Page 21 of Cloak of Night
“What are we—?”
“Shh,” he said.
He waited for the familiar feeling to come—the sensation like a part of him had been missing but now, so far from the ground, the sky could pour into him, fill the emptiness, and make him whole. But there was nothing. He closed his eyes and puffed out his chest, as if inviting the sky in.
Nothing.
“It’s not working,” he muttered.
“What’s not?” Fairy asked.
“I don’t feel a thing.”
She moved closer to him. His eyes were still closed, but he sensed the slight shift in weight on the branch beneath his feet.
“Tell me if this helps you feel,” she whispered.
Then her mouth was on him, soft but insistent, for the first time since he’d kissed her in the Citadel infirmary. She smelled of plums—how did she do that, after being on the road for days?—and her lips told him that the incident in the dining hall on Isle of the Moon when she’d jumped away from him hadn’t been rejection, that she still wanted him.
Another surge of heat flooded his body, and while it wasn’t the same as the sky pouring into him, he couldn’t care less right now.
Her lips parted his, and their tongues found each other. Daemon circled Fairy’s waist and lifted her. She threw her arms around his neck and wrapped her legs around him. He moved closer to the center of the tree and pushed her back against the trunk.
She kissed his neck and toyed with his collar. His hand slid under the hem of her tunic, to bare skin like satin.
“The things I want to do to you,” she purred.
Oh gods.It was as if he were on fire, inside and out. His temperature spiked. Sparks flew.
“Wolf,” Fairy said, and hearing her call out his taiga name with her voice husky from desire made him burn even more.
But then she shoved away from him. “Wolf!”
“Did I do something wrong?” Daemon said, flustered.
Fairy’s mouth, which only a second ago had been expertly working against his, now hung open, useless. She blinked rapidly and pointed at him. “Y-you. Wolf.”
Daemon shook his head. But then he followed her finger and looked down at himself.
He was a wolf again, covered in blue fur, and the sparks he’d felt between them were literal sparks, like blue lightning buzzing and zapping all around him. His cloak and other clothes had fallen onto the branches.
“Gods dammit,” he said. “Really? Right now?”
Meanwhile, Fairy was pinching at her tongue, pulling out strands of fur.
If Daemon could possibly feel any hotter, the embarrassment did it. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
She held up a hand. He stopped talking.
She spat out one last piece of fur and started laughing.
“What?” Daemon asked. He failed to see what was funny about this situation.
“Look on the bright side,” Fairy said.
“I can give you a ride to Celestae now?” Daemon grimaced.
“Yep,” she said.
