Chapter 14
fourteen
BLAIR
My knees shook slightly as Damian opened them wider.
“You seem uncertain, little siren,” he all but purred. Though he was on his knees in front of me, I was under no impression that he was at my mercy. The man was going to take what he wanted—and he was going to enjoy it, if the look in his eyes told me anything.
While I didn’t want to give him any of my power, he had just agreed to feed on me twice as often as he had in the past. And to sate himself.
That was a win.
…wasn’t it?
The way he’d licked my clit over my panties had basically turned my brain to mush.
And even though I wanted to keep my power, he was probably going to realize the truth pretty quickly.
“I’ve only been with a few guys,” I admitted. “None of them did this.”
His eyes narrowed. “You screwed men who didn’t go down on you?”
I nodded.
“Fuckers. Your magic tastes as good as it feels—so it’s their loss.” He dragged his tongue over the front of my panties again.
My knees trembled as I tried to hold up my weight, but Damian pulled one knee over his shoulder, then leaned me away from the wall. My grip on his hair tightened, and he chuckled, grabbing my other knee and sliding it over his shoulder too.
My core was at his eye level, and my face flushed.
“Perfect.” His words were low and gravelly, and his gaze met mine. “You’re going to get off on my tongue, little siren. When I bring my fingers in, you’ll come again. When I bite you, you’ll ride my hand like you did that first day. Understand?”
I was sane enough to nod, though I was too turned on to say anything else.
The way he was taking charge was enough to make me wet.
In one smooth motion, he tore my panties off and tossed them to the ground, baring my core to him. Then, his mouth was on me.
It was ecstasy.
Pure, unbridled ecstasy.
I came faster than I ever had before, crying out desperately. As he’d promised, he filled me with two of his fingers as I came down from my high, still working me with his tongue.
My cries were louder and more desperate when I lost it that time.
But he didn’t stop there.
He just feasted.
Licking.
Sucking.
Biting.
Teasing.
It felt endless—and I hoped like hell it really would be.
I came again, and again, before he finally sank his fangs into my upper thigh and slowly worked my clit with his thumb. Though he gave me a break from the intensity of his mouth, his magic took me higher and higher.
When my desperation finally took hold, I pushed his head and he released my thigh. There was satisfaction in his gaze, but I wasn’t done with him.
And, I realized as he set me back down on my feet with his hand still inside me, he wasn’t done with me either.
“Has anyone ever fucked you against a wall, little siren?” There was a wicked gleam in his eyes.
“No.”
I’d only ever had missionary-style sex before he screwed me in that hospital room.
“Good.” He tugged my t-shirt over my head with his free hand, baring my chest before he caught one of my tits and dragged his tongue over my nipple. “Fuck, I love these.”
“Thought they were too little,” I breathed, and he bit down hard enough to make my hips jerk against his hand.
His rumbly chuckle made me smile, despite my intense need. “You desperate for me already?”
“Never.”
“You won’t mind if I take my time, then.” He sucked my nipple painfully slow.
Impatience struck, and I unbuttoned his jeans for him.
He laughed, biting down again so my hips arched against his palm.
“I need you now ,” I said.
“You know how to get what you need.”
He wanted me to use my magic.
“Nice try, but I know you’re not sated.”
“Clever little siren.” He brushed his mouth over my throat, and helped me push his jeans down. When he stepped out of them, I finally got his cock in my hand and bit back a groan at the feel of his thick, silky length.
“I want this in my mouth,” I breathed, as his fangs brushed my throat again and he slid his fingers out of my channel.
“You’ll have to catch me off guard if you want that kind of control over me.”
“Or use my magic.”
“Not tonight. Tonight, you wear my release inside your sweet little body.”
He finally sank his teeth into my throat, pinning one of my hands above my head as he filled me smoothly.
I nearly forgot how to breathe with the overwhelm of his magic and his cock flooding me.
He thrust inside me as he drank, fucking me slow and deep against the wall until his fangs retracted. I finally let myself dig into his emotions, and the feel of everything heightened.
His tongue dragged over the spot he’d bitten me, and I came so hard, I screamed.
He snarled in satisfaction as he drove into me rougher, dragging out my pleasure and filling me with his.
