Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
H eading straight to the living room, a quick glance revealed either Andrei wasn’t home yet, or he was in the courtyard. His hours weren’t predictable and I was hazy on how he spent his time each day. It wasn’t like he had a 9-to-5—mostly I didn’t care what he did.
But the glass screen doors were pulled aside, giving full view of the inner courtyard.
I glanced at Mathen, relaxing. “Maybe he’s not home yet. Good, I can?—”
Andrei appeared wearing nothing but his tousled hair, a sheen of sweat over his bare muscled chest and the tight flexible black pants they refused to call leggings but were leggings. I danced with men in leggings every day. I didn’t understand the prejudice against the word leggings. Especially from men who dressed in lace and makeup and jewelry like it was casual wear.
Then I looked in his eyes and skipped back two feet.
Constin and Mathen shouted, “Don’t run!”
Mathen’s chest bumped against my back, then he jerked away. Not far, but not touching. I froze.
Constin flowed into view, his gaze fixed to Andrei’s face. He moved slowly, eyes flinty and hyper-focused.
“You promised to come straight home,” Andrei said.
Quiet. Soft, almost breathy, matching the glaze in his eyes.
Rattled, I told the truth. “I changed my mind.”
Mathen inhaled and for the first time, cursed. But under his breath.
Andrei stepped forward.
Constin tensed, sinking into a subtle crouch.
“Don’t move,” Mathen breathed behind me, almost chanting. “Don’t move. Don’t move.”
My heart batted against the cage of my chest, trying to escape. From the look in the High Lord’s eyes, he would be happy to help free it.
Andrei tilted his head, surveying me with that remote alien focus, as if his mind was half here and half in a bloody Wonderland.
“You. . .changed your mind.”
I felt foolish, and resented feeling foolish. I’d intended to stop for a ten-minute chat and drink because I couldn’t afford to alienate my friends, and was sidetracked by a fistfight between ballerinas. It happened.
“You don’t own me,” I said.
Constin’s eyes widened.
“I don’t. . .own you?”
“ Anali, ” Mathen whispered. “ Wrong words. ”
All right. I needed to fix this. I didn’t usually speak before thinking but fear always made me honest.
“I only meant that?—”
Constin hissed. “Just be quiet, Anah.”
Andrei moved forward, and Constin leaped.
He couldn't bring Andrei down at first, though he tried. But the High Lord stopped, allowing Constin to slip behind him, wrap an arm around his neck and hold him in a lock. Andrei’s shoulders and chest bunched as if he fought the urge to lunge forward.
I blinked as Constin’s free hand slid around Andrei's torso, down, and under the band of his leggings, gripping the erection I’d barely noted in favor of watching emerging fangs.
Gripping, and stroking. I jerked my gaze up to Constin, but there was no sex in his eyes, only grim focus.
“He's slipped the leash a little, darling,” Constin said, voice still a calm whisper. “Court, and then—well, one of us can give him sex, or one of us can give him blood. It's your choice. But those are the only two options that will calm him back from the edge.”
“He was fine last night.” We’d cuddled in bed, no sex, though I didn’t think he’d slept.
Constin’s eyes slashed me. “He was not fine. And we were monitoring.”
I suppressed a rare urge to curse. I’d been doing that a lot more lately. “When you say one of us, does that include me?”
A sound released from Andrei's chest, the combination of a growl and a purr. A predator trying to sound enticing. Epic fail, except it really wasn’t.
“It includes you,” Constin said. “But if you don't want to risk him in this state, we will handle him. We heal faster.”
There was too much grim at the corners of Constin’s eyes, in the downturn of his mouth. They'd handle him, but there would be consequences.
“Let him go,” I said.
“I’ll release him on one condition. Sheathe the baby diva claws, darling. Play possum tonight. Can you do that?”
I bit my lip. “I just won't talk.” I kept saying the wrong thing, but not on purpose.
