AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I step back out in our flat’s kitchen, only to see a very naked Gabe streak down the hallway to our bedroom.
“Naked boy alert,” I crow.
Laughter comes from both the man cave and our bedroom.
Charlie comes out of the man cave, carrying two duffels and Gabe’s jeans over his arm. Charlie’s dressed the way he was when I left a few minutes ago, but he’s wearing a huge grin now as well.
“You two couldn’t have shagged. We were gone five minutes.”
Charlie licks the edges of his mouth like a cat licking off cream. “You underestimate how fast a bloke can blow when he’s not trying to impress a girl.”
I shake my head at him. “Deviant.”
He strolls to me and pecks a kiss on the tip of my nose. The musky saline of his breath makes my eyes water.
“Now who has spooge-breath, Charlie Miller? You are rank, mate.”
Charlie laughs and hugs me with his free arm. “All okay at the other end?”
I nod.
“I said we’d be right back, though, and I don’t much like the idea of leaving Darwin alone with his father for more’n a few minutes,” I say, then raise my voice so the naked boy in the bedroom can hear me. “So someone needs to get his kecks on.”
Both boys laugh. Gabe emerges from our bedroom. He’s wearing a black, long sleeve that’s tight enough to show all of the muscles of his shoulders and arms under a deep cherry red gilet that brings out the russet highlights we’ve added to his hair. He has on black boxers, black socks, and his Docs, unlaced. Although Gabe has beautiful legs, they do look dead funny framed between the boxers and socks.
“You’re going like that, mate? Your arse is gonna get nippy.”
Grinning, Gabe shakes his head at me and swipes his jeans from Charlie. He toes off his Docs, steps into his pants, and fastens everything up. Then he grabs me up in a hug. “Are you mad?”
“Mad? Why would I be mad seein’ you running around starkers? I’ve seen it before, you know.”
“Because we didn’t wait for you.”
“Oh.” I pretend to huff. “Yeah, I’m right ragey. I need double my usual quota of orgasms to make up for all my mad ... ness.”
Gabe chuckles. “You wouldn’t be able to walk.”
“The terms of your challenge are accepted,” I tell him archly before I grab Charlie’s hand and drag us all into the Earth.
* * *
I thought Princely was beautiful?He’s the ugly duckling of his family. Seriously.
His younger sisters, Orlaith and Leanna, are so beautiful they’re literally hard to look at. But for their breathing and the soft, rose flush of their cheeks, they could be marble statues, their skin is so perfect. They have heart-shaped faces with huge, moonlit eyes. Where Darwin’s hair is dark at the roots and ashy at the ends, their knee-length hair—knee-length, I’ve never seen a person with hair as long as theirs—is the blue-black of the midnight sky. They’re both as tall as I am, which is freaky because I know they’re only in their mid-teens so they have some growing to do, I assume. But they have none of the gawkiness I had in my mid-teens. They’re so graceful and coordinated, they glide above the marble floors as they show us around the Ember Palace.
I can tell there’s something significant about Callan assigning us the Ember Palace. Darwin’s pale—paler than usual—as we walk around and his brow’s furrowed like a zipped-up puffer coat. But he doesn’t say anything so I don’t ask him in front of the twins. There’ll be time for us to talk privately later.
The Ember Palace is swish, no question, but it’s no Buckingham Palace or nowt. It’s like a country manor house. Fancy paper on the upper walls and wainscotting below. Mirrors in those silly, ornate, gilded frames on every wall between big canvases that are probably original masterworks but just look a bit dreary to me. There’s no turrets, although it does have its own inner courtyard and below-ground pool, which is fucking luxe. We are gonna do some serious skinny-dipping this week.
It also has not one, not two, but three libraries, with floor to ceiling, leather-bound books, antique mahogany desks and deep reading chairs. The windows on the north and west side of the “palace” open on somewhere that ain’t the sprawling, walled enclosure of the Thistlemist Court. Inside the court, it’s winter, with dead leaves curled up in the corners of buildings and a frosting of snow between the cobblestones. Out of those windows, it’s summer, with a meadow of wildflowers in full bloom and will-o-the-wisps flitting among kaleidoscopes of butterflies.
Guess that’s why another name for Faery is the “Summerlands.”
There’s a clear divide within the Ember Palace between the part that’s in the mortal realm and the part that’s in Faery. I can feel it when I cross the threshold like a cold breeze up my back. The kitchen, formal dining room, ballroom, and one of the libraries are the “mortal” part of the house while the rest of the living space is in Faery. I don’t much care about the ballroom and there are two other libraries to choose from, but having the kitchen be in part of the house where we might be vulnerable to Klotho puts a damper on midnight snack runs.
Evidently believing that I’m not shagging my boys every spare moment, we’ve all been given separate bedrooms.
A bad fucking surprise awaits me in mine.
