“Someday,” He says, pacing his words with each thrust. “Wren and I will fill you at once, Vonetta.” The pressure of his hands on my waist increases, claiming the supple flesh there as he draws me back onto him. My legs begin to vibrate beneath me, threatening to drop me to the forest floor. “We’ll pass you back and forth, sweet wife.” I can feel the pressure in my stomach building now, at the thought of this. Both of them, at once? I squeeze my eyes closed, but I can hear Wren’s pace on his cock quickening. We’re all unraveling together.
“Sweet pussy…let it happen, Netta. Come for us. Come apart on my cock for Wren.” I do. I open my eyes in time to see Wren’s seed spilling from him with each quick pass of his hand. His head is fully tipped back against the tree, his hair mussed behind him. His pleasure is ripped from him, agony and ecstasy combined on his features.
My own is something else. A keening sound is pulled from deep in my belly as my inner walls squeeze and flutter around Chiron’s cock. I can feel him growing thicker and hotter as he releases his own pleasure into me. He pulls me back to him, his slick skin pressed against my back and his mouth hot at my neck once more. His breath comes out in pants as the last of his seed pumps into me. My body is drained of all energy, and I slump back against him without thought.
Chiron wraps a steadying arm around my waist, holding me in place. My legs do not settle their shaking for long minutes. When I open my eyes, the dual agony and relief are evident from Wren. He loves this, he hates this.
Chiron’s lips find my ear, sending shivers coursing through me.
“What is this to you, Wren? Look at her. What are we to you?” He says. Wren’s eyes grow wide at Chiron’s question, though he does not hesitate to answer him, wrecked as he is.
“I have spent my life seeking wisdom, studying the Gods…this land. I have never felt reverent of them at any altar. It was a scholastic pursuit, a moral one. Yet now I amreverent…of you. An unwilling acolyte at this altar. Ready to confess every sin—ready to commit any sin to keep you. I am broken…by you both.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Vonetta
Wren’s not here.
It’s the first thought I have upon waking. After our encounter in the trees, we had all lain together in the tent Chiron had constructed. Our heated and sweat-slicked bodies pressed close; my head on Chiron’s chest.
Chiron had whispered sacred words to me until sleep pulled me under.
“You are a vision…a goddess made flesh…I love you, Netta.”
Dropping gentle kisses into my mussed hair, he rubs his hand down my back in soothing motions.
Wren had been quiet after his confession. We all had been. It had felt like a dam bursting on his feelings and his resentments. I have never felt more alive than I did last night. Something had truly woken in us all in this forest.
It is early, the sun not yet risen. But Wren is no longer in the tent. I sit up, letting the thin quilt fall to my lap and exposing my skin to the cool morning air. A large warm hand falls on my back, and I turn to see that Chiron is sleep-addled and puffy-eyed.
The way he took me last night flashes through my mind, and my entire body floods with heat. Desire weighs in my stomach as if we hadn’t yet partaken in one another. Like we will partake again soon.
“He’s gone again. Come back to me.” Chiron whispers, sliding his nimble fingers down my spine. A chill washes through me from the sensation. I lay back into his waiting arm. The blanket is low around his hips, exposing all of the deep grooves of his muscles as they lead towards his narrow hips. I pass a finger from his corded neck to where the quilt rests at the V there. He closes his eyes and groans quietly, pulling me closer still.
I nuzzle close, breathing him in. The damp forest floor lingers on his skin, earthen and calming. He presses soft kisses onto my brow, and I lift my face to them. There is tranquility in his embrace, and I breathe that in too. I never imagined this for myself–lovers to share quiet wakings with. Now that I have it, I do not wish to ever part from it.
“Where did he go?” I whisper to Chiron, opening my eyes again to peer into his. The morning sun has begun to rise into the thick trees of Trinity forest, casting a soft glow stream of light into his loamy brown eyes.
The creases at the corners of them pinch for just a moment with concern, or worry, maybe? But they smooth out again when he reaches a hand to my cheek.
“Wren left an hour or so ago. I don’t think he realized I was awake. But I’ve heard some rustling outside the tent. I think he’s near still.”
I take a deep breath in through my nose. I don’t want to believe that we will be repeating the morning after the sea trial, but I cannot entirely shake the dread from my thoughts. I close my eyes and try to push them from me, but they do not leave completely.
“Hey? Hey. Netta. It’s going to be okay. Wren is…” Chiron pauses, laying his head back onto the rolled-up cloth behind him, eyes on the ceiling of our forest abode. “Even Wren cannot deny that this means more now than just duty, surely.”
My eyes snap open at the memory of Wren’s confession. The yearning, the deep pain in it? Wren is torn in half with the struggle of being with us and being apart from us.
“I believe that to be true,” I say to him, placing my hand once more on Chiron’s chest. “But there is more to this than you know. You need to speak with him; he has reasons for why he is the way he is with us.” The beating of his heart soothes the nervousness in me, enough to calm my racing thoughts about Wren.
We lay quietly together until the sun has fully risen from behind the trees.
“Netta, I meant what I said. I love you both.I love you.We’re going to figure it out. Maybe not before the mountain, which is not ideal. But there is no room for division under those conditions.” His surety is bolstering. His temporary truce with Wren appears to be holding. For that, I am incredibly grateful. Whether Wren is ready to mend things between us is another thing entirely.
When we finally do decide to rise from our quiet morning, I see that my breeches and tunic are folded carefully by my feet, as is Chiron’s tunic from the previous night. Wren must have brought them back with him. My memories from our walk back to the tent are foggy, the afterglow of everything that was done and said leaving me in a daze.
We dress quietly. I unwind my braid and twist my hair into a knot at the back of my neck. Chiron ties it off for me with deft fingers before leaning down and gently biting my shoulder in the same spot he had the night prior. The memories are again fresh in both my mind and my body.
