Wildblood

Chapter 2

2

Miya

Warm buttery light spilled over the scuffed walnut counter, the grains etched with lovers’ words and the slow, steady caress of time. Motes of dust hung in the air, dancing under the honeyed glow. Leaning on her elbows, Miya squinted at the messily carved names as she groped for a peanut, then tossed it into the air.

A pair of three-pronged talons dug into her skin as the raven on her shoulder thrust out his beak and caught the morsel, quickly gobbling it down with a satisfied croak.

“Good catch, Gavran.” Miya absently scratched his silky breast. The raven purred his approval, preening Miya’s wavy dark brown tresses. She traced the copper chain around her neck, her fingers lingering on the edges of the fang-shaped labradorite pendant. Her thumb rubbed the fissure marking its smooth surface like an old scar. Angling the stone toward the light, she admired the flashes of purple, meadow green, and gold, veins of black sluicing through the vibrant hues.

The dream stone. It was her talisman from another world.

The bar had been quiet for most of the night, the last patron filtering out not long ago. Sometimes, folks came into the King of Spades for a cartomancy reading and wound up buying several drinks as they badgered Miya to make their decisions for them. Everyone wanted their future told by the Dreamwalker, but the Dreamwalker couldn’t tell the future. She only showed them what they refused to face, and that was far scarier than unforeseen misfortunes.

Scared people, it seemed, liked to drink.

Dahlia Rose Baron, better known as Crowbar after scaring off a burglar with her namesake, was the new owner of the rustic establishment. A bartender by trade, she’d concocted her own specialty cocktail menu, pushing her potions on people whenever they ate up too much of Miya’s time at the divination table. Miya didn’t mind their probing, and the earnings weren’t bad, but it was a far cry from what she needed to stay afloat.

“Man, I can’t believe we got this place for so cheap.” Crowbar inspected the shelves for mildew—a fixation given the age of the building. Aside from the layers of dust, an occasional piece of missing wallpaper, and a few cosmetic hiccups, the four walls they’d christened the King of Spades hadn’t been difficult to flip into a grungy dive bar with felt cushions on the stools and old road signs nailed to the walls. There was even an antique brass mirror and, above them, a gothic chandelier that’d graced the ceiling since circa 1920, imbuing the bar with a proper séance vibe. “Can’t believe no one wanted it, all because of a rumor.”

“I always thought people would be less superstitious in a big city,” Miya said as she stroked Gavran’s beak. “But I guess even the most rational people get squigged out by ghosts.” She hailed from Black Hollow, British Columbia, a small town cocooned in forest. Everyone there believed in the same fable, and the only difference in Boston, she’d found, was that there were many fables, and a greater diversity of people to offer their faith.

Crowbar arranged the bottles back in their proper places. “Why take a chance, right?”

Miya’s muddy green eyes caught her friend’s stormy gaze. Crowbar had experienced her own share of supernatural traumas. “I wouldn’t take the chance.”

A long sigh left the former Louisiana bartender as she ran her fingers through her pink hair, cropped short with a killer fade she managed on her own. The praying mantis tattoo with MANEATER stamped beneath it flashed across Crowbar’s forearm as she pivoted. She was covered in ink, but the mantis had always been Miya’s favorite. “After Syd died…after I found out what really happened to her—a damn demon taking Vince and?—”

“I know,” Miya said quietly.

It’d been two years since Crowbar learned the truth about her sister. Police had ruled Sydney’s death a domestic homicide—an explanation Crowbar struggled to swallow. Syd’s husband Vincent had no cause to murder his wife and take his own life, but the police preferred mundane explanations. Not many knew that angry spirits could metastasize into something malevolent, reliving traumas and inflicting them on others. Vince was driven to the unthinkable by one, and although Crowbar finally found closure, the truth had torn her open and exposed her to a new world.

“Joke’s on all of us, I guess.” Crowbar laughed grimly. “Didn’t think this place would actually be haunted.”

