Page 87 of Conquering the King of Storms

“What does Cier mean?” I asked Sirus quietly, not wanting Ayla or Zoran to hear me from the other room.

“It’s a rare type of fruit. Very expensive, and very delicious. Growing it is extremely difficult, but if you succeed, you’ll taste what will likely be the best thing you’ve ever eaten,” he murmured, pulling me closer and sitting down beside Dove. “We’re going to need to stay here for a few days before I can transport our group to the next land. Hopefully, Margo and Quake will return at some point.”

My eyebrows knitted together. “Should we worry about them?”

“No. I felt his magic in the canyon while Dissiri and I were exploring, so he’s here. And if he’s here, she’s safe.”

A soft breath escaped me.

That was good, at least.

“It’ll be safer for us to stay in the cave we just left, but we have to wait and see if Ayla and Flood are following tradition,”Sirus’s wind murmured to me.

Tradition?

I raised an eyebrow at him, asking the question without speaking aloud.

“Many couples have sex immediately following their ceremony. It’s a tradition.”

My eyes widened slightly, and his curved upward.

“You and I can always keep that specific tradition going while in my cave, away from prying eyes,”he told me, his lips creeping upward.

I actually liked the idea.

There was something pretty damn steamy about having sex in nature, and the heart of the land was unique in the way it made you feel so safe and secure. I didn’t see a reason for that to make the sex anything but better.

“We’ll see,” I whispered.

His lips curved upward wickedly.

He probably knew exactly what I was saying—and why I was saying it.

“What will we see?” Dove asked, lifting her head away from the wall.

“I was telling Storm that I want to see what you can make with your magic, Most Powerful Fae,” I teased her, throwing out a little white lie.

She definitely didn’t need to know about the elemental fae’s scandalous traditions yet. Maybe when she was eighteen. Or thirty.

She giggled, and Sirus and I grinned.

Chapter 19

Ayla and Floodcame back out and found us a few minutes later. They were both smiling, but they had come out of the cave way too quickly to have followed the tradition Sirus mentioned.

She was holding his arm though, and considering she was the one who claimed they were just friends, that felt like a small victory to me.

We all headed back into the cave. Our Sign Language lessons resumed, and when I asked, Sirus began teaching me the letters of their language’s alphabet. Whatever magic had brought us there was strong enough to translate their language for us, but I wanted to understand it myself, in case that magic ever faded.

Margo and Quake returned before the end of the day. She didn’t look angry, I realized, when they sat down somewhat near to each other. I remembered her sleeping on his body though, so I knew she wasn’t worried about him hurting her or anything.

It was the claiming, and the insisting that they would be together that really bothered her.

When I studied her closely, I thought her lips might’ve looked a little swollen, but I decided not to overthink it. They ended up kissing a lot just to keep him sane when we needed him, so thinking too much about it was ridiculous.

The next twodays passed quickly. We learned, and ate, and laughed. Dove kept everyone’s mood up with her silly jokes and playfulness that seemed to grow by the day, and both Quake and Flood remained sane throughout the entire time.

Ayla was thrilled with that—Margo’s emotions about it were hidden, to my surprise. She hadn’t been so vocal about her hatred for Quake when we first found her, and then she’d gotten extremely vocal, and now… I almost wondered if they’d reached a truce or something.

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