October 31st, 1845
London, England
Jack Barrowcliffe rather enjoyed Hyde Park by night.
The crisp autumnal evening invigorated him as he strode from Knightsbridge Barracks into the depths of the park toward the statue of Achilles. His fellow Horse Guards had relieved him from his post not a moment too soon, in his opinion. Now he could set out to find good company and good coin in the same bargain.
He took up his usual post against the plinth and settled in to watch the shadowy figures passing by. One, at least, must prove amiable to his advances. The blue coat, white trousers, and gleaming black riding boots of his uniform oft did the trick. Even without them, he knew his chiselled jaw attracted notice, as did the corded muscles his trade had given him. On a typical night he would encounter many strangers interested in what he had to offer. He’d even found a regular partner of late—a fellow who told Jack to call him Hull, paid well, and had a talented tongue besides.
But neither Hull nor anyone else approached him beneath the shadow of Achilles on this eve.
As the minutes drew on into hours and the chill seeped through Jack’s uniform, he thought, at length, he had better go and satisfy himself in the barracks. He pushed off from the plinth and stretched his stiff frame with a final glance ‘round to see if anyone noticed. No one did. Perhaps he might try again on the morrow.
Jack knew the path from Achilles to Knightsbridge by heart. He didn’t need moonlight, starlight, or lamplight to navigate through Hyde Park at night, even with the lingering fog.
Which made matters all the more puzzling when, as he stepped through the trees, he found himself in a part of the park he didn’t recognize.
The trees towered over him moreso than before. Yet he could see further, for the fog had dissipated into a mere mist rolling along the moss beneath his boots, and the moon shone overhead, framed by a ring of the uppermost branches surrounding the clearing. No hint of a path remained underfoot. Instead, stone ruins loomed all around him. Staircases to nothing fell off long before they reached even the lowest tree-limbs. Arches stood half-tumbled in every direction—though the Wellington Arch, Jack noted, didn’t number amongst them. And directly beneath him lay the stone rim of a well, filled in with rot and overlaid with moss.
Nothing appeared dangerous, and all remained very quiet, yet Jack found himself unnerved. Glancing behind him showed no hint of the Hyde Park he remembered. Which left onward as the only way to tread. While he might not have his steed beneath him at this very moment, he remained a Horse Guard. So he threw back his shoulders and marched on.
He did not, however, pass beneath any of the arches. That seemed rather a touch too far. Perhaps it made him a superstitious fellow to think so. He dared any of the other guards to do otherwise in his place. As none were present, none answered his challenge, and so he pressed on, down the mossy way between the trees deeper into the wood.
While the trees and fog of the park tended to muffle the eternal noise of the city, Jack had never encountered a silence so complete as this. Only his own footsteps seemed to make any sound as his boot-heels crunched against dried leaves and fallen twigs. He did not flinch at the hooting of an owl. Hyde Park had owls, too, after all.
Then something flickered in the corner of his eye.
Jack whipped his head toward it. At first he couldn’t find it amidst the undergrowth’s gloom. Then it moved again, hopping along a thorned vine, and Jack beheld a little grey songbird with a queer black mask cocking its head at him.
Jack cocked his head back at it.
The bird took flight, vanishing into the shadows.
Only after it had gone did Jack realise how unusual it seemed to see a songbird in the night.
Still, he forced the bizarre notion to the back of his mind and marched on. The woods grew deeper and darker as he went. It had just occurred to him that perhaps he ought to turn back and attempt to retrace his steps to Achilles when the trees opened into a clearing.
And in that clearing stood a man.
A short man—shorter than Jack himself by a good head, at least. One with chestnut hair beneath his hat. He wore a dark frock coat and trousers like an ordinary clerk, with a long grey scarf winding around his throat.
Jack felt rather more relief than he’d have liked to admit at the sight of an ordinary-looking fellow amidst their strange surroundings. And this particular fellow looked more than ordinary. He looked, to Jack’s eye, rather familiar. A dim and distant memory from a year or so ago bubbled up in his mind, of a timid gentleman and a tall brute caught out in the barracks stables, and of a night walk which ensued between the timid gentlemen and Jack himself, for which Jack had been well paid.
All of which combined to make Jack grin and emboldened him to call out, “Good evening.”
The familiar ordinary fellow flinched. His head whipped ‘round to face Jack with wide-eyed astonishment. Still, with a hard swallow, he replied in an almost even tone. “Good evening. What brings you here?”
“Looking for amiable company,” Jack replied, as he oft did. Then he paused. “I know you, don’t I?”
The fellow’s small, sharp features turned a shade paler beneath his freckles. “Perhaps.”
“Don’t take a fright—I’m discreet enough,” Jack reassured him. “But we did meet in Hyde Park, so I recollect. Gawain, isn’t it? Bit o’ Welsh on your mother’s side?”
The fellow relaxed. “Yes. And, if I recall correctly, I may call you Jack?”
Jack grinned. “That you may.”
A shy smile appeared at last, more brilliant for its rarity.
“I remember likewise,” Jack went on, “that you paid in advance for a service I never yet rendered.”
Gawain blinked. “Well, yes.”
“Seems like I owe you one, then.”
A hard swallow travelled down Gawain’s slender throat as his dark eyes swept over Jack’s frame from head to foot. “One might say so.”
Jack wondered what it might take to get this fellow to ask for what he so very obviously wanted. “Queer place, this. Never found it afore. Easy to get turned ‘round in.”
“Difficult to discover,” Gawain admitted.
“Not likely for any prying eyes to stumble across it,” Jack continued.
“No, not very likely.”
Jack ceased glancing over their admittedly beautiful surroundings and fixed his gaze on Gawain. “Shall we settle our accounts here, then?”
Gawain licked his lips, which seemed promising for Jack’s purposes. “We could. Only—my friend should be along shortly. May we wait for him?”
