Rafael carried Syndelle into Brann's bedroom, his face still wet from the tears he'd shed when he thought she was dead. Fuck. He'd never known so much pain, so much guilt.
What he'd experienced in those seconds before Brann told him that she'd somehow done what only vampires could do, somehow shut down her heart in order to preserve a small spark of life deep within her, surpassed even the haunting guilt of his escape from Diego's cult. His pain at knowing that the ones he'd left behind-the ones he didn't dare try to take with him for fear that they'd betray him before he could escape-would die. The boy children first, and then the girls-unless Diego had a "vision" and spared some of them by turning them into his wives or male concubines.
"Take her into the bathroom," Brann said and Rafael did so, reluctantly placing the bloody bundle that was Syndelle onto a blanket that Brann had spread across the luxurious room with its sunken tub. Together they stripped her of her clothing.
Rafe shivered, horrified at how pale and cold she was, how dead she seemed. One of Brann's fingernails extended into a claw and he opened a wound on his wrist, deep enough so that the blood flowed, a small stream that ran over his palm and down his fingers. He used the blood to trace symbols on the spots they'd both marked Syndelle as belonging to them-her neck, over her heart, her inner thigh-and the Angelini bond hummed to life, though her heart remained still.
Brann moved to the wound on her chest, filling the opening with his blood. Rafe's heart jumped, awed by the sight of her skin knitting back together. Without being told, he gently eased her over onto her stomach, exposing the horrifying damage the bullet had done when it left Syndelle's body. Once again, Brann filled the opening with his blood, and once again her body responded by healing, by knitting together as though she'd never been shot.
And yet she remained still and cold.
Brann licked across the wound on his wrist, closing it before standing and stripping out of his clothing, his cock full and heavy. Rafe cringed at the sight, vivid imagination and horrifying reality colliding, until Brann's rough purr of laughter washed over him. True, the lure of fucking one who seems to be a corpse draws some vampires and their companions together, but that is not my intention here. I merely intend to take Syndelle into the bath I prepared for her, and see no reason to be uncomfortable. Do you join us?
You could have warned me, Rafe grumbled, amused laugher welling up in his chest, easing the horrible tightness that had been a vise around his heart since the moment he'd felt Syndelle's death along the link.
He stood and stripped as Brann scooped Syndelle into his arms and settled into the sunken tub with her. Then he joined them, immersing himself in the hot water, assisting Brann as they both cleaned the blood from Syndelle's body while her temperature slowly rose.
It was the wolf that returned first, thrashing wildly in the first seconds when Syndelle's heart began beating and her lungs gasped for air. Syndelle followed, distant and weak from loss of blood, unable to do more than brush against her mates with her mind in order to reassure them.
Once again Brann's fingernail extended to a claw, but this time he slashed a wound on his chest and pressed Syndelle's lips to it, giving her his lifeblood until Rafe sensed that she had completely returned from wherever her spirit had retreated, though her eyes remained closed and her body was heavy with sleep as they left the bath, drying her and placing her on the bed.
Rafael stood next to Brann, so close that their shoulders touched. He couldn't take his eyes off the steady rise and fall of Syndelle's chest. Fuck. He never wanted to go through that again. Never. He was almost afraid to look away, even though he knew she was safe, alive.
He could feel Brann's emotions, his joy that she was still theirs, his rage that someone had tried first to take her, then to kill her. He also felt Brann's unswerving commitment to hunt down whoever was behind the attack. And underneath it all, Rafe felt Brann's need for blood, his gnawing hunger from having used his own resources to restore Syndelle.
"You need to feed," Rafe said, shifting his hair from one side to the other, silently, willingly offering his blood to Brann-the first time he'd done so since becoming Brann's companion.
When Brann didn't react to his offer, Rafael tilted his head and mocked, "Do I have to say the words? That I'm offering of my own free will?"
Brann laughed, a rich sound that wrapped itself around Rafe's cock and made him want to go to his hands and knees. "Far be it for me to turn down a suddenly willing companion. Kneel on the bed next to Syndelle."
Rafe shivered as he knelt, anticipating the moment when Brann's naked body was going to touch his, when Brann's cock would be trapped between the two of them.
In front of him, Syndelle's eyelids fluttered open, her gaze going almost instantly from cloudy confusion to smoky desire as she took in the sight of her two mates.
