Slate's hand went to my head to hold me against him. “That was the most incredible experience of my entire life.”
I mumbled something against his skin.
“What was that?” He asked with a smile in his voice.
I lifted my head and looked down at him adoringly. “I said; I love you so damn much, Zone Lord.”
Slate's smile faded into grateful awe as he stroked my cheek. “Then marry me.”
“Always so demanding,” I teased but I did so breathlessly.
“What's your answer, Spellsinger?”
“What happened to not needing to be married?”
“Elaria,” Slate growled and rolled us so that he loomed above me.
“Yes, I'll marry you.” I rolled my eyes. “As if that were ever in doubt. Now, shut up and kiss me, Gargoyle.” I pulled his grinning face down to mine. “Now that we're back in tune with each other, I feel another song coming on.”
A Sneak Peek
Keep reading for a special look into the next book in the Spellsinger Series:
Singing the Scales
Chapter One
I stood on my private stretch of beach, staring at the Pacific without seeing it. I'd gone to Hawaii for refuge. Not that there was anything wrong in my relationship with my husbands... and fiancé. Yes, fiancé. Slate had proposed and I'd accepted. We were in the midst of planning a wedding but were taking our time with it. It would likely be held in his zone, the underground Beneather sanctuary run by Slate and policed by his team of Gargoyles. But I couldn't be there right now. Nor could I be anywhere my men were. Because another man would be coming to see me at any moment.
King Verin.
By some strange stroke of fate, we'd wound up together. The spell that bound my men to me and unified us in power and love—the Rooster Spell or RS for short—had been gaining strength and when she gained strength, she needed more fuel. More fuel meant more men. We'd scrambled to find a way to stop her growth, and the Witches came up with a solution. But by the time we undertook the spell that would quell the one inside me, it was too late. I'd been weakened by the loss of Slate—he'd been possessed at the time; long story—and didn't have the strength to survive the exacting spell the Witch Leaders were casting upon me.
Before that moment, Verin and I had shared a rare attraction and I had no doubt that it could turn into love if we gave it the chance, but neither of us had wanted that. So, we stayed away from each other. Life had other plans though and brought us back together. He was present at that deadly casting. When Verin saw me dying, he valiantly offered himself to my spell as fuel. Except there was one problem; we didn't love each other. The RS feeds on love and without it, she couldn't add Verin to our family.
I started to slip away despite his efforts, but Vivian, the Witch Leader of Water, used Verin's affiliation with water to connect with him and then with me. She cast a love spell on us. It was slapdash, to say the least, and Vivian assured us that it would be temporary. She meant that temporary status as a comfort, and it would have been if Verin and I weren't so deeply under her spell. My other men accepted that Verin had joined their number but only because it was temporary, and they asked us to stay apart until the spell wore off. They didn't want us forming an attachment that we wouldn't be able to break; one that made the lie of the spell into truth. My mind told me they were right but my heart violently disagreed.
Reason and love for my other men won out in the end, and I sent Verin away with the promise that if our love proved to be real, if somehow we had truly fallen in love during all of that insanity, then I would insist that he be accepted into the family. Even as I hoped for it, I knew it wouldn't happen. Before the spell, Verin had baldly stated that despite his attraction to me, he had no wish to share me with six other men. And who could blame him? Plus, his father had kept a harem, one his mother had been forced into, and that had—also understandably—left him with a distaste for any polyamorous lifestyle. We just wouldn't work.
But there I was; wringing my fingers and watching the waves—trying to see beneath them—as I waited for him to appear. Verin had vowed that he'd give the spell three months to wear off and then he'd come for me. Whether it had worn off or not.
It had not.
I took a shaky breath and swallowed past the dryness in my throat. I'd spoken to Vivian only that morning and she said what I'd expected her to say; that magic is unpredictable. The spell would wear off, but she had no idea when. In fact, she was shocked that it hadn't done so already. A love spell goes against the will of its target and in this instance, it had two, strong-willed targets. That should have stretched the spell even thinner. In other words, it should have broken long ago.
After I spoke to Vivian, I called Verin using the piece of enchanted blue coral he'd given me. I'd given him a Shining One contact charm which does the same thing. I did so mainly so I wouldn't have to carry another contact charm around with me but I'd used his coral this afternoon because it seemed appropriate. Verin had answered near-instantaneously and said only two words.
“One hour.”
“I'm in Hawaii,” I told him.
“I know
