The Witch's Consorts: The Complete Series, page 59
“And you have five hot and charming, if I do say so myself, guys who’ll happily share that bed with you.”
She laughed and rolled onto her side to sling her arm around my waist. “It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it, how much good there can be even when everything seems totally wrong?”
“You’re pretty amazing,” I told her. But the joy I’d been looking for had come back into her eyes. Her shoulders were no longer tight. The ache I’d felt before dissolved into a wash of warmth.
I’d worried in the past that I wasn’t taking things seriously enough, that I was focusing too much on how to make Rose happy and not enough on what would keep her safe. But there was room for both, wasn’t there? And this was the part I was good at. This was the part I loved. Bringing a smile to her face, knowing I’d lit a little awe and pleasure inside her.
Of course, there were ways I could add to that pleasure.
This time I didn’t hold myself back. I rolled to meet her, capturing her lips with mine. Rose sighed happily into the kiss, her fingers teasing up the back of my neck with a heady tingle through my skin. Her mouth tasted like the fresh pears we’d been eating at lunch time.
I kissed her again and then trailed my lips down her jaw to her neck, reveling in the hitch of her breath, the scoot of her body to press even closer to mine.
“What do you say we take this spot out for a little trial run?” I said.
Her giggle, light as anything, was a victory in itself. “I’d say that sounds like a very good idea,” she said, and pulled my mouth back to hers.
Chapter Nineteen
Rose
It felt strange walking out between the trees of Aunt Ginny’s estate under the pale light of the waning moon. So different from the first consort ceremony I’d orchestrated. All the fears that had been hanging over me then, all the need for secrecy—that was gone.
I still had fears, but they were new ones. And this time I walked together with my consorts and the man I’d soon also be consorted to. This time there was no uncertainty about what they’d say, how they’d respond to the idea. The only unknown was whether the great Spark, the light of all our lives, would let me accept another partner.
Gabriel walked next to me, his hand around mine. When we reached the clearing, I paused. The pleasantly cool night breeze rustled through the leaves overhead and licked over the simple dress I’d chosen, carrying the smell of wildflowers from the garden.
The other guys came to a stop around us, watching me in the near darkness. Anticipation hung in the air so thickly I could almost taste it, tart and electric on my tongue.
All that preparation, and I still wasn’t completely sure where to start.
Gabriel gave my hand a gentle tug, turning me toward him. He bent his head so his forehead grazed mine. His voice came out low but steady.
“I want this. I want you. I don’t have a single doubt about that. In case you needed to hear it again.”
I swallowed hard and touched his jaw to bring him in for a kiss. His words and the hot press of his mouth against mine brought a rush of love into my chest.
The Spark had to see how much he meant to me—to all of us. How could there be anything wrong with making the bond that was already there so much more concrete?
As I stepped back, Damon coughed. “If you need any help feeding that magic of yours ahead of time…”
I glanced at him, and he grinned wickedly. Oh, he’d helped feed my spark before our last ceremony quite well. It burned brightly behind my ribs already, stoked by all the intimacies I’d shared with my four consorts in the last couple days since I’d started holding my magicking in check. But a little more couldn’t hurt. They should all be part of this ceremony.
“Maybe I need a taste from all of you,” I said with a smile.
I held out my hand, and Damon swooped in, but the others were right behind. As my reckless rebel claimed my mouth, Seth bent to press his lips to the side of my neck. Kyler nipped my earlobe. Jin traced his fingers down my side and leaned in to steal a kiss for himself when Damon eased back.
My spark danced with a brilliant flare of light and heat that blazed all through my body. I hadn’t needed that extra boost, but my feet felt firmer beneath me now.
I motioned my consorts to the edge of the small clearing. “I suppose the best thing is for you to make a ring around us. Witness the ceremony. I’ll let you know if I think there’s any other way you should step in.”
Seth nodded, and they all stepped back. It was just Gabriel and me left in the middle.
“I just do what we talked about earlier?” he said.
