Chapter 5

“I think we can get you out today,” I told Vex two days later, after most of the extra guards had left. I had no clue what the queen or the college knew about the break in, and no idea what to make of the sleep whisperers, of the Everess’ presence on the mountain that day, of Ame’s sudden appearance. But the last two days had been ridiculously … normal, if not for the bull-poop of Professor Tiukka’s Spirits and Shadows class.

“Maybe I don’t want out?” Vex whispered against my ear, cuddling me from behind in bed again. I loved having him there. He was like … my anchor to the world of the living, a barrier that kept me from the Otherside. Yes, like Jasinda did for me, but … in a different sort of way.

I liked him.

I seriously flubbing liked him.

“You can’t stay here,” I whispered, even though I kind of wanted him to. I hadn’t forgotten that the last time I’d slept with Air, I’d almost sent him to the Otherside in the middle of a nightmare. And despite Elijah’s reassurance that he’d stop it from happening again, I wanted someone living here with me, someone that wasn’t Jasinda. I was tired of burdening my handler with all my … idiosyncrasies.

“Why not?” Vex asked, sitting up and knocking the blankets down his bare chest. He put a tattooed hand on my arm and gave it a squeeze, the warmth from his body seeping into mine. “I’ll see if I can’t use my status with the guild to get some sort of permit to stay on campus. Reisender is a selfish god. He doesn’t give his gift to many. Perhaps the Royal College needs a part-time teacher with my skills?”

My heart soared at that thought. At least, it did until Trubble laughed at me from the foot of the bed. He didn’t really have a set spot to sleep. Basically, the little bum-hole did whatever he flubbing pleased.

“Highly unlikely. These snooty upper crust types aren’t interested in anything different. They like things the way they like them.” The fox sat up and curled his nine tails around his tiny body, the runes on his head flickering slightly. “Now, when are we going to attempt this spell? Today is not a school day, if I recall my brother’s schedule correctly.”

“Maybe Brynn doesn’t want to try the damn spell?” Vex growled out, setting Trubble on edge. His fur spike up and he raised his back in an arch, like an angry cat, bronze eyes flashing with anger.

“What do you mean she doesn’t want to try the spell? I need my brother back. Vaenn needs my brother back. Europia needs him back. He died for you, and you will resurrect him.”

“Brynn doesn’t have to a gods-damned thing she doesn’t want to do,” Vex snapped back, pulling me close as I sat up and rubbed at my face. Right. I’d almost forgotten—even the cute little fox was a bleeding prince.

“It’s … fine,” I said, my mind straying to Talon once again.

Waiting out these last few days, it’d become painfully obvious to me.

I could not let the thief go. No flubbing way. It was literally killing me inside knowing he was suffering out there. I had no idea what I was going to do, but I had to try something.

“I do want to try the spell,” I continued, feeling Vex stiffen up beside me. I flicked a glance his way and found those gray eyes of his watching me. He’d been there for me when I needed him most, held me while I cried, brushed the hair off my forehead and chased away the nightmares. I wanted his approval, but I also knew that I needed Air back. Beyond that, Eli deserved another chance at life. And Dyre had sacrificed himself for me. Trubble was right in that the world needed him back.

Even if it meant losing everything for me, I had to try. I figured at the very least, if I did resurrect one of the guys, I’d get to keep trying until I succeeded with Air. Then, if I had to, I could run.

“Brynn,” Vexer started as I turned to him, putting a palm flat on his chest. His wings shifted in response to my touch as I curled my fingertips against his warmth. He had a sprinkling of chest hair, just enough to give him this rugged look but not enough to gross me out. Yeah, I had sort of a thing about body hair.

“If I succeed, I might have to run,” I started, licking my lower lip. “Would you—”

“I’d get you out of here,” he promised, before even hearing what I had to say. “Brynn, if you haven’t noticed, I’m interested in you. I’m here for good.” He reached out with tattooed fingers and touched them beneath my chin, lifting my face up for a deep, sultry kiss that warmed me all the way to the bone. “I want you as my mate,” Vex added after a few moments of steamy tongue tangling.

