Where Wild Things Roam

Deliberate

Ian    

Even with the rain, the triumvir mates party is still raging in the plaza, but Sean, Jack and I, along with our mates and Anna’s family, retreat to the packhouse after Anna’s astounding reveal. Though the medicine man declines, returning to his room to meditate on the coming of a thunderbird, the rest of Anna’s family socializes in the dining and family rooms, Townsend’s staff attending to everyone’s needs unobtrusively and efficiently as usual.

Sean disappears briefly after sunset, and I suspect he’s checking in with our malodorous vampire contact who has turned out to be remarkably reliable and resourceful. When he does turn up again, he avails himself immediately of my best Oban, and on the same pretense, I approach him at the wet bar, leaving Darby chatting with Anna’s sister on the sofa.

“Any new developments?”

“Not much, but it’s early. Word’s just getting around our contact is a supplier for faelily and he’s had a couple pings from people inside Cordelion’s lower ranks looking for it.”

“Faelily? Really?”

Sean shrugs. “Is it worse than ‘Luna lily’?” He tosses back the rest of his drink. “You think Darby could divine where the witch is if I can get her something belonging to her? I debated Kassandra, but she’s so cryptic, I don’t think we’d accomplish much.”

“We still have the arrow. With any luck it’s the same witch.” I turn, leaning against the bar and watch my mate, laughing at some anecdote Lili shares. Her voice and smile tug at my heartstrings, and if I didn’t want to finish this business with Sean, I’d be taking this time to disappear with Darby myself. “Divining doesn’t appear to be in the fae wheelhouse. And my understanding is divining’s a two-way street. I don’t know that I’d want anyone from Candlewood trying, especially Darby.”

“Doesn’t leave many options. I can check with Silas. See who he’s got, but there aren’t many witches in Desert territory.”

“There’s a coven in ours, with some decent diviners. Jack’s used them a few times to weed out underground organizations before they take root. They’ll cost us a pretty penny though.”

“Is that the Mattie he keeps talking about?”

I nod. “Matilda Linden. Her coven’s not large, but she’s got some pretty heavy hitters in the dark magic witchcraft domain.”

“Greaaaat,” Sean grumbles. “Why are we allowing a coven in Candlewood territory?”

I set my glass on the bar and meet Sean’s eye. “I don’t want any confusion on the topic. We have a treaty with them. They don’t do business with anyone inside our territories or that of our allies except us directly. They make themselves useful and they don’t make problems.”

“Well someone did.”

“I’m not saying it couldn’t or didn’t happen, Sean. I’m saying I want solid proof before I stir the pot with her bunch. Until we have it, it’s business as usual. They keep quiet and to themselves and we leave them alone.” I push off the wet bar with a grin. “If you’ll excuse me, I feel the urge to molest my mate.”

Sean rolls his eyes. “I did not need to know that. Mind if I talk to her before you do?”

My brows lift in surprise.

“Don’t be a d**k, Ian. The antagonism isn’t one-sided and you know it.” He pours a fresh glass of Oban, handing it to me, points to it and then to Darby, indicating it’s for her. “A common interest seems to have created an unspoken truce.”

“Which is?”

Sean lags behind my shoulder on the way to Darby. “The information in her library.”

Bending to her over the back of the sofa, I put the glass of whiskey in Darby’s hand then nuzzle her neck suggestively, intoxicated by her scent and the shiver my actions tease out of her.

“Good evening, Luna,” Sean interrupts unapologetically. “I have a problem.”

Tensing, Darby regards him skeptically, then relaxes to give him a chance when he removes a small book from his jacket’s breast pocket, a book clearly from her library. “How can I help you, Sean?”

Sean opens the book, setting it in front of her. “I don’t know what language this is, and I can’t find a translation guide in any of the other books we’ve talked about.”

Around us, the room gets quiet as the others observe this exchange with interest. Coming around the sofa, I take a seat behind her and Darby snuggles into me.

“My word, it’s been a while since I looked at this one,” she remarks offhandedly, slowly flipping through a few plain pages of the strange markings.

“Why?”

