Eversong (Midnight Playground) Read online

  “Come here, love.”

  She moved in, kissed Deo’s soft mouth, her body going hot all over. And absolutely soaking wet when Ever slipped his hand between her thighs.

  “You’re more than ready,” he said.

  She pulled away from Deo’s mouth, looking into his ocean eyes as she answered Ever’s question. “Yes.”

  “But you need more.” Ever suggested.

  Without taking her gaze from Deo’s, she said, “I want to see the two of you. I want to see Deo’s beautiful mouth on your cock.”

  Ever laughed. “So do I.”

  Deo grinned at her, and she sat up on her knees to watch as he knelt next to Ever’s beautiful body, which was all sleek planes and angles. Deo bent his head, his dark curls falling over his cheeks. He stroked Ever’s long, pale cock with his fingers.

  “Suck me, Deo,” Ever commanded.

  Deo licked his lips. Her pussy clenched as he leaned in and took just the swollen tip of Ever’s cock between his lips. Ever groaned softly.

  “Ah, God,” she murmured.

  Deo lifted his head. “Is this what you wanted to see, Mercy? Ever’s cock in my mouth. Down my throat?”

  His blue-green eyes were sparkling. His own cock was a thick shaft of rigid flesh between his muscular thighs.

  “Oh yes. I want to see you take command of him. To see you render him helpless with desire, as you do to me.”

  “Ah, you two will kill me with desire,” Ever moaned. “Come and kiss me while he gives me head, my lovely Mercy.”

  Ever reached for her as Deo bent to his task once more. And as her mouth met Ever’s, his lips and breath, that unearthly combination of cool flesh and wet heat, she went loose all over. He tasted like eternity. Sex. Deo’s flesh and her own. It was intoxicating. His tongue was pure silk against hers. His teeth grazed her lower lip for a moment before he bit.

  The first drop of blood on his tongue and she felt it like a shock—that connection once more, as strong as it had been when they’d all been fucking. She felt Ever’s pleasure as Deo swallowed his cock. The great pleasure Deo took in Ever’s stony flesh. Ever’s hand working at Deo’s cock in long, hard strokes. Their sensations merged, became her own. She felt it like some sublime heat blossoming between her thighs.

  She moaned, opened her thighs, and without her asking for what she needed, Ever’s other hand moved over her wet cleft. His clever fingers found the hard nub of her clit and pressed, rubbed, pinched.

  She panted into his mouth. He pinched harder. At the same time, Deo’s hand found her breast, tugged hard at her nipple. She came apart all at once, came in a sharp torrent of sensation, gasping into Ever’s open mouth. He kissed her harder, pinched her clit harder, until the pain was nearly unbearable. But unbearably sweet at the same time.

  Her head spun as her climax thundered through her. From some distant place she heard Deo cry out, felt the pulsing of his cock as he came in Ever’s hand. And still he sucked on Ever’s cock. As Ever finally came in a hot spurt down Deo’s throat, she tasted the salt and sugar of his vampiric come. And saw into his past.

  A woman with golden hair falling in rippling waves around her full hips. She turned, and Mercy saw her face—heart-shaped with high, rounded cheekbones. Flawless. Beautiful. Except there was a strange light in her eyes that were the gray of a storm-tossed sea.

  She smelled the salt, then. Looked beyond the woman and saw a ragged line of cliffs that let into the ocean.

  “Ever,” the woman said.

  He moved to join her.

  Vérún

  His love for her filled her heart. Her mind, as he joined her at the mouth of the cave. Together they stood as the sun sank and the sky went dark. He held her in his arms, her naked breasts pressed to his chest. He was hard for her. Yearning for her. She lowered her head to his chest, bit into the flesh below his nipple, and he cried out as she drank. He saw her darkness. It filled his head even as his cock swelled.

  Need to be inside her. To have her. To keep her safe.

  Keep her with me…

  Vérún.

  She moved against him, and he felt her slick little cunt on his thigh as she straddled him. He lifted her. She wrapped her legs around his waist and he impaled her with a cry.

