“You…chose me.”
“Haven’t I always?” we said, every single one of us, in every world, every incarnation. “Won’t I always?”
“Forever.” He nodded. “Gods, I hope I remember better next time. It hurt without you, Bec. I was so fucking lost. Always searching, knowing something was out there.”
I put my fingers to his lips, stopping the stream of pain, because that same angst had driven me, but that was over now. As I moved in closer, as my lips pressed against his, putting our mouths to a much better use, the knowledge came that we would never feel that way again. By claiming each other, we created small beacons that even our dense human minds would sense, drawing us to the other’s side in our next reincarnation with much greater ease.
Reality came back slowly. Just the prickle of sensation, the weight of Shaun’s body, the soft cotton of the bedspread, the call of birds beyond the window, and them.
“You need more, greedy girl,” Shaun said, smiling down at me, softening his words, communicating his wholesale approval, especially when my fingers trailed across his new mating mark, sucking the blood off my fingertips. “You have to have more.”
We looked up, saw the guys watching, a kind of dark intensity lurking there, waiting for me to make my move. I pecked Shaun on the lips, then felt his slap across my arse as I pulled free and turned to face the others.
Mmm… a voice purred inside me, which should have been a concern. Foreign voices could be forces for good or for evil lately, and sometimes it was hard to tell which. I paid it little mind, though, edging closer, seeing the three men sitting on their heels, hard and wanting. My fingers twitched right up until I slid them over Ethan’s thigh and across Shade’s hip.
They leaned forward, and I tasted their lips, just little glancing kisses, before pulling away, seeing him. Big, muscular, full of a brutal power I’d feel all the way down to my toes, Axel was the perfect sexual partner. A part of me was unable to believe that we’d not gotten around to having penetrative sex yet, but as his eyes blazed green, as he leaned forward, I knew it’d be so much more than that. Shade’s hand went to the small of my back as I moved closer to the other man, a wolf on the trail of her prey, straddling those thick thighs, Ethan’s hand on the back of my neck.
“Time to awaken,” Shade said in that eerie voice of his, one that seemed to speak down the ages. “Time to connect.”
“You sure about this, greedy girl?” Axel asked as I rose above him, wrapping my arms around his neck and then settling down, feeling that massive crown of his cock. “You’re slick with your boy’s cum, swollen and sweet, but you might be wise to—Ah!”
His arms convulsed around me the moment my cunt swallowed his cock, his fingers biting down deep. That was OK, I understood the need to mark each other, to write over each other’s flesh the nature of our bond, to acknowledge, remind, and maintain that link.
“You know what this means,” I told him and as I sank deeper on that incredibly thick cock. His arms tightened around me in response, his head nodding.
“I think I’ve always fucking known.” His eyes burned into my lips, waiting until they fell open to gasp as he seated himself as deep as he could, then he surged forward. He’d called me greedy, but what was he, sucking and tasting, tangling my tongue in his right as we moved, wanting more and more. He kept panting that when we were forced apart, sucking in breaths as our bodies moved, as the energy rose.
What Axel had been broke over us slowly, the memories like the gentle fall of rain. All too often, the me of the past failed to recognise the bond between us, relegating him to companion, friend. He’d loved me throughout, walked by my side in my every incarnation, often being the one helping me to find the others, leading them to me with a ready smile. As my teeth sunk into his lip now, marking him, needing that sharp taste of his blood in my mouth, in preparation for what was to come, all that was going to come to an end.
“You gonna claim me, greedy girl?” His expression was part challenge, part desperation, his thrusts getting deeper, harder, his hands gripping me tight. “Gonna claim all of us. You’ll never feel empty again.”
I knew then he didn’t just mean sexually, because I could already feel it. Our bodies were fading again, the light inside his chest so big and expansive, it shone on anyone and everyone who wanted it, lighting them up just as bright as he was, because that was Axel’s gift. He craved experiences, pleasure, life, but most of all, love, from anyone open enough to give it to him.
For just a second, I warmed myself against the fire inside him, letting it make my own flare brighter, our eyes going to the ceiling as it all spiralled up, up, beyond the shrine, the sky, the stars themselves, spreading thinner and thinner, making animals’ heads jerk up to note our passage.
“Fuck, gonna come…”
Our awareness coiled back down, and the venom that coated my teeth burned my mouth as I turned his head away, placing a gentle kiss on the cords of his neck, holding him still, waiting for the moment when our bodies broke before I sank my teeth in.
The connection with Shaun had been all light, but with Axel, it was heat. He rushed in, burning everything in his wake, singeing and le
aving his mark. This was the healing fire at the start of the dry season, burning up the dross, returning the nutrients to the soil, allowing regrowth. He burned through my insecurities, my fears, my tired little life before I came here, until there was only this.
I returned to my body right as my spine turned to flame, my body pulsing around him. His eyes filled with tears, happy ones, as his cum jetted inside me, marking me in a way that would need frequent reapplication.
“Easy, princess,” he said when we finally pulled apart.
I could see why, I was beginning to wobble now, falling down on my knees, the light inside me burning too bright, making my skin feel too tight, but I was raised up again, by my shy Shade. Not in the shadows anymore, he drew me to him without absolute certainty.
“You see it now,” he said when our hands linked, and I did. Often ignored and pushed away by the more egocentric versions of me in the past, there was a reticence in him, but it was equally matched by a deep knowledge. He had often been at my side as a seer, an advisor, and so there was a hesitancy in his touch right now. He wanted this, that blazed pure and true from the light in his chest, but he’d always wanted it and rarely got it. I moved closer, digging my hands into his thick hair, staring into those strange amber eyes before moving forward slowly, gently. So he could see me choosing him, making an offer, making a connection, and he would have to decide if he would accept.
He did, of course he did, his mouth slamming down on mine as he wrapped his body around mine, falling back on the bed, leaving me to ride him down. Part of me liked this, this bounty spread before me, all hard muscle and even harder cock, and I intended to admire one while putting the other to good use. I stretched his arms out on the bed in a position of complete surrender, and he held that when I began to move. First raining kisses down on that satiny bronzed skin, then shifting to grasp the base of his cock, his lips falling open as I notched the head against me and then sank down.
“Fuck…” he hissed. “Fuck, Bec, my goddess. So good. Goddess, so good.”
And it was. I moved with a loose-limbed grace I’d never experienced before, riding him in long fluid strokes, feeling that thick cock pierce me deep, a great flare of pleasure and light building on every stroke. When I opened my eyes, the room was streaming with light, coming from him and me and only getting brighter the faster we got.
There was that moment, just before you came, where the certainty of it hit you and all you could feel was a beautiful pleasure that threatened to go on and on before you came crashing back down to earth. When it hit us, when my fangs were bared, when my mouth burned with the need to mark him, when his head turned to one side, surrendering, offering himself to me, we were spiralled up and out of this body the minute my teeth buried themselves into his skin.