“You should do that pizza trick with her. I bet she’d be so pissed you guessed her favorites.”
“I’ll have Tristan do it.” We headed down the hall, and he turned off the lights as we went. The others were clearly tucked away in their beds or out wandering around town. Either way they’d be fine, since I doubted Sebastian would let Nessa out of his sight. “He drives her nuts for some reason.”
“Probably because he is so confident he’s going to claim her, and she wants Broken Sue.”
“What a tangled web.” He opened the bedroom door for me before hesitating at the hall light. “I don’t have a nightlight, and the mages can’t see in the dark if something happens.”
“They have hands, though. They can turn on the light if they need to…”
A grin worked at his lips. “Valid point. C’mere.”
He entered the room after me, whisking me up and closing the door, and I squealed in surprise. He flicked off the light to our room and carried me to bed, holding me tightly.
“I had a really good night, all things considered,” he murmured against my lips. “I don’t want to lose my family again.”
“You won’t.”
I fell into his kiss and we slowly shed our clothes, savoring the glow of a night deepening our bond and extending our family. I had a feeling Jimmy would really like Mac despite the difference in magic, and I already had a fondness for Mimi. Earnessa would hopefully grow on me, and even if she didn’t, I felt like with time we could become friends. And as far as mothers-in-law went, I’d had a lot worse.
We crawled between the sheets, and I cuddled up against Austin’s heated skin. My body fit against his sensuously, and my heart beat slow and sure.
“I think Kingsley really likes you,” he told me. We still lay on our sides, our hands roaming.
“I think Kingsley really likes you,” I replied, feeling up his broad back, tracing the muscles there.
“My relationship with him is probably going to get complicated before long.”
He kissed down my neck. “It got complicated earlier today, and you two still had easy camaraderie.”
“I barely pushed back earlier today. We didn’t do much more than almost challenge each other.”
He sucked in the peak of my breast, and I let my eyes flutter shut.
“I think it’s good that family time and work time is separated.” I moaned softly as he moved to the other before wrapping my legs around his middle as he worked back up to my lips. “If you two fight about work, at least you can spend quality time together and remember you’re brothers.”
“Eventually, fighting about work is going to be fighting about his choices as alpha, which is as good as insulting his entire way of being. It’ll bleed into family time.”
I captured his lips, opening them with my own and swiping my tongue through. “Not if we figure out a way to keep it from devolving.”
I angled my hips up to his hard length as I wrapped my arms around his neck.
He groaned softly. “Always the problem solver, hmm?”
I smiled through his kiss. “Not totally. I had to tell my parents that I was in a cult to explain my current situation. We can make this work. Even if things get rocky, you’ll have time to mend them. If we pull through with Momar.”
“When we pull through,” he growled, and a shiver arrested me.
“Yes, alpha,” I said in a silky voice, clutching his shoulders as he plunged into my depths and filled up my world. “I love you so much, Austin,” I murmured, tilting my head back to soak in the exquisite feelings. “I love that we complement each other so effortlessly, and that you like public displays of affection.”
He moved faster, and heat blistered through me, so delicious and heartfelt. Consuming.
“I love you, too,” he said, reaching between us to work what I needed.
I fell into his touch. Into the emotion coursing through our bonds. I felt limitless with him, like anything was possible. Nothing would stand in our way.
An explosion of pleasure tore me apart. I cried out, digging my fingers into his back as he shuddered out his release. Our breathing was harried and my heart knocked against my chest as a lovely euphoria set in.
I smiled, my eyes growing heavy, sighing softly at the welcome feeling of his weight on me.
“That better have been good to compensate for how loud it was,” we heard through the wall.
Clearly Nessa had stayed in this evening.
“I forgot how thin these walls are here,” Austin whispered, the bed shaking with his laughter.
“Why are the sheets fresh?” I asked. “This place doesn’t seem like it was shut up for fifteen years.”
“They said my mom was looking after it, but I wonder if my niece or nephew used it from time to time. When I left, I said in my note that they could.”
“Hmm.” I kissed his cheek and snuggled a little deeper into the mattress, tightening my arms to keep him put.
“One more time,” he murmured, lifting to kiss me again, already hardening. He was never sated for long.
“No way. We can’t do a marathon tonight. For one, Ulric and Jasper always embarrass me about it, two, we have a lot of stuff to do tomorrow, and while I can heal, that doesn’t totally compensate for zero sleep, and three, when you really get going, there’s no way I’m going to keep the volume down, and the whole house will be up all night.”
“Okay, okay. Just one more, though.” He started moving slowly. “I’ll stop at the one, I promise.”
I laughed because I could never say no to him. Then I kissed him again, loving the feel of his lips.
It was my favorite thing about us, our kiss. It felt like we poured our souls into each and every one. If
it was the last thing I did on this earth, it would be enough. And a small, scared part of me wondered if the end would be soon.
ELEVEN
Jessie
“OKAY, WHAT’S THE STATUS?” I walked through the grass in the square downtown. My purple muumuu flowed around my legs and my flip-flops clapped against my heels. Nessa kept pace with a walkie-talkie, a little behind me, and Tristan waited in front of us on the sidewalk at the edge of the grass.
“The plants are—”
“No, Edgar.” I put out my finger to stop him. He was loping beside me to keep up even though walking should’ve been perfectly fine. “We still need to ask Kingsley about the flowers. We’ll get to that after the gargoyles do some mapping of the territory, okay?”
“Yes, Jessie.” He fell away again.
We wouldn’t need him right now. We weren’t doing any training until the rest of our team arrived later in the day, and we couldn’t come up with a strategy until we had a full rundown on Kingsley’s defense capabilities while looking at a big, 3D map of the territory. Right now, we were getting our bearings in the sky, looking for any interlopers. I was done with letting the enemy sneak around the perimeter and getting away with it. We had to cut off Momar’s information.
“The potion of those at the perimeter has been consumed, and we’re just waiting for them to disappear,” Nessa said.