea. “Yeah.”
After the pack took more turns telling the story from Haven to here, and Basil explained his journey from Faery to London via Los Angeles, three jaws were on the floor.
“I’ll say it again,” Arlo broke the silence, “what a shitty world.”
“But we’re still here to fight another day,” James said with his usual theatrical flair.
“Amen, mate,” Trev responded.
The oracle had been left out of the tale, along with the details of Dunstable.
“I’m glad,” Andrew said. “It’s good to see new faces. Especially hopeful ones.”
I put my hand on Miko’s thigh, that h-word loaded with anguish.
He covered my hand with his and my eyes watered. Bowing my head, I cooled the anguish down, talking myself out of sobbing.
“Richie lost his hope,” the werelion continued. “We offered him a home here on the farm so many times, but he refused. Preferred his own company. I had no idea he was planning a dramatic exit.”
“I hope he finds peace,” Malorie said.
Each of the family members kissed their fingers, lifted their hands to the sky, and said, “Peace to you, Richie.”
What a lovely tribute.
Arlo leaned forward to grab a packet of crisps. “Lance and the blood magi working together, are they? What a scumbag with his one-pack bullshit idea. Who the hell would want to live in a world with Dawn forever?”
No one from our side answered.
“Power-hungry men like him,” Andrew said.
“Are you farmers?” Miko asked, steering the talk in a different direction.
“Not at all. But we’re good at rearing chickens. You must try the eggs.”
“I miss eggs,” James said.
I noticed Malorie’s attention fall to Trev. She stared at him for too long, not blinking once.
He noticed, trying to make himself small, looking to me for help.
What was she doing?
After a brief discussion about cooking omelets, Andrew picked up on his wife’s staring. “Are you okay, dear?”
Malorie tilted her head to the side. “I sense a powerful gift in him.”
“In Trev?”
“Yes. A gift of knowing, of seeing. There is a blockage. He is being held back.”
Oh my goodness. What now? What powers did this weredolphin possess?
“There’s more you have to tell us.” She addressed all of us.
Silence bristled in the air.
“You can trust us,” she said. “I know we’re strangers, but we mean no harm.”
More silence.
Malorie sat forward. “Let me tell you this.” She sipped some tea first. “Creatures of a watery nature are sometimes born with certain psychic abilities. I can help unlock the potential of other creatures with powers of the mind. Like you, Trev.”
The troll didn’t meet her eyes, staring at the carpet.
“You have the gift of foresight,” Malorie said. “But there’s a cloud around you. I can help unlock that cloud.”
Miko interjected. “Water creatures can do these things? I’ve never heard of that.”
She nodded. “Not all of us. Arlo can’t. It often skips a few generations.”
“Like the lion gene,” Andrew said.
Malorie’s eyes bore into Trev, but not in a bad way. They seemed gentle, comforting, almost willing him to look up.
“I can’t… I can’t…” Trev tried.
Paige rubbed his shoulders. “It’s okay.”
I got up, joining my friend on the floor. “Take your time.”
He hunched deeply, burying his face in his hands. “Fuck…”
“I swear on the lives and souls of my family you can trust us,” Malorie said. “I want to help you. I can feel your anguish.”
“Fuck,” Trev repeated.
“I don’t know.” Miko stood up. “We need to think about this. It’s delicate.”
“I understand. Take your time. We can give you some privacy out of earshot if you’d like.”
Andrew agreed. “The barn would be a good place.”
But Trev lifted his head. “No. This shit stops here. I have to know what’s going on.”
Miko folded his arms, hard eyes on the troll. “Are you sure?”
“Yep. There might be something more, an extra sentence to those words or whatever. And I need to know about me before I have a breakdown.”
The big troll looked so defeated and weak. I rubbed his arm while Paige rubbed his shoulders.
He finally lifted his head, making eye contact with Malorie. “So, it went like this…”
A long silence followed, the family stunned by our story once again—which included Miko’s dreams of me and the golden gift.
Malorie stared at Miko.