I hiss as Tarek drops a hand to my clit and pinches it hard.
“That fucking mouth,” he growls at me, sucking in my bottom lip as his fingers start to work my clit in circles. “I don’t know if I like it more when these lips are professing adoration, screaming my name, or threatening me with bodily harm for pissing you off,” he admits, grinding his hips into me as my pace becomes more frenetic.
“Make me come,mate, or I’ll cut your fucking balls off,” I taunt, but it morphs into a needy mewl.
Tarek laughs, and then he lifts me, stepping out of the tub as though I weigh nothing.
“Two out of three,” he exclaims happily before kissing the shit out of me.
My back is slammed against a wall, and Tarek starts to fuck me so hard and so fast that all I can do is hold on and greedily cry out as he does.
“Now, to go for the third and make you scream my name.”
Six hard thrusts and a bruising, all-consuming kiss later, I do exactly that.
ChapterForty-Eight
BONES
“Well, this looks far less ominous than I thought it would,” Telson mumbles as we cautiously approach the Order of Vulpi’s safe house.
Now, more than ever, I wish that we’d never agreed to theno shadow walking within three court blocks of their havenspart of our alliance. All I want to do right now is crawl into a shadow and step out exactly where we need to be. We all know the stakes are high tonight. We could scrap the hunt, but we are who we are because we don’t shy away from shit like this. We’re the best because we charge in no matter what, taking what we want out of sheer will and drive and a whole lot of well-honed skill.
Scorpius walked out of the washroom earlier much calmer than he looked when he entered it. I have no doubt that the muffled moans I heard through the closed door and the addicting smell of Beasty’s cum in the air had something to do with it. I fucked that sweet cunt first thing this morning too, but apprehension and wariness are slowly slinking in despite the incredible things that happened between me, my brothers, and our mate. The Sanguinna in me is demanding more, but the Blood Bond will have to wait.
I pull two swords from my back, Scorpius regarding me as I do. There’s something in the air tonight, the taste of blood on the breeze, that has my hackles up. Silently the four of us move to the stoop at the front of the plaster-walled house. We’re cloaked in glamour and shadows as Scorpius moves up the steps to the front door. The house is dark and quiet, but I sense the presence of others inside. The stars are hiding behind a dense wall of clouds, making the dark night even darker. It’s almost as though the moon itself doesn’t want to witness what might happen on her watch.
Scorpius doesn’t knock, he simply opens the door to the modest home and strides in as though it belongs to him and not the Vulpi. Skull pulls in a deep breath as he follows in after, and I can tell he’s feeling tense too. Auset—Telson, I snarl at myself—moves into the house as though she hasn’t a care or worry in the world. She looks around at the bare walls and minimal furniture as though they’re of some interest to her, but I know she’s really tabulating the threats in the room and what might be a concern to her.
She’s such a fucking natural at this. I’m excited for her to blood her blades. This is supposed to be an information gathering hunt, but I have a feeling she might be breaking in the beauties Skull gifted her with sooner rather than later. It makes me hard just thinking about us fighting side by side, destroying anything that comes against us and tearing out the throats of our enemies.
Flashes of fucking my Beasty on a pile of broken and dismembered bodies while licking blood from each other has me biting back a moan as I close the safe house door behind me. Two of the Vulpi’s enforcers stand like statues in opposite corners of the room. They almost look as though they’re the only decoration in the room, with the hue of their burnt-orange armor and their helmets made to look like a fox’s face. A long spear is gripped in each enforcer’s hand, and they say and do nothing as we move through the main area of the home toward the room in the back that’s the most defensible in the house, which is exactly where the Vulpi and the informant will be.
“Will they be here soon?” a male asks, the words of his question wobbling around the tenor of his voice as though they’ll plummet to the ground from fright at any moment.
I don’t know what the Vulpi plan to do with Hatus when we’re done gleaning what we can from him. If it were up to me, I’d probably kill him. I can’t abide stupidity or cowards, and that’s what this male radiates, and we’re not even in the room yet. I don’t necessarily fault him for running from the Daeral massacre. The instinct to flee is a hard one to fight—I know from experience—but he had to know that he was going to be hunted. To take that kind of trouble to the doorstep of the people you say you love and care about, to ask them to hide you and keep you safe, it’s a kind of recklessness I don’t tolerate.
I’ve been in this male’s shoes. Going about normal easy life one minute only to have it all ripped away in the next. When my mother’s mate showed up unexpectedly from a long, drawn out war—one that started before I was born, in a land I couldn’t find on a map if asked—my life ended just like Hatus’s did the night of the Daeral murders. It wasn’t Hatus’s fault that it happened, just like it wasn’t my fault that my sire, the king, had raped my mother and cursed her with me.
My mother never treated me like the affliction I had to be to her. She’d done the best she could by me despite the heinous way that I’d been forced into the world. But none of that mattered to Khartik. He could have been there for his mate after discovering what she endured. He could have let me go off to squire for another court like I was supposed to do in less than a month.
But no.
I existed.
Which meant both my mother and I had to die.
I was young, not quite thirty. Still a handful of years away from reaching the point where my body would start to transform from boy to a mature fae male. But even I knew not to run from Khartik to the people I loved. I couldn’t drag my problems to the ones who would wantto help me, just to watch them die by Khartik’s hand because of it. If I could figure this out as achild, there’s no excuse for this grown fae.
I’d lived in the woods, surviving off of raw hare—because a fire would have brought the trackers right to me—and berries that made my guts feel like they were going to explode. I learned to travel by climbing trees and crossing the land from branch to branch in order to keep from creating any tracks that the fucker Khartik and his men could follow.
I learned, as my hunger and desperation grew, that my repugnant sire had not only blessed me to be a bastard, but thanks to him, Sanguinna also flowed in my veins. As I grew, I started to risk sneaking closer to towns and drinking from some of the livestock. That alone is probably why I’m alive today. I learned quickly that blood did more for me than any scrap of scavenger meat I could consume. I got stronger and stopped hunting defenseless animals and started hunting fae.
Scorpius opens the door to the large bedroom that’s empty of everything save Mayden and Myrka and a thin, reedy fae sitting in a chair in the middle of the room. Stress and apprehension are etched into the male’s face. His skin slightly hangs from his chin and limbs as though he’s lost a fair amount of weight in a short period of time. His dark gray eyes remind me of the hares I used to catch—wide, terrified, and all too aware that death has caught up to them.
I love when I find that look in a pair of eyes. It reminds me of how powerful I am, that the days of being hunted mercilessly and running for my life are long gone. I’m the hunter now, and there is no escaping me or my brothers when we come for you.
Hatus releases a pitiful squeak when we slip into the room. He looks over at the Vulpi as though he’s silently begging Myrka or Mayden to do something. What he thinks they can do is beyond me. The very reason that Hatus is here is to tell us what he knows. Although looking down at the unwashed, greasy male, reeking of fear and too many days on the road, has me questioning any valuable information this pathetic creature could really have.
