Page 2 of Rules of Stone
I rub my arms, hoping the feigned chill will conceal the light tremors of fatigued muscles that are now surfacing. “I’m fine.”
“And if you weren’t, you’d be dead before you admitted it.” River steps up beside me, his gray eyes intent on mine. Despite being over five centuries old, the warrior looks to be in his late twenties, his pointed ears and elongated canines as much a marker of his immortality as his aura of power and command. Here in the privacy of Shade’s workroom, he’s shrugged off his jacket with the king’s crest and the small gold crown his subjects expect to see on him, but still, his militantly straight back, close-cropped brown hair, and broad shoulders carry responsibility like a second skin. Even with me sitting on a high table, he towers over me, the largest of the four males, invading my space with a ruthless precision. The weight of his presence—his overwhelming beauty and anger—sends shivers down my skin. “We were out to combine some exercise with utility. There was no cause whatsoever to put yourself in harm’s way. If the sclice was giving you trouble, you should have said something. Do you understand me?”
Reaching into myself, I scrape together enough strength to glare right back at River. “You need to give me some space to try out my skills, River. I’m a warrior of the quint now. Would you be fussing if it was Tye sitting here with a few scratches?”
Tye snorts and takes a chair, turning it around to straddle it, eyes on the show.
“We’ve fought beside Tye over three hundred years. You became fae six months ago.” River’s voice drops to a low timbre. “More to the point, Tye isn’t my mate. For a fae male, the instinct to protect his mate is overwhelming. The moment you became fae and those mating bonds formed, our lives became even more intertwined with yours than they already were. That is something you need to start getting used to, Leralynn. And respecting.”
“I’ve a better idea, River.” I straighten my spine, not caring how the movement stings my ribs or pushes my bare chest out farther. “Shade’s wolf’s instinct is to mark his territory—yet he somehow manages not to piss on the rug. So perhaps your cock could take some instruction from his.”
A muscle in River’s square jaw tics. Once. Twice. On the third tic, the male turns on his heel and walks out of the room, the door swinging closed behind him. Shade’s small, white-walled workroom with its neat, polished surfaces suddenly feels cavernously empty.
When I open my mouth to shout after him, Shade places his large palm on my cheek, the heat of his body warming the air between us. His yellow eyes are as deep as his voice. “There are very few things in the immortal realm that hurt us more than seeing you in pain, cub.” His thumb brushes along my cheekbone the firm pressure sending tendrils of sensation through me. “Protecting you isn’t an instinct wewantto curb.”
Strength draining from me, I lean my forehead against Shade’s hard chest, the beat of his heart echoing through my skin. “I just want to carry my weight,” I whisper, the confession tightening my throat. “Just because magic brought us together—”
“Magic has nothing to do with it.” Shade grips my face with both hands, tipping it up to meet his eyes, the fierce possession in them piercing my core. He growls softly, and heat pools in my lower half. “We are your mates, cub. And we would have found you, magic or no, because without you, our souls are incomplete.”
Shade leans down until our breaths mix, the heat of his body cocooning my skin. Still holding my face, he presses his mouth against mine, his tongue slipping in gently before claiming me with a predator’s possession that reminds me of the wolf he is. The scent of his arousal saturates the air, one hand now sliding down my neck, my shoulder, my collarbone. Cupping my right breast.
My skin tingles beneath the male’s touch, the breast in his hold suddenly full and aching. My insides tighten, as much from the thoroughly claiming kiss as at the thought of Shade’s mouth elsewhere. Suckling the sensitive breast he now holds. Dipping lower.
Shade’s callused thumb brushes against my nipple, a shudder running though his body when the bud peaks in response. Molten heat flows down my core, my sex, the backs of my thighs, making even my toes tingle with need.
I’ll never get used to this. No matter how many times we drown in the mating bond, on how many surfaces in how many palace rooms and quiet passages and curtained nooks we give in to lust, casual talking turning to breathless claiming. I only seem to want them more with each passing day.
“If I knew we were bypassing the healing and scolding and moving right to kissing, I’d have moved closer,” says Tye. His deep, amused voice only heightens the ache in my sex, as images of what the three of us could do together right now flood my imagination—the four of us, if Coal would just stop sharpening that damn knife.
Shade chuckles against my mouth, pressing into me until I feel the hardness pulsating inside his breeches. I slide my hand to grip his taut backside, pulling him even closer—
“You need to finish up in here.” River’s voice cuts between us, the air chilling with the open door. For a moment, I think the male has returned to argue some more, and the frustration gripping my sex mixes violently with the retort bubbling inside my chest. But then I hear it. An uncharacteristic tightness in River’s tone—a barely reined-in tension that makes my stomach clench. Shade straightens, giving my thigh an apologetic squeeze, and I slide to my feet.
“What’s happened?” Coming up behind me, Tye wraps his jacket around me, his heavy hand staying comfortingly on my shoulder as his eyes watch River’s every move.
River runs his hand through his short hair, his one tell surfacing. “A message from the Elders Council,” he says quietly. “The wards protecting the mortal realm from magic have cracked.”
3
Lera
With Shade’s healing magic still tingling along my skin, I let myself into what was once a formal sitting room for River’s father, Griorgi, but which now resembles a cross of den and library. Tall windows flood the chamber with brilliant sunlight, illuminating the colorful frescos of fae history covering each wall. Griorgi’s high-backed carved wooden chairs have been evicted in favor of more comfortable leather furniture, and a smell of sweet wine and bitter chocolate announces that both Tye and Autumn, River’s brilliant sister, have already made themselves comfortable.
“The wards protecting the mortal realm from magic have cracked.”River’s words echo in my mind, twisting and turning in search of some plausible explanation. A millennium ago, after the fae and humans enslaved in the dark realm of Mors broke free, the most powerful of the immortals combined their magics to separate the world into three realms. The dark realm of Mors, where the terrifying gray-skinned qoru rule. The immortal realm of Lunos for the fae. And the largest, the mortal realm, where all the human kingdoms find a home.
Last year, Griorgi attempted an alliance with the Mors emperor, opening a portal between Lunos and Mors. That escapade nearly destroyed Blaze, one of Lunos’s three courts. A penetration into the mortal realm, whose denizens have little to no knowledge of fae and no way to defend themselves, would be infinitely more deadly.
“Lera!” Autumn looks up from a sea of reference books, her many silver-blond braids swaying. Her fashion, as usual, puts my simple black fighting leathers to shame—a flowing dress of green and turquoise silk belted tight around her tiny waist. The sparkling silver at her ears, wrists, and neck make her look like every inch the princess she is, though it is the small leather cap sitting atop her left ear that the female fingers most often—a gift from her lover, Kora. “River said you are hurt.”
I throw River a dagger-filled look. “I thought River wanted to talk about broken wards, not keep worrying over three scratches.”
River lifts one brow, his gray eyes unreadable. “I can worry and talk simultaneously.”
“Forget I asked,” Autumn says quickly, tossing me a quick, conspiratorial smile before turning back to her books.
“Did Mystwood burn down?” I ask, setting a course for my favorite armchair. A shiver runs through me at the thought of the deep, mystical forest separating Lunos from the mortal realm. A forest I used to live at the edge of. It was created to prevent fae—and other, much darker immortal creatures—from walking into mortal lands, a fact my males were able to circumvent to come find me only by way of a highly rare and powerful passage key.
“Mystwood still stands,” says River, stepping aside as Shade’s wolf streaks across the room.