“Your … mate?” I asked, feeling my throat get tight and dry.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Trubble snarled from the end of the bed, biting my toe through the blankets and making me yelp. “If you’re to breed, then breed quickly and get downstairs. I’ll let everyone else know not to disturb you.”

“Screw you!” I blurted at him, and lost a feather for the effort. “You won’t say a flubbing thing to anyone downstairs except that we’re trying the spell today. Otherwise, keep your furry mouth shut.”

“I can keep it shut—clamped around your ankle. Just ask Dyre if you can see his scars and you’ll see what I mean. Don’t take too long.” With a lascivious little grin, the fox jumped off the bed, stretched and then trotted to the door. One of his tails lashed out and grabbed the handle, turning it and yanking it open before he left. He did the same thing on the other side, closing it behind him.

Well, flubbing dung beetles, I was impressed.

“He’s one of the most powerful … people I’ve ever met,” Vex growled out through clenched teeth. I glanced back at him to see his face lined with worry. “Promise me, if he starts to go, you’ll get rid of him the same way you did the shadows back at the Vibrant? If he slips away, we’ll have one hell of a time trying to defend ourselves from him. He knocked out a dragon like it was nothing at all.”

“I …” I started, rubbing my hands down my face again.

My plate, well, it wasn’t just full. It was pretty much heaped to the friggin’ ceiling. Hell’s bells, I felt like I had a whole buffet resting on top of it.

“I don’t want to hurt him. Maybe there’s some sort of, I don’t know, binding spell we can try. Shadows aren’t spirits, no, but they’re pretty similar. They’re not of this world. If I can bind ghosts to me left and right, why not a shadow?”

“You want to bind … that to you?” Vex asked with a slight smile and a shake of his head. He held up his hands, palms out and gave me this sizzling look that made my skin ripple with desire. “Never mind. Doesn’t matter. Let’s focus on the previous issue: mating.”

“You said mate, not mate-ing,” I choked out, realizing suddenly how intimate this moment was. The griffin with no shirt, brushing his wings against mine while I lay there in nothing but a silk nightie. It was a recipe for trouble. Or sex. Yeah, more like sex.

“What do you think the word mate implies?” he laughed, this low gruff sound that did all sorts of strange things to my insides. “Although I have to say, not sleeping with you recently has been more satisfying than anything I’ve ever experienced.”

I snorted and batted his hands away, shifting my wings so they weren’t rubbing together quite so much.

“Don’t talk like that, it’s ridiculous.”

“Brynn,” Vex said, folding one of my bronze hands into his tanned ones. My people were naturally brown; his were white until they got enough sun. We still looked pretty together, our fingers all tangled up. “I know you love the prince, and that you’re … interested in Elijah. That doesn’t matter to me. I still want you as my mate.”

“That seems like a pretty big decision to make.” My cheeks were red as copperberries, I knew they were. Fuck. And another feather bites the dust. I just couldn’t seem to keep my cursing under control lately. I mean, could I be blamed, considering the circumstances? “Don’t you need more time?”

“Time?” Vex asked with another laugh, turning abruptly and covering my body with his. I slid down the pillows and ended up with him on top of me, his forearms brace on either side of my head. “I don’t need any more time, Brynn. I started watching you long before you ever noticed me.”

“That’s not creepy at all,” I whispered, but my voice was husky and broken. It was hard to protest with the long, hard length of Vex’s erection pressing into me. And, like, I didn’t even want to protest. I wanted Vexer so damn badly. So badly. He was the only living man I had feelings for. He made me feel alive. “Since when?”

Vex lowered his face to my throat, teased his tongue along the length of my neck and made me shiver.

“I don’t know. A few months, maybe? Every time you came and went from New Akyumen.”

“Seriously?!” I squeaked, just before he pressed his mouth to mine, the slight stubble on his face rubbing against my smooth one. He was so … big and male and primal, nothing at all like Elijah or Air. Not that that made them any less special. In fact, it made all three of them that much more intriguing. I’d never given a lot of thought to having a harem of my own … Vex made me both stupidly interested in it … and sort of against it, too.

