Shameless: A Reverse Harem Fantasy Romance (The Carnal Court Book 3) Read online

  “Sparring,” I say. “Now.”

  He looks at me for a second. “All right.”

  Usually we spar in the courtyard, but that’s too close. Instead I walk outside into the darkening trees, and I don’t wait for us to be fully ready before I attack, launching at him as soon as he steps outside. Kent manages to parry my blows, but barely. It feels good to move like this, falling back into old patterns and things that I can rely on completely.

  Kari’s violet light is a flame in my chest. Growing brighter as she starts to receive pleasure. And I don’t hate the feeling. I really don’t. I love that she’s enjoying herself. But I can’t shake that gnawing feeling in my gut that this is where it falls apart. Where everyone suddenly is fighting for her and everyone is unhappy.

  She doesn’t deserve to feel that from me right now, so I need to beat the living hell out of something. Kent will do just fine.

  He grunts as he blocks a blow to his side, backing up so my next strike falls wide. “Okay,” he says. “Time to talk.”

  “I didn’t start sparring at you to talk.”

  “And I didn’t sign up to be the practice dummy for whatever you’re taking out on me. So tell me what the hell’s going on.”

  I pull back, spinning the sword in my palm. “I have trouble with this.”

  Kent goes on the offensive, a fast attack from above and then my left as he spins. He’s really getting better at this. “Define ‘this.’”

  I sidestep him again and feint an attack, but he sees it and stops me in my tracks where I actually meant to go. “Sharing Kari,” I say, disengaging. It’s the first time I’ve actually admitted it to someone other than my mate.

  Kent’s laughing. Practically doubled over laughing. “No shit, Sherlock.”

  “What?” I’ve heard that phrase before, though I don’t exactly know the human context for it. When you live as long as the we do, the cultural references come and go.

  “None of us would be shocked to hear that. It’s clear that you do,” he says.

  I tighten my hand around the hilt of my weapon, lucky that’s made of a material that won’t snap or bend. “I am trying.”

  “We know that too, Aeric. It’s okay to admit that this is difficult. It is.”

  He attacks first, and I defend. Have I been obvious? I suppose I hadn’t much hidden the fact that I wanted Kari, and that I wanted her alone. Every time our sex has been separate, with the exception of saving her life. Even with the others in the room, I touched her alone so that she was only mine. “I’ve seen the ways it can go wrong,” I say. “And I don’t want that for any of us. It would be miserable.”

  Kent stops and raises a hand, reaching behind and unlacing the vest he’s wearing. The ones we were all wearing. “Fuck I don’t know how you all do that.” He tosses it aside. “That’s better. And you know what I’ve learned? Trying to avoid something because of the past usually ends up helping you repeat it.”

  We exchange more blows, Kent throwing a furious strike towards my head. I duck to avoid it, and his blade glances off one of the trees. I never thought that I would enjoy sparring with a human, but Kent is talented in this arena. If he were fae, he would be formidable, and possibly able to take me on.

  Though I would never tell him that.

  “You have a suggestion?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he says. “In this case, go against your instincts.”

  We’ve fought our way through part of the garden, and there’s a stone bench here on the outside of the labyrinth. Out of the corner of my eye I can see the cascading waves of flowers from Kari’s tree. And all around us are the roses that poured out of her as well. Sitting down, I catch my breath. “That’s not an easy thing.”

  “Of course it isn’t. But you can remember me as an example if you need to.”

  I raise an eyebrow and give him a look. “Really?”

  “I was ready to tear your head off when we met,” he said. “Every instinct that I had—and many that I still do—tell me that fae are dangerous and that they can’t be trusted. That I should attack on sight. If I’d done that, where would we be now?”

  I put down my sword and stretch. “It’s not quite the same though.”

  “How?” Kent counters. “It’s something that is now a part of my life, and that I’ll have to fight against forever. That’s what this will be for you.”

  Fuck. I hate that he’s right. “I would like for it to go away entirely.”