“That’s all there is to it. Mostly you just follow my cues.” I trailed my fingers down his face, holding those bright blue eyes, for one more moment. Bending down, I found the sticks of charcoal and lengths of cord I’d left there. I handed Gabriel’s to him and tucked my own into my pocket. Then I stepped back like the others had, to give myself room to perform the first of the spells.
My body moved into the motions even more easily than the first time, knowing the right feel of it, knowing how the magic would come together. I shifted my feet over the grass and unfurled my arms toward the sky, then back down along my body, channeling all the magic I had in me to the edges of my body. Offering it up to the great Spark that warmed us all.
The words spilled from my lips as if the magic propelled them. “The Spark that guides us, bless this partnering.”
I swept the bowl Naomi had lent me up from the grass and swiveled as I raised it over my head. My dress swished around me with the slow circle of my turn. My magic tingled up through my arms. I held the bowl toward the sky as if the whole world would fill it. Then I brought it to my mouth as if to taste the magic I’d sent into it.
That sense of power tingled over my tongue. I offered the bowl to Gabriel. He opened his mouth as I tipped it, drinking in the same symbolic communion. A quiver of energy passed from him into me, and my breath caught.
That was the first time his essence had touched my spark. My first glimpse of what our bond might feel like. It wasn’t as urgent or heady as the sensation had been during my first consorting, but before then my spark hadn’t been properly kindled at all. Just to feel my connection with Gabriel solidifying made my spirits soar.
I set the bowl down and whirled again, sending a wave of magic through the clearing, wrapping it around the two of us and touching my other consorts as well. My spin stopped with me facing Gabriel. I took out my stick of charcoal and held it toward him.
Gabriel had his ready in his hand. He raised it to touch its tip to mine. I stared at the point of contact and willed a flicker of magic through my fingers.
The charcoal was meant to light with a literal flame. But nothing happened. I frowned and urged another jolt of heat toward the sticks with a wave of my other hand.
The night air seemed to swallow that energy up. My pulse thumped harder. Why wasn’t this working?
Gabriel watched me, looking calm and confident as always. He was so sure that I’d find a way to finish this ceremony, to make our connection as deep as it should be. What was wrong wasn’t with him.
No, it was in me. A prickling crept through my nerves with little jabs of heat as my spark sputtered toward each of the four guys in their ring around us, pulled in four directions at the same time.
I drew in a breath, settling my thoughts. Maybe I needed them to be more a part of this ceremony than I’d realized.
“Consorts of mine,” I said, improvising as I went. “Will you bless this union too?”
I reached my stick of charcoal toward Seth, the closest at my left. He dipped his head, every inch of his powerful body showing nothing but approval. “You and Gabriel have my blessing. Let’s all join together.”
He was improvising too, but the words echoed the ones we’d used in our consort ceremony. A little of the jittering inside me eased. I pointed to Kyler next.
“You and Gabriel have my blessing,” he said, smiling. “Let’s all join together.”
Damon was next. Amusement glinted in his dark eyes. “You and Gabriel have my blessing. Let’s all join together.”
When I turned to Jin, he was beaming. “You and Gabriel have my blessing. Let’s all join together.”
The last of that uncomfortable prickling fell away. My spark glowed with an eager pulse and seemed to reach toward Gabriel now. I met my new consort-to-be’s gaze, a smile stretching across my own face. When I touched my charcoal stick to his now, with a twitch of my fingers a flame leapt up between them. A flare of longing shot from my core at the same time. Gabriel’s eyes widened with a glimmer of awe.
“With you I would kindle my spark,” I said. “Will you join me?”
“I will,” Gabriel said, with so much weight and longing in those two words that my heart swelled.
His acceptance sent a thrum of power through the clearing around us. It sang in my ears as I lifted my charcoal stick into the air, stirring up even more desire. Gabriel copied my gesture.
“We will honor the Spark with our bond,” I said.
“We will honor the Spark with our bond,” he recited in turn. The flames on our sticks leapt higher, blazing against the dark. Energy raced down my arm and tickled around my torso, hot and needy.
