Chapter 12 #2
A wave of relief passed through me that I thought at first was about Samhail, but I realized a second later I was sensing Cyra’s return from the vineyard.
I could always breathe easier when I knew she was home, but relief was quickly replaced by concern when I felt something different about her.
I let my mind reach out to hers and found it not only wide open… but drunk.
A smile tugged at my lips until I sensed Cyra’s turmoil below the surface. She was upset about something.
I guessed the turmoil explained her drunken state, but I couldn’t see what was causing it through the jumble of her thoughts.
“Axe, do you mind if we pick this up later?” I asked. “Cyra just returned from the vineyard, and she seems upset.”
Axenus looked concerned. “Of course,” he said. “Is there anything I can help with?”
A jolt of arousal from Cyra hit me, and I managed to hold back my grunt. “I don’t think so,” I said, “but I’ll send for you if that changes.”
Axenus nodded and left my study via the door to the hall. I got up from my desk and headed for the interior door that led through our sitting room and into the bedroom.
I found Cyra standing next to an armchair by the bed.
She held onto the back as she swayed on one foot while trying unsuccessfully to pull her boot off.
I stood for a moment and watched in amusement as she struggled to keep her balance while tugging at the boot with one hand.
Her foot on the floor wobbled precariously, and I decided it was time for me to intervene.
“Did you have fun at the vineyard with your brothers?” I asked as I strolled toward her.
She gave a yelp of surprise and let go of the boot she’d been trying to pry off. Even on two feet she stumbled and grabbed the back of the armchair with both hands to keep from falling over.
“Nemesis take you, Bressen,” she said with a breath of relief. “Don’t sneak up on a person like that. You’re lucky I didn’t send you flying across the room with a forcefield.”
I heard the slur in her voice and decided it was concerning, but also adorable. I closed the distance between us and guided her down into the chair to sit. Then I knelt in front of her and started to pull off her boots.
“Not to be a mother hen,” I said, “but just how much did you and your brothers have to drink?”
Cyra looked down at her fingers and flexed them one at a time as if trying to count.
“I…don’t remember,” she said finally. “Could’ve been four, maybe five…” She trailed off, her fingers still flexing lightly.
“Glasses?” I offered.
“Bottles.”
I raised a brow. “What was the occasion?”
One boot slipped free, and Cyra lifted her head to meet my eyes.
“Jaylan and Brix are moving back to Fernweh at the end of the week,” she said. “There was nothing I could do to talk them out of it.”
My hands stilled on the second boot. “Oh. Not a celebration then.”
She scoffed. “Maybe for them it was.”
I tugged off the second boot and tossed it aside.
I knew Cyra wanted her brothers to move up here and help her with her new vineyard, but I always suspected they’d decide to go back to Fernweh.
Or at least I suspected Jaylan would. Brix might’ve gone either way, but Jaylan was too independent, and he had a woman back in Fernweh.
She’d rejected him, but if Jaylan was anything like me – and it appeared he was – he wasn’t taking that as a final answer.
Had it been me and Cyra, I wouldn’t have left her alone until I was certain there was no way she’d take me back.
I reached up and cupped Cyra’s cheek. “I’m so sorry, my love. You’ll still see them. Just not as much as you were hoping.”
“I’m putting up warding around the house and vineyard,” she said as she shot out of the chair and began to pace.
I had to lurch backward out of her way to avoid being knocked over, and I knelt there a moment as I watched her. I pursed my lips to hold back the smile at the slightly serpentine path she took. I’d never seen her this inebriated before, and for some reason I found it highly amusing.
I stood and put myself in her way so she had to stop and look up.
“Warding sounds like a good idea,” I said.
She shook her head, her eyes never leaving mine. “Gods help those people if I find out they tried to hurt my brothers or treat them like shit.”
I raised a brow. Cyra rarely swore unless I was fucking her.
“I’m sure Jaylan and Brix will be fine,” I assured her. “We’ll both make sure they’re safe.”
The anger in her face eased a bit and she nodded.
“You’re upset they decided to go back,” I said, “but deep down I think you knew they would.”
Her expression darkened into one of stubborn denial.
“What can I do to help?” I asked, trying a different tactic.
Cyra crossed her arms. “Let me lock them in a holding cell under the house until they come to their senses.”
I chuckled. “Let’s make that Plan B. Why don’t you let me brush your hair instead.”
