3. Geralt

Ileana, Ileana, Ileana…

There was no name sweeter.

No taste finer.

No mate brighter…

Mine.

Nay. Ours.

I would end this world for her. Start the apocalypse this moment, eons ahead of prophesized doom and destruction—just to make her smile. Slit throats and tear out spines and crack knees and flay foes just to make her laugh. All this and more I would do for her and only her, now until the end of our days, our fates entwined, our connection eternal.

Did she feel it, too?

Could she sense the bond in the air, the twist of her soul’s path down the trail less trodden, dark and prickly and dangerous—yet the danger would never, ever touch her.

Or I’d set it alight and dance in its ashes.

For now, I focused on swallowing the unmitigated rage at some gaggle of human males daring to tell us how long we had with our mate. This stint in prison had been such a bore, full of hibernation in our cell and quarrels with the rest of the legion, counting down the days until they walked us back to the hellmouth and pitched us headlong into the fire, this invasion a wash and plans for another already underway.

All that changed with her.

Our magpie.

Ileana.

Couldn’t go back now.

Couldn’t abandon her here.

Never, never, never.

Yet she had much to learn about leviathans and demons, let alone a blend of the two such as her mates were. Our collective anger had startled her, the allotted ten measly minutes nothing, a blink in how my brothers and I preferred our lovemaking. Fucking. To Aedan and Cato, it was always fucking. I’d turned my nose up at the term before, my respect for femalekind enduring and deeply ingrained.

With her, here and now, I realized that was all it was before. Fucking. Mindless rutting, something to pass the time before we found our mate—on Earth of all places, a poor magpie stuck in a cage.

A cage she… volunteered for.

The news still shocked me, but that was a discussion for another time, another place. A better place.

For now, I reined in my wrath—for I never craved her fear. Let her see us, love us, ride into the doom of this world with us, exactly as we are. Embrace us for what we are, every part of it, for we would do the same with her. This mating was nothing; I suspected none of my brothers would even properly bite her here. To do so felt… cheap. I knew nothing about her, but all that would change once they opened the door. Golden cuffs be damned, we would take our mate from this miserable place and never look back.

Her delectable cunt, smeared with her climax, swollen and tender from my attentions—it lifted from my face. Ash-grey hands maneuvered her, Cato with his shadow crown and his focused expression arranging her down my body, settling her at the helm of my aching cock. Urgency slashed the air. No one said a word, but the sentiment echoed between we three bonded brothers, the tension tugging at my navel and twining around my heart like thorns.

We needed to mate her now—or we might lose her to another.

None of us had expected a human-supernatural alliance on Ether Island.

We had expected to flood the coast and spread our darkness to the nearest continent.

And we ended up here.

For all our centuries of experience, mankind found a way to surprise us.

“Gently, brother,” Cato warned, our eyes briefly meeting, his so very blue in the dim lighting, the black of his inner demon slicing across those irises like a bleak horizon. “Be slow.”

“Of course,” I rumbled. It needn’t be said, but let him ease his own fears for her at my expense. For her first time, I would have changed everything. I’d have spent the day worshipping between her thighs, making her come again and again until she couldn’t take it a second longer. As if preparing a sacrifice, I’d have bathed her in ambrosia and milk and honey. Massaged her taut muscles. Kissed her. I would have readied her properly, laid her on a bed of flower petals while Aedan and Cato huffed and rolled their eyes, forever unimpressed with my notion of romance.

Let them scoff.

Finally, they would understand—with her, all my gentle, romantic practice would make sense.

And then they would do it, too. In their own ways, these stubborn fools would worship her.

Our reality was so stark, so bleak, but it softened around the edges somewhat as Ileana braced one hand on my chest, then nudged tentatively back toward my cock. Swollen lower lip snagged between her teeth, she stilled when the tip poked her entrance, inhaling sharply, and looked back to me. Maybe for support. Maybe for permission. I could provide both if she needed it—yet she suddenly lost herself in the wet around my mouth, her juices painting my lips, my cheeks, my chin.

I let them be, for I loved the smell of her right there. My sweetness. My beauty. Food and wine and blood would never taste as it once had now that I’d tasted her.

“Tell me when to slow, Ileana.” My whisper startled her—made her jerk herself back so that my cock slipped just into her slick entrance. She stiffened, eyes wide with panic, and despite the need shredding me apart inside, the clock counting down, I stole a few precious seconds to sweep her thick black hair over her shoulders, to bask in her gold-and-emerald eyes, to pinch her sharp little chin. “Use me. Set yourself free.”

Virginity was a damning chain in this world. Our supernatural cousins hunted for it, paid handsomely for it. Her order used it to their advantage. It mattered not to me if she had never mated once in her life or bedded a thousand lovers before us. She was ours now. Be rid of the damn thing and fly.

