Page 7 of Power of Five
4
Coal
Coal was going to kill River, he decided, as Leralynn squirmed in his saddle, her flesh pressing against Coal’s and setting every nerve in his body aflame. The mortal had been in his charge for less than a minute and already her sweet hay-and-lilac scent was making his head spin. Tye might have savored being in Coal’s skin just now, but Coal was different from his quint brothers.
Tye enjoyed women like he enjoyed exquisite desserts, sampling freely without commitment, leaving all involved with a pleasant—if fleeting—aftertaste. River, who still mourned the female he’d loved before the quint call took him, kept his distance. The quint commander never lacked for invitations, but he rarely if ever took a female to his bed. Shade, who once shared females with his twin Kai, had retreated into his wolf a decade back, unwilling to touch a female without his twin alongside.
As for Coal, he was unfit for female company. Too many jagged edges, too deep a darkness. Three hundred years had passed since the quint call rescued him, but time didn’t erase the past.
What Coal needed just now was some wind, a bit of fresh air to clear the girl’s scent from his nose. The mortal realm dampened the fae’s magic, but there were old-fashioned ways of calling the wind to your face. Coal patted his horse’s flank once and nudged the stallion into a canter.
Leralynn gasped, bouncing so hard in the saddle that the horse bucked in bewilderment. The girl’s fingernails dug into Coal’s forearms as if the whole bloody world was falling on their ears, and she slid further sideways than Coal thought possible given their arrangement.Coal cursed, hauling his nearly-unsaddled-for-no-reason passenger back into place and holding fast with his arms tucked even tighter against her waist as she attempted to topple off again.
The horse whinnied unhappily.
“You don’t know how to ride, mortal.” He’d meant it as a question, but it sounded more like a murder accusation.
“The mortal’s name is Lera,” she snapped over her shoulder, grabbing on to the horse’s neck and wiggling. “And we are not all immortal fae who own horses. Have you not met someone who couldn’t ride before?”
“Not in over three hundred years, no.” Coal turned his head and took a deep breath of fresh air. Leralynn’s—Lera’s—shifting backside happened to be very well aligned with his cock. With another curse—this one swallowed before he voiced it—Coal hurried to tighten his arms around the girl before her attempts to find purchase in the saddle awoke him any further.
“Three hundred years? You are over three—” Lera’s voice hitched. “Feel free to explain what’s happening anytime now. Where we are going would be a nice start. What under the bloody stars is happening would also be a welcome topic.”
“We will find camp for the night, then cross Mystwood to enter Lunos, then ride to the Citadel to ask the Elders Council to break your bond with our quint,” Coal said, his words clipped. The female was starting to lean into him now, her body tentatively trusting his to keep her safe. It was bloody intoxicating, the warmth and need that Lera’s closeness sent through his flesh. No, not the mortal’s closeness—just the magic that had accidentally, and very temporarily, bonded them together. Gritting his teeth, Coal made his hips still, refusing to let his body sink deeper into hers—even as his every fiber fought to rearrange itself to fit tighter around Lera’s curves. Coalwouldkeep her safe. From falling, from attack, from himself.
“That isn’t an explanation,” said Lera. “That’s a recitation of facts that you know perfectly well I don’t understand.” Her voice was musical and strong, but Coal could smell the biting tendrils of fear beneath the bravado. Fear that a promise of not falling from a horse wouldn’t soothe.
He’d been afraid too when the quint call came. Terrified. Not of dying, but of living, of being recaptured and brought back to his masters in chains. “Do you know what Mors is?” he asked.
She shook her head, her whole body shifting along with it and waking Coal again.
He ground his teeth. He’d need to start with the basics. “Mors is the dark realm, where beings called qoru live. They are gray-skinned creatures who ingest others’ life energy to survive, the same as how fae and humans require food. Qoru raised harvests of fae and humans as a food source and to work for them.” Releasing the reins with one hand, Coal traced a line across Lera’s forearm, close to her wrist. She shivered lightly and he felt it all the way to his toes. “Several thousand years ago, a host of fae and humans escaped Mors, establishing the fae lands, which we call Lunos.” He traced a second line, this one a bit closer to the elbow. “The fae built up the wards to keep the wall between Mors and Lunos erect. While Lunos was mostly safe from Mors’s nightmares, the inequality between the immortal, magically gifted fae and their weaker but more numerous human counterparts created its own problems. So the humans moved on,” Coal traced a third line, this one across the crook of Lera’s elbow, “creating the mortal lands and helping set up Mystwood to ensure that the worlds remain separate.”
