Page 103 of Heartsong
Heart in her throat, Anna took the card and hurried to stuff it and her hand in her pocket. Carefully, she nodded.
“I think there’s a lot to discuss.”
28
Frey always had the most noble of intentions when teaching his Anna to defend herself. They had come into the habit of doing defensive training on Sundays, after his mate’s final day of working for the week. With her continuing to work in the museum and the suspicious vehicles stalwart in their spots across the street, Frey hadn’t wanted to give up on her lessons.
However, despite those good intentions of his, lately they had without fail ended up rolling across the living room floor with smacking kisses and wandering hands. Anna jokingly called it theirheavy petting cool down. She could call it whatever she liked, so long as every session ended with his mouth on her skin and his hand between her thighs.
That very night, his tongue swirled over the steady pulse at her throat as his fingers traced her soft cunt through her leggings. He’d been showing her how to unbalance a bigger opponent and use their height and weight against them. Once he was on the ground, Anna had leapt on him, straddling his chest to finish him off, and that was that.
Yet even as his beautiful mate squirmed with need beneath him, he could sense her mind wasn’t fully on his touches. She’d seemed distracted ever since arriving home, but rather than demanding to know what troubled her, Frey had tried coaxing her with food and good humor and finally touches meant to enflame her.
Still that troubled crease between her brows persisted, so Frey had to resort to more underhanded tactics.
With a final stroke of his tongue across the sensitive spot behind her ear and of his fingers across the swell of her clitoris, Frey lifted onto his elbows, denying her more attentions.
A frustrated growl burst from her swollen lips, and Frey couldn’t help a smirk. She was starting to sound like a female guardian and getting just as fierce in her demands that he please her.
“Frey,” she warned.
“I will spend the whole night petting your pretty cunt however you like,fynghân,but first I would have you tell me what troubles you.”
A big breath puffed from her flared nostrils, and her head slumped back onto the rug. He followed her down, kissing her cheek and purring for her.
“I was going to tell you, I’m just…trying to put it in the right words,” she admitted.
“Just tell me. That’s all that’s needed.”
Sighing, Anna finally explained the strange encounter with one of her employers that day.
“We were both weirded out about him suddenly appearing,” Anna said, referring to the art historian she chaperoned. “I mean, he does that sometimes. And it was at the worst time, too. I don’t know if she actually knows anything useful, but it felt like we were getting somewhere.”
“Perhaps you should call her as she requested.” He wasn’t concerned about his own safety or another human knowing of his existence, but he did worry what it meant for Anna.
“Yeah, I’m going to. I just wanted to see what you thought. We should have a game plan, you know? Plan what we’re going to say and how much we’re willing to reveal.”
He rumbled, pleased that she had thought to include him in her schemes. “We will think of something.”
“Okay.” Her fingers played over his cheek and jaw, then twisted in his long mane, but that pensive cast to her eyes hadn’t yet completely faded, so Frey waited. “Frey, do you…could it be possible that not all the fae are gone? Could some be here?”
His rumble deepened with displeasure at the thought. “I don’t think it likely,fynghân, but anything is possible. None had been seen for millennia when they attacked us.”
“You guys wouldn’t really know, though.” She grimaced with sympathy. “You were stone. Maybe they aren’t as lost as they used to be.”
“You think your employer is fae.” He didn’t mean to growl at her, but the idea of a fae close to his mate every day, without him there to protect her, scraped like dull claws down his soul.
Anna shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. There’s something weird about both of them, but Gavin especially. They look human, but they say weird things and sound so old-fashioned. It’s just a feeling, and it’s crazy, but it’d explain why you sensed fae magick that first night.”
“Anna…”
“I know, I know,” she sighed, “new job. I’m working on it. But until then, is there any way to tell if they’re fae?”
Frey struggled past his protective instincts, telling him to sequester her in the bedchamber and never let her out, to think on what he knew of the fae. It wasn’t much, just whispers and old fairy tales told to younglings to make them mind.
“They were known to assume glamours, to appear as attractive as possible to humans. The only thing I can think is surprising or wounding them would force them to drop the glamour and reveal themselves.” He rolled back atop Anna, frowning down at her. When she blinked innocently at him, he knew he was right to worry. “Not that you will. You won’t risk yourself.”
“I’m not going to attack my boss, you’re right.”
