“Fucking traitor,” the Vaennish prince growled, sitting on the floor at the end of the bed with one knee up, his katana wrapped in his arms. The look he threw my way was pure poison, but I had a feeling he was talking to his brother rather than me. With a scowl, he turned away and rested his cheek on his knee.
“I hope you care about her as much as you say you do,” the prince said from behind me, his voice formal and stiff, half-fear and half-fear anger making his words stilted and strange. “Because this better gods-damn well work.”
“It’ll work,” I whispered as I took a seat on the edge of the mattress and looked down at Brynn’s sleeping face. Fuck, she was beautiful, with full lips and a small nose, those big round eyes ringed with white lashes. Her brows were curved in graceful arches, and the roundness of her face just invited one of my hands to reach out and cup it.
“Are you really going to sit there and gaze at her, or are you going to wake her up?” an angry voice snapped from the doorway. I glanced over to find Elijah of Haversey, his white wings lifted in frustration, his angel-blue eyes latched onto my face. He hated me. Or else, maybe he was jealous? A spirit whisperer might be able to kiss a ghost, date a ghost, even fuck a ghost … but it wasn’t the same. Brynn needed someone warm and alive to ground her, someone who was as much a part of this world as she was.
“I’m here, little spirit whisperer,” I said, brushing some of that snow-white hair from Brynn’s face with my fingers. She didn’t stir, not like someone who was truly sleeping might. No, she was clearly spelled; I could smell the burnt taste of magic in the air, hanging over the room in a fog. Carefully, I adjusted one of her ebony wings so I could scoot closer and heard one of the spirits behind me let out a growl.
“Watch your hands, griffin,” the prince declared, but I ignored him. I would never take advantage of a sleeping woman. With all the time we were soon going to be spending together, he’d come to find out. Because as soon as I woke Brynn up, I intended to find some way to stay here with her permanently. That is, if she’d have me, of course.
“Are you ready for this, Brynn?” I continued with a small sigh, looking down at her with affection and aggression both churning inside of me. The affection was all for her, my future mate, but the rage was for whoever had done this to her. I wasn’t an easy man to anger, but once that fuse was lit, it was nearly impossible to put out.
“If you’re waiting for an invitation, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but it’s not coming. Just kiss the girl and worry about apologizing later.” Trubble’s voice echoed in my head as I leaned down and slowly, carefully, put my lips to Brynn’s. Normally, I wouldn’t kiss a sleeping woman like this, slip my tongue between her lips, cup her head with my hand … but the only way to break a sleep whisperer’s spell was with true love’s kiss. Corny, but true.
I’m not sure that anyone else in that room thought it was going to work.
But I did.
Remember? I was a man who was never lost. I always knew my destination and how to get there. And this girl, she was it.
I slept like the dead, this long, quiet void where I wandered alone and confused down a stone corridor with no exit. My voice echoed in the silent space as I called out for Air, for Elijah, for Talon, the poor thief boy who’d jumped in front of a razor wolf to save me. But nobody answered, nobody called back to let me know that I wasn’t completely and utterly alone.
There was no light, no torches or candles, but somehow I could still see through the darkness, down that endless stretch of black shadows and gray stone. I was freezing cold, my arms and wings wrapped tightly around me as I tried not to think of Dyre’s blood splattering across the snow. The Vaennish prince was now dead because he’d tried to save me. But why? We hardly knew each other. Exhaling, I watched my breath frost in the icy air and wondered if I were in the Otherside now, that purgatorial space between life and rebirth. Some said the gods lived here, but I didn’t think so. Why would the gods want to live on the same street as a bunch of spirits and shadows?
No, there were no gods here. There was nobody and nothing.
Spreading my wings out behind me, I closed my eyes. Why not? It was all black-on-black anyway. I searched for my mind for memories of that last few minutes after Dyre was killed, but … all I could recall were my knives plunging onto a razor wolf and then nothing. Nothing at all. Had I died, too? If so, why wasn’t I being reborn? Why wasn’t I a spirit?
Opening my eyes again, I found that I’d reached the end of the tunnel. A wall of stone greeted me, just inches in front of my face, so I turned around. And when I did, there she was, the woman with the melted fox mask. She seemed to stumble toward me, her gait uneven, almost like she was drunk. Reaching up a hand, I took hold of Haversey’s five-pointed star hanging around my neck.
But … what if I were sleeping again? What if, like last time, I almost exorcised Air or Elijah instead of this woman?
“What do you want?” I asked her, but she didn’t speak, her copper eyes blazing as she reached out a hand toward me, grasping me around the wrist. Her mouth opened and closed, but she didn’t speak, that fox mask melting down her face and over her lips.
Speaking of, I felt something warm and comforting against mine.
And … was that Vexer’s voice?
The woman faded away with a scream at the same time the ground did. I found myself falling fast, my arms and legs thrashing as a hot mouth covered mine and kissed me in mid-air. With a jolt, I hit something soft—my flubbing mattress!—and sensation shot through me, overwhelming in its intensity.
My eyes flickered open and there he was, Vexer of Reisender, kissing me and running his fingers through my hair. My wings opened wide and smashed into the wall and the lamp on the nightstand—good thing it was screwed in, thanks Air!—as I sat up with a gasping scream stuck in my throat. Vexer was smart enough to move back so we didn’t bash our foreheads. He was wearing Dyre’s mask—Dyre’s brother—and smiling at me.
“True love’s kiss,” Vex said as my eyes darted around the room, taking in Jasinda and Matz, Professor Cross, Dyre, Elijah, Air. But no Talon. He was gone, swallowed up by a razor wolf to live century after century in darkness. “I woke you up.”
“You … what?” I asked, putting the heel of my hand to my forehead and closing my eyes against the wild spinning in the room. I felt so disoriented in that moment, detached from the whole world, and I didn’t like it one bit. Nothing a little good ol’ fashioned embarrassment couldn’t sort out. Sometimes, I had to wonder if the goddess hated me.
“With the exception of a sleep whisperer, the only thing that can break one of those spells is a kiss from a lover.” Vexer’s voice was low and even, a deep rumbling sound that seemed to travel down through his chest to his arm, his hand, and into me. I could feel that sound in my bones, and I loved it. “Well, I woke you up.”
My eyes opened to find Air and Elijah crowding close, their faces tight with worry and fear. Jasinda was there, too, with tears in her eyes, but she was also blushing profusely which was weird. I mean, I too was blushing profusely, but that was to be expected. I’d just been woken up by a griffin with a seriously huge erection in his tight breeches. When he caught me looking, he gave a slightly apologetic smile. I saw slightly because his eyes were sparkling with mischief.
“Sorry about that. You’re just so fucking beautiful; it’s just a natural act.” He gestured at his crotch as my blush intensified about a hundredfold. “I won’t violate your trust, of course.”
“Yeah, of course,” I said as I scooted up into the pillows and tried to ignore my own ‘natural acts’, i.e. my hardened nipples and the molten heat gathering between my thighs. Vexer, he was so big and beautiful, his face so thick with stubble, he was almost sporting a beard, his muscles tight as he placed his tattooed palm on the bed and leaned in toward me. He smelled like sunshine and fresh grass, and Hell, mostly he smelled like sweat.
Alive.