Chapter 9 Whispers of Magic #2
I flinch. “What about my father? Shade said he has it too.”
“He has something,” Grim says. “But he’s not like you. Not anymore. He sold his soul for power long ago.”
Shade steps into the firelight, his shadow broken behind him. “That’s enough,” he says. “She doesn’t need to know.”
My voice comes out higher than I mean. “I think I do.”
He glares. “You don’t.”
I push to my feet, my fists clenched. “You owe me the truth.”
The words hang between us.
Onyx stands, brushing dirt from his hands. “It’s not that simple, Princess.”
“Stop calling me that!” I shout. The magic bubbles, furious and bright, under my skin. I feel it winding up my spine, prickling at the roots of my hair.
Bran tries to calm me. “Let’s just talk–”
“No,” I snap. “I want to know. Why did he keep me locked up? Why didn’t anyone tell me what I am?” My voice cracks on the last word. “Why won’t you tell me what you are?”
They look at me like I’m a monster now, but we all know I’m not the only one, even if they won’t say it. They’re sometimes human, sometimes other, cloaked in violence and simmering with rage.
The brothers exchange glances—Shade’s cold, Grim’s hungry, Bran’s desperate, Onyx’s almost gentle.
Rune and Sable return, but they hang back at the edge of the fire, watching.
I press my hands to my chest, trying to trap the wild thing inside. “What am I?“ I whisper, desperate.
Shade moves fast, grabbing my wrist. “You’re human, Raisa.”
“Am I?” I rip my hand free of his. The spark jumps—real, visible, blue-black like before—and Shade’s face darkens with something I can’t name. “Humans don’t turn men to stone, Shade. They don’t kill without a single touch. They aren’t this…this monstrous.”
I turn to the others. “You all knew about this, and none of you said a word. How could you hold me like you do, and then lie to me?”
Grim laughs, the sound rough. “Would you have believed us if we had told you? You don’t even want to believe it now.”
I lunge at him, swinging blindly. The air ripples, magic trailing from my hands. He jerks back just in time. The pulse that leaves my palm is hot and electric, burning the moss where he sat.
He grins, his teeth gleaming. “See? Magic.”
My hair lifts, every strand floating as if caught in a storm. My skin is burning. The world blurs at the edges, my vision tunneling in on the seven faces in front of me—seven men, seven pairs of eyes, all locked on me and nothing else.
I can’t breathe.
“Tell me,” I beg.
Shade’s voice is steady, but I hear the strain. “Some truths are better left buried, little bird.”
“Fuck you!” The power bursts from me, a second wave, bigger than the last, this one rolling out from my body like a hurricane. The air turns viscous, my skin tingling, every nerve ending screaming.
This time, it doesn’t turn anyone to stone.
It hits the brothers, and I see the change instantly. Their eyes darken, their irises swelling, pupils going wide. Their hands twitch, their jaws set hard. They lean forward—not in fear, but hunger, as if the magic took my words literally, giving hunger teeth.
Shade lurches toward me, his breath coming fast.
Bran is already on his knees, his mouth parted, his eyes locked on my throat like it’s the only thing in the world.
Sable stumbles, then catches himself, a wild, hungry grin spreading across his face.
Grim drops to a crouch, his head cocked, his fingers digging into the dirt.
Rune is shaking, his whole body vibrating with the need to move, to ruin, to take.
Onyx’s voice rumbles, low and hoarse. “Raisa. You need to–”
But it’s too late.
The fire in my chest breaks open, and I want them—need them—every part of me reaching for them.
The last thing I see before the world goes dark is Shade’s face, torn between violence and desire, and the flash of teeth as the brothers descend on me.
The world comes back in pieces. First, the press of bodies—hard, hot, everywhere at once. Then, the rasp of breath, the crush of hands on my skin, and the impossible ache of needing, needing, needing.
