Chapter 22 Rune #3
His lips curled against my neck, and his fangs brushed over my mark before he moved around the board and sat across from me. “Flattery will get you everywhere, pretty little poison.”
Slater sprawled on Zuko’s bed, his red eyes trained on the board. “Okay, teach us, murder snake.”
Zuko rolled his eyes. “Basilisk, not snake. Your mate is one. Don’t insult the species.”
“She’s a beautiful basilisk; you are a murder snake. I didn’t stutter.” Slater yawned.
Worthy manifested and hissed at Slater. “Unworthy!”
“Snakey!” Slater huffed as he manifested, and they struck each other before rolling around on the floor, hissing and biting at each other.
It was becoming a new normal.
The table the board rested on hummed under my palms when I leaned in, my magic responding to its enchantments.
A faint web of light flashed over the surface in response, reading my magical essence.
“Faeweaver reacts to whoever’s playing,” Zuko explained, watching me more than the board. “It leans into your magic and your instincts. That’s why no two games are ever the same.”
“It can read my magical essence?” I verified.
“And your intent,” he added with a grin, and excitement thrummed through our bond.
“It’s fae enchanted. It’s a strategy game where pieces shift and move based on your intent.
The game is always influenced by the whims of your soul.
The objective is to weave your pieces across the board in a pattern, capturing or trapping your opponent’s pieces using one of four elements.
Each player controls a set of faeweavers, supernatural beings that can harness the user’s magic to perform unique movements and abilities alongside elemental magic.
Since the board itself is enchanted, it changes shape and shifts terrain based on how the game progresses.
” He pointed as he spoke, and the board responded.
It lit up in spirals and grids before overlapping with what looked like spiderwebs made of moonlight.
Slater propped his chin on his hand. “How do you win?”
“First to capture all the opponent’s pieces.” Zuko’s gaze shifted back to me. “Or you win by pissing off your opponent so they rage-quit.”
“Not happening, so what’re the stakes?” My gaze snagged on Zuko’s bandage, and he pulled it off. His orange eyes drank me in, and my heart pounded harder against my ribs.
Slater gasped. “Oh, oh, I have ideas! If Rune wins, we fuck her, but I get to fuck her first. If you win, we fuck her, but you get to fuck her first.”
Zuko laughed under his breath. “Okay, yeah. I’m in.”
“I’m in, too.” I smiled sweetly.
“My fate rests upon your beautiful brain, venom baby,” Slater sighed, dramatically rolling on Zuko’s bed.
“It also rests on her magic,” Zuko corrected.
My gold faeweaver pieces glowed, threads of green light weaving under them as I devised a strategy.
Zuko’s silver side flared with orange and deep red.
“Ladies first,” he said.
I moved my first piece, a wisp of air, along the lattice. The piece hopped one space, then took flight entirely, circling one of Zuko’s snakes before settling where I’d intended.
The board let out a melody, seemingly approving of the move.
“It mirrors intent, but it chooses expression,” Zuko explained. “Let it teach you as much as you direct it.”
“Don’t baby her,” Slater huffed. “She’s going to ruin you, and you know it.”
Zuko’s mouth quirked. “She’s already ruined me.”
My legs clamped together as desire twisted inside of me. “As if you two haven’t already thoroughly ruined me.”
“But you like being ruined, don’t you?” Zuko chuckled and slid his snake three spaces away from my piece. The space under it shuddered, then shifted. The lattice board turned into a lane bent slightly, warping the path my wisp would’ve taken if I’d gone further.
“Oh,” I murmured, brows furrowing.
“You can predict the terrain changes as we play, if you’re paying attention.” He winked.
“I am paying attention,” I huffed. “I’m just learning your tells.”
His eyebrows lifted. “The tells of my soul?”
“Your bond flutters with victory when you do something fancy, and I feel your disappointment if it doesn’t go your way.” I shrugged. “Did you forget we’re bonded, toxin?”
Slater chuckled. “How could anyone forget the bond?”
“I didn’t!” A flush of pink crept over Zuko’s cheekbones. “That was not a tell. It was simple emotion.”
“Emotions are a tell, toxin.” I giggled, and we continued to play.
The first few turns, I let him think he was leading.
I followed his obvious traps, built simple weaves, and punctured his where I could, but I didn’t press to capture one at a time.
I waited until I could capture half of his pieces at once.
Every time I risked something small, like moving a piece into a questionable position, the board rewarded me with an extra space of movement or a shift in the terrain that nudged my piece into alignment.
