Link here to a general overview of the novel
Prologue, Chpt 1, Chpt 2, Chpt 3, Chpt 4, Chpt 5, Chpt 6, Chpt 7, Chpt 8, Chpt 9, Chpt 10, Chpt 11, Chpt 12, Chpt 13, Chpt 14, Chpt 15, Chpt 16, Chpt 17, Chpt 18, Chpt 19, Chpt 20, Chpt 21, Chpt 22
Chapter Twenty-three
Sebastian
I’m escorted back to the suite with no explanation after a night spent crawling out of my skin wondering what’s happening to Daav and Isolde. The guards, who’ve been outside what was effectively my cell, now open the door to my Conclave residence, expecting me to enter.
“We’ll remain outside. You stay inside.”
“For how long?” I ask.
“Indefinitely,” the man says. Nothing more.
“Great. Thanks for the good time, we should do it more often.”
He doesn’t blink. Friendly guy.
Voices banter across the living room of the suite as I step inside, shutting the door behind me.
“Seb,” Nuée sings out and bounds across the room. I raise my arms in time to catch her as she slams into me. “You’re okay?”
The entire Cohort and all of their Mentors lounge around the living room as I search for one face. All there except Daav. Shit! Where is he?
“I’m okay. Daav’s not back?”
“No,” Nuée says, and releases me. She looks worried, then looks at the guard. “You can go now.”
“I’ll be right outside,” he says.
“How reassuring,” Nuée adds, and delivers a rude gesture behind his back as he clicks the door closed behind him.
The presence of the full cast of characters lounging around the living room pisses me off. “Why is everyone here?”
From the couch, Ester ticks off her fingers as she answers. “We were all still in the building when, first, you and Daav disappear. Then Nuée and Hanna do as well. And Nuée and Hanna return with a story of your capture. Your Cohort was concerned and it’s our job as Mentors to offer support.”
Not really. Only a few here are a source of support, but I let it go.
Hanna is leaning against a wall, watching us, and pipes in.
“We told them how we found you and Daav at your place before Johan showed up.”
Interesting that she repeats what Ester said, but not exactly. She’s made a point to list only our two names, not that they found Isolde with us. And not exactly where we’d been, only that the place belonged to me.
“So what happened?” Ravel asks.
“I’d rather wait until Daav returns.” And even then you’re only getting the edited version.
Pike clears his throat. “We clearly need to have a conversation.”
“Really? I don’t think there’s anything clear about it,” I answer. The Mentors still think they’re in charge, and Pike even more than the others. But times change, and this new reality has nothing to do with their self-important worldview.
“Darling Seb,” Colleen purrs from the couch where of course she’s draped over Frederick, slowly stroking the nape of his neck. “We have no secrets among us. We are family.”
“Bullshit, dear Colleen,” I say. “There are always secrets. Yours are probably enough to fund the economy of a small nation if they could be monetized.”
Christopher laughs, while even Deidre, Pike and Ester react with small grins.
“He knows you well,” Christopher agrees with a last chuckle. Everything is funny to Christopher, who’d rather laugh than do almost anything else. But nothing about Colleen is amusing.
“Fuck. You,” she says before blowing him a kiss. “And Seb, here I thought you wanted me to share secrets with you. Frederick made it sound like you planned to sit down with me for a cozy conversation. Tea, biscuits, and a little dirt. But in the spirit of transparency with the whole family, I’ll overlook your rudeness and answer your questions anyway. Where shall we start?”
Daav and I need to pump her for information on Victor, and maybe the rest of the Mentor Cohort know something about him, too. But I’m not having that discussion before Daav’s back and I know he’s okay.
“Raincheck until Daav returns,” I say.
I take a breath and really look around the room at my Cohort mates. Frederick sits stiff under Colleen’s touch. Nuée is hovering uncomfortably near me, like she’d prefer to grab me and drag me off for information. Hanna still has her arms crossed over her chest where she leans. Ravel is on one of the large stuffed occasional chairs with a lap sized music keyboard across his legs, the power off as no noise comes from the instrument, although he taps his fingers on the keys repetitively. And even Bethany has a frown on her face different from her usual calm expression.
Their tension is a red and black stain over the room, like they’re battered and limping around, unsure if there’s more injury to come.
