I was flung off a cliff, my arms flailing in the air as orgasm hit. Hawk shouted as I milked every last drop out of him, pleasure shimmering through me from head to toes. After an interminable pause, I dropped down on top of him, his lips fitting mine like a key in a lock.
Finally, he stroked my hair back from my face, a blissed-out look on his. “Jack?”
I nodded, pulling free of him with a little wince that Brandon noted, but I fell on Jack, shoving him down on the bed and grabbing his cock before lining him up.
“Yes, love,” he hissed as I eased him in. “God, you feel so fucking good.” I stared down at him, watching every little shift in expression as I moved. He grabbed my hips, thrusting up into me as I slid down, and we developed a rollicking rhythm. This was an oddly vulnerable moment right now. I felt the pleasure of his body connecting with mine, but that was secondary to the ache in my chest. The last time we fucked had been a vicious thing, but now I could see the Jack Hawk loved. He was so expressive, his mobile face shifting and his mouth yammering out some kind of stream of consciousness rubbish that made sense to no one but him. He rolled me over as our strokes grew faster, my legs going around his waist. He loomed over me as he rested on his forearms, blotting out all of the artificial light and replacing it with his own.
“Jack...” I said as the glow began. It started from his centre, spreading out to limn his tattoo and then wash through his hair. He was radiant, bright enough to hurt my eyes to look at, but I couldn’t look away. He kissed me, my name mumbled against my lips, the frantic tension in our bodies pulling tighter and tighter.
When we came, my arms wrapped around him, as if he needed sheltering from the fallout. We were one body, twitching and jerking, struck by the beautiful lightning we’d been able to conjure. When he finally dropped to the bed, gasping for breath, the light inside him did not dim. He looked like a fallen god, and Hawk—his dutiful worshipper—collected him up in his arms and kissed him.
“Stay with me,” Brandon said as he took Jack’s place. When our bodies joined there was a weight to it, like things long awaited had finally fallen into place. Jack and Hawk moved to either side of us, stroking my body and leaving trails of bright light in their hands’ wake. “Stay with me,” he said again when my eyes threatened to close, as my back began to arch. “Stay here, my beautiful mate. Just here.”
I could confidently say this was the most intimate sex I’d ever had. He stared into my eyes, and I got lost in their soft grey depths. What we did, how we moved, wasn’t relevant. He asked me to stay with him, and I did. It was Brandon, and he was now my mate, and this was our first time together as mates. “Here it comes,” he said, and I frowned. What did he mean? Oh, it was just the glow growing brighter again. “That’s it, Jules. Now reach for it.”
Reach for what? My hands were on his ribs and unable to be moved, glued there somehow by a thrumming energy. I felt a gentle prickle of fear, but he said, “It’s OK, Jules. I’ve got you, now reach for it.”
I pulled my hands away from him, the effort forcing them down on Jack and Hawk. When my palms hit their skin, it was as if a circuit had been completed. All of us glowed, brighter and brighter, but with it came a rushing sound. The door slammed open—I was dimly aware of that—and when someone reached for us, I couldn’t make out who for the blinding light, then it all dropped away.
I hovered in an empty white space. There was no ground, no sky, no horizon to give any indication of where I was. Then, Brandon shifted. He held me completely curled up against his chest, his cheek resting on the top of my head, arms wrapped around me tightly.
“Don’t hate me,” he said.
The white place seemed to somehow swallow the words, like they came out flat and died away promptly.
“What?”
“Don’t hate me for what’s to come. I tried, Jules. I tried so fucking hard to avoid all of this. To find a way to save the guys, to stop the Great Wolf. Every fucking step I took just changed everything, until I couldn’t do anything but follow my heart.”
“What are you talking about?” I said, shifting now, but he wouldn’t let me go. A small tendril of fear wrapped itself around my heart. I was stronger than him, than all the men. I pushed harder, but his body was a wall around me.
“I’ve loved you forever. Before I even knew what it was, before you came to Sanctuary, from the very first breath I took, I’ve loved you. Tell me you’ll remember that.”
I stopped fighting, and he allowed me to move until I was able to look at him. His eyes shone bright green, an odd change from his usual calming grey.
“Brandon, Jules?”
Our heads jerked up to see Finn, Aaron, and Slade before the bed. For a second, Brandon’s eyes glowed as intensely as a Tirian’s before it, and the whiteness, faded away to reveal the room and us, lying on the bed in the exact same position.
“OK, what the fuck was that?” Slade said.
Everyone else just looked around, dazed.
“Brandon?” There was a knock on the door along with a muffled request that had him rolling free and pulling a pair of jeans on.
“Finn, you’re going to get your wish,” he replied. “Aaron, you’ll have everything you want, but we need to get dressed and in the dining room in five. I’ll get Sylvan.”
“Brandon…” My voice trailed off as he opened the door a crack and slipped through. I could hear the sound of a conversation, but not the words, and even that faded away.
I pulled on a shirt with wobbly hands, and Aaron came over and stilled mine, before doing it up neatly. I nodded my thanks.
“Do we do as he says?” I said, my hand on the door.
“He’s always been a fey one, has our Doc, but he’s never steered us wrong,” Slade said with a shrug.
I nodded and then opened the door.
They were waiting for us at the dining room table, Ophelia sitting at the head, Sylvan and Brandon on either side of her. Sylvan looked quietly pleased, but Brandon’s fingers worried the tablecloth, his eyes staring sightlessly. “Come and sit,” she said. “You must be very confused.”