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“A maros, glad to see you and Marceline have made...” Iskah's voice drifted away as she stared beyond Marceline’s striking form clad in a white pencil skirt suit with raspberry stitching and a split that went from the knee-length hem to her hip and finished off her look with fake horn-rimmed glass and a high bun.

His Vice looked like a vicious librarian, especially since she liked to keep her fangs on full display at the council meeting.

However, Iskah only paused briefly before continuing to move her gaze away from him, clad in his black-on-black suit with a dark, blood-red tie, to the female beside him.

Rarely was Iskah stunned, but that was the only way Amaros could describe the blank expression of the Fae Queen’s normally tranquil features.

“And whom do you have with you?” Iskah, who had been standing by her seat at one half of the stone circle within the columns of the preternatural council’s crafted circular hypaethral-style pavilion, now glided toward them in her gossamer, blue gown, the same hue as her fairy wings.

Amaros felt the tremors vibrating through Michaela’s body; where he kept a hand at the lower section of her spine, right where her ass began to curve out just right.

Michaela, like him, also wore a black suit and a form-fitting, backless, tuxedo-style jumper, but instead of a tie, her lipstick was rich in color and matched his tie.

On her pale, golden-brown skin, the lip stain popped and gave his mate an image of someone confident and wicked.

Calm yourself, little angel. No harm will come to you . Amaros not only whispered the steadying words to Michaela but caressed her along their mind-link.

As they traveled to the meeting, he’d worked to convince Michaela not to fear and that all the entities did their utmost to be civil to one another.

Michaela’s shivers subsided.

“Good morning, Iskah. You appear nature- ly refreshed. The moss and blossoms treating you well?”

Iskah arched a brow at him. “I see you are in rare form today, and the sun hasn’t even risen yet, Amaros.”

He arched a brow back. “Always.”

Amaros dragged his hand up the length of Michaela’s spine and gently cupped the back of her neck, enjoying the silken feel of her bare skin. She trembled again, but he knew it was for a different reason than his mate's anxiety with the ethereal woman before them. “Mate, tell her your name.”

“I’m Michaela.” She leaned into him but gave a slight nod of her head, acknowledging Iskah as he instructed her.

“Mate?” Iskah’s lips parted as she shot a glance at him, then Marceline, Michaela, then him again, as if searching for an explanation. “Please, Amaros, tell me that you did not go beyond the Wall and seize a human.”

Amaros's nails extended as a rod slipped down his spine, drawing his shoulders back taut.

Michaela released a low hiss as the sharp tips of his nails slightly pierced the skin of her neck above her collar.

He could feel the itch of his gums and the tingling around his irises and knew that if he didn’t keep his beast in check, his fangs would drop.

He respected the Fae Queen as Magistrate of the Council and Aodh as a pseudo-leader of their diverse group.

However, he was the head of his Coven, and the fuck if he would kowtow to anyone, no matter their position.

Which meant he didn’t have to answer anyone about his actions.

Iskah must have sensed his slight slip of control because her translucent wings snapped open, revealing a hint of darkening at the edges.

Keijo, dressed in a dark-blue, imperial-style suit, rose silently to his feet some feet away where he had been sitting behind Iskah's seat at the table.

Not wanting to incite an incident when they had a more prominent issue before them to manage, Amaros blinked away his beast and hid a deep breath behind his words.

“I know in the beginning, when we discovered the human Wall had been raised and they were emerging, I suggested we drop in and take a look around, shall we say.”

Amaros shoved his free hand in his pocket, adopting a non-threatening stance, the best he could do under the circumstances.

The Fae Queen drew her wings in.

“But I respected the council's vote that we not breach the space unless it was warranted.” To him, if he’d even sensed that his blood-mate was on the inside of the Wall, Hell and all its hounds could not have stopped him from going to get her.

“Then how...?” Iskah folded her arms.

“She came to me.” Amaros lowered his hand to Michaela's waist and curved it around her hip.

“Explain, please.” Iskah tipped her head to the side, and Amaros could imagine that the Fae’s mind was running through all sorts of possibilities.

Then, all of a sudden, the Fae’s eyes widened, and she raised her arms and turned her palms out as if she were feeling the air, or rather the nature, around her for a moment.

Remaining in that position, she shifted her gaze back to Michaela and stared long and hard, then met his hard stare.

