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I about gagged at the nickname, and heard him snort at my reaction even as his form shifted.
Mine followed soon after his, and faster than I would’ve thought possible a few days earlier, we were in the air.
Fifteen
We flew allthe way back to the Stronghold, and Calian left me to my thoughts. I wasn’t sure where my mind was at—mostly, it was just a mess.
Everything had happened too quickly, and I was past overwhelmed. If Lian could read my emotions the way I had started to be able to read his, he would realize that and back the hell off.
When we got to the Stronghold, the phoenix guy circled overhead, and the hellhound one followed us to the door, snarling and snapping at the other men waiting outside. He stood behind us while we waited for one of the other ladies to get the door. When Dots pulled it open, eyeing the guys behind us, the hellhound guy dipped his head and gave us a feral grin before he took off into the trees.
The door closed behind us, and Calian made quick work of the locks. Not as quickly as Ana had that first day, but he didn’t have the same experience.
“So?” Sunny demanded as we walked into the living room. She, Mare, and Dots occupied a couch, and were clutching their pillows and blankets with excitement.
I guessed things usually got pretty boring in the Stronghold.
“Tell us everything,” Dots ordered.
My instincts were to clam up and hide out, but that wasn’t how shit worked in the Stronghold. And the girls there… well, I wanted to be close with them, like they were with each other.
I liked them, even if it might have been a shitty call on my part.
So, I ignored my instincts, collapsing onto a couch. When Calian dropped next to me and pulled half of me up onto his lap, I let him.
I had to pick my battles with that bastard, after all.
I told the other girls everything that had happened and everything that I’d learned. About the fae not knowing what sex was—that one shocked the hell out of them and led to way too much laughter—about the Wild Hunt guys, about the seelie versus the unseelie… everything I’d heard, which turned out to be a hell of a lot more than they’d learned in their time in Vevol.
Then again, I’d had a front-row seat, while they’d been safely tucked away in the Stronghold.
When I finally finished explaining and headed to the kitchen for something to eat, I noticed North leaning up against the doorway of her room, her eyes narrowed but not angry as she stared at me.
She must’ve come out when she realized what we were talking about.
When she realized that I’d noticed her standing there, she spun around and stormed back into her room, slamming the door hard behind her.
I shrugged it off.
Calian cooked for all of us—I was pretty sure I was going to have to fight Mare, Dots, and Sunny for the bastard if he kept doing that—and then he and I retired to our room. I tossed my middle finger over my head when Sunny hollered to keep the sex quiet this time, and ignored my burning cheeks.
I was exhausted, and having a full stomach only made me want to sleep even more.
When the door was closed behind us and we were alone in my room, it took me a minute to look around and see what had happened. Someone had fixed the hole in the roof—Lian’s friends, I assumed—and left a new sheet and blanket tossed haphazardly over a fresh mattress. The ashes or whatever had been on the ground had been swept up and removed. Even though the scorch marks remained on the walls and floors, the space smelled clean.
“Damn,” I murmured, taking everything in.
Lian was already putting the sheet on the bed, the thick blanket draped over his shoulder.
“You have good friends,” I admitted to him. “Or brothers, I guess. What are their names?”
Calian dropped the mattress and tossed the blanket over the bed. “The hellhound is Priel. He’s a bastard, but the most loyal fae you can find. Ervo is the phoenix. He’s the most intelligent of us, notices every fucking detail that the rest of us miss, but he’s private. I know less about him than the others, despite the centuries we’ve known each other.” He waved me over, and I slowly, reluctantly, shuffled toward him. “Nev is the basilisk. He’s a sneaky asshole, but could make a damned forest mouse laugh.”
“A forest mouse?” My voice was dubious.
“This big. Fuzzy.” He moved his hands in about the same size as a loaf of bread.
Fuck, I didnotwant to meet one of those mice.
