“Is His Highness not your prince?”
I got a narrow-eyed stare, probably made an enemy, but then the general bowed to Hydris. “Your Highness,” he said and there was only a little bit of a growl to the words.
Hydris gave a little grunt and waved his hand very dismissively.
My god, he was going to get the fucking of his life as soon as I could find a place for us to be alone. I very nearly told the general to sulk somewhere else because we needed his tent. Woo!
I was only peripherally aware of soldiers hopping on horses and racing away in different directions—presumably to relay the order to retreat and pack up or whatever—because Hydris started walking over to me.
Flowers bloomed as soon as he lifted his foot to take another step. He was leaving a trail of flowers behind him, just like he said he used to do.
Hydris giggled as he gazed up at me. “You look like trouble.”
I nodded becauseyeah. “After that incredible display of power, would it be a bad idea to kiss you?”
He smiled. “That’s never a bad idea.”
I looped an arm around him to pull him up onto his tip-toes, cupped his jaw, and gave in to ravishing him. I could feel his wings fluttering as he slipped his arms around my shoulders and held on. When he felt how I was getting hard, he pressed his thigh more firmly against me, and had us both moaning into our kiss.
Only when a few whoops and laughter registered did I remember that we had a huge audience at the moment. We chuckled at each other before I set him down again.
“Let’s go look at the barrier,” he suggested and took my hand.
Everyone else seemed to have something to do now as they got ready to leave, so we wove our way through them all toward the border.
I could see the barrier easily now because, though it was still stretching toward the clouds and the horizon, it had cracks and whole sections that were broken out of it. Big chunks of what looked like glass were stabbed into the ground as though they’d fallen.
“Maybe we shouldn’t get too close,” I suggested.
“Yes, this is quite dangerous.”
Hydris put his hand on a piece of barrier that was about the size of a house. Instantly, it turned to water and splashed down all around us!
“Hydris!”
“I didn’t meant to!”
I laughed even though I was soaked to the skin. “No, do it some more.”
“Oh!”
He flew away from me, touching all of the fallen chunks and reducing them to puddles. On his flight back, he ran his hand along the barrier that still stood. It came down like a giantwaterfall and turned itself into a river, the ground clearly too saturated to absorb it all.
Laughing like pure joy, Hydris scooped me up for a brief flight that ended with me spinning us around and kissing him.
“You’re amazing, Hydris.”
“I don’t even know why that worked,” he said as he leaned against me. “Do you think the whole thing came down?”
“Maybe? I’m guessing Silver Sparkle could have us ride the length of the entire border in a couple hours to check. If she wanted to,” I amended when I saw that she’d followed us out here.
“Bridge! We need to get to the Winter border.” He shook me a little and stared off in the other direction. “We need to organize a food delivery for them at the very least, but we’ll have to find out what else they need.”
“We can absolutely do that.”
It occurred to me that there wasn’t a single soul on the Summer side of the former barrier. That was probably a very good thing. If there had been, both sides might’ve fought each other regardless of what their leaders told them. As it was, though, our Spring forces were already walking away.
“Do you feel that?” Hydris said as he closed his eyes and spread his arms open in the sun. “It’s warmer here.”