Having him hold me like this, I could almost imagine him becoming my one and only. But then, I loved Airmienan more than the sun loved the sky. It was an interesting fantasy though, one that I entertained by spreading my legs and encouraging Vexer to slide between them.

He ground his hard cock against the molten heat of my core, the only items separating us a few thin pieces of silk—my panties and the pajama pants he’d borrowed from Air’s dresser. It wasn’t like the prince needed them at the moment …

A rush of sadness and pain took over me, but I pushed it back, deepening my kiss with Vex and wrapping my legs around him. He tasted as good as he smelled, like sunshine and life and new beginnings. I flubbing needed him—bad.

“Be my mate, Brynn,” he growled against my mouth, using forceful thrusts of his hips to turn me into a molten puddle of desire. I couldn’t resist what he was offering me, even as I knew it was too soon to want it. Too selfish, really, considering the state of my life.

“Are you asking me to marry you?” I whispered between kisses. Vex pulled away just slightly and spread his wings wide before them in close to his back. His gray eyes burned with the bright fires of lust … and something else. Need. Desire. Affection. That’s what it was, right? Because it couldn’t quite be love. And yet, he’d woken me up from a sleep whisperer’s spell? How was that even possible?

“This is more than that, Brynn. My people are monogamous and we mate for life.”

“Does that mean you’re a virgin?!” I choked out, and he laughed again, the sound rumbling through me from above.

“No,” he said, flashing white teeth at me in a cheeky little grin. “It just means that once I choose a mate, once she accepts, there’s no going back. There’s a small ceremony that goes along with it, but what matters is the heart.” Vex put a tattooed palm to his chest and locked eyes with me from above.

“I’m not … I don’t know,” I choked out, knowing I had to consider Air’s and Elijah’s feeling in this. True, my relationship with Eli was much less formal than what I had with Air, and even then, that was on the rocks, too. But I owed them that. I wouldn’t treat these men like the only thing that mattered was the individual relationship we had. It was ridiculous to think of a harem as a sun with rotating planets. The guys would interact in some form or another. They had to at least get along. “Maybe we try this first and then decide?” I squeezed Vex to me by clenching my thighs and he groaned low in his throat. In the back of my mind, I was still thinking about Talon, but right here, right now, I needed this like I needed to breathe oxygen.

“That sounds like a good plan,” Vex rumbled, kissing me with his whole mouth: lips and tongue and teeth. He drew these small sounds from my throat that I prayed on Haversey’s hard nipples nobody else would hear … but yet I knew everyone would.

“Let’s get naked,” I said in a husky whisper. The thing with ghosts was, they could shed their clothes in an instant, get naked without shedding a single scrap of cloth. But living people, they had to remove them slowly, sensually.

Vexer pulled back from me and sat up on his knees, pushing the red silk pants down his pants and showing me everything that was hiding down there. A bit of dark hair lead down the flat expanse of his abs underneath his belly button. It was dusted around his pelvic area, highlighting all the best parts.

And Haversey help me, Vexer was really big. Like really, really big.

He adjusted his position on the bed and kicked his pants off onto the floor, crossing his arms over his chest and raising one brunette brow in challenge. His look very clearly said … “Your turn.” I grinned as he spoke the words aloud, shedding my nightie and watching as his attention landed fully on my breasts, on the brown shadows of my nipples. “Mm. Even better than I expected.”

“Professor Cross says you have a pornographic imagination,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest and glaring at Vexer. It was a bit of a struggle to hold back a smile. “I don’t appreciate you thinking about me naked.”

“Really?” he asked, reaching down and running the tip of one finger down his cock. “Because I was praying to Reisender, Haversey, and Hellim that you were thinking about me.”

I can’t help it; my mouth twitches up in a smile and I let go of my breasts, standing up and sweeping the long length of my hair over my shoulders to hide my nipples. Time to take off the panties. Deep breath, Brynn.