Rafe groaned when she rose to her knees, pressing the front of her body to his, kissing him first before licking over the place where both she and Brann had already marked him. He buried his face in the silky thickness of her hair and wrapped his arms around her, feeling the press of Brann's body as the vampire's arms enfolded both of his companions.
"You're okay?" Rafe whispered.
"Yes." Her lips found his again, their tongues meeting in a gentle twine of comfort and love before she pulled back and touched her mouth to Brann's, accepting the powerful thrust of his tongue, yielding to him as he communicated his intention to finish binding her to him.
When the kiss ended, Syndelle returned to Rafe's neck, gently biting before shifting out of the way so that Brann could feed. Rafe gave a sharp moan of protest and pleasure when she moved back even further just as Brann's fangs pierced his flesh and sent a jolt of exquisite sensation to his cock.
Syndelle's hands stroked down Rafe's chest, exploring the tight male nipples, playing with the ruby-tipped barbell and making him cry out. She leaned in, laving a tiny point, kissing and sucking until he was pleading for her to move lower, to put her mouth on his cock.
She pulled back then, sinful temptation and unspoken promise in her eyes as her hands found Brann's, urging them onto Rafael's body.
Rafe tensed, closing his eyes even as he accepted the need, the intensely erotic feel of firm, masculine hands moving across his abdomen, stroking downward to a cock that hungered for the hard, firm feel of another man's fingers, to testicles that were already pulled up tightly against his body.
There was no way he could hold back the moan of pleasure, the precum that escaped as soon as Brann's fingers circled his cock, pumping, building the pleasure while his other hand grasped Rafe's testicles.
Syndelle's mouth and tongue left a wet trail of painful need behind as she followed Brann's path, stopping to explore Rafe's belly button before taking everything in front of Brann's hand into her mouth.
Rafael bucked against the twin pleasures, spearing his fingers in Syndelle's hair and holding her to him as his heart thundered in his chest and his lungs labored for air. He wanted to come in her mouth. He wanted to put her on her back and sink into her cunt as Brann sank into his ass.
Brann's hold on him tightened, pulling liquid fire through his body, from Rafe's cock to the spot where Brann's lips and fangs touched his skin. It was more pleasure than Rafael could ever have imagined feeling.
He bucked and shivered, crying out as Syndelle sucked harder, her wet mouth reducing him to pleading, Brann's hold on his testicles the only thing preventing him from coming, from releasing in Syndelle's mouth.
Your choice, Rafael, what do you want? Brann said as his fangs retracted.
You. Both of you.
Syndelle gave a last, lingering pull on his cock before moving away, her look sultry as she positioned herself on her back and spread her legs, exposing plump, wet cunt lips to her mates.
The sight of her female flesh almost undid Rafe, and he fell over onto his hands and knees, hovering above her with Brann's hand still on his cock, afraid that he wouldn't last more than a stroke inside her, that he'd scream like a virgin when Brann impaled him.
"Easy," Brann whispered as he pressed kisses along Rafe's spine. "In a minute we will be as one."
The hand that had been cupping Rafe's testicles dropped to Syndelle's body and trailed through her glistening slit, gathering her arousal and transferring it to Rafe, lubricating the tight pucker of his ass, preparing him.
Rafe cried out, shaking with need and turning to Syndelle for succor, closing the distance between his lips and hers, burying his tongue in the wet depths of her mouth as Brann's fingers worked in and out of his back entrance.
Now, Brann said, releasing his hold on Rafael's cock, and like a homing pigeon, it found Syndelle's sheath, plunging all the way in on the first stroke and holding steady there, waiting for Brann, acknowledging that in this, Brann would lead.
He cried out in painful pleasure as Brann's cock began penetrating him, as he slowly worked himself into a place that hadn't known another man since the night Rafe had become a companion. When Brann was all the way in, Syndelle's legs wrapped around the two men, holding them to her even as both she and Brann cradled Rafael between them. "Please," she whispered, her body heavy with lust, with the wolf's need to mate, with the Angelini magic rising in anticipation of what was to come.
Brann began pumping then, moving into Rafe's body, controlling Rafe's strokes into Syndelle, the bond between the three of them wide open so that the pleasure was magnified beyond what only one could feel. So that their cries were in concert, their movements perfectly synchronized in a dance that had existed from the beginning of time, in a dance that shattered over them in pleasure so exquisite that it was almost painful, so intense that it left them holding each other, fevered, sweat-slick skin pressed together as the magic engulfed them, swirling them downward until there was nothing but dark ecstasy.