Now I had to seal that bond I’d opened between us. I lowered the charcoal and snuffed out the flame against my palm. The fire on Gabriel’s vanished in the same instant.
As I had with the four guys around us weeks ago now, I drew the glyph for joining on my palm and guided Gabriel through its lines on his own. The feel of his skin against mine made me quiver with eagerness. Then I set one end of the white cord Naomi had given me on his marked hand.
“I, Rosalind Hallowell, take Gabriel Lorde as my consort,” I said. He gripped the cord as I did, and magic raced giddily between us. My voice reverberated with it when I added, “I will light my spark by him and never let it burn him.”
Gabriel held out his own length of cord, the blue one, for me to grasp in turn. “I, Gabriel Lorde, take Rosalind Hallowell as my consort.” He paused, his gaze burning into mine as magic surged through us both. “I will light her spark with my heart and never do her harm.”
A sharper rush of joy whipped through me. I had to swallow hard to contain the emotion. I hadn’t told him to say that. It wasn’t part of the official ceremony. But the other guys had added it in during theirs. One of them must have told him, so he could become a part of our group in exactly the same way.
The bond between us snapped into place alongside my joy. Every nerve in my body rang with the magic of it. Heat pooled in my chest and low in my belly, and a pleased laugh fell from Gabriel’s lips as he must have felt the same sensation. Then I was wrapping my arm around his neck and pulling him into a kiss.
There wasn’t any need to wait this time. No need to hold back from the whirlwind of passion that our joining had stirred between us. I gave myself over to my desire without hesitation.
“Rose,” Gabriel murmured against my mouth, and then he was kissing me even harder. We stumbled to the edge of the clearing, my back hitting a tree. He pressed me against it, his lips scorching along my jaw and neck, his hands tugging up my dress.
I wrenched his shirt off of him with the pop of a snapped button. Oh well. I could buy him a new one. Right now I wanted—I needed—to feel all that hot hard muscled body beneath my hands.
He groaned as I explored his chest. His fingers dipped inside my panties to stroke the most sensitive part of me. I gasped as he flicked his thumb over my inflamed clit.
My spark was searing through every part of my body now. All I could think of was joining with this man completely, in the most physical possible way.
He yanked my panties down, and I fumbled with the fly of his jeans. Then he was pushing me up against the tree again, hefting my thighs around his hips, his mouth crashing back into mine. The rough bark rasped against the bare skin at the top of my back, but that hint of pain only brought the pleasure of his touch into brighter relief.
His cock filled me with one hot thrust and a wave of deeper pleasure. I moaned, bucking my hips to meet him. With every stutter of his breath, every caress of his hands, every plunge deeper inside me, magic twined between us even more strongly.
“My Gabriel,” I murmured. “My consort.”
He let out a choked sound. “From now until always, Rose.”
He picked up his pace even more, our bodies coming together at an almost frantic rhythm. His hand closed over my breast with a flick of my nipple through the dress’s fabric, and somehow that was what sent me over the edge.
Pleasure spiked through my nerves. I cried out, and Gabriel closed his mouth over mine, drinking in my release with a few more jerks of his hips. Then he came too, with a rough gasp. He rocked against me, his rhythm slowing, until we came to a stop braced against the tree, breathing hard, lost in the hazy afterglow of bliss.
Footsteps whispered over the grass. My other consorts came up around us, touching my shoulder, my face—forming a tighter circle around us. An embrace, all six of us together, as if we were just one body, one being. I leaned my head to the side against Seth’s shoulder, squeezed Jin’s fingers, and slipped my other hand around Gabriel’s neck to keep him close against me.
It was done. Whatever else the Assembly threw at us, whatever else lay ahead, no one could shake the ties I’d formed with the guys who’d always felt like my destiny.
Chapter Twenty
Rose
“Oh, you absolutely have to try Tilda Carrington’s regencies,” Naomi said between bites of breakfast croissant. “If you like Cadence Marsten, you’ll love Tilda’s stuff.”