Hanna stands from the wall. “If you won’t talk now, then let’s start breakfast. Come on Seb. You’ve been gone long enough it’s your turn to help with cooking duty even if Daav’s more talented.” Her barb lacks the usual point. She’s putting it on as a show. Our fight the other day has changed something big between us. Between her and Daav, although we haven’t had time to figure out what.
Still, I can’t tell her mood right now.
Nuée looks amused with her eyebrow raised and a lopsided twist of her lips, and it’s been enough years as her best friend to see it as her mask. Part of the amusement fits true with her personality, but she’ll wield it as a shield, as well. “I’ll help shore up your pathetic kitchen skills, boy. Because I’m too hungry to let you free in there without supervision,” Nuée says.
I’d really like a shower if I can’t have Daav, but a few moments alone with these two is a good idea. And in some way Hanna might benefit from Nuée to shore her up if she wants to talk to me like it seems.
The other Mentors shake their heads, as if they don’t expect anything else from foolish young mages. I’ll leave them to their delusions.
“Bacon, eggs, pancakes,” Ravel calls his order.
“You’ll get what you get and like it,” Nuée calls back and he licks his lips as he stares at her.
“Get a bed,” Frederick says to them both.
“I’ve been suggesting it for years,” Colleen adds. Although from her the idea sounds lurid and depraved.
“Leave them alone, Colleen,” Christopher says, like he’s repeated the same warning so many times he does it out of habit.
I head to the kitchen and Nuée and Hanna follow. None will complain about what we cook. No one in the Cohort but Daav ever liked the task. Ravel was okay, but never really enjoyed it.
Nuée goes to the cabinets and starts pulling down the dry goods for pancakes while I raid the cooler for eggs, butter, milk and bacon. Hanna pulls out mixing bowls and several griddles, along with a couple of whisks.
Then Hanna switches on the fan above the cooktop and Nuée the kitchen sound system and chooses some upbeat, pop tune, loud enough to cover the noise of our conversation.
“You two are well coordinated in your conspiracies,” I comment.
Hanna harrumphs and Nuée grins and swivels her hips to the music.
“Yep,” my best friend says, popping the p at the end of her agreement, clearly pleased with herself.
I get to work cracking eggs into one mixing bowl and Hanna works next to me measuring and combining ingredients for the pancakes in another. I’m starving. No room service this morning in jail. I pass her eggs for the batter. Nuée starts to separate out the strips of bacon and heats the griddles.
Hanna stands next to me working. After a quiet moment she begins talking, just as I expected.
“I feel like I need to apologize again,” she says.
“You don’t. We’ve accepted it already. Don’t be one of those annoying insecure idiots no one can stand to be around, you’re better than that.” I glance to my side at her and bang my shoulder against hers.
“Thanks, I think.” She concentrates on whisking ingredients. “I guess I do it because it seems like you still can’t trust me, or maybe it’s the lot of us you don’t trust.” She tips her head out in the direction of the living room.
I exchange a look with Nuée, who holds up her palms as if to say she’s staying out of this conversation, and returns to cooking the bacon.
“I’m not sure about you,” I admit. “This is a pretty big about-face of your attitude. But there’s at least five out there I definitely don’t trust.”
“You can trust Christopher,” Nuée adds.
“Deidre, too,” Hanna says.
All and all both their Mentors aren’t bad. Deidre’s zealotry about physical fitness and stamina made both Hanna and Trina healthy and able to kick butt. Not to mention leading Trina to the ballet and so to Daav. Christopher’s free rein and encouragement of a wild, adventurous lifestyle gave Nuée the closest any of us came to a choice about being the person we are by nature.
“Maybe,” I acknowledge, “but you’re all twenty-five and none of you are making plans to move out on your own. Makes me wonder if the Mentors have too much hold over each of you.”
“Custom means it’s common for us to live with them until we’re ready to become Mentors ourselves.” Hanna tests the griddle to see if it’s hot enough.
“Custom’s for shit.”
Hanna turns to me with a determined expression. “So is arbitrary rebellion. Maybe we’re not ready. If it’s up to us, then it’s up to us.”
“Fair point.” The years on my own probably bias my attitude.
Hanna begins pouring batter onto the hot surface, grabbing a spatula to be ready to flip the pancakes.