Miya’s gaze drifted to the presence crouched in the corner by the bar. The spirit wasn’t very imposing—about two feet tall with a fox’s tail, shaggy slate gray fur, and cat ears perched upon a rotund head. Paws boasting opposable thumbs made the little creature remarkably dexterous, adept at causing trouble. When they’d first moved in, it threw a tantrum befitting of a toddler its size, hucking cutlery off the counter, tearing napkins into confetti, and wreaking havoc with the plumbing. The real estate agent had been desperate to get rid of the century-old, two-story edifice, stuck on the market for years with no bites. At first, Miya thought the rumors of a poltergeist were just local intrigue, but the hearsay had some merit. “It’s not exactly haunted…”

Crowbar whirled around and threw her arms up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Gavran trilled and fluttered his wings, sharp feathers scraping Miya’s ear.

“ Haunting implies something unwanted, something that doesn’t belong. This thing—it’s lingering, but it’s not really haunting anything. It…” she trailed off, searching for the right words. “He belongs here.”

Crowbar crossed her arms over her chest. “It still talks to you?”

Miya frowned, watching the small creature prattle on in Russian. “He…tries.”

Their otherworldly companion went rigid. Wide glassy eyes, shimmering like emeralds, darted to the door just as the bell on the frame chimed in welcome.

“We’re closed,” Crowbar called, and Miya cursed under her breath for not locking up sooner.

Their visitor didn’t heed her. Heavy fishing boots dragged across the musty old floorboards, the languid, uneven gait belonging to a gangling figure in a taupe coat that kissed the floor. The stranger’s face was obscured by the droopy rim of a large fishing hat.

“I’m sorry,” came a man’s raspy voice, his vocal cords sounding like they’d been sanded raw. Something wet warbled in his throat as he opened his mouth and said, “I seek the Dreamwalker.”

“Buddy, we’re closed,” Crowbar repeated. “Come back tomorrow. We open at four.”

The man’s head rotated toward Crowbar, hitching as though his neck were a gear in need of oiling. Her breath audibly halted, and Miya rose from her stool. Gavran pumped his wings and hovered beside her, but their visitor seemed unperturbed by the corvid keeping the staff company.

“What do you want? A reading?” The hairs on the back of Miya’s neck stood on end as caution gave way to alarm. She kept a low profile, and few in town knew her as the Dreamwalker. If necessary, she and Crowbar could defend themselves against a single man, but the prospect remained unwelcome. In her twenty-six years, she’d found no empowerment in lashing out from a corner. It felt sticky, tasted acrid, because she shouldn’t have been shunted into a corner in the first place.

“I’m not here for that,” he reassured, his voice softening as though the hand wielding the sandpaper had opted for a finer grit. “I’m here for your other services.”

Miya’s gaze briefly darted to their cat-like resident in the corner, his planetoid eyes still glued to the stranger. She wasn’t just a fortune-telling barmaid. She frequently crossed into the dreamscape—a realm that floated in tandem with the waking world—and helped people exorcise otherworldly visitors, entities that latched on to darkness. Ridding people of their literal demons often meant confronting their figurative ones. The Dreamwalker did more than traverse the dreamscape and ignore material bounds. She bore every secret that festered in the murky gap between denial and acceptance, grief and catharsis, guilt and surrender. She lived in the liminal—in those uneasy borderlands between all that was certain in the world.

Miya’s spine went rigid as she eyed the peculiar man. “What do you need?”

He moved closer, though it would be wrong to say he walked. Even as his feet slid against the floor, and she heard the thump , thump , thump of his boots, he appeared to float, simply gliding through air. He stopped in front of Miya, only the bar between them. A gnarled, bony hand like knotted wood withdrew from a coat pocket, wavering as it placed a folded piece of paper on the counter.

“Someone is lost. And I believe”—his gaze lifted, the rim of his hat tipping back to reveal rich cedarwood eyes and a long, sullen face hidden beneath dense snarls of silver beard—“only you can find them.”

Miya swallowed thickly. She knew word got around, but the people who came to her were never like this—never so sure. They were cautious, donning skepticism like camouflage even as they wrung their hands and pried for answers to questions that often had none. This man—he was different. He really believed . Yet belief required the absence of knowledge, and Miya sensed she was in the presence of someone rife with knowing.

