Chapter 12
“I thought you said you preferred me not to wear any clothing when we’re alone?” Cristina eyed the black T-shirt lying on the bed and obviously meant for her.
“We do,” Rhys confirmed gruffly, his cock having leaped to attention the moment a completely naked Cristina emerged from the bathroom. He and Aeran had gone to Rhys’s suite to take it in turns to shower before returning to Aeran’s suite, both of them now wearing only towels wrapped about their waists.
She arched one eyebrow. “But not tonight?”
“No,” Aeran rasped. “We will happily hold you all night, but we can’t make love to you again until Dylan completes his tests and we know we aren’t going to kill you.”
“Again,” Rhys muttered.
“Well, I suppose that’s an improvement on the suggestion of having Dylan actually in the bedroom with us.” Cristina pulled on the T-shirt before slipping beneath the bedcovers, sliding to the middle of the bed, and looking at them both expectantly.
A position obviously meant to leave room for Aeran and Rhys to get into bed either side of her.
“Although…” she murmured as the two men removed their towels and revealed how aroused they both were, cocks standing to attention, the bulbous tops glistening with pre-cum. “It doesn’t seem fair that I’ve actually died from an overdose of pleasure, and so far, neither of you have—have—”
“Come,” Aeran supplied as he got into the bed on her right before turning on his side and leaning up on his elbow.
Color bloomed in her cheeks. “Don’t start finished my sentences for me too!”
“Was that not the word you were going to say?” Rhys teased as he climbed into the left side of the bed and adopted the same pose as his brother.
It wasn’t only Cristina’s face that was hot now. These two men’s naked bodies were like furnaces, their heat surrounding her.
Two men’s naked bodies!
Would she ever be able to stop freaking out about that? Cristina really hoped so, because now that she had grown used to the idea, she couldn’t imagine her life without either one of them.
Rhys was the gruff protector and demanding lover.
Aeran gave the appearance of being more amiable, and no doubt he was, but he was just as fierce a protector and lover as his brother.
“This can’t all be about me and my pleasure.” Cristina couldn’t look either man in the eye. “Just because you can’t make love to me again yet doesn’t mean the two of you have to miss out.”
“What did you have in mind?” Rhys prompted huskily.
“We’re completely open to suggestions,” Aeran agreed softly.
Considering her sexual experience to date—none—Cristina wasn’t quite sure how she was supposed to satisfy two men when they couldn’t actually make love to her. But she had read books—some of them dragon shifter books—and she had the general idea about oral sex and how to perform it. Quite how that would work when there were two cocks and she had only one mouth was also a bit of a dilemma, but she was willing to experiment if they were.
The press of their hard and heated cocks against the outside of her thighs told her they were both very willing.
Okay, she could do this. Perhaps not as skillfully as their previous lovers but surely enthusiasm had to count for something?
“You don’t have to do anything, mate.” Rhys smoothed the frown from between her eyes. “We’re happy just having you here with—Goddess!” He gave a groan and fell onto his back as one of Cristina’s hands slid down his muscular chest and abdomen before her fingers curled about his throbbing cock.
“What— Fuck…!” Aeran gave a similar groan and fell back against the pillows as the fingers of Cristina’s other hand curled about his cock.
She did only have one mouth, but she had two hands!
The duvet fell to the bottom of the bed as Cristina moved up onto her knees between the two men, feeling her own arousal deepen at the sight of her palms and fingers curled about the turgid length of those aroused cocks. Able to feel their pleasure in her touch.
Aeran’s cock was longer than Rhys’s, but Rhys’s was thicker around. Both of them were leaking pre-cum from the slit of those bulbous and mushroomed tops. Both promised indescribable pleasure.
Except tonight, Cristina was determined they would be the ones who were pleasured.
She maintained her grip on Rhys’s cock, fingers lightly pumping as she lowered her head to lick and swallow the pre-cum from the tip of Aeran’s rampant arousal. It was salty and tweet. Totally addictive. She licked and swallowed over and over again until Aeran’s hips arched up and he thrust his cock deeper inside her mouth.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” he groaned, eyes closed, his cheeks flushed.
Sensing he was on the brink of coming, Cristina gave his cock one last sweep of her tongue before lifting her head, maintaining her grasp of Aeran’s cock and pumping harder as she turned to Rhys. That aquamarine gaze held hers as she parted her lips and sucked the whole of his bulbous tip into the heat of her mouth. His taste was slightly different to Aeran’s, a little saltier, but just as addictive.
“Goddess…!” Rhys’s head fell back on the pillows, hands clenched into fists at his sides. “Like that,” he encouraged as Cristina sucked his cock greedily to the back of her throat. “Just like that.” His hands moved to her shoulders to hold her in place as he began to thrust up into the pleasurable cavern of her mouth.
She felt Aeran shift on her other side, his cock pulsing in her hand and his breathing ragged as he watched the two of them from between narrowed lids. Cristina matched the movements of her hands and mouth to what she could feel through their bond gave them both the greatest pleasure.