Our chests rose and fell together as we came down from the high.
“That was amazing,” I breathed against him.
“You come so fucking well on my mouth.”
“Apparently, I like oral sex.”
“More proof that you were made for me. I could spend all night between your thighs.”
“It felt like you did .”
He scooped me up and carried me to the bed, grabbing his phone. “Luckily, you tried to go to sleep ridiculously early. We’re only fifteen minutes late for the meeting.”
“Fifteen minutes? We’re not even dressed. Or clean. And you’re covered in glitter.”
His lips curved wickedly. “Guess there’s no time to shower.”
“You did this on purpose,” I hissed, sliding off his cock. I missed the feel of him immediately, but had to ignore that.
“Of course I did.”
I huffed. “I hope they make fun of you for sparkling. What do you wear to these meetings?”
“Clothes.”
I flashed him a glare.
He chuckled. “There’s no dress code. I usually just wear jeans and a button-up. Bane wears sweats. It’s whatever you’re comfortable in.”
“So I should go with my white bikini?”
His eyes gleamed. “If you don’t want me to let you out of the room, sure.”
I scowled, stepping into the closet and grabbing a pair of panties and a bra. I didn’t have much as far as dress clothing went—didn’t have anything, actually—so the only real option was jeans and a fitted tee.
I put them on, and Damian stepped up behind me, moving his hands slowly over the curve of my waist. “You look perfect.”
He’d pulled on the same thing he was wearing earlier. “So do you.”
My words were a little reluctant. I didn’t love admitting how good he looked—mostly because I didn’t want him to think he had any more power over me than we both knew he already held.
After I straightened my top, he took my hand and wove his fingers between mine. We took the elevator to the bottom floor, and my hand tightened a little in his.
Meeting the other kings was a big deal. They were powerful men, and they could hurt me if they wanted to. I needed to look strong when we faced them, not like Damian’s little siren .
“Don’t act like we’re a real couple in there. We’re just mates who are feeding each other and screwing,” I warned.
“As opposed to real couples, who are…” he trailed off, waiting for me to fill in the blank.
“In love.”
“Ah.”
“Exactly.”
His playfulness faded as we got closer to the hallway that led into the neutral building between the other wings of the Manor. “I need you to call me Hale while we’re around them,” he said.
“Alright. You use my name, too.”
“Agreed. When they ask, you tell them you don’t have any sisters,” he added.
I frowned. “Curtis knows how many of us there are.”
“Yes, and the rest of them will know he’s telling the truth. But as soon as we admit we have four unmated sirens, they will want to start bargaining for one of their own. And we’re not bargaining, are we?”
“Hell no.”
“Exactly.”
“Alright. Anything else?”
He stopped, right before we reached the doors. There was hesitation in his gaze, and something told me I needed to wait and let him decide to tell me whatever he was thinking.
Finally, he said, “I know we refuse to let people call us kings, but deep down, we all know that we are. And wearing my mark makes you my equal, Blair. My queen. Don’t let them talk down to you. Don’t look away when they challenge you. And please, try to act like you don’t hate me.”
As much as I didn’t want to admit it, whatever I felt for him had veered away from hatred, if it had ever truly been that.
Our conversation in the club that first day had all but guaranteed that I couldn’t truly despise him. He had protected me and helped me. Even if it led to him forcing me to be his mate.
And anyway, I wouldn’t have been starving for him if I hated him.
I sighed. “You want us to act like a real couple, don’t you?”
He hesitated, but after a moment, dipped his head.
“Is it the best way to keep my sisters alive?”
“Without question.”
“Then for the meeting, we’re in love.”
His lips curved upward. “Good girl.”
“If you ever say that to me in public, I will kick you in the balls and smile when you collapse.”
He let out a booming laugh, recapturing my hand and lacing his fingers through mine. “Fuck, you’re fun.”
“For now.”
The grin he gave me was scorching.
And I couldn’t fight a smile of my own.
When we walked into the meeting with tangled hair and rumpled clothes, smelling the way we did and equally dusted with glitter, there was no question why we’d been late.
