Consort of Pain Read online

  Oh, I did. And I knew she was more drained of magic than anything else after everything she’d done to protect us and get us out of that prison. Helping her replenish that energy came with the extra bonus of getting to enjoy her in one of my favorite ways.

  I traced my fingers across her cheek and into her hair, tugging her into a kiss. She kissed me back hungrily but not forcefully. Her hands balled against my chest. I had the sudden feeling that she was holding herself back, holding her needs in check—worried about me. My heart swelled with a wave of love.

  I eased back half an inch, just enough to speak while our breaths mingled. “Hey. You take everything you need. I want this. I always want this.”

  “Seth…” She drew in her breath as if to say something more, and then the van rocked with a dip in the road. It tipped her toward me, and I let our mouths collide again.

  Rose relaxed against me with a pleased sound in her throat. She kissed me back harder, her hands slipping up to run over my short-cropped hair and then down the front of my chest all the way to the fly of my jeans. My cock sprang to attention.

  But we didn’t need to take this interlude quite that fast. If she needed the energy our coming together could give her, then I wanted to stretch that coming together out for as long as I could, and to bring her every imaginable pleasure along the way.

  I teased my fingers down the side of her neck as we kissed again. They stroked over the curve of her breast, bringing her nipple to a point through her bra. Rose hummed encouragingly and pressed closer. Her hand slid up under my shirt, drawing sparks over my skin.

  I’d almost forgotten Jin was in the back of the van with us until I heard his intake of breath. He knelt by Rose’s back. “Speaking of hungry,” he murmured, sounding amused.

  Rose kissed me once more and turned her head toward him. As he leaned in to press his lips to hers, I eased down her body, tugging her shirt up and her bra aside. Jin’s hand teased over her stomach, and my mouth closed over the tip of her breast. Rose whimpered and arched into me. She yanked more insistently on my jeans.

  Oh, fuck. How could I deny her? My woman. My consort. My Rose.

  I fumbled with the button, and she was tugging my jeans down the second I released it. Jin eased his hands down her body to peel off her own jeans. Rose’s fingers closed around my cock, and somehow it got even harder than it had already been.

  “Rose,” I said hoarsely, and maybe it wasn’t just her who needed this. I hadn’t been with her, been inside her, in days. Suddenly it felt like years.

  My lips crashed into hers. She moaned into my mouth as Jin stroked her breasts, and her grip on my erection tightened. I groaned in return.

  She wrenched my boxers down after my jeans. The naked head of my cock rubbed against the dampness on her panties. The floor of the van quivered beneath us, but in that moment it only added to the sense of urgency.

  My mouth slipped down to taste the skin of her neck as my hand dipped beneath that last scrap of fabric. “Yes,” she said breathlessly. The heel of my hand pressed against her clit. I dipped a finger right up inside the hot center of her, and she gasped.

  Jin claimed her mouth again, still fondling her breasts. Rose reached behind her to tug at his pants too. He paused for a second, catching her eyes, and when she smiled, he unzipped them. As I added a second finger to pulse inside her, her other hand closed around Jin’s freed cock. She pumped both of us at an accelerating rhythm. Then she hooked her leg over my thigh.

  “I need more of you inside me, Seth,” she said around a whimper. “I need to feel all of you.”

  I kissed her hard and pulled her panties aside at the same time. She guided my cock straight to her slick center. I let out another groan as her tight heat closed around me. It was bliss, just like always.

  I set a steady rhythm of my own, plunging in and out of her in time with her panting breaths. Her fingernails dug into my shoulders. I kept my hand on her hips, helping keep us in sync as she bucked into me. Then my thumb slid lower, working over the little nub right above the place where our bodies joined.

  Rose quivered, rocking faster. She caught my mouth with hers, and right then I could feel it: the crackle of energy we were generating together, her and me and Jin. It seared between us and sank into her skin.

  Jin’s breath stuttered. He pressed his mouth to Rose’s shoulder as his hips jerked. I kept my own release under tight control. I could give Rose even more. Take her over the edge and then right back over it again, if I kept my self-control.

