CHAPTER ELEVEN
Omaera
As much as I enjoyed sharing a bed with Zandren, I was still really exhausted after our first training session and knew that I needed sleep. If I shared a room with either my bear or Maxar, I definitely wouldn’t be getting enough sleep. So with reluctance, I chose to sleep alone in the fourth guest room.
It was weird though. I hadn’t slept alone for several nights now, and having the entire bed to myself was odd. Normally, I was either draped over some warm body, or scrunched up on the edge because some warm body was taking up the rest of the mattress—not that I minded.
To have the entire mattress to myself felt like too much.
After dinner, I showered and retired to bed, leaving the men up chatting quietly in the living room, all of them with some of the amber alcohol Kenvin said he distilled himself. I wasn’t ready to try it.
Hearing Kenvin’s story of his mate and her death was gutting. Heartbreaking.
Did he and Estrid have any children before she was murdered?
Where was Hellio now? Did Kenvin take his revenge? Or was the monster demon still out there somewhere in hiding? Did we need to add him to our kill list? It seemed that list was growing by the day .
I had a lot more questions for the old demon, but I could tell that he wasn’t ready to talk about them. Maybe in time.
Crawling into bed, I pulled the covers over my body, then almost immediately kicked them off because I was too hot.
Ugh! Hell was so damned hot.
Tossing and turning, I struggled to find a comfortable position to sleep in. I had no clock, and my phone was on Pacific Standard Time—Earth Time—so I had no idea what time it was in Hell.
Did Hell have different time zones?
After what felt like maybe ninety minutes of non-stop fussing because I was too hot and couldn’t get comfortable, I growled and slid my legs over the side of the bed.
The door to the room I was in had a slight squeak to it, so I was careful when I opened it. I didn’t want to wake the others.
Luckily, the squeak didn’t happen this time, and I padded out into the courtyard silently, on bare feet. Even at night, with the sun down, the concrete tiles were hot, and I had to quickly hop on as few toes as possible over to the kitchen.
Opening up the cupboards, I found a glass bottle of water and opened it, taking a long, satisfying sip. My eyes closed as the sulfur-free liquid slid down my throat, soothing the dryness that came from just breathing the dusty, dry Hell air.
“Can’t sleep?” came the familiar voice of my mage from behind me.
I smiled and spun around, wiping my mouth with my hand to catch the dribbles. He stood there, shirtless, and in just his ridiculous genie pants from when he arrived on my doorstep that first night, his hands in his pockets. A playful smirk wiggled on his lips, and his dark-red hair with all the cowlicks was a sexy mess.
“I can’t get comfortable,” I said, setting the water bottle down on the counter. “It’s so freaking hot.”
He stepped forward and grabbed the bottle from the counter, putting it to his lips. My gaze fell to his throat and the way his large Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. Why did I find that as hot as I did?
He drained the bottle, then silently opened the cupboard and pulled out another. “Sorry to finish your water,” he said, popping the cap of the new bottle.
“Why are you up?” I asked, allowing my gaze to rake down his ripped abdomen. He still had a few bruises and scars from where Zandren nearly disemboweled him just two days ago. But for the most part, he seemed healed.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he said, stepping closer to me, bringing with him a pleasant heat, unlike the heat of Hell which stuck to me like grimy dust and sweat. Maxar’s heat was clean. It was the perfect temperature. Inviting, and with it came a sense of calm. His hands fell to my hips.
“Trying to decide if you should go visit your parents or not?”
He nodded.
“Do you want to?”
He shook his head. Pain and confusion swam in the mesmerizing amber of his eyes. Maybe it was a mage thing, or maybe it was just me, but whenever I looked into his eyes, the pattern of his irises seemed different. Like they were always swirling, changing the positions and patterns of the whorls and spots. It was hypnotizing. Relaxing.
“Then why are you even thinking about it?”
“If your aunt was sent to prison on Earth for doing terrible things, would you still feel compelled to visit her?”
“Did she do terrible things to me?”
He shook his head again. “No. She was wonderful to you. But had a dark, secret side of her that was pure evil. Then, when you confronted her about that side, it was like the wonderful side disappeared and all you saw was the evil side. Would you still go see her?”
Nibbling on my lip, I watched his irises shift and swirl. “I don’t know. It would be tough not to hold on to some kind of hope that maybe that good part of her still existed, and incarceration gave her time to reflect on her choices and experience some sort of … enlightenment.”
He scoffed at that comment, but didn’t say anything .