  Vérún!

  Together they moved. Pleasure was hot, sharp. His heart hammered as his hips arched, as she took him into her body, over and over. As she bit into his shoulder, his neck, pulling his blood into her hot mouth, tearing his flesh. Still, he could only see a darkness inside her. But he kept fucking her. Kept loving her.

  Vérún.

  She gasped as she came then screamed. He was coming too, his hips pistoning. And before he was done with the final shivers of his climax, she was crying. Still drinking from the wound in his throat, pulling at his blood, sobbing against his skin.

  “Vérún,” he whispered, his body going weak as she drained him. “Do not do this, my love.”

  His fingers went into her long, silky hair, trying to pull her head back. She fought him even as she cried.

  “Stop, my love. I cannot fight your sadness if I am made too weak.”

  She latched on. Cried harder. Drank more deeply. Until he had to dig into her scalp and yank her head back so hard he heard the bones of her neck crack with the force of it.

  He was gasping for breath. She had taken too much again. He blinked at her lovely face, which was covered in her tears, his blood.

  “Ah…” She made a noise, a strangled sound coming from deep in her throat. She pushed away from him, fell to the ground in a crumpled heap.

  “No, Vérún…”

  He bent over her, gathered her in his arms, his heart breaking.

  If only he could take her sadness from her. The shadows that haunted her mind. That had begun to fill it completely lately.

  Vérún. His lover. His love.

  “I want to die,” she sobbed.

  “No,” he protested. “You cannot leave me.”

  “But I will, Ever. You know I must.”

  He only rocked her in his arms. And tried to resist the knowledge that the unthinkable would surely happen, just as she said. It was the one thing he was helpless against. Her darkness. Her shadows. The death that hovered always over his love, and that eventually, he would not be able to fight.

  “Mercy.”

  Deo’s voice came to her from some faraway place.

  “Mercy!” It was a roar of sound now. It hurt her ears.

  “What is it?”

  “You wouldn’t answer, love.” She felt Deo’s hand on her cheek, stroking the tears from her eyes. Had she been crying?

  She sat up, held her fingertips to her damp face. Her heart was thundering madly.

  “Ah, Ever!”

  She turned to him, found his eyes squeezed shut.

  “I would not have you see this.” Ever blinked, his black gaze darting from her face to Deo’s and back again. His jaw was clenched tight. “I would not share that part of my past with anyone. I do not. I never have. Never.”

  “And yet we saw,” Mercy said quietly, “and felt it with you, Ever. My poor Ever.”

  She swept her palm over his face, the sharp angles, the lusciously curved lips. She watched as his expression shifted so quickly she could barely keep up with the changes—confusion, tenderness, a little anger, a little fear. And something else that might have simply been love for the vampire who had made him, and whom he had lost in some terrible way. But was perhaps more…

  “Ever.” Deo’s voice was as gentle as hers. “We all have our pain. This is yours. We would never judge you for it.”

  “No, of course not. I understood that instantly. I know it even more now.” Ever sat up, wrapped a hand behind Deo’s neck and pulled him upright. With his other hand he pulled Mercy in, slipping it around her waist. “There is something about the two of you… I am still trying to figure out what it means. I find that I am…vulnerable with you two in a way I am not with anyone else. I find that I feel m
ore. More than I have for a very long time. I don’t want to. And yet I cannot help myself. I want you both in a way that completely overwhelms me. And I want to be with you.”

  Mercy smiled, her chest filling with a lovely, bubbling joy. “Yes, Ever. We want the same.”

  “Is this usual for a vampire?” Deo asked. “To feel so much so quickly, so completely? It seems as if I have known you, as if Mercy and I together have known you, for months. Years.”

  Ever nodded. “Time passes differently for immortals. It is too infinite for us to have the same sort of comprehension we once had of it as humans. And it is perhaps also part of the same connection we feel during sex, and when we drink from one another.”

  “Yes. There is more to it than the images. They’re like a movie,” Deo said. “A movie with all of the senses intact. The emotions. As though it’s happening to me. It is the same for Mercy.”

