Conjured Lovers

“I’m just…just so selfish. I never thought myself as selfish but I am. Incredibly so.”

“Hazel, you are the most giving, most generous, least selfish person I know.”

“No, you don’t understand, Nika.” She said, turning slightly to face him. “I…I’m not sorry,” she finally whispered, barely speaking the words as if it would make them more real. And Nika just waited patiently for her to continue. “I’m sorry for a lot of things, but I’m not sorry that I met you. I’m not sorry you are in my life and I’m not sorry I…” her voice trailed off but the words echoed loudly through her mind. Love. She loved them, with all their scars, all of their history. All of the trouble and grief they had brought her, she still loved them.

Jayce’s throat tightened as he stared at her, easily able to read the bright, pulsing golden thread that was woven through out her thoughts, and right along side was an equally bright rope of silver. They were both pulsing in perfect time as if they were a watch set by a master clockmaker, beating in perfect time with her heart.

Suddenly, his own heart was pounding furiously as a new fire filled him. It was easy to see that Hazel was afraid they would both meet the same fate as Eidolon in two days’ time when the harvest moon finally rose, but that didn’t scare him in the least.

He and Nika had each faced their own deaths a hundred times, a thousand, but never once had either of them had someone waiting for them to return. A wave of tenderness swept through him and he pulled her close once more, Nika with her.

No, what had him absolutely terrified was the thought of what Eidolon would do to her if he ever got his hands on her. Because he knew the dark spirit wouldn’t offer her a quick a simple death. He enjoyed torturing, to inflict as much pain as possible.

And with the loss of her mother and father, grandmother and maybe even her entire coven after all of this, he hated the idea that they might inflict even more loss on her tragic life.

He looked down, realizing she had been silent for a long while, just content to be held between them but the look in her burning violet eyes were anything but content as they collided with his own.

“Jayce, I…” Hazel’s voice trailed off, but the suddenly husky sound of her voice ad waves of shivers tripping down his spine as the ever present desire flared to life in the heat of her violet gaze.

“Shh,” he said, placing a single fingertip to her lips. He barley held back a groan as she flicked out her pink tongue, catching the digit between her parted lips for the briefest of seconds.

“If we are going to go out there and very likely face our deaths tomorrow, I…” She paused, swallowing, suddenly bashful. But then her chin tipped up in that way that just always made him want to kiss her and continued speaking all in a rush.

“If we are probably going to all die tomorrow, I want to make sure I make tonight memorable.” The bold words ended on a whisper, and neither man could tear their gaze away from her as she took their hands, one in each of her own, and led them down the narrow stairs, across the hallway, and into her bedroom.

Chapter 18

The dark felt like velvet on her skin. As Hazel pulled Nika closer to her front Jayce instinctively moved to mirror him at her back. The feeling of being pressed between the two large men was like nothing she could describe, and something she thought she could happily experience for the rest of her life. As short as that may end up being, that cynical inner voice whispered but she pushed it away, refusing to think of anything but these men. Her men.

Nika groaned into her mouth as his lips moved like a dance over her own, drawing her ever closer to him, but constantly teasing, constantly pulling back or increasing the pressure to keep her off guard. Hazel could feel Jayce’s hands like two large brands at her hips, on her thighs, sweeping up the curve of her ribcage to cup the sweet swell of her aching breasts. They needed to be touched, but even more than that, they needed to be touched by him, by Nika.

Jayce’s fingers grew impatient with the barrier of her clothes and he began to strip them off of her trembling body, piece by piece until she was naked in between them, the heat from their bodies enough to keep her more than warm. She was on fire for them.