Jack again recalled the taller fellow with long dark hair, queer garb, and a handsome chiselled face. “The more the merrier.”
Gawain looked much relieved.
Jack cast another glance around them. The moon shone brilliant overhead. Almost too bright. Whatever wind had dispelled the fog from this queer spot, Jack hadn’t felt more than a breeze. He dropped his gaze from the moon to Gawain. No less puzzling, that one. A gentleman; clerk, most likely, judging by the ink-stains on his fingertips and shirt-cuffs. He fidgeted with those cuffs now whilst he glanced about. Turning his head as he did displayed his slender throat to full advantage. His freckled lower lip slipped between his teeth.
“While we wait,” Jack began.
Gawain jumped as if Jack had shouted and not merely spoken.
Jack withheld a smile. He didn’t mean to tease the fellow. But he did mean to have a bit of fun with him. “Might I steal a kiss?”
Gawain licked his speckled lips with the barest hint of his tongue. Jack wondered if he even knew he did it, and if so, if he realised how irresistible he looked when he did.
“You might,” Gawain said at last.
Jack approached him.
Gawain held his ground and his breath alike.
Jack halted before him—near enough to feel the heat of his breath arising, near enough to count the freckles on his splendid lips, near enough to stare down into those dark eyes gazing up at him with ravenous wonder—and bent his head for a kiss.
While Jack loved a fellow who knew what he wanted and how to go about it, there was something to be said for those just beginning to realise their own desires. The tentative touches turning to insatiable hunger, as Gawain showed him now, proved a powerful aphrodisiac. When Jack broke off for breath, Gawain followed him for a moment before he drew back. His dark eyes opened with a sigh which sounded equal parts mournful and satisfied. His bashful gaze met Jack’s.
Then he caught sight of something over Jack’s shoulder.
Jack turned to find another gentleman emerging from the trees. Despite the abundant undergrowth, he’d approached in total silence. Even now, watching him stride to meet them, Jack hardly heard his boot-heels on the forest floor. And what boots they were—tall black leather, like a highwayman, with the tops folded down over the knees. They well matched the rest of him clad in a black tunic, hose, and long cloak billowing behind him. Another fellow might feel taken aback at the approach of so striking a figure. For Jack, however, something of familiarity hung about the gentleman. He looked precisely as Jack remembered, which was comfort of a sort.
“Butcher,” said Gawain. “You remember our friend Jack.”
A sly and handsome smile crept up one side of the tall fellow’s face as he replied, in a deep and rumbling burr, “I do.”
“Jack,” Gawain continued, “this is my associate, Butcher.”
Butcher proffered his hand. Jack clasped and shook it heartily. The fellow had a strong grasp which Jack well appreciated.
“Jack has just reminded me,” Gawain went on, “that we rather owe him a debt.”
The sly smile grew into a grin. “We do, indeed.” And, turning to Jack, Butcher added, “May I?”
Jack didn’t oft encounter gentlemen as tall as himself—outside of his fellow guards, at least. For Butcher, he had to tip his face skyward rather than bending down to meet his kiss. His lips felt warm as summer sunshine on Jack’s own, and the kiss burned hotter as it deepened, his mouth opening beneath Butcher’s to welcome him and Butcher obliging with a languid embrace. This, then, was the one who knew what he wanted and how to go about it.
All told, Jack thought as they parted, he could see what Gawain liked in the man.
Jack glanced between the handsome pair. “Bit nippy, don’t you think?”
Gawain, to Jack’s delighted surprise, took the hint at once. “We might know somewhere warmer.”
He shot an enquiring look at Butcher as he spoke. Butcher gave him a nod.
“Lead on,” said Jack.
And so, with another searching glance at Butcher, Gawain took the lead, going back up into the forest the way Butcher had come.
The path narrowed and the woods thickened as they went. Soon the branches grew together overhead tight enough to block moon and starlight both. Jack caught the barest glimpses of thorned vines knitting the tree-trunks together on either side. He could hardly see his own hand in front of his face, much less perceive anything in the deep shadows ahead of Gawain. Now and again, he thought he saw a flicker of movement ahead, as though the vines slithered away from the path. More likely last night’s gin had come back to haunt him.
Then, all of a sudden, the path ahead yawned wide and revealed a meadow amidst the thorns. Silvery moonlight illuminated a waterfall through the trees that fed a stream cutting the meadow in twain. In the centre of the meadow stood a round stone cottage with a thatched roof. A game-keeper or grounds-keeper’s cottage, Jack supposed, which might explain Butcher’s profession if not his garb.
The cottage within proved somewhat more of an oddity. Upon crossing the threshold, behind Gawain and ahead of Butcher, Jack found it lit by moonlight streaming in through porthole windows and the faint glow of embers in the hearth. This appeared ordinary enough to Jack.
But when Butcher stoked the embers to light a pair of beeswax candles, he illuminated what in shadow Jack had taken for a rough-hewn wooden table in the centre of the round cottage but turned out instead to be an enormous tree-stump hollowed out and fitted up with copper taps. He’d never entered a game-keeper’s cottage before, but he felt fairly certain such things weren’t standard issue. Still, while it might be odd, it was hardly concerning.
The bed tucked in by the hearth likewise didn’t resemble any bed Jack had beheld before. Frankly, with its round withy-woven frame and piles of quilts and furs, it seemed rather more like a nest. Still, it looked cosy enough for Jack’s intended purpose.
“Make yourself at home,” said Gawain, so softly Jack almost didn’t hear him.
Jack took him at his word and joined Butcher in hanging up his outermost layers at a series of hooks hammered into the wall between the bed and a workbench. As good as Butcher looked in his striking cloak and boots, he looked still better out of them. Jack had an eagerness to get his hands on those broad shoulders or inside the woollen hose to feel the supple thighs beneath.
