Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fourteen
Ronin
“You don’t have to be a bully all the time, Firecracker,” Ash says to me in that tone, that fucking patient tone, the way my blooming father used to talk when I was fucking five , that always makes me mental.
Not to mention, my heat’s rising.
And I’m working like blazes to hide that shit from Lucius, whose purposeful hands are currently delving under the shimmery hem of our girl’s flapper dress.
At the very least, I need to hide my shit till our wolf’s knotted Mordred and those two alphas—Lucius and Zara—have rogered our kraken into a sex puddle on the igloo floor.
“Tell you what, Potions Prof. You haven’t seen me be a proper bully.” I keep my tone low with an effort. But my voice is tight with all that rising heat and tension I’m fighting like fuck to rein in. “I keep that shit out of your classroom to keep the bloody peace in our polycule, don’t I?”
Ash is taller than me and wider through the shoulders and I don’t much fancy looking up at him. But the bloke’s standing right in front of me like bloody Zeus on Mt. Olympus.
So I haven’t got much of a choice.
“Do ya? I wondered about that.” The deep rumble of Ash’s voice sounds amused. Blast the bugger.
A wave of fire washes up my chest and sears across my face.
Blazing with mating heat, I rip my jacket off my shoulders and toss it on the chaise, so I don’t draw Vasili’s ire by disrespecting the Tom Ford tux he had tailored for me.
Then I clamp a hand in the waist of Ash’s trousers and haul him close. His heavy body shifts forward a step, letting me take charge.
Of course.
Submission’s coded in his DNA.
But he doesn’t really trust me.
Not yet.
For bloody damn good reason. He hated me for years for taking Zeph’s eye. Even though Ash knows now, they all do, that what happened was an awful accident.
Still, that historic lack of trust makes it hard for Ash to submit.
Even now.
His head lowers so he can keep an eye on me, silver irises lidded and burning like liquid metal in his craggy face. His cheeks are ruddy with heat, and it’s not from the steam. His massive shoulders bunch and his pecs twitch with nerves.
But the jacuzzi lights glow in his steel-gray hair from behind like a fucking halo.
Not fooling me this time, are you, mate? I think grimly. Angel or no, I make you nervous. And fuck if we don’t all know it.
Bloke doesn’t react a bit.
Not to my words.
That’s when I remember I can’t make him hear me. Not that way.
He and Zeph, our two pureblooded Fae, they’re the only mates in this harem whose brains are off limits to a proper rummage from a bang-up Valyrian telepath like me.
Pisses me right off, all over again.
His… impenetrability. Feels like a form of defiance.
His way of flipping me the bird.
I shove up against Ash’s naked torso with a snarl, roughly pop the button of his trows, and clamp my mouth over the meaty bulge of his deltoid muscle in a hard sucking kiss.
He tastes a bit like Neo, like sage and bookworm. Those two were fooling around earlier, before the piss-up in the lodge. Ash’s skin smells like sea salt and cedarwood, like a day at the beach in Bali.
I breathe the bloke in like I’m oxygen-deprived and suck a hickey into his skin.
Ash moans thickly, a long baritone rumble that rolls from his chest like thunder. His big hands land on my waist, hard and urgent with bottled-up demand.
But he doesn’t drag me closer.
He’s waiting for permission, like the good little sub he plays.
Well, I’m not playing.
The bloke makes me mental, but I want him.
I snarl in satisfaction and clamp my hand over his bulge. He’s already straining, his thick shaft shoved right up against his zipper.
Good.
I knead his beefy boner in a rough claiming grip, the way we both like it. Even through the cloth, I can feel the double row of studs from his Jacob’s Ladder marching up the underside of his shaft.
He’s already whimpering, soft breathless sounds in the back of his throat.
He’s wondering how long I’ll edge him before I finally let him come.
If I let him come.
By now, Zeph’s peeled out of his boots and armor, left the lot lying on the floor for some nonexistent Unseelie minion to tidy up, and stalked right up next to me to enjoy the show.
Sometimes our resident Dark Fae tyrant tells us both when to come.
Judging by the predatory gleam in Zephyr’s narrow eye and the hunger prowling in his face behind the slash of his eyepatch, I’d wager tonight might be one of those nights.
Lurking in our periphery, V passes a tiny glass of moon wine to Zephyr with a sexy smirk.
Zeph raises the delicate crystal to salute Vasili, then takes a tiny sip.
Supple as the snake he is, Vasili bends to pass another glass to Mordred in the jacuzzi. The sex demon winks up at V and tosses his nightcap back like a shot.
Even though that shit’s meant to be sipped.
V voices an amused hum and pivots away, tossing his fedora idly on the chaise.
He’s sauntering away from the tub, away from all of us, supple hips swaying in a way that’s meant to provoke and tease.