  “Oh!” she cried out as I thrust into her deeper. My thumb swiveled over her clit, and she clenched around me, so tight my balls squeezed and I almost lost it.

  Almost. I caught myself just in time, clenching my muscles against that release. Oh, God, it was hard not to let go while she shuddered against me. The heat I’d felt between us before flared even hotter.

  Her rocking slowed. She looked at me through her eyelashes as I continued to thrust gently into her. The flush of her cheeks against her pale skin was so beautiful it sent an ache through my gut. “You didn’t finish,” she said softly. “More?”

  “I want to give you everything I can,” I said. “I want to take you even higher.”

  She let out a breath shaky with pleasure. “Mmm, yes.” Then she lifted her head.

  Jin had scooted back from us, cleaning up with a grin, and Damon had returned from his chat with the guys up front. He took in the scene we’d made, his eyes darkening with lust, but he stayed where he was. Until Rose raised her hand to him.

  “Are you sure?” he said, his voice rough.

  Her smile grew. “I get just as much from giving as from receiving.”

  He let out a chuckle. “Well, in that case, who the hell am I to argue?”

  It was almost painful, sliding all the way out of Rose as she rolled over. But a second later she was urging me back into her from behind. I pushed into her sex with a groan, caressing her side, her breasts, her ass as I set a new rhythm. My fingers settled back over her clit.

  Rose sighed in pleasure. Then she motioned Damon even closer, undoing his jeans. A wordless mutter escaped him as she slicked her tongue over his cock. “Oh, angel, there’s no better heaven than this. I swear it.”

  I never would have thought, a couple months ago, that I’d have wanted to see a woman I loved getting it on with another guy—even if I was getting it on with her at the same time. But now, knowing the bond we all shared, knowing how much we all meant to her, it turned me on even more to feel all the pleasure humming through the room.

  Pleasure and the sizzling energy that must be feeding her spark. As I thrust harder, fingering her at the same time, that energy seeped deeper into my own skin. Or maybe it was seeping out of me?

  A clamping sensation formed around my ribs. Not exactly pleasant, but I could take it. I’d promised I’d give her everything. She’d already given everything for me and the other guys back at the prison.

  I was the strongest one here. Better me than anyone else.

  Rose’s body started to quiver around me again. I flicked my fingers against her clit, soft and then hard and then soft again. She moaned around Damon’s cock. His breaths were coming as harsh as mine now.

  I kissed the back of Rose’s shoulder, driving myself as deep inside her as I could, seeking that sensitive spot I knew could set her off. Bliss radiated through my body, melting the edge off the clamping sensation in my chest. Damon groaned and clutched Rose’s hair, and Rose gave a shaky cry. As her sex contracted around me a second time I couldn’t hold back any longer.

  I spilled myself inside her with a rush of pleasure and relief. The pressure around my ribs eased off.

  Rose tugged Damon all the way down onto the floor and pulled us both up against her, snuggling between us. I hugged her waist, content just for a moment to lie there in the hazy afterglow. Trying not to think about what she might need all this magic for that still lay ahead of us, and how much she might have to expend all over again to
protect us if her Assembly caught us now.

  A minute later, the van jerked to a stop. “All right, love birds,” Kyler called cheerfully from up front. “Make yourselves presentable. It’s time to ditch this van.”

  Chapter Six

  Rose

  I woke up at a bump of the tires. Thin dawn light and a stretch of pine trees welcomed me from outside the window of the seven-seater SUV we’d commandeered last night. I lifted my head from the cheap jacket I’d bought during the same quick stop, which I’d been using for a pillow. My neck throbbed from the awkward position it’d been bent in. With a flick of my fingers, I sent a soothingly cool waft of magic through the muscles there.

  Over the tops of the seats ahead of me, Seth’s tawny hair showed where he sat at the wheel. Jin had taken over navigating beside him while Kyler slept in the middle seat next to Damon. Gabriel had his head leaned against the window across from me in the back seat, but he straightened up when he noticed I was awake.