“The other day, when I got mad…and you defended Daav….” She begins then stops.
“Go on,” I encourage.
“And our Verse touched…I saw yours. It was….”
She stalls out again.
“Terrible, bleak, agonizing?” I suggest.
“Yeah. Is it always like that?” She sounds afraid of the answer.
“Yes.”
“How do you bear it?” She looks horrified.
I shrug. “You can get used to almost anything.”
She feels sorry for me. I get it. It’s a natural reaction even though it’s unnecessary. I know it makes her see me differently, and not in a way that’s good. Now Daav’s seen it too. I care about his reactions way more even though he pretends it doesn’t affect him.
She draws in a deep breath. “Did you see mine, when they touched?”
“I did. Is yours always like that? Orange fog and geometric and boring?”
Nuée almost chokes on her laugh.
Hanna frowns. “I get your point. It’s common knowledge that our Verse remain static, but that’s not supposed to happen when they touch. The explosion yes, but not seeing into someone else’s Verse, or at least if past accounts are true. Maybe no one reported it, or the truth’s been rewritten?”
“Is that what you believe happened?” I ask.
“No.” She shakes her head. “I think what happened to us is something new.”
“Smart woman.”
“You’ve seen Daav’s,” she says with certainty.
I choose not to answer, grabbing a sauté pan and dropping pats of butter into it, turning on the burner. I’ve whisked the eggs to death because it feels right to be having this conversation and to prolong it, but enough is enough.
“What’s his Verse like?” Hanna asks.
“That’s not mine to tell,” I say.
“But you have seen it.”
“Why do you think that?”
“You cagey shit,” Nuée accuses me.
Hanna ignores her. “With how close you two are, and with everything strange happening. Plus you’re back after years away from him. If Trina was alive, I know I’d try. I wouldn’t be able to help myself.”
That’s the closest she’s come to admitting the depth of her relationship with Trina.
“So why did you really come with Nuée to the warehouse yesterday? You knew you risked getting in trouble. You could have leant Nuée your car. She hasn’t crashed one since she was eighteen.”
“Thanks a lot,” Nuée says, sticking out her tongue at me. She removes the griddle with the bacon from the burner.
“Did you come because you pitied me with my bleak Verse or did you just need to satisfy your curiosity?” I ask.
“I came because I wanted to help.” She pauses. “Maybe for Trina’s sake. She’d want me to help Daav.”
“Could be that’s it,” I say, continuing to push the eggs around the pan. “But I’d guess it’s also the other two reasons even if I believe you about Trina.”
“Do you believe me?” she asks. There’s vulnerability in her voice. She’s put a lot out there in this conversation and I respect her for it.
“Yeah, I do.”
“So will you let me help? Trust me enough to tell me, tell us,” she gestures to Nuée, “what’s happening?”
The eggs are done. I turn off the burner, grab a serving bowl and scoop in the scrambled eggs, then grab a dish towel and wipe my hands.
“I have to talk to Daav first. We’re working out some stuff.”
“Then you’ll tell me?”
“Maybe, if you do something for me, too.”
“What?”
“Talk to Daav about Trina. You both need it, and it’s time.”
She’s quiet, thinking. Then nods.
“Okay.”
“Okay,” I say back.
From the other room, a familiar deep voice yells out. “Sebastian?”
Daav?
I throw down the towel and pretty much truck it out of the kitchen.
“Daav.” Now it’s me barreling into him, and then kissing the fuck out of him. Licking into his mouth, biting, crushing him to me. He’s biting back. Yes. He eats down my chin, my neck, sucking hard and leaving his mark. I want it, the proof he owns me. I don’t care who’s around witnessing this.
Daaaaaaaaaaavvvvvv my tangles wail.
His fist wraps in my hair, pulling, and sweet agony. His scent, his taste. I’m hard and I crave him. Crave having him fuck me into destruction. It’s quick, like some biological imperative with a wire running directly from my heart to my dick.
“Ah, true love reunited,” an unwelcome female voice drawls behind us.
Daav pulls his mouth from me with a wrench. Twist it, but I want it back.
“Screw you, Colleen,” Daav growls.
Oh, he’s angry again if he’s swearing.
“You’re okay?” he asks me, still with the growl.
“Yeah, you?”
“Better now.”
