Beauty

Chapter Ten

Bron thought she’d died and gone to the after. They were here, her Dark Ones. Shim and Lach. She’d called to them as the fire had started and when she’d opened her eyes again, they had been here. Surely this was her reward. To be with the men from her dreams.

And then the pains had struck again.

She was still here in Tuathanas. She was still dying. She could hear Gillian saying something that she knew should disturb her. Something about crowns and thrones and playing her part. The words burned into Bron’s brain, but she couldn’t filter them now. Her gut seized. She cried. That was the worst. She couldn’t stop crying.

Was she dreaming again? She heard someone asking for a kiss. Pleading and begging just for a kiss.

“Hush, a chumann.” A deep voice forced her from her panic. She opened her eyes, her pussy still burning, and saw him staring down at her. It was Shim but not as she’d dreamed him. This Shim had eyes as deep as the sky just before night swallowed up the day. There was no white to his eyes, just a deep and never-ending midnight. And fangs. They were small, the size of a royal vampire’s, and ever so slightly curved. “I know what you need. You feel the fever, too.”

Yes, fever. She felt it. It was low in her belly, in her pussy and her breasts. But it was also in her head. Something else was happening. She could feel her Dark Ones. They needed, too. They needed to possess her, to be one with her.

“I want to kiss her. You’ve had your turn.” Another voice called to her. She turned and saw her other. Lach. She’d named him Lach. Her heart seized a little. Lach’s face was the same as his brother’s except for the scars. It didn’t mar his beauty, but it did speak of a pain he’d suffered. She reached up and touched him. He tried to turn away, but she held him fast, placing both her hands on his skin. One side was so smooth, perfect, but the other had three long scars forming hills and valleys, a road map of the pain he’d suffered. Burns. Lach had been burned.

For her? Had he rescued her? His eyes turned down as though he was waiting for her to send him away. She leaned over and placed a kiss on the longest of the scars. She started at the bottom, at the hard line of his jaw. She kissed him, over and over, a slow brushing of lips to scarred flesh. She kissed all the way to just right of his eyes. While she pressed kisses to Lach’s face, Shim’s hands moved on her back. She could feel an insistent tug at the ties of her dress. Yes. She didn’t need the dress. She needed to be skin to skin with them, pressed to their bodies, feeling their hearts beat.

Lach’s hands came up covering hers. There was a predatory light in those midnight-blue eyes of his. “You accept me?”

What an odd question. How could she accept something that had always been? He was a part of her. Of course she accepted him.

“Say it, Bronwyn. Say you’re mine. Mine to protect and love. Mine to command.”

Bron nodded. She would agree to just about anything.

His hands tightened. “Say it.”

“I’m yours.” He seemed to need to hear it. It didn’t matter. It was true. She’d always been his. In life. As she moved to death. She was theirs. They had claimed her heart so long ago it was difficult to remember a time when she hadn’t had them in her dreams. It was only right that they be with her as she left this life. If she held on to them as she died, maybe she could pull them with her, be with them in the after?

“Mine. Fucking mine, a chumann.” Lach stroked a hand in her hair and wound it through his fingers, tugging back lightly. He looked fierce as he straightened his body, towering over her. “Mine. My princess. My mate.”

“Our mate, brother. Or are we going to have a problem?” Shim was at her back, his voice a hard grind against her ear.

“I want my fair time, brother. You’ve held her. It’s my time.”

“I had to hold her. I had to protect her while you were busy slaughtering everyone in town.”

“I killed the men who tried to burn our mate. I make no apologies. If you have a problem with me, Shim, perhaps we should fight and see who gets to mate first.”

She felt Shim back off. Lach’s aggression was practically pounding through the room.

“We’re not goblins. We’re not going to fight to death over our mate. Calm yourself. We’re still sidhe. We’re still brothers. Negotiate.”

All the while they talked, hands were on her. Lach pulled her to his body, tugging on her hair and taking her lips. He kissed her, groaning into her mouth, the sound rumbling along her skin. Shim’s fingers tugged at the shoulders of her dress, pulling it down and smoothing over her arms. This was what she needed. Hands on her body. A mouth on hers. Their cocks sliding inside.

Lach’s tongue plunged deep, dancing against her, his mouth dominating. He came up for air, his hands on her hips, drawing her in. She gasped as she felt the hard line of his cock. Lachlan’s cock was nestled against her belly. It wasn’t where she wanted it to be, but it was there, so close she could feel it. Only a few layers of clothing.

“Please. It hurts.” Another flare of pain caught her.

