Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
brENTON
I lay on my bed mat, reading the book Teddy gave me while I waited for Finley to return.
She’d been out there for a while. First, pushing herself through magic training, then some combat drills with Everly.
Meanwhile, Elias was busy doing his kingly duties and meeting with Kassidy so they could plan the day for us.
Everly’s loyalty was steel, but she’d mistaken Finley for an enemy. Yesterday morning, I had set her straight, and she’d apologized. Now all that remained was seeing if she could offer Finley the respect she deserved. The respect I demanded.
The small space still smelled of Finley, proof that my mate had spent two nights with me and hadn’t run away.
She wanted me. She chose me.
“I cannot breathe in a world where I don’t get to be with you. I’ve lived that life, I’ve suffocated in that life.”
I knew that life too well. I’d suffocated in it too. Choked on the distance we kept between us, on the torment of wanting what I thought I could never have.
When our fingers finally threaded together, it was like a fissure cracking through my chest. Something so small and inconsequential, yet it’d torn through me, letting hope flood into the crevices I hadn’t realized were starved and vacant.
Our first kiss hadn’t stolen my breath as I once imagined it might. It had given it back. Her mouth against mine, soft and yielding, had split me open, and air and light rushed in where our broken bond once pressed against me. She hadn’t simply kissed me. She’d un-suffocated me.
I smirked when I reached a page with a hidden note from my sister.
The kids and I left you a little surprise in your pack. You’re welcome.
I grabbed my bag to dig through my belongings, pushing aside the other book I’d brought, another dead end to finding out something about our gods, when my fingers brushed something hard.
Already knowing what it was, I pulled it out and let out a loud bark of laughter when I held Rocko in my palm.
With him being the twins’ favorite of Teddy’s growing pet rock collection, we’d had to use something stronger than magic to keep his eyes in place.
So far, the epoxy glue was holding the best, though I still preferred the hot glue gun for my crafting needs.
After another quick search, I pulled out another rock with a note clipped to it in Victoria’s neat handwriting.
Uncle Brent, we know you miss Luana, so here’s Luana 2.0. We promise we’re taking good care of her and not letting Hee-haw bully her. We miss you.
The note was signed with all three girls’ signatures and two squiggly lines belonging to Caspian and Zayne.
I held the paper to my chest, grinning like a fool as I took in the faint but familiar scent of my family.
I missed them, their giggles and wild imaginations, even the way they thought a rock could stand in for my dog.
It couldn’t. Luana was irreplaceable. And as much as I missed the younglings’ chaos and Teddy’s steadiness, it was Luana’s absence that somehow ached the sharpest.
“What’s that?” Finley asked, closing the flap of our tent.
I held the note to her, watching the smile that bloomed across her face while her eyes softened. Sweat glistened on her forehead, streaking through the dust and grime smeared across her hands.
She looked renewed, and glowed in a way that made it hard to turn away.
From the ease of her posture, I hoped things had gone well, not just with her magic but with Everly too.
I wanted to believe the tension between them would lessen, that maybe friendship wasn’t so far out of reach.
Still, if it ever came down to choosing, there’d be no question where my loyalty would fall.
“Which one of those rocks is Luana 2.0?” she asked.
“Neither,” I said. “Lua cannot be replaced. But this guy is Rocko.” She took the offered pebble, shaking him to make his googly eyes bounce. “It was the rock I gave Teddy on her coronation day.”
“Yes, I heard of that,” she said, shifting the rock from one hand to the other. “I don’t mean to judge, but I don’t understand the tradition or attachment humans have to rocks.”
I laughed, the kind that ripped free from my lungs before I could stop it. Then I leaned forward, gesturing for her to come closer. She sat in front of me, her knee brushing across mine while my shorts, which she still wore, rode up her toned legs.
Gods, she looked beautiful in my clothes. The sun had kissed her skin, bronzing what Niev’s winter kept pale. The sight of her wrapped in my shirt stirred something primal, and I reveled in knowing my scent would linger on her skin long after the fabric was gone.
“Can you keep a secret?” I asked, my words dipping conspiratorially, inviting her to play along.
She nodded, her eyes bright with a spark that told me she was already in. “Always.”
I leaned a little closer, my tone turning secretive just to amuse her. “Good.”
