Page 42 of Salt and Knot

“How old is the youngest of your friends?” I ask. I’m going to be the youngest, but by how much. I’m younger than Elaina, too. I check in with my friend almost every day, and Dylan has met her on video chat. But meeting his friends is very different.

Dylan tilts his head reluctantly. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Their age,” I insist.

“You’d have to ask them. We’ve been meeting up since Aiden and I worked together in the early 1800s. I’ve never asked how old Moros is. He could be young?” Dylan sounds doubtful.

“I’m the baby.” I feel small. Dylan has been so careful to prevent me feeling young compared to him. Even though I am. He knows seemingly everything about the sea, about everything really, and is keen to teach me.

“You’re my mate. They’ll find you refreshing and sweet and a new perspective on their old world.”

I smile, comforted despite myself. He drops a quick kiss onto my lips, and I wish it were more. But both of us know what that leads to, and we’re already late.

I thought our passion might reduce once my heat eased. But though the frequency of our sex has reduced, the intensity hasn’t. And both of those things are good. Needing Dylan to be inside me constantly was a lot. Losing my mind if we weren’t touching was excessive.

“You’re perfect, and they’ll like you. And we can go whenever you want.” Dylan turns us to walk up the stone steps into Pierre’s home before I can process Dylan’s promise.

Pierre is a gargoyle shifter, and Dylan said they usually meet at one of his houses, because aside from being partial to stone, he doesn’t have lots of requirements for where he lives.

There are voices coming through open doors—huge and wooden and with scratches that look like they were made with talons big enough to tear down a house. I shiver as I regard them.

Then we turn into a vast room like a banqueting hall from movies, and there are men standing around. A fire flickers in a massive stone fireplace, and they’re all chatting.

“Dylan!” A man notices us and calls over, then stops, shock wiping over his face. He’s in a dark-red shirt, and his brown hair is almost auburn, a reddish-brown.

“A mate…” Breathes another man. He’s clean cut, pale-grey suit, short grey hair.

“That’s Pierre,” Dylan mutters to me, completely ignoring his friends’ response.

The gargoyle shifter, and our host. He does look stone-like.

“The one in red is Aiden.” The dragon shifter.

“This is insane.” A man in a green and grey lumberjack shirt and jeans shakes his head in disbelief. That must be Conri. Dylan said the wolf-shifter is casual.

Another man walks into the room from the other direction, head down, scowling.

“Dylan, what the fuck is that citrus aftershave you’re wearing? It suits you, but…” The man stops talking and moving when he spots me, his jaw swinging open.

I think the newcomer is Thoreau, a minotaur shifter with dark eyes and a plain black T-shirt.

“He’s mated,” Aidan says into the silence.

“I can see that, you winged idiot.” Thoreau stares at Dylan. “It’s the believing I’m having a hard time with.”

“You’re very welcome here,” says Pierre, to me.

“Thanks.” I feel shy and awkward with all these men. But Dylan senses my discomfort, and pulls me to his side, warming me with his body.

“The kraken got mated first. What a joke. The one with tentacles.” Aiden’s face twists in disgust.

“I like the tentacles,” I say brightly as a growl rumbles up in Dylan.

Another beat of silence, and then they all roar with laughter.

“You asked for that one, Aiden,” says Conri, wiping his eyes because he’s laughing so much he’s crying.

“A tail is like a tentacle,” Dylan says mildly, with a hint of smugness as he squeezes my hand. “But I have more of them for my female.”