Lach’s hand pulled her skirt up and she felt his palm on her thigh. Rough skin, so unlike the slimy feel of Micha’s hand on her flesh. This touch thrilled her.

“I’ll negotiate, brother. While I take care of our mate. Show me her breasts.” Lach’s voice was low in his throat, the rumble deep and commanding.

“Touch her. She needs hands on her.” Shim pushed the bodice of her dress down while Lach’s hands climbed up her leg.

Her nipples peaked in the cool air. Where was she? She wasn’t in the White Palace. Why had her dreams brought her to this place? It was small, the bed made of straw and ropes. A merchant’s bed. Did she know this place?

“I’ll take her body first,” Lach offered.

“Only if I get first blood,” Shim shot back.

Blood? Why were they talking about blood?

Her breasts brushed Lach’s chest, her aching nipples chafing against the rough wool of his tunic. Lach’s fingers slipped under the gathered band of her undergarment. She trembled as his fingers teased at the outer edges of her pussy.

“First blood, then.” Shim agreed to whatever they were talking about and then cupped her breasts in his hands, holding them up for his brother’s perusal. “These are ours. You’re gorgeous, a chumann. So fucking beautiful.”

His words were as seductive as the hands on her breasts. She’d only ever touched herself there, pretending to be one of them. She’d cupped her breasts deep in the night and pulled at her nipples, imagining it was Lach or Shim tugging at them. She’d dreamed they would call her beautiful though she knew it wasn’t true. But in their eyes she was lovely because she belonged to them. Now, in the most vivid of all her dreams, she truly felt beautiful.

She opened her legs and tried to force those teasing fingers inside.

Lach abruptly pulled away. “Stay still, Bronwyn. You agreed to be mine. That means we play things my way in the bedroom.”

She pushed away from him. What was he talking about? She was in agony and he wanted to place rules on her? So many fucking rules. Don’t tell anyone your name, Bronwyn. Don’t get too close, Bronwyn. Don’t say a word. Don’t fight. Don’t fight. Don’t fight.

Lach grabbed her wrists, pulling her close. “Don’t do that, love. Don’t push me now. I’m on the edge. I killed twenty men to get to you. I don’t want to lose control again. Obey me and everything will be fine.”

“Touch me and everything will be fine,” she demanded.

He let her go and turned away.

Shim wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her back into his arms. “Hush, Bron. He doesn’t understand. He can’t feel you like I do, but I promise, he’s not trying to hurt you. He really is worried that if he loses control he could hurt you. It’s his nature. He’s the dominant half, but I have my job, too. I know what you need.”

Shim’s left hand made its way to her thighs and straight to her pussy. He didn’t tease or play. He went straight for her clitoris, rubbing the plump nubbin.

Blessed relief. She wasn’t completely there yet, but oh she felt so much better. She couldn’t help it. She rolled her hips, rubbing against his fingers.

“Then tell me what she needs, brother.” Lach stood above them, staring down. “I’m so close to the fucking edge. She can’t fight me. It will send me over. I already want to tie her up and spank that ass of hers. I need to dominate her. It’s like a fire in my gut.”

Bron let her head roll back against Shim’s shoulder. Everything sounded good now that he was touching her. The drug was still in control, running through her system, but now she was getting the antidote. Shim’s long fingers slid around her pussy, rubbing her clit and then foraging inside. It felt so good. It calmed the fire. She was moving toward something wonderful.

“And you can dominate her, after she gets what she needs.”

“Just fucking tell me, Shim. I can’t read her mind the way you can.”

Shim kissed the shell of her ear. “I can’t read her mind. We bonded too far away. We need to be close like this and rebond. Then I’ll know everything, but I know this much. She needs to come. She can’t think or obey until she comes. Whatever they forced on her, it was partially an aphrodisiac.”

“Ah, like the vampires make for their orgies so a woman can come for hours.” Lach’s eyes narrowed.

“Yes,” Shim replied. “But the vamps got it from the Seelies. If we can just give her a few orgasms, I think you’ll discover she’ll be deeply submissive.”

Lach nodded. “Let me help.”

His hands found her nipples, rolling them between his thumbs and forefingers. Bron whimpered at the little sting of pain that shot like an arrow straight to her pussy. She couldn’t breathe. She was right on the edge.

“Come for me. Come for us.” Shim’s thumbs rotated on her clit as his fingers plunged deep.

Bron tripped over the edge. That wonderful word “orgasm” finally meant something to her. It meant relief, pleasure, and an overwhelming sense of finally belonging.

She belonged with these men. Her dream men.

The pleasure washed over her, suffusing every cell of her body with a delicious sense of languor. She slumped down, unable to hold herself up for one minute longer. Blood pounded through her body. The only thing holding her up was Shim’s strong arms around her waist.