She picked up the paper, damp between her fingers, and unfolded it. A name was scrawled in shaky blue ink: Caelan Carver .

“Who’s Caelan?” Miya asked.

“Someone dear to me. Someone beyond my reach.” His voice dipped, his face lowering before he retreated to the door. He paused at the threshold, his eyes finding Crowbar’s. “I’m sorry,” he said slowly, “for entering uninvited.”

“No worries, dude,” the bartender stammered, confusion sketching her face.

The door swung open then, nearly removing the stranger’s nose as a tall man in a worn leather jacket strode in. An overgrown undercut of unruly black hair eclipsed the muggy bulb by the door, the buttery light haloing a powerful frame. This one, at least, was familiar.

Miya sighed a breath of relief.

Kai.

He scanned over the stranger with a bored expression, his hands concealed in his pockets. After a cursory sniff, his nose wrinkled, and he pushed past the older man who was now on his way out.

Kai spared one last slit-eyed stare at the stranger, then approached the bar, the chandelier light catching the red tinge in his otherwise brown eyes. Miya thought they looked like burnt clay—a thing forged in fire, warm but hardened by hellish flames.

“Woodsy,” he said as he slid onto a stool and shrugged off his jacket.

Miya blinked at him. “What?”

“He smelled woodsy.” Kai didn’t elaborate, throwing the jacket over the counter and rolling out his shoulders. Fresh bruises bloomed along his jaw, and his teeth scraped over a scab on his bottom lip.

“Do you need ice?” Miya asked, ignoring his assessment of the stranger’s scent.

Kai shifted his attention from the wall of bottles, meeting her riffling gaze. “I’m good.”

“Ibuprofen, then?”

The corner of his mouth quirked up. “I’m fine, Lambchop.”

The wolf and his lamb—a vestige of their time in Black Hollow and a legacy that transcended their meagre decades on earth. They’d orbited each other for lifetimes, ancient things fated to collide.

Miya acquiesced with a sluggish nod. Seeing him hurt needled her even if he never wore his pain. He loved fighting, and it was a means for income—his only means. He took the role seriously, and although Miya earned her keep, Kai ensured there was enough to tide them over for more than a month at a time. Purging people’s demons paid all right, but not as well as underground fight rings.

Miya traced Caelan’s name, the ink seeping from residual moisture. “The old man who was in here…what do you mean he smelled woodsy?”

Kai shrugged. “Guy smelled like sick trees in a dying forest. Kind of rancid. I don’t think he’s human.”

“Neither do I.” Miya pinched the damp paper between her fingers. It felt like a piece of the old man—a sliver of bark broken from the bole. Gaze flitting up, she leaned over the counter and breathed in. “You smell like bourbon, blood, and man tears.”

Kai chuckled and lightly pinched her nose between his teeth. “Connor says hi, by the way.”

Miya squeaked and pulled back, rubbing the irritation away. “I say hi back. He should come over and have a haunted sleepover with me and Crowbar. We can watch chick flicks and slashers.”

“That’s…a contrast.” Kai reached for the dish of peanuts, and Gavran swooped down to peck at his straying fingers. He glowered at the bird, dodging the stabs that left divots in the wood. “Shit-for-brains,” he grumbled, then glanced at Crowbar, tipping his chin up in greeting. “How’s your domovoy?”

Crowbar offered a nervous grin. “I honestly don’t notice the little guy. It’s not like I can see him.” She gestured to Miya. “Ask your girl. She interacts with him more than I do.”

Miya rested on her elbows and poked her head over the counter, peering at their bar gremlin. “He seems content. Still trying to teach me Russian, I think, but it’s been a while since he’s thrown lettuce at anyone.”

When they’d first checked the place out, Miya found the spirit huddled in a corner on the interior of the bar. The moment he laid eyes on her, he shrieked like a banshee and fled to a back room. After emerging from hiding, she caught him muttering in Russian and asked Kai if he knew what they were dealing with.

