He punched in the destination—Midnight Fae Academy.
Seconds later, the gates revealed themselves to us along with the Academy’s gothic exterior, and Shade faced me.
“Zakkai has Aflora,” he said before I could question him about her location. I’d assumed this whole time that he’d just hidden her in one of his infamous shadows.
“Who the fuck is Zakkai?” I asked.
“Her Quandary Blood mate.”
I’M NAKED.
Normally, that thought wouldn’t bother me; Earth Fae frequently roamed around without clothes.
But the silky sheets caressing my skin didn’t belong to me. Nor did the subtle aroma of the ocean tickling my nose.
Zakkai.
I recognized his essence all around me, could feel his Quandary powers tickling the hairs along my arms in an attempt to seduce my magic into coming out to play, and could taste his familiarity on my tongue. For a month, I thought he was a figment of my imagination. However, he’d left me clues to the contrary—clues I’d chosen to ignore and laugh away.
I wasn’t laughing now.
“I know you’re awake, little star.” His warm voice came to me on a breeze, followed by another tantalizing scent of home. My mother used to decorate our house with fragrances from the Water Kingdom. It was a secret indulgence of hers, one she claimed paired nicely with our earthy perfumes.
Somehow, Zakkai had bottled up that fragrance and wore it around him like some sort of sensual cloak. Or perhaps it was just his natural scent.
“Aflora,” he murmured, the taunt in his tone unmistakable. “Do I need to join you under those sheets and wake you up with my tongue? Because I’m happy to oblige, just like I did in all our dreams.”
Ugh. My cheeks flamed with the memories—the ones where I’d completely let myself go because I had thought he wasn’t real. The things I’d made him do to me...
I shivered.
He chuckled as though he overheard that thought. And maybe he had since he claimed to be my mate.
The heat of his body swept over me as he sat beside me on the bed—not close enough to touch, but close enough to feel.
His familiarity unnerved me, as did the sensation of his silky sheets moving along my legs as I rolled away from him. He didn’t try to stop me, just settled against the headboard and crossed his long legs at his bare ankles. I studied his feet for a moment before dragging my gaze up his pajama bottoms to his bare abdomen.
Because of course he chose to go shirtless.
Just like he had in all my dreams.
The chiseled perfection of his body left no mystery as to why I thought I’d mentally created him. He was too godlike to be real with those long wisps of white hair and silver-blue eyes.
“Keep looking at me like that and I’m going to accept it for the invitation that it is, Aflora.”
Ugh, his voice was just as velvety smooth as the rest of him.
The man encapsulated sex.
And the grin curving his full lips said he knew it, too.
“It’s not an invitation,” I muttered, curling deeper into his silky sheets.
A pair of dimples graced his flawless cheeks.
Yeah, he would have a killer smile, too. Because why not?
Maybe he was really an Incubus from the Hell Fae realm. But no, I caught the flicker of cerulean magic lurking deep in his fathomless gaze.