I still think he’s getting off easy, regardless of the feelings that the guy has bottled up inside toward the mostly-mortal that he’s currently sleeping with. The feelings he can let out, that’s not a problem at all, but the steadily-growing-louder beat of his desires needs to stay firmly muffled. Under laughter, under jokes, under pillows, whatever it takes – so long as it’s effective.
It’s almost sunrise when we slip down the boulders and up onto the deck of Eydis’ cottage. Pax collects Eydis’ strewn clothes off the pen railing, and Killian takes a moment to check over the horses and dump an extra bucket of water in their trough.
Small chores that have to be done. Especially scenting Kitten’s clothes. Pax throws half the items at me and the other half at Killian. The garments hit him in the chest, then fall in a flutter of fabric to the dirt.
“No point, she can just wear ours,” Killian says.
“Did you see how much she enjoyed wearing a ladies’ shirt?” I ask, rubbing the items all over me.
We’ve been digging, sweating, so it doesn’t take long for Pax to nod his approval.
“Scent them,” Thane snaps at Killian.
The Darkness obeys, snatching the clothes off the ground. Minutes later, we swap, with no further argument. Until Killian turns sharply toward the barrier.
“Who?” Pax asks.
“Jada.”
There’s a weight-being-lifted sensation around the group. Now the real work begins.
I pull one of three cords from my pocket, a truth stone on the end. Simple enough, a trinket for children even, that does little more than change color when held in the palm of your hand for long enough to warm the core of potion-filled Silvari glass. Only this one hasn’t been filled with a potion to show a spectrum of colors based on mood. Red for anger, blue for calm, green for happy, and so on. Cleverly, Eydis used this trick and filled the stones with the ingredients needed to let a person and those they’re escorting through the strongest ward in her books. Which makes it a key.
“Here. Maybe leave it with Jada so she can help escort people in,” I suggest, handing the key to him.
“She’s definitely going to want a key, but she’s not going to escort Sabers. This is Jada we’re talking about,” Pax mutters.
The reminder settles uneasily in my stomach, but I shove it away. Jada follows commands; she just makes the commander’s life miserable if she doesn’t want to – even Mother’s orders. But she was close to her, being adopted in an arrangement made by Mother to a wealthy family, and being treated like the princess Mother never had broke a lot of healthy boundaries. Jada has spent more time at the Black Castle than we have, and she still lives there now.
She’s our inside ally and all of our plans hinge on her, so if escorting Sabers is going to rock the boat, then Pax isn’t going to ask her to escort Sabers.
Together, Killian and Pax make their way up the hill. Sometimes domain doors move, shifting locations to confuse intruders, which would actually be horribly annoying. I hug all of the clothes and beeline for the second story.
Kitten is snoring softly in Seth’s arms. The big guy’s partly on top of the covers, with one leg curled up to the contour of her body. She’s wrapped in the blankets. It actually looks like Seth has tried to trap her in them. After what happened last time, that doesn’t surprise me at all.
He’s fully clothed and cracks an eyelid the second I step into the room. I’ve no doubt he dozed during the night, but sleeping two nights in a row without a huge expenditure of energy between is almost impossible.
I grab the hangers and Allure some speed to get the clothes in their place.
“Sun’s not up,” Seth murmurs.
“I know,” I say.
“I don’t. Go away,” Kitten moans.
Just the sound of her voice lightens everything inside me.
“Well, in that case I need to piss,” Seth says, practically bounding off the bed.
Kitten bounces, pulls the blanket higher to cover her face, and grumbles something that could be ‘Seth’ or it could be ‘piss off.’ Not sure.
Probably ‘Seth’, Kitten is more likely to say ‘chuck off.’
Shade sits up sharply, huffing at the hair in her face and glaring at the room. She’s still fully clothed too, but they’re fresh from yesterday.
“I don’t want to get up,” she moans, but she tosses back the covers and pulls her hair into some kind of control.
I move into her bubble so Seth can get out of it, then suddenly she flops back and pulls the covers over her head again.
“I thought you were getting up,” I say, more than a little confused.
Behind me Seth’s using the toilet, and the other guys are moving around downstairs.
“Does he have to use the toilet?” she demands from under the covers, her voice small and muffled.
“Where did you think I was going?” Seth calls out.
“I don’t know, into the woods or something.”
I chuckle at her and sit on the edge of the bed, waiting for Seth to fasten his pants before tugging the blanket off her face. It pulls her hair down again and makes her huff.
“Shared toileting is way up there on the relationship scale. Way, way up there,” she says.
“You do it all the time,” Seth says, walking up to the end of the bed.
“I don’t have a choice – you do!”
I might be about to say something, but Seth launches himself on to the bed, and Kitten scrambles to get off it.
“Both of you, over there,” she demands. When we don’t obey, she adds a stern point and a heavy frown. “Now.”
“Okay, bossy,” Seth says. “Girls have issues.”
“You have no idea.” I obey and stand between Seth and Eydis’ clothes rack.
“One of you is going to end up