“An ethereal squatter,” he’d said, and after a vicious glare from Miya, he explained that it was a domovoy—a spirit tied to a household, providing protection and warnings of impending hardship. Empathically tethered to family, a domovoy shared in the emotional lives of the people it resided with. This one, it seemed, had been left behind by its kin over a century ago and had grown angry from the abandonment. The further the building fell into disrepair, the stronger the domovoy’s resentment.

“What do we do with it?” Miya had asked upon the discovery, to which Kai had scoffed, “Give it bread or some shit.”

And so, they did, offering leftovers and bar snacks. The domovoy’s mischief subsided, and he settled into his corner, eyeing people as they filtered in and out. Sometimes, he even played with Gavran and watched over Crowbar when she retreated upstairs to her apartment on the second floor. Their chef Bastien had followed Crowbar from their hometown in Louisiana, but he refused to dither at the King of Spades alone after sundown. He’d demanded they paint the ceiling haint blue to ward off ghosts—which they did—though Miya could’ve sworn the domovoy liked the new color.

“At least he’s being less of a shit,” Kai said blithely, and the domovoy shook a munchkin fist at him. Kai unzipped his jacket pocket, then yanked out a bill, pushing it toward Miya. “Want to get me a whiskey?”

“Whiskey!” Crowbar balked. “That’s all you ever drink. Try one of my brews.”

“All right.” Kai grinned. “I’ll play. What’s your best poison?”

Crowbar flashed a triumphant smile, her hazel eyes shining with excitement. “The Rusalka. Absinthe rinse, Benedictine, bitters, rye whiskey, cognac, and sweet vermouth, complete with activated charcoal, green luster dust, and a lemon peel garnish.”

Kai’s brows shot up as Miya’s jaw nearly hit her shoes. Rusalka had been the architect of Crowbar’s bereavement, and Kai had suffered his own run in with the demoness.

“Dark.” Kai gestured with a come-hither motion. “Hit me up.”

“You don’t have to pay for it.” Crowbar grabbed the bottles, but Kai shook his head.

“I’ll pay.” He glanced at the paper in Miya’s hands. “What’s that?”

“A job, maybe.” She showed him the name. “Missing person, apparently. I’ll have Ama look into it.”

Kai hummed his disapproval at the mention of the name. He rose from the stool and helped himself to Crowbar’s electric razor, which she kept in a junk drawer under the bar. Ambling to the brass mirror on the adjacent wall, he tilted his head and began trimming his undercut, tufts of loose hair falling on the domovoy. “She’s still lurking in Southie?”

“Sure is,” said Crowbar as she finished making his drink. “My girlfriend’s not just hot; she’s a badass, and I’ll get her to kick your knees in if you don’t clean your fur up off my floor.”

“Your cat-goblin will eat it,” Kai droned, roughly tousling his bristly mane to dislodge any stray strands. He always kept it short on the sides and longer at the top, though it was perpetually wild and seemed to grow faster than weeds in spring.

Crowbar opened her mouth to bark back when Miya interrupted. “It’s true,” she said meekly. “I’ve seen him eat hair. And earwigs.”

Crowbar pushed the Rusalka across the counter, sucking on her cheeks like she’d swallowed something sour. “I guess I can’t complain about that.”

Kai returned the razor and braved a gulp of his cocktail. “Fuck”—he swallowed through clenched teeth—“I hate that I like it.”

Crowbar cackled as she shelved the bottles. “I’ve added two novelties to the menu: the Black Wolf and the White Wolf.”

Kai examined the verdant glitter as it swirled with the charcoal in his glass. “And those are…”

She smiled sheepishly. “My take on an old fashioned and a white Russian, inspired by my two favorite fluffy friends.”

“So, you’ve turned me and your girlfriend into signature cocktails. You sure you don’t need some of my fur ?” Kai swilled the rest of the tarry liquid as Crowbar threatened him with bodily harm. Promising not to sprinkle his discarded hair into anyone’s drink, Kai rinsed out the glass while Miya packed up.

Wrapping a leftover pretzel in a napkin, Miya dropped into a squat and set it on the floor. The house spirit canted his head, opened his mouth, and croaked, “Tha…nk…you.”

