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“What is wrong with you?” she strained, her raging arousal refusing to stay hidden behind her righteous indignation.

He snatched her hand and tugged her with him. “I’ll tell you everything when we’re in the vehicle. Pull away again,” he half begged, “and I’ll stop and sketch your coming discipline right in your slick cunt with just one finger. Then I’ll make you thank me for the fuckinglovenote.”

A New King

The clearing held a stillness that hadn’t settled yet. Krave stood near the edge with his arms folded, staring at the path Reuban and Larena had taken, the wind inside him at a low idle. It no longer pushed and shoved at him but waited. Restrained. But not controlled. Not hardly.

“She’s missing it.”

Krave angled his head over his shoulder at Kildare pacing as he eyed the hut.

“Missing what?” Krave turned, eyeing the restless flicker of his fire just beneath the skin at his neck.

“Him. The boy.” He leveled a simmering gaze at him for a few seconds. “Herson.”

The term lodged in his chest while the unspoken things made it burn. That he wastheirson. And he was lying with his dead mother. Their dead wife.

“Do you think he’s done… measuring?” Krave asked, holding him down with his stare.

Kildare barely angled his head at him. “We could ask,” he carefully suggested.

A flame fluttered at his pulse and Krave’s winds stirred in response. Their powers were like illegitimate lovers now.

“It’s only been fifteen minutes.”

Kildare turned his gaze to the door of the hut. “Well… if he’ll be full grown in four more hours and he was six when he went down for a nap, then… he’s growing thirty-six days a minute.” Kildare brought a quirked brow back to him.

“He’s seven and a half now?” Krave marveled, getting Kildare’s nod. “So in fifteen more minutes, he’ll be—”

“Eight and half,” Kildare said, crossing his arms over his chest and eyeing the stone abode again.

“What are you thinking?” Krave asked, the stir of his fire tickling his winds.

“I’m thinking we should capture his childhood. Or what’s left of it.” He eyed him again, this time, purpose sharpening his gaze. “My phone is in the vehicle. I’ll be right back.”

A massive dust storm slapped him in the face as Kildare shot out like a rocket. “Okay,” Krave muttered, swiping the dust away with a hand while wondering what he could possibly need his phone for. Anybody that could be reached by such a means had absolutely no value to their situation.

Kildare landed behind him, kicking up a dust storm again as he approached with his phone, clearing the air with a single flap of his wings before tucking them into his skin. “Video,” he announced, showing Krave the screen.

“For?”

He stood next to Krave, holding the camera up. “To capture what’s left of his childhood,” he reiterated. He flashed his perfect grin at the screen.

“Any logic to go with that re-run?”

He gave Krave confused brows. “Because she’ll want to see what she missed,” he slowly articulated right at him, holding the phone back up before them. “Say hello to our Lost Saint,” he instructed, making Krave wonder.

“You know something I don’t, brother?”

He lowered the camera and muttered quietly near his ear. “I know she’s not supposed to die. Not now. And while he’s growing, we can capture memories for her and speak to him while we’re at it.”

Krave realized. “You think he might be done measuring.”

“Would be something natural to ask while gathering memories.”

Krave hurried for the hut, a flaming red wing hitting his chest and jerking him back. “What are you going to say?” he whispered.

“What do you mean what am I going to say?” he wondered back quietly.