Chapter 21
Hail
After yesterday’s epic rescue effort, I expected to see Peri beaming even more than usual. But when I find my mate drifting through the shadows under Rollick’s trailer just after dawn, her mood is unusually deflated.
A jitter of the concern I’m not totally used to feeling ripples through my nerves. I sidle closer to her. “What’s wrong?”
Peri gives herself a little shake. Through the mark constantly pulsing on my chest, I can feel her rousing her most upbeat spirits as well as she can—as if she thinks she has to put on that cheerful front for me when her heart isn’t in it. My own heart squeezes.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she says. “So far. Rollick seems to think the hunters are going to retaliate against us somehow. And I haven’t really been able to talk to Gracie yet.
She was so exhausted and even a little dehydrated when we got her back…
The hunters weren’t very nice to her. Dominic healed her some, but he said we should give her time to rest.”
I don’t see why the shadowblood who doesn’t appear to have been alive for more than three decades should be calling those shots, but Peri obviously took his request seriously.
I nudge her gently. “I bet she’ll be awake and recovered soon.”
“I know. But then we will have to talk.” Peri’s spirits droop again. “She helped me so much, and I ran off on her. I don’t even know what her dad did to her after we left. He probably punished her. And then I killed her dad.”
I would have thought the first part made the second part okay, but I’m still getting a handle on how much standards of morality can differ, especially when it comes to humans.
I do know this much. “You didn’t kill him. You freed the shadowkind who killed him, but your hands are totally clean.”
Peri gives a little huff. “I don’t think both of those things can be true.”
“Well, is she really going to be all that upset when her dad was such an asshole?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know if she knows he’s dead. How long would it take anyone to find that secret lair of his? Maybe he’ll never be found. So I have to tell her.”
“You could just… forget to mention it.”
“No, I couldn’t.” Peri shudders. “I’d be an awful friend if I kept something like that from her. I do hope we can still be friends…”
I suspect my Cream Puff is worrying too much about other people’s feelings the way she tends to do. I’m more worried about the other difficulty she mentioned. “Does Rollick think the hunters are going to attack us—or encourage the other humans who are playing at hunter to try to grab you again?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t understand why they do any of the things they’ve been doing. I guess Jonah and Sorrel are the most likely to get in trouble, since they’re the only ones the hunters saw.”
Of course she’d be fretting about everyone other than herself. The tightness in my chest condenses into an ache.
I tuck my presence around her in a shadowy embrace. The ache creeps up to my throat. “I wish I could keep you safe from everything that could hurt you.” Hunters, other marauding humans, former friends who might react badly to unexpected news.
That’s all I’ve ever wanted, really. To protect as many shadowkind as I can from the harmful parts of the mortal realm.
Peri deserves that security even more than most beings.
The thought of my long-held dreams sends a shiver of exhilaration through me. Maybe I can shield her, at least for a little while.
I nudge her again. “Come with me.”
She does, curiosity tingling through her more fraught emotions. I lead her through the camp and into the stretch of trees where Mirage found his pretty little clearing.
I don’t need to go as far as the clearing. As soon as we’re out of view of the human settlement, I emerge into physical form and reach for my powers.
Ice shoots up amid trunks. It shapes into a turret here, a staircase there.
The structure winds between the trees. With each wave of power I pull through my body, more and more crystalline surfaces glimmer into being. I cast them farther, higher, my pulse racing alongside the sensations.
Peri gasps, and I come back to myself. We’re standing before a castle like the ones I used to build in my dorm room at the academy, only bigger. Its spired roof rises nearly as high as the treetops.
An arched doorway stands open before us. I hold out my hand to Peri, taking on the chivalrous pose I imagine a knight would.
I never thought of myself as that kind of hero… but maybe for her, I could be.
Beaming now, Peri twines her fingers with mine. We step through the doorway into the castle’s interior.
Intricate carvings decorate the icy walls. The building is only big enough for one grand if narrow room, but I made it as impressive as I could, with a soaring ceiling that lets in light through thin sections of ice and a spiral staircase leading up into the tight space of the turret.
Peering around at it, another urge tugs at me. I inhale deeply and release my grip on the humanesque form that’s become an ever-present disguise.
