Chapter 17 #2
"This is it," Callen murmured against my ear, his voice rough with satisfaction and something deeper.
His thumb traced the golden sigil still glowing faintly on my thigh.
"Shared pleasure. Binding intention through surrender.
" His breath was warm against my temple.
"We're creating something eternal, Pippa. Together."
Those words. They sent a shiver through me that had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with the quiet certainty in his voice.
Before I could fully process what he meant, Jarek was rising, his movements fluid and predatory.
He lifted his head slowly, his chin glistening.
He kissed the inside of my trembling knee, the gesture startlingly tender after the intensity.
Then he grinned up at me, amber eyes blazing with heat and triumph.
He rose, his own arousal impossible to miss, thick and hard pushing against the front of his trousers.
"Now," he said, his voice rough and hoarse with hunger, "you ride me."
He caught my waist before I could truly register the shift, Callen releasing his grip on my wrist as Jarek swept me up easily. He carried me the few steps to the bed and laid me down, my body sinking into the soft quilt.
Boots off. Trousers. He worked the laces with impatient tugs. Callen moved beside the bed, his movements deliberate as he began to unbutton his own shirt, his gaze never leaving us.
Jarek climbed onto the bed, gloriously naked now, his lean, powerful body taut with anticipation. He settled back against the pillows, pulling me towards him until I straddled his hips. His cock stood thick and proud between us, the ruddy head already slick. He gripped my hips firmly.
"Your pace, Pips," he rasped, his eyes locked on mine, dark gold pools filled with a need barely held in check. "Take what you need."
I braced my hands on his chest, feeling the rapid beat of his heart beneath my palms. The contrast hit me—where Callen had been all controlled dominance, Jarek was wild heat barely leashed, his body trembling with the effort to let me lead.
Slowly, achingly slowly, I lowered myself onto him. Thick. Stretching me deliciously, making me gasp as I sank down inch by inch until I was fully seated, his hips snug against mine.
Full. So gloriously full.
I rocked my hips experimentally, a low moan escaping him, his fingers digging into the flesh of my hips. Finding rhythm, I began to move, rising and sinking, each slide drawing a friction that reignited the embers inside me.
Callen knelt behind me then, a warm, solid presence. His large hand slid across my sweat-slicked belly, fingers splaying over the soft skin below my navel.
Magic bloomed beneath his touch again, a steady warmth seeping into my core, amplifying the sensations of Jarek moving inside me. His other hand cupped my breast, his palm warm and slightly rough, his thumb finding my nipple and rolling it with perfect, maddening pressure.
I cried out, my rhythm faltering for a second before Jarek thrust up sharply, filling me completely again.
"That's it," Jarek groaned, his voice strained. "Feel him, Pippa. Take it all."
I leaned back slightly into Callen's strength, his bare chest hot against my back.
My head fell against his shoulder, my eyes fluttering shut as sensation overwhelmed me—Jarek's cock hitting deep inside, Callen's magic-laced touch on my belly and breast, the scrape of Callen's stubble against my temple.
My own magic stirred. Flaring uncontrollably. Gold sparks erupted across my skin, dancing like fireflies in the dim light. Tendrils of my red hair lifted, charged with static, crackling faintly. Untethered. A live current arcing through flesh and magic.
Callen watched the sparks cascade over my skin, his gaze intense. He murmured words in an ancient, resonant tongue that brushed against my senses like velvet.
With his free hand, he traced a glowing sigil in the air just above the skin of my lower belly, a complex knot of golden lines that pulsed in time with Jarek's thrusts.
Where the light touched me, warmth bloomed and spread, connecting to the heat Callen already held against me. Jarek gasped as the sigil settled, a visible shudder running through him, his grip on my hips tightening almost painfully.
Desperate now. Riding him harder, chasing the building pressure. The magic amplified everything—the slick glide of his cock, the rasp of his pelvic bone against my clit, the electric hum beneath my skin.
The coil wound tight again. Impossibly fast this time. A supernova waiting to erupt.
"Jarek!" I screamed, my body bowing backwards.
He thrust up one last time, deep and hard, shouting my name as my climax detonated. Gold light flared brightly around us, the sparks becoming blinding for an instant as pleasure tore through me, shaking me to the core.
