swiping fiery lines across her flesh, and it didn’t even hurt. She climaxed in a blast of sensation and all three of them followed, filling her with their hot, sticky seed. Gunther’s hips jacked hard against her mouth, his cock driving into her throat as his hot spend flooded the back of her tongue. She sucked him dry while the other two spasmed and groaned in the throes of their own pleasure.
They remained frozen there for several seconds, suspended in their ecstasy like the fossils trapped beneath the earth. Then gradually they moved apart. Gunther caressed her cheek as he retreated from between her lips, dropping back onto his haunches. Jacob gazed up at her in wonder, then wrapped his arms around her when Teague finally relinquished his hold on her hips and pulled out. Free of the cock in her ass, she collapsed onto Jacob’s chest with a satisfied sigh.
“I never knew it could be that good,” she whispered, savoring the pleasant throb between her legs from the pounding she’d taken and the fullness of Jacob’s half-hard cock still buried deep inside her.
Teague flopped down on one side while Gunther slid down on the other. The big blond bear frowned and gently touched her shoulder. “We did a number on you, though. Does this hurt?”
He prodded a sore spot and Ksenia craned her head, but could only see a streak of red at the peak of her shoulder. “It’s tender, but I have a pretty high pain threshold. I’ve had worse.”
“It doesn’t look nearly as bad as I thought it might. But I’ll get some antiseptic and ointment,” Gunther said, standing and disappearing across the room into a dark pantry in the far corner of the kitchen. She entertained herself momentarily by watching his muscles flex as he walked away until she couldn’t see him anymore.
On her other side, Teague let out a whistle and she turned her head to face him. “Definitely looks like you’ve had worse,” he said, drawing a line along the back of her arm. “This is a doozy. How’d you get it?”
She knew the scar well; it had come from her first altercation with a silt viper. Its spined tail had lashed out, and though she’d managed to dodge, she’d lifted her shield a touch too high to block its next attack. It had caught her under her arm and sliced open her tricep before she could adjust. Lesson learned, she’d been more careful afterward.
But what should she tell them? She’d sworn to keep her clan’s existence a secret, but she hadn’t expected to find actual mates so fast.
“My clan has a rite of passage that sends us into the desert to fight silt vipers,” she said. It wasn’t far from the truth; they didn’t need to know that her clan actually lived beneath the desert.
“Don’t those things burrow, though? Mostly they stay away from the surface. It’s too hot,” Jacob said, tilting his head to the side to get a better view of her face.
“We go out at night. More of a challenge.” Another lie, and another pang of guilt.
“What about this one?” Jacob asked, lifting a hand to touch a smaller scar cutting through her right eyebrow. It was so small and so old she barely even remembered it existed.
“Oh, wow, that’s a blast from the past. My cousin Leo gave me that scar when we were kids playing with toy swords. That was when I learned how to properly parry.”
“Well, you have a few more war wounds to add to your collection now,” Gunther said, returning at the tail end of her explanation. He dropped down beside them again and unscrewed the lid on a small earthenware jar, then began to gently smear a floral-scented salve across her wounds. The pain faded almost instantly.
“I love them,” she said, her chest tightening at Gunther’s gentle, methodical ministrations to her wounds. Her mating marks. “This means we’re together, right? I’m yours? Am I supposed to say that I love you or something?”
Jacob frowned and propped one hand under his head to look at her more closely. “Only if you feel it. It happens differently for everyone, I think. The love part and the mating part aren’t always tied together.”
She only nodded, not sure what else to say because she was still sorting through her emotions. Gunther’s fingers disappeared from her shoulder, and a second later he began swiping the salve across the claw marks on her ass cheek. Teague reached across her back