“I would hold on to all the good memories I had with her too. It’d be impossible not to. But it’d also be hard, because to know someone one way, then find out they weren’t that way at all can be devastating.” Maxar swallowed. “I was only four when they were taken, so the memories I have of my parents are fuzzy. But they’re all good fuzzy memories. And it does make it harder. Then, there’s this niggling sensation at the back of my neck, that maybe they never loved me at all. That their affection to me was fake from the start, you know? They were just pretending. Playing the part. I was nothing more than a prop in their grand scheme.”
“I’ll support you either way. And if you do choose to go see them, I’ll go with you.”
His eyes lit up a little, and he smiled roguishly. “They’d flip shit if they found out you are half human.”
“And that glint in your eyes tells me you’d relish that,” I said with a small chuckle.
A muscular shoulder lifted. “Not going to lie, that would bring me joy. Because we all know that we can’t choose our mates. The Fates choose them for us.” My lips twisted and my unease must have shown on my face because he quickly said, “If we did have a choice though, I’d choose you every time, My Queen. No question.”
I stepped into his space and pressed myself against him. “You’re a good man, Maxar Rane. A good mage. And I would be more than happy to accompany you to the prison your parents are being held in and help you torture them a little.” Fire ignited in his gaze, and his cock twitched against my inner thigh. I brought my arms up and rested them on his shoulders.
“My Queen … you know all the right things to turn me on. Torture? Yes, please.”
I smirked, murmuring against his mouth, “You’re such a sick fucker, you know that?”
“Isn’t that what you love about me?” Then he took my mouth, inhaling deeply as he moved his hands from my hips to the sides of my face, holding me there, possessing me. “I’ve missed you,” he whispered, raking his teeth up my jaw.
“I’ve been here the whole time.” I blinked at him, smiling in a coquettish way because I knew what he meant.
Growling, he gripped me by the ass, lifted me up, and plunked me onto the counter, pushing my knees apart and stepping between my thighs. He trailed his nose up my jaw, inhaling deep, then groaning. “Fuck, even after showering under that disgusting water, you smell amazing.”
It was impossible for me not to smile. The man was such a charmer. A psycho with a heart of gold. Pulling down the left sleeve of my loose-fitting gray T-shirt, he pressed his mouth to my shoulder, sending tingles deep down between my legs and even into my breasts. I pushed my fingers into his hair and tugged his mouth back up to mine, moaning when his tongue probed and swept inside.
“You still bleeding?” he asked, pulling his mouth away and kissing a trail across my cheek and down my neck, his hands coming up to cup my breasts.
I shook my head. “Not anymore. No.”
His growl made my panties instantly damp.
“Maxar,” I whimpered as he pressed his cock against my thigh, “please.”
Sweeping my hair off my face, he cupped my head in his hands, so gently, I was at first startled with just how tender he could be. It was always a bit surprising given how unpredictable and chaotic he was in the rest of his world. But with me, he was impossibly sweet and gentle.
A rakish gleam entered his eyes, and he grabbed my hands in one hand and pinned them behind me on the counter, his hand around both my wrists. I could have gotten free, but I didn’t want to. Biting my bottom lip, I glanced up at him from beneath my lashes, daring him to take me right there on the kitchen counter.
His nostrils flared, and a smile ticked up on one side of his mouth. “Don’t move your hands,” he said—well, more like demanded—before dropping to a crouch and pulling my pants and underwear off with him. He shouldered my legs apart, made me scoot my butt forward and pressed his nose between my legs, inhaling deep. “Fucking hell,” he murmured before flicking out his tongue. “Gods, woman, you taste like fucking heaven. ”
His tongue was speedy with the way it flicked my clit, back and forth, sending magical tingles and sparkles all through me. Then he pressed his mouth to my center and gently blew.
Yes, he fucking blew.
And dear sweet god, if heat and sparkles, and I’m guessing probably fucking flames, didn’t ignite all through my core and lower belly. It was like flames were dancing along my freaking vagina, not burning me, but making me burn.
“Holy shit,” I breathed as he blew air inside me again, sending more sexy flames into me, before standing up and lifting the hem of my shirt up to expose my breasts—I was braless, obviously, since I’d been trying to sleep. With a flick of his fingers, two little pink flames ignited and proceeded to dance and flicker over my nipples, sending more electric tingles and sparkles of pleasure all through me.
He snapped his fingers again and again, conjuring more flames, which he made dance along my belly, over the tops of my thighs, behind my knees, and along my feet. He was hitting all the major erogenous zones. Everything felt so amazing. I was having a hard time concentrating on just one spot.
At this point now, all three of them had gone down on me, and all three were very talented, but also very different. They had their own moves, their own way of pushing me to the brink of utter insanity, then heaving me off the cliff.
This new flame-play though, wasn’t anything I was prepared for. Where else could he put those flames? What else could do with them?
He flicked his fingers again and the tiniest of flames burst to life over my clit.
