Page 83

NINETEEN

Snap

How could I ever have forgotten the tempting spicy sweetness of Sorsha’s skin? Thinking back to those days when everyone and everything I’d known in the mortal world had felt so unfamiliar sent a jarring sensation through my mind.

So I put the thoughts out of my mind and focused on the much more enjoyable sensation of slicking my tongue across the nub of my beloved’s breast.

Sorsha’s breath caught with the hitch I loved to provoke, her fingers tightening where they’d twined with my hair. I gave the risen nipple a little nip I’d discovered could bring out even more delightful sounds and eased up to claim her mouth again.

My hand delved through the tangle of sheets on her bed to tease between her thighs. The slit where we both found so much pleasure met my touch slick and ready. Mmm, I would have to start our mornings off this way more often.

Sorsha’s knee rose against my hip, but she pulled her face slightly back from mine with a rough inhalation. “Snap—I think we’re going to need to be more careful from now on.”

I couldn’t resist dipping one of my fingers into that hot slickness within her. The way she bit her lip made me want to kiss her all over again, but I wasn’t sure what she’d meant. “Careful how?”

“Well—what we found out about me. That from the sounds of things, my parents discovered some way that my mother could have a kid even though she was a shadowkind. It sounds like it must have been pretty difficult to manage, but—we don’t know whether I could get pregnant. So probably better not to risk it.”

Right. This act of merging bodies was how humans created life. Could what we did here, what we’d already done mingling so closely and passionately, bring about a being that was somehow both her and me?

The idea sent a quivering thrill through me. She was my beloved, in every sense of the word I understood. She’d told me she loved me even when faced with my most monstrous form, even after I’d admitted how harsh and selfish the hunger inside me could be. And I didn’t know what else this other hunger—tender and selfless instead, wanting to possess her but only as much as the act would please her too—could be.

Love barely seemed a big enough word to encompass the feeling that lit me up with a warm glow whenever I looked at her.

I kissed her temple and eased my lips down until I could nibble her tender earlobe. “Would having a child be so awful, Peach?”

Sorsha laughed and tugged my mouth to hers so she could kiss me back. “Maybe not, someday way down the line,” she said. “You have no concept of what babies are like, do you? They take a lot of work, and they need a lot of attention and security. Not really a good fit for our current lifestyle.”

“Hmm. But perhaps later. When there’s no more Company of Light to worry about?”

“We’ll see. I never really saw myself starting a family, at least not… not recently. But it’s starting to feel a little more possible. I mean, assuming we all survive this war we’ve ended up in.”

“We will,” I said, wishing I felt as certain about that as I did about my adoration of the woman beside me. I worked another finger inside her, testing the sensitive inner flesh for the spot that sent the greatest flush of bliss over her skin. “How do we be ‘careful’ in the meantime?”

Sorsha arched into my touch. When she managed to speak, her voice was thick with desire. “For now, we’d better stick to hands or mouths. Which you’re doing a very good job of, by the way. And I’ll have to pick up some condoms—we put those over you”—she stroked her hand across my erection, drawing it even stiffer with a surge of delight—“and then no worries about babies.”

I could follow those rules—and perhaps adapt them to my purposes to even more enjoyable effect. I pulled myself down her body, still stroking her between her legs. “How about hands and mouths, then?”

“I’m sure as hell not going to argue?—”

I flicked my tongue over that other responsive nub just above her slit, and her agreement cut off with a gasp. I transformed the gasp into a moan by adding the pressure of my lips.

Her taste filled my mouth, even more fiery down here. The most delicious thing I’d ever tasted.

Something clanged from the kitchen area down the hall. Ruse’s voice filtered through the wall. “I come bearing breakfast! Who’s ready to eat?”

I was too busy savoring this delicacy to be tempted by whatever he was offering. But Sorsha would need to fill her stomach simply to keep her strength up. I wouldn’t keep her from her sustenance very long, then.

I suckled harder, pumping my fingers in and out of her while adding a third. Sorsha let out a guttural sound. Her body clenched around me and then sagged with a shudder of release. More wetness seeped over my fingers as I withdrew them. I licked it off and smiled. “All the breakfast I need.”

Sorsha laughed again and tugged me down next to her. Her hand trailed over my chest to my still-rigid cock. When she wrapped her fingers around it, a groan tumbled from my lips. I would so much have liked to delve that wondrous part of my physical body right inside her. Perhaps Ruse had some of these ‘condoms’ around, given that sexual intimacies were his specialty?

But that thought led me back to the reasons we needed that protection and the possibilities of how Sorsha herself had been conceived. Even through the expanding swell of pleasure, my mind latched onto a memory from before we’d ever become so intimate.

I stilled her hand before I could lose the thought in my distraction. Sorsha looked up into my face with a question in her expression.

“It makes sense now,” I said.

“I’m glad my hand job came with bonus enlightenment. What does?”

“The impressions I gleaned from that pretty box that your parents left for you.” I might not have known just how much I’d come to value Sorsha’s existence at the time, but I’d still been honored that she’d trusted me with the treasures of her past. “The strongest sense was that they’d taken a lot of risks to bring you into their lives—that it almost hadn’t been possible at all. Because of how difficult it must have been for the two of them to conceive you at all.”

“That’s true. I’d forgotten you took your reading of the box.” She paused. “You didn’t get any sense of someone else being involved in that process—someone they owed a debt to or wished I could have met or anything like that?”

“You mean if the Ruby shadowkind was connected to them and helped them somehow?” I shook my head. “It was all focused on you and their bond with you. But that doesn’t mean Ruby wasn’t involved. It was so long ago, the impressions were quite vague.”

