Sought(80)

“Yes, Talana?” he murmured, sliding the broad head of his shaft against her wet folds. “Was there something you wanted?”

“Nothing but you. God,” she moaned as he sank his fangs and his cock into her at the same time. “Sylvan!”

“I love it when you call my name while I’m inside you,” he sent through their link. “Love the soft, helpless little sounds you make when I take you.”

“Take me harder…more!” she begged. And the part of her mind that wasn’t drowning in pleasure wondered how he always knew exactly what she needed. All the troubling thoughts that had been bothering her were swept away on the tide of pleasure as he made her his once again.

But though Sophie knew she would sleep well after their loving, she was also certain she would return to her worries eventually. Lauren was still out there, somewhere and as for Deep’s dark past…well, she would have to compare notes with Liv and see if she’d gotten anything out of Baird.

Later…





Chapter Twenty-two





“We’re here! And we brought the fi-fi flowers.” Kat presented the bouquet of blossoms triumphantly to Mother L’rin.

“Have them, you do,” the old wise woman acknowledged, nodding. She was sitting quietly in the middle of the Healing Garden, doing something with a fluffy bunch of pink and purple herbs. “And still you wish to use them?”

“Of…course we do.” Kat looked uncertainly at Deep and Lock who were standing on either side of her. Well, standing might be too strong a word—Deep was actually slouched against a nearby tree studying his fingernails. “That is…I think so.”

“My lady…” Lock gave her a pained look. “Kat…I wish to say that the time Deep and I have spent bonded to you—even partially—has been an experience I shall never forget. Neither of us will,” he added, looking at Deep.

“How could we forget it? It’s been one disaster after another from the start.” Deep spoke in a bored tone. “But I suppose there’s no use rehashing it now that we’re almost free.”

“Almost free?” Kat couldn’t help the sharp pang of hurt and rejection that raced through her, though she told herself it was ridiculous. “Is that how you feel?”

“Isn’t it how you feel?” he countered, looking up to give her a smoldering glare.

“I…I don’t know.” Kat’s voice sank to a whisper. “I just don’t know.”

She’d been overjoyed to find the Moons blossom—ecstatic almost. But now she realized the reason for her joy wasn’t that she was going to be parted from Deep and Lock—it was because the lovely black and white flowers represented her ticket home. In her mind, they had come to symbolize everything she missed—Earth and Sophie and Liv and a culture where she spoke the language and didn’t have to rely on a partially defective fuzzy caterpillar to translate for her. Somehow that was all she’d been thinking of when she gathered the fi-fi flowers—she’d conveniently managed to forget that the sacred blossoms also meant the end of her partial bond with the brothers.

“Strange that you don’t know how you feel when it’s abundantly clear to me,” Deep snapped, breaking her train of thought. “I felt your relief when we found the blossoms. I’m sure Lock did too. Mother L’rin,” he said, turning to the old woman. “We would be most grateful if you’d use these blossoms to brew the potion that will separate Kat from my brother and me.”

Mother L’rin shook her head. “Separate you it will not. No potion such a thing can do.”

“What?” Kat said flatly. “I really hope my convo-pillar is acting up again. It sounded like you just said the fi-fi flowers won’t break the soul bond.”

“That they cannot do.”

“But you told me,” Kat cried. “You said if I brought you the flowers—” She stopped abruptly. What had the wise woman said? Had she ever really promised that the flowers would break the soul bond? Or had Kat just inferred it because she had been so eager to get away from Deep and Lock?

“Break the bond the flowers cannot,” Mother L’rin said. “But ease your pain they will, as nothing else.”

“Ease her pain? What do you mean?” Lock demanded. “Why should the lady Kat need special blossoms to ease her pain?”

“Because come back, it will” the old woman said calmly. “Half-bonded a female cannot be forever. But the fifilalachuchu blossoms her torment will ease—for a while, at least.”