  “It might,” he shrugs. “Hopefully we’ll have a lot longer to figure that out. But it’s not going to go away if you keep holding on to the worry that it won’t.”

  I drop my face in my hands and sigh. That spiral of jealousy I felt when Kari announced that…it felt like it was going to consume me. I let it go as fast as I could, but it’s lurking under the surface. A shade or specter ready to jump out at any second. “I can’t believe I’m asking you this of all people,” I say, and Kent smirks. “But what do I do?”

  To his credit, he becomes serious again. If he hadn’t I might have had to do more than spar with him. Kent is easier to talk to about this than the others, even though I’ve known them longer. They don’t understand it the way that he does. To them, a mating bond was the pinnacle of their hopes and wants. Until Kari, it was always a nightmare to me.

  “Lean into the discomfort,” he says. “It’s not necessarily fun advice, or the best, but it has worked for me. The more you experience something, the more normal it seems to you.”

  “I suppose it’s worth a shot.”

  Kent sits down on the other end of the bench. “You love Kari, right?”

  “You know that I do.” The words are practically a snarl.

  “Then do it for her. I know you already are, but when I put things aside for her, it gets easier.”

  It does. That’s something I’ve already noticed. Fuck. Taking a deep breath, I do what he’s suggesting and lean into the feeling. I confront the discomfort of knowing that she’s mating with two other men. Creating that same intimacy that she and I share with them. She’s going to carry all of us in her heart. And that thought makes it a little better. “I thought when I was happy for her and Brae that it was better.”

  “It’s not a straight line,” Kent says. “It never is. And you know that she needs this.”

  “I do know that.” I can feel her easing. Relaxing. Letting the pain fade away into something else entirely, and for that—even if it’s temporary—I’m grateful. “Thank you, Kent.”

  He smirks again and sands. “Don’t make a habit of it. Now fight me before she calls us up there.”

  “Don’t think I’m going to hold back just because you gave me some advice.”

  Squaring his shoulders, he stands across from me, mimicking the way I spin my sword in my hand with ease. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ________

  KARI

  Shivering pleasure rolls across my skin, and I arch off the bed, orgasm taking me by storm. Urien’s mouth is between my legs, and holy fuck the man has a talented tongue. I tried to fall to my knees and mate with both of them, but neither Urien nor Verys would allow that. Instead they undressed me slowly, tasting my skin and arousing me with magic until I was a shaking mess pinned between them.

  Being with them together is being like night and day. Verys is so pale and white in contrast with Urien’s skin that’s like the navy summer night sky. I want them. I want to know how they taste and how that magic will truly feel once it’s kindled between my ribs. And still, Urien isn’t stopping. He licks into me with abandon, and every stroke of his tongue is a show of fireworks and a cascade of sparks.

  Verys has been touching me in other ways. Teasing my nipples with lips and teeth and drawing lines with his fingers for his magic to follow. I need both of them. Right the fuck now.

  “Come here,” I tell him, and he does. I pull him up my body, guiding him where I want him to be. Straddling me so his cock is within reach. It’s bea
utiful—just as dark as the rest of him with paler lines of blue swirling across the tip of him. He groans when I touch him with my fingers, low and feral.

  I like the way that sounds, and the way heat pools low in my belly in response. Starting slowly I only taste him with the very tip of my tongue. Using those blue lines as a guide, I trace along them and watch as his cock jerks and abs tighten. Those golden eyes stare down at me with molten fire, and all I can do is grin up at him.

  I start to taste the bits of magic as I lick his skin, seeing images of a dark clear sky and winter bonfires. Feel the wind in my hair and smell snow. I lick the head of his cock, trying to savor every bit of him. He pushes into my mouth, and I don’t stop him. I want more of him. This is not the same kind of control as Aeric. This is opportunity and need. Urien feeds himself to me until I can take no more in this position, and he curses as he pulls back and feels the friction of my lips on his skin.

