“Bring your... aide,” Beryl said. “And hurry.”
“Well, shit.” Raeshal grinned at me and slapped my ass. “Get your pants on, Ravyn. It looks like you're coming with me.”
“Again,” I whispered, and we both laughed.
“You do know that only a piece of fabric separates us, right?” Beryl growled.
We laughed harder.
Chapter Two
There were perks, beyond the obvious, to having a fae captain as a lover. Raeshal had made me his aide, mainly so he could get me in his tent whenever he wanted, or mine, for that matter, but also because he knew I had other talents. Those techniques I mentioned earlier? They had only been the start of my blossoming skills. It turned out that I was pretty good at fighting—fast, quick, and with great balance. As a human soldier in the Hawks—a mostly aerial army—I had learned to make use of anything that could get me off the ground. The Farungal knew to watch for birds attacking from the sky, but they never expect to see a human. I'd taken more than a few monsters unaware by jumping out of trees or off cliffs onto their ugly heads.
As we approached the largest tent in camp, the one in the center of it all, I started to get nervous. The walls were striped with black and gold—the Hawk Lord's colors, and a black flag with a golden hawk in flight crested the center pole. And if those two clues weren't enough to tell you who slept in that tent, the two enormous hawks, the size of bears (grizzlies, not koalas), sitting to either side of the entrance flap should clear things up quickly. They weren't real birds but shifted Sidhe, knights in Lord Dalsharan's personal guard. Many of the fae Hawks were knights of the Hawk Kingdom, but they held a separate rank in the army. These faeries didn't. They were knights, period. They didn't command any troops or take orders from anyone but their warlord. Their sole purpose was to protect the Hawk Lord and do whatever the fuck he said. When they perched outside that tent, it meant that the Hawk Lord was inside.
And the Hawk Lord was... he was everything.
My first sight of Dalsharan Arandel was what had first prompted me to label the Fae as gods (at least in my head). I'd known they were beautiful and powerful, but I hadn't thought them divine until him. Because I'd never seen a man like the Hawk Lord before—one so handsome that the word handsome horribly failed at its job. He had the kind of raw masculinity that screamed power, with sculpted muscles and broad shoulders, but not the overdone bulge of wrestlers. It was a body built to kill, not merely pin men down. Though many men fantasized about being pinned down by the Hawk Lord, myself included.
And his face... it was the face of a god. One look had me aching to get on my knees and worship him. The Hawk Lord was so brutally beautiful that seeing him for the first time was like a punch in the gut, leaving me gasping for air. And he radiated magic; it poured off him like steam from boiling water. Even a magic-less human like me could sense it. You just knew that he could snap his fingers and you'd be toast. Dalsharan had a reputation for being brutal when he needed to be, but he was a fair leader and never asked anything of his soldiers that he wasn't willing to do. On top of all that, he was wicked-smart and cunning. I had seen him take down an entire Farungal unit with subterfuge alone. As I said, he's a fucking god.
Okay, so maybe it's not all the Fae who are gods, just the Hawk Lord. And I was about to walk into his tent.
I swallowed past the dryness in my throat. I'd been to the Hawk Lord's tent before to deliver messages, but I'd always passed them to the guards outside or to one of the generals. I'd never gone inside, never seen more than a glimpse past the heavy flap that served as a door. And the closest I'd ever gotten to him was once when he had come by the human camp to inspect our troops. He had walked past me, looked over my armor, and nodded in approval. And I'd instantly gone rock hard. Thank goodness I'd been wearing armor.
I wasn't wearing armor now.
Don't look at him, I said to myself. Just don't look. If Raeshal sees you get a hard-on for the Hawk Lord, you will never hear the end of it. And you'll never be taken into that tent again.
Oh, fuck, there it was. A few more feet...
“Hey.” Raeshal slapped my arm. “What's wrong with you?”
“Huh?” I cleared my throat. “I, uh, I'm a little nervous.”
Raeshal laughed. “Relax, Ravyn, you'll be fine. Dal's a good guy. He probably won't even notice you're there.”
“Dal?” I whispered in wonder. My fae lover called my fae fantasy Dal. Dal—yeah, I could totally scream that name in bed. Oh, shit, I was already getting excited.
The Hawks on guard outside the tent nodded to Raeshal as he strode past. I lagged a step behind and had the flap smacked in my face for my dawdling. I grimaced and shoved it out of the way, then gawked. The tent was divided into sections by fabric partitions that hung from the ceiling. The center section, maybe 20 feet long and half that across, was full of people. Everyone with the rank of captain or higher was there. They stood around a central table where the Hawk Lord was seated—and he was the only one seated—while he stared down the length of it... at me.
When our stares collided, something pulsed through my body, and I flinched in shock. It was as if someone had stroked a hand down my back—no, a fingertip—right down my spine. The Hawk Lord's gaze lowered, roaming slowly over my entire body before going back to my face. Then he smiled at me.
To my credit, I didn't get a hard-on. I did, however, fall a little in love. Just a little. Maybe a bit more. Okay, a bit more than more. I couldn't help it. I know it's shallow, but he was just so fucking hot. Golden-brown skin coated his warrior's body like poured metal and hair so blond that it was white streamed over his broad shoulders, framing a face of sharp angles that was softened by a pair of lusciously full lips. And those lips had smiled for me. I grinned back lopsidedly and self-consciously, the movement feeling awkward. Then I followed Raeshal forward.
The Hawk Lord's eyes tracked me through the room, and even as I wove around the bodies of men much higher ranking than me, I couldn't drop his gaze. I held it until Raeshal brought us right up to the table. And then I was standing closer to the Hawk Lord than I'd ever been before, close enough to see the color of his eyes. I had thought his eyes were green, but they weren't. No, of course not. This man was too fucking special for green eyes. He had green eyes bordered by rings of bright violet. Fucking purple. They were the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen.
“Raeshal,” the Hawk Lord spoke in a voice deep enough to cause a vibration.
The other men stopped speaking, even though they'd obviously been in the middle of a conversation. Everyone went quiet to hear what the Hawk Lord had to say.
“My lord.” Raeshal bowed.
“Is this the man who leaps out of trees and off cliffs?” The Hawk Lord—Dal—was still staring at me, even as he spoke to Rae.