My heart tears. Placing my free hand against River’s face, I press my palm tightly against his cheek. “I am not Tye’s female,” I say firmly. “I belong to me. And I am the quint’s too, just as the quint is mine. Until this Citadel of yours severs our tether, we are an us—no matter who kisses whom.”
River’s whole body stills, the tension singing in his coiled muscles. “You . . . you can’t possibly mean that,” he says, trying and failing to check the budding hope in his voice.
Rising onto my toes, I brush my lips against his cheek. “I claim you as mine, River,” I tell him softly. “You and Tye and Coal and Shade. Whatever comes, we will face it together.”
14
Leralynn
River, Tye, and Shade return to sclice hunting in the afternoon, Coal again seeming to have drawn the short straw of being left behind with me. Because who wouldn’t want to fight slobbering hog things as post-lunch entertainment? We both watch in silence as the others ride off, then turn to weigh each other. Around us, the inn grounds and common room are quiet, guests who were here when we arrived having either chosen or been paid to relocate.
Still shirtless from his earlier practice and apparently impervious to the cold, Coal is leaning against the stable’s outer wall, his broad shoulders threatening to bow the old wood. Well-worn black breeches hang on his hip crests, the V of his abdomen disappearing into the dangerously low waistline. His long blond hair is tied back into a tight bun that my unwieldy locks would never abide. He crosses his arms over his chest and my gaze narrows at something I’d not noticed before.
After three hundred years of fighting, the scars on Coal’s lithe body are understandable, but the ones circling his wrists are something else entirely. Someone shackled him. Held him for so long, rubbing the binds so deep, that Coal’s immortal body never fully repaired the cuts. My mouth dries, my hand aching to brush over his wrist, as if touch could erase the hurt.
I hadn’t realized just how deeply I meant my words when I told River that I claim all the quint brothers as my own.
Coal’s gaze follows mine and hardens, a sudden chill settling over him. The male raises his chin, his eyes flashing with a challenge. I might have told River that I’m claiming the four males as mine, but that doesn’t mean they all wish to claim me in return.
Not that I’m giving up on Coal without a fight. “Are we training or talking?” I ask.
He cocks a brow. “Careful what you ask for, mortal. Tye and Shade aren’t here to coddle you now.”
I take a step toward him, close enough that the sudden scent of male musk washes over me, Coal’s sculpted pectorals and shoulders making me feel absurdly small. “Scared to work without their spotting?” I ask, my voice huskier than usual.
He swallows, the apple of his throat bobbing, even as his hands tighten into fists that I’m certain I’m not intended to notice. “Get on the sand.”
My pulse quickens as I walk the twenty paces to the paddock we trained in earlier, my body still aching from the falls. I must have hit my head harder than I thought during one of those tumbles, because there is no reason any sane being would goad Coal into a repeat performance otherwise.
Coal clears the paddock fence with a smooth jump, not even breaking stride, while I use the gate like normal people do. People. Coal isn’t people. None of the quint are.
“So, what—”
The rest of my question dissolves into a choked oomph as Coal launches himself at me, his shoulder knocking me cleanly back onto the sand. The fall is hard enough to take my breath, and I swallow a whimper as I stare up at the male, whose chest is heaving slightly faster than it should.
So we are playing throw-Lera-around again. At least I know this game. I wait for Coal to get off me, even as an idiotic part of me hates the thought of losing physical contact. As brutal as Coal is, I feel safer with him than I ever did with Zake.
Except for the part where he is still on top of me. “Get off,” I growl.
“Make me.”
I buck beneath him. Once. Twice. The futility of it sinks through me with each failing twitch of muscle. “Get off,” I say again. Coal’s weight, always considerable, is feeling heavier than it did moments ago, the heat from his body shoving itself into me. The world seems to shrink around us and it’s a struggle to draw breath, to assure myself that there is breath to draw. “Get the hell off! I’m not jesting, Coal.”