Miya’s eyes widened to saucers, and she slapped a hand over her mouth, waving down Kai and Crowbar. “He spoke English! He’s learning English!”

“Oh, good,” Kai deadpanned. “It can irritate me in two languages now.”

Gavran swooped down next to the domovoy and pecked at the pretzel. The domovoy lunged, guarding his offering from the pilfering raven.

“Hey, leave him alone, you glutton,” Miya scolded her feathery companion when he roosted on her shoulder. “You should stay here until Ama comes back. Keep Crowbar company.”

Gavran chortled in response, then beat his wings and glided to the till where Crowbar finished counting the cash.

After slipping on his jacket, Kai clinched Miya’s under his arm and joined her next to the domovoy. “Ready to go?”

“Sure.” She stood and took the garment from him. “You good, Crowbar?”

Their friend waved them off. “Get out of here, lovebirds. I’m ready to call it a night.”

And it had been a night; it was nearly one in the morning. Miya tugged Kai’s sleeve, her eyes catching the plum shadows mottling his jaw.

His arm coiled around the small of her back as he followed her out, the crisp night air greeting them like an old friend.

Their one-bedroom apartment was as old as the city. Nestled on the second floor of a triple decker, their pad boasted two whole windows and a pink-tiled bathroom that Miya considered a highlight of the janky interior décor. Kai couldn’t have cared less about the pastels, but he was a fan of the neighboring twenty-four-hour corner store, complete with a pharmacy and enough snack aisles to satisfy his middle-of-the-night cravings for pork rinds and mayonnaise. Miya preferred the Dunkies across the street, though she sometimes joined Kai only to watch him fruitlessly evade Marty, the store’s overtalkative owner.

The apartment entryway opened to a modest living area with an east-facing window, a two-seater, and an old chest that doubled as a coffee table. Kai tossed the keys onto the kitchenette counter—beige laminate from the ’80s—and hung his jacket on a hook behind the door. Two of the four elements on their stove were busted, and the inside of the oven looked like it’d endured an apocalypse. Their fridge could barely hold enough groceries for the week, and the microwave took up half their prep space. It wasn’t what Miya’s parents had in mind when they patronized her about making a life for herself, but it was the happiest home she’d ever had.

“I need a shower,” Kai declared as Miya removed her shoes and draped her coat over his. He retrieved his canary yellow hand wraps from his jacket—the ones she’d had custom printed—and carefully set them aside to be washed.

Miya figured slugging people with knuckles swathed in caution tape matched Kai’s sense of humor, but she never anticipated how attached he’d become to them. She reckoned they also helped him stay cognizant of what he was coming home to after a night of breaking bones in an underground fight circuit: a person who loved him.

Kai padded down the hall, stripping as he went. He peeled off his shirt, then kicked his jeans up and caught them over his forearm, the taut muscles of his back shifting beneath streaks of scraped flesh. The water started a moment later, and Miya made for the bedroom at the end of the stubby hall.

Their sleeping quarters were cramped, the bed monopolizing almost every inch of floor space. They’d pushed it right up against the window so they could access the closet, which meant Miya had to crawl over Kai whenever she needed the bathroom at night. Luckily, he wasn’t a fussy sleeper and merely exploited the opportunity to grope her butt. He only slept for a few hours at a time, and Miya had no intention of getting squashed by him every time he went to raid the fridge after his naps.

Abandoning her jeans and bra, Miya eagerly replaced her day clothes with an oversized T-shirt. She retrieved the note the stranger had given her and set it on the nightstand—a tiny thing they’d picked up from a trash pile outside a nearby building. Throwing herself onto the mattress, she let her eyes drift shut. Late nights were nothing new, and she was grateful that Crowbar didn’t need her at the King of Spades until mid-afternoon. Kai was also a night owl, which meant most of their time together was spent after dark.

“Tired?” his voice cut through the quiet.

He was sopping wet and completely naked, rummaging through the closet.

“Why are you dripping all over the floor?” Miya asked with an annoyed huff.

