Her lips parted, a heavy sigh. “I should have sparred with you. I would have known.”
I turned to look at her. Mistake. We were too close. My face was inches from hers. My mouth… “How?” I choked out.
She shrugged. “I cannot always explain it. The bond… it is like breathing. It is a part of me that I do not have to think about it because it is always justthere.”
“Always demanding.” Like right then—demanding that I claim what was mine.
She smiled. “Yes, always.” Very tentatively, she reached out and laid her hand on my knee. Heat surged through me, marking the spot, cataloging the pinpricks of contact between us. “It helps, the touching. To take the edge off.”
“Speak for yourself.”
Her smile turned absolutely wicked. She kept her hand on me, her fingers drumming casually across the fleece-lined leather stretched taught over my skin. With her other, she reached for a wooden cup nestled into the snow at her feet and took a long, savoring draw.
It was unusual, as tall as a wine glass by cylindrical. “What is that?”
Veyka held it up for me to see. “Osheen made it for me. I am always cold, even in Baylaur. But since we left, it has been worse. I don’t know how it works, if he’s infused it with flora magic… if that is even possible. But it keeps the tea warm.”
“Osheen.”
“You remember who he is,” Veyka said carefully.
“Of course.” That was not the problem.
The surge of anger I’d felt when I saw the glow in Barkke’s eyes was nothing to what I felt when Veyka said another male’s name with such affection.
Veyka’s hand on my leg had stopped moving. She set down the special made cup on the other side of the rock—outside of my view. She knewexactlywhat was happening.
“He traveled with you to Baylaur for the Offering. He accompanied us to Avalon,” Veyka said, her voice even.
“Where is he now?” I ground out.
She slid her hand up my leg, her fingernails leaving a burning trail of possessiveness to match my own. She pressed harder into my side, working her cloak up over her shoulder so that the curves of her body pressed into the hard planes of mine.
Every nerve in my body stood alert, ready. The need to possess her, to make her mine in every fucking way, was almost impossible to bear. Veyka was trying to soothe me, to connect with my beast, to bring me back to where I could wrestle control around my power again.
“He remained with the Faeries of the Fen,” she continued, voice so carefully even. “Maisri—” her voice broke off, sharp as a knife. “Arran.”
Something was coming.
The world around me sharpened—brighter, clearer than before. Every sense was at work, fae and beast.
Veyka’s hand tightened around my leg. “Arran,” she said again, breathing in sharply. Her hand already moving for a weapon. “What is it?”
I did not have time to answer as my beast wrested control and leapt for the the solabear as it lunged for my mate.
68
VEYKA
At first, all I felt was the sharp contrast of cold and warmth. I fell backward into the snow, my cloak bunching up behind me and leaving my shoulder exposed. Even the wool of Arran’s green tunic—the one I was still wearing daily—was no match for the penetrating cold. Above me, pinning me to the ground, was warmth. Thick fur as white as the snow beneath me.Arran.
He was vibrating.Iwas vibrating.
That was not in either of our powers…
I tried to move him off of me—
The entire world spun. I pressed my eyes closed, and could have sworn I saw the void there. But my fingers did not tingle, and the ember of power inside of me did not brighten.