Gawain likewise hung up his coat, scarf, and hat, and tucked his ankle-boots against the wall. Then he looked between Jack and Butcher, evidently at a loss for what might come next. Jack looked to Butcher as well with an eyebrow cocked in invitation. Butcher met Jack’s gaze with a sly smile before turning it on Gawain.
“What shall we do with him?” Butcher asked.
Gawain appeared at a total loss for words.
Jack had seen this sort of arrangement before. Soft-spoken Gawain had the money, while rough Butcher had seduced him and now led him down the path of fleshly delights, with Jack along for the ride.
“I’m game for anything,” Jack said with a ready smile. “So long as you’ve got something to ease the way.”
Gawain looked more relieved than otherwise. Still, he didn’t speak up until he received another encouraging glance from Butcher, at which point he turned again to Jack.
“May I fuck you?” Gawain blurted.
Not something Jack had expected to hear from one of Gawain’s small frame and timid temperament, but surprises kept things interesting. He smiled. “If I can taste you first.”
Gawain’s dark eyes went quite wide. He glanced to Butcher—who smiled—then returned to Jack with a nod.
Jack sank to his knees before him. While he might in a moment require aid in puzzling out how to relieve Butcher of his woollen hose, he knew how to get around a gentleman’s pair of trousers well enough. Buttons and ties fell away beneath his fingertips. By the time he delved inside to draw Gawain out, he found him already hard as iron in his hand.
“You’re well ready, aren’t you?” Jack said, glancing up with a grin.
A handsome blush arose beneath Gawain’s freckles.
Jack gave him a few quick strokes in his fist—the hitch in Gawain’s breath going straight to his own cock yet trapped in his trousers—then brought his lips to the head and let it slip into his mouth.
A bitten-off moan escaped Gawain. Jack glanced up to see his head turned aside and his freckled lower lip caught between his teeth.
Just the taste of him would’ve satisfied Jack. To find him so sensitive, so responsive, so alive to every flick of Jack’s tongue or bob of his head—well, that was assuredly a delight. Experimentally, he slid his tongue beneath the foreskin to encircle the ridge of the head. A shudder ran over Gawain’s whole frame.
Then, swift and silent as a shadow, Butcher slipped behind Gawain. His strong arms wrapped around the slender torso—as much to hold him up as to caress him, it seemed. His mouth fell to Gawain’s collar, torn open by his own hand. Another shiver passed through Gawain. He might have collapsed altogether, Jack thought, if it weren’t for Butcher’s embrace.
Gawain’s hands, meanwhile, fell upon Jack’s shoulders. As Jack redoubled his efforts to wring another quiver from him, his grip tightened—but released with haste. This occurred again when Jack’s own hand fell to his trouser ties to unfetter and stroke his prick, now fully hard from the sight, sound, and taste of Gawain writhing in the throes of newfound pleasures. This was what Jack loved about sucking cock. To hold another man inside him, to draw him out until he could bear it no further and all pretence of self-command fell away, to watch him come undone at the mercy of his mouth. And Gawain, the sweet lad, fulfilled every part of this fantasy. The sight of Butcher behind him—holding Gawain captive in his mighty arms whilst biting bruising kisses onto his throat—wasn’t half-bad, either.
But the third time Gawain caught and released him, Jack let his cock slip out of his mouth altogether.
“You can be a bit rougher,” Jack pointed out. “If you’d like.”
Gawain’s eyes flew wide. He swallowed hard. “How d’you mean?”
Jack gave a half-shrug. “Pull my hair?”
Gawain took a sharp breath as his fingers clenched hard around Jack’s shoulders.
Jack grinned. “Or that.”
Before Gawain could say anything more, Jack descended. Any words Gawain might have spoken were lost in the choked-off gasp that escaped him as Jack took him into his mouth again.
Jack’s renewed efforts were rewarded as Gawain, at last, seized him ‘round the back of the head and tangled his knuckles in his hair. The sharp burn and lingering ache enhanced every sensation Jack felt. A wonderful contrast that made the familiar grip of his own fist on his cock and the taste of Gawain on his tongue all the sweeter.
And better still as Gawain surrendered his restraint and began thrusting into Jack’s mouth in earnest. Jack opened his throat and swallowed him down, hollowing his cheeks. Murmured reassurances in a low burr resounded above him and intermingled with wanton moans. Then they cut off with a gasp as Gawain’s hips stuttered.
“Forgive me, I—”
Jack appreciated the warning. Still, he didn’t leave off, and instead redoubled his efforts, until at last the cock pulsed against his tongue and Gawain rewarded him with wave after wave of salty tide. Jack swallowed all but a few drops which slipped out between his lips as he let Gawain fall from his mouth.
Gawain himself collapsed in Butcher’s arms. Yet Butcher held him upright. Jack sat back on his heels with more than a little satisfaction as he admired the result of his hard work, his fist still idly stroking his own prick.
A kiss from Butcher revived Gawain, who, with his aid, staggered to the nest. Butcher laid him down with a glance equal parts sly and, to Jack’s surprise, fond. Then those dark eyes shot up to meet Jack’s gaze, and the brows raised in unmistakable invitation.
Jack joined them.
No sooner had his knee graced the withy frame of the bed than Butcher’s hand shot up and seized Jack by the collar to drag him down for a kiss. Jack appreciated his boldness and showed him so by returning his embrace with enthusiasm. Presumably Butcher wished to taste his lover on Jack’s tongue. Jack felt more than willing to oblige him. His hands wandered in the meanwhile, descending to Butcher’s waist and further down to feel the supple thighs beneath the woollen hose. There likewise he felt a hard staff equal to his own.
“You as well?” Jack enquired as they broke away for breath.