I laughed around my own mouthful of buttery pastry. “Well, how can I say no to a recommendation like that?”
“And there is one author I’ve read who writes about women with multiple partners… Who was that again? Oh, I’ll have to look through my collection to find it. But maybe that would appeal?” My cousin raised her eyebrows.
Warmth crept into my cheeks, but at the same time I couldn’t help thinking that scenes in those books might give me a little inspiration in certain areas. Inadvertently, my gaze drifted to the guys sitting around the table with us.
Kyler had clearly been listening in. He met my gaze with a grin. “You know I’m always a fan of research.”
Damon’s head jerked up over the heap of bacon he’d been inhaling. “What are we researching now?” he demanded.
Ky opened his mouth to answer, and the doorbell rang, followed almost immediately by a sharp rapping. I stiffened in my seat, and all five of my consorts tensed. Naomi’s brow creased for the few seconds before a muffled but strident voice carried through the door and down the hall with the knocking.
“Ginny? We need to speak immediately.”
“That’s Aunt Irene,” Naomi said to me under her breath. “She’s not very good at taking no for an answer. Or things like calling ahead rather than showing up unannounced.”
My shoulders came down, but my pulse was still skittering. “Should we be worried about her? She wouldn’t turn us over to the Assembly, would she?”
“I don’t think so,” Naomi said. “She’s a bit of a hardass, but she’s not, like, malicious. She’d never do anything to hurt the family. And I know she was wrapped up in the case with Grandma and Gramps when they were trying to reach out to your mom and then investigate her death. I’ve heard her and Mom talking about it a few times. She definitely didn’t like your dad at all.”
Aunt Ginny had obviously heard her sister’s call. Footsteps pattered down the hall. The door sighed open. Whatever she said to Aunt Irene, it was too quiet for us to make out all the way over in the breakfast room.
“They called me right up,” Irene replied, her voice even harder to ignore now that there wasn’t a door between her and us toning it down. “Wanted to know about Rose—said she might have come to see us, that she might have several unsparked men with her?” She sounded incredulous and either impressed or horrified. It was hard to tell which. I had a bad feeling I knew who “they” were, though. Our enemies hadn’t been totally convinced we’d left the city if they were still poking around here.
The conversation continued at more of a hush. I set down the rest of my croissant, no longer hungry. The pastry’s sweetness had soured in my mouth.
Gabriel reached over and set his hand over mine. Meeting my newest consort’s gaze, absorbing the reassurance of his touch, my nerves settled a little.
Whatever happened, we were in this together. Completely, now.
A moment later, an imperious woman swept into the room with Aunt Ginny at her heels. My mother’s older sister—because who else could this woman be—radiated an air of authority from where her gray-streaked black hair was pulled into a twist on the top of her head to the buckles of her loafers. She fixed her eyes, the same dark green as mine and my mother’s, on me in an instant.
“So, she is here,” she said, and took in the rest of the figures around the table too. “And the men too.”
My heart thumped faster, but I pushed myself to my feet and pasted a smile onto my face. “Aunt Irene? It’s so good to finally meet you. And to be able to introduce you to my consorts.”
Irene’s eyebrows arched. She gave me a crooked smile in return. “Alora’s Rose. What strange things you’ve gotten yourself into out there on the west coast. It appears we have a lot to talk about.”
When I’d finished telling Aunt Irene my story, she just looked at me for longer than felt completely comfortable. We’d moved into the living room, ending up in almost the same positions as when I’d given this account to Aunt Ginny’s family yesterday, except only Aunt Ginny and Naomi had joined the Levesque side of the room this time. Naomi had given me supported nods while I’d been talking. It had been a little easier the second time, as intimidating as my older aunt was.
“We’ve seen signs of it ourselves, haven’t we?” Aunt Ginny spoke up. “I’ve been thinking about it ever since Rose told me all this—there was Helen Osler, the way she got quieter during that first year of her marriage, and she faded out of the get-togethers with the rest of us… We thought she was just wrapped up in her new life, but maybe it wasn’t a good sort of wrapped up. I haven’t even heard from her in years now.”
