ReluctantConsort

Lora
Leigh

Book four in the Wizard Twins series.

Arabella da’Alistair is aware of her fate. The daughter of
an evil king, she knows she must be sacrificed to allay the people’s fear she
will become a creature of magick. But suffering so at the hand of her father is
more than she can bear. She wants one more chance to be wrapped in a magickal
ménage with the warriors she has been meeting in secret. Warriors who have no
idea who she truly is.

Caedan and Daelan of the Ogre house Dungarrin agree to save
a woman destined for horrors, as demanded by their two kings. She may not be
the woman they long to possess, body and soul, but they will follow their duty.
But fate shines on them and the twins will do whatever it takes to save this
woman—their woman—and deliver her to the safety of their arms, and the pleasure
of their bed.

A
Romantica®
fantasy erotic romance
from Ellora’s Cave

The Vale.

It was a place of pure magick. A place where magick was
rumored to have been birthed.

Spora, the crystalline spores of dried liquid magick,
drifted on the breeze like playful feathered seed as it danced about on
currents of magick-scented air. It was said to have once filled all of Sentmar.
That it fell as the flakes of snow fell upon the Glacial Mountains and filled
the valleys like a heavy magick fog.

That was before the Sidhe tricked the magick sects and
placed the humans within the most distant mountains of the planet. Those
creatures who were not natural to the lands, their evil was like a plague, like
a sickness that arose from the magick and the lands they inhabited became
imprisoned within.

The Vale was to most, even those of the magicks, known to be
only a place of legend now. Only a precious few knew the Vale still thrived,
the magick that sustained all of Sentmar flowing from it to those created to be
sustained by it.

To the warriors of the Causeway, the Ogre, it was a place
where no taint of human darkness could be found. A place of primitive, powerful
magick.

Within the Vale the Ogre could heal, surrounded by pure
magick pools, or bathe in heated streams of magick-infused waters. They could
find ease for their desires with the priestesses they could call to them,
provided by their Guardian Selects, the demi-gods the One chose to protect the
magick of Sentmar’s lands.

And once, long before, when the mists separating the lands
were first formed the One had whispered the secrets of Ogre warriors’ ability
to draw their magick females to the Vale. Magick would always breed magick, the
One had sworn. The Ogre, great of power, filled with honor, created to endure
both the magick realms and the human lands, would not be forsaken in claiming
those women filled with the magicks the Ogre was to protect. They too would
have the ability to draw and claim their hearts and desires—or so legend once
said.

But that was long ago—

* * * * *

Arabella da’Alistair, daughter of King Herndon Alistair the
Perverted of Yarba’s Eldorah Province, paused at the edge of the Causeway, her
gaze searching both the mists as well as the land behind her for any hidden
dangers. And there were many dangers that could be enemies. Enemies who would
eagerly see her destroyed for the crime she was about to commit once again.

Were she to be caught here, her sentence would be death, no
matter which sect found her.

Should her father’s forces glimpse her then he would
sacrifice her to allay the people’s concerns that she would become a creature
of magick. Should the fearsome Ogre find her, then she would be driven mad by
the sight of their grotesque visage just before being roasted upon their fiery
pits to feed their depraved legions—or so the Wise Fathers had always taught.

But should she be lucky once more, she would slip through
the mists to find that place time and land had forgotten and the warriors she
could feel pulling her to them.

For but another moment in their arms she would brave her
father’s evil as well as the Ogre pits. For but one more touch, a single caress
from those males, she would brave evil itself.

Oh how she ached to hurry to them.

It seemed ages since she had laughed with them, felt warmed
by their caresses and entranced by their kisses. And this could be the last of
such times they would be permitted to share. Come the morrow she was to be
presented to her future husband. A man she knew to be wizened and nothing like
the warriors she craved nightly.

She might never see nor touch the warriors she thought of as
hers ever again. She could not consign herself to such a fate without seeing
them one last time.

Stepping into the darkening swirls of magick-laced clouds,
inhaling as a drunkard did when given his first drink in days, Arabella once
again tempted all the forces that would see her destroyed should they learn of
this heresy.