“You saidmostlysafe,” said Lera, and Coal’s brow twitched. Sharp attention on this one.
“Just as Mystwood is not wholly impermeable to passage, the wall between Mors and Lunos likewise has weaknesses. Occasionally, things pass that should not.” Coal’s body tensed, this time without Lera’s movement. He cleared his throat. “As Lunos settled into itself, three courts emerged—Flurry, the Ice Court in the north; Slait, the Earth Court in the middle; and Blaze, the Fire Court in the south. With three courts, each concerned for itself, Lunos became fragmented against Mors’s threat. The elders of each court thus combined their powers to form the Citadel, a neutral fortress charged with protecting Lunos. The Citadel’s magic calls fae in troupes of five, the bond making the quint’s power greater than any fae warrior alone.” Coal paused, making sure she was listening closely. He felt her attention in the stiffness of her back, her hands clinging tightly to his arms. “River, Tye, Shade, and I are one such quint. We lost our fifth quint brother ten years ago and have waited for the magic to choose another to complete us. It appears that the magic has chosen you.”
“To join your... quint?” said Lera.
“Yes.”
“Of deadly immortal warriors.”
“Yes.”
Coal didn’t know what exactly he expected next—panic, a stream of babbling questions, crying—but it wasn’t this calm silence. The mortal seemed to be considering, thinking. Plotting all their deaths, if she was smart.
This silence, broken only by the soft beat of the horses’ hooves and the occasional equine snort, was not kind to Coal’s body, making him all too aware of the female’s presence. Her softness pressing into his pelvis and stomach, her thighs lining the inside of his. Her scent, which somehow bypassed his nose and went directly to his cock. Yes, Coal was going to kill River for this.
“This Citadel,” Lera said finally, halting Coal’s thoughts with a violent jerk. “How does it work?”
“The Citadel trains, tests, and commands the quints. That is where we head now. The Elders Council will be able to sever this mistaken bond and set you free of us.”
He’d meant that last part to be soothing, but the female’s body remained tense, as if she didn’t dare believe him. “Do fae apply to the Citadel?” she asked finally. “Is there some kind of selection process?”
“No. The original elders set up the magic to select the warriors. It keeps the Citadel neutral and prevents any court from planting its allies in the quints. For the fae, once the call comes, there is no physical choice but to answer it. The magic always calls beings from different courts into one bond; that, too, the elders made by design. Most of the quints are male, though a few female ones exist. There are no mixed-gender quints, save the Elders Council itself.”
“The Elders Council and us, you mean,” the mortal said.
“No. He means only the Elders Council,” River’s voice interrupted, the commander pulling his horse up beside Coal’s and narrowing his eyes at them both. “We aren’t a quint—we are a mistake. There can’t be a human in a fae warrior bond.”
Lera flinched and Coal’s arms tightened around her reflexively. The fact that River was right didn’t make Coal want to punch the male any less. That was the luxury of not being in charge, of not being the one to carry responsibility for the whole quint and more—you could be as pissed as you wanted at the one who made the calls. Coal bowed in his saddle and veered far enough away to let Lera breathe again.
That proved to be its own mistake. The moment her heart slowed, the mortal started talking again. “Where are you all from?”
Coal’s jaw flexed. He should have just kept his mouth shut, but it was too late now. “River is from Slait. Tye is from Blaze. Shade and his twin Kai were from Flurry.”
“And you?” Lera gasped as they headed down a hill and the stallion’s gait became choppy. The saddle was chafing the inside of the female’s knees and thighs, the copper scent of her increasingly bloody wounds making Coal’s heart pound. She wasn’t complaining, though, even if her questions came through gritted teeth. “Which court are you from?”
Instead of answering, Coal kicked the stallion into a gallop. The sooner they got to camp and moved the female off horseback, the better.
