“Somewhere on another continent.”
“Ah, Quinlan.” He kissed her jaw, her cheek, her temple. He whispered into her ear, “I really want to fuck you right now.”
She shuddered, arching against him. “Same.”
His hand slid from her waist to cup her ass. “This is torture.” He slipped his hand under her oversize shirt, finding her bare skin warm and soft. He traced his fingers along the seam of her lacy thong, down toward her thighs. Heat beckoned him, and she sucked in a breath as he halted millimeters short of where he wanted to be.
But she placed a hand on his chest. “What do I call you now?”
The words took a moment to register. “What?”
“I mean, what are we? Like, dating? Are you my boyfriend?”
He snorted. “You really want to say you’re dating the Umbra Mortis?”
“I’m not keeping this private.” She said it without an ounce of doubt. She brushed her fingers over his brow. Like she knew what it meant to him.
Hunt managed to ask, “What about Cormac and your ruse?”
“Well, after all that, I guess.” If they survived. She whooshed out a breath. “Boyfriend sounds weird for you. It’s so … young. But what else is there?”
If he had a star on his chest, Hunt knew it’d be glowing as he asked, “Partner?”
“Not sexy enough.”
“Lover?”
“Does that come with a ruff and lute?”
He swept a wing over her bare thigh. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a pain in the ass?”
“Just ye olde lover.”
Hunt hooked his finger under the strap of her thong and snapped it. She yowled, swatting away his hand.
But Hunt grabbed her fingers, laying them on his heart again. “What about mate?” Bryce stilled, and Hunt held his breath, wondering if he’d said the wrong thing. When she didn’t reply, he went on, “Fae have mates, right? That’s the term they use.”
“Mates are … an intense thing for the Fae.” She swallowed audibly. “It’s a lifetime commitment. Something sworn between bodies and hearts and souls. It’s a binding between beings. You say I’m your mate in front of any Fae, and it’ll mean something big to them.”
“And we don’t mean something big like that?” he asked carefully, hardly daring to breathe. She held his heart in her hands. Had held it since day one.
“You mean everything to me,” she breathed, and he exhaled deeply. “But if we tell Ruhn that we’re mates, we’re as good as married. To the Fae, we’re bound on a biological, molecular level. There’s no undoing it.”
“Is it a biological thing?”
“It can be. Some Fae claim they know their mates from the moment they meet them. That there’s some kind of invisible link between them. A scent or soul-bond.”
“Is it ever between species?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted, and ran her fingers over his chest in dizzying, taunting circles. “But if you’re not my mate, Athalar, no one is.”
“A winning declaration of love.”
She scanned his face, earnest and open in a way she so rarely was with others. “I want you to understand what you’re telling people, telling the Fae, if you say I’m your mate.”
“Angels have mates. Not as … soul-magicky as the Fae, but we call life partners mates in lieu of husbands or wives.” Shahar had never called him such a thing. They’d rarely even used the term lover.
“The Fae won’t differentiate. They’ll use their intense-ass definition.”
He studied her contemplative face. “I feel like it fits. Like we’re already bound on that biological level.”
“Me too. And who knows? Maybe we’re already mates.”
It would explain a lot. How intense things had been between them from the start. And once they crossed that last physical barrier, he had a feeling the bond would be even further solidified.
So … maybe they were already mates, by that Fae definition. Maybe Urd had long ago bound their souls, and they’d needed all this time to realize it. But did it even matter? If it was fate or choice to be together?
Hunt asked, “Does it scare you? Calling me your mate?”
Her gaze dipped to the space between them, and she said quietly, “You’re the one who’s been defined by other people’s terms for centuries.” Fallen. Slave. Umbra Mortis. “I just want to make sure it’s a title you’re cool with having. Forever.”
He kissed her temple, breathing in her scent. “Of everything I’ve ever been called, Quinlan, your mate will be the one I truly cherish.”
Her lips curved. “Did you hear the forever part?”
“I thought that’s what this thing between us is.”
“We’ve known each other for, like, five months.”
“So?”
“My mom will throw a fit. She’ll say we should date for at least two years before calling ourselves mates.”
“Who cares what other people think? None of their rules have ever applied to us anyway. And if we’re some sort of predestined mates, then it doesn’t make a difference at all.”
She smiled again, and it lit up his entire chest. No, that was the star between her breasts. He laid a hand over the glowing scar, light shining through his fingers. “Why does it do that?”
“Maybe it likes you.”
“It glowed for Cormac and Ruhn.”
“I didn’t say it was smart.”
Hunt laughed and leaned to kiss the scar. “All right, my lovely mate. No sex tonight.”
His mate. His.
And he was hers. It wouldn’t have surprised him if her name were stamped on his heart. He wondered if his own were stamped on the glowing star in her chest.
“Tomorrow night. We’ll get a hotel room.”
He brushed another kiss against her scar. “Deal.”
28
I’m glad to see you alive.
Ruhn stood on a familiar mental bridge, the lines of his body once more filled in with night and stars and planets. At the other end of the bridge waited that burning female figure. Long hair of pure flame floated around her as if underwater, and what he could make out of her mouth was curved upward in a half smile.
“So am I,” he said. He must have passed out on the couch in Bryce’s apartment. He’d still been there at two in the morning, watching old game highlights with Ithan. Dec had long since gone to spend the night at Marc’s place. Neither had turned up any solid footage of Emile at the docks—or concrete proof of the Reapers being sent from the Under-King or Apollion. The search for Danika at the gallery would take days, Dec had said before leaving, and he did have other work to do. Ithan had instantly volunteered to keep combing through it.
The wolf pup wasn’t bad. Ruhn could see them being friends, if their people weren’t constantly at each other’s throats. Literally.
Ruhn said to Agent Daybright, “Thanks for trying to wake me up.”
“What happened?”
“Reapers.”
Her flame guttered to a violet blue. “They attacked you?”
“Long story.” He angled his head. “So I don’t need the crystal to reach you? I can just be unconscious? Sleeping?”