Page 41 of Escape from the Green

Not sure if I was making a deal with good or evil - or worse yet, an opportunist - I hedged my bets. "The human realm."

"Coming from the direction you came from, that took you what? Six days? Seven?" she mused rather accurately. "Because you, Drake the fire-breather, you don't know these woods very well. Anymore anyway. I heard rumors of an imprisoned Draca. Didn't put much weight in them. But I see now that was a misjudgment. Only an imprisoned, recently released fae would walk six days from here to reach the human realm."

"How far is it?" I asked, hope swelling up. Hope that I could get there before them, that they did not have the tool that was a savage fae, one raised by the woods themselves.

"We could get there in two and a half. If you don't slow me down."

If I didn't slow her down.

If I wasn't so racked with guilt, I would have found the enthusiasm to laugh at that.

"So, are you coming or not?" she asked, moving past me. No. Slamming into my shoulder as she passed.

So we walked.

And walked.

In complete and utter silence. The kind only two people so utterly used to aloneness could feel comfortable with.

In fact, had there not been reason to, I was rather confident there would have been no talking at all between us the whole trip.

But as darkness descended upon us, Smoky's hand went to her thigh holster, dragging out a ragged, mean-looking stone-knife, turning on her heel, and thrusting it outward toward a tree before I could even register her movements.

"Show yourself," she demanded, voice fierce, unyielding. "Oh, for the Queen's sake," Smoky grumbled, slipping her knife back into her thigh holster as a giant green, well, lizard crept out of an evergreen thicket, tongue flicking out, eyes mischievous. "Get that tongue back in your mouth, Sal. That is wishful thinking on your part. That thing is never getting near me again."

Caught off-guard, my lips quirked up.

It had been a while.

Since I was in The Green.

Since I had seen a woman talking to a creature that appeared to be nothing more than some egg-eating, bug-sucking amphibian.

But this was The Green after all. And things were rarely ever what they at first appeared.

As if to reinforce the thought as it appeared, the creature stopped, eyes focused on Smoky as the Change moved through it.

It had been so long since I'd seen it.

The Change.

I spent my life fighting mine, barely remembering the ease at which it used to overtake me.

Much like it took over Sal as his body morphed from giant salamander to Salamander fae in the course of mere seconds. If I had blinked, I might have missed it.

But then there he was.

Naked as the day he was born, giving Smoky that same look, made even more devilish without his amphibian skin. And the fact that his cock was now out. And that Smoky went ahead and did a once-over, eyes landing there for a long moment, her gaze full of familiarity before her eyes went to his face again.

"Am I supposed to be overcome with lust, Sal? Been there, done that."

"Need I remind you how that had you screaming, Smoke?" he asked, lips curving up even further. "Or are you too busy fucking some bastard stuck between Changing cycles?" he asked, turning his gaze on me.

In fae form, he was my equal in height, though thinner, muscles just subtle hints under the skin, as was normal for most fae. His face was angular, his hair dark, and his eyes the golden sort typical of his kind with slitted instead of rounded pupils.

"Don't try to deny it," he challenged, cockiness a dominant trait of his, apparently. "I can smell the Change on you. What are you hiding? A tail? Bushy like a bunny?" he asked, enjoying the mental image too much.

Enough, in fact, that I couldn't shake the impulse to turn, pull off my jacket and shirt, and show the plates.