We landed on the bed in a tangle of limbs. Garrick rolled away immediately, his shoulder blades pressed into the mattress as he gasped for breath. But Syleris was on him immediately.
“My apologies, halfling,” he purred as he pressed a kiss to Garrick’s collarbone. “In my haste to have the two of you naked, I did not think about the impact my form of travel might have on you.”
Heat surged between my thighs.
It was not just his words, though. Even as he pressed a line of kisses along Garrick’s collarbone and around his pectoral muscle, his hand was between my legs. And we were, every single one of us, naked. That was power I could appreciate.
“Did we just disappear from the middle of the masquerade?” Garrick half-moaned.
We lay side by side on the bed, Syleris kneeling between us. His long, deft fingers teased my opening while he nibbled on the cleft of Garrick’s chin. I turned my head to the side so I could watch him torture my Lifebind. It was exquisite.
“As I said before, I have my own ways of hiding,” Syleris said. He paused to drag his tongue down Garrick’s throat and suck on his pulse. And to slip a finger inside of me. “And the other attendees were much too focused on their own pleasure to notice ours.”
As the word pleasure dripped off of his tongue, he scraped a fingernail over the bundle of nerves inside my pussy. My hips jerked in response, my back bowing up off the bed. It was impossible that a person could be so focused and so effective at giving two people pleasure at once. Syleris was unlike anyone—man or woman—that I’d ever been with before.
“Because I am not a man.”
“You are a god,” I said aloud. I’d meant to say it with sarcasm, but it came out as a whimper, needy and shrill.
“Your god,” Syleris agreed.
I turned my eyes up to him. Before, he’d been behind me, and I had not been able to watch his face as he took his pleasure. Thistime, I did not want to miss a single detail. But it wasn’t his face that caught my eyes. It was his chest.
There they were, inked right over his heart.
I’d known he must have them, but I’d never let myself fantasize about where. The two chevrons nestled together above his nipple and below his collarbone. They were the same dark blue ink as the identical mark on the inside of my thigh and the Lifebind I shared with Garrick. Syleris’ mark was bigger, about the size of my palm, while mine was closer to the width of my thumb. But they were there, the physical mark of the bargain I’d made to bind myself to him for eternity in exchange for Kyrelle’s life.
I’d cursed that decision again and again. But I’d never truly regretted it. And now, a small part of me was glad for it, because it had brought me to this moment. I’d felt complete in my love for Garrick, even before his betrayal. But my bond with the Dark God lingered. I’d have Garrick in life and the Dark God in death.
Somehow, by some strange and remarkable twist of fate, I had them both. Right now, right here, in my heart and pressed against my body.
Tears broke free and ran down my cheeks.
Garrick noticed them immediately. I did not even realize he’d been watching me.
“What is it?” he demanded. He brushed Syleris away and levered himself up onto his arm so that he could see me properly.
Syleris clucked his tongue in disapproval, but he retreated a fraction as well. His fingers were still between my legs, but he contented himself with teasing the mass of curls instead of my clit.
I shook my head to the side, struggling to find the words. “I don’t… I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve… you. Both of you.”
Garrick’s eyes went wide. Syleris was already in my mind; he could follow my line of thought and see exactly where I ended up. He’d been there to see it happening. But that did not stop him from frowning down at me as he rolled to the other side. I now had one male on each side, each propped up on an elbow, each staring down at me.
Syleris teased my curls. Garrick’s eyes darted down, catching the movement. He must have decided that if Syleris could touch me, he could too. He cupped my breast and slowly dragged his fingertip over my nipple.
“You cannot distract me from my feelings,” I said to the pair of them. Although if that was their goal, they were doing marvelously. My body was very interested in their touches, even if my mind and conscience rebelled.
Syleris slid his finger back inside me. He captured my mouth as I gasped, invading it in time with my pussy. When he drew back, he held my gaze. Pinned me as effectively as if he’d held me down.
“You are the single good thing I have done, Koryn,” he said.
“I thought you denied any goodness,” I whispered.
“In myself? Absolutely,” he agreed. “But not in you.”
I turned away, scared of the intensity that filled my chest. It was not my power, and it was not cold. It was warm and real, and it tipped my world toward a new reality I did not think I was ready for.
Garrick caught my wrists, preventing me from escaping. He stared down into my eyes as he held me immobile. “You are good. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be worshipped.”