That’s when a thick tentacle unfurls from the tub, curls around his ankle, and hurls Vasili’s fully clad body headlong into the drink.
His fedora’s safe, but the rest of him goes under with a splash.
In unison, Ash and I both suck in a fearful breath.
From the chaise where a half-shifted Lucius is slipping the lacy green scrap of Zara’s Christmas panties down her legs, while Neo unzips her frock and Max looms possessively over the lot growling commands with his golden eyes flaming, our girl lets out a squeak of surprise that’s sweet as fuck.
Vasili erupts from the water, pale hair sleeked to his head and hissing, like a spitting cobra.
“Were you raised in a cave? This is vintage couture I’m wearing, you troglodyte!” Vasili’s voice quivers with outrage as he glares down at Mordred.
Blimey.
V’s so pissy he’s levitating, shooting out of the bubbling depths like a ballistic missile. Water streams from his ruined suit and drips from the toes of his prized Italian leather shoes.
Mordred’s thick tentacle snaps from the water to wrap around Vasili’s leg and halt his ascent. As V hovers in midair, sputtering and straining, that kraken actually has the balls to wink at his infuriated alpha.
Again.
“I’m in heat. You’re my alpha. You gotta do right by me, babydoll,” Mordred drawls.
“Do right by you?” With a suddenness that makes us all gasp, V reverses course on a dime and drops into the lap of our laughing demon.
Straddling his hips and kneeling on the submerged bench to rear over him, V growls, “I’m going to rail you so thoroughly you won’t be able to walk— or swim—for a week. Will that suffice, do you think?”
“Really?” Mordred’s hopeful tone and yearning expression, in the face of this dire threat, spark a sudden riff of laughter from Zeph.
My boyhood love hardly ever laughs, he wasn’t raised for it. Though at least now he does laugh (occasionally) since we all hooked up.
Needless to say, Zeph’s amusement only torques V tighter.
I could’ve warned Zeph that was a bad idea.
“Oh, my, do you all imagine I’m joking?” Vasili clenches a fistful of Mordred’s dripping blue hair, drags the demon’s head back to bare his throat till my own neck aches in sympathy, and aims a baleful glare at the laughing Zephyr. “ Do you?”
“Actually hope you’re not, bae.” Mordred’s voice deepens and his purple eyes turn smoldery. “You and your alpha shifter rizz, you got what I need to break this heat. For real.”
Undaunted by his compromised position—pinned under an enraged sadist of an alpha who’s pulling his hair so hard he’s practically scalping him—a tangle of Mordred’s black-and-purple kraken tentacles shoots from the water to peel Vasili out of his ruined jacket.
Deft as fingers, those extra limbs unknot Vasili’s skinny tie and pluck open his shirt buttons.
And because I’m linked up with the bloke, same as always, I know more of those busy tentacles are unzipping V’s fly and working him out of everything he’s wearing under the water.
As his vintage duds float off in the current, smart leather shoes bobbing cheerfully in the bubbles, Vasili snarls and swoops to claim dominion over the demon’s snarky mouth in a savage kiss.
“By the moon. ’Tis fair to say those two are well matched tonight, are they not?
” Zephyr’s silky whisper unspools in my ear.
He’s slipped up behind me like a shadow.
His potent scent of burnt amber and dragonhide fills my noggin.
His bare arms, hard and knotted with dragonrider muscle, wrap round my waist so he can unbutton my trousers.
“Looks that way to me, love.” I jack Ash’s junk till he’s all but sobbing, this literal mountain of a man barely holding himself in check, rocking his dick very subtly into my grip. “Got any special requests, then, Ash?”
“Oh, Geezus,” Ash whimpers, clutching my waist like he’s drowning. “Have a little mercy. Sparrow…”
“Mercy? What a quaint notion.” In a blur of Dark Fae speed too quick for the mortal eye to follow, Zeph fires into motion and drags my leather trows and briefs roughly down my hips. The leather slithers down my legs and pools around my shitkickers.
Fingers of humid air tickle my arse and tease the hot skin of my inner thighs. My balls pulse with fiery heat like twin coals in my sack. My cock pokes before me, head swollen and flushed an urgent purple around the ring of my Prince Albert.
Gods.
My boner’s gone rigid and weeping with need.
Easy, love. I’m in heat, I want to warn.
Zeph isn’t anyone’s alpha (no matter how he acts). He won’t know unless I tell him.
But I’d have to say that shit out loud.
And fuck if I’ll do it and distract Lucius.
Mine’s not a superheat like Mordred’s. I’ll live…
Won’t I?
“Edge our gentle Asher until he begs. That’s what he craves most tonight.” Zephyr’s sibilant whisper in my ear thickens to a sandpaper growl. That primal sound sends goosebumps sheeting across my shoulders and shooting down my arms. “Whilst I do the same to you, Ronin Kilcannon Pendragon.”