Shade’s mouth claims mine before I can even gasp. His lips are rough, his tongue invasive, but I open for him like a starving thing. The taste of him is smoke and salt and the copper tang of blood, and I want more. Mor, more, more.
Someone else is behind me. Onyx, I think, by the feel of his chest against my back and the size of his arms wrapping around my waist. He lifts me off my feet, pinning my arms at my sides, holding me still as Shade devours my mouth.
My head lolls back onto his shoulder, and he buries his nose in my hair, inhaling deep, as if I’m the only air he’ll ever need.
Bran’s voice finds my ear. “Good girl. Let it happen.”
Their hands are everywhere—at my waist, cupping my breasts, their fingers sliding under the waistband of my pants, tugging and tearing and peeling cloth away. My own hands flutter uselessly, then seize Shade’s hair, yanking him closer, as if I can fuse our mouths together by force.
I’m lifted, spun, and set down on something soft and yielding. I open my eyes just long enough to see moss, stars, and the feverish glow of the brothers’ eyes as they circle around me.
Sable drops to his knees between my legs. His mouth is already open, his tongue tracing the inside of my knee as he shoves my pants down to my ankles. His teeth graze my thigh as he looks up, his lips a wicked curl.
“Didn’t know magic tasted so sweet,” he says, and then his mouth is on me, devouring my sex with a greed that borders on violence.
I scream—no, I wail—my whole body bowing off the moss as he licks me, fast and relentless. He sucks my clit, nips it, making me sob and shake, but when I try to close my legs, Rune and Talon each grab a knee and spread me wider.
“Fuck, look at her,” Talon groans, his cock already out, his fist stroking the thick, angry length of it as he stares at my dripping pussy. “She’s soaking.”
“She’s perfect,” Rune says, his tattooed fingers tracing idle patterns up my calf as his eyes glitter with something feral.
Grim is crouched at my head, one hand in my hair, the other stroking his own cock with slow, measured strokes. His eyes never leave my face.
Bran has my wrists, pinning them to the earth above my head, his breath a constant drizzle of filthy promises. “We’re going to break you,” he whispers. “You’ll never forget us.”
I don’t want to forget. I want to burn, to shatter, to come apart on their hands and mouths and cocks until I’m nothing but nerve endings and want.
Sable’s tongue slides inside me, thick and hot, and I come before I can even warn them. My thighs clamp, my back arches, my mouth opens in a howl. The magic pulses out of me, a white-hot wave that sends all of them reeling.
Rune is the first to react, lunging forward and shoving his cock into my mouth before I can catch my breath. I gag, but he holds my head, rocking his hips, using my mouth for his own pleasure. I open for him, let him fuck my face, let the drool and spit run down my chin.
Talon takes my breasts in his hands, squeezing, kneading, his cock sliding between them in long, messy strokes. “So fucking soft,” he pants, pushing the head into my mouth when Rune pulls out, smearing pre-cum over my tongue.
They trade places, both fucking my mouth, while Sable keeps eating me, his fingers now pushing inside, two, then three at once, stretching me open.
I can’t stop coming. Every thrust, every lick, every slap of skin sends another pulse through me, each wave bigger than the last.
Grim slides down, his mouth on my nipples, biting, pulling, leaving perfect half-moons of red behind. “You belong to us,” he snarls.
Onyx lines up behind Sable, grabs my ass in both hands, and shoves his cock into me, hard and deep. The stretch is brutal, perfect, and I scream around the cock in my mouth, every muscle in my body locking with pleasure.
Sable doesn’t move, just keeps licking, his tongue flicking my clit even as Onyx pounds into me from behind.
Bran leans down, pinching my nipple. “Take it, Princess. You can handle all of us.”
They use me for their pleasure, and I want to be used. I want to be broken and put back together in some new order.
The magic surges again. I feel it in the air, a crackle, a hum, a wild, living thing. Every time one of them comes, the magic hits me like a bolt, doubling my own pleasure, multiplying it until I can’t see, can’t think, can only feel.