The Verse clamors for attention, but it’s drowned out by my own need for this man. Basic to everything I am and a part of my blood.
“Come,” he orders, and grabs my hand and pulls me out of the living room, ignoring everyone else and their stupid grins and catcalls.
Then we’re in his room and he’s slamming the door.
“Bed. Now.”
I’m tearing off clothes and then he’s doing the same. We’re both naked and I climb onto the center part of the mattress.
He crawls after me and I lie back as he reaches to gather my wrists, pin them to the bed above me. Finally, he’s here, the wholeness of his existence pressing against mine.
I moan with the tight cinch of his fingers.
He’s kissing me. His mouth is wet, silky, but still devouring. My mouth, down my neck, across my chest to press lips over my heart, as if he wants to pierce through my heart with his lips and tongue. And I’ll let him pierce anything he goddamn wants. He already has it all. My Prince.
“I want you so fucking much,” he says. “Spread your legs.”
He’s sliding down my body, releasing my wrists like he’s made his point with their capture, and I spread and rest my soles on the surface, knees tented. Warm wet tongue licks lower over my abs, sucking and biting as he goes. Leaving more marks. Good. Over to the crease of my leg and groin, back in and up my shaft from base to tip. Teeth sink and scrape and damn.
“Harder,”I bark.
“Hhhhhhmmmmm,” he rumbles, half moan.
“Verse, I need you to fuck me, Prince. Raw, pound in, don’t need prep.” My hands are fisted in his hair. Want him closer.
“Quiet and just take it,” he answers. Threat and delight.
He’s nuzzling my sac, my balls are high and tight already. It’s always like that with him, my dick full mast in moments. His thumbnail scrapes over my taint, goes lower, the pad brushes my hole and rubs in circles.
I’m about levitating off the bed.
“Dammit, Daav, in me, now!”
My skin crawls with demand and each brush of his mouth or fingers is winding me higher. I’m going to shoot if he doesn’t take me already. It’s raw want, but at the same time peace. Like the brutal, unapologetic sexuality answers something deep and true about our lives, ourselves.
“So impatient. Such a gorgeous, slutty, demanding Angel. Don’t you dare come.”
He wants to play and while I’d usually love it, I just need him. Badly.
Before I can demand again his mouth is following his fingers and I feel the wet of his tongue at my ass.
“Fucking yesssssssss. Oh god, Verse twist it, yessssssss. Feels good.”
It’s sloppy and wet and he’s licking my rim, eating me, and my hips are bucking off the mattress.
The point digs into me, opening me up, relaxing the muscle. I’m squirming, not sure what noises fall out of my mouth. The need to be owned is everything.
And he’s fucking into me with his tongue now, little pulsing dips to get as deep as he can.
“Yesssssss. More.” My hips buck to force it deeper. The crazy bunches of nerve endings lighting me up. So good.
But his mouth disappears, leaving me soaked.
“No!”
“You belong to me, no one will take you from me.”
“Belong to you.” I’m gasping, growling back, lost in the pressure of his fingers bruising my thighs.
And then he’s off me and I want him back. But he grabs my hips. “Flip, on your knees, ass up. My cock’s going deep inside you, and ramming that pretty hole until you forget your own name, Angel.”
I’m moving, turning with his promise to wreck me. I’m ass up and spread. I hear him spit and then his fingers are at my entrance, pushing in with just the wet from his mouth. I know he wants me bad because he’s never done this without some small amount of lube besides saliva, although my guess is the rim job was meant to make sure I’m plenty wet. He pumps the digits inside, the burning pain so good as he pushes the fingers in and drags them out.
“Verse, Daav. Please, please. Uhh, so fucking good. Full, need more. Give me your prick.”
His fingers pull out a final time. I’m too damn empty. But then it’s his cockhead pressing for entry and he’s forcing himself in. Pain, fullness and he’s fucking in with shallow thrusts giving me more of his fat shaft.
“So tight, like a damn silky vise, Angel. Love this, how you squeeze me. Fuck you all day, all night.”
His words, cruder than he’ll usually give me, are like a drug.
“Yeah….forever….ahhhhhhh.”
He adjusts his angle and sweet agony.
He’s hit the spot and I’m lost to the mind numbing incredible sparks. Just right. He grazes it again, again.
