“Their presence pains you?” Kaenon frowns.
“Their pulses are just really fucking inconvenient right now.” Ian braces his hands on his knees. “Damn it, this thirst was a lot easier to tune out in Heidi’s bed.”
The three women stop to talk to Asher and Heidi, but the thrall’s in bad shape. Kaenon glances at me before he touches Ian’s shoulder reassuringly, raising his other arm out.
“Sate yourself with my blood, for if you go to hunt, you may miss the reunion.”
No wonder the ancient shifter’smeritis so fragrant. He’s almost as good as Heidi.
Ian squints at him. “Are you seriously offering? Because I’m dying.”
“Of course. Heidi would weep if you die,” Kaenon adds, too damn literal for his own good.
Glancing quickly across the charred backyard to make sure he won’t alarm anyone, Ian wastes no time before biting into the shifter’s wrist to feed.
“Oh, sure. Put up a fight whenIoffer, but you’ve got no qualms slurpy-slurpinghim, huh?”
Ian rolls his eyes at my use of that phrase again as he continues to drink. If Kaenon’s surprised that it feels good to be fed on, instead of painful, he doesn’t pay it any attention. Instead, he looks at an empty space near us.
“Yes, of course. What other reason would she have for the way she teases you so openly?”
I’m confused about who he’s talking to until I remember the bracelet on his wrist. “You talking to a ghost right now?”
Kaenon glances at me. “Yes, Athanis, my fae priest friend, wishes to know if I believe Jessica is taken with him.”
“How the hell did they even catch up with us here?”
“Ghosts can travel through magic if they are near enough to those traveling when the magic takes them,” he explains before frowning back at the ghost. “What? Yes, I have seen that she is forward, but you don’t seem to mind. Ah. Well, if that is your concern, why not go to where Jessica waits beside my mate and ask her this question yourself?”
He’s seriously trying to help a ghostly virgin with his love life? What a fucking wingman.
Ian finally releases Kaenon’s arm with a satisfied sigh, wiping a trace of blood off his mouth. “That helped. Thanks. I’ve been meaning to ask, what kind of shifter are you, anyway?”
Kaen hesitates. “The answer to your question is long.”
“Great. Something to kill the time while we wait for the infernal dog,” I shrug, leaning against the fence of the backyard.
Kaenon debates before he shares some of his past—how he was born with no beasts and volunteered as a child to undergo fae experiments to hopefully find a solution. How, through a mix of holy magic and complex fae research, they were able to awaken multiple beasts inside of him. How, thanks to those beasts, as he got older, he became well-known throughout the ancient Nether as a warrior on behalf of all people, and later the fae sealed him away when Amadeus began to take over the Nether.
When he’s done explaining, Ian stares at him.
“You’re saying you can shift into an entire zoo?”
“Zoo?”
“It’s a place where animals are kept in cages for people to gawk at,” I explain. “I went to one in California with my aunt and her smiley-ass boyfriend once. Smelled like monkey shit.”
Kaenon’s nose in distaste. “Beasts roamed freely in my time, as the gods intended. I am not like a monkey shit zoo.”
“Fine, but how many beasts do you have in there?” Ian presses, curious.
“Five.”
“Holy shitballs,” I whistle. “What’s it like in your head? Crowded?”
“No. My beasts and I are in utter harmony. They are just as eager to please my mate as I am, and they are also fond of you both. They respect Asher.”
Speaking of Asher, I glance up and notice that Heidi and one of the women who live here are both now crossing the big, night-shrouded yard, skirting around the burnt expanse of it before stopping in front of us. The sweet, heady scent of my girl’smeritfans around me, making my mouth water again.
