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, Chpt 23, Chpt 24, Chpt 25, Chpt 26, Chpt 27, Chpt 28, Chpt 29, Chpt 30, Chpt 31
Chapter Thirty-two
Daav
He’s in my arms, and the relief of it, the sheer flush of calm suffusing every bit of muscle and bone makes me forget everything else in the drug of him. My Angel, my soaring bird. Thank Verse he’s forgiven me, because for too many bells after we got him back, he shut himself far away.
After swaying together, pressing chest to chest, groin to groin as close as possible, my heart’s recovered enough from the near miss of losing him to cradle his head and pull back to examine his face.
“He hurt you,” I say, rubbing a thumb along his cheek, wiping away the last of the remnants of tears. And there’s no doubt he knows who I mean. Lorenz. “Although I’m the one who made you cry.”
“Hey, that’s a good thing,” he says.
Despite myself, I feel my lips curl up at his reassurance. “You never cried when we were very young. Not until after Clark. Not until after he whipped me and you cried over my scar.”
“You used to cry all the time, but it was after then that you stopped. We traded.” He winds his hand up through where we’re tangled and swipes at my face in turn. “I’m glad they’re back. The tears are a good look on you.”
I raise my eyebrow at his statement.
He chuckles. “I don’t want you unhappy, Prince. But they’re better than your stoicism. They’re real, and make your claim about giving up your self-sacrificial drive to prove yourself more believable.”
“Well, I do need to appear believable.”
“You mean it about joining our Verse?”
I nod. The idea still terrifies me, but after the experience at the abandoned construction site, and the lack of any other options, we need to try.
“Then let’s see if we can pull off some sexy time Verse connection, Prince. Get inside me, and see if our tangles want to play and we can practice solidifying their connection. If we blow everything up now then at least we won’t have to deal with the suspense of Harkness’s visit.”
“Not funny.”
“Sure it is.” He bops me on the nose. “Hilarious.”
“I’m not excited about sharing the fallout from sex with the rest of the crowd outside. We need to keep this to ourselves, although I’m not sure we’ll get a say.”
“We can accomplish any damn thing we want.”
I can’t help but roll my eyes at him.
He bumps his groin into mine, his already hard dick drawing a moan from me as it rubs me, my cock fast filling and beyond any level of comfort. “Hey, I’m the hope expert here,” Sebastian taunts.
“I think you missed the point of the concept.”
“Nah, but I want you inside me bad enough I’ll say anything.” He leans in and his tongue licks over my bottom lip.
“Aaaaah, you’re killing me, Angel.” I tear myself back and glance around the small den space, assessing any available makeshift tool to bring him the painful pleasure he likes so much. “What do you need? Just tell me.”
His gray eyes spark with mischief as he follows my gaze. “The curtain ties look like they’d hold me in place. And some of the volumes on the bookshelf might make a nice thwacking sting against my ass.”
“Okay, I’ll…”
“Stop,” he says, laughing at me as he grabs me back from my move toward the bookcase. “The only thing I need is you. No pain right now, love. Just you.”
His hand is at my crotch, grabbing around the fabric to squeeze me.
“Ffffuuuucccckkkk!”
“Exactly,” he says. “Now let’s get out of these damn clothes.”
We do just that, a land speed record, I’m sure.
But before he grabs my dick again I pull him in flush, my hands holding his firm ass, but with a gentle touch because even the hottest parts of him are so precious. The hawks at his ears sway slightly as his face softens and his eyes smile at me.
“Those earrings of yours, the birds,” I say. “I love them because they remind me how high you fly in the wind, how free that spirit of yours is.”
He licks his lower lip and my attention is drawn to the movement of his tongue, entranced by it.
“You want to know a secret, Prince,” he whispers. “The only reason my wings carry me high is you. You’ve always been the wind gusting underneath them, pushing me forward.”
“Hey, come here.” My lips feather over his. “Thank you, Sebastian, for storming out of the Stem and Thorn that night and banging on my door a week ago. If you hadn’t….”
