What happened?
You made me lose control, that’s what happened.
When I finally find his eyes through the fog of his body and the steam of his bath, I murmur, “Again. But this time, take me somewhere else.”
Where do you want to go?
“Surprise me.”
He smiles, a gradual curl of a lip that is so wicked and beautiful it makes me forget how to breathe.When I saynow, transport yourself inside my mind.
Lore’s shadows disperse like smoke atop a bonfire and rush out of the dark stone bathing chamber. I skim my hands over the bathwater’s oily surface, popping the soap bubbles that have formed on top.
Now.
I recline my head on the lip of the tub and concentrate on my mate. My mind vaults from my body as though equipped with wings and reappears in a place that’s so hypnotic, my neck falls back and I pirouette on myself.
Forty-Seven
As I fill my eyes with the inky, starlit beauty above, Lore laughs. The honeyed sound twirls around my spinning body, swathing my naked skin in one more layer of splendor. When I lower my gaze from the glittering immensity, my breath is once again taken away, but not by my surroundings this time.
What stops my breath and my spinning is the sight of my mate cloaked solely in moonlight. I may be inside his mind, but his body is as real as the one he wears when all five of his crows are one.
The light plays on the bricks of his muscles and cliffs of his bones, on the spirals of his veins and brushstrokes of his raven hair. It gilds the daunting length that rests against his thigh, corded like his forearms, bobbing like the apple in his throat, glistening like his golden irises.
Though he wears no crown, no armor, no sword, Lorcan Ríhbiadh looks every bit the monarch. The line of his spine is as straight as that of his shoulders; his wide stance as solid as the stone cliff soaring at his back; his gaze as bottomless as the starlit ocean licking my heels.
“Does this location please you, mo khrà?”
The salted breeze that buffets the cove blows against my naked body, cloaking me in warmth whilst coaxing my nipples into tender points. “This location iseverything.” I start plodding toward him but come to a standstill.
Lore’s black eyebrows lower over his eyes. “What is it?”
I remember him telling me, one of the first times I mind-strolled, that his mind was in the same place as his body, which would mean he’s outside the walls of his castle. But then I also recall penetrating his mind and finding myself tossed into the past—first with Bronwen and then in his chamber.
Confusion overtakes concern, or rather, parks itself right alongside it.
“In sleep, my mind is tethered to my dreams. When aware, it’s tethered to reality.”
“So”—I lick my lips—“are you dreaming of the cove, or are you truly putting yourself in peril for a beachside tryst?”
One corner of his mouth wings up. “I’m in smoke. I cannot be harmed in this form.”
Perhaps I should be reassured but I’m not.
“I have vigils circling the perimeter, and the ocean churns with gale-force winds. No Fae in their right mind—or wrong one—would dare venture into the Southern Sea.”
Over my shoulder, the ocean is as smooth and flat as a mirror.
“The same way we can fade people when we mind-walk, we can fade the accuracy of our surroundings. Even change the time of day.” He nods to the stars that aren’t yet shimmering in real-Luce.
“You swear you’re not in any danger?”
“I swear.”
When I don’t start moving toward him, he comes to me, stride languid yet resolute, gaze intent on the lip I’m nibbling in unease.
Fallon, my love, we’re safe.He clasps my wrists and links them around his neck, then lowers his face down to mine and steals my lip from my teeth in a devastatingly languid kiss.