Cyra loved having her hair brushed. There were apparently more nerve endings in the scalp than I was aware of, because I’d been dumbstruck at the pleasure I’d felt from her the first time I’d done it.
Cyra’s gaze heated, though, and her expression turned sultry.
“How about you fuck me instead,” she said. “Better yet, how about you get on the bed and let me fuck you.”
My brows shot up as half the blood in my body rushed to my groin.
Cyra reached down and unbuckled my belt. When she got it undone, she whipped it through the loops and tossed it aside.
“Your clothes need to go,” she said, her voice taking on a husky purr.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said as I unbuttoned my jacket and shrugged it off. I tossed it onto the chair Cyra had been sitting in and began to step slowly backward toward the bed.
Cyra caught the waist of my pants, stopping me. “I said your clothesss…need to go,” she slurred.
She laid her hand on my chest, and I jerked back as my shirt exploded into a kaleidoscope of blue butterflies that scattered in all directions.
Gods above, the feeling of dozens of velvety wings grazing my chest, back, and arms was certainly a new experience.
The butterflies fluttered madly around us for a few seconds before they began almost as one to lose life and pirouette to the floor.
They were a trick she’d learned from Aidan when she’d syphoned his transfiguration power, made only of paper, but a way to give life to something inanimate for a short time.
When the last of the butterflies had settled to the floor, Cyra reached for my pants, but I grabbed her wrist.
“I’ll just take them off,” I said with a half-smile.
“Better hurry,” she said, and I did.
I toed off my shoes, yanked the pants down my legs, and kicked them to the side after I stepped out of them.
“Now get on the bed,” Cyra said.
She didn’t give me time to comply, though. Instead, she put her hand on my chest again, and I was thrown back onto the mattress as she loosed a small forcefield at me.
I grunted as the blow knocked the wind out of me, and I looked up in surprise from the middle of the bed. I wasn’t sure whether to be concerned or aroused, but my cock decided for me as it went rock hard.
“Cyra,” I breathed. “What are you doing?”
She stood at the end of the bed and stripped her own pants off along with her undergarment. She stumbled sideways a little as she stood up straight again.
“Claiming what’s mine,” she said as she climbed onto the bed and prowled toward me, and gods damn me if I didn’t get even harder.
She crawled over me to straddle my hips, and she settled herself down so her sweet heat rested on top of my cock. I let out a low groan and grabbed her hips to rock her back and forth over me.
“Take your sweater off,” I ordered.
Cyra smiled and pulled both her sweater and undershirt off over her head with a little difficulty.
Her hair spilled back down over her shoulders and chest, and I pushed it aside so I could cover her breasts with my hands.
They were barely a handful – although admittedly my hands were large – but they were perfectly shaped, and her nipples were soft pink buds that stiffened into pert peaks when I rolled them in my fingers.
Cyra let out a moan of pleasure as I kneaded her breasts. I tried to sit up, eager to have one of those tight little nipples in my mouth, but she sent another small forcefield into my chest to push me back down.
I considered myself an aggressive man – in the bedroom at least – and I loved to dominate Cyra, to hold her down and wring pleasure from her until she couldn’t stand it anymore, but gods, there was something to be said for the occasional times she took charge and dominated me instead.
I could easily flip her over right now, pin her down, and fuck her until she screamed into the mattress, and I was sure she’d let me, but that’s not what I wanted. I wanted her to explore this little power trip of hers, and if she wanted to hold me down instead, then so be it.
“What are you planning to do to me, my love?” I asked her.
She swayed as she sat up straight, and I put my hands back on her hips to steady her. Her only answer was to lift herself up, line my cock up with her entrance, and impale herself down on top of me.
“Fuck!” I yelled as I threw my head back against the bed.
It never failed. Every single time I entered Cyra, I felt a euphoria I couldn’t get from anything else. Warmth spread out to every part of my body like that first sip of a hot beverage on a cold day, and my eyes rolled back in my head.
We’d learned recently the legend of the Souls of the Moon, Sun, and Earth, beings that had once been stuck together but had later been split in two by the anger of the gods.
Those beings now existed as separate entities that each held half of the original soul, and they spent their days trying to find each other and put themselves back together.
And damn me, but that’s what fucking Cyra felt like. As insane as it sounded, sheathing myself between her legs was like making my soul whole again.