  “Ever…” Mercy took his hand in hers, held it to her breast. Even now she could sense the shadows in his mind, the doubt. The pain of his past. The weight of his many centuries. She understood in some strange way how one could drown beneath that weight, become buried under the years, and all one must witness and experience. She didn’t want that for Ever. Not for anyone she loved. “We will not let you lose yourself in this darkness.”

  She felt the words like fire in her veins, a flame that burned as hot as her desire for him. She could not imagine her world without him. She realized she had felt that way almost since the first moment she’d seen him. As if she were meant for him. Or he was meant for them, herself and Deo, the three of them together. As if they were only truly complete as a triad.

  “I have carried my darkness, as you call it, for a very long time. It draws me in, more lately than ever before. There are times when I’m uncertain if I will be able to resist it forever. I no longer know if eternity will be mine. If I can stand it.”

  Tears stung her eyes. “Don’t say that. Please, Ever. Let us try to help you.”

  Deo pulled Ever’s face to his, laid a kiss on the old vampire’s beautiful mouth. Mercy’s body stung as though shot with a dozen needles of pleasure. But more than that was the rapid beating of her heart. The emotion she was feeling. The love for them both.

  Deo released Ever, and he feathered a quick kiss over Mercy’s lips before she leaned in to kiss Ever. She felt him sink into her kiss. Knew he was allowing this, giving some sort of silent consent to their adoration of him, to the connection between them.

  Deo’s arm slipped around her waist, bringing them all together in a tight embrace, and desire seeped through her veins. Ever sighed into her mouth, his hot and wet, his tongue going from soft and sweet to demanding, clever. She was torn with need, with love for her two lovely men. Her two vampires. Her body burning for them both, she sighed as they all came together.

  Chapter Five

  Ever’s fingertips tapped an impatient rhythm on the edge of his desk. It had been a week since the Council met, and still no word about the rogue vampire Gaius. He was growing impatient. He would have taken somebody’s head off by now had it not been for Mercy and Deo.

  They had been a lovely distraction. But no, he was fooling himself to credit them with nothing more than that. He knew their quiet, tender new strength. Understood how it held him up. Held him together. He still thought of his lovely Vérún, but not with as much despair.

  Strange, how much could change in only a week’s time. But as he’d said to Deo, time was different for the vampires.

  Time had shifted for him. Had come to weigh a bit less heavily on his mind. While he’d spent the last number of months doubting his ability to remain rational for another twelve centuries—and certainly not happy—the happiness Mercy and Deo brought him made it seem possible again.

  Possible.

  Perhaps even happy. He’d never really thought of himself as happy. Satisfied, yes. Basking in this luxurious life, certainly. But happy?

  His human life hadn’t been happy. The life of a Viking was rough, with death, loss, hunger, pain, a part of everyday existence. He’d loved his brothers fiercely. Had done everything, felt everything fiercely. But in that era, in that part of the world, so cold and bleak and hard, there had never been time for happiness. He wasn’t sure how he recognized it now. But he did. And he wanted it.

  Possible? Perhaps it was, with Mercy and Deo. If he could allow himself to soften. It seemed insane to even consider it. He was too ancient. Had seen too much. Experienced too much. Centuries of indulging his desires while keeping those deepest parts of his heart closed off. He’d needed to. And yet…

  He stood and began to pace the sleek marble floors of his office, gazing out the windows. London was dark outside, the night sky streaked with a little silver from the full moon, amber from the street fires—whether those belonging to the many homeless or the result of a small riot, a bombing, he didn’t know.

  Strange that he even considered it—what was happening in the mortal world outside. Something he hadn’t thought about in a very long time, other than ensuring the rules set down by the Council to maintain the vampires’ aura of power, mystique. To be certain the humans would never have reason or the ability to challenge them. But responsibility was very different from…compassion.

  He ran a hand over his sleek hair, unnecessarily smoothing down the long ponytail, drawing it over his shoulder.

