“She rides with Coal,” River repeated, turning finally to show his canines. Their commander rarely pulled rank like this, so it carried an annoying amount of weight when he did. River could be an utter bastard sometimes.
“Yes, sir,” said Tye. The only sign that River heard his tone was a slight tick in his jaw.
Tye gave Coal a warning look before handing the lass up to him, and he swallowed a bit of ill-placed jealousy when the warrior tucked Lera neatly before him in the saddle, bracing his arms securely on either side of her waist as he took up the reins again. At least Coal would not let her fall. That was the important part.
Tye dropped back to fall in line beside River. “What the hell was that about?” he demanded, his voice too low for Lera to hear. “Or are you planning to issue orders for everything now? If so, I’d like your permission to take a shit in approximately two hours.”
River snorted. “Don’t pretend you failed to notice that our fifth is female.” He gave Tye a hard look. “You’ve not walked past a female without stopping for a chat in the three centuries I’ve known you.”
“You’ve not stopped to talk to one in just as long,” said Tye. “Someone needs to keep this quint—”
River’s hand shot out to grip Tye’s wrist. Hard. “Not. Her. She is a mortal, Tye, a female mortal. The magic’s call to her was a mistake. Our priority is to break the bond before it gets her killed. Understand?”
“I’m not going to rut with her, River.” Tye twisted his hand from River’s grip. “But you’ve no call to be an asshole to her either. Lera is one of us now. One of the quint. Don’t tell me you don’t feel it, that your soul doesn’t twist when she comes close.”
River’s nostrils flared. “It doesn’t.”
“Liar.”
“It isn’t real,” River forced out finally, his jaw tightening. The horse beneath him danced, sensing his agitation. River sighed and patted the horse’s neck until the animal calmed down. “The feeling . . . the need, it’s nothing but the work of magic. The mortal is nothing to me, nothing to us. Once the magic is severed—”
“Not real?” Tye said harshly. “These feelings are born of the same magic that shattered us after Kai’s loss. Or is that not real as well?” It was a low blow, even for Tye.
River’s fist flew at Tye’s jaw, but Tye didn’t bother blocking the assault. It pissed River off royally when someone failed to defend himself, and right now River deserved a bit of misery. Maybe it would force the male’s head from his ass, though that might be too optimistic an outlook.
River blamed himself for the death of Shade’s twin, for the pain that made Shade retreat into his wolf for a decade now. None of them could lift their heads after it happened, but Tye thought River and Shade had suffered the most. It was hard to tell with Coal, who buried everything so deep you’d need to slice him open just to find a feeling. The quint were brothers in all but blood, and they’d spilled enough of that together that it was likely mixed by now too.
Lifting his chin, Tye let the blood from his newly split lip dribble onto his chin. “Feeling better?”
“It is just the magic, Tye,” River said stubbornly, kicking his horse into a gallop. “Once the bond is severed, releasing her will not affect you . . . us . . . the same way. It will not be like losing Kai all over again.”
No, losing Lera would not be like losing Kai, Tye thought. It would be worse.
4. Coal
Coal was going to kill River, he decided, as Leralynn squirmed in his saddle, her flesh pressing against Coal’s and setting every nerve in his body aflame. The mortal had been in his charge for less than a minute and already her sweet hay-and-lilac scent was making his head spin. Tye might have savored being in Coal’s skin just now, but Coal was different from his quint brothers.
Tye enjoyed women like he enjoyed exquisite desserts, sampling freely without commitment, leaving all involved with a pleasant—if fleeting—aftertaste. River, who still mourned the female he’d loved before the quint call took him, kept his distance. The quint commander never lacked for invitations, but he rarely if ever took a female to his bed. Shade, who once shared females with his twin Kai, had retreated into his wolf a decade back, unwilling to touch a female without his twin alongside.
As for Coal, he was unfit for female company. Too many jagged edges, too deep a darkness. Three hundred years had passed since the quint call rescued him, but time didn’t erase the past.
What Coal needed just now was some wind, a bit of fresh air to clear the girl’s scent from his nose. The mortal realm dampened the fae’s magic, but there were old-fashioned ways of calling the wind to your face. Coal patted his horse’s flank once and nudged the stallion into a canter.
Leralynn gasped, bouncing so hard in the saddle that the horse bucked in bewilderment. The girl’s fingernails dug into Coal’s forearms as if the whole bloody world was falling on their ears, and she slid further sideways than Coal thought possible given their arrangement. Coal cursed, hauling his nearly-unsaddled-for-no-reason passenger back into place and holding fast with his arms tucked even tighter against her waist as she attempted to topple off again.
The horse whinnied unhappily.
“You don’t know how to ride, mortal.” He’d meant it as a question, but it sounded more like a murder accusation.
“The mortal’s name is Lera,” she snapped over her shoulder, grabbing on to the horse’s neck and wiggling. “And we are not all immortal fae who own horses. Have you not met someone who couldn’t ride before?”
“Not in over three hundred years, no.” Coal turned his head and took a deep breath of fresh air. Leralynn’s—Lera’s—shifting backside happened to be very well aligned with his cock. With another curse—this one swallowed before he voiced it—Coal hurried to tighten his arms around the girl before her attempts to find purchase in the saddle awoke him any further.
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About the Author
Alex Lidell is an Amazon KU All Star Top 50 Author Awards winner (July, 2018). Her debut novel, THE CADET OF TILDOR (Penguin, 2013) was an Amazon Breakout Novel Awards finalist. Her Reverse Harem romances, POWER OF FIVE and MISTAKE OF MAGIC, both received Amazon KU Top 100 awards for individual titles.
Alex is an avid horseback rider, a (bad) hockey player, and an ice-cream addict. Born in Russia, Alex learned English in elementary school, where a thoughtful librarian placed a copy of Tamora Pierce’s ALANNA in Alex’s hands. In addition to becoming the first English book Alex read for fun, ALANNA started Alex’s life long love for books. Alex lives in Washington, DC.
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