Butcher’s gaze swept him up and down in a long look of evident appreciation. With a handsome half-smile, he replied, “Not just yet.”
Which was disappointing, but as he followed it up with another kiss, Jack didn’t entirely mind.
~
When Shrike had returned from an evening’s flight to tell how he’d espied the Horse Guard in the Grove of Gates, Wren knew not what to think.
“The very same?” Wren demanded. “You’re certain?”
Shrike avowed he was, in fact, certain.
“Do you think he seeks recompense for the stolen horse?” Wren asked.
Shrike doubted it, as the horse had returned of its own accord the morning after its theft.
“For what, then, has he come here?” Wren wondered.
“I don’t think he came on purpose,” said Shrike. “I think he wandered through Hyde Park, as I suppose is his wont, and stumbled through the ring.”
“Oh,” said Wren. Then, “Does that happen often?”
“Now and again,” Shrike admitted. “Particularly when the veil between realms thins on Samhain.”
Wren took a moment to absorb this information. Then he cleared his head with a shake and returned to the matter at hand. “What ought we to do about him?”
Shrike gave a half-shouldered shrug which rather left it up to Wren.
Wren considered the problem. “If he’s lost, we ought to help him, at the very least.”
Shrike raised his brows as much as to say, “And what more?”
“And,” Wren added, warmth rising in his face, “we might owe him something of a debt in the vein of the Court of Hidden Folk.”
Shrike’s low laugh went straight to Wren’s heart—and parts further south, as well.
They ventured forth together into the dark forest toward the Grove of Gates to find the lost guard. When they drew near, however, and heard the crunch of a stranger’s boot-heels over twigs and fallen leaves, Wren held back.
“Perhaps,” he said, “we ought to approach him one at a time, so as not to overwhelm him and give alarm.”
Shrike blinked down at him in bemusement. Then, with a shrug, he assumed his form of a little grey bird with a black mask. He alighted on Wren’s shoulder and nestled his beak against Wren’s jaw. Then he flitted off amidst the trees. Wren lost him in the shadows.
And so Wren went forth, alone, to confront his old fantasy. His heart filled with dread. If Jack should prove angry with them for stealing the horse. If Jack didn’t remember them at all. If Jack wasn’t even Jack, but another horse guard unknown to them both, and how to explain the fae realm to a total stranger?
These thoughts brought Wren to a part of the wood he didn’t recognise. Only then did he realise he could no longer hear footsteps beyond his home. And Shrike remained entirely unseen.
So Wren thought it prudent to halt and rest a spell in a convenient clearing, rather than wander on and get himself further lost.
It was then that Jack stumbled upon him.
Jack, who smiled to see him. Jack, who very much remembered their queer meeting. Jack, who declared himself ready, willing, and able to fulfill the promise made so many months ago.
And when he had his smiling Shrike again beside him, what else could Wren do but invite the horse guard back to Blackthorn?
Having the matter settled and his Shrike at his side ought to have put Wren’s nerves to rest. Instead, they increased with every step towards the cottage. He gave thanks Jack followed behind him, so he needn’t witness the convulsions his countenance endured as waves of hot and cold chased each other across his skin.
Fucking the fae was one thing. Fucking another mortal man, however… that, Wren had not yet done. He’d never supposed he ever would. The prospect felt equal parts exhilarating and daunting.
Still, there was something to be said for the fulfillment of a fantasy some twenty years in the making.
By the time he’d led Jack across the cottage threshold, Wren thought the anticipation might kill him. Then, to have both Jack and Shrike turn to him, and for Shrike to ask him to give voice to his wildest dreams.
And to reply with the most idiotic question Jack had likely ever heard.
May I fuck you? Wren could’ve strangled himself.
Yet neither Shrike nor Jack had looked askance at this. And Jack had countered with his own audacious offer.
If I can taste you first.
The fae realms had given Wren more than his fair share of experience in having his cock sucked, true enough, but he’d never yet received anything of the sort from the mouth of another mortal man.
The resulting act exceeded Wren’s imaginings. The thrill of Jack sinking to his knees before him. His teasing words and coy glances as he took Wren in hand. Then to slip between those wry lips and sink into the hot, wet, soft abyss of Jack’s mouth. To hear him ask for rough handling and to feel him moan through Wren’s own prick as Wren obliged him with fists clenched in his hair. All this flew far beyond what Wren had envisioned alone in his garret as he abused himself with thoughts of a fumbling anonymous encounter in Hyde Park.
Likewise, his fantasies had never accounted for his Shrike.
He’d never dared to dream of one he might call his very own. Nor ever even begun to imagine how it might feel to have his stalwart presence at his back, his strong embrace holding him whilst bruising kisses fell on his collar and a thrilling tongue paid tribute to his cock below.
To have two men lavish him with affection—one beloved and familiar, the other wild and unknown—it was all Wren could do to not shame himself and spend at once. Yet spend he did. And to not just imagine, but to see and feel another mortal man swallow his seed, would have sufficed to make him spend again.
All sense fled him as he lost himself in his ecstasy. Even as he fell, Shrike’s strong embrace caught him and bore him hence to their nest. There he lay in his delightful stupor, half-convinced he’d dreamt the last hour of his life, save that Jack didn’t fade away alongside the mist of his mind but instead remained to kiss and fondle his Shrike. The sight of Jack’s rough affections devoured by his own ferocious lover proved more than enough to entice Wren’s cock to life again. Thus revived, he drew himself up on his elbows. This, at last, attracted his companions’ notice.
Jack cast his eyes down to give Wren’s stirring prick an appreciative glance. He met Wren’s gaze again with a raised brow. “You did promise me a good fucking, as I recall.”