Amaros didn’t like the shift in the air at that moment. When dealing with someone who could control all four elements around them, one learned to be leery.

“While you’re at it, Amaros, don’t leave out her pregnancy.”

He flexed his jaw and exhaled. Unlike his kind, who could hear heartbeats and the wolves and bears, who, if close enough, could sniff it through Michaela’s scent, Fae didn’t have that sort of ability. “How did you know?”

“Oh, Nature knows all life-forces,” Iskah simply stated.

“Well, the latter is something I’m not sure I plan to share with the others.”

Before he could say more, the sound of heavy paws struck the ground at a steady pace.

“As for your initial question, I would, but I hate having to repeat myself. And the flea-bitten ones have arrived,” Amaros snarked before he kissed Michaela on her cheek and sent her over to the stone bench seat behind his chair where Marceline sat.

Iskah's lips quirked up into a half smile as she turned with him to face the new arrivals. “You know the wolves hate when you call them that.”

“Yes, well, they won’t be surprised to know I still hate them .

” Amaros knew how important it was for the entities to establish peace and for the fighting to cease.

However, he’d never say it didn’t stop the Vampires and the Lupine from being enemies.

He was glad his Coven was in the old Canadian region and away from the wolves.

“Even after the civil treaty of close to twenty years? Chanin and Bleddyn are a decent sort, good leaders to their Pack.” Iskah glanced back at him, away from the wolves who had shifted at the edge of the forest and were dressing themselves.

“Yes. But they’re still wolves. Twenty years doesn’t change millennia of bad blood.”

“I’ll ask again in another twenty,” Iskah teased as she stepped forward to greet the Lupine.

Amaros chuckled and stayed put.

Marceline stepped up beside him. “Just the two Lupine. I was hoping Chanin would bring the rogue wolf. I would have relished the opportunity to drain him dry.”

“The wolf’s blood probably would taste rancid. It’d be better to rip his head off,” Amaros advised.

Marceline’s laugh was husky and loud, drawing the attention of the trio standing across the circle by the Lupine’s seat.

However, the Lupine and Fae’s attention was captured by the broad-shouldered wall of the two Drahks as they almost appeared to move in sync as they entered the clearing to the meeting grounds dressed in long-sleeve dress shirts and slacks, keeping to the business casual tradition Iskah had set forth to give them all as a show of civility.

Probably so the Lupine wouldn’t sit around naked. Amaros loved a nude body as well, but his kind believed there was something to be said about dressing for an occasion—there was no such thing to them as over-dressing.

“Hmm, strange the Drahk didn’t make their usual glorious landing entrance,” Marceline commented.

Amaros frowned. He wondered why the change-up by the dragon-shifters.

However, as they parted to step through the stone columns of the circular hypaethral, Amaros was alerted to the reason.

He smelled the human female keeping step behind them before he fully laid eyes on her. The pounding of the strange woman’s heart and the scent of fresh, pure blood saturated the space.

All eyes turned to the Drahks.

Marceline sniffed, and Amaros knew his Vice was drawing in the sweet liqueur of the life source. “Who is she—?”

“Ava!”

The medium-height woman with curvy hips and thighs dressed in a simple mint-green blouse and white slacks standing beside the Drahk’s Second-in-Command turned toward Michaela.

Amaros looked back at his mate but already saw she was up and moving fast toward the new arrival.

“Mich!” The woman, apparently named Ava, was racing toward his mate, too.

“Mich?” Liekki echoed with a frown.

“You’re here! I was worried you had died,” Ava rushed on, “That the monster got to you.”

Before Amaros could think about stopping Michaela and telling his mate he didn’t know it was a good idea, the two friends were making haste to embrace in the center of the two halves of the stone table.

Everyone stared at the two, now gripping hands, talking a mile a minute.

The excited females couldn’t be more different.

Where Michaela, apparently called Mich, was tall and slim with a short, blonde pixie cut, and Ava, the human woman, was of medium height with long, golden-brown hair and fuller curves at her lower half.

“I thought I wouldn’t last long, either. I didn’t know what happened to you, Ava.”

“I missed talking to you. I have so much to tell you.” Ava threw herself at Micheala again, wrapping her in a tight hug. “Where have you been all this time?”

Blood. Sweet blood. Just a taste—

“Michaela, no!” he commanded.