Chapter 21

"Yeah?" I tossed the phone into the center console, only listening with half an ear, because an unknown number almost always meant someone trying to sell me solar panels for a roof I didn't own. "Fuck! Sorry, not you. I'm in traffic."

Why did I always end up crossing the Strip? I knew better. Everyone who actually lived here knew better, although hopefully I wouldn't be living here much longer.

A pause that somehow communicated baffled offense echoed down the line.

"Is this Tony Kaplan?" said a prim, faintly accented female voice, sounding as if she hoped I'd say no.

"Yeah, that's me. What?"

"I asked if you were Tony Kaplan, and you already confirmed that," she said, and now she sounded like she hoped I'd jump off a bridge. "So I don't understand why you're requesting clarification."

I spared the phone a disbelieving glance, nearly rear-ended the SUV in front of me, and bit back another curse.

"I was asking you what you want," I said, with as much restraint as I had left in me.

Raven had been gone for three weeks now. He'd spent nearly that long with me first, and then kissed me, promised to return once he'd "wrapped up a few things" in his own realm, and swanned off to Endless Sky. My patience with literally everything had worn tissue-thin in his absence. I missed him. I fucking needed him, and I'd never needed anyone before, except my family. I ached for him, bone-deep, and even though our magical link shone as bright as ever, always orienting me toward a freaking fairy spa in Summerlin, I couldn't shake the fear that this was the one time a fae would break a promise. Maybe he'd left a loophole that I was too not-fae to notice.

She sighed. "I want to confirm your appointment, Mr. Kaplan."

"I don't have an appointment with anyone. You have the wrong number, or something. Look, could you—"

"You're booked for a massage at Endless Sky this afternoon at two," she snapped. "That is in half an hour. If you—"

I slammed on the brakes way too hard, to a chorus of angry honks from behind me. An apologetic wave in the rearview mirror got me flipped off, and I hit the gas again, still not quite breathing.

"Endless Sky? You said Endless Sky?"

"Yes," she said, and that bridge she wanted me to jump off of had gotten a lot higher. "Endless Sky. In half an hour."

"I'll be there. Thank you. I'll be there in—"

"Good. Was that so difficult?" The line went dead, my screen blinking with the end of the call.

Oh, my gods. Fairies. No wonder Raven liked it better on this side of reality.

And he must, right? Since he had to be coming back. Raven, Raven, Raven…my heart beat to the rhythm of his name, and I didn't even care how incredibly lame it was that I'd think something like that.

I'd only been on my way to get coffee and kill some time, so I didn't have anything to cancel. I hung a right to get out of the traffic jam and hit the gas.

Raven would be so pissed to be picked up in this same shitty car, but he'd have to deal with it. The morning he'd left, before he broached the subject of said departure, he'd told me airily, "I put some money in your bank account."

I'd looked up from my laptop, the screen full of job listings in various cities in the Pacific Northwest. My parents and sister would be thrilled to have me closer to them and were champing at the bit to meet Raven, and he'd agreed that the forests and the ocean sounded like more his speed than neon and dusty rocks. So we were making some preliminary plans. Nothing concrete yet. But I had a good feeling about it.

"Money?" I asked. "Wait, how do you have access to my bank account? Not that I mind, but I mean, how much money? Why? Are we talking twenty bucks for gas, half the rent, what?"

"Oh, you know," he said, and fluttered a hand at me, sauntering over to steal my coffee cup and then dodging as I swatted at his ass. If he didn't want me grabbing it, he shouldn't be hanging around the apartment in nothing but a lace thong and one of my undershirts, was all I was saying.

"No, I don't know, Raven, that's why I asked."

He raised an eyebrow at me over the rim of my own damn coffee and took an obnoxiously loud sip. "You should get a better car," he said. "And new clothes. Oh, and a house. The neighbors put another note on the door complaining about the noise. It's time for us to move on."

"A house," I repeated, wondering—not for the first time, almost certainly not for the last—if I'd lost my mind, or if he had. "A car? And a house? How much money, seriously?"

He drained my coffee and handed the empty mug back to me with a smile. Gods help me, I adored him.

"Enough," he called back over his shoulder, disappearing into the bedroom. "Human money doesn't exist, really. So I never run out, now that no one's monitoring my spending. Get a new car while I'm away for a few days, will you? I hate buying cars. That kind of vulgar, imprecise transaction is so unbearable. No one in this realm knows how to write a contract properly."

"You should talk to my lawyer friend, he'd—wait, hang on a minute, while you're where?" I said, and jumped up and followed him into the bedroom.

That had inevitably ended up with him bent over the side of the bed with the torn thong hanging off one of his ankles, with him making a hell of a lot more noise the neighbors would hate. But he'd also filled me in on his intent to go home, see his mother, and make sure his affairs there were in order.

After which had come the kissing, and the swanning, and my black, miserable mood.

