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A purely elemental smile slid across Veyka’s face. “I wish that someday, I will be able to go an entire day doing nothing but sleep, fuck, and eat pastries.”

The green woman percolated with glee and waved Veyka forward.

But instead, my mate turned to me.

The humans in line behind us were starting to grumble. It was well past dusk now, the darkness of night steadily falling, faster with every passing minute. They wanted to be inside the festival, not standing in line to make their ridiculous wishes and be admitted.

Blend in. Get from one side of the Crossing to the other. Get to Avalon, for Veyka’s sake.

For Veyka’s sake, I could make a stupid wish.

But my mind went blank. Because of course it did.

The words coming out of my mouth were not a coherent thought at all. “I wish that you could see Eilean Gayl.”

The woman frowned. So did my mate.

But then the green would-be nymph was swaying to the side, eyes intent on the group behind us. Veyka and I stepped out of the way, into the festival.

I was spared having to explain by the spectacle before us.

A nightly festival instead of sleep, to pass the darkness in revelry rather than fear of the nightwalkers coming to steal their minds. Foolish. Impractical. Irritatinglyhuman.

The nightwalkers would still come for them. They had to sleep eventually.

Everyone was in varying stages of undress, I realized. Very little clothing to be had. It was slightly warmer here in the southern part of the human realm, but not warm enough to be shirking all that clothing, especially at night.

Most of the men wore little more than loincloths. Many women wore the same, their breasts proudly on display. But even so, their skin was hardly visible.

Their bodies were painted.

Every color of the rainbow and every hue in between.

Some had actually painted swirls of rainbow across their bodies. Geometric designs, faces painted to look like animals… it was wild. There were, of course, some who hadn’t painted themselves. More modestly dressed, young children whose faces were painted and the rest of them clothed. We weren’t the only ones with unadorned skin. But we were certainly in the minority.

Veyka’s grip on my arm tightened. “We’d better find ourselves some paint,” she said.

I was ready to protest that. Until I realized I didn’t need to.

Either side of the Crossing was lined with booths—and a significant number of those booths were selling food. Utter longing was tracking across my mate’s face. “First, food.”

* * *

Watching Veyka eat made me hard.

She made the exact same face when she bit into something decadent as she did when I slid my fingers inside of her. The little huffed exhale of pleasure after she’d smelled something delicious—the same sound she’d made when she saw my cock for the first time.

Fuck. I was hard.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise, the painted, nearly naked humans around us were as unencumbered as the fae. I watched Veyka’s eyes track a couple that walked by us… a woman with her legs wrapped around her partner’s waist as he carried her away, face buried in her neck.

Her blue eyes went a bit hazy.

“If that is what we need to do to go unnoticed, I am more than happy to oblige.” My voice was a soft growl. Maybe it was my beast growling.

Veyka’s eyes flicked to me. Her tongue emerged from her mouth, dragging along her lower lip, licking away the crumbs of the hand pie she’d eaten. “I think we need some paint first.”

She was incorrigible, but I couldn’t bring myself to refuse her. She purchased three small pots of paint, but didn’t open them immediately. We walked up the wide strip of land, teeming with humans.