“The culture was destroyed not long after I was there. There was quite the unrest between the merchant class and the temples with all the geologic activity preceding the eruption.” Her eyes are distant, remembering. “Its capital was still a marvelous place, with spectacularly painted and muralled multi-story temples and palaces. When most peoples across Europe were still living in mud huts, it was the wealthy and powerful cradle of civilization. Hot and cold running water. Sewage system. Extensive trade with every corner of the Mediterranean.”

Darby grows quiet, seeing that past with distant eyes and sighs, just a little sad. When she pulls herself from the reverie, she holds the book out to Sean. “These are Cretan hieroglyphs.”

Sean shakes his head, not in denial, but in incomprehension. “That’s definitely not Greek.”

“Oh, no. I didn’t mean to confuse you.” To herself, she says, “What was the name of that island? Ummm, Kallístē?” she offers. When Sean shakes his head, Darby tries again. “Strongýlē?” And again. “Thera? Well, it’s Plato’s legend of Atlantis. What do the humans call it? Minoa? I can see that still doesn’t help.”

Sean’s gaze flips between the rune-like markings on the page and Darby’s face in absolute wonder. “You were there. Before it was destroyed.”

“Um, yes,” she nods, as if it’s commonplace.

Sean kneels behind the sofa, his arm along the back so he’s eye level with her, his voice soft. “Darby, no one’s deciphered Minoan.”

“Oh.”

A smug smile spreads over her face and her eyes flash, and all of her attention is absorbed by Sean and his question. I realize then, he really has hit on a commonality between them. They both love knowledge, value, even prize it, not for any application or benefit, but purely for its own sake. As cerebral as Darby is, it has the potential to be a powerful attractant between them. One I envy. I bite back a possessive growl.

“Well. Not yet at least. Like me to transfer another language? Hmmm?”

There’s a ruckus from across the room as Jack leaps up and all eyes land on him. “No. No. No. And hell no. Sean, do not let her do that. She’s going to warp your brain.”

Sean’s eye flick from Jack to Darby, then he jerks his head towards Jack. “What’s he talking about?”

“I’ll tell you what I’m talking about,” Jack interrupts. “You didn’t see it last time, but I did. The whole top of your head warped in like a deflated basketball.” Raises his hand and makes a wavy gesture. “It was disgusting.”

“Is that true?”

Darby and I burst into laughter.

“Consider the source, Sean,” I tell him.

“What does that mean?”

“Ummm,” Darby laughs, her head falling back against my shoulder, and the creamy white stretch of her gracile neck is wholly and unconsciously seductive. “Like nearly everything else about Jack, his factual narrative is rather depraved.”

Sean eyes him skeptically. Lili and Anna laugh where they sit, sharing a chair, and even some of Anna’s family have a chuckle at Jack’s expense.

“Fine. It’s your brain. I’m outta here.” Offering a hand up to Lili and Anna, Jack leads them toward the front door. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

**

Darby    

It’s late when Ian and I retire, exhausted by the day’s extraordinary events. I cuddle into his naked warmth, my fingertips tracing the hard lines of his chest and abdomen, my lullaby the steady reassurance of his heart beneath my ear, my gently rocking cradle the rise and fall of his chest.

The question from Sean about the book from my library started me thinking. While he scans the originals, copies and translates them, my books are all housed in a climate-controlled basement vault under the building where Sean and Ian keep their offices.

The only tie left to my valley is my grove, and the more I consider it, the safer Candlewood seems for all the things I hold dear. “Ian,” I whisper, disinclined to wake him if he’s already asleep.

“I wondered when you’d get around to asking.” His voice rumbles beneath my ear and he squeezes me tighter. “I’ll have Sean cover and we’ll spend a few days in the valley. Just the two of us. And Tessa, of course.”

“It’s not that. I don’t need a few days.” I lift myself onto his chest, but in the darkness, I can’t see his face. “I don’t actually need to come and go and I know it worries everyone, Jack in particular. I only need my grove. My trees. Everything else of value is here.”

Ian reaches up, stroking his thumb along the margin of my lips, his wolf eyes seeing so much more than I do. “Some of those trees are pretty old, baby, but I’m sure there are machines to transplant them. I’ll reach out to my were contacts.”

I can’t stop my smile. I had thought he’d take more convincing. “I don’t need you to do that either. I just need a space. I can move them myself.”

