Page 21

I play through the end, then I lift my mouth from the instrument. “I was going for elusive and too rare to last. I’d hardly call that a tune you can catch.”

“Tell that to my whip.”

With a chuckle, I slide my gaze over my shoulder. “Is that a fact?”

One of my linen shirts hangs off Lark’s body and buffets her upper thighs. That ravishing little gold cuff encircles her thigh like bait, and the shirt’s neckline plunges low, offering a tempting half-moon view of her breasts. With her white hair avalanching down her curves and her toes exposed under the oversized garment, she’s equally adorable and provocative.

“Dear me,” I murmur while flipping the flute between my fingers. “You’re quite the delectable sight.”

She plucks the sides of the shirt. “What? This ol’ thing?”

I swing fully toward her. “I could rip it and make the infernal thing look older.”

“I’m sore as fuck, but I’ll take you up on that later.” Lark cocks her head. “Another nightmare?”

Visions of the cage assault my mind. We’ve described our recurring nightmares of The Trapping in gruesome detail before, though I’m in no mood to rehash.

I jam the instrument into the harness across my back. “The fresh air and music help to settle the images.”

“Tell me about the music, then,” she suggests. “Never heard that one before. What inspired it?”

“You,” I say. “Us.”

The way her complexion flushes is out of character, as is the shy dip of her head. She tucks a lock behind her ear, then glances at me. “You composed a tune for us?”

I soften my voice. “If I say yes, what then?”

My mate’s eyes glisten. Her awed features kindle my soul with tenderness and rancor. I know why she’s looking at me like this, long before she says it. “No man has ever…done something that like for me.”

I’m going to dismember every male who ever touched her, bedded her, fucked her, used her, and then left her.

“I’m no man,” I say. “But I’m yours.”

Lark smiles. “The music is pretty painful, but it’s also beautiful.”

“That, it is.”

The wind whisks against us, resounding with a low whistle. I suspect we’re not moving closer to each other because if we do, that shirt won’t stay on longer than a second. After our antics, we really need to come up for air.

We admire one another, her small grin doubtless a mirror image of mine. It’s enough to wipe out the residue of my nightmare.

Then I feel it—the change in air pressure.

Then Lark sees it—a presence at my back.

Fury and fear expand her pupils. Those emotions do the same to my reflexes.

She and I exchange a single look, then we move.

In unison, Lark unspools the whip I hadn’t noticed in her hand until now, and I whirl the javelin. I cross the lawn in seconds, surge in front of her, and pivot. My weapon blocks the soaring dagger mid-flight, knocking it off its trajectory toward Lark’s skull.

Steel glints and topples to the ground. In sync with my motions, Lark’s lashes out her whip, which strikes past me and hooks the weapon’s owner by his ankle. With a deft jerk, she yanks on the slack and sends the Fae to the grass.

The instant he smacks against the promontory’s rim, my mate executes a second lash that nooses the figure by the throat.

Then we’re on him. Lark and I blast ahead and slam to our knees above the Fae, who’s flaming hair and sweltering yellow eyes match the shade of his skin and smoking wings.

Anxiety cramps Lark’s face. She recognizes the firebird Fae, a member of the trio who’d attacked her during her game. At The Lost Bridges, one of them had tried to throw her off a platform, but I’d skewered him with my javelin. Nevertheless, he and his flock have been prominent figures in her nightmares.