Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
ORION
My lips hummed with the echo of Miko’s kiss.
I pressed myself into the pillar, knees threatening to buckle. Exhausted, euphoric, ready for more of him.
A much-needed release.
We’re fooling ourselves here…
Miko returned with the baby wipes, handing me the packet.
“Thank you.” I cleaned my jeans, my hands, and my cock. “There, now we smell of…” I studied the pack. “Fresh cotton.”
He nodded, taking the used wipes off me and popping them in a bin as if it were still an active receptacle in a functioning society.
I peeked around the pillar at the train, dying candlelight flickering in the windows.
“They’re all fully knocked out,” Miko said.
I yawned in response, expecting him to tell me to join them.
He didn’t. Instead, he took my right hand, stroking my knuckles. “Thanks for taking my mind off things.”
“Happy to have helped.” I went to kiss him again.
Basil’s voice cut me off.
“What are you doing out here?” The fae’s tone was laced with disapproval.
Miko took a big step back from me, folding his arms. “Let me throw that question back at you.”
Basil matched his pose. “Sleep fails me.”
“Right.”
I glanced between the two men.
“May I speak with my fellow fae?” Basil asked.
Wow. So passive aggressive.
Why did he have to talk like that?
“I’m not stopping you,” Miko countered.
“Then—”
“I’ll give you some privacy.” Miko went to wait by the train.
“It would have been nice to finish my sentence.” Basil scowled in the alpha’s direction, then turned his attention to me.
His amber eyes narrowed, roaming my body, lingering at my crotch. He wrinkled his nose, then unfolded his arms.
“I see you’ve been enjoying yourself out here.” One hand went to his hip, the other gesticulating as he spoke. “Which is wildly inappropriate at such a delicate time.”
Pompous assbug. “It’s none of your business.”
“I think it is when I can hear the carnal grunting.”
I laughed.
He did not appreciate it. “Are you mocking me?”
“What I do with my mate has nothing to do with you.”
If his eyes could shoot lasers, I’d be sliced into smoking quarters. “Oh, but I think it does. You see, I think this is a disgrace.”
Miko growled.
I turned, giving a hand signal to let me handle this. “How is it a disgrace?”
“What happened to our privacy?”
“Basil, please.”
He sighed heavily. “You are fae. He is a werewolf. Need I say more?”
“Shifters sometimes bond with other species.”
He stroked his chin as if he were that detective man with the mustache. My mama used to watch the human TV show back in Faery every Sunday night. The one from Belgium.
“Hercule Poirot,” I blurted.
“Sorry?”
“Nothing. I think you should go away.”
“No, Orion. I’m not leaving you alone in this world. I will get you home. I will make you see sense.”
“Sense?”
“You cannot be bonded to a man doomed to die.”
My hands curled into fists. “But I am.”
Thump, thump.
Thump, thump.
“It is a mistake.”
“We were meant to be bonded. There is no mistake.”
Basil’s eyes landed on Miko for a few seconds. “But why? What a waste.”
My fist on his nose seemed like the perfect combination right now. “He’s not going to die.”
“That’s not what the troll said. Prophecies—”
“Stop.”
“I’m simply—”
“Don’t say anything else.”
Basil huffed. “May I finish?”
Not unless you want me to hurt you. “I think we’re done.”
He shook his head, his blond curls shimmering like silk in the faint light. “Listen, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so aggressive or call…” He swallowed. “Or call your relationship a disgrace.”
This bonding might not make sense, but it was real. So real, in fact, that Miko had dreamed about me. At least, we thought so. There was that whole thing about a golden gift still hanging in the air.
“I’m worried about you, Orion. This world is so dark, your situation fraught with heartache.”
“I know,” I whispered, knowing Miko would hear me regardless.
“I don’t want you to get hurt.”
I already am. “Then maybe tone down your aggression.”
“Orion…”
“You came after me, put your life in danger,” I said, a headache rising. “That was such an amazing thing to do. I appreciate it more than I can say. But I can’t up and leave now. Not with this bond. And before you say it, of course I’d love to see home again.”
Basil nodded, the tension in his stance melting. “I want the best for you.”
“Why? We were over a long time ago.”
“Because I care about you.”
Once upon time, hearing those words would’ve given me butterflies. Now they simply turned my insides to curdled eggs.
“That’s nice of you to say.” I looked back at my mate. “But I just feel like I’m wasting your time.”
“You’re not.”
“I am if I’m not coming with you.”
His only response was to stare at me, his eyes trying to drill down to my core.
“Anyway, the Faery gates will never open while Dawn remains,” I said.
“Then when it ends, we can go home.”
I wanted to punch him again. When Dawn ended, Miko ended, and I’d have nothing to remain on Earth for. Then what? Go back to my old life as a lounge singer? Mourn my lost bond mate while Basil waited with open arms and a shoulder to cry on?
I’d rather floss my teeth with barbed wire.
“I’m done talking,” I said.
“Goodnight.” He swept past me, returning to the train.
Miko came back over. “You okay?”
“Did you hear us?”
He nodded. “Some of the things he said made sense.”
Now I wanted to punch him. “We’re not having this conversation.”
“We will, though.”
“I know.”
“Don’t be—”
“Upset?” I cut him off.
“Yeah. Sorry.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Dickhead thing to say.”
“Agreed.”
His lips twitched. “Shall we go back to bed?”
The euphoria of our playtime had vanished, my head thumped. Sleep? How could I sleep? How could I ever sleep again with all this terror piling on my soul?
But I went back to our sleeping bags, curling up against him, my head on his warm chest. His reassuring breaths hushed me into a daze, the steady beat of his heart encouraging me to sleep.
A loud crash jolted me out of it.