Unbalanced (3 page)

You think knowing what to expect is going to give you that much of an edge? Crap—he’s huge!
But
Addie was still high from turning into a raven. If she thought about it, she’d freak, but somehow, squatting here behind a Dumpster with Jett on one side and Locan on the other, she felt protected by her guys—and they were definitely all hers.

With Jett and Locan beside her, Addie was capable of anything. Even going up against that thing coming toward them.

It shouldn’t be expecting a raven. What if I fly toward it? Shouldn’t that distract it?
Assuming, of course, she could shift into a bird in this dimension.

Locan nodded.
Excellent idea.
He stuck his head over the top of the Dumpster, jerked back down and planted his butt beside Addie.
It’s only about ten feet away from us. Are you ready to shift?

Addie nodded and thought
raven.

Nothing happened.

Addie? Hurry up.
Jett flashed her a quick glance. He crouched beside her, ready to fight with a knife in one hand and a sword in the other.

I’m trying. Just a minute. . . .
The shift happened so fast she exploded from behind the Dumpster, a flurry of black feathers shooting straight up over the creature’s head before her mind was fully engaged. Whirling around, she dove toward it, cawing what she hoped was a raven’s battle cry.

The demon was hunched over, searching behind a pile of boxes, but it whirled around with deceptive speed and reached for her. Four long arms, claws extended, filled Addie’s flight path. She whirled out of reach, still cawing. Jett and Locan leapt from behind the Dumpster with weapons drawn, attacking the demon in a flurry of sharp blades and powerful kicks.

Snarling, the demon spun and reached for both men. Its body was heavily muscled; sharp horns and tusks protected its face and eyes, but Locan drove deep with his blade and left a gaping wound in the creature’s left side.

It screamed as Jett came in from the right and left an equally deep cut across its rib cage. Thick black blood poured from its wounds, hissing and smoking wherever it dripped.

Addie circled and attacked again, using her claws and her powerful beak to harry the beast. A long curved talon snagged her tail feathers and threw her off balance, but Jett grabbed her by the neck and jerked her to safety.

Gasping, she used his leverage to regain flight, though with two of her big tail feathers missing, her balance was off.

She flew high to assess the battle.

The creature screeched and twisted to one side and then the other, deftly avoiding Locan and Jett’s thrusts. Blood spattered the ground, leaving a trail of stinking smoke as the caustic stuff ate into the asphalt beneath their feet. Snarling and growling, the demon stood with its back to a wall, all four arms extended, claws spread wide.

Both men backed off, breathing heavily. Addie perched on a lamppost just out of reach. The demon snarled and hissed, but even as they watched, the creature’s wounds healed. It stared at the two men for a moment, totally ignoring Addie.

Then it winked out of existence. One minute it was there.

Then it was gone.

Chapter 4

Addie returned to her human form as she landed beside her men. Both of them practically quivered with frustration and anger, the fury of a battle left unfinished.

Addie didn’t say a word. She grasped their hands and held on. Locan shot her a quick look. Within seconds they were back at the same point where they’d stood only minutes before.

“Like I was saying, you need weapons.” Locan abruptly turned and headed toward the familiar opening to the cave.

Addie barely avoided stomping her foot and screaming. Hadn’t anyone even noticed? Raven? Flying? Attacking a huge demon? What the fuck did they want from her, anyway? Disgusted, she glanced at Jett.

“It’s okay,” he said, but his jaw was clenched so tightly Addie knew something wasn’t okay.

She wished she could read them better. “What?”

“Weapons. You’ll know how to use them once they’re in your hands. C’mon. It’s time.” He grabbed her hand and tugged.

Addie followed. “Time for what?”

Jett looked straight ahead as he followed Locan into the cavern. “Tension is growing. See? We’re both having trouble maintaining control.” He glanced down at their linked hands.

Addie looked. Her fingers were linked in his, but Jett’s hand was no longer entirely human. Long claws curled around her fingers. Shiny black scales disappeared beneath the sleeve of his leather jacket.

She fought her first reaction, to turn him loose and run, but she sensed something that held her in place. He needed her. Both men did. Even more important, Addie realized she needed them. Besides, there was nowhere to go, and for now at least, Jett seemed, well . . . safer than taking off by herself. “What’s happening?”

Ignoring her question, he dipped his head and stepped through the low, narrow opening in the rocky berm. The path immediately led down into darkness. Addie followed. Each day her ability to see in the dark grew stronger, her sense of herself and the changes taking place in her once familiar body less unnerving. Jett, though? He was more than a little unnerving right now. “Jett. Answer me. What’s happening?”

He paused at a Y in the passage, and the tension around him was palpable. After a moment, he let out a deep breath. “My demonic side is trying to break free.”

Addie stared at him. Jett had always struck her as totally unshakable. Right now, he definitely sounded shaken. “Explain, please?” She clung tightly to his hand, to his smooth claws.

He held on just as tight. “Earlier, before we fought the demon, if you’d not distracted us by shifting, Locan and I would have fought to the death. He’s on the edge as well.”