It had occurred to me later that day, staring in disbelief at more digits on the screen than my bank account had ever dreamed of, that Raven hadn't been kept by Cunningham in a style he'd been unused to. In fact, reading between the lines, he'd been slumming it with a casino mogul, let alone with me. The only reason he didn't already have a replacement for the luxury car Cunningham had bought for him was his distaste for car dealerships, and it even crossed my mind that he might've gone through the fairy portal for a bit with the specific aim of forcing me to run those errands for him on my own, so he wouldn't have to be bothered.

No, surely not. Not even Raven would travel between freaking worlds to avoid spending an afternoon signing paperwork.

But maybe.

Anyway, I hadn't bought a new car, because I was stubborn like that, although I had bookmarked a few gorgeous, rural real estate listings on the Washington coast that I thought Raven would like.

But now he'd come back, or presumably would at two, and I couldn't get there fast enough.

Aside from my own desperation to see him, hold him, and kiss him senseless, I had a lot to tell him, just not about cars. I'd called Declan to ask his opinion about Cunningham, whether he'd cause us any more trouble. Declan had informed me, with totally unsuppressed glee, that everyone had heard about me wiping the floor with him, and he'd left the country to escape the embarrassment. Declan didn't think he'd be back. Most of Cunningham's valued business contacts were shifters, and they now thought he was a joke.

"Blake's on my ass to put on a tiger show at the Morrigan," Declan added. "I guess that friend of his you conned into getting you into Audacity was upset about his loss of revenue and worried about his rescue tigers going hungry. I think they could just eat him, but no one asked me. Anyway. Any chance you'd perform? He told Blake that before you kidnapped the host's boyfriend, you were the best big cat he'd ever worked with."

Declan had burst into laughter at my stunned, horrified silence, but honestly, I'd been considering it. I did owe Axel a lot. I'd told Declan I'd get back to him.

At least I didn't have to apologize to Sean. After parking the car for me—in a totally different garage than the one attached to the emergency stairs, because he was a fucking stoner—he'd lost his nerve and quit on the spot. Declan, bless him, had followed through on his promise, and I'd gotten a text from Sean with a thumbs-up selfie wearing the Morrigan's much less hideous valet uniform.

And none of that, satisfying as it was, had given me much joy without Raven to immediately share it with.

I couldn't wait in the parking lot of Endless Sky; I was too impatient. So I pushed open its faintly glowing door at a quarter till two, kind of surprised that it even opened for me. The lobby was disappointingly normal, with some plush chairs and a rack of bottles of lotion or shampoo or something. The place stank of magic, though, and I had to fight back a sneeze.

The tallest, most muscularly intimidating and stunningly beautiful woman I'd ever seen sat behind the desk, her coils of shining brown hair piled on top of her head in a gravity-defying way. On another day, in another life, I'd probably have taken my chances with a violent death and asked her out to dinner…but then she spoke and ruined the effect.

"You must be Mr. Kaplan," she said in a tone reminiscent of every disapproving sixth-grade teacher in the world, her voice unmistakably the same as it had been on the phone. "You're early. But so is your appointment, so you can go through to room four. Don't go anywhere else in the building. You might not return."

Without even bothering to thank her, kind of scared of how she might react, I just nodded and shoved open the door to her right and into the hallway beyond. I found room four down a ways on the left, and I sucked in a deep breath, bracing myself for a letdown. Maybe Raven had sent a messenger to tell me he'd changed his mind.

Maybe he'd sent his gods-damned mother to turn me into a diseased frog.

But when I turned the knob and opened the door, there he was. Sitting on the edge of the massage table with his bare feet dangling, his hair up in a knot with the loose part flowing down around his shoulders, wrapped in some kind of tunic toga thing made out of a shimmering black cloth that could've been cut out of the desert sky at night.

And smiling tentatively, eyes shining brighter than the stars—as if he could have any doubt about what reception he'd get from me.

Two steps across the room and I'd swept him into my arms, bending down to claim his mouth all over again, the scent of him drowning out the spa's weird magic and drowning me, too.

I never wanted to come up for air, but at last I had to, pulling back enough to look into his eyes. His smile had blossomed into something bright enough to outshine every star there was.

"Did you miss me?" he asked, and it was probably the only stupid thing he'd ever said to me.

"I love you," I said, and he pulled me down to kiss me again.

We toppled over onto the massage table, my hands already busy finding their way under the toga thing, searching out smooth bare skin and warmth, Raven laughing into my kiss and trying to rip off my pants. I moved down his body, needing my mouth where my hands were.

"Mate me," he gasped, as I kissed my way up his thigh.

My head popped up like he'd electrocuted me, and I felt like it, too. "Here? On this—the massage table's toast if we do that, Raven."

He propped himself on his elbows and looked down his pointy nose at me. "Yes, here. Now. Tony, I didn't tell you before I left, because I didn't want to get your hopes up, but I went home mainly to find out if there would be any magical consequences of your kind of bond. For you, since I—you know."