She laughed and rolled onto her side to sling her arm around my waist. “It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it, how much good there can be even when everything seems totally wrong?”
“You’re pretty amazing,” I told her. But the joy I’d been looking for had come back into her eyes. Her shoulders were no longer tight. The ache I’d felt before dissolved into a wash of warmth.
I’d worried in the past that I wasn’t taking things seriously enough, that I was focusing too much on how to make Rose happy and not enough on what would keep her safe. But there was room for both, wasn’t there? And this was the part I was good at. This was the part I loved. Bringing a smile to her face, knowing I’d lit a little awe and pleasure inside her.
Of course, there were ways I could add to that pleasure.
This time I didn’t hold myself back. I rolled to meet her, capturing her lips with mine. Rose sighed happily into the kiss, her fingers teasing up the back of my neck with a heady tingle through my skin. Her mouth tasted like the fresh pears we’d been eating at lunch time.
I kissed her again and then trailed my lips down her jaw to her neck, reveling in the hitch of her breath, the scoot of her body to press even closer to mine.
“What do you say we take this spot out for a little trial run?” I said.
Her giggle, light as anything, was a victory in itself. “I’d say that sounds like a very good idea,” she said, and pulled my mouth back to hers.
Chapter Nineteen
Rose
It felt strange walking out between the trees of Aunt Ginny’s estate under the pale light of the waning moon. So different from the first consort ceremony I’d orchestrated. All the fears that had been hanging over me then, all the need for secrecy—that was gone.
I still had fears, but they were new ones. And this time I walked together with my consorts and the man I’d soon also be consorted to. This time there was no uncertainty about what they’d say, how they’d respond to the idea. The only unknown was whether the great Spark, the light of all our lives, would let me accept another partner.
Gabriel walked next to me, his hand around mine. When we reached the clearing, I paused. The pleasantly cool night breeze rustled through the leaves overhead and licked over the simple dress I’d chosen, carrying the smell of wildflowers from the garden.
The other guys came to a stop around us, watching me in the near darkness. Anticipation hung in the air so thickly I could almost taste it, tart and electric on my tongue.
All that preparation, and I still wasn’t completely sure where to start.
Gabriel gave my hand a gentle tug, turning me toward him. He bent his head so his forehead grazed mine. His voice came out low but steady.
“I want this. I want you. I don’t have a single doubt about that. In case you needed to hear it again.”
I swallowed hard and touched his jaw to bring him in for a kiss. His words and the hot press of his mouth against mine brought a rush of love into my chest.
The Spark had to see how much he meant to me—to all of us. How could there be anything wrong with making the bond that was already there so much more concrete?
As I stepped back, Damon coughed. “If you need any help feeding that magic of yours ahead of time…”
I glanced at him, and he grinned wickedly. Oh, he’d helped feed my spark before our last ceremony quite well. It burned brightly behind my ribs already, stoked by all the intimacies I’d shared with my four consorts in the last couple days since I’d started holding my magicking in check. But a little more couldn’t hurt. They should all be part of this ceremony.
“Maybe I need a taste from all of you,” I said with a smile.
I held out my hand, and Damon swooped in, but the others were right behind. As my reckless rebel claimed my mouth, Seth bent to press his lips to the side of my neck. Kyler nipped my earlobe. Jin traced his fingers down my side and leaned in to steal a kiss for himself when Damon eased back.
My spark danced with a brilliant flare of light and heat that blazed all through my body. I hadn’t needed that extra boost, but my feet felt firmer beneath me now.
I motioned my consorts to the edge of the small clearing. “I suppose the best thing is for you to make a ring around us. Witness the ceremony. I’ll let you know if I think there’s any other way you should step in.”
Seth nodded, and they all stepped back. It was just Gabriel and me left in the middle.
“I just do what we talked about earlier?” he said.
