She just glares at me.
“I thought you’d be in as much of a hurry for answers as we are,” I question, balling my fists so I don’t try to pull her closer.
“I am! Fuck…I am,” she sighs almost as though she’s reminding herself of this fact. “I can’t help it if you fuckers always overwhelm me at the most inconvenient times. I’m starting to think you’re doing it on purpose.”
“Who? Us? Never,” I assure her, punctuating my lies with a wide smirk.
She slaps the back of her hand against my chest, a small laugh escaping her as she does. I want to pluck the melody from the air and seal it in a jar so I can hear it again anytime I want.
“Soon, Moonling, so fucking soon,” I vow, which is maddening.
All of us have been dying to get her exactly where she is right this very moment, ready and wanting, and now I can’t do fuck all about it. This informant better have what we need, or I swear I’ll string them up by their entrails.
“First, our contact, hopefully some answers, and then maybe you’ll get to test out your new kit?” I encourage Auset, and maybe myself a little too.
The frustration stewing in her stare gives way to an avid gleam. I chuckle and reluctantly step back. Every instinct I have demands that I step back between her sweet thighs, but I shove the aching need aside. Fluidly, Auset hops off the table and grabs the battle ax next to her. The way she twists it expertly in her hand like she and the weapon have known each other forever isn’t helping me to not want to bend her over and fuck her ruthlessly while she holds it. I reach underneath my guard and adjust my cock in my rinds, trying to find a position that feels less torturous, but my armor doesn’t exactly make that easy.
Auset steps to the side, executing a couple practice swings, and I almost lose the battle with my will.
“It’s perfectly balanced and lighter than something this incredible has any right to be,” she marvels almost to herself.
I try not to puff up with pride as I do my best to talk my dick down. I enjoy mastering my craft and kitting me and my brothers with the best, but there’s something significantly special in gifting Auset her armor and blades. It’s like I know a part of me will always be there to protect her, and it soothes and reassures me in ways I didn’t know I needed until I saw her outfitted in my best work like she was one of us already.
I feel things in me click into place like a key that fits in an old forgotten lock, ready to open me and make room for her. There was a time where I would have run from this, where the thought of ripping myself open for someone else would have felt more akin to torture than destiny. But as I look into Auset’s silver eyes, watch her run her fingers over every detail of my gifts, I know the only place I’ll ever run again is to her. She may not fully want to admit it yet, but I know it’s only a matter of time before she feels it too.
Auset fixes the ax in place behind her back and turns her penetrating silver gaze on me. It’s as though she’s baptizing me in molten mercury as she surveys me, her shoulders pressing back as she once again bricks up her defenses. I want to take that ax to her walls immediately, but I reassure myself that we’ll get her to crush them once and for all when we get back from this hunt. There’s nowhere she can run, nowhere she can hide at this point, not from us and not from what she’s realizing we are to her.
She doesn’t know or comprehend what it is to find your mate, or mates in this case, but we do, and I know that bond is solidifying between all of us with each minute that passes.
“Thank you,” Auset offers proudly, her palm running down the armor protecting her abdomen as though she’s suddenly nervous and not quite sure what to do with her hands. “It’s not really an adequate sentiment for how I feel right now. I wish I had something that expressed this better,” she tells me, touching her palm to her chest, “but thank you will have to do for now,” she continues, moisture glinting in her moonlit eyes once more.
For now, I think in my head, but on the outside, I nod once, not wanting to draw out Auset’s discomfiture more than it already has been. She relaxes. It’s a small act of trust, but it’s there all the same, reinforcing every sign I’m seeing that my Moonling is going nowhere. It makes me feel like I’ve done everything right, seeing her let go, a little, of the tension and uncertainty that always seems to plague her.
Stealing one more quick glance in the mirror, I watch as Auset shutters all vulnerability away and lets her inner darkness weave a new impenetrable barrier around her. She morphs into the merciless huntress my brothers and I met on the first night of the Bidding, and all at once, I’m eager to see her hunt with us. She may not have agreed to join our Order yet, but if it walks like a Scorpion and slaughters like a Scorpion…
“Let’s head back. Tarek still needs to glamour us before we can go. I can hear the lecture on tardiness he’s probably pacing and preparing to deliver as we speak,” I tease.
With a playful huff, I hold out my hand to Auset, ready to lead the way back to the house arm in arm. She eyes it for a minute before halfheartedly slapping it away and striding past me. I laugh, I should have expected nothing less. I can drink down my Moonling’s mewls and moans with my tongue in her mouth and my hands roving all over her body, but treat her like some frail, frilly-frosted female, and she’ll shove a dagger somewhere unpleasant.
She’s perfect.
She’ll hear no complaints from me as she strides on ahead. Now I get to watch her exquisite ass as she does her best to show me who’s boss. I sigh like some lovesick pup. Auset isn’t denying that she’s one of us anymore, but I’m tense with the need to make it official as soon as possible.Fuck. I’ve never been so eager for a hunt to be over.
Tonight, I assure myself, and then I trail after my Moonling, intent on following her wherever she may lead for the rest of our days.
ChapterThirty-Nine
AUSET
With a whispered word, Tarek dims the fairy light sconces that are set high on the walls. Instantly the shadows slink from the edges and corners and start to swallow up more of the front room we’re standing in. Two large double doors that I’ve only ever seen closed loom in front of me, while the stairs that lead up to the rooms and study guard my back. Nerves scuttle through my veins as I watch Tarek grab a bundle of smoking herbs from a small table. More muted words slip from his lips, and it’s all I can do not to lean closer and try to make out what he’s saying.
Questions scamper relentlessly in my head as Tarek works through the ritual that he does before every hunt, the glamouring of us being the last part of it. I’m entranced by every move he makes, cataloging the twitches of his brow, the flicks of his hands, and the pattern of his pacing so I can ask questions about all of it later. Riall and Curio stand patiently as Tarek quietly mumbles and winds his bundle of herbs in invisible patterns that only he can see.
Each of the Scorpions is fully kitted, their obsidian armor and weapons marking them as the daunting dealers of death that they are. I’ve never seen anything more breathtaking. I keep thinking that I’m teetering on the precipice of something when it comes to these three males, but if I’m being honest with myself—and at this point, Ihaveto be—I think I’ve tipped over the edge. I can’t say if I’m falling or flying, but whichever it is, there’s no fighting the trajectory at this point. I’ll land where I land and deal with the fallout of wherever that may be when it happens.
Tarek moves from Riall to me, and I hold my breath as he waves his smoldering bundle around me. A thick herbal scent collects in little clouds that surround my face. I’m not sure what it is, some kind of musky juniper maybe, but it feels thick and sticky when I eventually breathe it in. I can sense the white smoke adhering to my insides as I inhale, the cloying vapor waiting and ready for whatever Tarek is going to do next.
“I’m going to glamour the others first so you can watch and see what to expect,” Tarek tells me, and I’m so surprised to hear him actually speak at an audible decibel, using words that I can identify, that I stare at him for a beat before what he’s saying sinks in. “It won’t hurt, but it can be an unusual sensation. What’s important is that once I start, I can’t stop; it’s draining and dangerous.”
