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He turned as he watched her, uneasy with the rigid set of her shoulders and the way her arachnid limbs stretched from her spine and curled in the air in aggressive movements. He stared after her but jumped slightly when Nivira’s quiet voice suddenly spoke at the side of his elbow, causing him to jerk as he spun toward her.
“Oh! Raskyuil, my apologies. I didn’t mean to startle you.” She laughed quietly and backed away a few steps. “I didn’t expect to come and find you standing here outside my tent door!” She glanced one way and then the other on the path, her lips pursing with her obvious confusion. “By chance, did you happen to see Ayla when you arrived?”
“Just as I arrived,” he admitted, casting another wary look down the path that was rapidly darkening as the fires along the main ways were extinguished. He tipped his head. “She headed in that direction, toward the heart of the carnival.” His eyes flicked back to her. “Is something amiss?”
The drya laughed a merry whisper of sound and shook her head. “Nothing that we haven’t been dealing with for the last several days. Her season is coming to an end, but I fear that we just have to suffer through the worst hurdle with this before all will be well.” She sighed heavily. “I should go after her. She is quite irrational, I’m afraid. She frightened MaryAnne enough that I walked her back to your tent a while ago when it appeared that my sister was in a mood to vent venom everywhere—quite literally,” she added dryly. “She is quite difficult when she gets this way. I don’t even know if she went to her performance with how unpredictable she can be at this time. Thank the gods I was able to speak with Elwyn when it appeared that it was taking a turn for the worst. He was shockingly accommodating.
Raskyuil rumbled a polite agreement and stepped back as she suddenly hurried forward with an apologetic smile.
“I suspect that he will have her make up the work once her mind is clear again. He implied as much when he complained of losing coin. But I really must catch up with Ayla. Blessed night, Raskyuil,” she called as she hurried past him, a scent trail reminiscent of lilac and a darker musk following after her.
His brow crinkled in confusion until he realized that it was similar to Ayla’s scent as of late. A light, barely there floral. No doubt the other sister was preparing to go into season. Strange. Of the two sisters it was Ayla he would have expected to bear an earthier, richer bite. Swiping a hand over his face, he chuckled wryly to himself and struck out for his own tent. He hoped to the gods that Nivira continued to be the more rational of the twins even while in her season or else there would be no peace while he remained within the carnival.
Her comment about Elwyn was intriguing, however, and it chased his amusement away. It seemed that even in his “mercy,” the aelf lord was demanding as ever. Perhaps it said something that he was still surprised that the male made an allowance for it. Perhaps he truly cared about those within the carnival. It didn’t seem quite so absurd the more he thought about it on the walk back to his tent. Perhaps it was because there did seem to be some sort of underlying concern when it came to expanding his carnival.
If Elwyn was responsible and carrying out this horror against younglings, could it be rooted in some odd protectiveness over those whom he found and gathered under his care? The thought was disturbing. Onto what dark paths of the mind and dark magic could desperation to keep his carnival safe have led him? What if that was the tainted root of everything that was going on? Was an aelf lord’s madness to blame, corrupting the carnival even as he grew more erratic as the Hallow Night drew nearer?
Raskyuil’s thick tongue swept over his lips nervously. The fog rolled sedately at either side of him, shadows playfully bouncing but never fully gaining form. They didn’t lead him anywhere, nor did they flee from him but seemed to amble along with him merrily, receding in a heavy billow with a hint of laughter when he finally arrived at his tent.
The corner of his mouth quirked as he watched the fog thin there before slowly rising again. This time it contained nothing moving within but had the weight of natural fog, even if thick and rising high from the ground. As it no longer contained younglings spying upon him, he stepped eagerly into his tent, drawing a deep, gulping breath as his mate’s scent washed over him seconds before she looked up from where she sat on their bed with a warm smile.
That smile warmed him thoroughly. He felt it seep deep into his chest and expand rapidly throughout him. He knew part of the feeling was entirely hormonal by being reunited with his mate again after being parted much of the day, but it was more than that. He cherished every smile from her, and every time he was reunited with her, he longed to hear the human love words offered to him and him alone as humans did for their mates.
And once again his heart sank a little in disappointment when they didn’t come, no matter how gently or how affectionately she regarded him. Sometimes he thought perhaps he saw love within her eyes as she looked upon him, but he had never paid close enough attention with the other human females whose company he’d temporarily been around to really take note of what it looked like.
“You look tired,” she observed quietly. “Anything of interest? Aside from Ayla’s meltdown, which I’m assuming you heard about.”
“That I did,” he growled with a sigh. “I don’t know if I enjoy leaving you there if that female is going to be that aggressive and unpredictable.”
MaryAnne grimaced. “Yeah, that was what Nivira said too. She suggested that I take a few days. Elwyn apparently approved it since Nivira’s ability to take clients will be limited, but she says that he appears to be focused on other things anyway. He is certainly around a lot,” she added with a very human roll of her eyes that never failed to amuse him. Her lips thinned for a moment. “I haven’t really been seeing any hint of the children much anymore, and that worries me.”
“Agreed,” he admitted as he filled a kettle with water from the pitcher that his mate recently refilled from the closed cask in the corner. “But I’ve been thinking on that… what if they’re hiding?”
She gave him a curious look but slowly nodded. “I’ve been wondering the same thing. I thought it was just the reason why I was having difficulty finding my own kids. That maybe they were hiding from you. I may have told them a story or two about a troll trying to eat someone.” She gave him an apologetic smile, and he chuckled.
Her smile widened in response but then disappeared just as quickly as she sobered once more. “But when they all started disappearing… I started having the same thoughts. That there’s a reason for them hiding within the fog and playing where they will remain unseen and unheard, just as my children have been.”
“These are my thoughts as well,” he growled, setting the kettle over the hotplate. “And it’s intolerable.” As the water heated, he straightened, stretching his muscles slowly.
Removing his ax from its harness, he set it aside and stripped off his shirt. Kicking off his boots, he was suddenly grateful for the rugs his mate acquired from one of the night aelves and laid out across the ground, giving him a comfortable place to walk and stand that he would have once considered a frivolous luxury. A tiny gasp and a scent of feminine desire was his only warning before warm hands skated against his back, rubbing firmly, drawing the tension and stress from his muscles so that he leaned into with an appreciative purr.
“You’re all knotted up,” she observed quietly as she patiently worked his muscles. Her hands slipped everywhere along his back in the most decadent of caresses that a male such as himself could have scarcely imagined.
“Much is required,” he admitted.
“I know. And I know that I add to this burden,” she whispered as she hit a tight spot just right and he leaned into it with a soft growl of pleasure.
“It is never a burden when it comes to you, MaryAnne,” he rasped earnestly, and for a moment her hands stopped, flattening on his back.
“You really mean that, don’t you?” she whispered, a note of awe in her voice.
He nodded. “Your family is mine. Your burden is mine. Your need is mine. It is Ha’shena and so much more,” he rumbled as he reached back and pinned her small hand beneath his on the small of his back as he glanced over his shoulder at her. “It is because you are you and you are my mate. I would do anything for you.”
Her smile was slow, but when it started it did not stop and was as beautiful as the brightest treasure in the vaults of the gods. Releasing her hand, he dutifully faced forward again when she impatiently nudged him and got back to work, drawing embarrassingly deep moans from him as his muscles warmed beneath her ministrations and his arousal flared to life in response to heat crawling through him.
“You make me soft, little mate,” he growled, his words met by husky laughter.
Her right hand slipped over his hip and firmly cupped his stiff cock. “Seems to me that you’re plenty hard, honey.”