He raised a brow at her as he dried himself off. “Because someone threw my towel in the dirty laundry.”

A smattering of blue and plum marked his ribs.

“Oops.” She sat up, watching as he dropped the towel and used his foot to mop up his puddle. It’d taken three years of badgering before he started cleaning up after himself—a positive sign that he’d finally adjusted to sharing space with another person. Five years on, and he’d gotten pretty good at it. As far as Miya could tell, the comfort of domesticity had grown on him—that is, so long as he could run amok on occasion.

Miya had made peace with his need to blow off steam with night-long benders and bar brawls, and to his delight, she even participated in his shenanigans when the mood struck. But he always came home, and for all his wild escapades, his loyalty never wavered. He was candid, sometimes to a fault, but after a lifetime of pretense and double-speak, it was the reason she’d fallen for him.

Kai Donovan was her best friend.

He tossed the towel aside and pointed to the faded black T-shirt she’d cuddled up in. “That’s mine.”

“Is it?” Miya asked innocently, clasping the hem and peering down as though noticing for the first time. “Well, I think it’s mine now.”

Brazen and dedicated he may have been, but he was also hopelessly competitive, cursed with a pettiness that rivaled a sophomoric heiress at an Ivy League prep school.

“I see how it is,” he said drolly as he stalked toward the bed, a smirk playing on his lips.

“You’ll pay me for a drink at the King of Spades, but you won’t let me wear your shirts?” She pivoted on the bed to mirror his movements.

Not that it would do her much good. Kai dove for her with inhuman speed, his hand closing around her ankle. She shrieked and shrank into the pillows, her outburst devolving into giggles as he flopped on top of her and assaulted her neck with fiery kisses. His hand slid up her stomach, hiking up the baggy garment.

“You look better without it,” he said against her ear, his thumb skimming over the peak of her breast. The smell of blood and whiskey was gone, replaced by the pine and spice soap Miya had foisted on him.

She snagged his lips, but when she pressed her palm to his abdomen, he flinched and sucked a sharp breath in through his teeth.

“Watch the ribs,” he chuckled, weaving his fingers with hers and pulling her hand from the tender spot.

Miya dropped her head. “You’re really getting pummeled working for Sergei.”

“I’m fine,” he promised, pinning her hand to the pillow. “And Sergei can’t force me to do anything I don’t want to. He just hooks me up with fights.”

Miya fidgeted beneath him, his insistence doing little to mollify her. “I just didn’t know ordinary humans could do so much damage to you.”

Kai’s mouth caressed her jaw. “They’re good fighters—still stronger than the average person. People can hit pretty hard when they’re trained right.”

“Stop complimenting the assholes meddling with our sex life,” she grumbled.

Kai barked out a laugh, his breath glancing off her cheek. “They’re not meddling.”

“Yeah?” Miya lifted her head, challenge curving her mouth. “Prove it.”

Eyes narrowing, his tongue glided over his teeth behind a tight-lipped smile. She was baiting him, but Kai couldn’t resist. He rolled back onto his knees, grabbed her thighs, and yanked her lower on the mattress. The shirt she’d stolen from him rode up, and he pulled it over her head before sinking to his elbows, his lips trailing down her belly. His teeth clamped over the band of her underwear as he hooked a thumb under the gaunt fabric.

“Don’t rip?—”

The words died in her mouth when he tore the lace like a piece of construction paper. His gaze flitted to her face—smug, mordant eyes daring her to protest. Apparently, wrecking her undergarments was an exercise in spite.

Kai tossed her ruined panties aside and turned his attention to the inside of her thigh, his lips skimming higher.

“Taking the easy route, I see,” she taunted, her stomach curling when he pushed her legs apart and grazed her center.

“Less exertion.”

“I’m sorry,” said Miya, “tell me again how your fights aren’t affecting our sex life?”

Kai kissed his teeth and ignored the quip as he descended on her, sublimating his irritation with his tongue between her thighs.

“Shit,” Miya hissed when he drew a slow circle around her clit, teasing. One hand glided down his arm while the other disappeared in his unruly hair, pushing him closer.

