It took some effort, but I managed to lift my head and gaze into the cave around us. Both of us sleeping at the same time didn’t exactly sound safe to me, but when I noticed the thick funnel cloud surrounding us, I felt better about the situation.

Sirus must’ve managed to set that up before he fell asleep somehow.

And ultimately, we both needed rest badly, so I didn’t blame him for doing so.

Sirus needed sleep, and the funnel cloud didn’t look like it was going anywhere, so I lowered my head back down. I was naked in the man’s arms, but there wasn’t room for self-consciousness about that anymore. And even if there had been, I felt too damn good with his bare skin against mine to move.

I fell asleep quickly, feeling sort of positive about my new life in Bluhm, for what might have been the first time since I woke up there.

Sirus pulledme from sleep some time later. He had already put his pants back on properly, and had washed up as well. The king silently handed me my dress, but I eyed my abdomen.

“Think I need to clean up before putting it back on,” I told him, gesturing to my belly.

He jerked his head in a nod, and I noticed his eyes were trained on the ceiling of the cave.

Was that seriously how he wanted to play this? Like we hadn’t very nearly had sex? Or gotten each other off more than once?

That annoyed me more than I even had words to explain.

I took the dress and carefully walked over to the pool. There was no way to slide in slowly unless I was willing to let the sharp rocks slice up my ass, so I tossed my dress to the ground and then jumped in. The water was warm and murky, and I felt a stab of terror as I was submerged.

The panic was unnecessary though, because I kicked upward and surfaced without being grabbed by any kind of monster.

A set of gigantic hands latched onto my wrists and hauled me out of the pool a heartbeat later. Sirus’s chest was heaving as he set me down carefully beside my clothes. His jaw was clenched and his voice measured as he asked, “What are you doing?”

“Cleaning up, like I said I was going to.” I tossed a hand toward the water. “Not all of us have thick fae skin, remember? If I sit down on the ledge to clean up, I’m going to have cuts or bruises on my ass for a week.”

His pissed glare became a hot glower. “My storm will have alerted every fucking monster in the cave to our location. Anything could have been waiting under the water to snatch you from my grasp, and I’m fucking positive that almost all of them are faster than I am.”

I blinked.

My anger was fading quickly.

“Oh.”

“Oh?” Sirus’s nostrils flared.

“Yes, oh. I didn’t know that, or I would’ve just left your dried jizz on my stomach. Or are we pretending that didn’t happen, Storm?” I emphasized his nickname as I grabbed my dress and stomped past him.

“Yes, we are going to pretend that I didn’t fucking take advantage of you, Harper, so I don’t lose complete fucking control of my magic and trap us in this hellhole for good,” he growled back.

He thought hewhat?

I stomped back over to him, still bare-assed, and poked him in his gigantic chest. After what had happened between us, any lingering fear about our size differences had vanished.

Sirus wouldn’t hurt me.

That knowledge made me feel more drawn to him than I cared to admit, even to myself.

“I remember everything about what we did.Everything. And do you know what I would change about it?”

His body was tense, but I wasn’t going to answer if he didn’t ask for it. If he wanted to hate both of us, that was on him.

When he didn’t ask, I ignored my disappointment, and stepped away from him. Turning so my back faced him, I grabbed my dress and slid my legs into the holes. My feet got caught on the skirt, and I huffed silently. It was definitely time to cut off the bottom chunk of that damn thing.

“What would you change?” Storm finally asked, from behind me. There was wind whipping around us, and I was fairly confident he wasn’t doing that on purpose.

“Nothing.”