So sweet. After what seemed like hours of agony, the very cessation of pain felt like the purest pleasure. Her skin felt deliciously alive. A smile curled her lips up.

“See.” Shim’s cock nestled against her ass. She was half naked, her breasts bared to them. Lach’s fangs were out, his hands still rubbing her breasts. “So much better. Don’t you feel better, my princess?”

She sighed, groaning a little as Shim’s fingers slipped from her pussy. She didn’t want them to leave. She liked how it felt to have some piece of him inside her. “I want it again.”

She could take her time. They could linger over her, giving her round after delicious round of pleasure.

“Not this time, love. Don’t you think it’s our turn?” Shim nipped at her ear.

Their turn. Her turn. Did it really matter as long as they kept touching her?

Lach growled, his hands back in her hair. “Get her clothes off. Now, Shim. I can’t wait. It’s killing me.”

“He’s such a pain in my ass. He thinks I don’t feel it, but he’s wrong. I feel it every bit as badly as he does, but I’m the intellectual half. It’s my lot in life to be forced to forever deal with his drama.”

This wasn’t how she’d imagined they would speak. “You talk so oddly.”

“Hold your arms up, love.” Shim pulled the dress over her head, freeing her from the burden. “I talk the way I do because I spent so much time on the Vampire plane. Our mother was a vampire. She wanted us to have close ties to her people.”

She still felt like she was floating, but sparks had already begun in her pussy again. “My cos is a vampire.”

“Yes, Dante. We’ve met him.” Shim’s hands skimmed down, dragging her undergarments along.

Of course they knew Dante. They lived in her head. Dante was there, the funniest of playmates.

“He annoys me, but his consort seems nice,” Lach allowed.

Consort? Dante wasn’t old enough to have a consort. And she loved Dante. Confusion began to set in. And so did pain. She doubled over, crying. She’d hoped it was gone, but it was back, that fire in her loins. The burning flared and she couldn’t help but cry out her despair.

“Damn it,” Shim cursed. “Whatever they gave her, it was strong. She needs another orgasm. Lie down, love.”

Lach picked her up. “Who did this to you, a chumann? Give me his name.”

She shook a little. The fire was building. “Micha. He wanted to marry me. He was angry when I showed my true self.”

Oh, she needed the touch again. Lach laid her on the bed, staring down at her as Shim stripped off her undergarment. Naked. She was naked in front of him. His eyes latched on to her pussy.

“Where is this man? I will have his heart on the end of my sword.” Lach pulled his shirt over his head revealing a perfectly sculpted chest. His torso was covered with golden, sun-kissed skin pulled over taut muscles. He was so masculine.

“He’s the mayor. He didn’t want me to tell them who I am.” No one wanted her to tell. Certainly not Gillian. Gillian. She’d been here. She’d said things that made no sense.

“A small man, older? Did he wear a golden broach and order everyone about as though he owned them?”

Her legs moved restlessly of their own accord. “He put the solution in my water and when it didn’t work, he forced it down my throat. So much.”

Lach pushed his pants down, freeing his cock. Bron’s eyes widened. A cock. She’d seen them before on small boys bathing in the river and once when she’d accidently seen two peasants making love in a barn, but Lach was so much more. His cock was long and thick. It was almost purple, like a ripe plum sitting on a thick stalk. Lach wrapped a hand around his cock, stroking firmly.

“Spread your legs, love. If you want me to take care of you, you have to give access.” Lach didn’t wait for her to obey. He took her ankles and forced them apart, leaving her pussy on full display. “If he was wearing a purple tunic and that gold broach, then you don’t need to worry about him ever again, love. He’s lying in the town square and he won’t get up unless I tell him to. Gods, that’s a gorgeous sight.”

He reached down and touched her, his finger running from her navel down to her pussy. He delved inside, running all over her labia and into her cunt.

His cock jumped. She knew it wasn’t true, that it was only her imagination, but the idea that Micha had gotten what was coming to him gave her comfort. Micha had cut a swath through the district, taking advantage of anyone he could. The plane would be a better place without him.

“Lift up, a chumann.” Shim was getting in behind her, sliding his naked body under her own. Warm flesh surrounded her.

Lach pulled his fingers free and did something that made Bron gasp. He stared for a moment at his fingers, coated in the cream of her arousal. Then he shoved those fingers into his mouth and licked them clean.

“He thinks you taste good.” Shim’s hands were once again on her breasts.

“He knows you taste good,” Lach said.

Bron shook her head. They were wasting time. The fire was building. “Please. Just touch me.”