“You see that?” I gloated, moving my ice crystal piece to the middle. “It wants me to be risky.”
“You’re so hot when you outplay him.” Slater swooned.
Zuko watched the flicker of mist over my pieces, his gaze intent. “It likes the way your magic thinks,” he said with a frown.
“Is that your way of saying I’m devious?” I gasped in mock horror.
“Yes,” he replied with no hesitation.
I giggled, feeling stupidly giddy for someone dominating a strategy game.
Ten moves in, and I only had to capture a few more pieces of his to win. The board hummed under my fingers, a deeper pulse than before.
I veered my moss-serpent off its expected path, jumped it over one of his oblivious pieces and into a position that left me vulnerable on two sides.
Light snapped down on the board, bright and sudden.
Three of my pieces vanished from where he thought they were and reappeared around the piece that I was trying to capture.
Zuko sat back a little. “Did you just…”
“You didn’t see that?” I asked, flashing my fangs in delight.
He focused, eyes narrowing, then huffed a soft laugh. “No. I was busy baiting you into blocking the wisp so I could trap the snake. You were oblivious to my trap but sprung your own.”
“I was actually aware of it,” I told him with a laugh.
Slater clapped for me. “Wreck him, venom baby.”
“I intend to wreck you both,” I purred.
Zuko shook his head, but his eyes were blazing with the desire building on his end of the bond. “You’re dangerous when you’re having fun,” he said.
“Good thing you like dangerous, right?”
“Right,” he said tightly.
Slater rolled off the bed and slid his hand up my thigh. “You won, so…” His fingers were warm and firm, squeezing gently, thumb brushing the inner seam of my pants in a way that made my mind go numb.
“Slater,” Zuko said warningly. “We have a few more moves left.”
“What?” Slater asked innocently, getting up and leaning in to nuzzle behind my ear. His breath was hot against my skin, his tail curling in a lazy loop around my waist. “I’m providing encouragement.”
I swallowed, eyes fixed on the board. The next move was an easy block against his trap, the kind any cautious player would take.
I risked it again. Desire to be filled by my mates made me throw caution to the wind more so than ever before. I ignored every safe path, flicked my flame through a narrow gap his wisps had left, and dropped it right into the heart of his forming lattice.
The board flared, and my second weaver snapped into place around his second-to-last piece.
Zuko stared at it, then at me. “You made that move while he was doing that?”
Heat crawled up my neck.
Slater’s grin brushed my jaw. “She’s a prodigy,” he murmured proudly. “My prodigy.”
“But you—”
His teeth grazed my skin, just barely.
My protest dissolved as my pants dampened, and a moan tore from my throat.
Zuko didn’t move right away. Instead, he leaned forward, bracing a hand on either side of the board, his eyes pinned to mine. His gaze dropped to my lips.
The board hummed between us, lights flickering like heartbeat spikes.
“Rune,” he purred.
“Zuko,” I answered.
He reached across the board and gently, deliberately, threw his last piece to mine. The piece dissolved in a puff of ember light. “I concede.”
“That’s not fair,” I protested faintly. “I was about to—”
“You were about to win anyway,” he finished. “This is me accepting my fate. My mate’s first time playing, and she beat me.”
Slater exhaled, satisfied. “This means I fuck her first.”
Zuko’s eyes never left mine. “Go ahead.”
My heart thundered.
The board’s light dimmed, fading into a soft, neutral glow as the game released us. I barely registered the way it let go of my magic.
Zuko pushed to his feet, came around the table, and offered me his hand.
“Come here,” he murmured. “Slater’s going to fuck you first, but I’m going to get you ready for him.”
I took his hand, and he pulled me up.
Slater rose behind me, arms slipping around my waist as Zuko pulled me closer by the front of my suit. Their bodies trapped mine.
“You won, pretty little poison,” Zuko said against my mouth.
“What are you waiting for?”
Slater’s lips met the side of my neck as Zuko’s lips sealed over mine, and my thoughts scattered. All I could do was feel the warm hum in my veins from my need for them both.
The zip of my suit hissed through the silence as Slater tugged it down. He and Zuko worked together to push it down, leaving me naked between them. I helped them both out of their suits, kissing each of them as I did.
Slater’s ragged breath hit my ear. “Fuck, you’re the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life, venom baby.”
Zuko scoffed, pushing my back flush against Slater’s chest. “No shit, Slater. Now be useful. Grab her thighs and spread her open for me.”
Slater’s breathy chuckle fanned over my neck as his hands gripped my thighs and pulled me up, spreading me open for Zuko and holding me. “Like this?”