“Greedy,” he murmured, his laugh vibrating against her, and she hooked her knees over his shoulders, reeling him in.

The ache for release bloomed in the pit of her stomach, plucking at the strings that would unravel her. Just as her pleasure crested, Kai withdrew, the heat of his hands and mouth maddeningly absent as he steered her from the precipice, leaving her body screaming with unspent lust.

“That’s for razzing me.” Kai sat up and wiped his mouth, then sucked her arousal from his fingers.

An annoyed whimper slipped from Miya, but she wouldn’t let him gloat. “You realize I do have fingers I can use myself.” As she slid a hand between her thighs, Kai snatched it away. Miya playfully kicked at his ribs, knowing he’d guard his injuries.

“Lambchop,” he warned, seizing her calf mid-air.

She struck with her other foot, and he caught that one too. Her revolt was futile but fun, both of them brimming with mirth as a playful tussle ensued. Kai pinioned her to the mattress, and she squirmed beneath him, her impish cackles gradually waning as she nuzzled his neck and wrapped her limbs around him. The hard ridge below his hips pressed against her, and she angled her own in invitation.

His lips branded her skin as their bodies joined, and she clawed him closer, craving his warmth. Her mouth crashed against his, and he groaned against the kiss as his fingers pressed into her thigh. Kai was single-minded when it came to pleasure, and that afforded Miya delicious glee in disrupting him with the occasional hurdle—just to make him work for it. She squeezed her legs around his waist and pushed, forcing space between them that he desperately wanted to devour.

Gritting his teeth, Kai swallowed a frustrated growl. Her goading never failed to rile him into a contest. Fingers threading through her hair, he tugged her head back, his retaliation earning him a satisfied moan. Miya swore as he held her down, her blood thundering through her veins. Basking in their feverish exchange, Kai flashed her a wicked grin when she dug her nails into his bicep. If there was one thing that could make her come on sight, it was that damn look he gave her when they fucked—like the whole world could’ve been burning, and he’d still choose to be inside her.

Kai slipped a hand between their bodies and drew a finger over her clit, his touch vindicating every teasing stroke that’d left her longing for his tongue. He didn’t disappoint. Miya gasped his name as she came, legs clenched around him, nails raking down his back.

Kai didn’t even flinch, his gaze molten as he watched her, savoring every tremor and harsh exhale that met his skin. When he’d had his fill, he eased his grip on her hair and fisted the sheets. His breath hitched, body going taut, and he bit back a snarl as he muffled his release against her neck.

Miya wound her arms around him as he rocked against her, and the tension gradually bled from his limbs. Bracing on one elbow, Kai traced a path from her pulse to her ear with his lips. “It’ll take more than a few cracked ribs to stop me from fucking you,” he whispered roughly, then rolled onto his back, dragging her with him.

“You did good.” She patted his arm, her eyelids heavy with impending sleep.

Kai scoffed. “I thought dudes were supposed to conk out right after.”

Miya shushed him and groped at his face in a haphazard attempt to clamp her hand over his mouth. “You barely sleep anyway.”

He evaded her efforts to silence him, chomping at her fingers. “But I get to watch you mutter through your wet dreams.”

A smile tickled the insides of Miya’s cheeks, and she craned her neck to admire the lines of his face. Her touch roamed the length of his torso, carved with lean muscle. “You’re sweet.”

Kai wrinkled his nose like she’d accused him of something untoward. “Go to sleep, Lambchop. You’re loopy.”

Miya snickered and snuggled into the crook of his arm, fingers drumming against his chest. “Whatever you say, Kai .”

Wedging a leg between his thighs, her eyes drifted to their nightstand where she’d set the note. It’d still been damp when she’d pulled it from her pocket. Now, a tiny green sprig with a single clover heart sprouted from the paper, pale brown veins pulsing through the sheet as though it were a living skin. Barely perceptible streaks of blue ink shone through the translucent fibers, the name— Caelan Carver— suddenly a frantic question in need of response.

The stranger’s request was as sentient as a tree rooted in the earth, and it awaited the Dreamwalker’s reply.