“Yours,” Everil answered, words steady but breathing sharp. The lands. Everil himself. All Bo might ask, Everil would happily beg for the chance to offer. “Entirely.”
“My badass kelpie.” Bo covered Everil’s hand with his own, intertwining their fingers. “This is you. Told you what you feel like, right?” He nuzzled in closer as he spoke, words soft in that way he had, sweet as a kiss from honeyed lips. “Us, anyway. Said if I was pleased, Faerie’d reflect it? It really fucking does.”
Everil’s breath caught, despite his efforts to keep it steady.
This is you. Us.
It wasn’t what he knew of himself. What he’d learned of himself. There, in the hotel room, with Nimai looking on in disgust,thathad been Everil. Tawdry and pathetic, a self-made ruin.
Bo’s forest was old growth giving way to new. Nurse logs sheltering tender green and the cool cut of running water through the heat of summer. Death birthing life, in a space that felt safe for both.
Everil closed his eyes, burying his face against Bo’s neck and holding him with more strength than was entirely appropriate. Finally, reluctantly, he eased his grip and lifted his head.
“I’m discovering that the experience of a soulbond is more colored by perception than I understood.” Everil breathed deeply, taking in the scent of moss and sweet air. “You find more in me than I believed to be there.”
“Fuck knows no one else would associate ‘sweet’ with me.” Bo reached up, curling his fingers into Everil’s hair, a gentle tug of reassurance and affection. “At first, you reminded me of old houses. Same kind of vibe. It’s changed, the last few days. I fucking love old houses. But the more I know you, the more…” he shrugged, smiling up at Everil. “This is what I taste and smell and think of.”
This. An icy river feeding the roots of ancient trees. Air warm and laden with the scents of honey and citrus.Themtogether. And so very suited.
“Sweet Bo,”Everil murmured. Just that.
“More to you than meets the eye, kelpie. My pretty, dangerous, secretly hilarious Ever of the river in the deep woods.”
Everil slid his hand free then, reaching to touch Bo’s chin as he gave in to the need to taste his lips. To kiss him with all the fragile hope and reckless desire he could bear.
Because Bo was perfect. Sweet and generous andhis. But the Council would see none of that. They would see a short-lived, ill-mannered mortal. And they would want him dead.
Chapter sixteen
Bo
So, Faerie.
Its magic buzzed on Bo’s skin the way Ever’s did under it. Clung to him, as they left Ever’s place for the Council chambers. Bo would’ve liked to take the scenic route, but after a few dozen steps, the world changed around them.
Eight fae seated in what could only be described as a goddamn fairy glade. Lush grass, springy underfoot. Sheltering, too-green trees, all of them subtly off. Strawberries growing from a pine. Oak trees brilliant with tropical flowers.
Eight pairs of eyes, and these were the people who would debate whether Bo would live or die. None of them even fucking knew him. Or Ever. Not really.
“There’s a lot of them,” Bo said,sotto voce. The fae were arrayed on the other side of the glade, out of earshot. He hoped. “Do you know any of them?”
“Some,” Ever answered after an extended pause, studying the figures. “Protocol dictates a formal introduction, regardless.”
Heated lips on Bo’s neck one minute, making his knees weak. Cold the next, all rigidly perfect posture and his hands clasped behind his back. Enough to give Bo fucking whiplash. He could feel the tight dread through the bond, though, apprehension and no little fear. Tasted like stagnant water, the icy surface broken by a muddy boot.
Bo pressed his arm against Ever’s and heard the kelpie’s breathing level out.
Sixteen eyes watched the gesture with keen attention. Seven of the fae sat poised and perfect, while the last half-reclined on a moss-covered stump that had formed to fit him perfectly.
And fuck, the world was still shifting because he, Ever, and Talia hadn’t moved. But the fae were close now, enough that Bo could make out the furrowed disapproval and tightly pressed lips.
One of the fae smiled, no teeth on display. She had violet skin that twinkled, all small and soft looking. Her hair seemed more like a cloud than anything, a nimbus of blues and purples to match the filigree lining her eyes.
“There you are,” she said, voice light and pleased, a song of salt spray and distant shores. “Lovely to see you all. We were beginning to worry our message didn’t reach you properly.”
“I apologize,” Ever said in his calm, careful way. “A matter required my immediate attention.”
It was “my” now, not “we.” Guilt and ramrod-straight formality. It put Bo’s back up. He pressed his fingertips to the middle of Ever’s back to offer what reassurance he could.