His jaws snapped shut. He turned right and followed the path around a couple of sharp turns until they stepped out into a larger cavern lit by torches along the walls. Smoke spiraled upward and disappeared through some unseen vent hidden amid shimmering stalactites covering the ceiling.

There was such an
otherworldly
sense about the place, which made perfect sense. It
was
otherworldly. Her whole life had suddenly become otherworldly—and very, very confusing. Addie sighed and pulled her fingers free of Jett’s grasp. He let her go, turned and watched her over his shoulder.

He looked like he was waiting for something. She wished she knew what. On a hunch, Addie opened her senses. Opened her mind to the air around her, to the two men she’d been trying to understand over the past week.

Their need slammed into her. A desperate, visceral craving for something only Addie could give them. This was what they’d talked about, this tension that could shatter the fragile truce that allowed them to fight together as partners instead of raging against one another. Now that she’d watched them fight, now that she’d gotten to know them—already she cared for them—it all made sense. The way they avoided touching one another, the way they’d been so careful around her.

They were unstable dynamite, primed to blow with the slightest touch. Which meant it was her job, her time, to diffuse the energy. To touch them both.

When they’d first mentioned her role in this odd relationship, Addie hadn’t truly understood. Nor with everything else to learn, had she cared. Now, though, after an intense week with two beautiful but mysterious males, she’d developed a strong sense of ownership for both Jett and Locan.

They were hers. To care for. To keep safe.

She stood in the middle of the cavern, a few feet from Jett, much farther from Locan. He’d gone on ahead. She heard water splashing, and followed the sound.

When she walked past Jett, she snagged his hand with hers.

Frowning, he followed.

Locan was in the naturally heated pool that separated the three small caverns each of them called their own. He was naked, his back turned to them, his silvery hair floating in a wide arc behind him, fanning across the water’s surface. From the steady rocking motion of his right arm, it appeared Locan was dealing with his tension by himself.

Addie pictured Locan’s big hand wrapped around his shaft, sliding up and down his thick length. She tried to imagine the expression she wished she could see, wondered if his left hand cupped his balls the way she’d like to hold them. Arousal slammed into her. Arousal and need unlike anything she’d ever experienced. Arousal so powerful it should have frightened her.

Instead, it only made her want. Made her need—need things she’d never had, experiences she’d never thought to imagine. New and wonderful things that should have frightened her, but she felt no fear. Hadn’t her entire life become a new experience?

Arousal coupled with curiosity about her abilities had Addie picturing herself naked. Her clothes disappeared. She turned and glanced at Jett, but he stood there staring at her as if he couldn’t believe what she’d just done.

Cocking her head to one side, she asked, “Are you coming?”

Then, without waiting, she slipped into the naturally heated pool and moved close to Locan. His body had gone still. His hands floated loose and relaxed against his thighs. He hadn’t climaxed. Obviously, he waited for them, but Addie had no idea what to expect. Would both men make love to her at the same time? Would they want each other or would there be an argument over who would take her first?

Again, trusting the changes in her body, she opened her mind and searched Leah’s memories. Images filled her head—images so explicit, so erotic and sensual that her nipples tightened into hard little points and her sex went soft as warm butter. Muscles deep inside clenched in needy expectation.

She glanced over her shoulder as ripples lapped against her lower back. Jett was close behind her, moving through the warm water with compelling determination. His dark green eyes were glazed with lust, and all his focus was on Addie.

Only Addie. It was hard to look away from him, but she was so powerfully aware of Locan on her other side that she finally turned away from Jett to make sure Locan was all right.

He watched her. His eyes flashed blue fire and tension held his body rigid. His ivory cock speared the surface and pressed hard against his belly. The two men stood with Addie between them, ignoring everything but her. A sense of power washed over her, the knowledge that she was all they wanted. What they needed. Her touch, her warmth, her control—and her love.

The emotion blossomed inside her, the unexpected feelings that had been growing since the first time she saw the two of them standing in her bedroom. Bemused, Addie placed a palm on each man’s chest, stroked the hard muscles, pinched their taut nipples. Then she was pushing them back against the wall, where a narrow ledge ran almost the full width of the pool.

She’d bathed here before, but always alone. Even then, she’d wondered about the possibilities, pictured exactly what she saw now. She’d had no idea, though, how she’d feel.

Locan and Jett sat close beside one another, their chests rising and falling with each powerful breath. Addie knelt between them, body ripe with need, her heart pounding with emotion.
Love.
Could she possibly love these two?

It was too soon. It had to be too soon.

No. It’s not.
Certainty washed over her. Through her.

The water lapped at her shoulders and touched the men’s thighs. Their erections jutted up out of the warm water, one as dark as midnight, the other creamy ivory darkened by the blood pulsing beneath his pale skin. Moving with a new sense of purpose, Addie stroked her lips with her tongue, imagining the taste and texture, the sensation of taking first one man and then the other into her mouth.

