She points to Lenetia and says something to the effect that she’d prefer to sleep with the other changeling. A growl vibrates under my ribs.
Lenetia shoos Taylor away. “No way I’m getting between a fae and his mate. I like my head attached, thank you very much.” She says it again in English for Taylor’s benefit, then turns her back to us.
Taylor bites her lip and looks down at me, her eyes tracing my chest. I’m still wearing my tunic, even though I prefer to sleep nude. I don’t want to frighten her.
Gareth creeps around the edge of our camp, his steps silent to anyone else. My glamour camouflages our location, but it will dissipate if I fall asleep. Though, with my mate beside me, I don’t see how I can slumber.
She edges closer and babbles in the changeling language while still pointing at Lenetia. Her nerves are adorable.
“Sleep,” I tell her again, then hold my hands up, palms out. “Only sleep.” I want far more than just a night of rest with her. I’d happily claim her in front of Gareth and the changeling, such is the nature of my need for her. But she’s far too skittish for an open display.
“Just sleep?” She eyes the soft furs.
I nod.
She sighs, the fatigue evident in her movements. Keeping an eye on me, she sinks down beside me and lies on her back. The swell of her breasts makes my mouth water, and the moonlight shows her hardening nipples in sharp relief. Does she have any idea what she’s doing to me? I have to shift my hips to hide my stiff cock.
“Just sleep,” she repeats and looks at me, one eyebrow raised.
“Yes.” I reach over and pull her to me.
She yelps and says something.
Lenetia pipes up from her spot by the fire with words like “mate” and “bond” and some other things I can’t understand.
“Shh.” I lie on my side so Taylor can rest her head on my arm.
She turns her head and peers at my shoulder. “The wound?”
“Heal fast.” I say as best I can in her tongue. I intend to access my memories of the changeling language while I dream.
She says something like “not possible” and a few more things I can’t catch, then she glances at the orbs floating through the forest, the fairies at play under the moonlight. She repeats “not possible” and sighs.
“Possible.” I take her hand and press it to where the wound was. “Real.”
Her skin is so warm against mine, and I can’t imagine how good it will feel to have her hands all over me.
She swallows hard and crosses her arms over her stomach. Her small body is perfect next to mine, though I can’t believe the ancestors have gifted me with such a fragile mate. Not fae, not from the winter realm—she’s not one I would have ever thought was meant for me. But just being close to her calms every bit of the raging winter wind that has always swirled inside me.
She clears her throat, her eyes still wide open.
“You can’t sleep like this. You must relax.” I run my hand over hers. The cursedly warm air prevents me from soothing her beneath luxuriant furs, but all that will change soon. Soon, she will be moaning for me as I taste her sweet honey and take my time with her delicious body.
“She can’t relax with you pawing at her,” Lenetia calls.
Pawing? I would scoff, but I’m too attuned to my mate’s worry. “Tell her she’s safe with me. Tell her I’d never harm her or take anything from her without her consent.”
The changeling grumbles but translates. The words seem to calm my mate, the tension falling away from her.
She looks up at me, her stunning eyes sparkling. My heart beats for her, if only she could hear its song. Her tongue darts out and wets her lips. My blood howls through my veins, calling her name. The sweet scent rises from between her legs, and her breaths come a little faster. She feels the same need, the desire to be one with me, she’s just too scared to give in to it.
I settle next to her and whisper. “When I claim you as mine, you will come more exquisitely than you ever have in your life, little one.”
A shiver courses through her, as if she understands my words.
I hide my smile in her fragrant hair and hold her as she eventually drifts into a peaceful sleep.
13
Taylor
Leander cradles me all night, and I wake from dreams of crisp snow and icy lakes under a stunning blue sky. He was in them, too, but I push those memories aside.
His dark eyes meet mine, a hint of a smile on his angular face. “Sleep wet?” he asks.
“Um, what?” I scoot away, mortification turning my insides to lava. Was I so obvious? How could he tell what I’d been dreaming about? Oh my god. I press my thighs together. Can he smell me again?
“Well,” Lenetia calls as she stirs a pot over the fire. “You meant ‘sleep well.’”
“Well.” His smile grows. “Sleep well?”
I run my hand across my forehead. Sheesh. “Yes. You?”
“Well.” His hungry gaze strays down my body before catching my eyes again.
I swallow audibly and scramble up from the furs. My muscles ache from the night on the ground, and I try to stretch away the soreness as I walk to Lenetia. Leander rises and folds up the bedroll.
“You really let me down.” Lenetia stirs what looks like a bubbling stew that smells of vegetables and herbs.
My mouth waters. “Let you down?”
“I thought I was going to see some hot mating fuckery last night. All I saw was awkwardness and then sleeping.”
My cheeks turn about twenty shades of crimson. “I’m not mating.”
“You will be.” She scoops a ladle full of the stew into a wooden bowl and hands it to me. “You’ll be riding that king over there like he’s one of those stallions in no time.”
“That’s not—”
Leander walks past, a satisfied smile on his face, and straps the bedroll to his horse, Kyrin. I’m beginning to suspect he understands more English than he’s been letting on.
I lower my voice. “I’m not having sex with him, okay? I’m just trying to get back home.”
She snorts, the dirt along her cheeks cracking a little as she laughs. “Sure.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” She plops a wooden spoon into my bowl. “Eat up. Long day’s ride ahead.”
“I’ve never even done that before, so there’s no way—”
“Never what?” She licks an errant drop of stew from her thumb and pours herself a bowl.
“Never, you know.” I wish I hadn’t said anything.
“Never been with a male?” She plops down next to me on the fallen leaves that blanket the forest floor.
“No.” I take a bite of the stew and singe my tongue. Damn.
“Hmm.” She shrugs. “Well, you’re about to learn, queenie. So don’t fret.”
“You aren’t listening.” The food is delicious, despite the fact my tongue is in need of a burn unit. “I’m going to the winter realm so I can get back home. Not so I can be some queen or get with Leander—” I glance at him. He’s hefting the saddle onto the other horse, and his broad back muscles stretch the fabric of his dark shirt. That little tingle between my legs begins anew, and I have to start again, “So, as I was saying, this is about me getting out of here.”
“Right.” She shrugs.
“And what about you?” I pull my gaze away from Leander before he catches me ogling him.
“Me?” She scratches her nose and examines her dirty fingernails. “What about me?”
“Don’t you want to go home?”
“Home?”
“Yeah, back to the human world.”
“That’s not my home.” She slurps her soup, apparently immune to the burn.
“But it’s where you’re from. Won’t your parents want to have you back? Siblings? Friends?”
“You don’t understand.” She sighs.
“What don’t I understand?”
“Changelings can’t go back.”
“Why not?”
Gareth strides up and serves himself some stew. “Morning.”
“Morning.” I hand him a spoon.
Lenetia ignores him. “I can’t go back because someone’s taken my place.”
“What?”
“When humans are exchanged, a fae takes their place in the human world. The parents don’t know the difference.” Gareth blows on the steaming stew. “So there’s nothing to go back to. As far as Lenetia’s parents are concerned, she’s still in the human world.”
“Beth,” she says quietly.