He shifts, becoming heavier and hotter still. His face moves in line with mine, our noses touching. “Neither am I,” Coal says, showing sharp canines. “Make me.”
My heart stutters, a sharp lash of panic bursting through my veins. I can’t. I can’t move him. I can’t breathe. I can’t . . . My teeth grind together, my weakness pressing on my chest as much as Coal’s weight. I was wrong. Coal isn’t safe at all. Stars. He wants me gone, away from his quint brothers, away from his life. He wants to be hunting right now, not minding a useless girl.
“Do something, mortal,” Coal growls. “Save your hide.”
I shut my eyes, bracing myself for the inevitable pain. Despite the sand beneath me, I’m back at Zake’s stable, cowering against a stall while he bruises me for imagined misdeeds. For not wanting him. Zake wants me to submit. Even Mimi says I should. Everyone says I should. I shudder, my heart pounding so quickly that the hard-won gasps of air aren’t enough.
The weight atop me disappears, and as quickly as I was on the ground, I’m now in the air, Coal’s powerful hands gripping my shoulders. The male’s blue eyes flash with a fury I’ve never seen as he lifts me to his eye level, my feet dangling off the ground.
“You never do that again,” Coal shouts, his nostrils flaring. “You never stop fighting. You understand?”
I swallow, my mind sluggishly trudging from the darkness.
Coal shakes me, but there is a difference in the motion from how it should feel. A desperation and fear that I mistook for anger. “I can teach you to fight,” Coal tells me. “I can teach you to defend yourself. I can teach you a thousand things you can do. I can’t make you want to do any of them.” He releases me quickly, like a hot coal, setting me back on my feet before crouching on the sand himself, his head braced in his hands.
The marks on Coal’s wrists fill my vision. Thick white scars encircling the tender skin.
I wrap my arms around myself, cold now. “I thought you wanted me to surrender to you,” I whisper—whether in apology or explanation, I don’t know.
His face jerks up, fast like the predator he is. “I never want you to surrender to me, Lera. Not to me, not to anyone. You are too good for that.” Coal rises to his feet, smooth like a panther, and steps back toward me until his musky, metallic scent caresses my cheeks. His chest expands and lowers with deep, powerful breaths, even as his arms rise tentatively to my shoulders. For a male who just used his weight to make me whimper in misery, the care with which he touches my skin is shudderingly intense.
Coal’s touch sends a thousand sparks through me, but it’s his eyes that capture me now. I thought they were just blue, but they are more complex than that, with specks of amethyst around the irises that turn brilliant when the light hits them right.
“What now?” I whisper, my voice hitching because I know the answer. Now is when Coal turns and washes his hands of the mortal girl who is too weak for him.
His breath stills, his hand trailing up to take my chin. “Are you afraid of me, Lera?” he asks.
I open my mouth and shut it without answering, the storm inside too loud to discern. I’m not scared of Coal. But I should be. What do I do with that? I bite my lip. “Do you want me to be?”
He lets out a long breath, closing his eyes for a heartbeat. “I should.” He growls softly—though the warning seems to be for himself, not me—and catches my eyes again. “But I prefer trust. If you could trust me to train you, to make you very, very uncomfortable in the ring . . . I’d prefer you be a bit afraid of that, but not of me.”
15
Leralynn
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There is a wolf on my bed when I trudge up to my room in the evening, my whole body one big ache that no longer differentiates one pain from another. Coal made me eat after we trained, watching to make sure I swallowed every spoonful of beef stew without falling asleep in the bowl. And now that I can finally lie down, there is the damn wolf.
Not only is he on my bed, but he is splayed out to his fullest—including sticking out all four legs, his tail, and even a lolling tongue to maximize his claim of the real estate. The wolf lifts a sleepy muzzle from my pillow and opens one yellow eye to watch my arrival before nuzzling right back into the down covers.
“Really, Shade?” I pull off my jacket and toss it onto his sleeping form.