The room it was held in was basically a big lounge, with five couches set up in a circle and a gigantic coffee table between them. There was a bookshelf off to the side of the room, and a few large decorative chairs placed strategically around the massive space to prevent it from feeling messy.
There were four men in the room already. All of them were massive, and all of them were gorgeous.
Even Curtis.
I swear, that room alone held a man for every kind of woman.
Curtis was tall and tan, with curly white-blond hair. Before you got to know him, he was probably the most appealing of the bunch. There was something earthy about werewolves that was just really, intensely sexy.
At the moment, Curtis was sprawled out over one of the couches, his jaw clenched with anger and his gaze fixed on me.
I’d never looked closely at pictures of the leaders, hence my failure to recognize Damian in the nightclub, but different types of magical beings carried themselves differently. That made it easy enough to tell them apart, paired with my faint memories of the pictures I had seen in the past.
“Couldn’t wait to fuck your female until after we were done?” one of the men drawled.
I was pretty sure the one who spoke was Kai, the fae leader. He had light skin and blond hair that was swept up off his face, and he was leaning against the armrest of another couch.
Something told me that the men knew exactly which couch belonged to which king, even if there was no outward sign declaring it.
“That should be my female,” Curtis growled.
“They’ve both got permanent mate marks, so I don’t know how you’re going to prove that,” one of the guys said. All of them were monstrous, but that one in particular was built like a tank.
He had the broadest shoulders, the biggest muscles, and the harshest lines on his face. His sun-tanned skin and shaggy, wavy hair contrasted that, so I wasn’t sure what to think about him.
Still, his physique alone was enough to say that he was clearly the leader of the monsters. Bane.
He was sitting comfortably on his own couch, his arms draped over the back of it.
Damian released my hand and set his on the small of my back, leading me toward the couch nearest to the door we’d entered through. As we walked, he introduced me.
“Everyone, this is my blood mate, Blair. Blair, you’ve had the misfortune of meeting Curt already. That’s Kai,” he gestured to the blond guy, whose name I’d guessed correctly. “That’s Bane,” he pointed to the wavy-haired guy, so I was right about that one too, “And that’s Talon.”
Talon was nearly as big as Bane, with light brown skin and black hair that fell to his cheekbones in loose, messy curls. He stood behind his couch, his grip tight on the back of it. “How many sisters does she have?”
“She has a voice, Talon,” Damian said, as we sat down on the couch.
“I don’t have any sisters. My pod was killed about ten years ago,” I explained.
It was half true.
Talon scowled.
Curtis growled. “You know damn well that she has four unmated sisters. Enough to share with the rest of us. One of them wears my mark.”
“If you really managed to lose the female with your mark on her throat, which magically leads you to her, I think she deserves her freedom,” Kai drawled. “What are we really here to talk about?”
“The fact that Curt has attempted to declare war on the vampires by setting up an ambush of wolves at my blood mate’s house,” Damian said simply.
All three of the other men’s gazes moved to Curtis.
Kai looked amused.
Talon looked concerned.
Bane looked pissed.
“I wasn’t trying to take your female. I wanted mine .”
“Security camera footage proves that none of the women at the scene had a band around their neck except Blair.” Damian typed on his phone for a moment, and showed me a fairly clear picture from a security camera that definitely hadn’t been there before we moved to the Manor. The notifications dinging and buzzing on the other men’s phones told me they’d all received it in a message.
They all pulled their devices out and looked at the picture.
“And these women are three of her sisters?” Kai asked dryly.
“Yes,” Curtis confirmed, at the same time Damian said, “No. They’re three of my vampires.”
“Whoever they are, they clearly don’t have mate marks,” Bane said. “Which makes attacking them an act of war.”
He looked back at Curtis.
Kai did too.
Talon was studying the screen closely. A little too closely for my comfort.
“I don’t want war,” Curtis growled. “I want?—”
“If you had any right to the woman, you’d have a band around your neck like Hale does. Issue an apology, or go to war with the rest of us,” Talon said flatly, his focus still on his phone’s screen.
Curtis’s face turned beet red. He stood furiously. “I will get my female back.”
Bane growled, the sound far more menacing than the wolf’s.