  Verys’s hands are on my legs. Magic rising to the surface to meet his fingers. He enters me in one long, smooth stroke and I cry out around Urien’s cock. Oh, to be full of them is pure magic, and that same magic is reaching for them. Yearning for them because it knows what’s coming.

  I’m distracted by the way Verys is plunging into me, the length of him reaching so deep that I already see those same stars from Urien’s magic. It’s his hands on my face that draw me back to him. He frames my face with his hands, pumping his hips into my mouth faster. As our power begins that tangling together, it’s like taking that first breath of icy air walking into the cold. Like nothing has ever felt more clear and distinct.

  One moment their movements are opposite, a cock impaling me and then the other one. Pleasure rings out through my body in waves, and I go over the edge into bliss again. Urien tastes too good to me, I wrap my arms around his hips and take him deeper. Sucking him in long slow pulls that match the swells of my climax. Fuck yes.

  Then they’re no longer opposite, but their movements are lined up together. Perfectly in sync to drive into me at one time. Now I can’t do anything but feel. Surrendering to them, and the coming sensations. Urien’s dark power twines with mine like rope, twisting together in a tight coil, ready to fuse together.

  He takes his cock in his hand, stroking the portion that’s not trapped between his lips. “Open your mouth,” he says, voice rough. “I want to see you taste it.”

  I do. The tip of his cock rests on my lower lip, and Urien closes his eyes, working himself with his fingers. It’s only seconds until he spills himself across my tongue, sweet magic splashing as his eyes fly open. It’s a mouthful of power and I swallow it, savoring the taste of night and stars, and that thread connecting us merges, power passing into one and then the other. I feel him settle in my heart, and the way he’s looking at me…

  I can feel his raw gratitude and awe that we were chosen to be together like this. He looks at me like I’m the only star he sees and will ever see. Forever. Yes.

  Pleasure spikes in my gut, Verys still taking his sweet, slow time fucking me. Urien has other plans. He rolls off me and moves, before moving me. I’m almost dizzy with it, now on all fours in front of Verys, and Urien thrusting deep into my pussy from behind. “Take him,” he says. “While I take you.”

  I don’t need to be told twice. Verys’s cock is long and icy white. I’ve had it in my mouth before—when he stopped me from finishing the job, and I’m nearly salivating over him now. His skin is wet from being buried in me—I can taste myself on his skin. Every time Urien drives into me I’m fucked further onto Verys’s cock, and there’s something so fucking hot about it that I nearly come again from that feeling alone.

  Verys weaves long fingers into my hair, guiding me so I am forced onto his cock in just the right way to make him groan. Silvery power seeps into my skin, and my own magic rises to meet it. This time it feels like a sphere. Like his power is cradling mine in a bubble and we’re melding and expanding into one mass for each other.

  “Goddess, Kari,” he breathes. “I’m close.”

  The words make Urien move faster. Fuck harder. His hands are on my hips, yanking me hard back onto his cock. He runs traces of magic down my spine and drags them around to my clit, not letting me breathe even for a second. Now that he can feel my pleasure, he’s using it to his advantage. I’m spiraling down into that sea of perfect bliss. Can’t breathe, can’t see, fingers gripping the sheets just to hold on.

  Verys hardens even further in my mouth, and he goes stiff, suddenly holding himself deep. Silver white and shimmer explode through my mind. He tastes like a dream and a cloud and the mist of early morning. The way our magic blends is easy and natural—like it should have been that way all along. Four sparks now rest in my chest. As distinct as light and darkness.

  Urien pounds into me, holding me close as he comes again. His pleasure feeds mine. The power from this, I can feel it sinking into my bones. Exactly what we need for what we have to do. But we’ll need more. Absolutely everything.

  I can feel the emotion brewing in Verys when I kiss him. That sweetness is something I’ll always cherish. Something I definitely want to explore with him when we have the time and space. “Get the others,” I whisper. “We can’t let the magic fade.”

  Verys kisses me hard for a moment, and that kiss tells me everything that I need to know about how he feels. The depth of his love and need for the bond that we’ve just created with each other. Then he’s gone out of the room, and Urien releases me.