“What sort of things were you thinking about?” I whispered as I slowly, carefully shimmied out of my panties, dropping the damp silk fabric to the floor. I swept my hair forward to hide my crotch and watched as the corner of Vex’s lip curled up in a small snarl.

“Come over here, and I’ll show you,” he said, gripping the base of his shaft and squeezing it hard enough that he drew a gasp from his own throat. I approached him slowly, wrapping my wings around myself like a shield. When I got close enough, Vex reached up and used his hands to carefully push them aside, like he was giving me a proper little reveal. “How experienced are you?”

“Not very.” I swallowed a sudden lump in my throat. “You?”

“I could teach you a few tricks,” he said with a confident, male smile that turned my insides to mush. He put his hands on my hips, weaving his fingers through my hair to find my bare skin. Our eyes met and my pulse roared so loud that I couldn’t hear a damn thing otherwise. “I’m taking birth control, and a DPS …”

“Me, too,” I said, nodding briskly. A DPS was a disease prevention spell. I was prepared for this.

“Excellent,” Vex growled, pulling me forward to straddle his lap. The hair on his legs brushed the smoothness of my own and made me shiver as he curled his wings around us, rubbing his feathers against mine.

My hands came to rest on either side of Vexer’s head, and I leaned down, letting my breath feather against his lips before we kissed, slow and languid, tasting each other. Do I want to be this guy’s mate? I wondered. I hadn’t known him long, but Hellim’s balls, he’d sure stepped up to the plate. He’d held me as I wept, gone out on a limb and found the rare supplies for the spell, and then, he’d risked his neck to sneak on campus and wake me up.

Plus, you know he was hot. Super hot. Like Sukupoli—the god of sex—hot.

And I … kind of liked him, too.

I took a small step back, breaking our kiss, and then knelt down in front of Vexer, putting my hands on his knees. He gave me a very curious sort of look.

“I’ve never given a blow job before,” I whispered, pushing his legs out of my way so I could scoot closer, my fingers teasing up his thighs and drawing this wild, masculine sound from his throat. “Unless you don’t want to be my first in that category …”

“Don’t even go there,” he growled, taking my left hand and curling my fingers around the base of his shaft. Part of me wondered if I should save this for Air. He was the love of my life, after all. But life was the keyword in all of that. I needed someone with a pulse right now; I needed Vexer.

I flicked my eyes up and met the thundercloud gray of his, running my tongue along my lower lip until it was slick and moist. I can’t believe I’m doing this right now! I thought, even as I leaned forward and slid the length of my tongue against the underside of Vexer’s shaft. There were so many people in this house right now, most of them spirits that could pop through the floor or walls at any moment and see what I was up to.

Didn’t stop me.

Instead, I felt excitement flutter through me. I liked what I was doing, and I wanted to make Vexer feel good. He’d made me feel so much better after Air’s death, helped me fight off my nightmares the last few days. Why shouldn’t I?

“You taste a little salty,” I admitted, giving his shaft another squeeze and then running my fingers up and over the pre-ejac on the tip of his cock. It was nice and slick, mixing with my saliva to give me lubricant for my fist. “But kind of good, too.”

“I always aim to please,” Vex said, putting his palms flat on the bed and leaning back. But he made sure to keep his focus entirely on me. With our eyes still locked, I slipped my mouth over the tip and swirled my tongue in a circle. The move made little goose bumps break out across Vex’s skin which I loved. Sucking him a little deeper, I let the velvety length of his shaft rest against my tongue … and then I hummed. “Reisender’s nuts,” he growled, the sound vibrating through his body and into me. “Where did you learn that one?”

Instead of answering him, I just smiled and slid back up his shaft, sliding him from my lips with a little pop. I kissed down the sound of Vexer’s cock until I got to his balls, gently sucking on the skin while I played with them in my palm.

“You sure this is your first time?” he asked as I worked him with my hand and brought my mouth over his dick so that my lips met my fist. Vex was sweating now, shaking slightly. I didn’t stop until he was tense and tangling his fingers in my hair.

