Page 39 of Fool's Bargain

“You command the water now, Zarya,” he said, smiling down at me. “You take to it so well. Almost as well as you took our cocks. Will you take me as my true self again?”

“Yes,” I exhaled and stretched my hands above my head across the surface of the water. The lip of the pool brushed my fingers and I grabbed hold of the wet concrete, only to feel other fingers there take my hands and hold on. The gentle, slender touch was Ione’s as she sat above me while Theo fucked me.

My gaze remained fixed on him as he changed, his already large body growing more massive. Muscles bulged and rippled across his chest and stomach, the bones of his face grew more prominent, and the most beautiful set of horns stretched up from his brow. They were a dusky red-gold, the same color as his hair, and shone with inner light that pulsed with every thrust of his cock.

Inside my soul, I felt that primal beast and rejoiced for the strength it gave me now—and for the certainty that I had found that elusive thing that finally gave my life true meaning.

19

Zarya

My bed wasn’t built to accommodate more than two people so we hadn’t even bothered trying to sleep in it. Instead, with the help of the others, we’d rearranged the furniture in my living room, clearing a wide space atop my thick rug and spreading out all the blankets and quilts and cushions I owned to create a sort of nest where all five of us could sleep. It wasn’t ideal, but when I was spending half the night draped across their bodies, or with limbs tangled around each other’s like an octopus, it didn’t matter whether there was floor or mattress beneath us.

I woke well after dawn with sun from my skylights blasting against my closed eyelids. I didn’t want to open them in case the night before had been a dream and waking fully would make it fade to misty nothingness.

I lay on my side atop a fluffy, oversized cushion with cool curves pressed against my front, and hard ridges at my back. They both shifted at the same time, sending through me a pleasant jolt of awareness of how naked we all were. Before I could even register that I was conscious, a pair of lips closed around one nipple and began to suck. I moaned as, a moment later, thick fingers slid between my thighs, stroking me.

“God, I think I might have died and gone to heaven,” I murmured to the sound of soft chuckles.

The mouth at my breast moved lower and I finally cracked my eyelids to watch Ione kiss her way down my stomach. Whichever man was behind me lifted my leg to give her access between my thighs. I arched with a sigh when her tongue found my clit and she brought me to a lazy orgasm with practiced licks.

When the tremors faded, she settled beside me again with a smile and I snuggled back against the big body behind me, glancing up once to see Dorian’s dark, amused gaze. In the bathroom, a toilet flushed and then Kyril ambled back into the room, flopping down at Ione’s back. Theo sprawled on my sofa, watching us with a contented expression despite his enormous erection.

“So is this how matings with the nymphaea work? We just have a three-day orgy and then we’re official?” I asked.

“More or less,” Kyril said, pressing close to Ione’s back. He crowded her against me as he leaned over and kissed me, earning him an indignant squeak from her. She smacked at his big arm and elbowed him in the armpit, making him grunt. He smirked and gave her an indulgent peck on the tip of her nose before settling back with his head propped on one hand.

“Usually it happens organically when two of us find ourselves wanting to spend more time together,” Ione said. “It’s never just about the sex, but about how our essences mix, how our personalities weave together when we meld. If they work well together, we simply want to spend more time together, and the meldings just happen in the normal course of the relationship. As long as they continue to happen, we stay mated.”

“So, if two people grow apart and stop sharing essence, the bond fades?” I asked, marveling at how simple a system it seemed to be.

“Yes. Very few of us mate for life in any permanent sense, except for those who carry out the blood meld.” A flash of pain crossed her face. Within my mind our meld betrayed a deeper hurt. She took a shaky breath before continuing, her tone more melancholy than before. “It’s rare for there to be animosity when a link fades. There’s no sense fighting it if the interest isn’t there because two people have changed, or come to desire different things. But if two people love each other deeply enough, the blood meld creates an even deeper bond. One that strengthens them both and can’t easily be broken.” Her voice cracked on the last word and she clenched her eyes shut.

I reached out to squeeze her hand, confused by her sudden shift into sadness, but our meld showed me nothing beyond the emotion itself. “What is it?” I asked.

Kyril grew solemn and wrapped his arms around Ione’s midsection, holding her. The other two slipped closer, Dorian reaching across me to squeeze Ione’s arm while Theo leaned over us from his seat on the sofa at our heads.

“Ione, it’s safe to let Zarya know the truth,” Theo said.

She shook her head and a pair of tears escaped her closed eyelids. “You tell her,” she whispered.

“It needs to come from you,” Kyril said.

She opened her eyes and the flash of pain there was so acute it cut to the bone. I gasped when it echoed through our meld, but my breath was captured by Ione’s desperate lips pressed against mine and her tongue plunging into my mouth as she kissed me. She slid her hand up to cup my jaw and her fingers dug into the pressure points at the side of my head in preparation for a deeper meld.

“I will show you everything,”her voice intoned inside my mind and I felt our mental bond widen.

I rested my forehead against hers, closed my eyes, and opened my mind too, pushing forward as gently as I could against the barrier that protected her painful secret. It gave like a layer of gossamer webs, parting with the barest push. When I stepped beyond, it was onto a bloody battlefield with the sounds of fighting raging around me.

I was breathless, running through a forest of lush greenery with a dense canopy overhead. Panic welled within me, spiking at the sound of a shrill cry of pain in the distance. I felt helpless, ill prepared for this invasion. I wasn’t a fighter. This war was never supposed to have happened. Nyx had driven herself insane trying to protect us from it and we’d believed we were safe.

“Pithys! I’m coming!” I yelled, pushing my already straining legs harder to get to her. I broke through the trees onto the pale sands of a beach stained red with blood. Hundreds of nymphs were fighting against human mercenaries who had spilled through a portal. I didn’t see her but could sense her through our meld. She was in pain, her mind struggling against some strange madness encroaching from the other side.

A collection of bodies was scattered at the water’s edge, the lapping waves rimmed with red foam from all the blood that had spilled. Her voice carried over the sounds of the surf. “Ione!”

Stumbling over several corpses, I fell on my knees beside her where she lay pinned beneath a body, the man’s face in the surf bloated and warped, drowned. Pithys struggled to lift herself and I pushed the body away, then hauled her into my arms. “I’m here. By all the gods, are you all right?”

She hung limp in my arms, unresponsive but for her breathing. When I pulled away to look into her eyes, the soul that stared back at me from within was not the woman I loved, but a monster I’d hoped to never set eyes on in my life.

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