“Tell me what you need, baby. It’s yours.”

“The Candlewood homestead?” Before he can say no, I rush to explain my request. “I know it’s a landmark. I won’t touch the building. But the fallow farmland… where we went tonight for Anna...”

“It’s yours, Darby.”

“What?” I scarcely believe my ears.

“It’s not like we’re farming or raising animals anymore. If that’s where you want them. It’s yours.”

“Thank you, Ian.”

“Darby, baby, when are you going to learn? You’re my mate. I will remake my world and tear through hell for you. Ask me for anything and it’s yours. I only ask one thing in return, something you already generously give.”

Holding me tight, Ian rolls me beneath him. Nudging my knees apart with one of his own, he levers himself between my thighs, supporting his upper body on one forearm. I sigh a moan when his hot mouth closes over one n****e, his tongue teasing in fiery circles, but refusing to ease the pebbled tip at all. His other hand strokes the outside of my thigh, up and down, up and down, creeping inexorably toward the top of it before it makes its way along the inside.

“Ohhh,” he breathes, hot breath ghosting over my skin, as his fingers brush my nether mouth. “So wet,” he mutters with a low groan. Then his mouth closes over my aching n****e drawing hard on it as he slips first one, then a second, long, thick finger inside me.

My breath hitches at the knot of pleasure low in my body as his fingers fill me, the pure pleasure of it spiraling dizzily through my head. Involuntarily, my sugar walls spasm, tightening around his stroking fingers and Ian groans again, teeth scraping my sensitive tip and I clench harder around his fingers.

He draws back, the brush of his silky hair on my chin and the rough of his jaw scratching over my other n****e are the only indication I have that he’s turned, looking down my body to where his fingers withdraw, my wet hole sucking at him, pleading non-verbally for him to stay. I moan in protest as they leave my body, my hips jerking against his when I hear him in the darkness, licking my juices off as if he’s starved for them.

Between us, he’s hot and hard already, his thick c**k twitching impatiently. I reach down, petting the rigid exposed length, drawing widening circles with my fingertips in the thick fluid oozing from his tiny slit, covering his head with it before returning to the middle to do it again with the next bead. Bracing himself to the outside, Ian lets me, groaning into my mouth as he penetrates it with his tongue, but before long, it’s not enough, and closing his hand over mine, he uses me to stroke his stiff girth to the point where the press of our bodies stops us.

He’s sucking and biting at my neck and I jerk him faster, aroused even more by the thought of making him come, of feeling the burning jets of fluid on my belly, sliding between us. He takes longer to satisfy after the first time, and a dark tendril of arousal twines through me at the thought, tightens in anticipation of him penetrating my core.

Ian thrusts up, grunting and groaning with pleasure as my hand slides down, his body incidentally grazing my swollen c**t sheltered between my labial lips. A hot jolt of electricity shoots into my brain and deep into my simmering core. I cry out and buck my hips, trying to make it happen again.

Ian’s hand closes around my wrist roughly, too firmly and I whimper. “Stop,” he pants, releasing his grip “you have to stop, baby, or you’re not going to get a turn.” His fingers rub my sloppy wet slit, slow at first then a little faster, sliding deep into my soaking impatient hole with every few strokes, wrenching choked moans from me.

“I want to lick… and suck you,” he murmurs, nipping at my throat and along my collarbone to one shoulder. “Mmmmm. And eat you.”

I groan into the darkness that hides the sight from me, of his beautiful mouth wrapped around and slurping my nectar, sucking my slick off his fingers. The sound makes my walls spasm, a hot gush of fresh fluid oozing out between my legs.

“And then f**k you,” he growls.

I cry out when his fingers plunge into me unexpectedly, whimpering in pants and trying to angle my hips into his hand, desperate for more, for every bit of aching delicious pleasure he’ll give.

“And I don’t know which to do first.”

His mouth assaults mine again, his tongue demanding, plundering and claiming every recess, his fingers mimicking in my nether mouth. “Sweet, goddess, you’re so wet,” he groans. “Tell me what you want, Darby.” Ian buries his face in the crook of my neck, his hips making little upward thrusts against mine in time with his fingers inside me. “Tell me what pleasure to give you.”