“So I did,” Wren admitted, though he felt hardly equal to the task. The spirit was willing, of course—more than willing—but given Jack’s vast experience, he couldn’t imagine how his own paltry efforts could possibly measure up. Instinct led his gaze to Shrike, his lighthouse and anchor both on these unknown and untamed seas. Shrike, who’d fucked scores of men before Wren ever came along, and had fucked several alongside him afterward, for that matter. Surely he would know what to do whilst Wren flailed and drowned in his own overwhelming desires.
And indeed, as their eyes met, it seemed Shrike understood his difficulty at once.
Shrike bent to kiss him. His gentle and reassuring caress invigorated Wren, reawakening him like a fairy-tale prince. Then he fell to nipping along Wren’s jaw, trailing quite naturally up to his earlobe, where, after a few kisses more, his lips came to rest.
“How do you want him?” Shrike murmured into his ear.
Wren forced himself to reply with honesty, though he couldn’t even whisper it without hesitation. “I want to see his face.”
A gleam shot through Shrike’s dark gaze. He kissed Wren again, then withdrew. His lips returned to Jack’s ear and said something too low for Wren to catch. Whatever it was, Jack replied with an enthusiastic grin.
Shrike began to strip. Jack followed suit. Both men seemed in a race to bare themselves, each pausing between garments just long enough to catch Wren’s eye with lascivious looks. Soon they were both gloriously naked, and if the events of the evening hadn’t already brought Wren to a full stand again, the sight of two handsome men—one mortal, one fae—nude before him and well ready to do as he wished would’ve done the trick. Shrike’s muscles rippled beneath a sea of scars; scars which Wren had traced with his tongue more times than he could count, and yet never enough. Jack himself proved just as brawny, years of equestrian training rendering him almost as strong as the horses under his rein, with a virile pelt of dark hair covering his chest and trailing down over his navel to meet the nest surrounding his magnificent prick. Together, Jack and Shrike looked like two warriors come to do battle over Wren’s body. The intoxicating scent of their mingling masculine musks overpowered Wren’s senses.
Then both men fell upon him.
Jack below and Shrike above at first, Shrike seizing his mouth in his own whilst Jack’s tongue lavished his cock again, each kissing his way up or down his body until their positions reversed, and Wren tasted himself on Jack’s tongue as Shrike left off sucking him just long enough to retrieve the bottle of oil from the chest at the foot of their bed.
Shrike anointed Wren’s prick with a firm yet tender hand. Jack broke off kissing him to straddle his hips, rather like Wren himself had done to Shrike just last Samhain. It felt auspicious to Wren that the fae holy day should once again entail an erotic rite. Unlike last Samhain, however, Jack reached back to align Wren’s cock with his hole and sat back upon it.
Wren seized Jack’s waist in a convulsive grip. Truly, he thought, Jack’s experience had granted him ample wisdom, for if he hadn’t sucked Wren off before now, and this instead had proved his first spend of the evening, it would’ve overcome him before he’d even breached his entrance.
Jack, heedless of Wren’s struggle, bore down. The cock-head slipped inside. The tight ring of muscle clenched around his sensitive ridge sent a shudder of pleasure through Wren’s whole body. Then he sank further, inch by torturous inch, sliding into that slick soft heat until, at last, with a sigh, Jack sat back altogether, and sheathed Wren in him to the hilt.
Shrike, meanwhile, had slipped behind Jack. Wren couldn’t see precisely what he did, but he could gather from how he braced his muscular thighs against the outside of Jack’s own strapping legs and drew himself up until his chest lay flush against Jack’s back that he had nestled his own cock between the globes of Jack’s arse—much as Drude had done to Wren on Mabon. And, as Shrike began to frot against Jack’s backside, he thrust Jack bodily forward, and drew him back with arms wrapped ‘round his chest and waist, so that with every roll of Shrike’s hips, Wren’s cock slipped out and delved back into Jack, as if he fucked both men at once.
Wren knew well, and loved well, how Shrike looked in the throes of fucking. Even now, as Wren glimpsed him over Jack’s shoulder, Shrike caught his lip between his teeth—an expression no less enticing for its familiarity. So too the way his eyes fluttered shut as his breath caught. When they opened again, their dark gaze fixed unerringly on Wren; hungry, possessive, devouring Wren’s pleasure in their stare. Wren knew not what contortions his own features underwent, but whatever they were, they met with Shrike’s evident approval.
Jack’s face, meanwhile, which had begun so cock-sure and composed, now came undone in wild abandon—though no less joyous for it. He had satisfaction writ in every knot of his brow and flash of his grin between gasps. His handsome jaw appeared all the sharper as he clenched it to drive Wren deep within him. His beard-shadowed throat looked still more enticing as he flung his head back over Shrike’s shoulder in ecstasy, and Shrike bent to kiss bruises on it to match those adorning Wren’s own collar.
To see another mortal man take pleasure from riding his cock—something Wren thought he’d never know—struck something to the very core of him. The sensations within Jack, the tight heat clenching ‘round him, left him deliciously overwhelmed. His ecstasy brought him to the brink of shameful tears. He couldn’t withhold himself, and so he dared to thrust up into him, bringing him down on his cock again and again with the grip he kept on the jutting crest of his hipbones.
“That’s the ticket,” Jack hissed. “Just like that—just there—harder—yes—bugger—fuck—!”
This last came as Wren wrapped his fist around Jack’s cock. The satisfying heft of it filled his palm. A few swift strokes sufficed to send him spilling over Wren’s fingers. Jack’s whole body went taut as a plucked bowstring, his back arching, his head thrown back, mouth agape as a strangled cry burst from his throat. He clenched ‘round Wren, and this, with a final thrust, drove Wren over the precipice of his own pleasure. He lost himself deep within Jack. Shrike’s low moan resounded somewhere above him. Then both men collapsed atop him, their reassuring weight pinning Wren to the nest.
