KILLIAN

I’d been lifting weights for nearly an hour, and I still had energy to spare. It wasn’t natural, this.

I glared daggers at Sol when he hustled down the stairs, dressed for a workout. I didn’t fucking want company right now, and Sol would be the worst because he’d want to talk. Maybe I should just go for a run on the beach.

But she’d probably be out there - Carlyle had spent nearly every minute on the sand or in the water since we’d arrived. It was disgusting how my grown-ass brothers had been reduced to putty by one little girl. Sickening, really.

“Has Dair left yet?” I asked, hoping to keep the subject off the girl. She was about all anyone talked about anymore.

“Nope. He said he wanted to get in one more training session with Carlyle.”

I snickered. I knew what that sweet-talking fucker wanted more of. He’d always been a kinky son of a bitch, and it looked like our little girl was lapping it up like a kitten with spilled milk.

“Aren’t you going to train her anymore?” Sol asked, adjusting the pull-up bar to his taller height.

“Nah. That’s Kana’s gig, now.” I was relieved for an easy answer to why I didn’t want to be too close to the kid. I stepped onto the treadmill, distancing myself from the weights and hopefully, from his conversation.

“Carlyle thinks you hate her, you know.” Sol chalked his hands and clapped off the extra dust in a puff of white.

I snorted, wishing I’d left the basement as soon as he’d come down. “Hate’s a strong word for it.”

“Fuck off, man. None of us believe you anymore.”

I ignored his comment and upped the speed on the treadmill, the hum of the belt a welcome distraction. I knew they didn’t believe my act. Hell, I didn’t even believe my act.

It was all I had, though, and I wasn’t giving a goddamn inch because she’d take the whole world right from underneath me.

Sol was quiet for long enough that I thought maybe he’d given up the conversation, but goddamn if my brain hadn’t latched onto his words anyway.

I thought of my first look at Carlyle - white hair and searing lavender eyes staring at me under the dappled shade of that huge maple. I’d had a dream of finding a girl who looked just like that once, right before I defied my family in Haret and signed up to come to Earth.

The memory was hazy enough to be unreal but similar enough to be magic.

I wasn’t a fucking fool. I’d seen what Carlyle was in her true form, and I could guess what she might become for our people, if this war ever came about.

It was myself I doubted, just like always.

“Seeing Kana here - fuck, seeing her at all - messed me up,” I admitted, the words slipping out before I could stop them. I hated everything about how just seeing Kana warped me back to my parents’ years of abuse, but if anyone could understand, it’d be Sol.

He’d pulled me from darkness before, and I trusted he could do it again.

“Losing Jack and Toro messed us all up,” Sol returned, his eyes darkening as he sidestepped my fear. “Face it, fae, we’ve been fucked since the day we arrived in this goddamn world and the Path slammed closed behind us. All those years...”

I grunted in agreement, already feeling the burn in my tired muscles. When we’d signed up for this mission, we’d all been too busy imagining the parade of the conquering heroes when we returned to Haret with a beautiful Qilin, solving everyone’s problems. I’d naively thought it might even redeem me as a true fae son.

I was a fuckin’ idiot.

None of us had any idea how long it would take, or how much Haretian blood we’d have to sacrifice.

None of us had imagined the Path would disappear completely and lock us out forever.

I rolled my head on my neck, shutting those memories away. There was only so much I could handle at once.

“You need a good fuck,” Sol observed, startling me. I’d always hated how well he could read me.

“Aye,” I muttered. It had been months since we’d shared a girl. Although I sometimes fucked a half-fae or two when I found them, it was never the same. With lion boy all up in Carlyle’s pussy, it looked like our sharing days might be over.

She’d never accept me, with all my pent-up rage against the world. I didn’t want her to, anyway.

I didn’t want the power she already had over me to get one fucking bit stronger.

“You know, I miss it, too,” Sol said, his voice so soft I nearly didn’t hear it. He turned a sharp eye on me, and I felt my skin heat under his challenging stare. I focused on not falling off the treadmill.

“Miss what?” I dared, gritting my teeth and turning off the machine. I felt like fighting, and Sol would do.

“Your fucking ass in my bed,” Sol growled, stalking toward me. My cock jumped in my shorts, but I sneered, stepping onto the mat to meet him. I lowered my center into a fighting stance.

“You have plenty of ass in your bed these days, lion boy. No need to beg for mine.”

Sol darted closer, swiping with a cruel claw, but I dodged away easily. This was how we’d begun.

Lion shifters always wanted to fight for fucking dominance, and fae like me were only too happy to provide the reason.

