Chapter 26
Guinevere
My mind churns like cream being made into butter all the rest of that day while I wait for my gargoyles to wake.
The long hours alone are torment, and the more I sit and stew on what Alaric said, the more I’m inclined to believe him, which I hate.
I climb up to the top of the walls to sit beside Raban in an effort to find some comfort in his presence, but all I find is a cold wind that chills the tip of my nose and makes a tangle of my hair.
I don’t want to trust any part of what Alaric says. He doesn’t deserve my trust. I don’t want to do anything to help him, even if helping him means destroying him and the queen he serves.
So where does that leave me?
Melantha must be stopped. I saw with my own eyes the way she devoured my father.
There is little enough left of his kingdom now, and if she’s left unchecked she will destroy Erenvold and its lands and holdings within a few years.
More than that, I want revenge for the life she tore from me and for the way she left my father withered, alone, and forgotten in his death bed once she finally had what she wanted from him.
If Alaric was telling the truth, then she must be a powerful sorceress indeed to have defied death for as long as she has.
Then again, if Alaric was telling the truth, then I should be just as subject to the curse that binds him to the queen. And then I realize. He said what gives Melantha power over him is the fact she holds his dead heart captive. So who holds my heart? What did he do with it?
If he truly did tear it from my body and perform the magic to turn me into this, then why doesn’t he control me?
I start when a warm hand gently touches my shoulder, and I realize the sun has dipped below the horizon while I’ve been lost in thought. “You are troubled, princess,” Raban says softly.
I sigh. “I am.”
He presses a kiss to my temple and straightens. “Should I check on our prisoner?”
I shrug. “If you wish to.”
He doesn’t move, though. After a moment, Corvin and évandre alight beside him.
“Will you tell us what is on your mind?” évandre asks, looking between me and Raban.
I tuck my arms around my legs and rest my chin on my knees. No need to worry about sitting in a ladylike manner any more I suppose. “He—Alaric told me something while you slept. I am not sure whether to believe him or not.”
Corvin frowns. “More lies?”
“Perhaps. But the more I think on it, the more I think he’s telling me at least part of the truth.”
“What did he tell you?” asks Raban. His long tail swishes slowly in the air behind him.
“That my stepmother has power over him. That he is the one who made me into a monster like him.”
Corvin’s expression darkens and his wings flex. “Then it was him. Shall we tear him limb from limb for you and see if that accomplishes what we could not last night?”
That draws a grim smile from me, though I doubt it would work. “No. At least not yet.”
“Then can we at least tear out his tongue so he cannot lie to you again?”
There’s a growl from the hounds who I’ve always suspected understand more of our speech than ordinary dogs would.
I stand, stretching stiff limbs. “I need a distraction while I think about what to do with him. Let us train.”
évandre nods. “An excellent idea. You are making fine progress. It would be a shame to stall.”
They carry me down to the courtyard, and I tie back my hair and prepare myself to fight. All the while I’m relacing my boots and plaiting my hair, I feel Alaric’s eyes on me, but I refuse to look at him. At least he stays silent, allowing me to pretend to ignore him.
Frustration at least has the benefit of lending strength to my blows. I smile in grim satisfaction as the sword cuts a piece from the training weapon évandre wields as I swing it around and make contact with a crack.
“Good,” he calls, darting out of the way with a flap of his wings, making me push myself harder to go after him, drawing on speed beyond what I had when I was alive.
It took me many nights to realize what I was capable of, and many more to lean into the use of it. Now I move so fast I can defeat two of them at once and jump so high I can catch évandre and drag him back out of the air when he tries to leap out of the way.
I knock him down and twist in time to dodge a blow from Raban. As his sword tip crashes into the dirt, I’m already leaping at him. I dash his weapon away with my foot, then charge at him. I push him down and sit on his chest with my blade to his throat. “Yield.”
“Gladly, princess.” He laughs.
I can’t help returning his grin, which is infectious. “You had better not have allowed me to win.”
I’m pinning his arms to the ground with my knees, but he shakes his head. “Never.”
When I glance over at Alaric, I find his gaze on me still, his chest puffed out, body tense against the ropes binding him.
Is this a reaction to our training? Testing a theory, I drop the sword and replace my knees with my hands, scooting down Raban’s body until I’m sitting astride him.
Hunger flares to life instantly in the gargoyle’s handsome face, and his cock stirs between my legs.
That calls something to life in me, a restless awareness I didn’t predict.
It distracts me. I find myself rocking my hips to grind on the growing bulge of Raban’s cock, not knowing whether holding him down like this or Alaric’s gaze on us is what’s arousing me the most.
Is that jealousy on Alaric’s face? Does he want what he can’t have?
Maybe I’ve just found a new way to make him suffer.
The skirt I’m wearing today is one I’ve already cut off and tucked up, the better to move in. It’s a simple thing to tug it out of the way and yank aside Raban’s loincloth so that there’s no longer anything between us.
