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  SEX ME DOWN

  TRIAD Series – Book 2

  by

  Tianna Xander

  Bonnie Rose Leigh

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Sex Me Up – Triad Series – Book 2

  Copyright ã 2007 Tianna Xander and Bonnie Rose Leigh

  Series: ISBN: 1-55410-770-9

  Cover art and design by Martine Jardin

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by eXtasy Books

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  Without your support, your encouragement, and your demand for more, our characters and their worlds would still be naught but images in our minds.

  Sex Me Down

  Laynee Mikalosa sat at her communications terminal, stunned. “What do you mean, I’m the next?”

  “This is your month, Laynee. When the moons reach their zenith, if you chant the correct spell, you shall draw your mates to you.”

  Laynee swallowed past the lump suddenly lodged in her throat. Her hands trembled, so she wrapped them around the mug of Jabba Juice in front of her. It wouldn’t do to have her big sister return home if she thought Laynee needed her here. Jaynee had two new mates to take care of now. She didn’t want her sister feeling like she needed to step in to make things right.

  Not that she ever asked Jaynee to fix her mistakes, but she’d never stopped her sister from coming in and making things better either. She’d much rather surround herself with ancient tomes and lose herself in the worlds and adventures of others than venture out on her own. Laynee bit her bottom lip, then sighed.

  Perhaps, it was time to stretch her wings a bit. What harm could there be in casting this spell to find her mate—or mates—if she believed Jaynee’s story? And seeing the two gorgeous men who stood behind her sister, she didn’t doubt the possibility that a mate or two awaited her somewhere in the far reaches of space and time. The question she needed to ask herself though was whether she had the courage to cast the spell or would she sit back and let the opportunity pass her by.

  Her tummy flipped in nervous apprehension, but the growing dampness in her panties was proof enough she didn’t find the idea totally repugnant either.

  With her resolve strengthened, Laynee straightened her spine, dropped her hands from around her cup, leaned back, and crossed her arms beneath her breasts.

  “Tell me what I need to know, Jaynee.” She leveled her gaze at her sister and the two men behind her. “And don’t leave anything out, please.”

  Laynee watched as her sister fidgeted in her seat. The blond man reached out and placed his hand on Jaynee’s shoulder, while the darker one lightly stroked her hair. She could see her sister relax beneath their touch and that alone was enough evidence for her to know that Jaynee had finally found the happiness that had so long eluded her.

  Lost in thought, she was startled when Jaynee started to speak. It wasn’t until she heard the word Banart that a chill of premonition rippled down her back and she realized she needed to pay attention to exactly what her sister was saying.

  “What did you say?”

  “You will not just be calling your mates to you, Laynee, but you three shall be the next triad necessary to the coming war. Many of us are needed to defeat the Banarts.”

  Unwilling for her sister and her mates to see her fear, she lowered her head to her chest and closed her eyes in thought. By the Goddess, the Banarts were feared in every known universe across the galaxy. How could she, a glorified librarian and bookseller, help defeat them? She was a nobody. She had no courage. No strength. Nothing inside her that could be used in such a battle. No matter what her sister believed, she was obviously mistaken if she thought that the Lady Goddess had told Jaynee her shy sister was the next to be called to this duty.

  Feeling defeated, Laynee clenched her fists and sighed before raising her head and meeting Jaynee’s gaze through the communication’s terminal.

  “I know that look, Laynee. Have faith in the Lady Goddess. Have faith in me. I would never steer you wrong.”

  “And if you’re not wrong… What should I do?”

  “I received the words to the spell in a dream the night of the three moon’s alignment. Spend the next few weeks coming up with a spell of your own using the pages of the book I sent you before my own mating, but if you dream have faith in what it tells you. Believe in the Lady Goddess, but above all, believe in yourself, Laynee.”

  “I’ll try, Jaynee. That’s all I can promise you.”

  “That’s all I can ask. I must go, sissy. There is a meeting we must attend and time grows short. I’ve sent you the frequency of our quarters so you can always reach us in an emergency. Take care.”

  “Take care, Jaynee and many blessings on your mating.”

  “Thank you and may the Lady Goddess bless you. Give my love to mother and father.”

  As the vid-screen went dark, Laynee slouched in her seat. In frustrated silence, she ran her hands through her hair, grimacing as they got caught in the knots that seemed to perpetually form, even moments after brushing her wild black mane.

  Laynee pushed her chair back and stood, needing to walk off some of her anxiety. Even though her apartment was tiny, a little pacing room was better than none.

  If only Jaynee knew how hard it was to live up to her. She’d never been outgoing and adventurous. She’d never been spontaneous or the life of the party. If she believed, took that leap of faith, she didn’t know where she’d land. Could she do that? Could she really rely on blind faith that everything would work out as it should? She just didn’t know.

  * * * *

  .

