Chapter 6
Six
Hanna
Ilet my head rest on Kaelan’s shoulder as he carried me out of the laboratory.
“Kae,” I murmured. “What if they’re right? What if the goddess has evil plans and you can’t trust me?”
There were no whispers in my mind about her plans, but I didn’t doubt she had them.
She’d steal my body if she could. I was sure of that. Because she wanted to be free.
“If you want Dare to tie you up, there are easier ways to ask.” Kaelan’s arms tightened around me, almost imperceptibly. “No reason to let a goddess possess you next time.”
I felt myself smile, felt my tension ease. Just slightly. “I don’t need a cell to cage the goddess in me when I have you, do I?”
“Exactly.” He sounded so confident, so sure of himself.
Or so sure of us.
“We’ll keep you safe while you make sense of the goddess,” Thorne promised me as he joined me on the other side.
Kaelan lay me down on the bed in his chambers. The bed was soft and the goddess was quiet, as if she were exhausted too.
Thorne pulled the shades drawn against the midday sun, then came back to me. When Kaelan eased his arm under my head, I curled up against his side. My eyes were already heavy-lidded.
Thorne pressed against my back, keeping me safe between the two of them.
And all was almost right with the world as I fell asleep, a question on my lips that I’d been too tired to voice.
Dare?
We need to get out of here!
I almost jolted out of bed before I realized it was the goddess’s voice, not a true warning of danger. She meant away from the Isle and my family. And that perhaps meant she could be defeated if we stayed, because why else was she so desperate to bring us back to the war?
Rebelling against her, I closed my eyes again, grounding myself in what was realer than her voice, in my senses.
The bed was a tangle: two heavy arms locked over my stomach, a knee wedged between my thighs, the soft exhale of Kaelan’s breath warming the hair at the nape of my neck.
I’d turned during my nap, so my head was against Thorne’s chest, and his fingers rested gently in my hair.
They smelled good, like fresh winter snow and pine and something deeper, warm and masculine.
I couldn’t have escaped this bed if I’d wanted to.
And I didn’t want to escape. Not from my men.
The hand on my stomach flexed, absently kneading. I traced its owner by the length of forearm pressed behind me, up to the solid mass of Kaelan’s chest and the faint tickle of his stubble where his chin hooked over my shoulder. I pressed back into him, and he made a gruff, contented vibration.
Let’s go. You’re losing time while there’s a war to fight.
That fear was my own, but I didn’t need the goddess echoing it. She’d been so silent at first after the battle—was it because she’d been tired then too, as she had been after Branok and Lynx’s tests in their lab?
Or…had she been so quiet because I’d been with Kaelan and Thorne, then Dare?
Did the goddess not enjoy being part of my mind when I was close to them?
Curious if she would go quiet, I rose up to one elbow, and Thorne’s fingers fell from my hair—only to curl against the small of my back.
I let my gaze drift down the trail of Thorne’s ribs, the angle of his hard-ridged abs, the sheet that had inched low enough to expose the V of muscle at his hips.
For a minute I watched his chest rise and fall. This was real…more real than her voice.
“I need you,” I murmured, leaning over to press a kiss to Thorne’s cheekbone. His face was beautiful, like one of the gods sculpted from stone himself. “Wake up and fuck me, Thorne.”
His dark-lashed eyes blinked open, and I grinned. “That brought you back to me.”
“I’ve never left,” he promised. His hand flattened against the small of my back, and in one smooth movement that didn’t even seem to strain his big biceps, he rolled me on top of him. “Even holding you, I dream about you.”
His hand rose to cup the back of my head and pulled me down to him. I came to him easily, my lips meeting his. His lips teased against mine over and over again in small, sampling kisses.
Kaelan stirred, then sat up, looking irritated. I hid my smile against Thorne’s lips at Kaelan’s obvious grouchiness at being excluded, even while he was asleep.
Thorne slid one big hand over the back of my bare thigh. At some point after I fell asleep, still dressed, they’d stripped off anything uncomfortable so I was dressed in nothing but my small clothes. It was so intimate, and I appreciated it, and I wished I could picture it—had they worked together?
