Page 14 of Fool's Bargain

Pale pink flower petals covered the sun-drenched path up to the waterfall, creating the illusion that snow had recently fallen. Winter in the Haven was like this, the season’s shift causing flowers at the higher elevations to bloom, though the temperature barely fluctuated between cool nights and warm days.

The seasonal changes were tied to the flavors of magic that reigned at different times of year. Winter was air magic, sending pleasant breezes through the forests that teased awake the snow tree blossoms and seduced them into shedding their petals. What was left behind on the stalks were crystalline fruits with hard outer shells that cracked and burst on my tongue, flooding the mouth with the crisp, cool juices within. It was sweet and intoxicating—literally. If I ate too many of them, I’d wind up too disoriented from the juices to do what I needed to do. But I indulged in one more fruit for courage anyway.

Euphoria blasted through me with the first crunch through the membrane of the fruit’s outer skin, my mouth filling with a sweet, yet salty tang. It tasted like sex and produced a rush of endorphins just the same as if I’d had an orgasm.

I may not have needed that mental buffer to do what I was doing, but it didn’t hurt to be prepared. I’d come up to this waterfall every day for the past six months, hoping for an answer to the prayer I’d offered every time. But the Haven’s oracle was gone, nothing of her cave remaining but a collapsed pile of rocks and earth behind the curtain of water that fell from high above.

As I climbed higher toward the secluded outcropping of stone that used to mark the entrance to the Diviner’s lair, rough, sensual voices reached my ears over the din of the waterfall. I halted, brows drawing down. I knew those voices. There were only two, and they were as familiar to me as my own.

I climbed faster.

Their backs to me, Kyril and Dorian knelt naked and fully shifted at the edge of one of the many pools that had been worn into the rock by eons of currents. Their shoulders touched and their enormous horns were coated in glistening mist from the falls. Kyril’s wavy brown mane fell in damp waves around his shoulders while Dorian’s was a cascade of inky black. I paused at the top of the path, partly obscured by a leafy tree with a perfect view of both my best friends.

Kyril let out a rough groan and let his head fall back in pleasure. Dorian turned toward him, his hand gripping Kyril’s cock and stroking. Kyril braced one of his hooved feet against the stone, spreading his legs as Dorian slipped into the water in front of him, then he gripped Dorian’s horns as the other satyr took him into his mouth.

Dion save me, I should have been there with them, joining in. My cock certainly found the idea appealing, which was a far cry from how it had behaved lately around the nymphs I was obligated to service each week. Being a sperm donor to half the female population of the Haven had lost its allure months ago, but I still loved Dorian and Kyril enough to get it up for them.

They had to know they were only going to run into problems if they indulged in the middle of the day. Tonight was the Haven’s solstice celebration, and all three of us had to make an appearance at the orgy, not to mention join in. In our primal shapes we could hold our own with dozens of partners, but our ability to actually impregnate any of the females lately was dwindling down to nothing.

So I didn’t begrudge the pair this moment. We carried our demons everywhere we went and had very few avenues of escape. Finding pleasure in each other was one of the only means we had left of forgetting the scars that marred our very souls—and in my case, my actual body.

I slipped out of my clothes, untying my sheer sarong and shedding the shirt I’d taken to wearing despite being the only male in the Haven to dress in one. I’d learned within a week of returning that as open minded a race as the nymphaea were, they had their limits. The grotesque markings on my back were superficial—the three of us had endured far worse mental torment at the hands of our enemy over the course of centuries—yet the visual reminder of how close we’d been to Meri’s corruption made us less than desirable as mates. We were a curiosity at best, a necessary evil at worst for the females who had no interest in breeding outside our race, and without that ability we would soon be of no use to any of them.

My scars were my brothers’ too, and they knew it, but at times like this when they gravitated toward each other, I felt the difference acutely. I hovered at the edge of the smooth, sun-drenched stone Kyril sat on, the mist from the waterfall coating my back, the scar tissue dulling sensations that should have felt pleasurable. I wanted them, but I wanted more. As deep as our love for each other was, we all knew it would never be enough to heal those scars and banish those inner demons.

That was what these daily prayers were for, and I hadn’t realized the two of them had been coming here too. Fate had apparently forgotten us after our long absence, and while the Diviner had made a promise to us in its stead, she had disappeared before she could fulfill it. Only a mate willing to carry out a blood meld could have any hope of counteracting the taint we still carried after being trapped in Meri’s prison for three thousand years. The Diviner had promised us almost a year ago that she would help us each find someone before year’s end, but I didn’t like that solution either. We needed mates, yes, but we needed each other too.

Leaving my clothes draped over the bush, I slipped into the water, the sounds of my movements drowned out by the roar of the waterfall behind me. I shifted to my primal satyr form as I swam up to Dorian’s back and pressed a kiss to his thick shoulder, then bit it.