“That’s all there is to it. Mostly you just follow my cues.” I trailed my fingers down his face, holding those bright blue eyes, for one more moment. Bending down, I found the sticks of charcoal and lengths of cord I’d left there. I handed Gabriel’s to him and tucked my own into my pocket. Then I stepped back like the others had, to give myself room to perform the first of the spells.
My body moved into the motions even more easily than the first time, knowing the right feel of it, knowing how the magic would come together. I shifted my feet over the grass and unfurled my arms toward the sky, then back down along my body, channeling all the magic I had in me to the edges of my body. Offering it up to the great Spark that warmed us all.
The words spilled from my lips as if the magic propelled them. “The Spark that guides us, bless this partnering.”
I swept the bowl Naomi had lent me up from the grass and swiveled as I raised it over my head. My dress swished around me with the slow circle of my turn. My magic tingled up through my arms. I held the bowl toward the sky as if the whole world would fill it. Then I brought it to my mouth as if to taste the magic I’d sent into it.
That sense of power tingled over my tongue. I offered the bowl to Gabriel. He opened his mouth as I tipped it, drinking in the same symbolic communion. A quiver of energy passed from him into me, and my breath caught.
That was the first time his essence had touched my spark. My first glimpse of what our bond might feel like. It wasn’t as urgent or heady as the sensation had been during my first consorting, but before then my spark hadn’t been properly kindled at all. Just to feel my connection with Gabriel solidifying made my spirits soar.
I set the bowl down and whirled again, sending a wave of magic through the clearing, wrapping it around the two of us and touching my other consorts as well. My spin stopped with me facing Gabriel. I took out my stick of charcoal and held it toward him.
Gabriel had his ready in his hand. He raised it to touch its tip to mine. I stared at the point of contact and willed a flicker of magic through my fingers.
The charcoal was meant to light with a literal flame. But nothing happened. I frowned and urged another jolt of heat toward the sticks with a wave of my other hand.
The night air seemed to swallow that energy up. My pulse thumped harder. Why wasn’t this working?
Gabriel watched me, looking calm and confident as always. He was so sure that I’d find a way to finish this ceremony, to make our connection as deep as it should be. What was wrong wasn’t with him.
No, it was in me. A prickling crept through my nerves with little jabs of heat as my spark sputtered toward each of the four guys in their ring around us, pulled in four directions at the same time.
I drew in a breath, settling my thoughts. Maybe I needed them to be more a part of this ceremony than I’d realized.
“Consorts of mine,” I said, improvising as I went. “Will you bless this union too?”
I reached my stick of charcoal toward Seth, the closest at my left. He dipped his head, every inch of his powerful body showing nothing but approval. “You and Gabriel have my blessing. Let’s all join together.”
He was improvising too, but the words echoed the ones we’d used in our consort ceremony. A little of the jittering inside me eased. I pointed to Kyler next.
“You and Gabriel have my blessing,” he said, smiling. “Let’s all join together.”
Damon was next. Amusement glinted in his dark eyes. “You and Gabriel have my blessing. Let’s all join together.”
When I turned to Jin, he was beaming. “You and Gabriel have my blessing. Let’s all join together.”
The last of that uncomfortable prickling fell away. My spark glowed with an eager pulse and seemed to reach toward Gabriel now. I met my new consort-to-be’s gaze, a smile stretching across my own face. When I touched my charcoal stick to his now, with a twitch of my fingers a flame leapt up between them. A flare of longing shot from my core at the same time. Gabriel’s eyes widened with a glimmer of awe.
“With you I would kindle my spark,” I said. “Will you join me?”
“I will,” Gabriel said, with so much weight and longing in those two words that my heart swelled.
His acceptance sent a thrum of power through the clearing around us. It sang in my ears as I lifted my charcoal stick into the air, stirring up even more desire. Gabriel copied my gesture.
“We will honor the Spark with our bond,” I said.
“We will honor the Spark with our bond,” he recited in turn. The flames on our sticks leapt higher, blazing against the dark. Energy raced down my arm and tickled around my torso, hot and needy.
