When Etienne returned, filthy and sweaty from his labour, she giggled and shrieked in protest as he pulled her against him, smearing her clothing with sweat and dust. “Mon chou,” he purred stealing kisses. “Are you not pleased to see me? And here I have been working so hard.”
She surrendered and wrapped her arms around him. He was impossibly beautiful, she thought. Sometime during his labour, he had removed his t-shirt and had returned to her in just his borrowed tracksuit pants, the expanse of his chest, shoulders, and arms displayed in jaw dropping glory. Her palms glided up his back as he caught her mouth with his, kissing her until she was breathless and pressing herself against his hard on.
“We are all alone,” he murmured into her ear.
“For the moment, but not for long enough, Etienne,” she laughed at the horny griffin gargoyle. The women who had been working with her had left to take a load of food up to the cooks, but they could return at any time.
“Mhm,” he drew her arms up around his neck, gripped her thighs below her buttocks and lifted her body against him, carrying her to a door. He opened it with one hand, using the other to hold her in place, and looked within at the office. “Perfect,” he decided and carried her inside, setting her onto the desk before locking the door behind him.
It was dark in the office, and she saw his eyes flash green with his Other as he returned to her, nudging her knees apart and pulling her hips towards his so that she could feel his hard on intimately.
“Now that I have you prisoner,” he kissed her pulse point. “What shall I do with you?”
“Terribly wonderful things, if your past performance is anything to go by,” she observed breathlessly. His skin was hot under her hands, the muscles shifting as he grazed his fingertips under her t-shirt, teasing touches that made her suck in her breath.
She shivered as his palm skimmed under her t-shirt, stroking up to just below her breast and then down again.
“There is something so much dirtier,” he murmured. “To touching you in the darkness beneath your clothes. More forbidden. More secret.” He ground his hard on against her, and she moaned, closing her eyes, losing herself to the gentle strokes and kisses of a lover hidden from sight.
She could smell his sweat, rich with pheromones, and could taste the salt on his skin as she pressed kisses to his shoulder and neck. He was utterly unhurried in his seduction, running his hands over her skin, kissing and nibbling his way along the line of her neck, but avoiding her breasts until they ached for his touch.
“Oh, Etienne,” she sighed it out, feeling drugged on him.
His fingers brushed over her nipple, and she moaned. “Yes,” he breathed. “Does it feel good, mon chou?” He cupped her breast rolling her nipple between finger and thumb.
“Yes,” her head lolled back on her neck, exposing her throat to his kisses.
“When this stupid war is done,” he whispered. “We will spend days in the nest, skin to skin, tasting and touching, hm? Until you are fat and round with our young.” His fingers dipped beneath the waistband of her sweatpants, stroking over her stomach as if imagining it swollen with his child, before stroking down, and her breath caught in her throat as he sank his fingers into her, the heel of his hand pressing against her, sending sparks of pleasure through her.
“So warm and wet,” he breathed into her ear. “I could come just from the feel of you clenching around my fingers.”
“Oh god,” she whispered.
He eased his fingers out of her and slid the sweatpants down her thighs before stepping back in, and she felt his skin against her inner thighs and knew that he had shoved his trousers off his hips. He took her hand and wrapped it around himself, stroking her grip from his base to tip, his breathing becoming heavy as he used her hand to bring himself pleasure.
“Do you want me inside of you, Verity?”
“So much,” she confessed it, her entire body aching to feel his against it.
“What way should I take you?” His tone was mischievous. She lifted her heels, closing her ankles behind him, and pulled him towards her, and he groaned as he adjusted, sinking into her. She scooped her t-shirt off, wanting to feel his skin against hers, and wrapped her arms around his neck so she held him tightly to him, feeling the clench of his buttocks as he pushed deep. “Yes, Verity,” his lips were against hers.
“Etienne,” her fingers tangled in his hair as he ground against her. “Oh, god,” she gasped it out.
He hummed his pleasured groan and circled his hips again. “That is it, mon chou, come for me. Let me feel how well I please you.”
“Oh,” she rocked into him, seeking her release, and clenched him tightly as she came. His groan was filthy with need as he followed, and he lowered his forehead to hers. She stroked her hand over his bowed head, down his neck to where his spine pushed against his skin. “I look forward to the end of this stupid war,” she whispered. “And spending days in the nest with my mates, touching and tasting too.”
He sighed heavily, and his arms tightened around her. “We need to return to our city, and our nest,” he said to her. “It is unnatural for gargoyles to be absent from their roosts for so long.”
“I am sorry,” she said knowing that he spoke the truth, and that the reason for that absence was because they had come in search of her.