Then he gets to work, driving into me with quick, brutal thrusts, deep.
“I’m close.” And damn but I’m on the edge. Building. Not there yet.
His hand, wet from more spit, grabs my cock. Working it up from base to head, that little twist at the top. Jerking me good. Handling me rough, but my shaft is rock hard, my slit leaking and precum smears over me as he spreads it down my prick with each pump.
“I. Will. Not. Let. You. Be. Hurt.” Each word punctuated with a slam of his hips, tearing into me, balls slapping my ass. “Only. I. Hurt. You.” And the word hurt is pronounced just like love.
“Only…you. Love…you.”
“Love. You. Angel. Mine. Fucking. Mine.”
So close. Verse twist it, the electricity is running through me. He’s so deep inside, where he needs to be. I’m his but he’s mine, too.
Then, it’s roaring over me. I’m crying out with the climax.
Drowning in pleasure as cum spurts from me.
Daav yells and his motion stutters, he slams once, twice, hitting home. Pulsing hot spunk filling my hole.
Bright light blinding my vision with the intensity.
Until suddenly, gold explodes over the white fog like the Verse has been waiting silently to jump me. Tangles cackle, reach. I’m sucked into the ugly, dark shards of my magic. Dammit, it feels like drowning in an impossible current and I’m just flailing.
Daav’s there, his Verse tumbling through mine. Glowing, singing, intoxicating crystals dancing with my dark tumbleweeds. They demand with their beauty, pull at my hideous tangles.
A grating sound, gorgeous and horrific, and clicking.
I stumble over energy and acid and potential. The zing of the high cracks me open.
Then, a flood of more color, shapes, mountain tops and orange fogged geometry, slick candy goo, miniature creatures frolicking and skipping along winding paths, rainbows in twisty knots, all in a jarring mess. My tangles cackle among it all. So many other Verse, not just our two, all clear to perception. I’m gazing into the Verse of other mages, like a curtain drawn back to expose the inner landscapes others keep hidden.
Waaaaaannnnnnnttttttttt Veeeeerrrrrrssseeeeeee. Daaaaavvvvvvvvvv. Seeebbbbbbbaaaaasssssttttttttiiiieeeeeeeen.
My Verse calls. Wants. To touch Daav. To build. I need it because at this moment I’m my Verse, it is me. It’s all of it.
“No, you won’t do this,” Daav screams above the twisted song, a scream full of fear. Like he knows he can’t stop what’s meant to be, but he wants to. Wants to go toe to toe and shatter it all.
The energy sings, his beautiful spheres float over everything.
His crystals plummet toward the tumbleweed tangles of mine.
Join them.
“Nooooooooooo,” he roars in denial.
Explosion!
But Daav is there and throws it elsewhere. It connects. Nearby, the sense of other bodies absorbing this power, many others beyond me catching the wave.
But even with the others, pain hits.
Live wire! Stabbing, cutting, pummeling agony. Worse than anything before. Worse than any hardcore session with a Dominant, or Victor’s special treatment.
My flesh bends, writhes. Not physically knocked across the room, but thrown with the power. Baseball bats splintering bone, box cutters to my flesh, a match to lighter fluid soaking my skin. Fucking kill me now!
Eternity. Eternity again.
But,
It ends.
And then a sense of Bliss. Of gasping completeness.
Afterwards, darkness.
Not sure how long. Later, I’m struggling out of it.
I blink my eyes open. Head foggy, it takes moments to orient. Daav’s collapsed on top of me, heavy weight on my back, his dick still in my ass after our orgasm. My belly rests in the sticky mess of my cum.
The door to Daav’s room slams open.
I’m barely able to turn my head toward the noise, though I manage.
Pike, Nuée, Esther, Hanna, Christopher, Ravel, Freddie, Bethany, Deidre, and, screw it, Colleen, crowding into the room. What?
There’s shock on their faces, staring at us on the bed, their eyes glassy, looking weary and half out of it themselves.
Oh, that was their Verse I saw.
Then Nuée storms over to us, slapping Daav’s exposed ass. He rolls off of me and I push up and turn to my back, wince with pain, probably damage from the magic.
Daav’s stomach is smeared with blood, it’s on his arms, the bedsheets, too.
Scowling, Nuée demands, “What the fuck was that?”