Page 52 of Roar of the Wild

“Our king,” Rivik said against my throat, “is trying very hard not to come too soon.”

Tau turned his head just far enough to bare his teeth at him. The movement changed the angle of his next thrust, and my laughter broke into a cry.

They all felt the change.

Daska’s hand closed over my hip, steadying rather than restraining. Rivik’s fingers slid between mine and tightened. Tau repeated the movement, slower this time, and watched the pleasure take me.

There was no space left in me for fear. Only their faces, their hands, the fire painting all three of them gold, and the astonishing certainty that I could ask for more.

“Again,” I said.

Tau gave it to me until the pleasure climbed too high for speech. When I came, he buried his face against my neck and held himself still inside me while Rivik took my mouth and Daska stroked me through every weakening pulse.

No one hurried to replace him.

Tau eased out and collapsed dramatically across my legs. Rivik shoved at his shoulder. Daska passed me water. I drank with shaking hands while Tau declared himself slain in battle and Rivik informed him that no one had ever died so noisily.

The laughter mattered as much as the rest. It gave me time to return to my body and discover I still wanted them.

I turned towards Rivik before he could ask.

The bond flared at my choice. Hunger struck through me—his, raw and almost painful—followed so quickly by tenderness that my eyes stung. He had waited through Tau’s pleasure without once making me feel watched for his turn, but now his restraint trembled under my hands.

“Come here,” I told him.

He did not pounce. That would have been easier. Rivik came over me slowly, as though the sight of me reaching for him had robbed him of every defence. I pushed my fingers into his hair and pulled his forehead down to mine.

“You don’t have to starve while you’re holding me,” I said.

Something in his face broke open.

His kiss was deep and fervent, but not careless. He tasted me as if he needed proof I was real. Daska settled behind me and drew my back against his chest. Tau, restored from his battlefield death, stretched alongside us and ran a warm hand down Rivik’s spine.

That touch undid Rivik almost as much as mine.

I felt it through the bond: not rivalry, not the hard edge of a man guarding what was his, but relief. Tau’s hand told him he belonged in this too. Daska’s arm around me told him I was held. He didn’t have to carry the whole weight of keeping me safe before he was allowed to want me.

I opened my thighs for him.

Rivik entered me on a groan he tried and failed to swallow. I caught the sound with my mouth. His thrusts were deeper than Tau’s, stripped of humour but not of care, and every one of them travelled through the bond twice—first as the pleasure inside my body, then as his wonder at being welcomed there.

“Ellie.” My name sounded torn from him.

“I’ve got you,” I said, giving him back the promise they had given me.

Daska’s arms tightened around us both. Tau kissed Rivik’s shoulder, then mine. Rivik shuddered, and the bond blazed so white I could no longer tell whether the next cry belonged to him or to me.

Afterwards, he stayed folded over me, breathing hard. I stroked the back of his neck until the blaze between us softened to embers.

Daska checked my eyes before anyone moved again.

“Safe?” he asked.

The word settled through me, low and certain.

“Safe,” I answered. Then, because safety was no longer only the absence of danger, I turned in his arms and kissed him. “And I want you.”

He went very still.