I see the transformation shimmer over me in the reflections on the glossy ice. A snowy pallor spreads over all of my skin, with the stark blue veins that normally only show on my forearms rippling across my limbs and chest and up my neck. My eyes widen and drift farther apart.
Stag horns sprout from my skull, jutting off into the air like miniature tree branches. My pale hair turns shaggier and spreads down my back.
A soft noise escapes Peri. As I turn to face her, I brace myself, but her awe washes over me before I’ve even met her shining eyes.
“This is your true fae form?” she says. “You look even more handsome than usual.”
I don’t normally have any trouble accepting compliments, but a blush tingles over my cheeks.
“You should get to know every side of me.” I pause. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen your true form.”
“It’s, ah, kind of hard to see.” Peri giggles and then shimmers. A glow courses over her skin—
No. The glow is her skin. It’s all of her. In the space of a few seconds, her entire body has transformed into a shape made entirely of light, pure and bright as a spring afternoon’s sunlight.
My breath catches at the back of my mouth. Of course this is what she’d look like. Of course she’d shine even brighter when she lets go of the trappings of humanity.
“You’re amazing,” I tell her. The word doesn’t even come close to encapsulating what I feel.
It’s hard to make out Peri’s features in her glowing face, but I think she smiles. Her voice somehow comes out extra shiny too. “Maybe I should show the humans this side of me.”
Every particle in my body balks. “No. We shouldn’t give them any more reason to think we’re strange.”
They turn every bit of oddness into something to hate.
Peri’s light contracts until she’s in her regular humanesque form again—leather jacket, sundress, and all. She tips her head to the side as she considers me.
“You said you wanted to protect me. You know you can’t just shut me away in a place like this to stop anything from hurting me, right?” She waves at the castle around us.
“Why not?” I can’t help muttering.
Peri laughs and tucks her hand around my elbow. “I want to look after myself, but I need people too. To feed on their emotions, to learn more about their world, to find my own happiness… It’s nice to take a break, but I want to be out there with them some of the time.”
I already knew that. I don’t think any part of me actually believed I could keep her hidden away in this castle until the disaster is over.
That doesn’t erase the longing to, though.
I open my mouth, searching for the words to convince her to at least spend the day in here until we know what the hunters will do next. Before I can, heavier footsteps tread up to the doorway.
I spin around, jerking back into my own humanesque appearance, just as Raze steps inside. He ducks to fit his hulking frame through the entrance.
All my nerves prickle with alarm—the lug is going to shatter apart all the beauty I built for our mate. I can just picture him crashing and smashing through the ice as he lumbers around.
Tart words to send him out again leap to my tongue, but they might be unfair. Because Raze eases farther inside gingerly, taking every care not to so much as brush against the intricate carvings.
He gazes all around and then catches my gaze with an awkward smile. “I was worried about Peri, so I came looking for her. You made this?”
“I did,” I say, a little sharper than I intended.
Raze shows no sign of offense. His expression relaxes. “It’s incredible. It’s art. I’ve never seen anything like it—that’s some talent you’ve got.”
The compliment warms me more than I expected it to. I’ve given Raze a hard time more often than I can keep track of. I still don’t like thinking about the creatures he slaughters in his hunger for blood.
But he’s good for our mate. And apparently he appreciates creative expression. Who would have thought?
Peri has turned her smile on him. “I’m totally okay. Hail was just distracting me from my worries for a bit.”
I guess my intentions were pretty transparent. That doesn’t mean I can’t extend them. Tasting the waft of affection that’s expanded with Raze’s arrival, I can think of one simple yet very enjoyable way to keep Peri safe and secure for at least a little longer.
“I’ve only just made a start of that.” I grin at Raze. “Do you want to put your talents to use helping me keep our mate busy while the humans are still snoozing?”
Raze catches on fast, with a flare of heat in his gaze. It’s echoed from Peri through our bond.
Her cheeks flush, and a ruddy light dances through her hair. “Right here?”
“Where better? I can make it into an even more appropriate setting…”
I flick my fingers and conjure a bed frame of ice, topped with a snow-soft mattress.
Raze dips his head, and Peri bobs up on her toes to meet his kiss.