“No,” he said and brushed his lips over hers lingeringly before groaning as he withdrew. “Our absence is not your fault, Verity. But it is time that we return, and I will tell Dior so. Raiden can handle this without our help, now, or call Ashlynn back from her mates and have her and Cael help him.”
He lifted her onto her feet and drew her tracksuit pants up. “Our city is still starving,” he added as he guided her back to the door and opened it.
“True,” she agreed. “I learnt something from Alatar the other day that might help. They have been using magic on the werewolf runs to get the plants to grow faster.”
“That would be useful,” he agreed, taking her hand and leading her towards the door that still bowed in the middle from the gargoyles and Maverick’s efforts to open it. “And, no doubt, the attacks continue.”
She blinked in the bright daylight, and he paused a moment to let her eyes adjust. “Oh, wow,” she said. The street was a vastly different landscape, the road and pavement clear except for the finer debris which several people were attempting to sweep up. Many of the windows had been boarded up, and the seating circle near the fire now ringed it, creating in a social space where people, winged and otherwise, were gathering for lunch.
She spotted Dior, the lion gargoyle distinct both in his unusual bright tawny hair, height and broad shoulders, his strong boned, handsome face solemn as he listened to Liberty speaking. Maverick still sulked at her side, stubbornly shadowing the woman he wanted to claim.
Blaise wore a floral apron tied around his middle and a wide grin as he cheerfully served lunch. Charon was harder to spot, his dark hair and build similar to many of his people, but she could see him sitting, oddly enough, next to Arael. There were many similarities between the two men, she thought, but their differences were more important.
Her winged mate spotted her and Etienne, and his expression brightened. Arael’s eyes met hers and then dropped away.
As Liberty concluded her speech, Dior gestured to Charon and Blaise, the goat gargoyle hurried removing his apron, and the three men met them on the street beyond the ring of seats. “It is time we leave,” Dior announced when they were all together. “We need to find Alatar and take him with us.”
“Alatar?” Verity looked up at him in confusion. “Why?”
Dior realized that they had not told her about her father. “It is a long story,” he decided. “We will explain to both you and Alatar at the same time. Come, Raiden has organized for us to return with some werewolves from that run and they are waiting.”
He led his mates from the main street to where the 4WDs had been parked, and they divided up into two of the vehicles for the journey, with Dior and Verity travelling together.
The werewolves in the front of the 4WD began their own conversation about other werewolves, leaving Dior and Verity free to talk to each other in the backseat.
“You could have flown,” Verity took Dior’s hand in hers and leaned against his shoulder. “You did not have to drive just because of me.”
“We could have carried you, yes,” he agreed. “But the runs are also warded so we must enter by the gates anyway.” And he did not want Verity to travel alone and separate from her mates. They had only just reclaimed her; he did not want to risk losing her again.
He could smell Etienne strongly on her and it amused him to think that the griffin had somehow found the opportunity to f-k their female mate in between the work of the morning.
“Why do you need Alatar, Dior?” She asked him.
He considered how to answer. “When you went missing, we thought the coven had taken you,” he said. “And so, we went to where the vampires had identified a number of witches and warlocks gathering. A school for girls.”
“Oh, god,” she looked up at him in horror. “I know the place. An exclusive school for witches. My father used to teach there before I…” She trailed away blushing and shrugged awkwardly. “My mother was a student there, and once she graduated, she and my father had a very sordid affair,” she slid her eyes to the werewolves in the front seat of the car, but they were deep in their own conversation. “And she became pregnant with me. It was a huge scandal. My father got kicked out of the coven for it. He has hated them ever since.”
“Apparently, Alatar took a number of witches and warlocks with him when he left, weakening the coven,” Dior told her. He saw from her expression that she knew that. “The coven has accepted outcasts back into its ranks as a result, and your father was at the school.”
“Oh, no,” she pulled a face. “My father, Dior, he is… a difficult man.”
“Mmm. He was the one responsible for the coven searching for you. They have been trying to reach Alatar, in order to regain the strength of a full coven,” he explained. “As they want to create portals into the Nephilim’s realm and launch a return attack.”
“Would that work?” She wondered, frowning.
“Charon does not believe so,” Dior replied. “Not so simply, at least. But we are charged with bringing Alatar back to the city with us, so that he, your father, and Elior can explore the subject further.”
“Well, that will be interesting,” she noted. “Alatar will not want to come. He has taken a mate, and they plan to turn him at the next full moon.”
“Hmm,” Dior left it at that, but he did not plan to give Alatar the option. It seemed only fair, the lion gargoyle thought, that after the warlock had stolen their ovulating mate from their home, that they steal him from his.