Curt’s red face went a little purple. “But until I do, I apologize for attacking your blood mate.”
“Ten vials of blood enhancement were used to heal injuries after the fight,” Damian said smoothly. “You’ll pay to replace those, as well as my mate’s business equipment and personal items, which your wolves destroyed.”
“There weren’t even ten?—”
“Is this really worth a fight, Curt?” Kai asked.
“Fine,” Curtis bit out. “I’ll have them sent over.”
“You’ll send the money over,” Damian corrected. “We have no reason to trust drugs sent by your people at this time.”
Curtis snarled, “You’ll get your money by the end of the day tomorrow. And I will get Clementine back.”
He stalked out of the room, and despite the ridiculousness of his words, I was a little worried.
His bark might not have mattered, but his bite was dangerous. There were a lot of werewolves. Far more than there were monsters or dragons. They were even with the vampires, but no one knew how many fae there were.
“One of your sisters is named after tiny oranges?” Kai asked, looking at me with a lifted eyebrow.
“I don’t have any sisters,” I reminded him.
His lips quirked upward. “Right.”
“I need a siren,” Talon said, finally looking up from his phone screen and straight at me. “I’ll take the dark-haired one. I can return her when I’m done.”
“If we had extra unmated sirens, which we don’t, do you really think we would loan them out ?” Damian drawled.
Bane interrupted before Talon could growl at us. “If you have a real need and an offer, you can write it out and send it to Hale’s office.”
Talon scowled. “I’m not wasting time with paperwork when I know he’s not going to do a damn thing about it. I need a fucking siren.”
Kai finally slid off the armrest and sat down on his couch. “If you have a problem, tell us what it is, and we’ll see what we can do to help.”
Talon hesitated for a moment, then finally shook his head.
Without another word, he left the room the same way Curtis had.
Something told me that wasn’t the last we’d hear about his request to borrow a siren, and nerves had my stomach tensing. I’d need to warn my sisters to be more careful… but then again, they were already insanely cautious. I wasn’t sure we could get any more careful.
“Well, that’s a little terrifying,” Kai remarked. “Glad I’m not the bastard trying to protect four unmated sirens.”
“No kidding,” Bane rumbled. “I have a hard enough time protecting my females.”
Female monsters were rare, so as far as I knew, all of them were housed in his wing of the Manor. He wasn’t known for being a nice guy, but monsters did protect their women viciously.
Then again, compared to the humans, we were all monsters.
“If I was protecting them, I think I’d just build a really great pool to seduce them into staying safe to make things easy for myself,” Damian remarked.
I smacked him on the chest with the back of my hand, and he grinned.
“How’s life without bloodlust?” Kai asked.
“Really fucking peaceful, minus the wolves.”
“Let us know if you need backup with that. You know we’ll intervene if we have to, even before war’s officially declared.”
“I’ll keep it in mind, but I’ve got something up my sleeve. How’s the fae realm?”
Kai grimaced. “Not great. We’re going through another eclipse. I can’t figure out what’s triggering it.”
I frowned, not sure what that meant.
Damian squeezed my hip lightly, and I realized his arm was around my waist. “When the fae realm is eclipsed, they’re reduced to their most animalistic states. There’s a lot of destruction. Death, too.”
“Even the earthside fae can feel a weaker version of the effects,” Kai added, and I appreciated that they were explaining it to me. “Uncontrollable lust and violence are the most common symptoms in this realm.”
“And you think something causes it?”
“Theoretically. It never used to happen this often.”
“Hmm.”
“It’s a shitshow, but we’ll pull through,” Kai said. “How are the monsters?”
“Solid.” Bane nodded. “We’re in a better place than we’ve been in a long time, but that doesn’t mean one errant demon can’t screw it up at any moment.”
The nature of monsters was just plain messy.
They were wildcards, and I was really glad I didn’t have to deal with that.
The men continued chatting. Though they mostly talked about their people, they occasionally asked me questions about how I’d grown up. I answered them without bringing my sisters into it, and could see the approval in all of their eyes.
Especially Damian’s.
By the time we left, I was thoroughly exhausted… and ready to go home.
Which, strangely enough, had become the room I shared with the vampire king.