33. Chapter 33
Aahil”s show of support was the last little push I needed to get me moving on a plan to infiltrate the SA and steal the amplifier and nullifier. In truth, it felt good to be doing something. The idea of getting a bit of revenge against the asshats at the SA after they tried to trap or kill us all was a sweet thing. But that didn”t mean I was going to go along with the rest of my long-lost sister”s crazy-assed ideas. Dyre and Aahil made it sound really tempting to step into my power and embrace a little Lovell dominance… but the sheer fact that the destructive jinn and the evil necromancer thought that was a good idea probably meant it was the exact opposite of what I should be doing.
There were several more little brain storming sessions between me and my housemates over the next few days. We somehow managed to come up with what I thought was a workable plan for stealing the artifacts. Though there were a lot of what-ifs involved. We had the advantage of having several beings on our side who could dematerialize and travel wherever they pleased at will. While Hasumi and Aahil were slightly more limited—only able to travel this plane, and theoretically easier to catch—Ambrose was a wildcard able to slip into an entire other plane of existence to escape their traps. They knew we had a necromancer with us. But while I worried about what they might have concocted to trap or kill him, Dyre seemed utterly confident that they would fail. And in addition to all of their tricks, we also had my largely untrained but deep magic, Zhong”s strength, and Niamh”s deadly hunter skills. We should easily be able to take what we wanted from the SA.
”I don”t want to storm the place and murder a bunch of people, though,” I protested at our most recent meeting to argue over the specifics of this little heist we were about to attempt. ”Aside from the obvious issue with killing people… I don”t want to give them another chance to paint us as villains and criminals.”
Dyre nodded in agreement, surprising me. I would have assumed he”d argue for just waltzing in and killing everyone. But I should have known he had more sinister reasons for agreeing with me. ”Andy”s right. We don”t want to show our hand too soon. If we manage to do this without confrontation, it will put the SA in a bad position—they”ll hardly want to admit that they had a couple of valuable magical artifacts stolen from them when they are supposed to be the all-powerful civil guardians of the magical world.” Then he smiled a bloodless smile. ”And this way, they won”t know just how powerful we really are. They won”t know what to expect when we get around to taking over the world.”
I just rolled my eyes at him. It was no use reminding the maniac that we were not going to take over the world.
In the end, I got everyone to agree to using stealth, rather than brute force and intimidation. Dyre already had a proven system for disguising his physical appearance and his magic, so he would go with me to the SA, where we would pose as new employees. Elijah had literally been made for his ability to silently gather information and spy on people. He could scout the building and figure out where the artifacts were being kept. Aahil would go with us in incorporeal form, so he could use his mind control tricks on anyone who didn”t believe our story. And the others would be on standby in case we needed help.
See? Simple. Easy. No one gets murdered. Or resurrected as an undead minion.
I hoped.
There were still details to work out. But all-in-all, I felt pretty good about our chances. The SA were a bunch of overconfident dill holes. We could do this.
After the meeting, we sent Elijah off to spy for us. He normally couldn”t travel too far from his anchoring charm, but he and Ambrose had devised a way to get around that, with Ambrose hiding out in the in-between place with the charm while Elijah did his thing in the realm of the living. We could have just sent Ambrose to spy by himself. But everyone had agreed that we needed to save his talents for some later confrontation that I refused to acknowledge would ever happen. The SA had seen Ambrose fall out of thin air the night they tried to murder us all, but I was pretty sure they didn”t actually know what he was or what he was capable of. So, I had to agree with the others. It was better to keep the boogeyman off the SA radar. A wandering ghost, if detected, would be less likely to raise alarms or spark their interest than a powerful, unknown entity of darkness and nightmares.
And I was all about not raising alarms or sparking their interest. lie low. Don”t call too much attention to what you could do. That was my life motto.
Once Elijah and Ambrose were off on their adventure, the others scattered to make various preparations. I joined Dyre in the workroom upstairs to help him prep the potions and charms we would use to disguise ourselves. Since our unsettling conversation in the courtyard a few days ago, it seemed like something had changed between us. It was like some invisible barrier had come down. Dyre wasn”t exactly warm and chatty. But I no longer felt bitterness and anger filling the space between us. We worked in silence for a time, both of us absorbed in our tasks. Finally, when we had several potions bottled up and charms charged, Dyre stood beside me, arms crossed as we both surveyed the results of our work.
”Shouldn”t Elijah be back by now?” I asked, frowning as I glanced at the antique clock that hung over the mantle on the far side of the workroom.