They didn’t linger long. Shrike rolled off to his left; Jack to his right. Each curled around either side of Wren, all three men gasping to regain their breath, but nothing daunted in sharing their prize. Jack caught Wren’s lips in his own with rough kisses. Shrike caught Wren by the wrist and took his fingers into his mouth to suck Jack’s seed from them.
Wren, altogether wrung out by the culmination of his fantasy, could do no more than he wished, and surrendered to their affections. His heart filled to bursting. He didn’t say so aloud, but with every caress, every kiss, every lingering look, his soul spoke the words on the tip of his tongue.
Thank you.
~
Shrike never tired of watching Wren experience new things.
From the Wild Hunt to the Moon Market, to Ostara and Mabon, it remained a delight to witness his mortal companion’s newfound wonder at everything Shrike had taken for granted over the centuries. The way his dark eyes flew wide, how his bespeckled lips would part, the soft gasp escaping his throat, and the quickening of breath and pulse alike—all filled Shrike’s heart ‘til it brimmed over with affection for his gallant Wren. The unexpected arrival of a mortal acquaintance to join them on Samhain intrigued Shrike with the chance to give his Wren something else he’d never yet had.
But this Samhain in particular was new to Shrike as well.
He’d never seen Wren quite like this. Wren who, unlike Shrike, had never lain with another mortal man before. Hands trembling, hardly able to speak for nerves, brimming with not just want but need. And looking to Shrike to guide him through the dark forest of his own desires.
A charge which Shrike happily accepted.
To slide his hands up Wren’s shirtfront and feel his heart pounding against his palm beneath the shuddering ribs, every gasp and choked-off moan echoing in Shrike’s ears. To have Wren’s pulse fluttering like moth’s wings under Shrike’s lips as he kissed bruises onto his throat and collar. To hold him as a most willing captive in his embrace. To carry his slender weight through the storm-tossed waves of his own passions. To feel him come undone in his arms and Jack’s mouth alike.
And again, to see him shudder with illicit pleasure as he slipped inside Jack. To watch him fall apart in the throes of ecstasy. And to lavish him with well-deserved affection afterward.
Jack hadn’t shirked his duty, either. Shrike had thought him handsome at their first meeting so many months ago beneath the shadow of Achilles. He found him no less comely now at his unexpected return. Yet he watched him tonight not just for the pleasure of gazing upon a well-formed face and body, but to make sure he gave Wren all the courtesy he deserved. Even if Jack couldn’t possibly know how much this moment meant to Wren.
And Jack had risen to the challenge admirably.
The three men lay entangled in bliss for some time after their fuck. Shrike felt content to remain so all night, if the other two were willing.
Wren, however, began to shift uneasily. He slipped out of Shrike’s grasp and crept out of the bed.
Shrike raised his head to watch him as he went. A touch of concern clouded his mind. Perhaps Wren hadn’t enjoyed himself quite so well as he’d thought. Perhaps some lingering regrets as to how the evening had gone had forced Wren to withdraw. Perhaps this long-awaited moment hadn’t been all Wren wished. Shrike readied himself for the chance he might need to leave the bed likewise to comfort him.
But, as Wren crossed the cottage, his face came into the candlelight, and Shrike beheld the same serenity as before on his bespeckled features. He halted at the hollow stump, picked up the linen hanging over its rim, and turned on the copper tap. Shrike belatedly realised he was, after all, merely washing himself off.
Shrike lay back again, satisfied. He let his head loll across the furs to see how Jack got on.
Jack hadn’t roused at Wren’s slipping away. His contented sprawl displayed his body to advantage. Sinewy arms, broad shoulders tapering to narrow waist, and well-turned legs all dusted with dark hair. At the sound of the running tap, however, his blue eyes opened and fell upon Shrike’s face. His gaze swept across the length of Shrike’s frame. When he met Shrike’s gaze again, he cocked an eyebrow.
Shrike no less admired Jack’s body. Still, there was more than the two of them to consider, and so he looked again to Wren at the hollow stump. Wren hadn’t minded sharing Shrike with their partners at Mabon. However, they had all been fae. Jack was mortal, and perhaps this would cross some mortal boundary Shrike hadn’t yet discovered.
Wren didn’t seem to dislike the idea. On the contrary, as he glanced between Shrike and Jack, his dark eyes shone with intrigue. The grip of his hand around his freshly cleansed prick subtly altered. His bespeckled lip caught between his teeth as he granted Shrike an almost imperceptible nod.
And so Shrike reached out to twine his arm around Jack’s shoulders and drag him into an embrace. Jack kissed with a well-practised ease, cocksure and bold. His moustache scraped against Shrike’s face in an intriguing contrast to his slick tongue betwixt Shrike’s own lips.
Shrike had fucked a few mortal men before Wren. None since, save Wren himself.
And now, to have Wren watch him as he claimed their shared bounty made the claiming all the sweeter.
A few words dropt in Jack’s ear sufficed to entice him to turn himself over. He braced up on his knees whilst burying his face in his arms amidst the furs. Shrike knelt behind him. A splash of oil went over his cock. Then he lined it up with Jack’s hole, already slick with Wren’s seed, and slowly sank inside.
The low groan of deep satisfaction that rumbled up from Jack was echoed in Shrike’s own throat. The hot, tight, wet sheath surrounded Shrike’s sword in pleasure which only increased as he drew himself out almost to the tip and, with a snap of his hips, slammed into the hilt again. Jack moaned and rocked back against him. Shrike indulged him with another snap, and another, building into a frantic rhythm that brought both men to the brink. He let his hand slip from Jack’s waist to stroke his cock—much to Jack’s evident delight, as further muffled moans resounded from the nest of furs he’d made for his head. He spilled over Shrike’s hand. Shrike lifted his gaze to meet Wren’s. The sight of him losing himself in ecstasy whilst he watched sufficed for Shrike to sow his seed into the furrows Wren had already ploughed.