  With his head lowered to his chest, Fane used his hair to shield his eyes as he watched his captor pace in front of him. After weeks of torture, his Banart guard had been unable to force Fane to answer any of his questions and from the looks of things, his patience—if one could call the systematic and endless beatings that went on for days, patience—had reached its limits.

  Fane could feel the creature’s anger, could sense the hate hanging in the air ready to pounce on him at any time. He ignored the pain in his outstretched shoulders where he’d been manacled to the wall. He ignored the broken ribs that made breathing difficult. The cuts along his torso where his tormentor tried bleeding the answers out of him were but a nuisance at this point. He could even ignore the burn marks on his balls from the pain rod he’d been repeatedly zapped with. He could ignore it all, knowing full well that soon his captor would let his anger take over his common sense. When that happened, he’d finally get a chance to see his enemy’s weakness. Once he knew that, all bets were off. That’s when he would finally let the beast that lived inside him take control.

  He hung limply from the manacles on the wall. He’d tried breaking the bonds, but he wasn’t strong enough in this form. His captors had weakened him too much. If only he’d been more vigilant. If only he hadn’t been
so intent on searching worlds to find suitable mates for his people. Their blood had grown thin. They could no longer breed among their own kind. With too few separate families they needed new blood. He refused to marry his cousin. The idea of that sickened him.

  He tried to sleep, knowing he would need his strength the moment the opportunity to escape presented itself. He’d slept standing up before though it wouldn’t do to let them know that. It would be no hardship to do so again. Fane relaxed into his bonds when he heard footsteps beyond the door. He intended to escape and if he managed that feat, he would be the first non-conformist to ever speak of the Banart.

  His people never involved themselves in wars before now, but this enemy knew no words such as neutrality. They came. They conquered. They killed. Entire worlds were destroyed beneath the Banart’s cruelty. And until now, no one knew what the Banarts looked like. He glanced up at the man who entered his small cell and smiled mirthlessly. He refused to die. He would never go to his end knowing the man who killed him had taken on the shape of the one person he respected most. His father.

  Apparently the Banarts could shift at will. They became the people they conquered—most likely to make it easier to infiltrate their ranks. He must escape. He must get to his people before his enemy found out their location. He hadn’t broken yet, but he feared he may, given enough of their torture. He wasn’t a weak Tigerian—none of them were—but he grew weaker every day under his host’s careful ministrations.

  “Tell me where you are from,” the man reached out with the pain rod and threatened to shove it against his balls again.

  Fane stood firm, his expression didn’t change from contempt to fear the way his captor had hoped. He didn’t know what type of creatures the Banarts truly were, but one thing was certain. They had the ability to shift their form at will and someone had to warn his people. He would prove his worth to the council. They may not want to listen to him on the subject of mating but, by the Goddess, they would listen to him about this.

  He stared back at the cruel creature, the defiance showing in his eyes. “I will not betray my people and you will not force me to.”

  The man kicked him, using the pain rod against the back of his thighs.

  “Thank you. My feet were sore anyway,” he said, provoking the man.

  The Banart’s anger was close to the surface. Fane could see it. The exact duplicate of his father paced in front of him, nearly shaking with the effort to control his ire, and Fane almost smiled.

  He was close, so close to angering the creature before him. He wanted to laugh, to shout with triumph, but he stood silent, willing his captor to finally show him his ire—to show him one weakness he could exploit.

  It came most unexpectedly. One moment the man paced before him, the next he’d hunched over, shuddering, stuck between forms. One form was his father’s tall well-built frame, the other was that of a diminutive creature with gray skin and small black eyes. The creature stood before him. It continued to spasm as the pain rod fell from its grip.

  Fane wanted to growl, to roar with triumph. Instead, he concentrated on the change. He pushed it faster than he ever had before. He had to escape. His muscles thickened, bones popped and cracked. His arms became the heavily muscled forepaws of the large tiger he knew he could become. His legs, too large for the manacles that were tight on the man, burst the shackles to pieces and he landed on the floor on all four paws.

  He looked at the smaller creature as it faded in and out and wondered if that was what a Banart truly looked like. He may never know. He stepped over the pain rod, hitting it with his paw. It slammed against the wall and broke. Then he turned to his captor and lifted his lip in a silent snarl. Killing him would be easy. Almost too easy. He felt like he should let the creature out of his hell and give him a weapon. But he wasn’t stupid. He didn’t know what kind of tricks the thing had up its sleeve.

  * * * *

  Laynee stepped over the outer circle. She glanced around, making sure everything was in place. She’d had two weeks to prepare for this ritual. But for her, two weeks weren’t nearly enough. She would screw something up—even if the spell was given to her in a dream from the Lady goddess. She hurried inside and took her ritual shower, visualizing the negativity swirling down the drain. She would have preferred to bathe, but that would have taken too long and she needed to complete this spell as the moons reached their zenith—or so Jaynee said. Wrapping herself in her black ritual robe, she hurried back outside to her hastily prepared circle.

