Page 3 of Fool's Bargain

He climbed onto the bed and knelt between my thighs. Leaning down, he pressed his mouth against the top of my cleft with a hungry murmur, extending his tongue to lick and tease at my swollen clit.

With a sigh, I lifted my hips toward his mouth, my core aching for more contact, deeper contact. I was hungry to be claimed by them, a feeling that had grown ever more insistent over the weeks since becoming a deity. It wasn’t only the need to let go of my worries. The overwhelming power I contained now needed a balance, even if it was only symbolic.

I wielded so much power, I needed my mates to dominate me so I knew I wouldn’t abuse it. So I could be sure I only used it for the one purpose I’d been made for.

Ozzie understood this. He straightened up on his knees and stared down at me, the bond between our souls thrumming like a plucked string. “Take her hands and tie them to the headboard.”

Llyr and Keagan were at the edges of the bed and so were the first to respond. They reached for the silken ropes that still dangled from our last experiment tying me up. But like before, they both hesitated when I raised my arms above my head for them to bind me.

“She needs this,” Ozzie said. “Don’t let her down.”

“It still feels wrong,” Keagan said but reluctantly wrapped the rope around the wrist nearest him. With each caress of the silken cord, the tension of that pent-up power eased a little, along with the tight worry that I might fail the bloodline if I didn’t constantly work to find them mates. When Llyr wrapped my other wrist and pulled the rope taut above my head, I surrendered fully.

“You understand it hurts us to do this to you,” Llyr whispered. “We’re not the kind of men who crave power so much we need to dominate a goddess to prove ourselves.”

“I know,” I said, giving him an apologetic look. “But I’m not sure what else to do. You can’t mark me now that I’m a goddess. Other than this dragon mark, I have no sign of what I mean to you. That I belong to the five of you, heart and soul.”

Rohan had been the first of the five I’d given into and mated, the first to share a fragment of his soul, giving me the first piece of the puzzle to make me whole. We’d marked each other with dragon magic that night, but the other four had never had the chance before my ascension made it impossible. Not all the higher races observed the act of marking their mates, but something in me longed to bear visual evidence of my bond to each of them—some indelible mark on my skin that reflected the unbreakable bond our souls shared.

Asking them to tie me up wasn’t going to fulfill that need in any permanent way, but when I was at their mercy this way, with their teeth and tongues and fingers and cocks carving pleasure into my body like a sculptor carves stone, I always imagined myself reborn afterward—broken down and reshaped into a creature that was wholly theirs.

“If she wants us to make her our toy, who are we to refuse her?” Ozzie said, smiling slyly down at me as he pushed my legs wide and I surrendered to them all.

The five of them worked their own flavor of magic on me, teasing me, fucking me, turning me into a beast that wanted nothing but pleasure. They held back from taking me past the edge, and when I thought I could hold out no longer, I remembered the other reason I needed this. With a slight shift of focus, the web of magic that was all the bloodline souls unfurled in my mind. Now that I had absorbed enough of my mates’ fertile magic, I could reach out to the bloodline again for a long-needed check-in.

I closed my eyes and savored the immense power, the proof that even a goddess needed a little help from her harem to do her job. Without their contributions of magic, reaching out to the bloodline was more difficult. Not impossible, but somewhat limited. But now that I was filled with the magic that matched each of the five pieces of my soul, contacting the bloodline was as easy as closing my eyes and speaking the words.

“Those of the bloodline who seek mates and have not yet found them should come hear our music. Fate’s Fools will help...”

2

Deva

When I returned to the present from my inner journey into the intricate network of souls I was connected to, Llyr still cradled me in his arms. The others had claimed their coffee mugs and Ozzie held one aromatic vessel up in front of me. I slipped off Llyr’s lap and took it, sighing in pleasure at the delicious, chocolaty scent that filled my nose, but today it was mixed with something sharper.

I scrunched my eyebrows and took a cautious sip, the chocolate flavor the first to hit my tongue, followed by the crisp flavor of peppermint.

“Mmm, this is delicious!” I closed my eyes to savor it.

“Callie sent ahead a holiday care package from Texas,” Ozzie said. “I thought we’d try the peppermint bark hot chocolate mixed with our coffee today. To get us into the spirit. She’s bringing more for the Christmas party later this week.”

The Gold dragon Callie was one of many dragons we’d matched with members of the bloodline over the past few months. She was arguably my favorite person thanks to her skills as a chocolatier. But her chocolate was special: she infused every recipe with the joy-filled smoke innate to Gold dragons, so simply tasting the stuff was the perfect start to any day.

When the magic-infused beverage kicked in, its effects swept away the tangled mess of anxious energy that had made me snap at my mates over inconsequential details. My recurring sense of need crystalized and I finally understood what I actually needed to ask for.

Biting my lip, I looked around at my mates.

“I’m not sure I like that look,” Keagan said. “It usually means she’s going to ask the impossible.”

“And we’ll give it to her, naturally,” Rohan replied.

“I just need some ideas is all.” I pulled my legs up and crossed them, then leaned over to trace my fingers down Bodhi’s chest, following the lines of the tree that was tattooed there.

It was a marvelous, magical design that transformed with the seasons, and he’d recently discovered he could control its appearance to a small degree. The day before it had been no more than a bare trunk and branches with traces of frost, but today it looked decidedly more evergreen and festive with holly berries standing out red among the green leaves. Only a couple months ago it had been ablaze with gold and red leaves, and by spring it would be covered in blossoms.

I’d watched his tattoo change through four seasons now, the evidence that Bodhi was far more than human. He was bloodline, possessed of magic that had remained dormant until mating me. Ever since that day, his tattoos had come alive, and the tree was only one piece of the whole, the piece that reflected his inner ursa nature. He had dragon, nymphaea, and turul in his blood too, and we’d determined that the mix of races he carried was what made him the perfect human match for me. It meant he was a chimera too, though we didn’t know to what degree his own power would manifest beyond these tattoos.

Bodhi took my hand and kissed my palm. “We tried getting you a tattoo, angel. Your skin healed and left no trace of the ink behind.”

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