“I get it.” She grimaced. “I remember that you also told me there was someone from Luna’s past that she missed. I wonder if that was the lighting store fae or our gloomy elf. I never thought to ask her about the things she left behind—somehow I always took it for granted that her whole life should be dedicated to me.”

I stroked my hand over Sorsha’s hair. “From what I know of shadowkind, I don’t think she’d have made the sacrifice if you weren’t much more important to her than anything she gave up.”

Thinking about her losses had dampened my desire. I could fulfill it to greater effect once she’d gathered her protections anyway. I sat up, tugging her with me. “You should have your breakfast before it gets cold.”

Sorsha arched an eyebrow at me. “Are you sure?”

I stole one last kiss. “I have everything I need. For now.”

We emerged from the bedroom to find that Ruse had laid out his bounty on the RV’s table—and Omen had returned to join us. The hellhound shifter had gone off on his own again not long after we’d finished questioning Gloam, who’d had no contact with the shadowkind named Ruby either, at least as far as he’d admitted. From our leader’s stern expression, I suspected his independent search hadn’t turned up any new information either.

Sorsha must have made the same assessment. “No sign of our mysterious Ruby?” she said as she slid onto the sofa-bench. I sat beside her and picked up a particularly delectable-smelling pastry with syrupy cherries in the middle.

Omen sighed. “As far as I can tell, none of the shadowkind in the city even saw her, let alone noticed any catastrophe she caused. It could be that the Highest’s lackeys cleared out any other being who’d been drawn into her schemes… but I’d have expected there to at least be rumors of that kind of round-up.”

“Perhaps it was a false rumor that brought them here to begin with,” Thorn suggested. “Or a piece of information they thought was related to her but wasn’t after all. We don’t know how many cities they conducted a more intensive search in. The fact that they did here, where Sorsha was born, might not be that great a coincidence.”

“True enough. For all we know, they harassed shadowkind across every metropolitan area in this half of the country.” The hellhound shifter’s next breath came out in a huff. “I suppose there’s no point in continuing to go out of our way looking for Ruby. Whatever trail there was is long cold. We’ll have to make do with what we have. Rex’s hacker thought the command center of the Company was located in San Francisco. We’ll scope them out and decide how to proceed from there.”

Sorsha had picked up a wrap stuffed with cheesy scrambled eggs. She stopped in mid-bite, her stance tensing, and lowered her meal with an audible gulp. “You want us to leave now?”

Omen eyed her across the table. “It seems we’ve achieved all we can here. We have a basic sense of how you came to be what you are and no way of quickly determining any of the details. Did you really think we’d forget about our primary mission while we searched out the key to an incident that no shadowkind I’ve ever heard of has stumbled on before or since?”

“It might not be that hard to figure out. How many shadowkind have wanted to have kids anyway? I thought I’d at least talk to the local Fund branch again. Klaus might remember more if I ask him some leading questions. And we could use their help with that primary mission too.”

Omen made a scoffing sound at that idea. “It was hard enough getting the humans who knew you to contribute when we were in their own city, Disaster. What are these mortals going to do for us when we take on San Francisco?”

“I don’t know. It just seems worth a try. Trying did get us somewhere more than once before, as you’ve admitted yourself.” She waggled the wrap at him.

“And let’s hope I never have to again,” he said dryly. “They have your contact information if they feel spurred to action, don’t they?”

“Well, yes, but—” Sorsha hesitated, the fierceness in her eyes dimming. I was about to put down my pastry and reach out to her when she found her voice again. “We still don’t know why my powers have been acting up. I don’t know how much help I’m going to be if I can’t be sure I’ll burn up the right people when people need burning.”

Omen propped himself against the kitchen counter, looking unconcerned. “I think we’ve got enough of an answer for that. Obviously your human parts are having trouble accepting the shadowkind parts. It’s the conflict of our species all over again.”

“Wonderful explanation, but it doesn’t help me avoid setting myself on fire.”

“Sorsha.” Omen’s gaze turned momentarily intent, his tone serious enough that my ears pricked to even closer attention. “The fools in the Fund won’t be able to help you with this. You can handle it. We can handle it. I’ll just keep training your impossible self until your control improves. I’m not letting you go down in flames. All right? I’d just like us to take the training sessions in the direction of our ultimate goal so we can tackle more than one bird with the same stone.”

Sorsha blinked at him. “Oh. Okay.” Then her smile came back. “As long as these training sessions don’t involve pummeling me into a pulp like you’ve attempted in the past.”

Omen rolled his eyes skyward. “I think I can manage to keep you safe from that threat as well.”

I inhaled slowly, tasting the energy that shivered through the air between them. It was such an odd mix of antagonism, comradery, and amusement that I had trouble knowing what to make of the stew. It wasn’t at all like the steady vibe of fondness and support that flowed between Sorsha and Thorn or the sensual heat she and Ruse could spark with just a glance, but it held echoes of both of those flavors along with so many others.

Maybe they didn’t know where to go with that chaos of emotions either.

“I’d still like to touch base with the Fund people here, even if it’s just briefly,” Sorsha was saying when her phone beeped with some sort of alert. She picked it up and read something off the screen. As her face fell, my heart sank too.

“What’s happened?” I asked.

“It’s—” She swiped her hand over her mouth as if trying to push away her frown, but it didn’t quite work. “It shouldn’t really matter. I didn’t expect anything. Ellen from back home just texted me. She’s decided that as far as our conflict with the Company goes, she and the rest of the Fund members from my old branch are staying out of it completely.”