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It was Rune. Despite being unwilling to shift, he’d left Lupe and Ryder with the fae to follow me into this Between space. Even though he was a Samhain Shifter. Even though his top priority should have been back there, not here.
Something warmed deep inside me...only to chill as wind whipped against my face so hard I could no longer see where we were going. Between had already enfolded us, a passage I’d never considered making on my own two feet. If Rune’s grip faltered, he could be lost to both worlds....
“Be still!” I barked at Kale. Then, leaning down to grasp Rune’s forearm, I ordered: “Jump!”
Neither of them should have obeyed me. Not a human child, on whom alpha commands were wasted. And not a shifter who’d already proven his dominance over me.
And yet...Kale stopped struggling. My arm nearly yanked out of my socket as Rune leapt, letting me carry his weight for one split second. Then I was tumbling toward mossy ground in an abruptly windless sanctuary, heat curling around both my back and my front.
The heat at my front was Kale and Rune. Kale looked dazed, but at least he wasn’t running away from me. Rune pushed up onto his elbows, his mouth thinning as he took in our location.
We were Between, but not in the Between I was used to. The air was still here, sun blazing warmer than it had been when we left earth. Moss and flowers had crushed beneath my hip and shoulder just like during my recent visit to the Guardian. But rather than trees scattered at intervals, we were encircled by a vast ring of rocks.
No, make that boulders. Huge, flat-sided stones that started in the soil and continued upwards far above our heads. Like Stonehenge if that monument had been mushed together with no openings. Or like teeth in a massive mouth.
I shivered...and the heat behind me crept forward. Hands slid across my bare skin, closer to erogenous zones than I was comfortable with.
I whirled, as best I could while splayed out across the ground, then glared at the man responsible. “Keep your hands to yourself.”
I expected mumbled apologies. Instead, he grinned. “Don’t you think they’re shiny?”
Shiny? Whoever this man was, he didn’t appear to be in full possession of his marbles. And yet...his words niggled at my memory. Even though I was positive I’d never seen his face before.
The stranger had pale skin stretched across perfectly chiseled features. Long hair so black it gleamed blue. An entirely feline grin.
“Aren’t you going to tell me I’m unbelievably handsome?” he asked. He didn’t grab me, but I found my body moving toward his anyway. It was almost like an alpha compulsion. Almost, but not quite.
Rune’s word lashed out hard as a blow. “Erskine.”
Something about the naming broke Erskine’s hold over my muscles. I was able to scuttle backwards. To stand, pulling a strangely malleable Kale up with me and putting precious air space between us and the man whose outside beauty didn’t appear to match his interior.
Pouting, Erskine unfolded himself far more elegantly than I had. “I don’t see the problem. She’s ridden me quite willingly. Bareback. Repeatedly.”
Rune growled. My brow wrinkled. Then I got it.
“You’re the unicorn.”
“And Rune’s brother.”
“Half-brother,” Rune corrected, clenching his fists.
***
I WOULD HAVE EXPECTED siblings to be glad to see each other. I would have been very wrong. Still, the electric whatever-it-was reverberating between the duo gave me breathing room to check on my little buddy.
While I’d been watching the brothers’ interchange, Kale had bent down to check on a plant then wandered off to poke around inside the circle. His body moved fluidly, as if he was succumbing to his usual scientific curiosity rather than being driven by fae compulsion. As I watched, he stopped in front of....
I cocked my head. “Is that a door?”
Male eyes that—yes—looked eerily similar turned in unison to take in Kale. I was certain the walls had been unbroken rock one moment earlier, but now there was a human-sized door smack dab in the middle of one massive stone barrier. Beautifully crafted out of three kinds of wood with a copper knob and hinges, it was too perfect to have been created by human hands.
“Don’t turn that!” Rune and I yelled at the exact same instant. No wonder Kale leapt backward as if he’d been burned.