I came instantly, careful not to be too loud and wake the others—particularly our host. It was bad enough I was having sexy time in his kitchen; I didn’t want Kenvin to walk in on us.
Maybe it was the combination of all the flames, of Maxar’s tongue-work, just how badly I wanted him, how much I cared for him. Who knows? But I was coming undone the moment it hit me. Heat and pleasure didn’t spin out from my center like beautiful ribbons. It shot out like a thousand pinballs, all triggered by an overly wound spring. My fingertips and fingernails felt it. The ends of my hair tingled, and my ears burned. My body shook with the vibrations of my release, each one getting more intense than the last. I did as I was told and kept my hands behind me, but my fingers curled on the tile countertop as my arms trembled, forced to hold up my weight.
My mouth was dry from being held open in utter awe, inhaling and exhaling in shallow, labored pants. His fingers weren’t even inside of me. His tongue wasn’t even on me. It was all just … fire.
Maxar’s fire.
When I was finally able to form a semi-coherent thought again, I blinked my eyes open and glanced down my body at him. The flames still flickered all over my body. A triumphant and extremely cocky mage grinned back at me. I stared at him in shock. He simply smiled wider.
The overwhelming need to finally have my mage inside of me took over, to the point where I was animalistic about how badly I wanted to feel him, and I grabbed him by the ears and hauled him to his feet, tearing at the elastic waistband of his hideous genie pants. “I hate these pants,” I murmured, dropping horny, fervent kisses across his neck. “But I don’t care. Get your cock out.”
His chuckle was deep and throaty, and only made me hotter. The flames were still dancing all over my body, and I could already feel another orgasm brewing.
He shoved his pants down to his ankles and took his cock in his hand, giving it a couple of sexy-as-fuck strokes. Then he held it in his palm and spit on it.
I should not have found that as hot as I did, but holy hell. My mouth dropped open, and it was all I could do not to roll over onto all fours and push my ass into the air like a bitch in heat.
His smirk said he knew what he was doing.
I was insatiable at this point, willing to do absolutely anything he asked of me. I was wild for him. So desperate for his cock, so desperate for him to be inside me. He could have ordered me to drop to my knees and kiss his fucking feet, and I’d probably have done it if it meant I could finally have Maxar’s cock in my pussy.
Still panting, I grappled at his back, tugging him forward. He notched his cock at my center, gripped me by the ass cheeks, and hauled me forward until we were connected. Until he was seated so perfectly, there wasn’t an inch to spare. The stretch to accommodate him made me moan, and when he snapped his fingers and fresh flames danced along my thighs, I purred like a kitten.
Locking my ankles around his back, I let him take control. Let him mold my body how he needed, how he wanted.
I was his to play with.
I was his toy.
I was his.
Lightning, the same kind that happened when Zandren and I mate-bonded, flashed into the dark kitchen. A bolt hit Maxar in the back and went through him into me. It wasn’t painful, just a little jarring. But now that I knew what it was, I wasn’t in any kind of a panic.
He pulled back, his eyes wide.
I smiled, chewing on my bottom lip.
“Did we?”
I nodded. “I think so.”
Flames more vibrant than ever before danced in his gaze. “You need to pick a spot on your body where you want my brand.”
My mouth opened. We were still connected. Pink flames continued to dance all over me and the orgasm wasn’t taking a break in its repeat journey, even though we’d stopped moving. “I, uh …”
“It’ll happen wherever my right hand is when we come.”
“O-okay.”
His hands were both currently on my ass.
I reached behind me and grabbed his right hand, positioning it on my right ribcage so it would be opposite my tattoo. “Here,” I said. “I want it here.”
My chest heaved and so did his. Our eyes remained locked as he started to move again, one hand cupping my ass cheek to pull him forward and into me, the other firmly locked around my ribcage.
I was a slave to the pleasure, willing to do anything for more of it. For all of it. For it to never end. The way the flames mixed so beautifully with our connected bodies, with the love and devotion I had for this man, it was a glorious epiphany waiting to happen .
I was eager to feel the brand against my skin. Would it be like the pleasure flames? Would it increase my climax? Or would it be painful? A part of me welcomed a bit of a pain. It might ground me in the moment, because right now, I was close to floating away.
“My Queen …” he grunted, breaking our locked gazes and dropping his forehead to my left shoulder.
“Maxar …” The intensity of the flames along my skin—including the one on my clit—grew, and I sucked in a sharp gasp.
“That’s right, My Queen. Come for me.”
I was such a slut for being told what to do during sex. I exploded.
Tipping my head toward the ceiling, I gave over to the pleasure, to the flames, to my mage, my mate. I allowed all of him into my heart, my soul, my forever. I welcomed his brand against my skin, marking me as his for eternity.