Rune finishes first, shooting hot and thick down my throat.
Talon comes next, coating my tongue, my lips, my cheeks, before pushing back in to fill my mouth again.
Sable pulls away, fisting his cock and jerking until he paints my sex, then dives back in to lick it up.
Grim flips me onto my stomach, grabs my hair, and forces my ass in the air. “I want to ruin her,” he growls, pushing into my ass without warning, splitting me open.
I cry out, but the pain is swallowed by pleasure, by the need to be filled, to be claimed.
Onyx fucks my pussy, Grim fucks my ass, and Talon shoves his cock back in my mouth. The others kneel around me, hands roaming, mouths kissing, biting, marking every inch of me.
I lose count of the orgasms. Every time I think I can’t come again, the magic proves me wrong.
They turn me over, spread me open, take turns filling every hole, sometimes two at once, sometimes all three, their mouths and hands on me and on each other.
Shade waits until I’m shaking and spent, then finally kneels between my thighs and pushes in, slow and deep, making me feel every inch.
He looks down at me, his face twisted with want and something like awe. “The magic doesn’t change this,” he says, and I nod, tears streaking my cheeks as he fucks me with brutal, relentless strokes. “It doesn’t make you more or less than what you were yesterday, Raisa. What are you?”
“Yours,” I whisper. “All yours.”
He braces both hands on my throat and squeezes, just enough to make the world snap to a white-hot point, my vision narrowing around his face. I claw at his arms, not to push him off, but to anchor myself, to tell him I want it all.
“You think magic makes you special?” he grits out, his voice deeper than the grave. “You think it sets you apart from us?”
He fucks me harder, bruising, every thrust a special kind of violence, every grind of his hips a declaration of ownership. I gasp and choke, stars bursting behind my eyes, but he doesn’t stop. The pressure at my neck is perfect and terrifying.
My heart is a caged animal, beating itself bloody against my ribs.
He leans in, his lips brushing my ear. “You could be a goddess, Raisa. You could turn the world to stone.” He bites my lobe hard enough to draw blood. “But you’ll always be ours before you’re anything else.”
The words shatter me. I come apart, screaming without sound, the orgasm detonating through every cell, every bone, every secret place inside me. My body convulses, but Shade holds me down, choking me through it, refusing to let me drift too far from his grip.
I feel him coming with me, his cock pulsing inside me as he pours himself into me.
When I finally collapse, limp and gasping, he smiles at me like he’s proud, and it’s like the world explodes—stars, lightning, every cell in my body a tiny sun.
When it’s over, I’m sprawled in the moss, all seven of them curled around me, holding, touching, worshipping.
Bran strokes my hair. “You did good,” he says.
Sable kisses my shoulder, a rare softness in his lips. “Could do that every day.”
Onyx is a silent mountain at my side, his arms a cage I never want to escape.
Talon, Grim, and Rune form a living wall, never letting me out of their sight.
Shade lies above me, his chin propped on his palm, his gaze hot enough to burn a hole through me.
“The magic doesn’t change anything, Raisa.
Not who you are. Not where you belong. Not the way we feel about you.
It doesn’t matter where it came from. It’s yours now.
It’s part of you, nothing more, nothing less. ”
“Okay,” I whisper, his words making me feel bigger, brighter, more alive. The magic is still in me, but now it’s a hum, not a scream.
As the brothers drift, I consider the possibility that maybe it’s what I need to keep them safe. Maybe it’s what I need to set them free from whatever darkness my father bound them into, because I’m more sure than ever that whatever they are, he’s the cause of it.
Him, and all his secrets and lies, are the cause of everything. Every pain, every loss, every moment of grief are his cross to bear. I’m not sure how yet, but I feel the truth echoing in my bones, and I’m no longer sure if the brothers saved me from my cage…or if I’m meant to save them from theirs.