Now I had to seal that bond I’d opened between us. I lowered the charcoal and snuffed out the flame against my palm. The fire on Gabriel’s vanished in the same instant.
As I had with the four guys around us weeks ago now, I drew the glyph for joining on my palm and guided Gabriel through its lines on his own. The feel of his skin against mine made me quiver with eagerness. Then I set one end of the white cord Naomi had given me on his marked hand.
“I, Rosalind Hallowell, take Gabriel Lorde as my consort,” I said. He gripped the cord as I did, and magic raced giddily between us. My voice reverberated with it when I added, “I will light my spark by him and never let it burn him.”
Gabriel held out his own length of cord, the blue one, for me to grasp in turn. “I, Gabriel Lorde, take Rosalind Hallowell as my consort.” He paused, his gaze burning into mine as magic surged through us both. “I will light her spark with my heart and never do her harm.”
A sharper rush of joy whipped through me. I had to swallow hard to contain the emotion. I hadn’t told him to say that. It wasn’t part of the official ceremony. But the other guys had added it in during theirs. One of them must have told him, so he could become a part of our group in exactly the same way.
The bond between us snapped into place alongside my joy. Every nerve in my body rang with the magic of it. Heat pooled in my chest and low in my belly, and a pleased laugh fell from Gabriel’s lips as he must have felt the same sensation. Then I was wrapping my arm around his neck and pulling him into a kiss.
There wasn’t any need to wait this time. No need to hold back from the whirlwind of passion that our joining had stirred between us. I gave myself over to my desire without hesitation.
“Rose,” Gabriel murmured against my mouth, and then he was kissing me even harder. We stumbled to the edge of the clearing, my back hitting a tree. He pressed me against it, his lips scorching along my jaw and neck, his hands tugging up my dress.
I wrenched his shirt off of him with the pop of a snapped button. Oh well. I could buy him a new one. Right now I wanted—I needed—to feel all that hot hard muscled body beneath my hands.
He groaned as I explored his chest. His fingers dipped inside my panties to stroke the most sensitive part of me. I gasped as he flicked his thumb over my inflamed clit.
My spark was searing through every part of my body now. All I could think of was joining with this man completely, in the most physical possible way.
He yanked my panties down, and I fumbled with the fly of his jeans. Then he was pushing me up against the tree again, hefting my thighs around his hips, his mouth crashing back into mine. The rough bark rasped against the bare skin at the top of my back, but that hint of pain only brought the pleasure of his touch into brighter relief.
His cock filled me with one hot thrust and a wave of deeper pleasure. I moaned, bucking my hips to meet him. With every stutter of his breath, every caress of his hands, every plunge deeper inside me, magic twined between us even more strongly.
“My Gabriel,” I murmured. “My consort.”
He let out a choked sound. “From now until always, Rose.”
He picked up his pace even more, our bodies coming together at an almost frantic rhythm. His hand closed over my breast with a flick of my nipple through the dress’s fabric, and somehow that was what sent me over the edge.
Pleasure spiked through my nerves. I cried out, and Gabriel closed his mouth over mine, drinking in my release with a few more jerks of his hips. Then he came too, with a rough gasp. He rocked against me, his rhythm slowing, until we came to a stop braced against the tree, breathing hard, lost in the hazy afterglow of bliss.
Footsteps whispered over the grass. My other consorts came up around us, touching my shoulder, my face—forming a tighter circle around us. An embrace, all six of us together, as if we were just one body, one being. I leaned my head to the side against Seth’s shoulder, squeezed Jin’s fingers, and slipped my other hand around Gabriel’s neck to keep him close against me.
It was done. Whatever else the Assembly threw at us, whatever else lay ahead, no one could shake the ties I’d formed with the guys who’d always felt like my destiny.
Chapter Twenty
Rose
“Oh, you absolutely have to try Tilda Carrington’s regencies,” Naomi said between bites of breakfast croissant. “If you like Cadence Marsten, you’ll love Tilda’s stuff.”
I laughed around my own mouthful of buttery pastry. “Well, how can I say no to a recommendation like that?”