  “Where are we?” I asked. I’d drifted off not that long after we’d found the car and a hasty meal at a fast food drive through, with instructions that the guys had to wake me up right away if they saw any trouble. They hadn’t woken me, which had better mean trouble had stayed away so far.

  “Somewhere around the middle of Montana,” Gabriel said. “Ky figured that was the most isolated route.”

  “And I was right,” Ky piped up from the seat in front of us, where I guessed he wasn’t sleeping anymore. “We haven’t seen anything but trees in at least an hour.” He paused. “Where do you think we go from here, Rose?”

  I didn’t know. That fact made my stomach ball into one giant knot. All I’d been able to think about before was getting us away from that corrupt faction of the Assembly and the enforcers they’d commandeered to their cause. But I’d gotten the guys into this mess, so now I had to find a way through it.

  “We can’t go back to the Hallowell estate,” I said. “Obviously. But I guess… Back before this all blew up, I thought maybe we could run away somewhere. Find a place where nobody would know who I was and just live our lives there. We could still do that. We’d have to be more careful, since obviously the Assembly would be keeping an eye out for us now… But there aren’t that many witches in the world they could have on the look-out for us. It wouldn’t be that hard to keep a low profile. If we’re not hurting anyone, eventually they’ll have bigger problems to focus on.”

  “Finding a place to just live our lives doesn’t sound so bad,” Gabriel said, setting his hand on my knee with a reassuring squeeze.

  Maybe not to him. He’d spent the last few years rambling all over this continent and South America too. He’d lost his dad to a suicide that was partly my dad’s fault, and he’d told me his mom and her new family had turned him away. I wasn’t sure he had anyone, really, except for us.

  But the other guys did.

  “It’s not really fair to all of you, though,” I said. “None of you would be able to reach out to your parents or your friends or anyone you know back home, because you can be sure the Assembly would be keeping an eye on them now that they know who you are. Even sending any more messages from a new phone would be risky. You shouldn’t have to give up every bit of contact with those people.”

  Damon shifted in his seat. “What’s the alternative?” he said. “Let the bastards hunt us down? I’m sure we can find ways to at least let the people we care about know we’re okay. To get a little money to my mom here and there. Your magic was strong enough to beat these assholes before.”

  Maybe I could find a way to let them keep some contact with home without putting us in danger. It was hard to think that far ahead. I rubbed my forehead.

  “For now, let’s just find a good spot to hide out, and then we can make longer term plans from there,” Jin said, turning to look back at us. He smiled at me. “One thing at a time.”

  “Yeah,” I said, but the knot in my stomach didn’t relax.

  What could I have done differently in those months since I’d arrived back home and fallen back in love with the guys who’d always been there for me? I couldn’t really say. Pretty much any other option I could think of would have ended up with me enslaved, in agony if I didn’t perform magic to Dad or his chosen consort’s orders, or one or more of us dead. My stepmother was dead, I had to assume because Dad and his associates hadn’t wanted to risk her revealing her part in the plan.

  That meant there had to be a significant portion of the witching community who wasn’t part of that conspiracy, didn’t it? If they felt they needed to resort to murder to cover their tracks… they must be covering them from a lot of people.

  I just didn’t know who I could trust. I’d used to think I could trust my father. I’d used to think I could trust the entire Assembly. So much for that.

  What did I know about the faction that had supported Dad’s plan? It definitely included Charles Frankford, who was high up in the Assembly—head of the Education division. He was the one who’d been casually chatting with Dad about strategies for controlling my magic. There’d been those dozen or so people in the prison building, but I couldn’t be sure even all of them were in on the plot. I didn’t think more than five or six had been involved in the interrogations at any given time.

  “When the investigators came to talk to you in your cells,” I said, “was it always the same people? Or did different ones come each time? What did they look like?”

  “It was always the same woman with me,” Gabriel said. “And one time a guy came to talk to her, but he never was part of the questioning. The woman was really small—short and thin—and maybe in her thirties? With a ponytail—blond. I think she was in the group that ‘arrested’ us.”