Rhys was so aroused, he knew his release was imminent as he felt his balls draw up tight beneath his cock. Cristina resisted as he tried to push her up and away from him, not because he wanted to, but because he was unsure whether or not it might speed up the mating if he released inside her mouth. Their triad mating was already different to his brothers’, and he didn’t want to risk—
It was too fucking late!
“Cristina!” he cried out as the cum pumped hotly down the length of his cock and into the back of Cristina’s throat. Pulse after pulse of his scorching-hot cum that she swallowed down greedily before slowly licking him clean and then turning to take Aeran’s cock back in her mouth.
Rhys took hold of Cristina’s hand as he turned to watch the two of them, able to feel Aeran’s rising ecstasy as if it were his own, and knowing that Aeran must have felt Rhys’s pleasure and release too.
Rhys had to clench his fists to stop himself from touching Cristina as he both sensed and breathed in the arousal slicking those rose-petal lips between her thighs and was able to see her engorged nipples pressing against the T-shirt.
The combined pleasure of all of them was beyond description. Beyond anything Rhys had ever felt before.
“I can’t stop!” Aeran cried out seconds later as he thrust up into Cristina’s mouth and held himself there as jet after jet of cum pulsed down her throat.
Their mate was magnificent. Her eyes were closed. Cheeks flushed. Her lips red and parted as wide as possible to accommodate the girth and length of Aeran’s cock as her head bobbed up and down.
So good, Aeran groaned long seconds later through the brothers’ mental link.
Perfection, Rhys agreed as they took their precious mate into their arms.
Cristina had never felt as cherished as she did lying with her head on Aeran’s shoulder and Rhys cuddled up against her back.
Cherished.
And safe.
“Your mates would know instantly and rip me apart if I did anything to harm you,” Nikolai Volkov drawled as Cristina came to an abrupt halt in the kitchen doorway late the following morning.
Cristina had woken up half an hour or so ago to find the bed warm either side of her but both of her mates absent. Considering the bedside clock said it was after ten in the morning, that wasn’t so surprising.
A note left on one of the pillows told her Aeran and Rhys had taken over from some of their brothers and were now out looking for Vasile Fescaru, and that there was coffee and toast in the kitchen if she wanted them.
Considering at least a dozen other people lived in the castle Cristina hadn’t expected to find Nikolai Volkov alone in the kitchen. Or wanted to see him again at all, if she was honest.
But now that she had, she wasn’t about to run away. Instead, she stepped farther into the kitchen to pour herself a mug of coffee from the pot before answering him. “And don’t think I wouldn’t pay to watch that.” She leaned back against one of the kitchen units as she sipped her coffee.
“My wife and daughter would not be happy if that should happen,” he murmured. “And a pissed-off Daisy is not something I would wish on my worst enemy. Which, despite what you might think otherwise, you aren’t.”
Cristina’s eyes widened. “You’re married?”
He chuckled. “Very much so. We have a three-year-old daughter and another baby on the way. We are having a son this time.”
Cristina was too surprised to be able to hide it. This man gave the impression of being completely self-contained, his only loyalty to Gregori Markovic and, to a latter degree, the Pendragon brothers and their mates. Which now included Cristina.
Volkov reached into the breast pocket of his jacket to take out his wallet. He opened it before placing it down on the tabletop. “My wife and daughter.” He invited her to look at the photograph on display.
Cristina wasn’t sure she wanted to do that. It was much easier to think of this man as a cold-blooded murderer when she hadn’t known he had a wife and daughter. Actually seeing a photo of that wife and daughter and hearing Volkov’s love for them in his voice made him all too human. But perhaps that was the point he was trying to make.
“We’re all monsters, Cristina,” he said softly. “But our saving grace is the love we have for our family and they have for us. Your father loved you. He protected you in the only way he knew how, which was to keep you completely separate from that other side of his life. Everything else is bullshit.”
“But you said—”
“Because you needed to know the truth, not because I had any wish to hurt you.”
Cristina made a tentative step forward. “Does your wife know what you do?”
He straightened. “She does. She loves me anyway.”
Cristina looked down at the open wallet. It showed a beautiful blonde-haired woman and an equally cute blonde-haired little girl. “Aren’t you afraid for them? Of what might happen to them because of who you are?”
“Every minute of every day.” His confirmation was abrupt.
Cristina frowned. “Then why put them in that position?”
His jaw tightened. “I initially tried to send Daisy away because of that fear. But my Daisy is not a woman to be told what to do. She wanted me. She was determined to have me. A man can only fight his own feelings, and the love of a woman as determined as Daisy, for so long.” An affectionate smile now curved those sculpted lips. “Daisy battered down every objection I made to the two of us being together. It helps that she is ex-military and has so many brothers, also military trained, no one would dare mess with her or anyone she loves,” he added ruefully. “Daisy is bodyguard to Gregori’s wife, Gaia, and their two children. As I am bodyguard to Gregori.”
