Quickening, Volume 2 Read online

  But he knew the time was nearing when they would have to take definitive action. They could not continue to live under siege when they were so close to having the means to defeat this enemy—one way or another.

  Nicky touched down on one of the oak trees and changed form, sitting on the branch with his bare feet dangling beneath him. “Have you noticed,” he asked musingly, “that they don’t visit when the vampires are here?”

  Green looked up and smiled at him, at his playfulness and helpfulness and his desire to be whatever they needed of him.

  “I have,” he said. “I think they’re afraid.”

  “Well, they should be. As far as they know, all of our vampires belch power and cook RVs.” Nicky executed a cherry drop, landing at Green’s feet, and Green was so charmed he wrapped his arms around Nicky’s shoulders and placed a series of tickle kisses on his neck. Nicky laughed and turned into his embrace, standing on his toes so they could kiss in earnest, and Green closed his eyes to savor. Oh yes—Nicky was a blessing. He loved them all, and all he wanted from any of them was to be loved in return. He didn’t have the depth or complexity of Cory or Bracken—but Green had the feeling he’d made his peace with that. He was content to be simple, to give them affection, to take it as it was offered, and to savor joy from every small moment.

  Green would celebrate a lover like that to the moon and back. Nicky Kestrel was not the love of a life that spanned two millennia, but he was absolutely a lover for now. And now Green needed what Cory had needed—to just for a moment forget the depth of his fear for the people he loved.

  Nicky opened his mouth under Green’s kiss, and Green fell into it happily. Who could have known two years ago that the timid, slightly phobic young man who had been tragically forced into Green’s bed would turn into this sensual, happy lover. Green pushed the kiss, backing Nicky into the tree behind him, then ran his hands from Nicky’s neck down the outside of his arms and circled his slim hips with long-fingered hands.

  Nicky bucked against him, aroused almost instantly, and Green chuckled against his neck.

  “Goddess, that’s good. What was that for?” Nicky gasped.

  “Suddenly very much in love with you, lad. Is that a problem?”

  Nicky smiled sunnily. “I am so horny. Can we do something about that? You and me? Hell, throw in Bracken and Cory, and my day is complete. Can we? Huh?”

  Green nodded and continued to nibble on that flushed, pale neck.

  The sense of air being disturbed around them called him away from Nicky’s frustrated moans, and he grinned at Cory, Bracken, Arturo, and Lambent as they all touched down around him. Shepherd and Jefischa hovered above them, great wings providing a constant breeze on this crisp autumn day.

  “We’re doing this now?” Arturo asked, sounding disgusted. “Because mine doesn’t wake up for another two hours, and that’s no fair.”

  Green pulled away from the taste of Nicky’s skin and grinned suggestively at Cory and Brack, who were standing hand in hand.

  “But that’s the point, isn’t it?” he asked, because this thought felt profound. “The vampires aren’t up. Why is that? Why stage an attack in broad daylight? Why would she do that?”

  “’Cause elves don’t like vampires, and we kicked her ass at night?” Cory said, sounding bemused.

  “Oh no they don’t, and oh yes we did!” Green said, nodding. Cory’s realization—her acceptance about her pregnancy and her limitations—as painful as it had been for her, had suddenly freed Green in ways he hadn’t known he’d been bound. “And why have an attack right now, in the middle of the afternoon?”

  They all stilled, the great gusts caused by the angels’ wings making the late October day suddenly that much chillier.

  “There are cars off the road for miles,” Cory said soberly. “I saw them. This wasn’t planned—it was like they all suddenly got called. And the werewolves we just pitched in the lake now were the stragglers. We got the first wave when the alarm sounded, but these guys came from farther away. Like suddenly an emergency, right?”

  Everybody at the top of the Goddess grove nodded, and Teague, who had just come trotting up after roaming the perimeter, changed forms so he could speak.

  “She lost Iris,” Teague said succinctly. “She felt it. Wanted to attack immediately, see if she could stop it, or distract us, or—”

  “It’s a thrown shoe!” Cory said excitedly, breaking away from Bracken to bounce in the center of their attention.

