Page 50 of Mated to the Mad Marquess

“You cheat,” she gasped. She spun on her heels, rushing back.

The steady thump of Malcolm’s bootsteps on the steep stairs headed her off.

Giddy laughter bubbled in her throat, but she wasn’t ready to give up yet. She stifled it, spinning back around until she was dizzy. She shoved into the nearest door. It didn’t open. She grabbed at the next one and the knob turned. The room was modest in size and full of an excess of mismatched furniture, some of which appeared damaged. Storage of odds and ends collected over the years.

She slammed the door shut behind her and twisted the lock home. That would slow Malcolm but not his soul. The room had a cold fireplace and a small diamond-paned window. The four-poster bed was covered in a loose quilt with draperies hanging from its sides and stacked with pillows, unused, untouched.

If she was quick, she could use her Vanir god blood to escape like she always had when he’d tried to keep her. Hrafn’s wings came around her, the familiar caress of her satiny feathers as familiar to her as the backs of her hands. In the blink of an eye, she shrank down into the form of a nighthawk, a trickster in her own right, but she didn’t need the blood of others to fuel her magic as her familiar did.

She flew toward the fireplace, pushing up into the darkness.Sidhek! The flue was closed.

She muttered a litany of Olden curses. She didn’t have time to change back and open it. Dropping into the grate, she lay over the old coals there, her marbled feathers blending in perfectly.

Solis ghosted into the room, his shadowy head snapping side to side, searching for her. Hand darkening, he unlatched the door, and Malcolm appeared in the threshold, passing straight through his soul.

“Where’d she go?” he asked.

Solis slid to the floor and zoomed under the bed. Hrafn kept very still and held her breath. His shadows attacked the pillows next, tossing them out of the way. She kept her beak down, blending in. Malcolm stepped to the center of the room and paused. His hand went to his heart, like he could feel the tiny organ that fluttered in her chest right beside his own.

He turned toward the fireplace, and breath froze in Hrafn’s small lungs. The room was growing dark, the sun fading through the diamond-paned window.

But the bond led him right to her. She tried to fly free, but he caught her around her middle, her wings flapping madly.

“You’re a trickster,” he purred. “I had no idea. I’ve never sensed any magic on you.”

Transforming from beast to Vanir was as natural to her as changing her clothing, and twice as fast. She appeared in his arms, staring up at him just as she had the day they met. Soot from the fireplace coated her hair.

“I’m not a mage,” she said. “I’m Vanir.” She didn’t have to cast spells or call on a connection to the Divine Night like the Lunar Fae did. Her connection flowed through her veins.

“Can all the Vanir turn into beasts?”

“Just the best ones,” she teased. As a distraction, she ran a hand down the buttons of his shirt and his hold on her loosened.

Hrafn threw her weight backward, flipping out of his arms, landing on her feet. She lunged for the doors, but Solis was faster. He scooped her up in solid arms and pressed her to the velvety expanse of his shadowy chest. She let out a surprised yelp, and then a husky laugh escaped her.

There was no leaving this embrace. She felt his touches everywhere, sinking around her wrists and ankles, cinching her waist. Her attempts to wriggle free accomplished nothing.

She’d had her fun either way. She’d proven that she was strong enough to play without swooning like some green fledgling. When Solis tossed her onto the bed, she attempted one last kick at his head for propriety’s sake, and her boot went straight through him.

“That is completely unfair,” she groaned.

“It’s not cheating to use the gifts the divines have given you,” Malcolm quoted.

He came up behind her, catching her around her hips and pulling her legs off the bed. She attempted to twist free, to surprise him one last time, but training together had been effective. He’d grown accustomed to all her surprises. Dropping against her, he bent her over the bed, pinning her there with his weight. The proof of his excitement nudged the heat between her legs. His chin pressed into her back. Her wings unfurled. His hands knotted in her hair, holding her cheek against the mattress.

“Am I a horse?” he asked gently.

“No,” she told him quickly, shaking her head against his hold. Saying that word would stop the game, and she wanted to be pinned down. Wanted him to use her in this way to find his pleasure and bring them both to bliss. The bond warmed in her chest, and heat built in her core.

Solis grabbed her wrists and pulled her tight across the bed so there was no retreat left. Malcolm made quick work of her trousers, shoving them down past her knees, and the clasps of her shirt around her wings went next. When she was bare before him, he cupped her ass and ran his touch up her back, then down again to circle her waist.

She heard the clasps of his trousers loosen, felt the wool slide away until there was nothing but the hot lick of heat, of skin on skin. He didn’t spread her wide this time. Malcolm encouraged her feet closer together. One palm planted low on her back, holding her belly to the bed, he worked his fingers up and down her sensitive flesh until her cunt felt full and wet.

When she moaned, Solis captured her mouth in a deep kiss, swallowing up the longing little mewls that snuck out of her.

She felt at home as Malcolm eased inside her, trousers trapped around her ankles. Solis’s tail wound down between her breasts. He lifted her chin, then ran his shadowy lips across hers as Malcolm filled her pussy, pumping into her fast and hard at a climbing pace. Warm velvety pressure teased the shell of her ears, trailed down her neck. Her breasts pillowed on the mattress, and Solis circled the small mounds with tendrils of darkness, still pinning her arms to the bed with weight that was like a waking dream—real but not real.

Malcolm’s pace slowed, and Hrafn whimpered, a wordless plea to finish what he’d started.

---