One has a strong jaw and a look of easy confidence about him; the second has a pointed chin and a wickedly mischievous gleam in his pale-blue eyes that I can see all the way from here; and the third, well, he seems to be the serious one, his hair the palest lilac—so pale, it’s nearly silver—and not a hint of a trickery to be seen.
I’ve become accustomed to telling them apart in their panther form, but now I’m not so certain who is who.
Anarchy gives a cry, scrambling to her feet, tears pouring down her cheeks as she races toward them. She’s calling out, and I assume she’s speaking their names or maybe a very long elven greeting, but I can’t make out what she’s saying.
She collides with them and they all sink to the sand on their knees, hugging each other at once.
“Damn,” I whisper as Lucian draws to my side.
“Look at that,” he says, a smile on his face.
Across the way, the keeper transforms back into his brown-eyed form. The lightning fades from the sky, the clouds part, and the evening moonlight shines softly down over us. No need for my blindfold now.
That’s when the elves rise to their feet and approach me as a group, the male elves’ footfalls a little wobbly and uncertain while they seem to be finding their feet.
One of them surges a step ahead of the others. He’s the shortest of the three with the strong jaw and roguish smile.
I eye him carefully as he approaches. “Rumble?”
“That’s me,” he says, giving me a broad smile as he lumbers closer, his arms outstretched as if he’s going to hug me.
I waggle my finger at his very naked form, backpedaling with a firm, “Clothes.”
He grins at me. “Who needs clothes?”
Then he tackle-hugs me, sweeping me off my feet and squeezing the breath out of me.
“You do!” I squawk, bursting into laughter a moment before he sets me onto the ground.
He tips his chin at me. “Okay, then. You’re the boss.” He spins to his brothers, barking at them. “Darkness has spoken: Clothes before hugs!”
“Oh, well… Maybe just one hug,” I say when the other two veer toward me as if they weren’t going to obey, anyway.
The first one hisses playfully at me and instantly, I recognize Strife’s voice. He’s the one with the pointed chin and mischievous gleam in his pale eyes.
“Strife.”
He swaggers up to me, pulls me in, and drops a kiss on the corner of my lips before he scoops his arms around me in another breath-stopping embrace.
My eyes fly wide. “Uh?—”
“Forgive me, Darkness,” he croons into my ear. “But I had to steal just one kiss.” He draws back a little. “You can punish me if you want.”
He gives me such a lazy smile that I have to bite my tongue before I shake my head rapidly. “Not on your life.”
“Suit yourself.”
He releases me with a gleam in his eyes, and now I turn to Riot because that’s who the third man must be.
Oh, but he’s much harder to read.
Solemn in a way the other two aren’t.
He takes a knee, reaches for my hand, and presses his cheek to the back of it. The silvery-lilac strands of his hair brush against my hand as he tilts his head. “Well met, Darkness.”
“No hug?” I ask quietly, dropping to my knees so I’m eye level with him.
His expression softens a moment before he reaches forward and embraces me much more carefully than the others did.