She shivered when my lips brushed against her ear, tilting her head as if baring her throat to me in invitation. The sight undid me. Heat rose, and my canines lengthened in answer. A sudden need to sink my teeth into her burned through every nerve. To make her mine.
I dragged myself back before instinct won, forcing enough distance that I could breathe. Her attention caught on my canines, and a soft sound escaped her.
The soft, needy sound echoed inside me, stirring my length with aching insistence.
So I smirked, wanting levity to slip in where hunger threatened to destroy me. “Lolli,” I rasped, my pulse thundering, every part of me letting on how desperate I was for my soul-bound mate. “You have no idea how close I am to sinking my teeth into you.”
Her gaze lingered on my teeth, on the sharp points that edged through my teasing smile. I watched her carefully, tracking every flicker in her eyes, every shift in her breathing. There was hunger there, but the hesitation gave me pause.
A flush crept across her cheeks, and she lifted a hand to her throat, her fingers running against the goosebumps that rose along her skin.
Bravery or madness had her reaching out a featherlight graze against my jaw before tracing the sharp curve of one of my canines. I sucked in a breath, every muscle in my body tightening with the need to bring her closer.
She seemed to startle herself, pulling her hand back and pressing it between her thighs.
“Your secret,” she whispered, her voice thready.
I blinked, and with a forced grin, I slid into my earlier tease before she’d almost shattered the rest of my resolve.
“Ah, yes.” I lifted a finger, ignoring the rough edge in my tone.
“The important matter of rock collecting and what it means to humans.” I winked, my heart fluttering at the way her lips twitched.
I leaned in, not too close, but enough to toy with the space between us. “Do you promise to keep my secret?”
Although her expression grew serious, her eyes sparkled with mischief. She pressed a palm to her chest. “I vow to never utter a word.”
“Humans have no sacred attachment with rocks,” I whispered as if revealing a grave truth. “At the coronation, I told fae to gift Teddy a rock or pebble as a joke.”
Finley snickered. “A joke?”
I gave her a slow nod. “Why else would anyone adorn a rock with googly eyes?”
“Were the fae in on this joke?”
“Of course not.” I pressed a hand to my chest in mock despair.
“And now it’s spiraled out of my control, Lolli.
Our poor king and queen are drowning in rocks.
Entire shelves, whole tables. They have an entire room dedicated to stones, but I fear they’ve run out of space.
” I sighed dramatically, pointing at the rock she still held.
“Teddy keeps abandoning Rocko at my house, and somehow, he’s found his way into my pack.
And now he has apparently recruited this poor representation.
” I held up the stone, the younglings named Luana 2. 0.
She nudged her knee against me, her smile shy but real. “What if these rocks start forming factions?”
And gods, my chest tightened, because my Lolli was still here, still laughing with me, still playing along as if we hadn’t lost years.
“I can see it all too clearly, Squishy,” she said, her grin a bit wicked.
The word, the nickname, hit me like a punch to my gut. Squishy. My throat went dry with memories flashing of younger hands, younger laughter. Of a girl who’d always known how to knock me off balance.
Her expression turned serious. “Luana 2.0 is clearly a radical in the uprising, all in the plot to put Rocko on the throne.”
A laugh burst out of me, raw and loud, before I dropped my voice to the same conspiratorial tone she’d used. “We must prepare, then. If the rocks rise, we’re all doomed.”
The tent flap rustled when Everly ducked inside. Finley straightened, but it wasn’t with the sharp, guarded tension she carried around others. Her shoulders eased almost immediately, her lips still angled with what remained of her smile.
She looked . . . lighter, keeping her expression open as Everly eyed us.
“Have you started collecting rocks as well?” Everly asked, her tone caught somewhere between disbelief and amusement. “Teddy keeps hiding hers in the most ridiculous places. Under my pillow, in my boots. I swear to the gods, if you two start that here . . .”
Finley laughed, the sound bright and unrestrained. It was something I’d never heard from her in front of others. She leaned into me, her eyes dancing. “I think I’ll keep this one for myself,” she said, hugging Rocko to her chest before her eyes widened. “If that’s okay, I mean?”
I brushed a finger across her cheek, enraptured with the way her joy shone from within. “You can hold on to it until I make you your own rock.”
She bit her lip. “What about the uprising?”
“Uprising?” Everly asked, brows pulled together.