Page 31 of Zenith Court

17

Astra

Water ran inside Zenith Court’s walls all night. The sound followed us down the service gallery, steady behind our footsteps. Jonah had traced every channel to one place beneath the Conclave floor. Now the four of us were going the same direction, toward the rooms below stairs.

Delphine met us at the turn with a folded blanket over one arm and her lamp trimmed low. She looked at me, then at the three men behind me, and understood. “The walls are two feet thick,” she said, already walking away. “Sleep well.” Farther on, the administrator’s door remained shut and dark.

The commons room had four cots, a scrubbed table, a ewer and washbowl, a row of pegs, and one lamp. Its only door had a heavy oak bar mounted on the inside. I rested my hand on it but left the door open while we talked.

The men came in behind me. Kieran tested the cots with a bounce. Jonah raised the lamp wick. Caspian stopped in the middle of the room and looked once at the door, the beds, and each of us.

“Tomorrow the Conclave opens,” I said. “Tonight I want all three of you. Together, in this room. That’s what I’m asking.”

Kieran recovered first. “I had remarks prepared. A toast. A ranked review of every terrible bed I’ve slept in.” His grin faded. “But yes. I’ve wanted the four of us behind one barred door since the Tower. I was afraid saying it would be greedy.” He drew a breath. “I’m not dying anymore. Yes.”

Jonah stayed beside the lamp. “Yes. Tell me where you want me, and tell me if anything changes.”

Caspian held my eyes across the small room for the length of one slow breath. “Drop the bar.”

I dropped the bar into its iron brackets.

“Rules first,” I said. “Stop means stop, from anyone. No explanation and no apology. Talk to each other. If something changes, say it.”

Kieran sat on the end of a cot and pulled off his boots. “Shoulders, arms, backs—I’m fine with contact. My mouth stays hers.” He looked between the other two. “No insult intended. You’re both offensively handsome. It simply isn’t relevant.”

“Touch is fine,” Jonah said. “If I’m holding her and one of you needs her moved, tell me. I won’t let go until someone else has her.”

“You hear that?” Kieran said. “No surprise relocations.”

Caspian rolled his sleeves to the elbow, the ceremonial cuffs already put away. “Hands will cross. That’s fine. If she reaches for you, don’t wait for me.”

“No one waits for anyone,” I said.

Kieran strapped two cots together and spread the blankets across the join. He thumped the mattress once. “There. One bed, more or less.”

I reached my second button before Kieran took over, his knuckles brushing my sternum each time he worked one free. Jonah eased the shirt from my shoulders. Caspian removed the pins from my hair one at a time and set them on the table. No one hurried. By the time my hair fell down my back, I was still half dressed and already breathing too fast. The three lines at my wrist warmed together—cold marble and burnt sugar, green apple and sun-warmed stone, leather and clean skin.

Jonah settled against the wall at the head of the cots and drew me back against his chest, my spine against his breastbone. His hands came beneath my breasts and held their weight without squeezing. Each breath moved me against his palms. Caspian knelt beside us and wound my hair once around his fist without pulling, his knuckles resting along my jaw. Kieran stretched between my thighs, kissed the inside of one knee and then the other, and looked up at me. “Still yes?”

“Very.” His mouth closed over me. His tongue moved slowly at first, broad strokes that made my thighs tighten around his shoulders, then shorter ones when my hips began to follow him. He murmured praise between them, the words growing less sensible as I pulled him closer. When one made me laugh, he laughed too, the sound humming against my clit until pleasure cut the breath out of me. He lifted his head just enough to ask, “Weather report?”

“Clear,” I managed. “Don’t you dare stop for weather.”

He didn’t stop. The next pass of his tongue brought me hard against his mouth. Jonah held me through the shaking, his palms firm beneath my breasts, while Caspian kept my hair anchored without pulling. Kieran stayed between my thighs until the last contraction passed, then kissed his way back to my knee while I tried to remember how breathing worked.

Caspian touched Jonah’s wrist. Jonah loosened his hold only when Caspian’s hand had settled at my waist, and together they turned me onto the blankets. Kieran drew my head into his lap and bent to kiss me upside down, letting me taste myself on his mouth. Jonah rested his palm low on my belly until the trembling eased. Then two fingers slid inside me. He curled them slowly, watching my face until my heel dragged across the blanket, and settled his thumb over my clit. Caspian bent over me and put his mouth to my breast. Kieran’s tongue moved against mine, Caspian’s teeth grazed my nipple, and I arched into Jonah’s hand.

“You’re still bracing,” Jonah said near my ear. “Let go. We’ve got you.”

I let my thighs fall wider. Jonah kept the pressure steady while Kieran kissed the sound out of my mouth and Caspian’s tongue moved slowly over my breast. The first climax had barely receded before pleasure began building again. I caught Caspian by the open front of his shirt and pulled until he understood.

He sat against the wall at the head of the cots and took my hips as I straddled him. Before he reached lower, his hands moved over my collarbone, breasts, and the crease the blanket had left on my hip, as if he needed to know exactly where I was. I took his cock in one hand, guided him into me, and sank down slowly until my thighs rested against his. Behind me, Kieran kissed my shoulder. Jonah steadied my hips with both hands but followed the rhythm I set.

Caspian held my gaze. He did not tighten his hands or urge me faster; he waited for the answer in my face. “I’m here,” I said. “Stay with me.” His shoulders eased. He moved beneath me, meeting each downward stroke, and his thumb found my clit. The exact pressure pulled the word out of me.

“Good,” I told him. I watched him hear it. “You can believe it from me, Caspian.”

“Good,” he said back, low and unsteady. Kieran’s mouth moved to my throat. Jonah spread one palm between my shoulder blades and held my hip with the other. Caspian moved beneath me, his thumb steady, while I leaned back into the hands behind me.