Jarek held me hard against him as he roared his own release, hips jerking erratically as he spilled himself deep inside me. I collapsed against Jarek's chest, trembling violently, my eyes unfocused. Dimly aware of him panting beneath me, his arms holding me close.
Callen's hands disappeared for a moment, then he was gently pulling me up and off Jarek, rolling me onto my back with surprising care. The cool air kissed my flushed skin as he moved between my legs. One large hand pinned my wrists above my head again, easily, almost effortlessly.
His eyes, when they met mine, were molten steel, stripped of their usual analytical distance, burning with pure, primal hunger.
"My turn," he stated, his voice low and rough, leaving no room for argument.
If Jarek had been fire and passion, Callen was something else entirely—inexorable force, methodical in his claiming. Where Jarek had let me set the pace, Callen would dictate every breath, every heartbeat.
His free hand slid down my body, parting my thighs possessively.
He guided himself to my entrance, still slick and swollen from Jarek.
He pushed in slowly, deliberately, a thick, relentless stretch that made me gasp.
He filled me completely, differently than Jarek—broader, less yielding, demanding submission.
He held still for a heartbeat, buried deep, his gaze locked on mine. Then he began to move. Punishingly steady rhythm. Deep thrusts that dragged against sensitive inner walls. No wild bucking, just relentless, controlled power.
He held my hips down, keeping them still, letting me feel every inch, every ridge, every deliberate stroke. My breath came in sharp pants; tears pricked my eyes from the sheer intensity of the invasion, the loss of control, the utter taking.
Alpha. Gods, he is pure fucking Alpha right now.
Jarek shifted beside us, sitting up. I could see him in my periphery, stroking himself slowly, his amber eyes riveted on where Callen's cock pressed into me, on the way my body yielded beneath his force.
He leaned in close, his breath warm against my ear. "You take him so well, Pips," he murmured, his voice thick with arousal. "Look at you. So fucking perfect. So open for him."
A kiss to my jaw, my shoulder, then he captured my lips in a deep, claiming kiss, his tongue sliding against mine. Callen's thrusts never faltered, the relentless power driving my hips up the bed with each stroke.
Trapped between them—Callen's iron control claiming my body, Jarek's whispers and kisses claiming my focus. My world narrowed to the slide of Callen inside me, the scrape of Jarek's stubble on my skin, the building pressure that was somehow different this time, deeper, more inevitable.
Sparks of my pixie magic flickered weakly across my sweat-slicked skin again, muted, overwhelmed by the sheer physical force.
Callen's movements grew sharper, more forceful, his breathing harsh. He shifted his grip, leaning forward, pressing my wrists harder into the mattress, bringing his body closer over mine.
The shift drove him impossibly deeper.
He muttered against my throat, the words fragmented and guttural, in that same resonant tongue he'd used before. The sound vibrated through my skin, into the bone.
The faint golden sigils he'd traced earlier on my belly, my thigh, flared back into vibrant life. Not just gold now—threaded through with shimmering silver, like Callen's own power mingling with mine.
The air crackled. Ozone and heat. The sigils burned, not with pain, but with an intense, molten pleasure that radiated outwards, pooling low in my belly, tightening my core.
It connected directly to Callen's thrusts, amplifying every drag, every deep plunge, linking the sensation to the glow spreading across my skin. The magic wasn't just around us; it was in us, flowing between us. His chant became a command, a demand for surrender, for completion.
The coil snapped.
Not a wave—an eruption, violent and all-consuming, tearing a raw scream from my lungs. Different this time—sharper, brighter, laced with the magic flaring from my skin and the sigils burning into my flesh.
Callen cried out, a harsh, masculine sound, his body slamming into mine one final time, then shuddering violently as he spilled himself deep inside me, his hips grinding hard against mine.
Jarek groaned, his hand moving frantically on his own cock, and a heartbeat later he added his release, hot stripes painting my stomach alongside Callen's relentless possession.
The moment they both pulsed within and against me—Callen emptying himself inside, Jarek's spend hitting my skin—a final, blinding pulse of gold and silver light erupted from my chest. Not painful; like release, like a held breath finally exhaled, warm and radiant.