  It had taken days to find the trees specified in the spell-book. The trees were the same, just called by a different name. She tried not to think of a world so similar to her own, yet so foreign that it would be on another planet thousands of light years away.

  The small bits of willow and apple winked up at her in the moonlight, their leaves shining, glossy in the bright moon light. Four candles graced her altar. There was pink for true love, red for true passion, green for fertility and purple to help boost her magical powers. She may be her sister’s twin, but she’d never had the power Jaynee had in her little finger.

  Stepping within the sphere, she closed her eyes, said a small prayer and raised her hands to the heavens. The power of the three moons poured into her as she stood waiting for the right time to begin her spell. She only hoped it wasn’t foolish to use a spell from her dreams, especially since she didn’t know what half of it meant. Yet it worked for her sister.

  Bending, she lit the candles while she chanted her spell. She said the words softly as she touched the flame to each of them, leaving the purple for last.

  “Eyes of amber, eyes of blue, bring to me love that is true. Hair of black, hair of white, bring my loves within my sight. The time has come, the moons have risen, release my love from his prison. The time has come, the moons rise above, bring my mates to his love.” She chanted the words over and over, visualizing them in her heart and in her mind.

  When she finished chanting the spell nine times, she turned to the east and closed her circle. It was up to the universe now. Either she got what she asked for or she didn’t. Only time would tell. She left the candles to burn out and went back inside. It wasn’t until she’d started climbing the stairs that she heard the soft rumble of a big cat’s chuff.

  Scanning her darkened basement apartment, she tried to pinpoint where the sound came from, but only an eerie silence permeated the room. Even the steady tick of the time-keeper on her entry wall seemed to go silent.

  Her palms were slick with sweat. Her heartbeat galloped in her chest. Her knees threatened to buckle. “Is anyone there?”

  Nothing. Just more of that eerie silence. Seconds passed before she finally convinced herself that no one had snuck into her apartment. A whoosh of air escaped her lungs. She hadn’t even realized she’d held her breath in fear until the flood of fresh air filled her lungs.

  Finding her way unerringly toward her darkened bedroom, she couldn’t help but shake her head. “You’re imagining things, girl.”

  “I wouldn’t say that, exactly.”

  Unable to control her reaction, Laynee squeaked, spun in a circle and darted back toward her front door. Unfortunately, she only made it a few feet before someone—or something—took her down, and none to gently either.

  Warm breath caressed her neck, and a rumbling growl skittered along her nerves. By the Lady Goddess, what kind of animal had attacked her? And who was the man that had managed to break into her apartment?

  She squeezed her eyes shut and counted to ten. When she opened her eyes, she would see there was no one here. She had merely fallen and the voice was naught but her imagination. She refused to think her spell had actually worked and so quickly. She couldn’t think of sharing herself with one male, let alone two. Dear Goddess, what had she done?

  Breathing shallowly because of the heavy weight on her chest, she cracked one eye open slowly. Hoping against hope that there was no animal sitting atop her and no strange man in her home, she peered up and a
lmost fainted. She froze, her eyes wide, as she stared up into the ice blue eyes of a great, white tiger.

  Panic welled up in her throat and choked her. She couldn’t even scream. Not that anyone would hear her. Her gaze darted around her. Of course she kept nothing on the floor that she could use as a weapon. She fought the urge to reach up and stroke the glossy-looking pelt. He looked so soft her fingers itched to touch him.

  Her fingers curved inward, her nails pressing into her palms. She couldn’t touch this animal. She had no idea where it belonged or to whom. It could have a disease for all she knew.

  I do not have a disease, human.

  She blinked. Did the big cat just talk to her?

  “He is not just a big cat, lady. He is Tigerian,” said a man as he stepped from the shadows. His mouth quirked in a grin and his dark hair fell over his eyes as he assessed her.

  “Dare? Dare Raden?” She looked at the newcomer confused. How could he be her mate? He belonged to her sister. He didn’t think she’d actually betray her sister, did he? No force would ever compel her to do such a thing to her sister. Her love for Jaynee wouldn’t allow such treachery.

  The man took another step toward her. “You know my brother?”

  “Y—your brother?” She tried to turn to get a better look at him but the cat chuffed at her again, drawing her attention.

  “Dare is my brother. My identical twin, actually.”

  Tell him to leave. Now.

  Even with the ferocious white tiger crouched over her and a stranger not two feet away, her body began to warm as the first stirrings of desire tickled beneath her skin. What was wrong with her? How could she lay here practically at their feet and not do her best to seek help?

  The crouching tiger chuffed again. His warm breath teased the nape of her neck, sending shards of sensation down her spine and causing her skin to prickle with awareness. Her nipples grew rigid, scraping across the wood floor. She could do naught to resist moaning out her pleasure. By the Lady Goddess, what was wrong with her?