  He sensed Mercy’s presence, smelled the scent of her skin, like the petals of some rare flower blooming, and turned.

  She was standing in his doorway, so delicate in her pale blue silk chemise, her feet adorably bare. “Ever? May I come in?”

  “Of course, my sweet.”

  She smiled, her lovely face lighting up. He could see her shining blue eyes from across the room, ablaze with preternatural light and pure pleasure.

  Desire surged through his veins, his cock going hard. His heart beat faster.

  Mercy.

  My Mercy.

  She came to him and kissed him on the cheek, a soft brush of her pink lips. “What are you looking at out there?” she asked him, her fingers threading through his.

  “The night. The city, perhaps.” His gaze went back to the tall windows.

  She remained quiet beside him, watching with him. Then she said, “There is so much pain out there.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t mind leaving that part behind. That part of being human. The…vulnerability. The fear.”

  He stroked his thumb over her hand, feeling the satin of her flesh. Her body—and Deo’s—had become harder even in this past week. They were changing already, their bodies adapting more and more each day to being immortal. Yet they were no less sweet, either of them.

  “I don’t remember that anymore,” he said. “It’s been far too long. But it wasn’t so long ago that I could still relate, somehow, to humanity. There was a time when I’d reach out with my mind to take in what was happening on the city’s streets. But it’s been years since I’ve taken such an interest in the mortal world. All that’s interested me has been the clubs. Sex and blood. Luxury. Those things that feed my desires. It’s only now, since you and Deo have come to me, that I even realize it.” He paused, sighed. “How shallow I’ve been.”

  “I never felt that from you, Ever. Even that first day, you were caring of me. Of us.”

  He turned to her, slipped a finger along her jaw. “Ah, but you and Deo are vampires. Not human.”

  “Still, I don’t think it’s possible to be a vampire for very long without separating ourselves from mortals. I can feel it happening already. So does Deo. We’ve talked about it. We are different. It can’t be helped. And I can only imagine, after so many centuries as a vampire, how foreign humans must seem.”

  “Foreign, yes. Still desirable. There is something I envy in them, even now.”

  He realized as he spoke the words how true that was.

  “What can we possibly envy in them? I know I haven’t been immortal very long, but now, after bei
ng at the Midnight Playground in Madrid with Ramsey, and here with you, seeing the way the vampires live. We have everything, don’t we?”

  “Except the ability to die in any usual way. In any way other than by going into the ocean. Having to make that damning choice.”

  Mercy’s brows creased. “Is that something you truly want, Ever?”

  He shook his head, and she gripped his hand tighter.

  “I…don’t know. I did before you came.”

  Tears pooled in her eyes, making the blue look like water, clear and luminescent.

  “Ah, Mercy. I cannot stand to see you cry.” His heart twisted in his chest. He pulled her close, held her tiny body to his. “And I must tell you, you and Deo are changing everything for me. Everything.”

  She pressed up against him. Despite the emotional tone of the moment, his body flooded with need, his cock pulsing.

  “Are we? I’m glad. We don’t want you to leave us.”

  “I don’t want to. I don’t want to go anywhere. Not any longer.”

  “Ever, show me now. Show me what you feel for us. For me.”

  He drew back just enough to see her face as he buried his fingers in her sleek strawberry hair. Desire simmered in his blood, hot and thick, a primal force that normally would turn him into a savage, especially with another vampire. But something about Mercy, about this moment, filled him with a strange tenderness he hadn’t felt in a long time. Centuries. Not since…

  Vérún.

  He loved her. He loved Mercy as he had loved Vérún. No, this was different. More…present. And he loved Deo in much the same way.

  It hit him like a blow to the body. He stared at her in wonder.

  “Mercy.”

  She reached up, stroked a hand over his cheek, and he turned his face to place a quick kiss on her palm.

  She took his hand, raised it to her face and kissed his palm, gazing up at him through her long lashes. Even in the soft evening light he could see how her lashes were edged in gold. Beautiful. Then her tongue lanced out across his palm before she let her eyeteeth pierce the flesh there. He shivered.