Clamping down on his cock, a tight, wet fist, she began to move slowly, rising on her knees so that the head almost slid out of her opening. Then there was the excruciating stimulation of it coming back in again as she descended. His gaze drifted over her throat, to the naked breast, the stiff nipple, the two marks his fangs had made, the smear of blood there. His nostrils flared, showing how much he wanted to lick it off. She kept her hand pressed on his chest, his heart thundering under it as she rose and fel . As the desire to release built, she arched, tossing her hair back so it fel against the bare upper thighs.

Glorious pleasure, glorious power. And a glorious, magnificent man to share it with. It was his turn to rear up now, and he did, capturing her upper body, holding her as he licked away that blood on her breast. He also helped her move upon him, his expression a straining rictus, tel ing her how he was holding back, fighting his vampire nature as well as his male one. all for her.

Perhaps that capriciousness Keldwyn had warned her about was infecting her. Jacob would say it was simple female nature, but suddenly she didn't want him to hold back. She wanted him to release, wanted to face whatever they were about to face with the scent of his seed on her thighs.

Command me, my lady. Let me give you what you want.

Come for me. Come now.

You first.

They went together, as wild, feral creatures, his teeth scoring her throat again as her nails drew blood from his broad back. She shuddered, holding on as he finished just behind her, stil pushing into her fast and desperate, his hands tight on her hips.

She gripped his shoulders, rubbing her face in his hair, then up against his jaw like an animal in truth, liking the scent of him. He smiled at that thought, his lips pul ing against her throat.

“We're not making much progress toward that castle,” he said at last. “But you did say we had time.”

“Hmm.” When he adjusted so his back was comfortably braced against the tree, the shift of his cock stil within her made her breath catch anew.

She gestured toward a thin web of upper branches, through which they could distinguish the distant turrets of the Castle of Fire. “Notice anything?” His brow creased. “It's moved. And it's farther away.”

“Even though we moved closer.” She shook her head. “I've been a queen for too long to tolerate games. I won't chase her down. If she wants me tonight, she'l come get me. For now . . .” She arched back, a lazy movement that trusted his hands to cup her lower back and hold her steady as she looked up into the canopies of the ancient oaks spread over them, then back out into the meadow, where the unicorns were now grazing. “I don't know what will happen once we get there, but this may be the only time we'l experience and enjoy this world at our leisure, without interruption.”

She straightened. “This forest is ancient, and it provides dense cover from sunlight. The deeper you go in, the darker it gets. I've seen at least several trees that have above ground root systems we can turn into a protected alcove with more branches and foliage. We'l scout out a proper one for the morning sunrise. Tomorrow night, if she hasn't come to find us, we'l find her.”

She wasn't one for idling. This was a strategy, and she could tel Jacob knew it. Beyond the message she was sending to the Fae queen, it would be a tactical advantage to understand this new world better. “And I want you to tel me more stories. While they may be embel ished, some may be rooted in truth. I have a feeling I'l be able to tel the difference.

There's usual y a rhythm or pattern to every society's stories. It's a dialect you can use, so to speak, for anticipating behavior.”

As she stroked his hair back from his neck, he pursed his lips. “Since we've no idea of the welcome we'l get from the queen, your plan seems as good as any.” He glanced over at the nearest cove she'd indicated, its frame of heather and ferns. “And if my lady would pass some hours dreaming in my arms in such a place, it sounds too tempting to pass up.”

“Ever the charmer. Come explore with me. Help me learn what is fantasy and fact.”

“In this world, I don't think there is a difference, my lady.”

She hadn't anticipated how right he was.

After a reluctant separation of their bodies, they left the shelter of the forest and chose a different hil and meadow to explore, one where the silver and gold flowers gave way to lovely, delicate lavender blooms that reminded her of tulips. As they moved through the field, she saw Fae only minimal y larger than the firefly Fae, but not larger than the spread of her hand. They seemed to be hovering over the tulips like bees considering honey col ection.

However, when he recognized what they were doing, Jacob brought her to a halt. His hand closing over hers, he pul ed them both into a careful, silent squat as he scrutinized the blossoms surrounding them.

He spoke in a whisper. “My aunt told me what—at the time—I thought were sil y, girlish stories about Fae mothers putting their babies to sleep inside flowers.”

She fol owed the direction of his pointed gaze.

Lyssa peered inside the cradle of a purple blossom, only to find a tiny bean-sized baby, sleeping deep.