"Own me?"

"Yes, that. And there aren't, by the way, as far as the experts can tell me. We can mate anytime we want. Such as now, for example," he said pointedly.

We were going to have a chat about keeping me in the loop in future, but I could see why he'd kept his own counsel on this one. If mating had been magically impossible, the disappointment might have crushed me.

But instead—gods, I was the luckiest man alive. He'd been thinking about being my mate, wanting it, trying to make me happy. Not that he needed to try very hard.

"You could've come home for that." My apartment might not be a bower of roses, but it had to be better than a fairy salon. On the other hand, the cart in the corner had a ton of bottles, and some of them looked like that fancy lube he'd had when we met. I'd started to have my doubts about what services this place offered, actually. Better not to explore that in too much depth. "Why here?"

He bit his lip, cheeks going pink. "I didn't want to wait," he said, uncharacteristically shyly. "I wanted you to—I wanted to see you the second I came through the portal. I wanted you."

Like when you got off the plane after being far from home, and you were in the too-bright, too-loud airport all tired and lonely, and then there was the person you loved, familiar and comforting and real.

It caught at my heart, a string only he knew how to pluck. After everything he'd been through, everywhere he'd been, I was his piece of home.

"You have me," I said, and bent down again, pushing aside the fabric to lay him bare for me.

The massage table collapsed halfway through me driving him wild with my mouth between his legs, and we rolled off of the wreckage onto the thick rug that had been next to it, my jeans open in front but still caught around my hips, his fairy garment hanging in loose folds around him like a robe and his body glimmering pale and lovely, tantalizingly half-hidden.

He climbed on top, blushing but intent as he spread his thighs wide around me and worked himself down onto my cock, trembling with the strain, eyes going wide as he took me in for the first time in three weeks.

"Easy," I said. "There's no rush."

Even though there was, because I might not last long enough to get all the way inside him if he didn't hurry up. My heart thundered like I'd been racing, and I could hardly breathe.

At last he took me all the way, riding me slowly, panting, eyes heavy-lidded.

"Lean down, sweetness," I said, and gently eased him onto my chest. It wouldn't be the easiest way to do this, given the angle, but when had anything with Raven ever been easy, exactly? Life was never going to be predictable with him. I couldn't fucking wait.

I rocked up into him, impaling him on my full length and then withdrawing enough to make him moan, pushing his hair aside to bare his slender neck.

There, right there. That soft, irresistible bit of his skin. My mouth watered.

As he cried out, shuddering in my arms and spreading heat over my stomach, I let myself go. My knot punched up into him, harder than I'd meant to, but gods, his body clenched around me like a blood-hot, slippery vise, and I curled down and set my mouth over the curve of his shoulder and neck.

Fangs down, pricking his skin…and I bit, my alpha power surging and the connection he'd formed when he bought me sparking up to meet it, a swirl of color and sensation and pure, perfect, spine-tingling magic.

The bond had formed, pure and strong, and I dropped my head back and roared in triumph, rattling the windows and the bottles on the cart.

Silence fell. The bond shone between and around us, steady and bright, the sum of my love and his loyalty made tangible. Raven lay still on my chest, rising and falling with my heaving breaths, and I put my arms around him, stroked his back, craned my neck to get a good look at my mark. The imprint of my fangs stood out crimson on his white skin.

"Oh," he breathed at last. "I didn't expect to feel it like this." He lifted his head and gazed at me as if he'd never seen me before. "That's you loving me. That—I can't even describe it."

The wonder in his voice mirrored my own.

"You don't need to," I said hoarsely. "I'm the one feeling it."

"It's incredible. I can't possibly tell anyone I know about this, they'll all want one."

"Too bad," I said, laughing, and wondering if I could start making a sideline income selling tickets to Lucky or Knot to oversexed fairies. No, probably better not. Even Dominic didn't deserve that. "You own me, and there's only one of me."

"Yes," he said, and no one in the history of the world had ever sounded more smug. "I do. And you—" His lips twitched, and his eyes sparkled, and his stomach quivered, vibrating my cock and knot where they were buried inside him. "I can say this now that you're my mate, can't I? You're—ha—you're grr—"

"Don't you dare!" I growled, but it didn't sound all that convincing, not even to me.

Raven collapsed in laughter, howling into my chest, happy and free and absolutely, undeniably mine.

He and my sister were going to love each other, and make my life hell in the process. Forever, at every family gathering, and on the phone to each other while I made dinner, and with Raven teasing me about him being the favorite sibling while I held him in my arms in our bed, in that beautiful house we'd buy in Washington, with the wind in the trees and the stars shining above. My mate. My love. My family, and our beautiful future.

Even under torture, like being forced to watch that fucking online video of my circus performance at the dinner party from hell, I wouldn't admit it out loud…but that actually sounded, well. Great. It sounded great.

The End