Opening my mouth, I try to answer then bite my lip, shaking my head. How could I respond? How could I choose? Everything, every touch, every kiss, every stroke, is a pleasurable agony I crave like an addict thirsts for a high. Excited, my walls close tighter around his fingers and he groans huskily, plunging deeper and harder with them, demanding I take him, open to him, swallow him, each firm stroke taking me higher, closer.

“f**k me, Ian! Please!” The words explode in a quivered gasp, my chamber twisting, urgently needing to be filled, desperately aching for him and the promise of pleasure his rigidness brings. “Please!”

He repositions like lightning, caging me with his forearms, the rounded head of his c**k pressing hard against my entrance, sliding, teasing, probing for its way in. “s**t!” Ian hisses through his teeth, head hanging against my collarbone, “you’re too tight now.” He presses harder, testing his assessment, easing quickly when I cry out, this time in pain. “You need to come first, baby.”

Crawling backwards onto his heels, Ian hunches over me, his tongue fluttering against my engorged c**t, tearing a deep guttural scream from my throat. I arch and his mouth closes over the hot bud, sucking and pressing with this tongue, working it up and down faster, faster.

My breath comes in sobbing pants and gasps, “Ian! Oh, Ian!”

“Come, baby. Let go.” The resonance of his voice hums into my body, adding a new layer of pleasure to what I can scarcely bear.

Dewy sweat breaks out over my skin with hot and cold shivers. Then the unbearable pressure explodes, my orgasm crashing over me, making me see stars. The waves of it twist and tear through me, shuddering, throbbing, as I lose all control.

“That’s it, baby,” Ian urges, his voice tense and excited.

Lying between my legs again, Ian’s c**k stabs at my entrance, then plunges all the way into the back of my chamber, riding the slick of my orgasm and filling me up.

“Oh, f**k!” His voice is choked and barely audible over the pounding of blood in my ears, my own keening moans from the climax that keeps rolling through me, longer and harder, driven wild by his hot hard length penetrating deep. He quivers inside me, his forehead pressed hard against my sternum, trying to contain his own orgasm as I tighten and spasm, milking him before he’s even started.

His tongue seeks my n****e, flicking it rapidly, and I thrash beneath him. But it’s the distraction he needs to restore some control, to slide out and into me again, find his rhythm and move with it. With a quick yank, Ian hitches first one knee, then my other over his hips, spreading me open wider, taking each delicious penetration deeper.

The tip of his c**k rubs against my g-spot with each hard thrust, and more fireworks explode across what’s left of my vision. His hips move faster, driving into me, pounding with unrestrained abandon against the back of my tunnel. New bursts of twisted pleasure-pain shoot through me and frantically, I bury my fingers in his hair on either side of his head, clinging to the one solid tether to the world left me.

I can’t stop the moans that pour from my lips with each filling stroke, each time he buries his entire c**k to the hilt inside me. “Yes! Yes! Oh, please! Ian, please! Yes!”

The words only make him harder, thicker and he splits me open, breaking me apart. He’s panting so hard, he can’t kiss or suck my flesh beneath him, but his long wolf teeth find the tender flesh at my collar and grip it, turning me to mush beneath him.

Ian drives into me, brutally, ferociously, over and over, plowing into me, reckless and out of control. He answers each of my cries with rough groans of his own, cursing and calling my name like an invocation. Against my wrists, I can feel his jaw locked, the muscles tensed, holding out for my pleasure and I can’t take anymore.

“Please, Ian! Come inside me! Come to me! Come with me! Please!”

With a deep howl of pleasure, he drives into me with such vigor that I can feel his c**k pound against the tender head of my cervix. I clench around him, rippling and squeezing and another orgasm, even more powerful than the first rends me apart. He explodes white-hot inside me, jets of his thick fluid soothing and coating my happily abused walls.

Straining, we ride it together. I’m limp as a boneless fish now, a trembling puddle, my breathing ragged and uneven as the last of the aftershocks fade. Ian kisses me tenderly, my lips, then my chin and my throat, still thrusting into me with long, languid strokes. He lets his head rest in the crook of my neck, his warm breath caressing over my skin. My eyes flutter closed, the heat of his solid body over and around me like a heavy blanket, lulling me to sleep.