Dyre shrugged. ”The artifacts are probably well hidden. And you know the angel will do his level best to gather every single bit of information he can find, not just the location of the artifacts.” His violet eyes met mine, and he arched a brow. ”He has Ambrose with him. And you”re bonded to the boogeyman. Do you feel any sense of distress or alarm coming from him?”
I shook my head. ”I don”t. But that doesn”t necessarily mean anything. It”s not… my bonds with the others aren”t like what you and I had before. Not quite.” Maybe it was Sunshine”s presence before, enhancing the bond, making it more powerful, but for whatever reason, I wasn”t able to get a read on the thoughts and emotions of the others quite the way I had with Dyre.
He turned toward me, one red brow arched. ”What do you mean? I thought you were all one big symbiotic organism now.”
I ignored his sarcastic tone. ”It”s just a different connection. With you… it was like you were an extension of me. A limb or a vital organ. I always had a sense of you there. You and Sunny both. And I could feel you… feel what you felt, get an idea of what you were thinking. This is less… well, just less.”
I expected some snarky retort or dismissal, but what I got instead was a cool hand cupping my cheek, and mismatched violet and black eyes staring down at me intently. ”It really was like severing something vital, wasn”t it?” Dyre said, his deep voice barely a whisper, with a slight echo of Sunny”s wraith voice. ”It”s hard to breathe sometimes without it.”
I swallowed, my throat gone suddenly dry at Dyre”s touch. At the intense way he was watching me. At the ebb and swell of his dark, dark aura. ”You”re the one who wanted to sever the bond,” I reminded him, my voice wobbly.
His gaze bore into mine, and his brows drew together into a pained scowl. ”I couldn”t think. I wasn”t sure of my own will. I had to know. It was the right thing to do.”
I covered his hand with mine, where it still rested against my cheek. ”Was it?”
He nodded once, sharp and decisive. ”It was. I know it was. The things I wanted. The things I want. They are unnatural. And I feared it was the lifebond muddying my common sense. Making me feel things I shouldn”t feel.”
I sighed. As irritated as I was with him, I couldn”t actually blame him for his caution. Lifebonds had largely fallen out of fashion among the witch community for exactly that reason. Those sorts of ties bound wills together. They could override individuality and make the people involved entirely codependent on one another. You had to have a powerful will to maintain any sense of yourself. It was likely that the lifebond between us had influenced his feelings. Especially since I was all for maintaining our relationship, and he could probably feel my feelings.
But still…
”You said the things you want. Present tense,” I said, not flinching away from his intense gaze.
He closed his eyes in a slow blink. And when he opened them, a shudder rippled through him. ”Yes,” he said, his deep voice full of power and darkness. Blood witch and wraith speaking at once. ”We are about to do some dangerous shit. It feels like the world might be ending soon. And no matter how hard I try to deny it,” Dyre began, but his voice went all eerie as Sunshine chimed in, ”I hunger for you, witch.”
”Oh, fucking finally,” I said with a long sigh. Pressing up onto my tiptoes, I met Dyre halfway as he bent to crush his mouth to mine.
My arms wrapped around Dyre”s neck as his long fingers curled around my hips, digging in, pressing me closer. Dyre”s lips were cold, but they warmed under my touch. His scent and his aura engulfed me, his entire being reaching out to me like a long-lost part of myself. We weren”t bonded the way we had been before. But my body, my mind, and my spirit remembered his. I moaned as his tongue met mine, as Dyre finally, finally gave in to what we both knew was inevitable.
He was mine, and I was his. And nothing else about the situation really fucking mattered, especially not a few drops of blood diluted by a couple of centuries of time and distance. His magic called to mine, insisting that we weave a spell together, one of passion and fury, and I didn”t question the deep response inside me.
”Dyre,” I gasped, pulling back long enough to breathe. ”We should—”
I don”t know what I was going to say. Slow down, maybe? Talk about this? Or go to my room? But Dyre silenced me with a biting kiss that was far more dominant and demanding than usual. Sunny. It was Sunny who was kissing me, shoving me backward with unnatural strength. ”No more talking,” he growled in his echoing, multi-layered voice.
I scrambled to save the glass vials we had just filled with disguise potions. But the moment they were safe, Sunshine was there again, ripping my clothes from my body, spreading me out on the workbench like an offering. Sunshine… and Dyre. The necromancer”s eyes said both of them were still here with me, sharing control. The thought of Dyre watching this time as Sunny had his way with me was sexy as hell. Dyre himself had always been gentler in our encounters, holding back out of shyness, inexperience, or simply because he didn”t want to be the monster everyone accused him of being. But Sunshine had no such compunction. The wraith simply took what we both wanted, with no apologies and no hesitation, chasing the physical sensations like he would never get enough.