“Shhhhh, Prince. I’d like to say I knew what I was doing, but we’ve both been lucky. It happened, and now we’re here, and we’ll see where it takes us.”
My mouth lowers to suck at his neck, wanting to bring up a purple mark with steady, constant pressure, and he moans. Then I move down his body, licking past his nipples as I lower myself to my knees. Squeeze hard and twist their pierced points as I go. Licking over his abdomen, a taste of his hipbone where I graze the skin with my teeth. His hips begin to rock into me as his fingers thread in my hair and tug.
My dick twitches, fills more and begins to ache because that’s what this man does to me. I lower further and nuzzle and kiss along the inside of his thigh, and then move in further to nestle against his shaft and inhale his scent, rubbing against the warm, smooth skin. Lick up that shaft to tongue his slit, digging the point into the gap, tasting the first of his precum.
“Shit, yesssss, Daav.” He hisses as I engulf his mushroom head with my mouth and suck.
Love his sounds. Then lower to take more down my throat, humming around him. My teeth graze the shaft of his cock, scraping lightly. A harder press of teeth, a bite then. He’s still gripping my head but for purchase not to shove his way in.
“Fuck, feels so good.”
I hum more to add vibration.
“Fuck!!!!”
My fingertips bracket his thighs, digging enough to leave prints. And with him still in my mouth I smack one palm against his butt cheek, then again, again, causing another shudder. Ten quick, hard smacks more. He’ll get off on the pain even if he says he’s fine without.
But I realize I want it too, to make him hurt, to be honest in our lovemaking. Not just for him, but for me.
Stopping, I move one hand between his legs, skimming over his balls, fingernails scraping them as I go, and down to his taint where I press and massage the outside of his prostate. He jerks forward, moans louder and I taste another small gush of fluid, like salty, perfect nectar.
He’s too close, so instead I stand and move his body backward to the couch where I push him down against the cushions and crawl on top, lifting his calves to open him up to me, rest his legs on my shoulders for access, and move lower toward the goal of that delectable pucker. Downward first to his balls to suck one, then the other into my mouth. My teeth press with careful bites here, too. The tease of pain and it makes him squirm, and I’m getting off on it as much. Is it okay? This need in me? Maybe, yes. Our Verse want each other, the dark parts and the light. Want us to join. It must be okay. Later, I’ll give us both more, if there’s a later.
“You’re going to kill me before we even get to the damn magic,” he complains, although it’s not much of one because he’s raising his ass to meet me.
“Behave,” I order.
Then I go lower again and lick into the musky seam of him, closing my lips over his hole. And suck. He tastes perfect, dark and earthy.
“Verse, sweet agony, please Daav! Need….you. Yessss!”
Not done with my feast, I tongue into him deeper through his ring of muscle. Into the tight heat of him.
“Aaaah,” he’s half moaning, half shouting. Creative words fly from that dirty mouth of his, demanding, threatening, cursing, begging me with low, hoarse sounds and gasps. Like the sweetest song as he thrusts up to impale himself more on my tongue. His legs tremble.
He may think I’m killing him, but the sheer torture of his noises, his reactions, the feel and taste with my nose buried into the musk between his legs is just as much agony for me. But one I can’t resist continuing. I’d keep him on edge for the whole day if I was able.
Letting as much saliva dribble from between my lips, I want him as wet as I can make him. I’m reaching to collect the precum from his cock, then lower the same hand to my own dick’s leaking fluid to swipe over my head. Then move it back to his hole, easing in a finger, stretching him, then add two as he adjusts and demands more. Twisting my digits, grazing over his gland as I adjust their position. Then three.
“Aaaaah, fuck! Aaaaaaaaahhhhhh.”
“Patience, Angel.”
“You have to fucking be kidding me,” he pants in answer.