Shrike collapsed atop Jack. With his lips flush against his skin, it felt only natural to kiss bruises onto his shoulders and the nape of his neck to match the ones adorning Jack’s front. Low murmurs of appreciation resonated beneath him.
Yet move he must. And so he slipped out of Jack to join Wren at the hollow stump. Washing up quickly turned into an embrace between them; then Wren led him by the wrist back to the nest, where Wren settled in between Jack and Shrike as if their embrace were moulded for him alone. Shrike stroked Wren’s chestnut locks in one hand and Jack’s walnut strands in the other, both leaving fairy-knots in their wake.
It seemed to Shrike that Jack had granted not just Wren but both of them a splendid evening. He deserved something more than coin for his troubles.
And Shrike had an intriguing idea of what form that reward might take.
~
All told, Jack felt he’d had a very satisfactory evening.
The double-fucking had filled every wanting crevice within him, and the two gentlemen had done it with far more affection than he typically received. Their attentive efforts left him wrung out and well-spent. If it weren’t for dereliction of duty, he thought he could have happily spent another night here in this mysterious cottage which no one else had spoken of in Hyde Park.
As matters stood, he gave thanks tomorrow was Sunday, and he likely wouldn’t be missed until noon. Then he slipped beneath the waves of sleep that had arisen in the wake of ecstasy’s torrential tide.
He opened his eyes to sunrise, birdsong, and the sight of Gawain’s freckled arse slipping off the bed and meandering across the cottage.
Gawain went first to his shirt hanging on the wall-hook, which he slipped over his head. It was an old shirt, Jack realised, not because it was discoloured or worn, but because it was cut and sewn in the style of some fifty years past. Then Gawain retrieved the copper kettle hanging from the ceiling beam. His back arched as he stood on his toes and stretched to reach it. A nagging thought in the back of Jack’s mind scolded him for not getting up to help the smaller man, but more of him simply enjoyed the sight of masculine muscle going taut beneath bespeckled skin.
When Gawain turned to fill the kettle at the copper tap, however, he caught Jack’s stare.
“Oh!” Gawain said, his voice soft despite his evident surprise. “Good morning.”
Jack returned him the same greeting.
Gawain raised the kettle. “Tea?”
Jack agreed with a nod. He watched as Gawain hung the kettle over the hearth, stoked the embers into flames, and retrieved a wooden tea-caddy. By daylight, Jack noted, both the cottage and Gawain appeared still more handsome and welcoming.
Then the cottage door opened.
Jack bolted upright.
The figure who stepped over the threshold, however, was not his superior officer or any stranger, but Butcher.
Only then did Jack realise Butcher’s absence from the bed. He must have arisen before Jack and Gawain both; likely to gather the basket of eggs and wooden bucket of milk he now carried into the cottage. Jack relaxed and offered his host an apologetic grin.
Butcher returned him a small handsome smile and joined Gawain at the hearth. Jack set about dressing himself in the meanwhile. Soon the crackle of frying eggs joined the whistling of the tea-kettle and, with the addition of cheese and toasted bread, a hearty breakfast ensued.
Jack, satiated in all possible ways, could’ve happily spent the whole day with his newfound companions. But as the sun crept ever closer to its zenith, he knew his fellow officers would soon wonder where he’d gone.
“Do you know the way back to Knightsbridge?” he asked his hosts. “I’m not sure I recall the path from last night.”
“Could you find your way from Hyde Park?” Gawain replied. “We may guide you so far as that, at least.”
Jack wagered he could and thanked his hosts for their trouble.
“Before you go,” Butcher began.
Jack hesitated. It sounded very much as though Butcher wanted another fuck. And while Jack’s spirit felt quite willing, his flesh—more specifically, his satisfactorily sore arse—would likely prove weak.
But rather than bend Jack over the workbench or the bed, Butcher instead sank to his knees before him.
A grin crept across Jack’s face. This, he could enthusiastically assent to. He settled his palms onto broad shoulders as Butcher’s clever hands undid the fall-front of his trousers.
Gawain watched with a wide-eyed but by no means disapproving or disinterested stare. Moreover, he echoed Jack’s own gasp as Butcher took him in his fist and gave a few swift, strong strokes.
But when Butcher bent to take Jack in his mouth, Gawain belayed him with a hand laid on his shoulder.
“May I…?” Gawain asked, his gaze flicking between Jack and Butcher’s bewildered glances.
Butcher looked to Jack.
Jack shrugged, a half-smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “By all means.”
Butcher arose. Gawain went below. Jack leaned back to brace his arse against the polished edge of the hollow tree stump, not wanting to overwhelm Gawain with his grip.
Gawain took him in hand, a lighter and softer touch than Butcher had, yet no less eager. His tentative grasp sent a delicious shiver up Jack’s spine. It only increased as Gawain parted those beautiful bespeckled lips and brought them to his cock-head. He sucked cock like he kissed, with a hunger that hardly dared to show itself until desire overcame restraint, beginning in timid caresses of the tongue and resolving into lavishing licks as he discovered he enjoyed the taste. He fit half of Jack’s shaft in his mouth, his fist handling the rest as he hollowed his cheeks. Jack resisted the urge to thrust, not wanting to overwhelm the man. His knuckles clenched on the wooden rim as Gawain moaned around him and ravenously sucked as if he wished to devour Jack altogether.
Then, in an over-eager effort to swallow him down, Gawain fell into coughing and had to spit him out. Butcher had him by the shoulders at once, steadying him as he knelt and drawing him up when he made the effort to stand.
“Pardon,” Gawain croaked, blinking back tears from the corners of his eyes as he looked up to Jack.
Jack knew full well he’d done nothing to require a pardon and murmured as much as he bent to reward his stalwart efforts with a kiss. Gawain melted into it and gave a sigh as Jack withdrew.
