over the years, creating an everlasting connection. I think that even if I were to break our bond now, you would still retain my Quandary abilities.”
“Years?” I repeated.
“Mmm,” he hummed, the response noncommittal. Just like everything else.
“Why am I here?” I repeated.
“Why do you think you’re here?” he countered.
My grip around the sheet tightened against my chest. “We’re mates.”
“Yes,” he agreed.
“How?”
He arched a white brow. “Surely you’re familiar with how the mating process works by now? I mean, you did recently bond a Warrior Blood, yes? And Shade?”
“Are you always this insufferable?” Answering every question with a question. Pixie sticks, we will never get anywhere at this rate! “I think I liked you more when I thought you were a figment.”
“That’s because you enjoyed my tongue between your thighs, Aflora.” He tilted his head. “Would an orgasm calm you down?”
A growl slipped through my lips. “Where are my clothes?” Because I couldn’t continue having this conversation while naked in his bed.
He nodded to a silk robe twisted into the sheets. “You can wear that.”
“Yeah, I’ll take my clothes instead.” I couldn’t remember if I’d worn them here or if I’d lost them in the LethaForest. I really hoped it was the latter because the former would imply that he’d stripped me. And I really didn’t want to think about that right now.
Sure, he was a pale-skinned, godlike fae.
And apparently my mate.
But that didn’t mean I wanted to be naked with him.
Even if he did have a wicked tongue and skilled hands.
I cleared my throat. “Clothes.”
“No,” he replied. “You’re lucky I gave you a robe, Aflora. Don’t push it.”
“Excuse me?” My eyebrows flew upward. “So let me get this straight. You dream-raped me, then—”
“Dream-raped you?” he repeated, his expression rivaling mine as he released a disbelieving laugh. “You commanded me, sweetheart. Not the other way around. I came to you to talk, but you told me not to say anything and to fuck you with my mouth instead. As your mate, I obliged. I would hardly call that rape.”
“I thought you were a figment of my imagination!”
“And I told you more than once to consider that I was real,” he countered. “We can argue about this all day, or you can accept what happened and we can move on to the reconciliation phase. Your choice.”
“How can I accept anything when you won’t even tell me why I’m here?!” I couldn’t hold back my shrill tone, my patience long gone. “How are you even real? How are you my mate? Stop talking in riddles and give me something useful!”
“How about you stop asking ridiculous questions and look inside your mind for the answers that already exist,” he suggested flatly.
My mind? He wanted me to go into my mind for answers? Yeah, all right. I’d go into my mind.
The cerulean embers flared inside me, my magic humming to life in anticipation. I’d spent the last however many months trying to drown the power, to temper and control it, but I called it forward now.
Come play, I urged, closing my eyes as the strands whirled inside my thoughts, flickering with electricity and sizzling in the air around us.
Zakkai said something.
I ignored him.
He’d told me to go into my mind. So I had. And now he would experience the consequences of that suggestion.
Maybe I could knock him out and run.
I had no idea where I was, but surely a portal existed nearby. Or maybe I could figure out how to shadow again, or whatever it was I’d done with Emelyn.
While Shade had blocked me from his mind, I could still feel his essence warming my blood. Zeph was there, too. Even Kols.
And also… Zakkai.
His presence was the strongest, perhaps because he sat beside me. But I suspected it went deeper than that. Our bond was old. I could feel the roots of it in youth, the magic somehow married to my connection to the earth source.
He spoke again.
And I continued to ignore him, too busy trailing along the roots, searching for the beginning, seeking a way to destroy him.
No, not destroy.
Hurt.
Earth Fae weren’t violent. We created life.
His kind killed.
That was why I would never be a true Midnight Fae, no matter whom I mated or what powers roamed through me. My spirit was all Elemental Fae. His source inside me was foreign and wrong, had morphed me into an abomination against my will, and I still didn’t know how it had happened. Because he wouldn’t tell me.
I growled again, my ire mounting with each passing