Magick was forbidden to find a harbor in any human in such a
way, especially one whose Halfling roots were so far removed from the hierarchy
of true magicks. Humans were forbidden to touch, to taste or to draw the scent
of the spice-laced spores into themselves. To do so was a crime upon both
magick as well as humanity. But there were those, so very few within the human
lands, whose blood craved the magick that swirled about the Causeway. Those who
felt a hunger for it far worse even than a drunkard’s need for his drink.

Humans such as Arabella.

A thousand years past her ancestor, a Spry prince with no
twin still living nor chance to rise above his brothers to the throne, had
slipped to the human lands. His desire for his human lover had consumed him,
causing him to cut all ties to his magick roots.

The legacy of his birth had left his line with the power to
survive within the mists and turn away the creatures of dark magick that
inhabited them. It had also left them in true danger of meeting the fate of so
many others her father Alistair the Perverted had managed to uncover.

Moving quickly along a narrow, almost hidden path, Arabella
found the entrance to the valley she sought. Stepping past the rising obelisks
inscribed with graceful script of a long-ago language, she nearly staggered
from the feel of magick suddenly surrounding her.

Should any place hold true magick then it was here, in this
place. It infused her. She grew giddy within its fold, drawing it into her,
feeling it rise around her, inside her, as though welcoming her once more.

Beauty surrounded her in the form of great rising trees
whose leafy abundance parted in a multitude of steps to catch the rays of the
sun beaming overhead and spill them to the lush grass beneath.

Fabled tweeterlings flew overhead, their wings stretched
wide to catch the warming currents of magick that flowed through the land.

Blooms of all shapes and sizes, all manner of colors and
designs filled bush and brush and through it all a many-layered path of marble
said to enhance all forms of magick spread out between lush greenery and blooms
in all directions.

Winsome, fluttering puffs of seed resembling puffers, the
tiny feathery flowers that as a child she had made wishes upon before they flew
free of their stems, filled the air. The incredibly soft forms never fell to
the ground. As though moored to the breeze itself they danced with capricious
abandon about her as she hurried along the path leading to the heated springs
where her warriors always awaited her.

She knew they awaited.

She always knew when they rested within this place of
magick.

She could feel them calling for her in a way that reminded
her that her magick might be separated by at least a thousand years but still
it pulsed within her. A fragile spark mayhap but a spark that grew ever
brighter here, within this magick realm.

Lifting her long skirts, she moved ever faster, the blood
coursing, pounding in her veins as heat began to infuse her entire being.

How she ached for them.

How she longed for them…

A sudden band about her waist drew her to an abrupt halt as
she passed yet another obelisk rising to the brilliant, blue sky.

Her back met the muscular breadth of a powerful chest as her
fingers curled over the iron-hard forearm shackling her close.

A smile curved her lips as a moment later her head tilted
up, resting against a warrior’s chest as his brother stepped slowly from behind
the rising fronds that sheltered the pools from prying eyes.

“Sweet little heart,” said the darker warrior who held her
and lifted her until her feet no longer touched the ground.

“You wear far too many clothes.” The other, her dark
warrior’s brother, his black hair shot with golden hues, caught her to him then
as the other lifted her knees to clasp his brother’s hips.

“The days have been far too long,” the warrior groaned
behind her, quickly unlacing the snug ties securing her dress at her back. “How
we hunger for you.”

She was undressed quickly as the now-familiar crackle of
power began to ignite within her body. She could feel it awakening, warming,
heating beneath her flesh. It invaded her bloodstream, striking sparks in the
tender flesh between her thighs.

Between rising magick and impatient male hands she was
quickly undressed before her golden-hued warriors bore her to the heavy,
moss-laden bed they often laid her upon.

“Dearest heart.” The shifting star-studded black of their
gazes stared down at her in hunger as she was lowered to her feet before easing
her to her knees. “Ease me, love. I ache as a warrior mortally wounded.”

Sweet mercy, the pleasure of these stolen, forbidden hours.

Drawing her nails down the rock-hard planes of his
tightening chest to the muscles below, she quickly found the formidable
strength of his shaft as it rose to meet her touch.

Curling the fingers of both hands around the width, she
leaned forward, her lips parting over the flared, pulsing cap of his erection.

