Elaine’s weight gently pressed on top of me, and I couldn’t imagine a better place for her to be. Willing my arms to move, I wrapped them around her, lest she moved away.
“Stay with me,”she’d said, and this was exactly where I wished to stay, with her in my arms and her love in my heart.
“Are you back? Are you here?” she asked with a coarse thread of worry stitched through the gossamer silk of her tenderness.
“Here…” I exhaled, combing through the thick waves of her hair with my claws.
“Oh, thank God,” she whispered. “Don’t ever leave me again. Don’t ever scare me like this.”
She didn’t fear me. I sensed only intense, paralyzing worry inside her. She trusted me blindly, even when she shouldn’t have. I’d lost all control over my body and my actions. I could’ve killed her, and I wouldn’t even have known.
Horror shuddered my body. Her worry spiked.
A soft hand cupped my cheek. “Are you okay? Are you in pain?”
I was always in pain. It had become a permanent part of me, more permanent than my ever-changing body. Except that right now, I didn’t feel any. Along with Elaine’s love and compassion, comfort spread through me, filling me with lightness.
“No,” I replied sincerely. “No pain. I…I feel incredible.”
A cooling wave of relief flushed our joined emotions.
“Good,” she said, resting her head on my chest. “That makes me happy.”
“I know.”
She shifted her arm, the one with my tendril connected to herleilathaharness. I should disconnect from her before I lost my mind and ended up like Ray. Except that severing our connection was the last thing I wished to do.
“Just another moment,” I muttered to myself.
“Stay,” she repeated. “I don’t think my emotions will harm you. Not right now, anyway.”
“Why not?” I longed to believe her, but I couldn’t take the risk.
She inhaled deeply, her naked breasts pushing against my bare chest.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “I never saw anyone in Teneris act like Ray. Many of Prince Rha’s people had dinners with us. The prince became very close with my friend. They were inseparable. They spent so much time together, it even triggered his mating fever. I saw him before it happened, he acted crazy, to be honest, but it was because of the fever. He wasn’t like Ray. He didn’t force my friend. He actually tried to get away from her when the mating fever struck, afraid he’d hurt her. He acted aggressively towards others and wildly possessive of her, but he didn’t slur words, didn’t look confused, didn’t have trouble staying on his feet…”
Splaying her hand on my chest, she propped her chin on the back of it and gazed at me. She wrinkled her nose in concentration, and I decided I adored that expression of hers.
“What I’m saying is that even as the shadow fae in Teneris eagerly shared our emotions, it didn’t affect their mental abilities. None of them acted even as pushy as Lord Arnaf normally does.”
A claw of unease scraped through the calm landscape of her inner world at the mention of that name, and I jerked in realization.
“You don’t like that little prick, Elaine,” I stated the obvious. “And I keep making you see him twice a week.”
She shrugged. “It’s okay. I don’t have to like him to take his money. Besides, his servants draw the best baths ever. But he does act a little too…intense, don’t you think? There is that feverish energy about him, something like…”
“Obsession?” I offered.
“Probably. The same kind of desperation that Ray has, just toned down a bit.”
“Maybe it’s toned down because Lord Arnaf doesn’t have a Joy Vessel he could attach himself to permanently,” I suggested.
“Or…” She bit her lip as her focus sharpened. “Tell me, what effect does the juice of the golden hyacinth have on shadow fae?”
“None. It’s just a flower.”
“Do you know what it does to humans?”
