“Am I . . . I doing this right?” I asked. “I’ve never done it this way before.”
“Sweetness . . .” He cupped my breast with a hand, his thumb sweeping over the tip. “You couldn’t possibly do this wrong. Ever.”
My pace picked up and his followed. He went deep, then somehow even deeper. The angle made it feel like he was touching every part of me. He lowered his hand to where we were joined together and that thumb got busy swirling around. “You feel so amazing,” I said, grinding down as tension coiled tight. “I think I’m gonna . . .
oh God
.”
Ren said something, but it was lost in the rush of sensations pouring into my body. I threw my head back, welcoming the powerful release surging throughout me. It was like every nerve ending decided to fire at once, and they kept exploding.
I was still coming when he shifted, rolling me onto my back and thrusting fast and hard. His hips pounded into mine, and all I could do was hold on. My legs curled around his waist, and I clutched his arms. His hips plunged once more and then he stilled, his face buried into my neck as he let out a ragged groan.
Still swimming in the aftershocks, I ran my hand through his silky hair. God, this . . . he was amazing. Everything about him.
Ren held me tight as he pulled out and rolled onto his side, pressing me to his body. I could feel his heart racing against mine as I pressed my lips to his throat and kissed him.
I love you.
Those words whispered through me. I wanted to say them, but I couldn’t speak them out loud, so I said them over and over again in my head.
I love you
.
~
A pounding on the front door woke us both at the same time. Sluggish, I sat up as I pushed the mass of curls out of my face. Ren was already looking at the clock on the nightstand. “It’s after three in the morning. Who is at your door?”
I glanced over at him. “I have no idea.”
“I seriously doubt that’s Amazon delivering.” Ren was on his feet, pulling his pants on. He left them unbuttoned, and my mouth watered a bit at the sight.
I jumped out of bed, pulling my shorts and shirt back on. As Ren opened my bedroom door, a horrible thought filled my mind. What if it—
From where we stood, I could see the knob turning on the front door. My gaze flew to the deadbolt. Ren hadn’t thrown it. Cursing, I shot forward, snatching an iron dagger off my dresser just as my front door swung open.
A knight stood in the entryway.
Chapter Nine
The fae walking into my apartment was most definitely a knight—an ancient fae who’d come through the gate with the prince. He was tall and broad, with the same deep olive skin tone. His dark hair was buzzed close to the skull. He had no weapons in his hands, but I’d seen an ancient manifest a gun out of thin air before.
He was kind of dressed like a badass biker, wearing a dark shirt and leather pants, and Ren took one look at him and laughed. He actually laughed as he stood there, shirtless, his pants zipped but unbuttoned. “Oh, you just busted into the wrong house,” he growled.
The knight’s response was a tight-lipped smile, and then he strode forward, chin dipped down. There was no time to question why the knight was at my place. Fae didn’t typically seek Order members out. We were the hunters, not the hunted.
Ren was in front of me, becoming a living, breathing obstacle, and while I appreciated his protective nature, I could hold my own. My fingers tightened on the handle of the dagger as Ren brandished the thorn stake.
The knight took a swing with his meaty fist, but Ren was wicked fast. He dipped under the knight’s outstretched arm and sprung up behind him. Planting one leg, he spun halfway, landing a brutal kick in the back of the knight.
Stumbling forward a step, the knight easily caught himself and pivoted around. Taking the advantage, I sprang forward as Ren swiped the business end of the stake at the knight’s throat. That was the only way to take down an ancient. The head had to come off, and I was really hoping and praying it wouldn’t be messy.
The knight sidestepped Ren’s throat-jab, then lifted a hand in my direction. He didn’t touch me, didn’t come anywhere close to me. All he did was lift his hand, and suddenly my sock-covered feet were slipping backward across the hardwood floors. I hit the wall.
“What the hell?” I yelled, my eyes wide, staring at the knight.
Ren swung out with his other fist, landing a blow on the fae’s jaw. The knight turned his cheek and laughed. “That was funny?” muttered Ren. He flipped the stake, then lunged forward, slamming it into the knight’s chest. The knight grunted as Ren dragged it in a downward motion that would not end pretty.