  I try to catch my breath, but I’m not sure that’s possible. Not with this much magic and emotion. Urien lays down beside me, pulling me to him and letting me rest for a moment on his chest. “This is the way I always hoped that it would feel,” he says. The words I love you ring so clearly through our bond that I swear that I can almost hear them. I pull him closer. It’s perfect.

  Footsteps sound, and I don’t move until hands find my waist. Brae guiding me away from Urien and Aeric is here too. Kent stands away. I want him in this. He is a part of this. But he knows that he won’t contribute to the power that we’re raising and is willing to sacrifice for it.

  We’re mated. Every one of us that can be, and in the same space it feels overwhelming and beautiful and I want to weep. Is one person really supposed to be able to hold this amount of love at once?

  Aeric pulls me on top of him on the bed. He’s already naked. When did he take off his clothes? Everything is pleasure and fire and magic and that’s all I can see or feel. When he enters me, I close my eyes, falling into that gorgeous surrender with him. And he doesn’t hold back, fucking me hard. Thrusting upwards deep into me.

  Brae palms run down my back, spreading warmth and light over my skin, pressing me down into Aeric’s chest. Aeric is here. Participating with the others. Tears well in my eyes from the joy. He’s here with me.

  “I’m here with you,” he whispers in my ear. “And Brae and I are going to fuck you together.”

  I go still. We’ve never done that before, even though I’ve wondered what it would feel like. Two of them at once? I might die from how good it is. Fingers with cool liquid touch my ass, and I gasp. This is happening now. Oh, Goddess. I nearly come, squeezing down on Aeric’s cock and feeling myself grow so wet that he slides in farther.

  “Breathe,” Aeric commands in my ear. “Relax and take him.”

  Brae presses a kiss to my spine before fitting himself against me. My heart is hammering in my chest, but I try to obey and keep breathing. Verys strokes a hand down one of my arms, and Urien the other, filling me with power and absolutely overwhelming me with magic. That’s when Brae moves his hips, pushing past that barrier with silent ease, and I cry out. I’ve never been so full. Never in my life. And only the tip of him is inside me.

  The way Brae feels right now is indescribable, both in reality through our connection. His pleasure is so sharp is makes me gasp for breath, and he wants more. He wants to move and take me all at once. It’s taking everything for him to hold back. Sinking into
me, he pushes slowly, and I’m blind with it. Aeric whispers encouragement and confidence in my ear. I’m being split open in the best way. Can barely catch my breath.

  I feel Brae behind me, hips pressing against my ass. Goddess, he’s all the way in me. And so is Aeric. Everything in my body is so sensitive, someone could blow on my nipples and I might come. But they’re holding still. They’re giving me a chance to adjust, but I’m not sure that I’ll ever adjust to having two cocks in me.

  And then they start to move, and I know I’ll never adjust. I’ll also never get enough.

  Magic rips through me, light exploding through the room. It slams into all of us, power shining under my skin. One thrust and I came, and they’re still going. Power sings in my mind, and I let it flow through me and out to them. They can use it. Shape it. It’s exactly what we need.

  Moving as one, Aeric and Brae drive into me. I can fell both of them moving with and against each other, every movement a new symphony of pleasure that I’m unable to name. I think I may scream, or have screamed. One never-ending orgasm. Outbreaks that fade to curlicues and rise into crests and ripples. The influx never ends.

  There’s nothing else to do but what Aeric told me to. Breathe. Relax. Enjoy. Pleasure has its way with me. Drenching my mind and body. I feel it when they come together, deep heat spreading and throwing out one last blast of power before we sink together. I am once again a vessel for magic. But this time it was all mine.

  Arms cradle me as I sink into sleep.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ________

  KARI

  I’m lying in a bed, but it’s not my bed. The light here looks strange and slightly hazy. I’ve never been in this room before, but the walls seem familiar. Pale and shining. Maybe moving? What is this place?