My thighs spread wider, needing them now to go as deep as they could, any sort of distance between us couldn’t be tolerated. They were mine and I was theirs, and that’s how it’d be. Every thrust reinforced that, built something inside me I’d been frankly too afraid to let happen—trust. They could hurt me, force me to endure something unbearable, but instead, they’d laboured over me, drawing out every pleasure until…
When I looked down, Marlow knew. His nod was quick, frantic. We were all so close. It was all going to come rushing out, I could feel it. Marlow’s cock hardened impossibly within me, his strokes growing more spasmodic, while Aen slammed in and out now, my body taking every brutal stroke and flaring bright in response. I felt his hand in my hair, bending my spine with its pull, until I was peering back at him as best as I could. He struggled to see it, his face caught up in a frozen snarl of need, so I just stared into his eyes until he did.
“Come, Kira…” he growled.
“I love you, Aen.”
“Kira! So close. Come!”
I didn’t close my eyes when I did, not letting him look away when it took me under. My eyelids merely fluttered, a series of rasping, hacking gasps fighting free of me as I squeezed the hell out of them. My cunt and my arse were in a riot, clenching, clenching, clenching.
Something so frightening rose in his eyes when he jetted inside me. One need was absolved, but another rose up, twice as big and needy. I saw the rapid flicker of his forms as he fought to hold his male form, at least until this was done, until he’d emptied into me.
“I love you,” I said, giving him everything I had in those three words.
I kept repeating it as they pulled out of me, my body instantly missing their presence when they were gone, saying it over and over as Marlow pulled me against him and then pushed me into Aen’s arms.
“How did this happen?” I asked, looking into his green eyes, seeing the rapid shift in his bone structure as he still fought for control.
“It’s what always happens, love,” he said, as if that was all there was, but there was more than that. No matter what he’d said about previous avatars, no matter his confidence of me returning his affection, he struggled with this too. I heard it in the rapid pace of his heart as I lay my head on his chest, in the sigh that came as I snuggled down against him.
“I love you too,” she said finally, a hint of irritation in her voice that had my head craning up. She looked flushed, bright eyed and bright cheeked, her eyes narrowed slightly as if warding off a blow. That didn’t soften until she brushed my hair away from my face. “So much, Kira. You have no idea. I’ve been aching with it. My chest hurts every time I look at you and…”
I reached up and touched the corner of her eyelashes, watching the tear I’d caught there slide down my finger. I moved up and pressed my lips to hers, melting into her and her softness until I felt the shift, stubble grazing my cheeks.
“Can she say what you can’t?” I asked him, pulling away.
“This form is used to keeping a lot more in,” Aen replied, “but we’re not separate people. In that form, I’m just better at saying things than I am in this, but…” He stared into my eyes, seeming able to look at them forever. “I’ll never love anyone or anything as much as I do you, Kira. I’ve been alive for thousands of years, but here am I, lying here with you, my heart beating like a callow boy’s at the feel of it.”
His eyes burned as his brows drew down, like that would dampen the flames within them.
“I thought I knew what I was getting in you. I thought you were going to be just another avatar, that it’d be sweet and hot and you would love half of me.” His eyes dropped for a moment. “It’s not that you love both sides of me that’s the deciding factor, it’s you. You can be this tough nut to crack, leaving me pick, pick, picking on the outside, dying to come in, and then you just surrender. There’s something so terribly brave about your heart once it opens to someone. You let them in, let everything in.” He reached over and pressed his lips to my forehead. “Hold on to that, love, please. Always be that brave. Don’t let the shit grind you down and have you locking everything away.”
“You’re talking about The Changelings,” I said.
“I’m talking about everything. You’re going to face trials that will challenge you in ways you’ve never been before. Just hold on to this, this moment when you do.”
I nodded sleepily, feeling completely and utterly drained in a way that was beautiful. I dug my nose into his chest and closed my eyes.
Chapter 8
I sat down at the breakfast table with the tentativeness of someone who was well fucked. There was something harsher about my loves since they’d been made my consorts. The gloves were off, and I was here for that. I felt delightfully bruised in all the right ways, my body letting me know what we’d just been through, aftershocks making me twitch beneath their hands as they slid up my thigh.
“I hear there have been some promising developments, Kira?” Ashanti said with a regal nod. “The performance of both you and your consorts yesterday sounds very impressive. Your progression is gratifyingly swift. Duke and I have spoken and—”
“With all due respect…” I was being rude by interrupting, but there was something I needed to say. My words failed me as everyone in the room turned to look at me, but I forced myself to forge on. “Training isn’t going to be especially useful right now.” I watched people stiffen around the table. “It’s all about connection, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but—”
“Well, I need to develop that with almost everyone. Don’t I need to focus on that first?”
“She’s right,” Duke said. “Picking her consorts? That wasn’t standard. She’s still feeling them out.”
“While Rutherglen musters his forces.” Ashanti sighed, then nodded. “I understand. This isn’t something that can be forced, as much as I might wish otherwise.” She looked up at me. “So what do you suggest? You wish for some time to spend with your consorts?”
I nodded, struggling to find the words. People stared at me, Duke, Bea, the rest of Ashanti’s enclave. They looked at and expected things from me.
“Most of them know how to wield their power already. They can teach me once things have been…consolidated, but Marlow and Jake came into their powers through their connection with me. Perhaps instead of training with me, someone can train them and I can watch, be around, connect.”
I finished the sentence lamely, feeling horribly embarrassed somehow by the whole thing. Marlow squeezed my thigh, so I shot him a grateful look. Spending the morning with him, watching him create those beautiful sparks on the end of his fingertips—
“Your affinity is with water, yes, Jake?”
“Yep,” he replied, scanning the room, his jaw tightening.
“Well, then I’ll show you the basics after breakfast. Now, where did we get with the housing assessment?”
“We’ve counted the rooms. They—they keep changing,” Rey said.
“What?” Ashanti said.