“Not talking might be for the best,” Mathen muttered behind me. “I'm not leaving her alone with him like this.”
“Nor am I,” Constin said. Then he released the kraken.
Andrei crossed the room in two soundless leaps and took me to the ground. I screamed, a short sound more startled than afraid.
“I don't own you?” he whispered in my ear, pressing his full weight into me, nudging my knees apart to cradle him. “I own your breath, I own your tears. I own every scream you make whether you're climaxing under me or on your own fingers.”
My body clenched. He’s slipped the leash a little, Constin had said.
. . .unhinged was their version of a little.
“I own your pain when you fall, and your joy when you rise. I'll own the blood between your thighs when you birth our children, and the milk from your breast will be mine too.”
His hand cradled the back of my head, obscenely gentle, because there was nothing gentle in his eyes.
“You’re mine. And you’re merely human. You’ll never be strong enough to challenge me. Do not forget what I am.”
Blinking back tears of frustrated rising fury, I snapped, “A monster?”
The glazed look in his eyes sharpened and?—
The adolescent bond between us flung wide, flooding me with sensation. I screamed, my back arching as his thoughts, his emotions, his needs and wants, his hopes. . .his fears. All of them seized me, enveloped me in a cocoon that allowed no room for writhing.
But underneath the animalistic fury, possessiveness, need to claim and fuck and mark, was a helpless, melting tenderness. A piercing core of love as hard, as brilliant, as cutting and resolute as a diamond. As beautiful. Birthed in fire and pressure.
I wanted to spit anyway.
Shiny, shiny carrots.
As I instinctively protested that he couldn't love me, we hadn't known each other long enough, those doubts were swept away by a tidal wave that didn’t give a pigeon’s ragged butt for my protests, or whether my dreams buckled under the weight of a crushing binding I’d never wanted, and done nothing to attract.
For the first time, I truly understood the bond, its blessing and its curse. It would be either, depending on whether I fought or gave in. Andrei had given in.
But submission was easy for him, wasn’t it? He held all the cards, all the power. I’d spend decades figuring out how to carve power of my own.
Soulbond. A pretty, romantic word for subjugation.
A word that did nothing to describe the reality of the spirit that now clung to me, as much a part of me as my own.
Andrei knew me, even the parts I wanted to keep hidden. Knew me as if I was his second self. That same understanding of him settled in me.
His mind pulled back, and I snapped into my own body, shaking my head, my cheeks wet with tears as I rebuilt my mental shields, another instinctive process. Still, desire heated from low simmer to roiling boil. Need. Leaving him, if I ever did, would rip away a part of my new soul.
“Now,” he said, “tell me again that I don't own you.” The glaze in his eyes cleared for a second. “Deny that you own me.”
I shook my head again. Not in denial of him or our bond, but in denial of my former refusal.
As refusal withered into dust, I watched myself fall with a peculiar kind of grief. Who lived through their own death? The bond constricted again, then released me, allowing room to breathe.
I told you it was a curse, he whispered in my mind, a shimmer of empathy in his ruthless voice. But if I must fall to it, I’ll bring you down with me.
That’s not love!
It’s Fae love.
I loathe you.
That, my darling, is also how Fae love. No High Fae will say different.
He felt my acquiescence and purred, nuzzling the side of my neck. Teeth grazed my skin and from his sudden tension, I knew he would bite me. I sensed none of his usual restraint, the care he’d taken the first time I gave him my neck. With the periphery of our minds joined, I felt his inner storm, a maelstrom of cutting edges I’d have to battle through to get to the soft, warm center.
Like a demented lollipop.
Constin was there, sliding a hand around Andrei's neck and whispering in his ear.
“If you bite her now,” Constin crooned, “the binding will weaken. Make her beg you for it, make her crave. Take her neck only when she offers submission, and she will never escape. She will kneel at your feet and call you her Lord.”
Oh, I would ? The words would have annoyed me because of the proprietary edge, but I instinctively understood Constin’s purpose.