Meanwhile, Rune took two long strides toward the door then turned back to face his brother. As if he couldn’t decide which presented the greater danger—sibling or possible portal to another realm.
To simplify the matter, I followed Rune’s aborted trajectory and gathered Kale into my arms again. Sure enough, that unstuck Rune’s words.
“You’re the one responsible,” he growled, his humanity fading until he was just shy of lupine. Reaching forward, he shoved Erskine’s chest in what was clearly an invitation to get physical.
Erskine didn’t bite. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, brother.” The slimmer man sidled away from Rune, gave me and Kale a wide berth, then reached out to rattle the door knob. I held my breath then released it as nothing happened.
“You can stop worrying,” Erskine continued. “The door won’t open—I’m stuck here—until a decision has been made.”
Mention of a decision was ominous. But Rune wasn’t thinking straight enough to pay attention to subtleties. Instead, he demanded: “Was it you?”
Erskine’s perfect face puckered. “Was what me?”
“Don’t play innocent.” Rune took three long steps forward until he was back in his brother’s personal space. He was enough taller that he managed to loom as he added. “You’re trying to tell me it’s a coincidence that you’ve become a Betweener and a Betweener is threatening Tara’s pack?”
“Is that what has you riled?” Erskine raised his eyebrows and I got the distinct impression he was about to say something incendiary. But then his tone turned mischievous. “Are you sure the problem isn’t this?”
He moved so fast I didn’t see him coming. One moment Erskine was by the door. The next, he was reaching down to stroke the wound on my neck.
“Don’t touch her,” Rune growled.
“But we’re brothers.” Erskine’s eyes widened, a mockery of childlike innocence. “Don’t you think it’s appropriate that we share?”
“Tara and I,” Rune gritted out, “have an exclusive contract.”
My brows shot up. “We do?” Then it dawned on me what he was talking about. “You’re accepting the job of Consort?”
Rune’s face was devoid of emotion, but something lingered beneath the marble. Something warm and promising.
His words showed none of that. “I’ll need to run the paperwork by my lawyer. But, if there are no red flags—then, yes, I’m accepting the job.”
Decidedly unromantic...and my whole body flushed anyway. My hand rose to my collarbone as the throbbing in my throat intensified.
Or maybe that was my heart pounding overtime. Regardless, Erskine’s gaze followed my hand as if it had been an invitation. “What’s this, kitten?” he purred. “Are you paying big brother to be your gigolo? Because, if so, I’d be glad to offer my services for free....”
Suiting actions to words, Erskine thrust out his chest and raised his chin, looking for all the world like a poodle at Westminster. Which, thankfully, gave me the perfect opening to change the subject.
“Is that what you were doing when you laid your head in my lap without letting me know you were a shifter?” It had been our introduction. Me, crying in the forest soon after my father’s death. A unicorn prancing out from between the trees and kneeling down to comfort me.
Or so I’d thought. Given what I knew now.... “You perv.”
Erskine huffed, ignoring my insult and focusing on the actual question. “I’m not a shifter. The unicorn is a spiritual casting. It’s barely physical and is nothing like your wolf form. All of my senses are muted while I’m stuck Between.”
His reason for feeling me up moments earlier became clearer. I softened. “Am I the first person you’ve touched since ending up here?”
Erskine’s eyes slid sideways. “Maybe.”
“And how long has that been?”
His voice grew smaller. “Months.”
As a wolf, I understood how hard it was to go days, let alone months, without hugging someone. So I forgave this brother Rune didn’t want to admit to. Forgave him...even as I resolved not to turn my back on him until Kale, Rune, and I were all safely home.
“The door,” Rune interrupted, “will open when a decision is made. What decision?”
It was almost as if Erskine had been waiting for that question. Because his chest puffed right back up and he purred in a manner than sounded more feline than equine.
“The Queen of the Unseelie Court, our mother, has sent me to find you. She’s bored. It’s time for you to come home and amuse her. The door will open for no one other than you.”