I stride up the slick path, my steps even as I walk with this delicate package of a woman in my arms.
Her hands settle on my shoulders, curious eyes watching me the entire time.
“Are you and Latham more than friends?” she asks under her breath.
I chew on my lip as I try to understand her question.
“I don’t even think we could call ourselves real friends, Love,” I tell her, answering the best I can.
I see Latham a few times a year. We trust each other in times of need. But we don’t really know each other much at all.
It occurs to me then that I don’t have a single soul for a friend. My brows furrow hard, but the warming memory of my immaculate hoard of treasures back home washes out the worry of friendship.
Her pale blue eyes narrow with heavy confusion.
Shit. What was she talking about?
“You kissed as if there was more between you.”
Right. Friends. And kissing apparently.
Latham doesn’t look back at us, but I know he’s listening. He’s close enough to put that shifter hearing of his to good use.
“Where I live, I don’t get any visitors. I’m alone a lot, Latham is much the same. When I do meet people, and when I find that attraction in them like—like I did last night…” I smile wide, and she blushes even harder. “I don’t think. Attraction and fucking, that has nothing to do with your brain and everything to do with your heart.”
I see her trying to twist that into some kind of mortal logic that makes sense.
“So you’re attracted to men and women,” she says slowly.
My smile only grows.
Humans thought the Earth was flat for so long that their thinking never really evolved into more dimensions than that surface level understanding.
“Men and women. And elves. Giants. Dwarves. Fucked a goddess once, but she’ll never admit to it.” I reminisce aloud about my hoard of memories, only to be interrupted by Latham’s scowling annoyance.
“Fucking gods, he’s conceited,” he whispers under his breath.
What can I say, when you’re right, you’re right.
She’s quiet for a long time, and I didn’t ask in the cave but…
“Have you ever experienced it?” I ask as my gaze catches hers, and I feel that spark of her beautiful magic fire all through me.
“You mean like actual sex?” she hisses, and Latham full-on trips at the sound of her hushed words. He face-plants into the snow hard, and I don’t give him a second glance when I walk past his snow angel antics.
I nod as I eat up the desire shining in her ocean eyes.
She shakes her head quietly. “I dated a few human boys in high school, but…” Her casual words drift off into that half shrug thing I’ve seen her do before.
I want to drop my hands and lower her against me until her hot pussy is pressed right where I want it.
But I walk on instead. I lift her higher even, to a more platonic place against my chest rather than my cock.
I have a sudden urge to shield her right then and there. I want to prevent all the shitty things in this realm and the realms to come from ever touching her.
Especially fucking human boys. Can’t even remember to make their mates come. What a waste of cock.
Her pack didn’t appreciate her either. Those men—her fucking pathetic excuses for mates—they didn’t know what they had.