Redirection.
If Andrei bit me now, he'd hurt me. Bad.
“Taste her first.” Mathen, now kneeling at our side two arm lengths away. His soft, sweet voice like molasses. “Taste her and lick her and make her gush. Proof that she comes at your command, my Lord.”
Now I did writhe, as helplessly enflamed with lust as I was with embarrassment. Jesus, these Cassanian men were so nonchalant with their filth. Even Mathen .
Andrei paused, and the teeth retreated from my neck as he flowed back onto his knees, straddling me.
Hands slipped under my t-shirt and grasped the waistband of my leggings, yanked them down along with underwear and flats, tossing the clothing to the side.
He pushed my knees up, caressed my ankles and spread my legs wide, opening me to the cool air and his scorching gaze.
He looked his fill, staring at my open pussy and I lay there too aroused for embarrassment. Nearly dazed with the growing need, Constin’s attention on Andrei’s face, Mathen’s on mine.
I almost giggled.
Chaperones.
I didn't think that was what the Victorians had had in mind. Trust the High Fae to put their spin on it.
Andrei lifted my bottom and dragged me up so I rested on his thighs, aligning me, my knees draped over his shoulders.
He lowered his head, blew gently, and I moaned even from that ethereal touch.
“Spread her,” he said.
“We won't touch her without her permission,” Constin said.
Andrei lifted his gaze, pinning me, a question behind the dark glaze.
I understood what he wanted, why he wanted them to touch me. It would help anchor him, keep him from completely losing himself. If he did that now, in his current state. . .
“Okay,” I said, hesitant, then firmed my voice. “You can both touch.”
Constin glanced at Mathen, who crawled close and rose on his knees, reaching a hand between my legs. His brown fingers delicately spread my folds, giving Andrei the perfect access.
“Lord.” As if Mathen was a master chef presenting a Micheline starred dish.
I giggled this time. I couldn't help it.
Constin sighed. “She's one of those,” he murmured.
The giggling turned to moans the moment Andrei’s tongue touched my clit. He licked, rubbed a gentle circle, and then a long line up and down my slit before focusing on the bundle of nerves.
“More,” I gasped. I couldn't move, not from this angle, I was helpless. But I needed more.
Andrei’s tongue pierced my opening, delving deep. Mathen took over rubbing my clit, his fingers swift and gentle as Andrei held my legs spread wide and immobile.
I wasn't a natural cusser, but every filthy word I’d ever learned in my mother's native language spilled from my mouth. I dug my fingers into Andrei's thighs. “More, damn you all. More.”
Pleasure built, layers of overlapping sensation, Andrei and Mathen gentling their pace at regular intervals.
It occurred to me after some time that they were doing it on purpose. Bringing me to a peak, then swatting me back down. Again and again until tears streamed from my eyes and cursing turned into pleas.
“She's also one of those,” Constin said from a distance, heat in the masculine drawl. “I expected the tears since she’s a crier, but not the begging.”
“I thought,” I gasped, “making me beg—” Andrei's tongue plunged inside again and I screamed, panting, Mathen’s fingers rougher, the pressure exquisite “—was the point.”
I turned my head to look at Constin, flinging an arm out in silent plea. He was the referee, the only one Andrei listened to.
This was torture.
This was cruel.
This was calculated.
Three sets of predatory Fae eyes looked at me, gauging the state of my submission.
Constin moved from his place behind Andrei to my side, his look contemplative.
“Take that shit off her,” Andrei said, lifting his head just enough to speak. Some one was losing their elegant turn of phrase, a High Lord devolving into a thug.
The first luudthen tugged on my shirt, pulling it over my head, then did the same with my sports bra. The men inhaled, staring at mid-sized breasts that spilled free. Constin covered one breast with his pale gold hand and squeezed.
My eyes fluttered closed.
“She's ready for you, Drei,” Constin purred, and his fingers plucked at my nipple, twisted.