They watched her and she wondered at the emotions flitting across the faces of both men. Wondered if they were as surprised as she was over the growing sense that this was so much more than sex, so much more than keeping things in balance.

Moving close, Addie wrapped a hand around each thick shaft. She dipped her head and took Jett first, sliding her tongue over the silky crown, tracing the heavy vein running along the underside, pursing her lips against the sensitive spot beneath the broad head. Then she took him fully into her mouth.

As she sucked him down, her fingers played up and down the full length of Locan’s erection. After a moment, she eased Jett’s shaft out of her mouth and curled her lips around Locan’s crown. Her mouth and fingers never stilled as she went from one man to the other, suckling and touching, stroking and squeezing, tasting the tiny drops of salty-sweet fluid. Arousal thrummed in the air, in her body, in their bodies. Arousal and a sense that this was right; this was what she was meant to do.

Both men thrust into her grasp, into her mouth. Still, they held their hands clenched in tight fists at their sides and allowed her full control. Addie took it. She’d never done anything like this, never been with more than one man at a time, never felt such power.

And never once had she known such a bone-deep sense of commitment to a man. To both men. Did they feel anything for her? Was she more than a means to an end for them?

No matter. She loved. She would show them love and let the decision of how to deal with it be theirs. She raised her head and licked Jett’s taste from her full lower lip. “I want to take both of you. Both at the same time.”

Both men were huge. She had no idea if this would work, but the words felt right. She searched Leah’s memories, but the other woman had always been with one man at a time. She’d seen it as her duty. She gave nothing more than what they required.

Love was not a requirement.

Leah took Locan first, then Jett. Always in that order.

They’d been satisfied, but Addie knew they’d wanted more. Sensed their need, not only for her but for each other. Need compounded by unmet desires, by the knowledge their ultimate satisfaction was entirely up to the woman who was their fulcrum. The one who balanced them.

And now, the one who loved them. Addie wondered if this might throw all of them a little off balance. Wondered if that was a good or bad thing as she slipped over Jett’s firm thighs and straddled his narrow hips, as she rose over him, and then slowly lowered herself down over his full length.

He was thick and hot and huge, stretching her as he slowly slipped inside her wet channel. Her muscles tightened and released, pulsing around him, drawing him deep and deeper still.

He groaned. Addie sighed, but her gaze shifted to Locan. He watched as she filled herself with Jett. As she finally came down entirely on that perfect shaft, taking him fully inside. She lowered her lashes, smiled as mysteriously as she knew how. “Locan?”

His lips quirked up in a small half smile. “Are you certain? We’ve wanted this, but we never . . . Leah didn’t . . .”

“I’m not Leah.” Still impaled on Jett, she leaned over and kissed Locan. “I haven’t done this either, but that doesn’t mean we can’t at least try.” She grinned and then pressed forward against Jett, raising her bottom in blatant invitation to Locan.

She heard his tight chuckle and felt the water lap against her thighs as he moved around behind her. His fingers stroked between her legs, dipped lower and stroked Jett’s tight sack as well. Jett’s hips jerked.

“Shit. Oh, fuck.” Jett’s breath hissed between his lips.

Curious, she asked, “Have you done that before? Touched each other? Made love to each other?”

“Yes. No.” Breathing hard and fast, Locan kissed the back of her neck. “We fought once. When Jett was new. I was still stronger. I held him down. Fucked him. Forced him.”

Addie felt the tension in him. In Jett.

Locan’s voice was soft, his breath warm against her neck. “It was wrong, forcing him. But I’ve wanted to do it again. Wanted to feel him again. Not by force. I think about it a lot.”

“Then why haven’t you?” She focused on Jett as she asked.

Jett growled and thrust into her. “Because he knows I’m stronger now. I would be the victor. He knows I can beat him in any fight. He doesn’t want that lily-white ass fucked.” Then Jett chuckled softly and shook his head. “Who am I kidding? I think he does want it fucked. Right, Locan?”

Addie felt Locan’s sigh against her ear.

“I do,” he said. “We’ve both wanted it, but the shock of the two of us together would have been too much for Leah. We cared for her and . . .” He sighed. “She was from another time.”

“It won’t shock me.” Addie leaned closer into Jett, raised her butt and glanced over her shoulder. Locan stared at her, wide-eyed. “Well?” she said. “What are you waiting for?”

It worked much better than she’d imagined. Locan must have used some of the soft lotion they bathed with, but he slipped through her tight anal ring with a minimum of pain. Sensations she’d never felt had Addie moaning and pressing back against his thick length. Shivering and trembling, she tried to relax but it was so hard, stuffed as full as she was with both men.

After a few awkward thrusts, the sense of Jett’s cock sliding against Locan’s inside her, the two men separated by nothing more than a thin sheath, had all three of them groaning and thrusting in an amazingly synchronized rhythm.

Addie felt the first stirrings of her climax and pressed closer to Jett. Locan grunted and his fingers tightened around her thighs as he picked up the pace. His balls slapped her butt and, once again, following her instincts, she opened her mind to the thoughts swirling around her.