Page 16 of Traitor Witch
I’m shoving Cas out of the way before I can really process my own actions.
My gut clenches as I hold out my hand to help her up.
Feeling her tiny hand in my oversized one does something to me.
My body shakes as an electric current passes through me. I almost stumble as a beat I’ve long forgotten rumbles to life in my chest.
My heart has been silent for centuries.
I stare at the woman climbing onto the deck.
The one Fate’s chosen for me.
She’s my total opposite. Tiny and slender where I’m tall and bulky. Her skin is a peach brushed porcelain that seems cold compared with the warm chestnut brown of mine. Silky tendrils of hair frame her face before falling to her waist in soft, dark waves while my dreads are a similar length but braided back out of my eyes.
Her head barely reaches my chest.
A flash of fear creeps in as I think of how breakable she looks.
Her face doesn’t help that impression; she has all the delicate features of a fae or a witch. The white robes she’s wearing and the grey tabby wrapped around her shoulders make me certain that she’s the latter.
Then her luminous blue eyes meet mine and the scent of her wraps around me fully.
I’m gone.
I have no idea how I lived until I was with her. The perfect thud, thud of her heartbeat draws me in until Cas's discrete cough snaps me out of it.
“Welcome,” I rumble, trying my utmost to conceal the way my fangs have descended at the first sniff like a newborn vamp.
She doesn’t answer. Instead, her eyes search past me, toward the two men she’s yet to meet. Her posture is loose, like a trained fighter, and her eyes narrow in a way I’m all too familiar with. She’s assessing whether we’re a threat to her. From the cautious look in her eyes, she’s decided we are.
I expected Valorean’s growled, “Get her off my ship.”
I was not ready for my own instant hiss of denial.
The twins go straight for the offensive, their beasts giving a low, feral rumble that makes my eyebrows lift. Cas growling isn’t surprising but for Nos to make the animal sound as well? That’s rare.
“She stays,” Kier’s whisper shocks me more than all our other reactions combined.
Everyone turns to look at him.
His jet-black hair and matching clothes let him blend into the shadow of the mainmast, but his dark, angular eyes shine as he looks at my mate. He doesn’t speak often, hasn’t uttered a word for at least the last half-decade, so the fact that he’s chosen to do so now has me confused.
Until my eyes catch on the shimmering layer of frost coating the deck around his feet.
The number one sign that a fae has found their mate? They start to lose control of their power.
Fuck. She’s our mate.
I’m sharing a mate with the twins and the fae… maybe even the grouchy mage too, if the erection straining against his trousers is anything to go by.
I keep my grip on her hand, careful to use only a fraction of my normal strength as I pull her over to Valorean.
Mercifully, my fangs start to recede, letting me speak normally.
“Make her an offer,” I insist.
He quirks a pale brow at me from under his signature mop of white hair. “You as well?”
