It’s cherries on a hot day. Tart, sweet, and I gulp down more.
The need inside me burns and I ground against my mate. Something wants more—needs more from her. This hunger is unlike anything else. It’s all-consuming. A need to have everything she offers and more.
Ripping away, I make myself release her. Under me, she’s pliant and soft, streaked in red. The red against the white mesmerizes me.
A hand traces my chin, and I look up into her sleepy eyes. “We should clean up.”
I blink away the blood lust. The kind of lust that she’s only ever brought in me.
Is this natural? Or is there something wrong with me?
“I’m not going anywhere.” My cock is already hardening again inside of her. “How can I expect children with you, if I don’t make sure you’re properly filled up?”
Her eyes brighten. My mate likes the idea of being filled by my seed, growing with our brood.
“We won’t waste a drop,” I mumbled against her mouth, smelling our mixed essences.
I don’t worry about the rest of the world, nor let the worries of hunger invade for the remaining hours of night. I sink into my mateover and over, until the sun brightens and neither of us know where one begins and the other ends.
If the world needs me, it will wait one night for me to enjoy my wife.
When Reid knocks on the door early the next day, I have an old cloth wrapped around my waist, Max sleeping in the mossy patch beside the pool, covered with what remains.
My brother glances to me, to my mate, and I block his sight. He has the balls to wink.
“Have a good night?”
My body is sore from all the lovemaking, but it’s not something I’ll share with my younger brother. “I’m Fae, again.”
“A feat, to be sure,” he says, nodding. “Any leftover issues?”
At my raised eyebrow, he waves his hand into a circle. “Urge to eat us whole? Fear of fire? Turning all beasty again?”
Tapping my temple, I choose to ignore the need to have more of my mate’s blood. There is nothing in my head, or in my soul. The beast is gone. This could just be a new craving. I’m a bonded Fae, I’ve not had her blood without shackles keeping me contained.
I’ll learn to control this. As I’ve learned to control everything else.
“He’s gone.”
“Thank fuckingAzure’smight,” Reid praises. He throws his arms around my shoulders, awkwardly hugging me as I keep the cloth around my waist. “I thought we’d never see you again.”
The relief in his voice breaks my heart. My brother doesn’t have many people in his life who have cared for him. My mother died after he was born, and our father ignored him. Oslo took more interest in me due to our shared curses—but Reid always had me and Fee. To lose one of us would surely destroy him.
Clapping him on the back, I hold him tight. “I’m here, Reid. I’m not lost.”
“Thanks to Max.”
“Thanks to her.” She amazes me daily. Her strength, her care—all of it. And she chose to save me.
Stepping back, Reid blinks, still in the clothing from the nightbefore. I can only assume everyone slept for the first time in weeks, without worrying for much else.
“I have news,” he begins. “Aoife’s troops are at the barrier. They come with a message, but I didn’t want to let them in.”
That raises my suspicions. “Why not?”
Reid shrugs. “Too much to explain right now. But something isn’t quite right here. I can’t put my finger on it, but Fee sees it. Max as well. Aoife is not to be trusted.”
My immediate reaction is to ignore Reid’s words. Aoife has been my mother’s oldest friend, someone I’ve relied on through dark times. She was the first to support my coup, the first to comfort me when my mother was found deceased.
But I’ve not been where he is—where Max was in the middle of all this. If my mate is not sure about the woman I love like a mother, then I’d rather trust her judgement.
Nodding, I say, “I’ll change and meet you at the barrier. We’ll face them together.”