  “A what?” Green looked at her with some relief. She’d been fierce in battle, as she always was, but she’d also been through a bit of a trial today. Watching her, excited as she became when putting together a puzzle, soothed something in him. She would be fine, he thought. She would breathe fire and brandish wisdom the way they depended on her to do.

  “It’s a family legend, right? My dad was supposed to work late, and my mom was home alone. But my dad got off early, and my mom had gone to sleep all freaked out because she didn’t like being alone in the country. When Dad showed up, she didn’t recognize him at first, so she sat up in bed and started screaming—and he threw a shoe at her head.”

  “He did what?” Bracken asked. They all stared at her, fascinated. This could be the one story from home she’d ever told that didn’t appall them.

  “She scared him,” Cory said, nodding. “Don’t you see? He said she sat up and started screaming, and it scared the crap out of him. It was all he had, so he threw it to shut her up!”

  “But a shoe isn’t going to do anything!” Bracken argued. Green didn’t argue. He saw where she was going with this.

  “That’s the point!” Cory swept around in the circle, arms wide. “Don’t you get it? Even Mom said it. She thought there was a stranger in her house, and she was going to get raped and murdered and left for dead, but she saw the shoe and thought, ‘If this is all he’s got, I can take him!’”

  Bracken did a double take, and so did Green. He felt Nicky jerk under his arm, and he wondered if it was the same for all of them. It was the first time in three years he could actually see a resemblance between their beloved and the woman who’d given her birth.

  Green started nodding and stepped away from the tree, Nicky in tow.

  “Your father was startled and frightened,” Green said, grinning. His blood was up, thrumming through his body—and he felt like celebrating with his wife and husbands, because this here, this was huge.

  “And he threw the only weapon he had,” Cory said, grinning. Green caught her hand and whirled her against his body, holding Nicky on one side undulating against his hip and kissing Cory on the other side sweetly, yearningly.

  “She’s afraid of us,” Green said, feeling hopeful for the first time in months.

  “She just threw a shoe,” Cory agreed, smiling sunnily at him. Bracken stood behind her, arm wrapped around her waist and chin rubbing softly on her hair. The moment caught, lengthened, stretched warmly over their bodies and spun into sex, and a breathless silence filled the grove.

  Cory licked her lower lip and gazed at him from under her lashes, an unexpectedly coy move from a woman who would swear she didn’t know coyness or seduction in any form.

  Green lowered his head and nuzzled her, waiting for her caught breath, her tiny sound of acquiescence.

  He heard it, and the want that had begun with him and Nicky suddenly rolled out from their four touching bodies in thick waves.

  “And now we’re all gonna fuck?” Lambent grumbled. “Where’s the fun in that?”

  “They’re going to fuck,” Arturo said dryly. “The rest of us are going to fuck off.”

  Green heard him in the back of his mind, Arturo’s voice growing more and more distant as he led everybody down the staircase. A burst of wind blew by them, but just as he looked up to ask Shep and Jefi for some privacy, perhaps, the fallen angels touched down on their platform in the top of the tallest oak. The gnomes were busy building a house underneath it, but for now the platform had a bed a
nd covers and the sunshine, and the two seemed particularly happy.

  And Green could forget about them.

  Cory tilted her head back, and he took advantage by nibbling his way down her throat to the neck of her hooded sweatshirt.

  “We could always go inside,” she suggested. Another gust, chill like the encroaching evening, blew around their ankles, and for a moment, a shining moment, all Green could see was her, with Bracken behind her and Nicky’s hand stroking through her hair.

  Adrenaline, yes, because the fight had been fierce, but also the sense of a burden being lifted. She wasn’t in denial, wasn’t in pain. They’d made love the night before just from sheer relief, but this was different.

  The wind, the light, the warmth of her skin beneath his lips—this was joy.

  “Snow is coming soon,” Green breathed in her ear. “But now there is sun and glorious wind and sweetness.”

  He slid his hands up under her sweatshirt, and her heat burned through his palms. She gasped and leaned back against Bracken, who held her with ease.