My clit throbbed with a heartbeat of its own with every surge of my orgasm, and I knew the moment he came because the brand from his palm on my ribs was cool. Soothing. Incredible. For a man so hot, so full of fire and flames, for him to have an icy brand just added to the enigma that was my mage. It was like dry ice against my flesh, slightly painful, but not enough for me to want it to stop. I welcomed it. I moaned as it seared his mark of possession into my flesh. Now everyone would know that I belonged to Maxar Rane.
His groan was low and guttural where he pressed his mouth to my shoulder, inhaling and exhaling short, shallow pants, his cock pulsing inside of me, hot and thick.
Eventually, my orgasm waned and all that remained were the echoes of sensation. Tremors and aftershocks of pleasure I would never forget.
He lifted his forehead from my shoulder, and for the first time, my mage actually looked a little sheepish. It was sweet and endearing, and slightly confusing. “I didn’t know the brand was going to be cold. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
That made me smile, and I glanced down at my ribs as he pulled his hand away to reveal a beautiful flame-brand with the letters “M” and “R” in stunning cursive in the middle. My throat grew tight, and the backs of my eyes burned. “It’s perfect. ”
“But I didn’t hurt you?”
Shaking my head, I swallowed, cupped his jaw, and pressed my lips to his before saying, “Not at all.”
The flames across my body disappeared, and he kissed me back, slow and sweet. “I guess I can’t convince you to join me in bed for an encore?”
My lips twisted in thought. Some very happy parts of my body wanted nothing more than to join him, but my brain knew it probably wasn’t a good idea. I needed rest. I pressed my finger to the brand and little ribbons of coolness that I could only describe as shivers rippled through me. I gasped.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“It’s like a button to cool me off. When I press it, it sends these cool little shockwaves through me.”
“I’m here to help,” he said, humor in his voice.
I rolled my eyes, and he stepped back to pull up his pants while I leaped off the counter and yanked my underwear and pants back on.
“So, we’re mate-bonded now, huh?” I said, looping my arms back around his neck. “The Fates decided we were ready?”
“ You decided you were ready. I’ve been ready since the moment I knew you existed. The Fates won’t allow anything unless your heart gives the go-ahead.”
“You think the Fates watched?”
“I’m almost certain of it. The pervy fuckers.”
That made me snort.
He kissed me soundly. I melted into him and his cock was already beginning to get thick again against my thigh. I pushed him away. “I need to sleep. Now, Drak’s the only one I can torture since we just mate-bonded.”
His eyes widened. “Fuck, that’s right. Poor bastard.”
“Are you developing a soft spot for the vampire?”
“Let’s just say I have some sympathy for what he’s going through right now. Learning that family you loved are traitorous monsters can be quite the mindfuck.”
I nodded. “I’m giving him some grace too. I just wish he’d talk to me about how he’s feeling. ”
“Vampires are notoriously emotionless, stoic, and keep things close to the chest. It’s just his nature.”
“I figured.” I kissed him again, then my gaze slid down to the counter. “We should uh … clean the counter.”
“On it,” he said, hitting the tile with a blast of yellow flames from one hand while keeping the other wrapped around my waist. “Yellow are for healing, as well as disinfecting.”
Lifting up onto my tiptoes, I pressed a kiss to his jaw. “I’ll see you in the morning, mate .” Then I broke our embrace and turned to go.
A sharp smack to my ass made me squeak and jump.
“Damn straight you will, my mate ,” he said. “Fuck, I like the sound of that.”
I glanced at him over my shoulder and shot him a wink. “Goodnight, Sparky. I love you.”
He pressed both hands to his chest and pretended to faint. “Oh, baby, you just keep serving up all the good stuff tonight. Next thing you’ll be telling me, we made a little demon-mage tonight.”
I pointed my finger at him in warning. “You shut your mouth and take back that wish. We are fighting a war here. This is not the time to be bringing children into this world.”
“But think of how cute they’d be. Little terrors in all the best possible ways.”
I gave him the stink-eye. “Watch it, Sparky, or there’ll be a moratorium on anymore of that penetrative funny business you’re ridiculously good at. I can make do with your fingers, flames, and tongue.”
He playfully wiggled his tongue and made flames bust out on his fingers. “You mean these?”
“Goodnight,” I enunciated slowly.
His smile calmed everything inside of me. I knew I’d have a good sleep now. “Goodnight, My Queen. Rest well. I love you too.”
I fell asleep with my hands firmly over my brand and cool spirals whirling through me as I replayed our mate-bonding in the kitchen. I had two bonded-mates now. Two men I was tied to forever.
And surprisingly, that didn’t scare me one little bit.