“I’m sure,” I said, loving how confident and cool I sounded. Now why couldn’t I sound that like that on a more regular basis? Instead of breaking priceless artifacts with my wings and falling down stairs, I could … you know, sound sophisticated. And I was so not about to tell Vexer, the master of the Travelers’ Guild, that I’d learned everything I was doing from Jasinda. Or that she had learned all these techniques from her sister.

I curled my wings forward, thought about the dirtiest curse word I could come up with—Professor Tiukka is a fucking bitch—and caught the single black feather that popped off.

“Cursed spirits,” Vex groaned as I teased his shaft with the end of it, seeing how far I could push him before he either came or … “Brynn.” That single syllable had never sounded so sexy before. When Vex took me by the shoulders and leaned down to kiss my mouth, the taste of his pre-cum mingled between our lips. “Come here.”

He helped me to my feet and once again, I straddled his legs, running my fingers through his brunette hair as he kissed and sucked on my nipples, teasing them into his mouth and biting down gently with those white-white teeth of his. Vex’s big hands traced down my back and cupped the round shape of my bottom, fingers kneading the soft flesh.

Our wings played a game of their own, sliding and rubbing together, his feathers tickling those stupid little bald spots of mine. It seemed a bit ridiculous considering I was a foot shorter than him, and probably a hundred or even two hundred pounds less, but our wingspans were just about the same. No wonder I toppled over all the time!

Soft, husky sounds spilled past my lips as Vex slipped a hand between my legs, testing my wetness with his fingers, slicking the natural lube out and over my clit. He worked me with those tattooed fingers of his until I was trembling as hard as he’d been when I had my mouth over his cock.

“Vex, wait,” I choked out as he dipped two fingers inside and used his thumb against the swollen nub of my clit. My arms and wings curled around him as I relaxed my bodyweight against his. He was taking me too far; there was no way I was going to be able to stand on my own. Vex held me up with his left arm around my waist, those massive muscles of his easily keeping me up as he fucked me to climax with his hand.

A long, awful sounding groan escaped my lips as I collapsed onto his lap, feeling the hardness of his shaft slip against the front of my folds. I was sweating, too, and shaking, clinging to Vexer as white-hot waves of pleasure rolled through me.

“Let’s keep going,” he growled against my ear. “I need to convince you to be mine.”

A sudden laugh escaped me as I pushed back against his chest and gave him a look.

“I think you’ve done a pretty good job of that so far,” I said, enjoying the grin that spread across his hips just before he kissed me again. As our tongues slid together, I sat up on my knees and let Vexer put his hand between us, guiding his cock to my opening.

Just before I slid down, I pulled back so I could look into his face as he filled me. Inch by inch, I took Vexer’s thick shaft between my thighs. A gasp tore from my throat as I realized exactly how big he really was.

“I don’t think I can take it all,” I whispered against his ear. He growled at me, his hands tightening on my hips, but he didn’t force the issue, rocking his hips up slowly until his cock hit the end of me. I’d never been stretched so much before, never felt so filled. And I loved that, too. “Mm.” Several minutes of thrusting loosened me up enough to take him further and finally, I settled fully and completely on Vex’s lap, my hands on his chest, my head tilted back to look into his eyes.

“I knew you could do it,” he said with another little growl, a reminder that he was as much man as he was beast …

“Your tail,” I gasped out, just before he curled the muscular length of it around my wrist and squeezed. Vex wrapped me up in his wings, kept his hands on my hips, and watched as I started to roll my hips fast and then faster, until we were both moaning, my breasts pressed to his chest, my head thrown back in ecstasy.

I swear, when he came inside of me, I saw flubbing fireworks behind my eyes.

“Be my mate, Brynn,” he breathed, his chin on my shoulder, his mouth so close to my ear that I shivered again, my muscles still fluttering with the aftershocks of the orgasm and teasing his cock. I couldn’t respond to him, not yet, not when Air and Eli were still dead, not when Talon was missing.

But once I got those things sorted out? I was almost certain I was going to say yes.