Page 117 of Sanctuary with Kings

Laszlo kissed my forehead before I could hide my face against his throat and then returned to the topic.

"Now, onto our lovely werewolf.Heabsolutely will need to bite you to settle the bond. It's very permanent, and it usually isn't common practice to share a mate with others. But I think if it were going to be an issue, he would've expressed it by now. There's no courting, that I know of, aside from the use of the knot so…"

"When we're ready…" I started.

Laszlo nodded. "When you and Conall are ready, he will bite and mate you. Both Hywel and Conall will have some extra internal sense of you when that happens. It's a way of ensuring they can protect their mate, provide for them."

"Hywel can sense you?" I asked.

Laszlo nodded. "In generals. Emotions, physical pains, and pleasures. You can imagine how much Hywel takes advantage of the latter," he added with a chuckle. "Exquisite torture when he wants to keep me on the edge."

"As if he doesn't excel at that already," I said with a sigh.

"Quite," Laszlo agreed drily. There was a pause, and I watched his fingers toying with mine, returned the little touches and caresses. Below us, horses puffed breaths and whipped their tails at curious flies, the stable calm and quiet, an earthy and humble atmosphere for a conversation I'd been so afraid of just weeks ago.

"And gryphons?" I prompted, rubbing my cheek over his shoulder.

"I've told you some," he said, suddenly delicate with his words.

"You have. But how do you claim your mates?" I asked.

There was a long pause, and Laszlo's embrace tightened into a clutch. I wiggled in his arms, sliding up his side, and found his cheeks stained with a warm blush.

"Laszlo?"

He blinked at me, and I could've sworn my gryphon looked guilty. "We…groom one another," he said stiffly. He lifted a hand and combed it through my loose hair, finding the feather he'd braided in. "And we exchange feathers after passion."

Ahhh, he was expecting me to be upset. I might've expected that too, except that all I really felt at the moment was a sweet, delicate pleasure, both at Laszlo's claiming and his bashful reluctance to admit it.

"Sneaky gryphon," I murmured, bowing my head, teasing him by hovering my lips over his, pulling out of reach as he tried to arch up for the kiss.

"You're not angry," he said, gaze scanning over my face.

"No, I'm not," I answered before placing my mouth to his. He moaned as I licked outside of his lips, but the kiss was light. Laszlo and I breathed one another in, surrounded by gentle sips ofnéktarin the air that I let float away.

"What if I don't have feathers to give you?" I whispered.

He cleared his throat, and his blush deepened. "Ah. I have another confession."

I lifted myself up as Laszlo reached into his wrapped vest. He withdrew a simple silver locket from a pocket over his heart and passed it into my hand. The latch was fine and thin, a precise leaf that clipped over a small round bud. It opened with a soft click, and I blinked away tears at what I found inside—one small and glimmering red dragon's scale on the right side, one coil of warm honey blonde hair on the left.

"I'm sorry. I couldn't help myself," Laszlo said.

I lifted the locket to my lips, my eyes falling shut as I pressed a kiss to the scale and to the lock of my hair. My hands shook slightly as I closed the locket once more and returned it to Laszlo, who tucked it safely away in folds of soft silk.

"We only have to be as we have been," Laszlo said to me. "If you want to leave someday…I will still have a part of you with me."

A strange, broken cry tried to rise in my throat at the thought of leaving. I'd be fighting myself every step. I swallowed the sound down and wrapped my arm around Laszlo's shoulder, cupped his jaw in my left hand, and reunited our lips in another, deeper kiss. We slid together, Laszlo drawing one of my legs over his hips, arm twining around my back to hold my ass and fasten me close. The hand on my thigh rose up to my hair, clasping my cheek and jaw and throat, as if Laszlo were reassuring himself that I was really here in his arms.

"I don't want to leave," I breathed out. The words were a release, a weight off my chest.

Laszlo's smile stretched, his nose nudging mine. "Oh, good. I didn't want to lie to you, but Hywel and I might find ourselves following you."

I laughed, and Laszlo pecked sharp kisses across both of my cheeks before relaxing back into the hay. I softened and stretched out, content in the hazy nest we'd made, studying my gryphon as he did the same to me, his gaze warm and gentle.

"Would you like to know about minotaurs?" Laszlo asked carefully after a long stretch of pleasantly shared silence.

I hadn't seen Asterion yet today, although it was early still, and I wondered if it was him I'd come out to the stable to avoid. He made my head spin, so cool and removed for days, only for a scorching passion to snap and explode out of him suddenly.

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