  Oh, yes—her nipples springing against the cupped center of his palms, the sensuous weight of her filling breasts. She was strong and fertile and fierce—a warrior goddess—and it was their duty to pleasure her.

  He fell to his knees, tall enough against her to bury his face in her belly, kissing the softness, the roundness, the curves. Bracken stripped off her sweatshirt and bra, then draped his body against her back, keeping her warm.

  “Skin,” she demanded. “I can’t be the only one naked.”

  Well, it was only fair—she was the only one without the heightened metabolism or the resistance to the elements. There was a scramble as Bracken stripped off his own sweats and Nicky danced out of his sweater and jeans. Green was only wearing jeans, and his cock strained against the fly torturously.

  He let it.

  He was busy kissing along the skin of her lower stomach, peeling her jeans and cotton panties down her thighs, and smoothing his thumbs along the inside of her knees.

  She gasped when Bracken lifted her gently so Green could strip her out of her pants and shoes. Then he spread her thighs and teased his tongue along her tenderest button of flesh.

  She cried out unashamedly and spread her knees wider, cautioning, “My knees are gonna go!” before Bracken squatted down and hefted a thigh in each hand.

  Ah, a banquet for Green if ever there was one. Her body had changed, her sex growing darker and bolder with her pregnancy, her tang sharper on his tongue.

  He savored each taste, each unabashed wiggle as he plunged into her, gorging himself on her, the day, the freedom, and the joy.

  She cried out, a short, hard sob, and he felt the first contraction start deep in her womb. It wasn’t a full orgasm, no—but it would make her tender inside, accepting, able to take pleasure from him with one thrust.

  He looked up, saw Nicky’s head bent over her chest as he suckled on her breasts. Nicky must have been exquisitely gentle, because her hands were convulsing in his hair, clenching, unclenching, but there was no pain in her movements at all.

  Green pulled away. Bracken let her feet touch down, then held her, whimpering with need, while Green shucked off his own jeans and let his member free.

  Cory turned to kiss Bracken, and he returned the kiss with interest, his big hands roaming her tiny body, warming, marking, arousing. Then he turned her and gave her a little push, one Green recognized from previous lovemaking.

  Bracken was giving her permission to put Green first, letting her know he wouldn’t be hurt, because she was always so exquisitely careful not to hurt her big gruff lover even when she wanted Green and no one else.

  Green was grateful—but not grateful enough to give her up. He swept her into his arms, hefting her thighs around his waist and seeking out her heat even as he backed up, searching instinctively for the cushioned bench that was the grove’s sole decoration.

  “Nicky,” he sighed as she sank down upon him, “bring Bracken to the bench, and then—”

  Nicky had forgotten.

  The rule was that Bracken could touch Green and Nicky as much as he liked as long as Cory was touching him—but Nicky, in his arousal and carelessness, and his desire for Bracken, had simply sunk to his knees and taken Brack in his mouth.

  And all that happened was that Bracken tilted his head back and groaned, holding Nicky’s head tenderly and using him with gratitude and gentle lust.

  Meanwhile Cory used her stomach and thigh muscles to lift herself and fall back down, and again, and again. Green wanted her so badly that watching Nicky and Bracken, no matter how beautiful, could no longer be on his agenda.

  He found the bench with his thighs and sat down on it, Cory still riding him with her head thrown back, hair an autumn array around her head. Her fingers were clenched on his shoulders hard enough to leave marks on his pale skin, but still he wanted her harder, faster. “Oh Goddess, beloved,” he gasped. “Use me more!”

  “So good,” she gritted. “Oh damn, Green, so close. So… ah!” She moved a hand from his shoulder to the apex of her thighs, reaching for her nerve bundle and touching herself more roughly than Green dared, needing the force of fingers.

  Her back arched and her muscles clamped down on him hard, her channel spasming around him, milking him until….

  “Ahh!” The groan was long and drawn out like his orgasm, thrusting up into her heart and losing himself there—awash in pleasure, body tingling, mind set free and as joyful as the day.

  He barely caught her magic as it poured from her open mouth and up into the trees.

