Page 74 of Ulune's Daughter

Teddy picks up the bowl of caramel popcorn with a huff. “How come you get to live with a gorgeous, adoring cat and I get to live with a succession of stinky twigs? I honestly thought when Hog passed, that would be the end of it. Most of his tribe moved back to Faery after Callan freed the court’s wild fae. But nooo. Hog’s great, great grandson or sommat has brought his entire family to continue Hog’s legacy. They follow Gabe around like a moldy woodpile. I keep having to chuck them outta our bedroom. It’s naff.”

Chuckling, I pick up the tray and follow her back into the home theater. “Whitey smells a little,” I admit. “I don’t have the heart to get him spayed. He’s such a proud boy.”

“He can’t smell worse’n Hog Jr. and his kin.”

“I had him groomed and it got better but I think he’s been peeing in my closet. And maybe on my bed. It’s damp sometimes when I come home.”

“Eww,” says Teddy. “Time to get a spray bottle.”

“I couldn’t,” I cry. “Spray my perfect boy?”

Teddy laughs. “That is the true definition of pussy-whipped.”

I elbow her.

We drink our way through another film full of sparkling vampires and questionable dialogue. I’m legitimately drunk when Charlie comes to drag Teddy off to bed. That’s obviously why I toss and turn on the comfortable couch for an hour, listening to Rachel snore, before I finally get up and stumble through the Fae Ways to home.

A walk around my apartment turns up a bit of fresh musk in my closet but no cat. Even though it’s after two a.m. and I shouldn’t be tempting fate by waking the neighbors, I open the back door and call for him.

When Whitey silently appears, bounding up the back steps, I snatch him up and cuddle him to my face as I carry him into my bedroom. I pull him under the covers with me. He snuggles and licks my nose.

“I don’t care how much you smell, lovey boy,” I tell him. “I can’t sleep without you.”

He purrs me to sleep.

Chapter25

Mating Wounds

LAW

Adrunk mate is an adorably, adorably horny mate.

She mounts me five times before dawn and finally, finally, knowing that the vat of tequila she drowned herself in will dull the pinch of my spines, I bury them in her and pump her full of my seed.

It’s glorious. Unimaginably, bone-shatteringly glorious.

I crack a rib, trying to satisfy my wild mate. Luca, winding tape around my chest when I return to the den, has opinions that he wisely keeps behind his fangs.

His human has no such sense of self-preservation.

“Did you hurt her?” he demands.

I scoff at him.

“No, Rho,” Luca says over his shoulder, keeping his eyes on what he’s doing. “Neither of us would ever hurt Kellan.”

“Did she—did she hurt you?”

I roll my eyes.

“I’m sure it wasn’t intentional,” Luca says. “She’s, uh, uninhibited in her sleep.”

Which my twin would know because he’s a voyeur. If he thinks I can’t smell it when he slinks around watching us, he’s wrong.

He pats my ribs. “Good?”

I nod and squeeze his shoulder in thanks. I could go back to Cait House and see if one of the aunts or cousins would heal me. I could ask Luca’s human to heal me. I’d rather chew off my own tail. It’ll heal on its own in a few days.

---