Familiar fingers brushed my cock—certainly not hers. No, these were far cooler, far firmer. Confident. Aedan. While I stroked her thighs, Aedan held me aloft and Cato crouched by her side, easing her onto my shaft as time, or the lack thereof, pressed in on this miserable little room like a choking smog. Ileana gasped when I stretched her, and I closed my eyes, pleasure spiking in my core and addling my brain, then fought the violent urge to pound up and scent virgin blood in the air. With all that I possessed, I resisted taking her as I truly wished—because we hadn’t spent the day readying her. One orgasm was just unacceptable, truth be told.

A second hand suddenly pressed into my chest, and I glanced down at both of hers, so pale compared to my obsidian flesh, as she steadied herself—then eased down on her own. Brave creature. Strong. Sure of herself, pushing down, pausing briefly whenever she winced, all of us holding our collective breath until she sunk home.

“What a brave little magpie,” Cato praised, our thoughts aligned. Grinning, studying her through a hooded gaze, he stroked her cheek and kissed her shoulder. She didn’t know him well enough to ascertain the nuances just yet—but he fancied her. Deeply. If it wasn’t a piece of his body, he’d have yanked that horned crown off and placed it on her head.

“How the fuck did you manage that cock on your first try?” Aedan drawled. Despite his usual surface-level sneer, my brother said it as a compliment, and as he popped around her left side to nibble at her neck and cup her breast, he did so to worship—not to pry. Not to tease out information. Not to prolong the agony with my balls on the brink of implosion and the demonic lust in my heart surging and—

“D-do you want to have that conversation,” Ileana murmured, her lashes fluttering, her hands curling over my pecs, “or—”

“Or.” Cato’s hands cascaded down her figure, tracing her lovely curves all the way to her hips. “Very much or, goddess.”

And there it was.

My kingly brother was gone.

Together, he and Aedan rocked her, helping her find a gentle pace that while not as slow as a virgin deserved riding my substantial shaft, it did the trick under the circumstances. I, meanwhile, caressed her thighs and locked onto her eyes, whether she looked at me or not. Every so often our gazes met, and she shivered, dipping a toe into the darkness before leaping back out, uncertain but curious.

I could die happy, here, now, buried deep inside a creature who was beauty unparalleled.

One day soon, she would find her inner lioness and roar, proving once and for all why she had been chosen by the hands of Fate to be our mate.

By the time her blushes returned, her nipples pebbled tight and her eyes clenched shut, Cato left Aedan to maintain our dance. He stood, and when he steered that raging erection to her, Ileana already had her mouth open, ready and waiting for him. They locked eyes—an impressive feat if she sensed he ruled the group with a fair fist. No fear there. No terror. Only want. They surrendered to it as he thrust his cock deep once, twice, three times, then retreated and hurried around behind her. Panic skittered across her features, and as Aedan backed off, I cuddled her to me, bathing her neck in the sweetest kisses, my arm locked around her lower back like a snare.

“We wouldn’t normally rush this,” Cato insisted as he arranged himself between my open thighs, her hips spread even wider now, her back arched in his favor. “But if we don’t mate you fully, there’s room for some other bastard to steal you.”

Ileana bucked and mewled when he smoothed her ass cheeks open, then looked to me. “S-steal me?”

“Never,” I whispered, a vow I’d keep until the end of time. She let out a soft breath, then stilled when Cato licked his fingers and thrust gently into her tightest hole.

“Mates are highly valued in leviathan society,” Aedan told her, suddenly by my head and cupping her chin, stroking her slightly parted lips with his thumb. “Honored. Prized. You’re like no other, Ileana.” I tilted my head back, impressed: never had he sounded so smitten. Never had he handled a lover with such tenderness. Never had affection made his eyes heavy and his voice rich. He was a monster—we all were—but for her, in this moment, he was salvation. “You’re ours, Ileana.”

“And we will claim you thusly,” I added as Cato swapped his fingers for his cock below. “And I swear to you, we will destroy all who stand between us.”

Those prison guards had ceased to exist the second I saw her. Let them hear my declaration. Let them ready themselves for battle if they dared keep her from us when the clock expired.

She blinked down at me, cheeks aflame, then brushed a trembling finger along my jaw—only to reel back and squeal as Cato worked his way into her. While we would never hurt her seriously, not even if she begged, this couldn’t be…

It must have been a lot, two large cocks for her first time.

So, while Cato claimed her there, Aedan and I soothed her here. He stroked her hair and massaged her shoulders, using that sharp tongue of his for good. I saw to her hips, her quivering thighs, and her frantic glances, easing up every so often to kiss her. No thrusting tongue. No snapping teeth. Just a gentle union of our lips that made her melt and moan, her fingers twisting sweetly into my white tresses, then jerking them with every inch Cato gained.

“Goddess,” he groaned with that final thrust, all of us jolting as he finally sank home, “you are a wonder.”

Well and truly, our mate was extraordinary. She had done so well for her first time—

I blinked a dash of the lovestruck fog away as she cuddled into my chest.

