But I pause when a door creaks.
A woman with curly, blond, white-streaked hair pauses when she sees me. She’s dressed in several colorful layers and a bright pink beanie and is holding a small tray full of steaming hot chocolate as she studies me.
She smiles brightly. “Baelfire, right?”
I resist the urge to tug at my collar as I realize who this must be. “Yeah. You must be Lillian.”
Her blue eyes sparkle. “I see Maven talked about me. I’m still getting used to that.”
“Her talking about you?”
“Her talking to other people at all.” Lillian gets a far-off expression. “For years, I worried about how quiet she preferred to be. Even when she was speaking to me, it was difficult to get her to say more than a few words at a time.” She looks at me and beams again. “But look where we are now. I’m happy I finally get to officially meet you, Baelfire. Maven is fiercely protective of you, you know.”
I grin. “Yeah, I know. She’s perfect like that. Hey—want some help?”
Lillian lets me take the tray of steaming mugs, but she tips her head. “I was just going to drop off hot chocolate for your quintet before I leave for Halfton. A lot of people have been arriving in the wake of news about Maven. It's gotten chaotic, so the Baird quintet asked me to help, but…did you come here looking for me?’
“Actually, I was—” I pause, clearing my throat. “Nah, it was nothing. Forget it.”
She raises her brows. “They told me you were the most polite of her matches. I didn't think you would be shy, too.”
Me, shy? Ha.
The truth is, if I ran into anyone besides Maven’s oldest friend and caretaker this morning, there’s a good chance I would’ve broken their nose if they tried to talk to me. If some walking waste of time got in the way of me getting back to my sexy little miracle of a keeper, I wouldn’t have hesitated.
Lillian, though? She looked after Maven in the Nether. She’s like family to her. She seems nice and down-to-earth, so maybe…
I smile sheepishly, hoping this won’t weird her out. “Any chance you know where dragon-grade suppressants might be?”
“Dragon-grade…” She frowns slightly, and then it dawns. “Oh. Shifter suppressants. So that you don’t go into heat. Right?”
Rut, heat, same difference. I nod, lifting the tray to sip at the edge of one of the fuller mugs of homemade hot chocolate brimming with whipped cream.
That’s delicious. I want to pour it all over my naked body and beg Maven to lick it off. She could suck the whipped cream off my dick and then cover her tits in more cream and let me–
Godsdamn it, I’m getting hard again. I absolutely cannot pop a boner in front of Lillian, so I try to think about anything that’ll kill the arousal. Everett. Crypt. Silas…
Damn it, this isn’t helping because they were wringing all kinds of sexy sounds out of Maven last night, too. I’ve never been much of a voyeur, but holy fucking gods, I love it when my mate is being well-pleased and sated. And with all her talk about taking two of us at once?—
Mayday, mayday. Tenting has begun.
Del Mar licking his own eyeballs. I force myself to think about that instead. Actually, thinking about any of the Immortal Quintet members and the shit they put us through is a good way to cool off.
Thankfully, Lillian hasn’t noticed my struggle to dehornify myself as she adjusts one of her scarves, rubbing her cold-pinkened nose. “Actually, I think I do know where some might be. We did a big sweep of Everbound Castle to bundle a lot of supplies for Halfton a while ago, and…wait right here.”
I wait as she slips into one of the administrative staff rooms nearby. When she returns, it's possible one or two of the mugs have been completely drained.
Sue me. I’m fucking starving, and I’ll take whatever I can get.
The blond human triumphantly offers me a small plastic bag full of extra-strength suppressants.
“Thank gods,” I grin, thanking her as I accept the bag.
Just to be safe, I take two of the huge-ass pills as I walk with Lillian toward my quintet’s apartment. It’ll take a few minutes for the effects to kick in, but?—
My inner dragon snarls and hisses, furious that I would force an inferior substance down his throat. Agony pierces through my brain before I’m shoved hard into that corner of my mind where I can’t function. I can’t see and can’t think clearly, but I do know one thing: I just became a danger to Lillian.
Shit. What if I turn her into a chunk of charcoal?