Butcher, after first seeing to it that Gawain was truly all right, took up his post on his knees before Jack. He had none of Gawain’s bashful hesitance. He took the cock into his mouth with a confidence even Jack himself couldn’t claim. His already-sharp cheeks honed their edge as they hollowed around Jack’s prick. His tongue delved beneath the foreskin to encircle his cock-head in a snare of sensation, paying particular tribute to the slit, before sliding along the vein to lavish the shaft with ravenous fury. It was all Jack could to do to keep his hold on the rim behind him. If his knuckles clenched any tighter he felt sure the wood would crack.
Gawain kept kissing him all the while with a needful hunger Jack eagerly indulged. The gentle affections of Gawain above and the furious devouring of Butcher below threatened to tear Jack in twain; a fate he would hap’ly succumb to.
Then Butcher let Jack slip out of him just long enough to say in his low rumbling burr, “You can be a bit rougher, if you’d like.”
Jack laughed to hear his own words echoed back to him. He took Butcher up on his offer and drew his hair into his fist. Butcher groaned around him—a sensation which threatened to bring Jack to his knees as well. He thrust into his throat. Butcher greedily swallowed him down. It wouldn’t take much more to bring Jack to the brink.
But as he wrapped what felt like a yard of raven locks around his fist, it revealed something he’d not yet noticed in all their intimate acquaintance.
Jack had seen many things over the years.
Knife-pointed ears, however, didn’t number among them.
The shock tightened Jack’s grip. Another long low moan reverberated through Butcher’s throat, and this, combined with the thrill of the unknown, sent Jack over the edge of exhilarating ecstasy.
He returned to himself—still upright by some miracle—to behold Gawain drawing Butcher up to seize his mouth in a kiss. Gawain’s ears, Jack noted, had the same rounded crests as his own.
Jack braced his palms against the rim of the hollow stump behind to keep himself upright. Gawain and Butcher seemed in no hurry to end their embrace.
Which gave Jack a moment to consider all he’d seen.
A sane man would take the sum of the facts—an unknown path through an unfamiliar wood, with vines that seemed to slither away from a fellow as he walked along, ending at a cottage filled with earthly delights, and at least one host bearing ears like arrowheads—and conclude he’d either run mad or fallen into some trap. Distant echoes of a ballad about a man taken by the fae for a sacrificial All Hallows Eve tithe floated through Jack’s mind.
But Jack hadn’t entered the Horse Guards because he preferred a life without the spice of danger. And besides, his hosts had proved beyond polite thus far, and promised to see him safely back to familiar territory.
Gawain and Butcher broke off their kiss and turned to Jack.
“Shall we?” asked Gawain, glancing at the door.
Jack nodded, and Butcher led them all out.
By the light of day, Jack beheld the meadow he remembered from last night. Now, however, he could clearly see the wall of thorns surrounding it.
He could likewise clearly see how, when Butcher went down the overgrown path, the thorned vines withdrew into an arched tunnel.
Jack’s heart did an acrobatic flip which left him somewhat light-headed. Still, he steeled his nerve and gave no hint he thought any of this out of the ordinary, even as he followed a knife-eared man through a most unnatural forest.
Within a quarter-hour the thorns withdrew altogether. Jack found himself beneath a canopy of more familiar-looking trees, though still far more ancient than anything in Hyde Park. The autumn leaves flickered like flames in the breeze some hundred feet above his head. The trunks which bore them stood far too broad for any man, let alone Jack, to span their width with his arms.
The path led on until the forest opened into a mossy clearing filled with stone ruins. Half-tumbled walls with arrow-slits and peaked windows missing their leaded glass, staircases and towers crumbling before they reached their full height and thus climbing upward into nothing, gateways and arches bereft of their walls and leading nowhere. And yet, it all held a nagging familiarity in the back of Jack’s mind.
Butcher and Gawain walked past the ruined monuments toward a ring of stones on the ground; the remains of an ancient well, now filled up with dirt and spilling ferns rather than water. There they halted and turned to regard Jack.
“This portal will take you home,” Butcher declared.
Jack glanced to the ruined well and back up to his hosts. He could read nothing in Butcher’s stoic face. Gawain appeared a touch apologetic, like one who knew his companion had said something odd yet couldn’t contradict it. Jack supposed he might as well trust them this one step further.
“Good morning, then,” said Jack. “I’m game for another round, if you ever find yourselves a-wanderin’ in search of good company.”
“Likewise,” Gawain blurted. He coloured soon after, seeming to judge his own speech as rather over-eager, though Jack found his agreement as charming as his flush.
“You’ll know where to find us,” said Butcher.
Jack cocked his head at that. But Butcher seemed confident in what he’d said, so with a shrug, Jack bid them farewell and stepped into the ring.
He half-expected nothing at all to happen.
Instead, he felt as though the world spun with him as its axis.
When his vision cleared and his head ceased swimming, he found himself in a grove. Saplings had replaced the ancient trees. Fog clouded the sunlight overhead. The distant and familiar cacophony of Hyde Park filled his ears with the echoes of hoof-beats, rattling carriage-wheels, and frivolous conversation of passers-by. He stood alone in a ring of toadstools. Neither Butcher nor Gawain nor any hint of the ruins remained.
Jack stepped out of the ring. He had arrived whole and hale, so it seemed, and as he strode off, he found a familiar path soon enough which led him back to Knightsbridge, just as his hosts had promised. Apart from the delicious ache in his arse, nothing remained of his evening encounter.
Or so he thought, until he arrived in his barracks and, in removing his coat, found it rather heavier than he recalled. He delved into his pockets. There he found three shillings and a grey feather.
“‘When shall we three meet again,’” he murmured to himself, twirling the feather in his fingertips and not bothering to suppress his grin.
~