I threw a sharp punch, grazing his ribs.

Sol answered with a roundhouse kick to my side, and I welcomed the shock of pain. Somebody needed to smash some sense into me if I was considering begging for Sol.

My dominant hand landed on his jaw, and his lion’s growl echoed around the basement. Fuck, that sound was hot.

My control slipped a little as my goddamn traitorous mind imagined how much better it would be coming from that Qilin girl’s pretty lips. I’d seen the possibilities of her true form, and her power... fuck me.

Sol must have noticed my distraction. He swiped my legs from beneath me, and my back smacked to the floor, knocking the breath from my lungs for a brief moment. I arched my back to kick upright again, but Sol caught my ribs with a kick that should have been vicious.

I wanted it to be vicious.

Sol flipped me to my stomach too easily and flattened me to the mat, heat against my back and cold against my front. I let loose a string of cursing that I knew Sol would only laugh at. Sure enough, he chuckled as he ground his knee into my back, pressing my hips even deeper into the mat.

My cock screamed in sweet pain as it was crushed against the mat, but then Sol lowered his body to my back, his own cock against my ass, hard as fucking steel.

A moan slipped from my lips, and I bit down on them so hard I tasted blood.

Goddamn lion boy always got what he wanted.

“Just fucking do it,” I grunted, giving in too easily. I was suddenly tired of fighting against myself and against my best friend on the team. I wanted Sol to slam into me and take away all my swirling doubts and thoughts, pushing me off the ledge into exhausted, sated oblivion.

I craved it, almost as much as I hated the craving. It was a draining cycle, and I wanted a fucking break from it all.

“You want my big lion dick in your ass?” Sol asked, his voice a low, vibrating rumble against my back. “You want me to fuck you, fae?”

I struggled against the words. I didn’t want to say it. Didn’t want to admit it. Didn’t want to lose to myself again.

Sol licked his hot tongue up my neck and circled the shell of my ear, nipping at the top where my pointed tips were starting to form. I growled against my cracking glamor.

“I’ll do it,” Sol whispered, sucking my earlobe. I bit hard on my cheek, trying to stifle the groan. “But I want her to see it.”

Rage exploded in my chest, giving me the energy to bolt up and send Sol flying across the mat. “I donna fuckin’ want that little girl,” I yelled.

Sol swiped at a bit of blood from his busted lip and stood, grinning. “You do, though.”

I couldn’t hold it in any longer, friend or not. My air magic rippled through the room, and Sol stumbled back to his knees, his golden hair blowing out behind him. He was beautiful, that fucking, loud-mouthed lion.

He didn’t stay down long, though. In a snarling flash, he leaped at me. For a second, I thought he’d shifted and was about to disembowel me.

It would hurt less, probably, than all this shit sloshing around in my goddamn mind.

Sol beat me to the ground, pushing me onto my knees on the hard concrete. He yanked at my hair and shoved his hips in my face, his hard cock brushing my lips through his shorts. “You want to suck me off? You want my dick in your mouth before I pound your ass so hard you cum for an hour?”

I trembled a little, biting down the defensive words I knew would stop this from happening. My hands clenched into fists against my sides as I struggled to keep myself from ripping Sol’s shorts down.

“Well, you won’t get a fucking taste, fae.” Sol backed away, and my eyes flew up to meet Sol’s deep brown ones.

“What?” I ground out. Goddamn, I was going to have blue balls for a week after this. I’d have to get the hell out of the house and find a big city, find a bar and a half-fae girl to fuck into next Sunday. Even then, it would never help, not really.

“You get none of me without her,” Sol answered, turning and walking toward the stairs. I shot to my feet, aching to protest, but still not willing to beg.

I was worth more than begging. Sol had been the one to teach me that.

Why was he turning against me now, after all the shit we’d been through?

“You ever wonder why I do it? Why I fight you to your knees?” Sol asked, turning and looking back down the basement stairs.

“Donna fuckin’ care.”

“Every one of us was made for her. We’re all fucking offerings for the Qilin Queen. Gifts, Kills. And if the only way I can get you to her is by breaking your back and carrying you to her like a cat carries a mouse, that’s what I’m fucking going to do.”

My mouth popped open at Sol’s blunt image.

My cock pulsed and strained against my shorts at the idea, but my rage shattered, replaced by all the usual self-hate I’d known much longer than I’d known Sol.

“I’m no gift, me,” I whispered, my voice like an ancient echo in my memory.

“You’re wrong,” Sol said, continuing up the stairs. “And when you finally give yourself permission to be wrong, you’ll be right where you’re meant to be.”