Delphi knew how voracious her mind was. At best, she would learn everything they could teach and still be unsatisfied because it wasn't aligned with her power.
A short time later, she was washed and dressed in soft leather pants, a purple tunic, and a black and gold waistcoat that she had never seen before.
She would have to thank Tenebrys for the clothes, although she had no idea how he had known her size or where he had obtained them. They fit better and were of finer make than she had ever owned. Dear gods, even the breast band and underwear were made ofsilk. Obscene waste of money, but they felt like a cloud against her skin.
Down in the kitchen, Delphi boiled water and gathered herbs to make a contraceptive brew. She might like Tenebrys a lot, but she wasn't about to risk getting pregnant or stop having sex with him. Gross tasting tea was the answer if it meant not having babies.
He said the attraction between them was their mating bond, but she had wanted him for years, even when he was a shadow in her dreams.
Dark goddess, she needed to think of something other than his hands on her and his big, strange cock. An insistent meow broke her train of thought. Delphi turning to find Luna on the table, rubbing against a full-looking paper sack.
"What have you got there?" Delphi asked. She opened it and studied the powder inside. Tentatively, she dipped a finger into it and touched it to her tongue.
"Flour. How did flour get here?" Delphi hadn't recognized it because she had never seen flour milled so fine. Luna meowed at her again.
"Okay, okay, I will find you something to eat. Felix had to have some meat last night, so there might be some down in the cooling cellar."
There was more than meat in the cold marble room. There were also a bowl of eggs and a pail of milk.
"What in the world is happening?" Delphi could only shake her head. She would never shun free food just because she didn't know where it came from.
"Looks like we will be eating in style this morning, puss," Delphi told Luna and gathered up her bounty.
24
Tenebrys didn't find any trace of Felix in the château, so he headed out into the woods. Had something happened in the day he had left them on their own?
Guilt clawed at him. If the fae had come through the gateways in greater numbers and overwhelmed the guardians, he would know, wouldn't he? They would have stormed into the château by now.
Tenebrys followed his usual scouting trail through the woods. Felix had been on it in the past few hours.
A cry of pain echoed through the trees, making Tenebrys duck low into some nearby underbrush.
The Mistwood was a strange place, and a wisp would occasionally try to lure you into a marshy bit of bog so they could feed off their victims' fear.
There hadn't been many strangers in the woods for them to feed on recently. Humans had gotten smart enough to stay away. Maybe the wisps were getting impatient enough to try and start luring them too.
The scream sounded again, and Tenebrys prowled toward it.
"Speak, miscreant!" a deep voice commanded.
"Eiran?" Tenebrys emerged from the camouflage of the shadows. "What are you doing here?"
The stag shifter turned his head toward him, his silver antlers shining. He was covered in white fur, with cream colored bone plating on his back and chest. The arcane sigils were silver and contrasted with the pale blue tattoos on his shoulders and arms.
As a normal stag or human shape, Eiran had looked otherworldly. In his cursed form with his silvery gray eyes and savagely handsome face, he looked like a god. His platinum white hair was neatly braided down his back, and despite the state of the fae he was holding by its throat, he didn't have a speck of blood on him.
"I managed to keep one alive for you, Kesari," he said, smiling at Tenebrys. "Felix has trotted off to get some iron manacles."
Only Eiran freely used Tenebrys's first name, and it still gave him an awkward jolt to hear it after so long.
"How many got through?" Tenebrys asked, eyeing up the battered raider.
"None got through. I killed some. Two ran back into Farie when I stomped on this bug." There was a purple-covered hoof mark on the fae's back to prove it. "I dragged him here from gateway four, and he has been quite uncooperative about it."
"I don't suppose it has said anything useful?" Tenebrys asked.
Eiran dropped the miserable creature. "It keeps babbling about some witch girl."