His hand ran over the curve of my ass, raising heat, and my hips swayed down toward his. He asked Kaelan, “You want her first, or should I?”
Kaelan grinned, sharp and dangerous and all mine. His gaze met mine as he said, “I’ll take her now. You can have what’s left.”
“Asshole,” I accused, even though I didn’t mind. No matter how crude his words, I knew what he meant, and I felt desired, claimed, adored. In his own way.
And the goddess was silent. I reveled in the feeling of having my mind to myself.
The bed shifted as Kaelan rose to climb behind me. Kaelan’s hands settled on my hips, anchoring me, and his mouth found my collarbone.
He pulled the shirt over my head and tossed it aside, then ran his palms down the sides of my ribcage, thumbs circling in a way that made every nerve spark.
Kaelan cupped my face and kissed me, his lips demanding, always changing—firm, then nudging my mouth open for his tongue, then shifting to kiss the corner of my mouth. He was impossible to keep up with, and I followed his lead, opening for him.
Behind me, Thorne had shifted, propping himself on one elbow to watch. He was patient, content to let Kaelan take the lead until it was his turn. But his hand stayed on me, stroking my skin, keeping me tethered to him too.
“Lie back.” Kaelan’s voice was husky, a little rough, like he was holding something back for my sake.
I did as he asked, because as fun as it was to provoke Kaelan, sometimes it was even more fun to obey him. Thorne caught me and lowered me onto the bed, arranging my limbs as if I were precious. He didn’t let go of my leg, still stroking circles over my thigh, the three of us intimately close.
Kaelan knelt above me, his body a marvel of hard muscle, of broad shoulders and the lean tape of his chiseled torso, that begged to be licked or perhaps bitten depending on how much he had vexed me lately.
He drew my underwear down my thighs, and his head bent to follow the movement of the fabric, dropping kisses across my stomach, my hip, my thighs.
My hips rolled, trying to follow that beautiful, lush-shaped mouth of his, but Thorne held me down.
“She’s beautiful,” Thorne said, a note of wonder in his voice, before dropping a kiss into my hair.
“She’s ours.” Kaelan sounded so satisfied with himself. He tossed my underwear away—as if I wouldn’t need it again for hours—then kissed the soft skin just above my mound, teeth grazing so lightly it was almost a tease. He worked his way lower, slow, deliberate, as I tried to squirm.
I let myself drown in the sensation. His tongue was clever, the heat of his mouth matched by the scrape of stubble on the inside of my thigh.
Thorne turned my face to his and kissed me, and I was lost in the sensation of Thorne’s tongue thrusting into my mouth, of Kaelan’s thrusting between my thighs.
Thorne’s hand found my breast, toying with my nipple until I moaned into his mouth.
Kaelan reached up a hand to grip my other breast, rougher than Thorne—as always—but I still loved it, feeling the friction of his rough palm against my nipple. The sensations threatened to overwhelm me.
I bucked against Kaelan’s tongue, needy and raw, and tried to push him away as the orgasm built, but Thorne caught my wrists and held them, pinning them above my head. He kissed my knuckles, gentle for all his firmness, before his mouth returned to mine.
When I came, all the air left my lungs, my thighs clamped around Kaelan’s head, and Thorne held me through it, murmuring nonsense until I melted against the mattress.
Before I could recover, Thorne yanked me upright and onto his lap, settling me onto his cock.
He was thick, hot, so much that I gasped when he filled me, and he grinned like a man who’d just won a bet.
He rocked me slowly, hands on my ass, and Kaelan joined us, pressing kisses to my throat, my mouth, my breasts, until I was trembling again.
I lost count of how many times I came after that. Every time I thought I was empty, they found a new way to fill me up, hands and mouths and words. They never stopped touching me, not for a second. It was relentless, glorious, excessive.
Just like their love.
When I was spent and boneless, I collapsed between them, and the afternoon sunlight played over their skin, over all our limbs tangled together, turning all three of us with our bruises and scars to a blur of gold.