Watching their embrace doesn’t spark the slightest flicker of jealousy in me anymore. Possibly because I know I can bring out that flare of passion in her just as well as he can.
And when we work together? Then we can really show our mate a good time.
My dick is already stiffening in my pants with a throb of desire. There isn’t a single being in all my time and all the ways I played around who could stir this hunger in me.
My hands itch to chart every plane of her softly curvy body. I step up behind her and skim my fingers down her sides.
With a pleased hum, Peri turns to face me. She touches my jaw to draw me into a kiss of our own.
When I cup her well-rounded breasts, such a gorgeous more-than-a-handful, her lips part against my mouth with a tiny whimper. I drink in the sound and the brightly sweet taste of her.
Raze dips one hand between her legs, and a deeper moan reverberates from her throat. Peri rocks into his touch, her breath quickening in the most delicious way.
He reaches for her jacket and then pauses. “We don’t want our Glowbug getting cold.”
I make a dismissive sound. “I can take care of that.”
With a push of my power, the chill of the icy walls contracts so it’s pressed close to the frozen surfaces, leaving room for the warm air from outside to breeze in. It’s hardly a furnace within my castle, but none of us will get frostbite.
Peri claims another kiss from me while Raze tugs off her jacket. As I ease up her dress, she yanks at my shirt.
I strip off both garments in turn. The caress of her hands over my bare chest sends the headiest of quivers through my nerves.
Her fingertips linger over the glowing spot on my sternum. It pulses with nothing but eagerness at her attention.
Raze kicks off his jeans and boxers before grabbing Peri’s hand. “She shouldn’t have to feel any of the chill.”
He sprawls out on the snowy mattress, his massive frame indenting the cushiony material—offering Peri another surface to climb onto.
As she straddles him, I hustle over, tugging at my own pants. My cock aches, so rigid now I can barely think about anything other than pressing it inside her.
Peri sinks down onto Raze’s admittedly impressive shaft with a little shudder and a gasp that shoots straight to my groin. I clamber onto my homemade bed behind her and trace my fingers along the cleft of her ass.
“Ready to be doubly filled?”
“Please,” she says with so much wanting I almost explode on the spot.
I conjure a slippery substance that’s only slightly chilly and slick it over Peri’s back opening. She bobs slowly over Raze’s cock. At the swivel of his hands over her breasts, another moan spills out of her.
When I delve my fingers right inside her, she pushes into my touch. “More. Now.”
A shaky laugh tumbles out of me. “I can’t deny you that, Cream Puff.”
Her tighter opening grips me in the most thrilling possible way. I bite back a groan, sliding in as far as I can go, inch by inch.
Peri holds still until she can feel we’re fully joined. I slip my hand around her waist to finger her clit right above where she and Raze meet, and she hitches up with a mewling sound that heats me up twice as much.
I buck into her, slowly at first and then faster as Raze picks up his own pace beneath our mate. Peri sways between us. Every little sound that works from her lips is the most precious delicacy I’ve ever consumed.
It doesn’t take long before I’m on the verge of bursting. I bow close, kissing her neck, her shoulder, and strumming her clit with all the skill I based my old reputation on.
Peri comes apart with a cry and a clench of her muscles around me. I can’t hold myself back from spilling over in turn.
Raze groans a few seconds later and arches up to lock Peri in the fiercest of kisses.
Our mate’s satisfaction radiates through me for my final few thrusts and our sagging together onto the bed. The mattress’s chill doesn’t nip at my wintery skin, but I force myself to press close to Raze so we can support Peri’s body off the cool surface between us.
“Mmm,” she says in a dreamy voice that almost makes me come all over again. “That was a good distraction.”
She cuddles close to us for a few minutes longer before she sighs. “We should be getting back. Gracie might already be awake.”
I suppress my impulse to argue. I’ve given Peri what I could. The last thing she needs is me holding her back out of fear.
I kiss her one last time and help her off the bed. We blink through the shadows into our clothes and emerge at the edge of the camp.
When we come into view of our cluster of trailers, I halt in my tracks. Shadowkind are rushing here and there in an apparent panic.
My gut knots. I dive toward one who’s slipping past us. “What’s happening?”
The being whirls around. Her voice is taut. “This warped atmosphere… It’s spreading on the shadow side too.”