It washed over the room, illuminating the tangled sheets, the sweat-slicked bodies, before fading like embers.
Outside the window, far in the distance, the great Solstice Hearth flared brightly for a single, brilliant instant, a silent, luminous echo.
We collapsed. A tangled heap of limbs and sweat and spent energy. Callen rolled partially off me, his arm heavy across my waist. Jarek slumped beside me, his forehead resting against my shoulder.
Long moments. Only harsh breathing and the frantic thumping of three hearts slowing down. The fading glow of the sigils on my skin pulsed weakly, mirroring the aftershocks trembling through my muscles.
I stared up at the familiar cracks in my dormitory ceiling, blinking slowly, my mind utterly blank except for the dazed realization: Still alive. Somehow.
I flexed my fingers, testing the return of sensation beyond pure, boneless exhaustion.
"Okay," I managed, my voice raspy, wrecked. "What the hell did you just do to us?" Vague gesture towards myself, towards the faint, fading light still shimmering on my skin and over my belly.
Callen shifted, propping himself up on an elbow beside me.
Different now. Stripped bare. His usually immaculate dark hair was a riot, sticking up in sweaty tufts.
His steel-gray eyes held none of their usual guarded distance; they were warm, satisfied, and openly gazing at me.
Even his breathing hadn't fully steadied.
He traced a fingertip lightly over one of the dimming golden lines encircling my navel.
"The ritual I came here to find," he answered, his voice low and rough but utterly sincere. "The one buried in the oldest Solstice texts? The convergence ritual? It wasn't a spell. Not really."
His finger followed the curve, a touch that sent tiny echoes of pleasure through my utterly sensitized nerves.
"It was… this. Pleasure." He glanced from me to Jarek. "Shared intention. Mutual surrender."
His fingertip paused, pressing lightly where the golden and silver threads intertwined. "A ritual of resonance. Binding wishes… into something more than words. Something… eternal."
I blinked. Processing.
Then a burst of laughter, rusty and disbelieving, escaped me.
"Gods." I turned my head to meet Jarek's equally dazed, amused gaze. "That is so not what I expected when you said you were researching forgotten rites last Tuesday, Scholar Blackwood. I pictured dusty scrolls and maybe some chanting. Not…"
Weak gesture between our naked, sweat-streaked bodies, "…this level of field research."
I stretched slightly, muscles protesting deliciously. A groan escaped me.
"But honestly?" I looked back at Callen, a grin spreading across my face despite the sheer, overwhelming exhaustion. "As far as holiday magic goes? I think I nailed it. Consider the Solstice officially… serviced."
Jarek barked a laugh, rich and full. He rolled onto his side, throwing a long, tanned arm possessively over both Callen and me, pulling us closer into a sweaty, sticky, utterly perfect knot.
"No arguments here, Pips. Definitely a Solstice to remember." Pure, unadulterated fox in that smile.
Callen looked down at me, his expression softening into something dangerously close to affection. "Agreed," he murmured simply.
And lying there, wrapped between them both, I couldn't help but think this had to be the most magical holiday ever. In so many ways that had nothing to do with ancient rituals or binding threads—and everything to do with the two men holding me close.
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Bonus Scene
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What’s next?
Continue Tess’ adventures in Tempest Hunting!
I thought passing the Final Trial would mean safety. I was wrong.
The Guild might’ve welcomed me as the first human Dragon Rider—but beneath the surface, cracks are spreading. Sabotage, secrecy, and betrayal are unraveling the fragile alliances meant to protect us.
The Harbingers are no longer lurking in the shadows. Their attacks strike closer to home with every heartbeat, and the magical systems we once relied on—the dragons, the Riders, even the Library itself—are beginning to falter.
As chaos rises, so do the questions. About the Heart of Creation. About my bond with Thalon. About why I was chosen at all.
And through it all, my relationships with the ones I love are strained to the breaking point. Grief cuts deep. Desire burns hotter than ever. And the weight of what we might lose threatens to crush us before the real war even begins.
But I won’t let the darkness win. Not without a fight.
Because if the bonds we’ve built can survive this storm—then maybe, just maybe, we can change the fate we were never meant to escape.
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