“Whatever,” the knight replied, and then swung out with one arm, backhanding Ren across the face and knocking him aside. Ren crashed into the end table. The lamp fell to the floor, shattering into several large shards.
Oh hell to the no, he did not just hit Ren.
Seeing red, I pushed off the wall and launched myself forward as Ren got back up and kicked out, catching the ancient in the knee. The knight went down on one leg just as I reached him. I grabbed him by the top of his head and jerked his head back, my arm arcing—
The knight flung his hand out, and a second later, I was scooting across the room, bumping into a plant stand. The fern went over, spilling dirt all over the floor. This time I ended up over by the balcony doors.
“What the hell!” I shouted again.
Ren sprang forward, swinging out, but the knight dodged the attack. He caught Ren’s arm and spun him around, drawing his back to the knight’s chest. I pushed away from the doors, racing across the small distance. Shoving the dagger into the knight’s back, I yanked the blade out as I was then thrown across the floor once more, back toward the bedroom as the knight let go of Ren.
A cold, harsh reality set in as I caught myself by grabbing the doorframe. The knight was purposely keeping me out of the fight while going toe to toe with Ren.
Ren caught the knight by the shoulder with one hand and lifted his leg, thrusting his knee into the fae’s gut. The knight exhaled roughly as he shoved Ren back into my chair. The little footstool Tink used went flying.
Then they were going at each other, fists flying, with a lot of dodging and dipping. I shot forward again, this time determined to not get shoved aside like a piece of clothing. I was a foot away when movement to my right caught my attention.
Tink appeared in the hallway, just beyond the bathroom, his wings moving lazily as he yawned. He was wearing a . . . tiny
nightcap
? What in the holy fuck? He was even wearing miniature pajama bottoms, blue and white striped, and I had no idea where he’d gotten them from. No idea at all.
He was in the process of stretching his little arms out when he looked around the room. “What kind of tomfoolery is this?”
Tomfoolery
?
The knight was distracted for a moment, eyeing Tink with surprise. A second later, the brownie’s eyes widened as all sleep vanished from his face. Tink shot into the living room as he ripped off his dainty nightcap and tossed it aside, the pale blue cap floating to the floor.
“Thou shall not pass!” Tink shouted, throwing out his hand in the direction of the knight and Ren.
I stopped.
Ren halted mid-swing.
The knight caught Ren’s arm, blocking the jab as he turned and cocked his head to the side, staring at the brownie.
Tink blinked slowly. “Well, shit. That worked in
The
Lord of the Rings.
”
Oh my God.
Ignoring Tink and hoping he managed to stay out of the way and make it out of this alive, I darted toward the knight.
“This needs to stop right now. You’re cutting into my sleep time,” Tink announced, lowering his arms to his sides as he hovered near the coffee table. “And you don’t want to mess with my sleep time. I give you one more chance, sir. Leave, or else.”
“Jesus,” muttered Ren, ducking as the knight lunged for him. “What are you going to do, Tink? Annoy him to death? Because that might actually work.”
“You have no idea what I am capable of,” Tink shot back.
I shot forward, grabbing the knight’s arm and trying to flip him, but the knight turned suddenly. Lifting his arm
and
me, he tossed me over the back of the couch and dumped me onto the cushions. I started to scramble away when I saw Tink move toward where Ren and the knight were brawling.
“Stay back, Tink!” I shouted. Dammit, this was getting out of hand.
“I got this.” Tink looked at me, then drew in a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Ivy.”
I frowned as I rose from the couch. “You’re . . .”
A fine shimmer surrounded Tink, like a misty cloud of golden dust. He was completely covered, body and wings. The dust expanded, forming a cyclone that swirled down to the floor and halfway to the ceiling. It moved so fast and was so thick that I couldn’t see Tink inside of it.
I took a step forward as fear for Tink rose in my gut, but the shimmering cyclone stilled and then fell to the floor in a rush of sparkling golden dust and . . .
“Holy shit,” I whispered.
The knight stopped fighting. So did Ren. The entire world would have stopped, because they were seeing what I was seeing, which was insane. Absolutely freaking insane.