  He was used to this by now—forming a shield over her, a dome of power over every place he held power, as the magic escaped her body and remade the earth he’d enchanted with his bare hands.

  Her climax went on and on and on, washing through the grove and through Nicky and Bracken, both caught in the middle of their own climaxes. Nicky was still crouching on his knees before Bracken, who stood godlike, accepting his attentions, and apparently Nicky’s excitement at having Bracken in his mouth was enough to bring him off—with Cory’s help, of course.

  Green let the last shivers tremble through him, the last trickle of light easing through her lips and eyes like smoke, before he took stock.

  Above them he heard what sounded like very postcoital noises coming from the angels. Then Jefischa said, “Shepherd, look—do you see that?”

  “Huh?” Shepherd mumbled, and Green smiled. Oh, Shepherd. So vigilant, unless distracted by the vibrant young angel—who would have followed him to hell, but was just as glad they’d ended up in Green’s garden.

  “The shield, down where it touches the earth, she added something. Do you see it?”

  Jefischa sounded eager, and Green was curious himself.

  He gazed into Cory’s hooded eyes.

  “Feeling good about yourself?” he asked. She smiled, catlike, and nodded.

  “Can we ask what you did?” he prodded.

  “Her blood,” Cory mumbled. “We know how it smells. I made the defenses do something special when it smells her blood.”

  He was going to ask her what the difference was when he was interrupted by a groan and a sound of mild exertion. Bracken bent and scooped Nicky up in his arms, much as Green had with Cory, and wandered over to sprawl on the bench next to them. Green and Cory watched them, because watching Bracken naked, being tender, being sexual, was a treat even if they hadn’t been the ones servicing or being serviced by him this time.

  When he was situated, Nicky lying on him unashamedly, he reached a big hand out to Cory’s naked thigh. She covered it with her own, smiling sweetly.

  Green palmed her head so she was resting it against his chest, not because she was helpless and needed protection, but because it pleased him to have her there, and she was kind about indulging him.

  “So what did you do?” Bracken asked, eyes twinkling.

  “It puts them to sleep,” she said, her shoulders coming up to her ears in
delight with her own cleverness. “Anything that’s attacking with her blood in it falls asleep. And then we can set down a steak and….”

  “Oh, yes,” Nicky said. He went to sit up, but Bracken’s big-palmed hand stopped him. “But… wait… won’t we have to do the whole… screaming thing after the addiction is stopped?”

  “No,” Green said decisively. “What Iris did today, with the words, that was because she was a leader. Our elf queen has been pretty casual about throwing bodies into the fight, and you don’t do that kind of binding with someone you expect to lose.” He shook his head. “No,” he repeated. “What happened to Iris happened because she was valued—as she should have been. From what you’ve said, poor Judge Griffith was kind but probably not as strong in spirit, so she killed him and let him out of her service. But Iris—you don’t just let an Iris Masterson go without a fight.”

  “It would be like letting Lambent or Max go,” Bracken said unexpectedly. “Or Mario or LaMark. Iris probably wasn’t her lieutenant or her second, but she was a valued member of the team. That was a real loss—our elf queen pulled out all the stops.”

  “Except if it was a choice between letting them go or killing them,” Cory said darkly, “we’d let them go.”

  “An important distinction,” Green acknowledged, clutching her tighter. “And one to remember.” She purred and cuddled closer, and he felt the urge to sleep descend on them all. “Later. For now I think a nap is in order, then a strategy meeting tonight. All aboard, run naked to the bedroom.”

  “I like those sweats!” Cory protested needlessly.

  “Then we’ll make sure they’re cleaned and ready when you wake up,” Green assured. Of course he would—the sprites would see to it whether he asked or not, but he always asked.

  “Thank you.” Her head was heavy on his chest, and her eyes closed as she fell asleep on him.

  Bracken straightened up abruptly and dumped Nicky on his ass.

  Nicky grinned up from the ground, naked and happy. “I don’t get carried down to the bedroom?”

  “Are you pregnant?” Bracken asked, eyebrow arched.