Page 57 of Beneath a Shattered Sky
Did I mess up by letting slip to Drystan before the rest? I didn’t mean to. Was I supposed to tell them all at the same time? Are Jaro and Bree going to feel left out?
“No one is upset,” Bree whispers, coming to stand beside me, so close that our arms are touching. “They’re just squabbling because there’s an old adage about the Nicnevin’s harem that says the Guard she confesses her love to first will become the unacknowledged leader of the group.”
Oh Goddess, really? I turn to look at him, to see if he’s winding me up. Only his expression is totally sincere. Then I catch a flash of red out of the corner of my eye.
“Give that back!” Lore cries.
Giving in, I grimace as I realise Drystan’s clutching Lore’s cap. At the same time, Lore has taken to a branch above us, his fingers tangled in the braids of the huntsman’s detached head and is poking it in the nose with his free hand.
“You tried to stab me!” I’m not entirely sure why Drystan sounds shocked about that.
“With my littlest knife! Besides, you shouldn’t have made her say it to you first.”
Drystan rolls his eyes. “Give my head back. Now. Before someone sees.”
“Lore,” I whisper. “It was nothing. Besides, Drystan never said it back. It was all just an embarrassing?—”
I cut off as Drystan’s body strides up to mine, caging me against the railing as those fiery eyes blaze down at me from amidst a cloud of shadows. “Nothing?”
“I didn?—”
“Say it was nothing again. I dare you.”
His tone makes my hackles rise. “I didn’t even say it properly,” I object.
“You said, and I quote, ‘there’s the grumpy fae lord I know and love.’ Thus, I was the first you confessed to loving.” Goddess, can he sound any smugger?
“Well, I mean. I don’t want… I’m not picking favourites!”
“Not even slightly?” Lore blinks until he’s crowding me from the other side, increasing the pressure. “I’ve got to rank higher than the blue idiot, right?”
My hands come up, hiding my face in a childish gesture that does nothing to hide my flustered self from the two of them. There’s a thump, and I peek out between my fingers just in time to catch Drystan placing his head back on his neck and Lore swiping back his cap.
Bree is still on my other side, and somehow his silence holds just as much pressure as the rest of them.
Then a hand reaches between the three of them, grabbing my elbow and tugging me free of the now stifling space. My hands land against Jaro’s warm chest, and his wolf lets out a pleased rumble that I feel more than hear.
“No one thinks you’re picking favourites, Rosie,” he explains. “We all hope to hear you say those words about us, but we’ve had twenty-five years to come to terms with sharing you.”
A second body crowds me from behind, his breath whispering over my neck as his finger hooks around the chain of my antler and snowflake necklace. “I was still first.”
Leaning forward, I bury my face in Jaro’s chest and huff out an embarrassed half laugh. “I take it back. You don’t deserve to be first.”
“But I gave you my hat before he tric—” Lore’s astonished voice cuts out suddenly.
This time, I don’t want to see what Drystan has done to silence him.
“As for your claim that I never said it back…” the dullahan continues. “Do you not recall what I told you when I gave you this?Isaid it first.”
My breath hitches as I remember that moment. I think it’s trapped in my memory for all time.
Being pressed between them like this is affecting my ability to think. The buzz that comes from being in contact with one of my mates is doubled, and my hands stroke upward, latching onto Jaro’s shoulders to drag him down for a kiss.
My tongue twines with his as a second pair of lips ghosts down the side of my neck. The shifter’s hands span my waist, fingers digging into the upper slopes of my ass and brushing the underside of my wings as he grinds my lower half against his. The move bends me back, until my shoulders hit Drystan’s chest, and the lips at my neck become more insistent.
The possessive side of me that hasn’t really died since I realised I was in the same room as Lore’s ex-lover grins as she realises the position will shower both of them in my dust. I kiss Jaro a little harder, sucking on his tongue and revelling in the way his wolf flashes in his eyes.
“Am I interrupting something?” Caed drawls, shattering the moment.
