Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 132625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
“I won’t take you to her mountain after dark. It’s too dangerous.”
I nod. “Okay. Maybe we can get up early enough to make it there by sunrise?”
He presses a kiss to the side of my neck. “I promise I’ll get you there.” His hand slips under my shirt and his thumb strokes the underside of my breast. “But after riding so close to you all day, I need the break too.”
“Is it that bad?” I joke. “I promised I bathed this morning.”
He tucks his fingers beneath the waistband of my pants and groans against my neck. “Dare I confess to you how many times I’ve wanted to stop at a passing just to have you under me again? I thought waking you before the sun would help get me through the day, but it’s only making it harder.”
My cheeks heat as I remember the way he woke me—slowly and patiently, with exploring hands, then lips, then tongue. By the time I was fully awake, he was kneeling on the floor with my hips on the edge of the bed and kissing me in ways that made the world disappear around us.
“I can’t stop thinking about the way you taste.” He sucks gently on the side of my neck, his fingers brushing just below my waistband, and I shiver in his arms.
He guides the horse down onto a dirt road and then spurs her ahead, pushing her to ride faster. I cling to his arm, holding on for dear life as he makes us both greedy for a private room, kissing and touching me for the rest of the ride.
When he finally slows the horse to a trot, we’re riding through a field of wheat and there’s a farmhouse in the distance.
“Whoa,” Kendrick murmurs, pulling on the reins and bringing the horse to a halt. He pulls his hands from underneath my clothes and smooths them down before dismounting.
“What is this place?” I ask, looking around as he helps me to the ground.
“This is my home,” he says, eyes bright, then nods to the back porch, where the door stands ajar. “This is where my mother lives.”
“You didn’t!” I smack him in the stomach, then regret it when my hand meets a wall of muscle. “You could’ve warned me.”
He grabs my hand and grins. “What’s the problem, Slayer? Nervous about meeting my mother? I promise she won’t hurt you. She’s protective of her children but—”
“I look like I’ve been to the Underworld and back!” I brush my ride-mussed hair from my face. “No, I look like something that crawled out of the Underworld!”
He rakes his gaze over me. So slowly my cheeks heat. “I had no idea that place had so much to offer.”
“Stop,” I squeal. “This is serious.”
He’s still grinning as he bends, his mouth brushing my ear as he whispers, “She’s going to love you because I love you. That’s all it takes.”
“Hale?” a female calls from the door. She has light brown hair and rosy cheeks, and while she has the rounded ears of a human, I know it’s just a glamour to protect her in a realm that doesn’t welcome the fae. “Is that really you?” she asks.
He gives me a final encouraging look before turning to the door, my hand still in his. “Mom.”
“Oh, the gods are good,” she says, rushing toward us with open arms.
Kendrick releases my hand and catches her in a big hug, lifting her up off the ground. When he returns her feet to the earth and draws back, tears are streaming down her cheeks.
“Is it finally done?” she asks. “Can you and Lis come home now?”
His face falls but he schools his expression so quickly I wonder if I even saw it. “Not yet, Mama. We’re still figuring it out.”
“But you’re here, and who’s this?” She offers me her tiny hand and I shake it self-consciously. “I’m Georgie.”
“This is Jasalyn Kincaid,” Kendrick says, and if his mother is waiting for a label to explain my relationship with him, she doesn’t get it. What would he call me anyway? Friend is too weak a word and girlfriend seems ridiculous given how painfully temporary this may all turn out to be.
“The princess,” she says, no small amount of awe in her voice. “The oracle said you could help us.”
I note that she doesn’t use specifics. Because there are people listening or because using Erith’s name could trigger some sort of magical surveillance?
“I wish to,” I admit, glancing to Kendrick. “But nothing has yet worked the way we hoped it might.”
“Hale will figure it out,” she says. “He always does.”
Kendrick takes my hand again and Georgie’s face twists into a nervous grimace. “Oh dear.”
“What’s wrong, Mom?”
She looks back and forth between us before leveling her apologetic gaze on Kendrick. “A while back I took someone into my care. I couldn’t send you word about it for fear of the message being intercepted, but . . . she’s here.”