A man stood where Tink had hovered—a fully grown man who was as tall as the knight, and that man, whoever he was, looked like Tink. He had shockingly white hair and blue eyes. Tink’s handsome little face was now transformed into a normal-sized handsome face. He was tall and broad, with defined pecs and abs, and—oh my God, he was naked. Like legit naked! And I couldn’t un-see any of that, because . . .
Because this fully grown male was Tink.
“Oh my God.” I took a step sideways and then my knees gave out. I plopped down onto the couch.
“What in the actual fuck of all fuckdoms?” Ren exclaimed.
That summed up everything.
Striding forward, Tink headed straight for the stunned knight. Ren stepped aside, and I think it was completely out of shock, because there were
things
hanging and dangling—and I was scarred for
life
.
“There are none of your kind in this realm,” the knight said. “You’re not to be—”
“Nope. Nope. Nope. It’s the middle of the night and I ain’t got the time nor the care to listen to you,” Tink stated.
Then Tink moved so fast that one second he was stalking all naked-like toward the knight, and then the next second the knight’s neck was splitting wide open. Bluish-red blood poured down the front of the knight’s shirt as the head rolled to the side and off the shoulder.
The sickening
thump
of its head hitting the floor echoed in the silence, and then the body followed, folding like a paper sack.
“Yeah, ancients don’t go poof. We’re going to have to do something about the body. Probably before morning,” Tink explained. “Because they tend to decompose fast, and there’s going to be a lot more than just blood seeping through the floorboards.”
Um . . .
Tink handed the thorn stake back to Ren. Somehow, I had no idea how, he’d gotten it from Ren. Tink smiled proudly as he brushed his hands together and looked down at the body of the fallen knight. “Good day to you, sir!”
“What in the actual fuck?” Ren demanded again.
My mouth gaped open.
Ren was staring too, his gaze moving from where the knight lay in pieces, to the fully grown Tink—fully grown,
naked
Tink. His jaw was moving, but it was like he couldn’t find the words. I couldn’t blame him. All I could do was stare at Tink.
“How?” I whispered, and I didn’t know if I was asking how he managed to get rid of the ancient or how he was fully grown.
It took Tink a moment to realize I was talking about him. “I’m very powerful, Ivy. I’ve told you that a hundred thousand times before, but you probably just ignored me. Big things come in small packages.”
“That . . . explains nothing,” I stated.
He cocked his head to the side. “Well, I am kind of like a house elf.”
“Oh my God!” I shrieked, jumping off the couch. “You are not a house elf! This isn’t the wizarding world of fucked up! You’re fully grown. Like
man-sized
grown.”
“I’m going to pretend you did not speak of the wizarding world in such a tone,’” he replied snottily. “Anyway, I’m a brownie. We have a remarkable ability that allows us to shrink ourselves. It’s sort of like a defense mechanism. Just like opossums playing dead.”
My entire face scrunched up. “That . . . that is not the same as an opossum playing dead.”
“But it’s the same idea. We can make ourselves smaller so that we are grossly underestimated,” Tink explained with a shrug. “It works. Obviously. None of you thought I could—”
I held up a hand, and he must have read the crazy in my face, because he shut up. “So, you’re telling me that this entire time you’ve actually been pretending to be small?”
“Not exactly pretending,” he replied thoughtfully. “Being small is the same as being large.”
I widened my eyes. “That makes no sense.”
“I warned you, Ivy. I even asked you if you knew what you had living in your house.” Ren kindly took that exact moment to remind me of this.
I turned devil eyes on him. “Did you know he was actually six-and-a-half-feet tall and anatomically correct?”
Ren’s nose wrinkled. “Well, no.”
“Then shut the hell up!”
Ren threw his hands up. “Alrighty then.”
“Why would you think I wasn’t anatomically correct in the first place?” Tink asked, sounding offended.
Turning back to naked, person-sized Tink, I ignored his question and shouted, “And where are your goddamn wings?”
He frowned. “I have them hidden now. In this form, they’re pretty big and would be knocking shit over left and right, and considering how unstable you are, I doubt that’s—”
“I’m unstable because you’re not the size of a fucking Barbie doll.”
“I don’t see how this is a problem,” Tink responded. “I’m actually more useful this way. You don’t have to carry my deliveries when I’m—”