Twist it, but my cock throbs, my balls already painfully tight as I touch all those hot, smooth muscles and skin of his, until I feel the pull of my Verse and its whispers. He feels it too, as I hear him mumble, “Here it goes.”
And we’re falling into this other place, our parallel homes from all these years.
Then beneath the perfect sparks of our sex the dark of his tangles are surfing next to my bright ones. They shadow one another, writhing along with our bodies.
I’m crawling up him now, manhandling his leg higher back to my shoulders to adjust him as I guide my cock toward that stretched hole. He’s shaking even more beneath me.
Our tangles keep whispering to each other, singing, chittering, straining to swim closer. But they hold back, don’t charge the others, and instead rock forward, extending themselves to brush the tendrils of their edges, then bow back in retreat.
I’m pushing into him, Sebastian’s tight muscle at my cockhead as he opens to me, and I breach the opening as he bears down. I inch into the goddamn molten grip of him and nearly lose it, grit my teeth against the vise of pleasure which has me so ready to shoot.
My hips rock in and out, sinking me farther until my balls hit the seam of his ass and I’m buried all the way. Then drag myself out again and back in, adjusting my angle until now I’m hitting his spot every time, rubbing it with each pass as I piston deep.
I watch his face, the beautiful light of his eyes swimming up at me, the merging rainbow tumbleweeds of both our Verse hovering over the pattern of his face. He’s the most wicked beauty, rivaling even the gorgeous nirvana of my tangles.
He’s exposed, the ecstasy of his face twisted in the pleasure, but still staring back at me with total open love and lust. And my Verse calls me, promises.
Ssssseeeeeeebbbbaaaaaaaassssssssssssssstttttiiiaaaaaaannnnnnnnn!!!!!!
The word, his name, is such joy, our tangles dance next to each other as I thrust into him. Pulse with each time I fuck deep into his heat. So deep, so good. So perfect. The pressure and tingling builds and the tendrils brush again, again, begin to wind into one another.
Nowhere for their energy to go, but both the tumbleweeds and bright crystals of light focus on sending their potential into one another instead.
Weave, intertwine, and every time my balls slap with impact, my grunt, my Angel’s cries tearing through the room, we merge more. Into one. No separation between where each of us begins and the other ends. Just. Fucking. Perfect. Endless. Pleasure.
No separation between the tangles either. Blending. Infinite potential.
The universe opens….
I can’t hold back longer. My hips stutter, losing the rhythm, and my balls tighten, lift, and then, explosion.
Not one I fear. But pain, promise, and ecstasy.
Burning trails of pulsing cum shoot, shoot, spilling from me with stars behind my vision. Into Sebastian.
“Prince!” he’s crying with a deep rasp, “Coming,” as wet spurts jut from his cock, splattering his stomach with his spend and running between us.
And I see everything, the atoms of this room, the ocean, the forests and people and buildings and roads of Orreance, split wide and all at once. See the countless splintering places through space that long for one another, a blur of countless Verse, waiting. Waves, spreading around one another, breaking against one another, bending against one another.
Fffiiiiiiiiiixxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
A blinding vision.
My crystals howl with pleasure and snap into perfect connection with Sebastian’s. A bridge no wave can wash over. And now this is one place, one Verse between both of us. It holds this way for one, two, three long moments.
Then, we slide away from our new changed Verse and into our simple bodies.
Except they’re far from simple.
I collapse over him, my arms and legs cut off from all coordination as I press him into the cushions. Exhaustion.
Satisfaction, complete satisfaction.
Happiness.
Because it’s Sebastian, and we belong to one another.
Always.
Magic purrs with satisfaction in the background.
###
Our cocoon is divine and I want to stay inside forever, but with a knock at the door reality intrudes. I stir, place one more lingering kiss on my Angel’s lips and pull off a grumbling Sebastian to stand and scoop my pants from the floor. It’s time.
“Daav,” Isolde’s tentative voice comes through the wood.
“You had to tell her to get you if she found anything?” my lover complains as he reaches for his shirt and uses it to wipe at the cum covering his stomach.