  “I only saw one woman, but not that one,” Damon said. “The one who was badgering me had dark brown hair, shoulder-length I guess, and she was pretty tall. She was in that first bunch too.”

  Jin nodded. “I saw one woman and one guy. The same woman as Damon, it sounds like.”

  “And I saw the one with the ponytail Gabriel mentioned,” Kyler said.

  Seth pitched his voice back toward us, his gaze still on the road. “I saw the one with the blond ponytail a couple times, and another one with long black hair once.”

  And then there was the mousy-haired woman and her partner who’d stood by for my interrogation. So definitely at least five witches and a few male interrogators as well. I bit my lip. “And what did they ask you about? Did they say anything about what they wanted, what they were trying to do, that sounded useful?”

  “Mostly they just asked about whether I was your consort and which of the other guys was too,” Damon muttered. “I told them they were way too obsessed with other people’s sex lives.”

  I bit back a laugh. “Yeah.”

  “I got the same line of questioning,” Kyler said. “They didn’t really talk about anything else. I don’t think they figured we could tell them anything else useful.”

  The other guys were nodding. “It’s because of the bond, right?” Gabriel said, watching me. “They didn’t want to keep us around, but they were worried about how it’d affect you if they got rid of us.”

  Ah. I shouldn’t be surprised that he’d figured that out. Maybe the other guys had too.

  “Something like that,” I said. “I mean, as well as I can guess. They didn’t tell me what they wanted either. Other than I have to assume they wanted me alive at least for now.” Or we’d all already be dead. “I have no idea what for.”

  “After what they’ve already tried to do to you, I think we can assume it’s nothing good,” Jin said.

  “There was something else one of them mentioned to me.” Gabriel frowned, his eyes going distant. “Something about a cliff? The way he said it, it sounded significant. Like that’s the name of some special place: The Cliff.”

  “The Cliff,” I repeated. “That doesn’t ring any bells. But there’s clearly a lot I didn’t know about certain parts of witching society
.”

  “That phone I lifted from the woman in the prison died,” Kyler said, holding it up. “I didn’t even think about buying a charger that’d work with it during our rush at that last stop. But as soon as we go through someplace I could buy one, I’ll do some more digging on it and see what I can find. I might even be able to find a backdoor into their network.”

  Damon snorted. “If we ever see anything other than trees again.”

  “We could pass through a decent-sized town in about an hour,” Jin said, consulting the paper map we’d bought. “If you think—”

  His voice cut off with a hitch of breath. Beside me, Gabriel flinched. A wave of magic hummed through the air around us, thin but obviously potent enough to do some damage.

  The enforcers. They’d latched onto us somehow, determined our location—or maybe it’d been a general sweep.

  My arms had already started moving before I needed to think. I worked my hands through the protective motions I could now draw with full strength, unchained. A deflective hum of my own magical energy coursed through the bonds between me and my consorts and wrapped around Gabriel. The painful probing spell dissipated.

  The rumble of the engine had softened. Seth pulled over to the side of the road. “I’m not sure it’s safe to drive if they’re going to hit us like that.”

  “I think it’s over now,” I said. “I pushed them back. They—”

  It came again, a wave twice as forceful as before. Hard enough that my own ears rang with the impact. My hands whipped out, but Gabriel had already grunted in pain. Jin had stiffened in his seat. Fuck. No. I wasn’t going to let them hurt my guys any more than they already had.

  I wove the protective spell thicker, stronger, and cast it out. Jin’s shoulders sagged. Someone in the middle seat exhaled in relief. Gabriel swiped his hand past his temple as if he’d been left with a residual headache, but when I gave him a questioning look he just shook his head.

  I kept moving my arms and weaving with my fingers, spinning a few more layers of the spell so it could settle in place over them. My skin prickled with the sense that another rush of magic had flung itself against my shield, but the guys didn’t show any reaction other than a twitch of Gabriel’s jaw, which might have been just about anything.