Lach settled himself between her legs. “I will, love. I’ll touch you. I’ll make you come. I studied. I learned everything just for you.”

She was about to protest again, but he leaned over, his whole body on the bed, torso down. His face was close to her pussy. She couldn’t imagine what he was planning and then he licked her.

What a feeling. Perfection. Arousal swelled, puffing up her pussy, her clit poking out its hood and throbbing for his touch. He stroked her, a long lick of his tongue that lit up every inch of her pussy. He started at her cunt, spearing her with his tongue. It was like a cock. He was fucking her, but with his tongue, tasting her essence. It was so intimate. She was on his tongue. He was in her pussy.

Lachlan licked and sucked and lit her up like a firefly pulsing with energy and life. He held her down, his hands on her thighs, pressing them open. Shim held her arms, keeping her still for his brother’s tasting. And Lach feasted. His tongue was everywhere. He sucked at her labial lips, lavishing affection there. He ran his nose along her pussy, breathing deeply as though he wanted to inhale her, to make her his every breath.

But as he breathed her in, she lost her own. It felt so good, that soft but strong tongue delving deep and then worrying her clitoris.

Something sharp scraped against her neck. Shim. He squeezed her nipples to just the right side of pain. “Do you like the way he eats your pussy?”

Such a dirty phrase and yet it sounded good to her ears. She was Lachlan’s feast, her pussy a sweet treat for his tongue. “Yes. I love it. It feels so good.”

“He’s going to make you suck his cock, love. He’s going to put that monster to your lips and make you lick and suck him and swallow down his cum. Do you remember what cum is?”

He’d explained it to her in a dream, but she’d also heard the village women speak of it. “It’s white. It seeps from a man’s cock.”

Lach nosed her cunt, making a low groan.

“Yes,” Shim said as she felt that scraping against her skin. It made her shiver and moan. “Cum is what a man injects into his mate during sex. Cum is what we want to give you. Cum will make you pregnant. We’re going to love tasting your sweet cream, but we’ll want you to taste us, too. You’ll suck our cocks, let us shoot our cum deep inside your belly.”

His words were intoxicating. She wanted to do exactly what he said. She wanted to taste them. It seemed such a foreign idea, but the intimacy of having her Dark Ones in her mouth, in her pussy was overwhelming.

Lachlan was using his fingers now. Strong digits stretched her and moved inside her while his tongue licked at her clit. “She tastes so good. She’s making me crazy.” He nuzzled her inner thigh. “Gods, brother, I can hear the blood. She has a vein right here. We can feed from our mate and smell it when she comes.”

Their mother. They had mentioned their mother was a vampire. How was that true? It didn’t matter. The drug flared in her system and all she wanted was to come again, to quench the fire. Shim’s tongue licked a line of pure sensation from the base of her neck to her earlobe.

“I want to taste your juice, too. But that’s not the only thing I want to taste, a chumann,” Shim said. “Make her come, brother, so I can have my taste.”

Lach sucked her clit into his mouth and she went flying. It was stronger this time. The drug seemed almost banished from her system, but she knew it would come again. She would feel the ache and the fire, but she was no longer afraid. Her Dark Ones were here. They would care for her. They would give her what she needed to fight the ache.

Lach kissed her pussy one last time before getting to his knees. His cock bobbed, standing straight up, almost touching his navel. Those fangs were out, but now she wasn’t afraid of those, either. Now they just made him look feral and magnificent.

She felt so good, but it was already building again, a tiny, hurtful flame that would engulf her once more. How long could she endure it?

Shim turned her, moving her body until she looked into his perfect face. She couldn’t see Lach, but Shim held her fast.

“Now it’s my turn for a taste.” He licked his fangs as Bron got lost in his never-ending eyes.

* * * *

Shim felt it the moment he caught her. His eyes had widened, his vision expanding and shrinking at the same time. He could tell the expansion because his peripheral vision widened, but it didn’t matter because his focus shrunk to one thing and one thing only. Bronwyn.

He opened that place deep inside—the royal vampire’s legacy. He drew his prey in, a primal part of him calling to her. It was how a royal fed. A royal didn’t drag down his prey. A royal made the prey beg for his bite.

“What’s happening?” Bron’s voice sounded half strangled in her throat.

Shim could hear her heart beating like the fast-running metronome in his old vampire tutor’s piano lessons. Shim had mastered the piano with ease, but Lach had threatened to take an axe to the damn thing. Thud. Thud. Thud. A seductive beat promising nourishment for more than his body. Bronwyn’s blood would fill his soul.

First blood.