As she leaned close to taste her warrior’s desire her knees
were pressed farther apart, the feel of course strands of her dark warrior’s
hair smoothing over her thighs. His head moved between her spread legs, strong
hands catching her hips as Arabella parted her lips wide enough to take the
fierce dimensions of his brother’s throbbing erection. Her lips tightened
around the heavy crest, her cheeks hollowing to suck at the throb of hunger
against her tongue as a harsh moan rasped her throat.

“Easy, love.” A strong hand clasped the side of her head as
her knees trembled.

Between her thighs a wicked tongue tasted her with such
intimate devastation her senses exploded with agonizing pleasure.

Heated, diabolical, the tip of his tongue rasped over such
sensitive flesh, flicked and relished the taste of moisture that had gathered
in slick layers upon the feminine folds.

As she suckled greedily at the thickened flesh moving between
her lips, her warrior tasted her with heavy male hunger.

Magick flowed then.

It burst from her, from her warriors and wrapped around the
three. Blunt male magick found the clenched entrance as his lips found the
little bud of exquisite sensation at the apex of her folds.

Heated spirals of darker magick slid erotically between the
curves of her rear, caressing slowly, needily to the tighter, puckered entrance
below. They had accustomed her to their magick invasions in the months past.
Made her ache for it.

Thrusting shallowly between her lips, one warrior possessed
her mouth with such gentle hunger he shackled her senses. Between her thighs
the other began suckling firmly at the little bud he’d captured, piercing her
senses with rising ecstasy.

Magick slowly, heatedly penetrated the slick depths of her
feminine heat as threads of powerful heat worked slowly into the tightly
puckered entrance of her rear.

Burning heat, a painful pleasure she sought more of each
time she felt it invading her, pulsed through her. Locked between the width of
the fierce flesh shuttling between her lips, the hungry kisses and tastes of
the warrior between her thighs, and their combined magick penetrating each
entrance below, Arabella could feel her own magick building, rising. Here in
this place she was one of great power, matching the warriors who drew her to
them.

She was meant to be theirs, yet birth decreed otherwise.

“Ah yes, my sweet,” the man before her groaned as he thrust
against her lips. “Such tight, sweet lips. Suck me, beauty. Take what only we
can give your sweet hunger.”

Her lips tightened further, her moans rising in lush hunger
as the magick they shared sped through her veins, creating a need, a brutal
desperation for the taste of his seed filling her mouth, caressing her tongue.

Between her thighs magick stroked into her nether regions,
stretching her inner muscles, stroking her flesh with burning stokes. Within
that place where she was taught none should touch, magick lashed at her with
fiery sensation. It stretched the small entrance, drove into it with powerful
strokes and filled her with an agonizing need to be taken fully.

Not by magick alone. To be taken by their bodies, by the
hard shafts they had yet to penetrate her with, with the heavy release of their
seed filling those places that no other had ever touched.

Pleasure became a creature of such greedy hunger, such
aching need that their surroundings disappeared and all their passions knew was
the explosions, the rapid-fire strikes of ecstasy consuming them.

* * * * *

Muse stood still and silent, her gaze narrowed on the trio,
her own senses not unaffected by the Dungarrin warriors and their little hidden
sorceress.

How had the princess’s power survived the human lands? That
place where no magick, save the darker arts, were known to exist?

Was this yet another example of the lessons the One had
decreed that those he’d placed as the protectors of magick must learn?

The fusion of magick building in the hidden realm of the
Vale, within the Gardens of Nirvana sparked and spiked with such greedy passion
now that even she, said to be the least passionate of the Guardian Sentinels,
was not unaffected.

But then, since arriving in the Ogre stronghold of the
Obsidian Fortress, many things now affected her. Come the new moon phase she
was to leave for the Covenan castle while her sister Nemesis would depart
Cauldaran for the bleak shadows of the Causeway, and their younger sister Nyx
would depart from Covenan.

How long had it been since she had seen her baby sister? Or
even the older of her siblings? It had been even far longer since she had seen
her parents, the Guardian Select who oversaw Sentmar from the twin moons and
the brilliant light of the sun said to be Musera’s glory.