AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Which, frankly, was a grave insult to my feet, but I wasn’t in a position to make demands on that big a scaleyet.
It’d have been easier if I could have at leastflown, but I was still pretty much a newbie when it came to shifting. The last thing I wanted was to blow my wad of energy before we even got to this fairy queen. From everything I’d heard, I was going to need all my wits and power for thatconfrontation.
My alphas had stayed in human form—so they could talk to the monarch too, I guessed, and probably also to keep me company. But a few of Aaron’s kin had joined us as their bird selves. Alice had squeezed my hand and told me to give the fae hell before taking off as an eagle nearly as large as her brother’s. A shrike, a raven, and an albatross were soaring over the forest alongside us as well, watching for any suspicious faeactivity.
Aaron strode along in the lead, scanning the forest with his watchful eyes. Marco sauntered after him with his feline grace. West was walking as far behind me as he could manage without running into Nate, who was guarding ourflanks.
The bond between me and my eagle and bear glowed through me with a comforting heat. But I was just as aware of my other two mates and the nagging pull toward them, begging to be fulfilled. Especially West. Even though he was keeping his distance, my back kept tingling with the sense of his gaze on me. A sudden, more heady kind of heat: there, then jerked away, then thereagain.
I tugged at the skirt of my new dress to lift it out of the way of my shoes as we scrambled up a small rocky slope. This one was a crimson silk instead of the earlier pink, but I liked it too. It was a color that said I wasn’t one to take anynonsense.
Which I wasn’t, with fae or with mymates.
I slowed my pace until West had no choice but to let me fall back beside him. The path was just wide enough for us to walk side-by-side, though I had to make a conscious effort not to let my arm brush his. He looked straight ahead, his jawtightening.
“Is this really how we’re going to do this from now on?” I asked. “With you going around all day acting like I’ve gravely offended yousomehow?”
“None of my responsibilities as alpha demand that I pander to you,” heretorted.
“Oh, please. In the last two days you’ve been friendlier to the furniture than you’ve been to me. I’m not saying you’ve got to throw me a party. I just don’t see why you’ve got to completely freeze meout.”
I heard him swallow. “I think you know what the problem is,Sparks.”
A flare of anger I hadn’t expected shot through me. Because I didn’t know. Because nothing about how he was acting seemed remotely reasonable tome.
I raised my chin. “I can think of a whole lot of things you might be pissed off about, but I honestly haven’t got a clue why you seem to be pissed off atme. You want to be my mate and you also don’t. Fine. Take all the time you want figuring that out. When have I ever said anything else? I’m not trying to push you into anything. The most I’ve ever asked you for is a kiss, two weeks ago. So be frustrated with yourself, or the situation, or, hell, even my mom for how she handled things. But I don’t see how it’s fair for you to take that out onme.”
Silence hung between us for a minute. There was nothing but the rasp of our feet over the uneven ground. I started to wonder if I’d pissed him off even more. Then West inhaled sharply. His voice came out even throatier thanusual.
“You’re right. I haven’t been completely fair. I’m sorry forthat.”
Some of the tension in me ebbed. “So... we can move to at least politeconversation?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Maybe some. That’s not really my forte at the best of times. Don’t push yourluck.”
He hadn’t said much, but the space between us felt less fraught now. I was about to pick up my pace and give him the breathing room he obviously wanted when he added, “So I guess we’re heading to the bear shifter’s estatenext.”
There was an odd note in his voice that squeezed my heart even though I couldn’t say exactly why. “What makes you saythat?”
One of his eyebrows lifted. “The five of us are all bound together to some extent, Sparks. When you confirm that connection with one, you’d better believe the rest of us knowit.”
My cheeks warmed at the thought of the other guys sensing what Nate and I had been up to a couple hoursago.
But why shouldn’t they know? Eventually, the way things were meant to be, itwouldbe all ofus.
I rubbed my mouth. “Ah. Well, yeah, I guess it would make sense to visit Nate’s kin next. The way thingsare.”
West made a noncommittal sound. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. But the conversation seemed to be over, so I sped up. We had to be getting close to the meeting spot anyway. I couldn’t afford to be distracted fromthat.
The path had swerved. Aaron was just disappearing from sight up ahead. I hurried even more, my nerves prickling—and a bright feathered shape swooped out of the sky in front ofme.
Alice transformed as she plummeted, but with complete control. She landed on her feet with a thump, her hands already rising in a defensive stance. She’d kept her eagle talons protruding from her bare feet. They looked nearly as sharp as my dragonclaws.
Before I could take another step, Alice’s right arm shot out to motion me back. I halted. My ears perked, but I didn’t hear anything ominous in the forest around us. “What’swrong?”
“That tree.” She waved a fist at the broad juniper a few feet ahead of us by the end of the path. “Something’s off about it. It got this... glint to it when you cameclose.”
The tree? I cocked my head at it, but it still looked like a totally ordinary plant to me. Alice took a few steps closer, totally at ease in her nakedness. I’d been around shifters enough in the last few weeks that their casual nudity was starting to seem a lot less weird tome.