He draws in a sharp breath as I return to grind over him, hips lifting as much as they can under me.
Corvin laughs. “Well now we’re done for, princess, if you’re going to play dirty. And I don’t even mind losing that battle.”
I laugh softly, beckoning him over. “Then I suggest you throw down your weapon and surrender to me.”
His sword drops onto the dirt. Corvin strides to stand beside Raban and me, where I can reach him and run a hand up his thigh.
évandre is watching from across the courtyard with interest. “Is this a game I am invited to join, princess?”
“Would you like to join us?” I ask him, regarding him speculatively.
In answer, his sword joins Corvin’s in the dirt and he moves closer. “Very much.”
Releasing Raban’s hands, I look up at Corvin and évandre who are standing over us. “Are you as good with his sword as you are with your weapon?”
He smiles. “Shall I show you?”
“Yes, please.”
I have taken my eyes from Alaric, but I haven’t forgotten our audience.
I am distracted for a moment, though, when Corvin unties his loincloth and évandre drops his tunic to reveal an enormous cock hanging thickly against his thigh.
He is bigger than Raban and Corvin. The shaft is thick and the crown even thicker, bulging at the tip and growing as he swells to life.
His muscular body is beautifully carved. His narrow hips and waist taper to a V, and his abs are defined in a way that makes me run questing fingertips over the contours. He stands still, cock rising to attention as I touch him, allowing me to explore his body. “Do I please you, princess?”
I smile up at him. “You are perfect.”
He reaches across me and takes Corvin in his hand, stroking the other male up and down. I’m growing wetter watching them, keeping Raban captive under me. I can’t help sliding a little over the firm thickness of his cock.
“Are they not perfect?” I call to Alaric. “Are you enjoying watching us?”
“I can think of other things I would rather be doing,” he says cryptically.
“I cannot. I cannot think of anything I would rather be doing.” As I say this I take Corvin and évandre each in one hand and softly stroke them, drawing appreciative groans from my gargoyles.
Raban throbs under me, pressed so firmly against me that the pulse of him between my legs sends an answering pleasure through me.
“I think they are the biggest cocks I have ever seen.”
Alaric laughs. “I think you are trying to toy with me, but perhaps you did not get a good look at mine. Perhaps you should let me show you.”
“I am not interested in that pathetic piece of meat. You can serve them with your holes if you like.”
Alaric falls silent. I laugh to think of him brooding over my insult.
I must admit, the idea of watching the others use him is appealing to me, thinking of him humiliated like that.
I grip Corvin and évandre more tightly and pump them with a steady rhythm.
Alaric can wait until I’m finished before I waste any more energy on him.
I think of the way Corvin and Raban pleasured each other with their mouths last night. Would something similar feel good for me? Obviously I’m not built the same way, but I’m curious. Crawling up Raban’s body, I hover above his face, watching him. “Will you lick me like you licked Corvin?”
His tail thumps the ground and he grips hold of my thighs as a huge grin spreads across his face. “I thought you would never ask.”
I let him draw me down onto his tongue, and the moment the warmth of his mouth meets my flesh I throw my head back and moan with delight. I have never felt anything so good.
Pleasure burns inside me—aches with a sweetness that grows as Raban uses the flat of his tongue to put pressure on the secret place in my wet slit that only I have ever touched before.
Hot and hungry, I grind myself on him, loving the way his hands dig into my hips as he holds me close. Almost collapsing with the feel of his mouth on my cunt.
évandre and Corvin drop to their knees beside us and together we free my breasts from the corset binding them. Their mouths descend one on each breast, and the sensation of the three of them at once is almost too much.
My body tenses. I’m so close. I grind harder but all it does is draw the string tighter until I feel like I’ll snap.
With a whine of frustration, I lift from Raban and slide my own fingers over that secret place I’ve touched late at night in the dark.
With practiced motions I work the little nub until finally I shoot over the edge of a precipice and down the terrifying slope on the other side.
Sensation spears through me and curls my toes and steals my breath for a long moment. I love and hate this feeling. Afterward I never feel sated. I always feel as if there’s a secret to it I don’t know.
My legs give out, and I sit back on Raban’s face and his mouth and lips extend the wave of pleasure until it seems to last an age. It feels different somehow, richer.
When it ends, I’m breathing fast. Beneath me, Raban groans. I pull back to see his face dewy with my slick and his expression dazed. “Thank you, princess.”
Another groan from behind makes me turn, slowly, bliss still lengthening time and making my movements languid.
“Fine.” Alaric tugs uselessly against the bonds. “I will. I will suck them all if you let me be the next to make you cum.”
I stare at him. Does he think I would let him try? “You will suck them if I tell you to. What makes you think you have a chance of giving me pleasure?”
His jaw twitches. “Let me try.”
“No.” Corvin helps me as I get to my feet and brush off my dress, eyes never leaving Alaric. “Watching them is the closest you will get to touching me again.”