“Life-altering sex with you is my first priority, although helping us avoid decimation by her father is a close second.” I shrug, and pick up his briefs and trousers, throwing them his way. “I promise you days and days locked away where all I’ll do is fuck you senseless and throw in some artfully delivered torture, my sweet pain slut.”
A squeeze behind my ribs and a knot in my throat from the uncertainty of delivering on that promise comes and goes as I keep moving. I blink, realizing my sense of reality has altered. There’s a crisp clarity and outline to the world around me when I look at walls, windows, the bookcase, every incredible item in the room. I blink again and the intensity of it lessens.
Sebastian chuckles and wags his eyebrows. “Promises, promises. But I love the new and improved funny man, Daav. Is it a side effect of our tangles getting down and dirty with one another? All this time they were just hard up for some action?”
All I want to do is smile at this ridiculous man, but another knock from a worried sounding Isolde makes me drag in a deep breath, pull on the crumpled shirt also at my feet, and after checking that Sebastian is decent, open the door to my sister.
“I found it,” she says, peeking around me inside the room.
“Hey, Iso,” Sebastian calls. “Safe to come in. I’ve packed away my moody assholery and decided to get on with it. Your brother simply needed to drill me good and hard.”
She smirks, but quickly loses the expression as her face fills with worry. “Can I come in?”
“Yes.” I open the door more fully and gesture her inside.
“I’ll play you the footage Johan sent, and you tell me what you think.”
“Did you show it to everyone else?” I ask.
“I started to, but they got…preoccupied a little bit ago.”
Sebastian lets out a low, long whistle. “They got a show from us again? Like last time in the suite?”
Isolde clears her throat. “It seems so, their eyes flashed gold again for a moment. Most of them excused themselves to their rooms for a breather. It’s never made me more thankful to be magic free.”
“Tuck didn’t wake up did he?” Sebastian frowns and asks.
So much for his insistence that his relationship with the little boy means nothing. Of course it does, and I want nothing more than for him to get his chance to be with his brother. He has so much love to give, and plenty of love he deserves.
“No, still asleep. I checked, but he’s too young for any magic to have surfaced if he has any at all.”
Isolde takes a seat at a standalone armchair across from the couch, and Sebastian and I lean over her shoulder as she thumbs my cell awake and moves through a few screens.
“This is a clip caught at my father’s estate as he hosts political dignitaries that day. He made a speech about his pride in our people’s humane and progressive treatment of our workforce. These are the moments just after his final words. The audience is clapping. Watch, you’ll see him turn around on the podium with his back to the crowd after the accolades and reach for a glass of water on a table placed behind him.” Underneath her instruction is something that sounds very much like anger.
She presses play on the frozen screen.
And there he is, a man who looks uncomfortably like my twin, only older. My nostrils flare as I breathe through the shudder that always hits when I see his image. He’s smiling, bowing to the crowd who clap and clap. Fools. And then he turns, just as Isolde told us, and reaches for the glass. His back is to the camera as his arm lifts and he seems to be taking a long drink. He moves the glass away from his face, returns it to the table, and straightens, his shoulders going rigid. Harkness pauses, and finally turns around again and continues to wave at the guests.
Isolde presses the screen again to stop the clip. “There, did you see it?”
“See what?” Sebastian asks, exactly what I too wonder.
“Look again.” She presses the screen to move the video back to the earlier moments of the recording. “Watch the reflection in the window behind him when he’s picking up the glass, drinks, and even just after when he places it back down.”
We watch. And I freeze.
“Damn!” Sebastian exclaims.
Isolde’s face looks stricken, despite the fact she’s already seen this earlier.
“You okay?” Sebastian asks her, and grabs her free hand not holding the device.
She sighs. “I’ll have to be.” He squeezes her palm.
He turns to me next. “You have a plan?”
“The basics of one. I was just waiting for this.”
The proof we need.