“And there is one author I’ve read who writes about women with multiple partners… Who was that again? Oh, I’ll have to look through my collection to find it. But maybe that would appeal?” My cousin raised her eyebrows.
Warmth crept into my cheeks, but at the same time I couldn’t help thinking that scenes in those books might give me a little inspiration in certain areas. Inadvertently, my gaze drifted to the guys sitting around the table with us.
Kyler had clearly been listening in. He met my gaze with a grin. “You know I’m always a fan of research.”
Damon’s head jerked up over the heap of bacon he’d been inhaling. “What are we researching now?” he demanded.
Ky opened his mouth to answer, and the doorbell rang, followed almost immediately by a sharp rapping. I stiffened in my seat, and all five of my consorts tensed. Naomi’s brow creased for the few seconds before a muffled but strident voice carried through the door and down the hall with the knocking.
“Ginny? We need to speak immediately.”
“That’s Aunt Irene,” Naomi said to me under her breath. “She’s not very good at taking no for an answer. Or things like calling ahead rather than showing up unannounced.”
My shoulders came down, but my pulse was still skittering. “Should we be worried about her? She wouldn’t turn us over to the Assembly, would she?”
“I don’t think so,” Naomi said. “She’s a bit of a hardass, but she’s not, like, malicious. She’d never do anything to hurt the family. And I know she was wrapped up in the case with Grandma and Gramps when they were trying to reach out to your mom and then investigate her death. I’ve heard her and Mom talking about it a few times. She definitely didn’t like your dad at all.”
Aunt Ginny had obviously heard her sister’s call. Footsteps pattered down the hall. The door sighed open. Whatever she said to Aunt Irene, it was too quiet for us to make out all the way over in the breakfast room.
“They called me right up,” Irene replied, her voice even harder to ignore now that there wasn’t a door between her and us toning it down. “Wanted to know about Rose—said she might have come to see us, that she might have several unsparked men with her?” She sounded incredulous and either impressed or horrified. It was hard to tell which. I had a bad feeling I knew who “they” were, though. Our enemies hadn’t been totally convinced we’d left the city if they were still poking around here.
The conversation continued at more of a hush. I set down the rest of my croissant, no longer hungry. The pastry’s sweetness had soured in my mouth.
Gabriel reached over and set his hand over mine. Meeting my newest consort’s gaze, absorbing the reassurance of his touch, my nerves settled a little.
Whatever happened, we were in this together. Completely, now.
A moment later, an imperious woman swept into the room with Aunt Ginny at her heels. My mother’s older sister—because who else could this woman be—radiated an air of authority from where her gray-streaked black hair was pulled into a twist on the top of her head to the buckles of her loafers. She fixed her eyes, the same dark green as mine and my mother’s, on me in an instant.
“So, she is here,” she said, and took in the rest of the figures around the table too. “And the men too.”
My heart thumped faster, but I pushed myself to my feet and pasted a smile onto my face. “Aunt Irene? It’s so good to finally meet you. And to be able to introduce you to my consorts.”
Irene’s eyebrows arched. She gave me a crooked smile in return. “Alora’s Rose. What strange things you’ve gotten yourself into out there on the west coast. It appears we have a lot to talk about.”
When I’d finished telling Aunt Irene my story, she just looked at me for longer than felt completely comfortable. We’d moved into the living room, ending up in almost the same positions as when I’d given this account to Aunt Ginny’s family yesterday, except only Aunt Ginny and Naomi had joined the Levesque side of the room this time. Naomi had given me supported nods while I’d been talking. It had been a little easier the second time, as intimidating as my older aunt was.
“We’ve seen signs of it ourselves, haven’t we?” Aunt Ginny spoke up. “I’ve been thinking about it ever since Rose told me all this—there was Helen Osler, the way she got quieter during that first year of her marriage, and she faded out of the get-togethers with the rest of us… We thought she was just wrapped up in her new life, but maybe it wasn’t a good sort of wrapped up. I haven’t even heard from her in years now.”
