Rollick had a long talk with Colonel Hueber after the reporters who saw our initial confrontation broadcast it all over the country. Luckily the hunters came across looking more monstrous than us, so most of the reporters played up the drama of big bad bullies harassing the city’s saviors.
That means I’ve been able to make a little more progress. An achy sensation still grips my limbs from the day’s second session of sweet-talking the murky deluge early this afternoon. Maybe twice in one day was a little much even for me.
But from here, I can’t see any difference at all to the shadows cloaking the city. How can what I’m doing be enough if it’s going to take a million years before the city’s habitable again?
I’m pretty sure the people who call it home would like to move back in before they die.
I’ll just keep working on it and finding new tricks. The process might speed up once I’ve made more progress. Or maybe we’ll come across other beings with similar powers to mine who can pitch in too.
A salted-herring pang of loneliness passes into me through my bonds. I turn toward the sensation, tasting the different threads of flavor woven together.
It’s Mirage, bored and itching to pull a prank or invigorate the atmosphere but worried that he might disrupt people who won’t take kindly to it.
Playing isn’t more important than making sure the humans still want us around,he told me the other day after he befuddled the hunters.I’m not good at telling when I’ve gone too far.
A renewed smile touches my lips. He doesn’t have to fret about overwhelming me. A little play might be just what I need to revive my own energy.
I dive into the shadows and wind through the patches of darkness that stretch across the camp to where I can sense Mirage’s presence.
He’s slipped into one of the factories that border the city—one that escaped the deluge of murk and that’s been shut down for a while. I ease through a cracked window and glide along a dusty floor amid machinery that looks awfully bored too.
Mirage is bounding around on the second floor that only covers half of the vast open room below, entertaining himself alone as well as he can. He darts along the railing on his human-like feet, bounds into the air while transforming into fox form, spirals through a few flips, bounces off the wall, and spins around to land on his renewed hands. Illusionary applause echoes through the dim space.
He doesn’t appear to have noticed my approach yet. Perfect.
Holding my emotions in as tightly as I can—a practice that doesn’t come naturally to me—I slink up to the second floor and position myself behind him. When the fox shifter pauses for a moment to roll his shoulders, I pounce.
I fling myself out of the shadows and into physical form at the same instant, tackling Mirage like I expect him to give me apiggyback ride. Adrenaline spikes from him to me as I glom on to his back, but he laughs at the same moment and whirls us around.
“You decided to catchmeby surprise for once! My sneaky Rainbow.”
I kiss the crook of his jaw just below his earlobe. “I didn’t think you should have to play alone.”
“But I’m never really alone now that we’re connected.” He peers around at me with a joyful gleam in his bright brown eyes that makes my arrival worth it.
The gleam glimmers slyer. “Catch me if you can?”
Mirage vanishes beneath me, leaving me tumbling for a split-second before I shoot after him into the shadows.
A laugh bubbles through my essence. I whip after my foxy mate, tracing the citrus-sharp sweetness of his exhilaration across the abandoned factory floor.
I do catch him under one of the vacant tables, twining my being around his. Mirage yanks us both into physical form to roll around and toss me back onto my feet. “Your turn!”
With a jolt of my own excitement, I dash away from him. It only takes a few steps before a prickle spreads up my ankles, and I spring into the shadows instead. Past the shelves, around the sagging stack of boxes, over and under more tables…
I’ve almost returned to the railing when Mirage wraps around me, and we both tumble into physical form. He twists as we fall so I’m cushioned by his lean body, toppling into him with my legs splayed on either side.
Our hips press together, and sudden desire that’s much headier than the previous thrill floods us both.
Mirage pushes up to catch my lips as I lean down to meet him. Our shared delight at the kiss beams around us in the pinkish glow of my hair.
The fox shifter runs his hands down my curvy body, nothing but satisfaction emanating from him as he traces the soft slopes of my breasts, my stomach, my thighs. An urgent noise works from his throat.
“I like it when we’re all taking care of you together… but sometimes I want you just to myself, Rainbow. I want to savor every bit of you just for me.”
I bow lower, my hair falling forward to frame his face as well as mine, the tip of my nose grazing his. Love swells through my chest, so fast and breathless I know he must feel it too.
Words seem necessary anyway. “I want times when it’s just me and you too. There’s something special when it’s all of us, and something different that’s special when it’s only the two of us. You can make me so happy all on your own. You know that, right?”