Dorian grunted around Kyril’s cock, and Kyril lifted his head and opened his eyes, staring at me with a heated, hungry look. Neither of them said a thing, but Kyril’s grip on Dorian’s horns tightened and the tempo of Dorian’s bobbing motions increased as he pushed back against me and widened his stance. His shift in position screamed “fuck me” as clearly as if he’d spoken the words and I didn’t waste any more time. I grabbed both his fleece-covered cheeks, parting them and rubbing my cock along the sensitive, velvety cleft between. He groaned, reaching back with one hand to squeeze my hip. My cock throbbed with a desperate need I knew would remain only half sated after I fucked him, but halfway was better than not at all.

With a surge of magic from my fingertips, I altered the consistency of the water around his puckered opening, thickening it to allow me easier entry. He’d have taken me either way, but causing pain wasn’t something I enjoyed. Then I pressed my aching cockhead to his opening and pushed in as slowly as I dared, chuckling when he made a rough grunt of impatience. Kyril had too solid a hold on his horns for him to free his mouth to object, but when I reached around and fisted his thick shaft, his impatient noises turned desperate. He clenched around me and I growled, rutting harder into his ass and grabbing hold of one of his shoulders for better leverage.

I pumped his cock in time with my thrusts, allowing myself only the barest meld with his mind to experience the delicious feedback of sensations. My ass tingled with an echo of the pleasure Dorian experienced and it only made me fuck him harder. When I lifted my gaze to Kyril’s swirling turquoise stare, I let the meld deepen, risking opening myself up to triple torment in exchange for triple pleasure.

The second all three of us opened our minds to each other, the rising tide of ecstasy transformed into a tidal wave. Kyril and I let out synchronized roars as we came, and Dorian’s big frame shuddered between us, his cock pulsing in my fist and his ass milking my cock so hard I saw stars.

I staggered back, sliding out of him and falling into the water. Shedding my primal shape once submerged, I remained there suspended for several seconds longer. The test was one I inflicted on myself regularly—diving beneath the water and letting myself float, letting the flashbacks of my time in captivity wash over me. The worst of my torture hadn’t been within the confinement of Meri’s huge prison of a tank though. It was every moment I’d spent outside that tank that I wished I could forget. Every slice of her blade into my back felt even keener in the muffled darkness of the water, and I hoped like hell one day I would stop feeling it every time I went for a swim.

The quaking tremors of memory faded after a few moments, the duration lessening with each try, and I swam to the surface. Dorian and Kyril were kneeling side by side in the sun, watching me. They didn’t need to ask what was wrong because they’d been beside me for the whole ordeal, along with Llyr. They may not have borne the injuries themselves, but they’d felt every cut, insisting on remaining melded for as long as we were able during the first years of our captivity.

Rather than shed the water completely, I left my skin wet as I took my place beside them, assuming the position I had every day for months, hoping that their presence and our little tryst today would make the difference.

Their voices strengthened when I picked up the rhythmic chant, my voice mingling with theirs and rising up through the mist. We kept our eyes on the water, and in the midday sunlight, the fine spray of moisture from the falls speckled like gold floating through the air. The sight was breathtaking, and I imagined I could see the curves of a woman crafted of sea spray and sunlight dancing among the mist.

We chanted a prayer in homage to the Diviner herself, simply asking for her to hear, to grant us an audience in fulfillment of her promise. We promised in return that we would make good on our end of the bargain, and that we were willing to offer whatever she wanted to take from us in exchange for her favor.

After an hour of continuous chanting, the effects of the fruit I’d eaten had worn off, and the buzz from an amazing orgasm had faded, yet nothing had changed. The sun shone hotter on my back, my scars burning uncomfortably. The misty spray from the waterfall was a cool counterpoint against my chest, yet there had been no answer to our chants, even with all three of us here at the same time.

Dorian sighed as our voices faded. “What the fuck is it going to take?” he asked, then let out a frustrated yell.

“She always keeps her promises. We just have to keep trying,” Kyril said.

“What if she can’t? Things have changed pretty drastically since Beltane. If her union with Chaos altered her magic somehow...” I halted, knowing better than to speculate so wildly because the Diviner would punish me if she were here, and who knew what her new mate Chaos might do.

My skin prickled at the memory of my initiation into the Thiasoi. We had all endured the same ordeal, a rite of passage for all of the Haven’s soldiers, and while we carried the experience like a badge of honor, it still served to remind us that there were other powers out there that we had no hope of defending against. Yet we were honor bound to stand between them and our home regardless.

That promise was what had landed us in Meri’s prison for a multitude of centuries. Our very wills had been the only things standing between us and the enemy taking the Haven and destroying it. She’d used us in the worst ways, leaving us mentally and physically scarred and half blood melded to a woman who was not ours to have.

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