Page 55 of Great Falls Protector
Lera
“Does this mean you two have made up?” Tye’s voice penetrates my haze of bone-melting satisfaction, my naked body utterly content where it sprawls atop Shade’s equally bare form. Shade’s chest lifts me slightly into the air with each inhale, his warm sweat-soaked skin slippery and perfect against mine as I stare at the intricate woodwork along the nearest baseboard, the designs slipping and dancing.
“Mmm?” I blink away from the designs to focus on Tye. Shade’s arm pulls me tighter against his chest as I examine Tye’s lovely freckles and large emerald eyes, the lashes long and dark enough to make any girl jealous. Including me. Of course, if those eyes were a bit closer… “You want to join?” I ask.
Tye snorts. “I always want to join. We can’t have you thinking this fleabag’s feeble skills are all there is to be had in our quint. Alas, I prefer my couplings to be with sentient beings.” Squatting beside my head, Tye rests muscled forearms against his knees and studies me with amusement, his beautiful wide mouth quirked at one corner.
Shade growls softly but doesn’t move.
I blink at Tye again, the effort it takes to enunciate my words seeming much greater than usual. “I’m sen…sensual. Sentient. I’m whatever you said you like.” My sex twinges despite my fatigue, and I run the pad of my finger along the inside of Tye’s wrist.
The male tenses, looking up at the ceiling to draw several deep breaths before daring to return his attention to my face. “Right. You are bond drunk, lass. Both of ye. And we really don’t have very much time for that just now, what with the Night Guard holding the kings hostage and River trying to plan an assault on the keep while Coal and I try to find a way to tell him theothernews. And the humans, meanwhile—” Tye’s words meld together, his songlike accent turning whatever he says into a lullaby.
I close my eyes, listening to the roll of Tye’s Rs, the way the ends of his phrases shift beautifully to make “your” into “yer,” with the occasional “aye” sprinkled in for spice.It’s not until the sounds rudely stop altogether that I open my eyes again, my attention snagging at once on the sizable bulge between Tye’s legs—which his crouching position gives me a perfect view of.
My mouth waters, the thought of what Tye would taste like in my mouth just now, with Shade’s scent still clinging to my tongue, making my mound press hungrily against Shade’s body. The shifter growls in response, slipping a hand over my bottom to help me along. My hand floats from me, reaching toward Tye’s cock, my fingers already planning the quick tug that will unravel his flies. How nicely the great length of him will spring out for my pleasure.
Tye catches my wrist, his breaths quick and strained.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
“Ruining what would have been a very well-spent hour, apparently,” Tye mutters, placing my hand back on Shade’s shoulder before straightening to his full height and retreating from view. A part of me insists that I should care where he is going, but the rest of me can only sulk at being denied.
Turning my head the other way, I circle one of Shade’s nipples with my finger, the muscles under his velvety tan skin puckering in response. “What’s bond drunk?”
“It’s something that sometimes happens to bonded mates when a female is with pups,” River says dryly from behind me. “Given that that, at least, is one thing we do not have to worry about at the moment, you two can get your naked backsides up and rejoin reality any time now. Let me help.” The last words are punctuated with a downpour of ice water.
I yelp, the shock making every nerve in my body scream with indignation, especially with a stray icy stream snaking down the crack in my bottom. I scramble off Shade—who steadies me with his strong arms before pushing himself up as well—and glare at River, who righteously sets the now-empty water pitcher on a nearby table. He’s dressed now in a white shirt and blue wool jacket, his brown hair combed annoyingly neatly.
“Errr, River?” Tye drawls. “I wouldn’t jump to too many assumptions there, lad.” Taking off the soot-stained remains of his Prowess uniform jacket, Tye wraps the material around my bare shoulders and pulls me against him.
River turns away from Shade, who now has his hands on his thighs, shaking the water off him in a perfect imitation of a wet wolf. “What assumptions am I jumping to, Tye?”
Shade clears his throat, his gaze shifting to me, then back to River. “How is your chest?” he asks the commander, turning to fish a pair of britches from the hastily discarded pile of clothes. “I don’t want you walking around if you don’t have to be.”
“Noted,” River says dryly, one dark brow quirked. “Is something going on of which I’m not aware?”
“What’s bond drunk?” I ask again, snuggling my face deeper into Tye’s warm chest, his pine-and-citrus scent tingling over me deliciously.
“Pregnancy has a tendency to magnify certain emotions and senses,” Tye says quietly into my ear. “Mix high emotion and mating, and the effect is well, this.” He shifts to put his hard cock—which I suddenly realize I’d been reaching for—out of my grasp. “Unless you want to be doing nothing but coupling for the next few days, I suggest not going into my britches just now.” He snorts. “What idiocy am I saying. If you want to—”
“Why are we still talking about—” River freezes in midsentence, blood draining from his face.
I bite my lip.
His eyes widen, the apple of his throat twitching before he steps back so quickly that Shade steadies him with a hand on his shoulder. Gripping a table’s edge, River stares at my still perfectly flat midriff, his mouth moving without making a sound. Beyond the library wall, another crack of thunder cleaves the air, rain pelting the windows.
“She is…” River starts to say, then stops. His beautiful gray eyes swirl with rapid-fire thoughts, each one crowding out the next. I’ve never seen our powerful commander like this. It almost makes me nervous.
“The cub is carrying pups, yes.” Shade tries and fails to sound clinical, his hand twitching toward me before he contains himself and sticks it into his pocket instead. “Twins.”
“How?” River demands, turning on Shade with all the reasonableness of a disheveled hyena.
“Well, River,” Tye says, “I’m no healer, of course, but I do believe it has to do with a cock making entry into—”
“Shut up, Tye,” River snaps over his shoulder before advancing on Shade. “You said it was impossible. That being so newly fae, her body was not yet developed for…for…”
“Yes, I know what I said. As both Coal and you have now pointed out.” Shade throws up his hands. “The research on the fertility cycles of a human turned fae are somewhat lacking. And before you ask, no, there is no way of knowing which of our seeds took hold. Only that it did. I suppose we might get some clue once they’re born, but for all I know, Lera’s weaver magic managed to blend the essences from all our seeds together.”