They roughly pulled a stool over and sat, gripping my thighs as they leaned in and lapped at my folds. I moaned when their tongue swirled around my clit, so they did it again. And again. I writhed on the table, my hands tangling in Dyre”s long, blood red hair, holding him close as he and his monster took me apart.
I came fast and hard, but Sunshine didn”t give me time to catch my breath. The tall, skinny necromancer scooped me up and carried me as if I weighed nothing, his wraith giving him strength no normal witch could ever possess. Then I was being pressed down onto the rug by the hearth. Dyre”s lips trailed down the side of my neck, then to my chest. He bit down on the upper swell of one breast, and the blackness in his aura swelled around us. My hands found his pants, and I yanked blindly at the clothing, my motions rough and impatient as I freed his cock. I didn”t bother trying to undress him further. Dyre was self-conscious about his scars and his body. And he was clearly more focused on me. I gripped his rigid cock and gave him a firm stroke as he moved between my legs.
Then his furious motions slowed for a moment, and he hovered over me, Sunny stepping back for a moment to let Dyre take control. I touched his cheek, brushed his long hair back from his face, taking in the haunted expression there. ”Dyre? Are you okay?”
I didn”t want him to do this if it wasn”t what he really wanted. Even if the frustration of stopping now might actually kill me. ”If this is only Sunshine pushing you, you don”t have to do this.”
He shook his head, his long tawny lashes sweeping his high cheekbones as he looked down. ”No, I…” He looked back up at me and I saw all the raw yearning in his eyes. ”Andy, I want you so bad it drives me insane. But… do you still want this? Us? I let Sunshine take over and we never actually asked.” He quirked a wry look at me as he glanced down at my naked body and our current position, one small movement away from completion. ”Though I would assume you would have spoken up before now if you had any objections.”
I snorted. ”Dyre?”
He met my eyes in question, and I wrapped my legs around his hips, enjoying the slide of fabric against my thighs. ”I agree with the wraith. No more talking right now.”
Dyre leaned down and captured my lips as he pressed home, impaling me with his hard length. I lifted my hips in response, enthusiastically urging him on. ”I don”t mind Sunshine coming out to play,” I whispered in his ear. ”In fact… apparently I really like it when the two of you share.”
That got me a groan, a growl, and a hard thrust that made me see stars. ”Careful what you wish for, witch,” Sunny”s deep, echoing voice warned. ”You might not survive us working together.”
One could only hope. ”Try me,” I murmured, meeting their hard thrusts with my own, even as they grasped my wrists and pinned my arms over my head.
”Look at the way those lush tits bounce as we pound into her,” Sunshine”s wraith voice purred as he slammed home, making my boobs wobble and my core clench as they held me down and reveled in my body.
”Goddess, you are beautiful,” Dyre breathed in his own voice, the deep thrusts never stopping. ”I can”t believe you”re really mine,” he added, one hand releasing my wrist to trail down my cheek and body in reverent awe.
Then Sunshine took over again, pinning both my wrists in one big hand as the other explored my breasts, caressing and pinching, watching me intently for each response, learning all the ways I liked to be touched. ”I want to feel you clench around my dick again,” the wraith demanded.
Pulling out, he flipped me over onto my hands and knees and slammed back home again. Dyre”s cool hands squeezed my ass, then moved to my hips as he slid back inside me, pulling me back against his slender hips. ”Tell us if we hurt you,” Dyre said softly, soothing a hand over my low back as he took control from the wraith. The way they were so seamlessly switching back and forth was terrifying. And so fucking hot. It was like I was being fucked by two vastly different men sharing one cock.
Which, duh, was exactly what was going on.
”You won”t hurt me,” I told them both, bracing myself on my elbows and resting my forehead on my hands. ”I trust you.”
Then Sunshine was back, slamming into me so hard he had me second-guessing those words. I trusted them, sure. But Dyre had the strength of an immortal being inside him. I had never been fucked so hard in my life.
But I loved every second of it.
Sunshine definitely got what he wanted. I screamed as I convulsed around their cock, my body trying its level best to pull them inside me and never let them go. Sunshine roared his release, filling me with pulse after pulse of dark power. Then Dyre was there, holding me up, gently fucking us both through the last waves of our climax, planting sweet, lingering kisses on my shoulder and back.
We were cuddled up on the hearthrug in front of the dying embers of the fire, still trying to catch our breath, when Elijah materialized in the center of the room.