Wasit her first time?

To take two demonic leviathan hybrids like this, in so short a time, with no tears save those of protest at the start—

No.

How could she smell so deliciously untouched if she wasn’t a virgin? Her purity saturated the air the moment she appeared in the doorway; I’d smell it a mile away. In my profession outside of the dark legion, outside of cavorting with Aedan and Cato—I steered clear of that scent. Those with it didn’t deserve my malice, my savagery, no matter how high my client bid to coax my hand.

Instinct had never led me astray before. Not with my blood brothers, my eternal bonds. Not with my work as an assassin. Not in my choice to reject the romantic advances of females who came before her.

And it surely hadn’t done me wrong with Ileana.

So, eyes closed, lost in the oblivion of her body, I caressed and cradled what I could, obsessed with her smooth skin and her curves, her muscular tone paired with soft womanhood. As soon as Cato ground down, I bucked up, our magpie caged between us, trapped in a prison of pleasure as we worked her nerves, determined not only to mark her with our scent and seed, our possessive bites destined for another night, but to ensure she plunged into the abyss at least once more before this was over.

An ivory hand suddenly delved between us, and Aedan steered her up. Not jerked or ripped or yanked. Gently, he guided Ileana upright, and Cato eased back to allow her the movement—just enough space for my blood brother to stand over me and thrust into her moaning, whimpering, whining mouth.

There.

Pleasure tightened in my core.

Fully claimed, every hole taken, our scent and our bruises all over her flesh, soon to be filled with our seed—

“Three minutes, inmates,” came the most unwelcome crackly reminder from some hidden speaker. “Don’t nut inside her.”

Fuckers. Snarls filled the room, indignance and rage blazing like an inferno with poor Ileana caught in its flames. We’d heard through the grapevine that no demon from the legion had been permitted to empty himself inside a magpie, these humans so utterly terrified of monstrous hybrids.

Or, perhaps, should a magpie fall pregnant, they lost their worth for nine long months, unable to be traded and used and bought—

I gritted my teeth, driving into her that much harder, determined to make her mine—ours—so deeply in the next three minutes that no man or beast could contest our mated bond. Cato responded in kind, grinding and grinding, as if mindful that his usual rough thrusts and brutal pumps might be too much for our Ileana. Above, Aedan’s hips jerked in sharper bursts, his ass flexed and clenched, until finally he pulled her back by her hair and spilled his seed across her bouncing breasts.

Better this way, actually, to paint her with his most intimate scent right out in the open so the rest of the legion could smell it on her when we strolled out of this place.

As soon as he stepped away, sauntering around behind Cato to block us from the windows, I locked eyes with my shadow-crowned brother. He gripped our magpie by the shoulder, really bucking into her as I rocked up to meet him, cocks sliding over one another inside her, Ileana’s eyes rolled back and her mouth hanging open, cheeks flushed and nipples so damn tempting.

But there was a more pressing matter at hand.

Do we follow the rules?

I arched an eyebrow and jutted my chin toward the door. With a gravelly hum, Cato smirked and shook his head.

Nay, then.

My lips matched his, quirked and defiant. It ended today, both our imprisonment in this tedious facility and Ileana’s captivity within her order. Rules no longer applied. No one, human nor god nor Lord Lucifer himself, could tell us how we were to mark our mate. When it was done, when we breezed through the moonlight, carrying her exhausted body over the stony paths to the waterfront, we would take her away from all this.

Allow her time to heal from whatever horrors her sad little order had inflicted on her.

Champion her ascension from magpie to queen.

It is decided.

And only a fool with a death wish would stand in our way.

We moved faster and faster, riding our darling until Cato’s rhythm faltered, bliss twisting his features and choking her name from his lips. She shuddered and flailed between us, that telltale flush streaking her chest, her cheeks, her cries squeaky and her eyes wide—and that was my undoing. Feeling her come around my cock one final time before the clock expired… Gone.

Body pulsing, I filled her with my seed, with pleasure and promise, the mating bond throttling my heart and leaving a lump the size of Purgatory in my throat.

Shouts and curses erupted from the other side of the one-way glass, muffled but distinctly enraged, and I pushed onto my elbows as Ileana twisted around, all of us heaving, panting, trembling, and weak from our shared climax.

Adrenaline hissed through my veins like a lit match.

Nowthe fight began.

Time to demonstrate to our mate that we were worthy of her love, that we could protect her from all foes.

Her nails gritted into my chest as the shouts amplified and the door locks clicked and clacked, yet just as I was about to comfort her, to promise she had nothing to fear, Ileana turned back to me with a shockingly dark smile, her emeralds a golden firestorm, her expression worthy of any apocalyptic queen.

Perhaps…

Perhaps even the apocalyptic queen.

Wait.

Still rather groggy, riding high on bliss, bloodlust, and adrenaline, I frowned up at her.

What?