Page 31 of Foundling

Streaks of gray floated and flew through the air, following where she directed them with precise movements of her arms. The trees shook off their layer of soot, the mosses shed their layer of singe. Leita didn’t dare stop, not until all the loose detritus of the fire had been gathered into great piles.

When she finally let her arms fall to her sides, the sky was blue again, the air clean, and tall mounds of dusty gray ash rose before her. It would make for good fertilizer in the gardens she insisted on starting in Fallorian—if she could manage to get it there, she supposed.

A problem for another day.

Buoyant with her success, Leita turned her hands to the sky. “Now for the rain.”

She thought Attalus echoed her words, but she didn’t truly hear. Splaying her fingers, she shot her magic into the sky, beseeching the wind and clouds to churn.

The faelands shuddered around them, unsure about Leita but desiring a cleansing rain.

That’s it. We want the same thing. Work with me.

The land’s will and magic coalesced, and together they coaxed great billowing clouds inland from the sea. Across the sky they moved, faster than was natural. The barometric pressure lifted the hairs on her arms, and her wings shivered inside their protective bundles on her back.

“Leita, wait…”

A hand gripped her shoulder, but Leita didn’t care.

Thunder burst across the sky, followed by a sheet of cool, clean rain.

She didn’t know when she’d closed her eyes, but at the feeling of rain on her skin, Leita turned her face to the wet sky. A laugh of pure, giddy triumph escaped her.

I did it, she told Thalia. I did it! she told the faelands.

The rain suddenly stopped above her head, instead echoing hollowly on the thin membrane of Attalus’s wing. From under the shelter of the other, Attalus peered at her curiously.

“Very impressive, but we should worry about mudslides.”

Leita opened her mouth to assure him that she could handle whatever the rain might bring—but what came out was a huff right before she collapsed into an overdue long sleep.

8

Attalus caught his fainting mate in his arms, not displeased to have the chance to hold her but certainly displeased over the circumstances.

“I knew you were pushing yourself too hard,” he complained to her unmoving face.

He sighed, lifting her into his harms, and walked them quickly back into the shelter of the cave. On his shoulder, Slinky chittered and shook out her damp coat before sniffing disdainfully at Leita’s starlight hair. The marten glowered at him, apparently not liking that he carried two females.

Attalus shrugged.

Within the relative shelter and out of the rain, he sat cross-legged on the ground, Leita cradled against him and Slinky making herself comfortable under his hair. Given a chance, he devoured the sight of his strange little fae.

When she wasn’t scowling, she looked so young. Fae were longer lived than even dragons, so she could be far older than his eighty years. She certainly carried a jaded attitude as though she’d lived a long life already.

That all seemed a little harder to believe as he traced the smooth arches of her brows first with his gaze and then his thumb. He didn’t like the thought of her being jaded. Surly, fine; spirited, absolutely; but truly cynical…what could she have gone through to make her so?

His thumb glided over the soft smoothness of her forehead, and he admired the green and purple iridescence of her faintly lilac skin. It was as though she sparkled from within, gleaming like abalone shells or beetle wings. Perhaps not the most romantic comparison, but beautiful nevertheless.

He knew her brows and lashes even to be silvery white, but up so close, he could truly appreciate their delicate color. He hadn’t noticed before, but she had a smattering of plum-colored freckles across the bridge of her nose. How charming. His mate wasn’t the wispy waif most other fae seemed to be. Even lax and still in his arms, he could feel the strength of her limbs and soft curves of her hips.

She was a perfect morsel, especially when she snipped and snapped at him.

Was it normal for his cock to stir the meaner she got? He was having a hell of a time keeping that bit of anatomy in check, what with her withering glares and sharp tongue. A kilt wouldn’t have gone amiss, even if he was often content to walk about in just his scales. He somehow knew that she’d hold an erection against him, which would then only make it worse.

No, if he ever wanted to show off his rather impressive cock to his doe properly, he’d need to play this situation carefully. She was as skittish as she was surly, his strange little mate. A feral woodland creature.

Blast it, now there was a story he needed to hear. Sooner rather than later.