What she first thought was a baby blanket she realized was the baby's oversized wings, folded careful y around the smal body. The babe was a little girl, whose cornsilk soft hair was a darker shade of purple than her cradle.

With a smile, Jacob brushed the stem of the flower, setting the bloom to nodding like a rocking cradle in truth. The babe cooed in her sleep, hands closing and opening near her face. At a warning noise, they looked up to see a Fae mother hovering just above eye level with her lavender wings. She also had purple hair, and snapping brown eyes. With her blue dress that fel in rounded layers around her bare feet, she looked like a flower turned upside down, but she buzzed in Lyssa's face like a very annoyed bee, her arms akimbo.

“Just got her to sleep, I did,” she hissed, her voice like stabs at a tiny piano's keys.

“Our apologies,” Lyssa responded in a whisper, giving Jacob a sidelong glance. The mother waved them off, putting an adamant finger to her lips. Jacob squeezed Lyssa's hand, leading her out of the field and back onto the forest paths. Once there, Lyssa's brow creased thoughtful y. “She wasn't the least bit afraid of us harming her baby, two total strangers.

She was merely concerned we might wake her.” Jacob caught her elbow, bringing her up short as a troop of gnomes, the tal est one not past Jacob's knee, broke out of the brush. They were carrying a load of what looked like walnuts on a makeshift platform. The gnomes eyed them baleful y, several of them grunting, but no other communication was encouraged. As they disappeared into the forest, they left behind a metronome movement of disturbed ferns.

“We've tried to engage several Fae in conversation tonight,” Lyssa observed. “With the exception of the water nymphs, none of them seem to want to engage in conversation with us.”

“Like the mountain pixies,” Jacob recal ed. When he and Lyssa had sought refuge in Keldwyn's territory in the mountains, a cadre of pixies had fixated on Lyssa. They'd sit upon her when she was in her winged Fae form, chattering, stroking her hair or skin, but they didn't want her to talk to them at all.

The few times she tried, they paused, looked at her, then continued speaking among themselves as if she was an interrupting child, speaking gibberish.

“Around Keldwyn, they were very watchful, deferential.” Jacob leaned against a tree, then shifted as the tree gave an irritated groan, the branches rustling overhead. “My apologies,” he said courteously. “I should have asked your permission first. Good thing we had an accommodating tree earlier,” he added to Lyssa, to her great amusement.

“Maybe the intuitive sense is far more developed here. If so, most of them should be able to tel if we mean harm or not, and since we don't, they're just ignoring us. Since I haven't been acknowledged by the queen, maybe they're not all owed to interact with me until that occurs. Which suggests they know who we are and why we're here.”

“That could be disturbing or helpful.” They walked some more, saw another group of gnomes tending a smal herd of goats in a rocky field. A female gnome with pretty white hair and lively dark eyes in her round potato-like face was seated on a rock, her short legs dangling as she brushed one goat's beard, tying ribbons into it. Like all the others, she ignored Jacob and Lyssa.

When Lyssa felt dawn approaching, they returned to the resting spot for Jacob they'd chosen, a shal ow but well -protected alcove beneath one tree's half-exposed root system. They further reinforced and prepared it for the sunrise. Since the soil was soft, Jacob bade her wait while he took some fal en leaves and carpeted it, to keep her from getting the soil on her clothes. Then he settled in, putting his back against the wal of earth, and invited her to come into his shelter and take a position between his thighs and bent knees.

“How about another story?” she asked.

He tugged on her hair. “You're worse than Kane, figuring out ways to delay bedtime.”

“He's only successful because his father spoils him.”

“Me? You're throwing stones in a glass house.” He snorted. “I'm surprised you don't know these stories, my lady. Was it painful for your mother to talk about your father and his world?”

“It was dangerous. We both know how vulnerable a vampire child is. My life, those first few years, depended on hiding behind the protection of the vampire world, when the Fae were trying to find and kil us. My father had agreed to his sentence as a condition of letting my mother escape the Fae world, but once she left and bore me, apparently the Fae felt kil ing us to reinforce the lesson about the two species breeding was more important than honoring my father's bargain. Eventual y, something changed and we were no longer hunted, but not before they kil ed her servant, the one who posed as my stepfather in Japan. As you may remember.” He did. His first lifetime with her, a samurai guard to a young vampire girl child. The screaming and blood, his roaring command at her maidservant to grab her up and run . . . It was when Jacob died for her for the first time as well. She'd grown up under the shadow of possible assassination. It was no wonder she'd been mature far beyond her years, almost a queen from birth.