Shade growls in indignation, but I just toss my sweater onto him as well before dropping onto the bed to take off my boots. Stars, my body hurts, especially where bits of stray sand worked themselves into my leathers, leaving my skin raw and bloody underneath.
The mattress shifts behind me, and a wet wolfish nose prods my back. My skin tingles as Shade sniffs my hair then licks the back of my neck with a warm lupine tongue.
“Knowing that you are not really a wolf sheds a new light on this, you know,” I tell Shade over my shoulder.
He growls again, this time as if to say, I am very much a wolf.
“You are a wolf of convenience,” I tell him. “You know I’d kick you out of my bedchamber if you were in your fae form, so here you are, taking advantage of my goose-down mattress while looking too adorable to evict.”
There is a quick flash of light and suddenly the wolf is replaced by a black-haired male, his face still close to my neck. He wears what he must have had on when he shifted back to his wolf this evening, which isn’t much—a pair of gray woolen trousers that button in two rows high on his abdomen, supple leather boots, and no shirt. Not even the sleeveless open-front vest he wore earlier. “So which is it, cub,” he growls into my ear, his wolfish scent giving way to one of fresh earth, damp from rain. “Am I adorable? Or are you going to evict me from your chamber now?”
“How have you and Coal coexisted for the past three hundred years?” I demand. “The only way you could be more different is if one of you were a sclice.”
“Coal does have that pig reek, doesn’t he?” Shade muses.
I shove his shoulder, though it does little good.
The male chuckles and retreats to stretch out his full fae form, boots and all, on my bed. The bastard takes up no less space this way, with his hands crossed behind his head and his yellow eyes watching me intently.
I swallow.
Shade’s wolf is adorable—but Shade is beautiful. Golden skin, velvety and rippling with latent muscles even when relaxed, hard biceps framing his face. Strong, confident cheekbones. A piercing yellow gaze that makes my heart race despite my bone-aching fatigue.
Shade’s nose twitches and his eyes cloud with concern. “I smell blood.”
“Raw skin.” I frown at him. “Does it bother you? I mean, does it make your wolf want to maul me or something—like sensing weak prey?”
Shade considers me for several heartbeats. “You aren’t prey,” he says finally. “You could never be prey. But yes, smelling blood on you bothers us. We don’t enjoy seeing you hurt.”
Clearly, Shade didn’t watch Coal in action. “I’m fine,” I lie.
He rolls lazily onto one elbow. “Prove it.”
“Prove what?” I cross my arms, smelling a rat. “More importantly, how.”
A shamelessly wolfish grin. “By taking your clothes off.”
The demand rushes through me, settling somewhere between my legs. I cross my thighs and point at the door. “Scram, wolf fiend.”
Shade makes a swipe for me, pulling back when I smack his wrist. “How about a compromise? Just your shirt.”
My brows pull together in memory of what Tye tried—and failed—to accomplish earlier. “Are you all in on this ‘don’t take Lera’s word about her body’ scheme?”
A flush of color touches Shade’s cheeks and ears, their points peeking out from shaggy hair. He studies me from under his lashes for a moment longer. Then the bastard pounces.
One moment I’m sitting on the edge of my bed, and the next he’s pulled me all the way onto the mattress while he kneels beside me, his arms shamelessly around my hips—which does little to smother the heat kindling there. “I’ll make it worth your while,” Shade promises, his lips at the base of my neck, right over my quickening pulse.
“Please don’t rip my shirt like Tye did in the stream,” I say, closing my eyes in an attempt to calm my rebellious body. “I rather like this—”
The this is over my head and off me in a heartbeat, Shade’s calloused palm brushing down the groove of my spine, wiping away stray grains of sand from my bruises and cuts.
I shudder.
Shade’s hand on my hip tightens, pinning me in place against his hard, warm body. “The mortal world dampens my magic,” he says into my ear, his voice soothing even as his probing fingers give no quarter. “But I’ll heal this once we are in Lunos. And we’ll make sure no one leaves these on you again.” Shade touches one of the marks from Zake’s belt, his soft voice laced with violence.