“He’s married too?” This became weirder and weirder.
The Russian nodded. “To a woman as emotionally strong as Daisy.”
Cristina gave another glance at the photograph. “Your little girl is beautiful.”
Nikolai’s expression softened even more. “Natasha is like her mother.”
“She looks like you.”
Pale blond brows rose. “I have gone from being a monster to beautiful?”
Cristina gave him a narrow-eyed glance. “I didn’t say that. Only that your daughter is gorgeous and looks like you.”
The Russian shrugged. “Same thing.”
It was slightly surreal to be having this conversation with the man who had admitted to being responsible for her father’s death.
Nikolai picked up his wallet, long fingers lightly caressing the leather as if caressing the photograph of the woman and child inside it before he put it back in the breast pocket of his jacket. “Your mates are good men. All the Pendragon brothers are.”
Cristina sat opposite him at the table. “It’s a big jump from being the daughter of a member of the Romanian Mafia to now being the mate of two dragon shifters who have been alive for sixteen hundred years.” She gave him a sharp glance. “I’m guessing you already knew that?”
Nikolai smiled. “I know all there is to know about the Pendragon brothers.”
“Because that’s your thing? Information.”
He nodded. “That’s my thing. As men, they are all honorable and fierce. As dragons, they are magnificent creatures and even more fierce.”
“Yes, they are,” she acknowledged huskily. “And totally out of the realm of what we, as humans, consider real.”
Nikolai’s smile widened. “That is what Gregori and I most like about them.”
“You—” She turned as there was a flurry of movement behind her.
Nathaniel stood in the kitchen doorway. “We have Vasile,” he announced economically.
Nikolai stood before crossing the room to join the other man. “I would like to question him first.”
Nathaniel shrugged. “If you can get past Aeran and Rhys, be my guest.”
Nikolai chuckled. “Where are they?”
“In the dungeon.”
The Russian’s brows rose. “There really is a dungeon?”
“It’s a medieval castle. Of course there’s a dungeon,” Nathaniel dismissed as the two men left the kitchen, Cristina obviously forgotten.
She wasn’t sure she particularly liked being dismissed in that way, nor did she have any intention of being left behind. Instead, she followed the two men at a safe distance as they went down some stone steps into the bowels of the castle.
To the dungeon where they were holding Vasile Fescaru prisoner.
Cristina shivered slightly as she stood back in the shadows of the stone passageway watching as the two men entered a room next to a barred and empty cell. It was cold down here, but the room they had entered had all sorts of metal devices hanging on the walls. Torture devices that looked as if they came straight from the medieval age the Pendragon brothers had been born into.
A man wearing a suit sat on a chair in the center of that room, his hands tied behind his back. His likeness to Cristina’s father was unmistakable: dark hair liberally streaked with gray, pale green eyes, his still-handsome face all sharp angles. He didn’t have any visible injuries, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any.
Cristina had no doubt this man was her father’s cousin, Vasile Fescaru.
Aeran and Rhys loomed over him, one standing threateningly on either side of him.
“Vasile,” Nikolai greeted as he strode confidently into the room.
“Volkov,” the other man acknowledged but kept a wary eye on Rhys and Aeran. “I want to see Cristina—” He broke off as Rhys placed a hand about his throat.
“You will not be allowed anywhere near our mate,” Rhys growled. “Do you understand me?” He shook the other man.
“He can’t answer you if you’re strangling him, Rhys,” Nikolai pointed out calmly. Rhys eased his grip only fractionally as Nikolai went down on his haunches in front of the Romanian. “What did you not understand about Gregori’s warning to stay well away from Cristina Petran?” Nikolai’s tone might be mildly enquiring, but the hard and deadly glitter of his pale gray eyes told a different story.
Cristina gave a shiver as both her mates glanced toward the open doorway where she was hiding in the shadows, telling her they were both aware of her presence.
Vasile shook his head. “You are the one who does not understand. None of you do.” His glance encompassed all the men in the room.
“Then enlighten us, Vasile,” the Russian invited smoothly. “Explain to us why you dared to go against Gregori’s instructions.”
The Romanian turned away, staring at the stone wall opposite. “I want to see Cristina.”
“And we told you that isn’t going to happen,” Aeran growled.
Vasile looked up at him. “Did I fight being taken prisoner? Did I put up any resistance at all to being brought here? Did any of my men? No. Because they were instructed not to do so.”
Aeran’s gaze narrowed. “What does that prove?”
“That I’m not here to hurt Cristina. I just—I want to see her. I need to see her.”
Cristina was now as puzzled as the four men in the room with Vasile.
He hadn’t resisted capture.
Or being brought here.
Nor had any of his men, on his instruction.
Why had he done those things when he must know that Nikolai was responsible for the death of his predecessor?
And why was Vasile so determined to see her?
Not just determined, but needed to see her.