It was sacred or it should be. Shim knew there were many vampires who took blood as often as they took sex, but he wanted both only from his mate. Perhaps it was that they had been together since they were children, and before he’d even understood the word love, he’d been in love with her. Perhaps it was a function of his personality, but Shim had always known if he couldn’t have Bronwyn, he would die alone, like a sad monk waiting for the day he could join his god.

He felt a bit of his brother’s desperate need to dominate as he tugged Bron’s hair to one side, exposing her neck.

“It’s a way to make the bite painless, Bron.” Lach sat back on his heels, watching them. He had his hand on his cock, caressing it. Shim knew exactly what he was doing. The mating fever was strong, probably stronger in Lach than in Shim himself. If he didn’t keep his cock engaged, he would fall on Bronwyn with no thought but to pound himself into her, to imprint on her.

They had to take it slow.

But she was ready for this. Shim ran his nose along her neck. He’d seen this act performed before. Cousin Julian had forced him to watch it, to learn how it was done. Shim remembered how frustrated Julian had been that he and Lach wouldn’t feed, but now it was all worth it. His first blood would be her blood.

Bron’s eyes were caught in his. He felt like he could see all the way down to her beautiful, innocent soul. She was so lovely in her natural form. He’d wondered if she’d been like Lach, projecting a perfect image of herself and it had been true. She was thinner in her real form, a bit more careworn, but still so perfect she made his heart stop. He and Lach would take better care of her. They would feed her and coddle her until her curves filled out and her eyes danced with mirth as they had when she’d run through their dreams as a child.

“This feels so good,” she murmured.

The vampire connection of predator to beloved and honored prey was working in a way he hadn’t expected. The drug wasn’t as strong as this power, made even stronger through the shared connection of his brother. He drew her in, away from the pain, away from the fear into a place that was just for the three of them.

His fangs were so big, he could barely talk through them. Like his cock, they were long and hard for his mate. And just like his cock, they demanded to have their way. “This, love, is going to feel even better.”

He drew her close, loving the way those nipples poked at his chest, brushing his own. He’d enjoyed tugging on them and couldn’t wait for the day when they would take her and have her nipples pierced, adorning their sweet submissive as she should be.

Running on pure instinct, Shim drew back. He knew exactly where to bite. The long, thick vein in her neck practically pounded, calling out to him to open it and drink his fill.

“Take her, brother.” Lach’s hand was on her back as though he couldn’t stand not touching her. “Bring her closer to us.”

“I love you, a stoirin.” It was nothing less than the truth. Shim reared back and his fangs sank into her soft flesh.

He took his first drag and finally understood why vampires jealously guarded this tradition. It was a secret thing, somewhat shameful in the modern vampire world, but Shim had never experienced an intimacy like it.

The blood flowed into his mouth, coating his tongue. It was the richest taste. No food, no wine, no drink at all would ever compare to the way she tasted. Like the darkest flavor, the most forbidden.

Shim felt her sigh and relax in his arms, her heart a clear beat in his head. He knew everything about her body in that instant. He knew her heartbeat was rising with each deep drag. Her pussy, already soft from Lach’s lavish affection, was throbbing in time to her heart, her clit pulsing. Her head was foggy with desire, her thoughts of them covered in a lacy haze.

He caught small visions of her life, but mostly he felt her joy at being there with them. Her Dark Ones. Her One and her Two. Her Lachlan and her Shim.

So much running. So much hiding. So much of the before had been burned away by that one moment when the knife had cut through her belly and ended her life.

She didn’t know. She didn’t remember a thing about what had happened. She didn’t recall how he’d reached across the planes and poured his life into her.

Gods, she didn’t think he was real at all.

Bronwyn gasped and gripped his body, holding him as she quaked. The pleasure was so new to her, and she held fast to it like a drunk with his first taste of liquor. Bron didn’t have a single shield. She transmitted her pleasure to him, the feeling going straight to Shim’s cock. Her womb shook and quaked, sending pleasure coursing through her body and into his.

Shim’s cock was gripped with her heat though she didn’t lay a hand on it. Spasms ran through his belly and shook up his spine. He pulled his fangs out of her neck as the orgasm crashed into him. His cock pulsed out waves of cum, coating her belly as he thrust helplessly against her.

He finally fell back against the bed, taking her with him, wrapping himself around her.

“It’s not enough,” she whispered. “I loved it, but it’s not enough.”

She needed. He finally understood. It wasn’t just the orgasm she needed. She needed to be filled. She needed them to fill her up and let her know they were real and she wasn’t alone.

He looked to his brother. “She needs you. Make love to her. Make her ours.”