I glance over my shoulder and snort. “As those account for about one tenth of my current bruises, that’s hardly reassuring.”
Shade flinches.
“No,” I twist toward him, coming up to my knees. Apparently, I like him flinching as little as he tolerated me shuddering. “It was a jest,” I say, my hand reaching up to brush Shade’s hair from his face. The lock is shiny and softer than I expected, springing right back into place the moment I release it.
Shade’s neck bobs and he catches my wrist, the few inches of air between us suddenly thick. Crackling. His mouth opens slightly, the elongated canines near and sharp and glistening with danger. My chest tightens, my breath suddenly gone from my lungs.
“You . . . have long lashes,” I say, leaning closer. “Girls would kill for those.”
“I have many long things,” Shade breathes, his hand cupping the back of my head, tangling in my hair. “Patience, it seems, is not one of them.”
I open my lips to respond, only to find Shade’s mouth covering mine, his lips soft and warm enough to heat a whole palace. My own mouth yields in answer, and Shade’s kiss deepens, the hand in my hair tightening until my whole scalp tingles. Sings. Stars.
Shade pulls away slowly, his canines gently scraping my lower lip as I moan softly into him.
My heart pounds, the warmth between my legs a downright flame, and I try to catch my breath. “Did you plan that?” I demand.
Shade grins, makes a noncommittal sound, and turns back into his wolf, demonstratively making a circle on my bed before curling up with his tail over his nose. His body manages to press against my back, his rhythmic breathing soothing and steady.
“Why do you do that?” I ask when I can speak again. “Stay in your wolf form so much?”
No answer.
“Being a wolf to avoid talking to me while lounging around on my bedding is a dirty, cowardly trick.”
Shade snorts, buries his head deeper beneath his paws, and settles into a calm sleep punctuated by soft snores that turn into whimpers when I shift out of reach. Frowning, I move closer, resting my hand on the sleeping wolf’s flank. The whimpering stops, the rhythmic rise of his chest and his twitching eyelids speaking of a dream-filled slumber.
16
Leralynn
“We’ll cross Mystwood this morning,” River announces as the five of us gather around a wooden table in the empty common room. The inn’s servants cleaned my clothes overnight, leaving them outside my door without giving me a chance to thank them. I think everyone at the inn wants us gone, despite the amount of coin River has been placing in the innkeeper’s palm.
The males nod to the commander while I struggle to keep my relief in check, the plan to leave effectively saving me from another training session
with Coal.
The blond warrior’s amused grin tells me he’s read my thoughts regardless.
I give Coal a vulgar gesture and River cocks a brow at the two of us.
“I’ll get the horses ready,” says Coal, pushing himself away from the table. Shade and Tye join him.
I shift in my seat. River hasn’t done or said anything to warrant my nerves, and yet his very presence singes the air. Perhaps it’s the unyieldingly vigilant gray gaze betraying an always-working mind. Or maybe it’s the quieter way the others act around him, as if feeling the need to behave in their commander’s presence.
River turns to me, his back straight. Today, he is dressed in a burnt-red coat, the high collar crisp and the buttons polished to a shine, and black pants that cover equally black boots. “Are you all right, Leralynn?” His voice is deep and strong, a voice more used to ordering than asking.
“Yes. Very. I mean, yes.” I get to my feet, River’s muscular arm reaching around to smoothly pull my chair away. “Where are we going, exactly?”
River rises, offering me his arm to lead me outside. The gesture would be absurd from anyone else, but River somehow makes it look both natural and dignified. “Across Mystwood and into Slait Court to rest and resupply before crossing into the neutral lands. The latter will be the most difficult part of the journey to the Citadel.”
His words are even, but I sense there is something he’s not saying. I frown back at the inn. “Don’t we need the Slait king’s permission to enter?”
“It’s been arranged.” River’s jaw tenses. “The Slait king is absent just now. He will be busy for several days yet.”