“It won’t,” he said. “Unless you want it to, and then I will ensure that everything changes.”

“As simple as that,” I shot back.

He kissed me suddenly, leaving me breathless and horny as fuck. “As simple as that, Sunshine.”

Before I could think up another smartass reply, he swung me up and over his shoulder, and then he started to sprint through the hallway. Inky and Midnight, who had been guarding the entrance, rushed toward us. “They’re back,” I said, and now I was feeling much happier because this all felt normal.

Like a future I’d been dreaming of but had never expected to happen. I’d been forcing myself to accept the reality. We’d been fighting against a power we shouldn’t have beaten. To know it was over… It had taken me a bit to get there, but finally, I could be happy.

Our mists surrounded us, lifting our bodies off the ground in their version of a hug. “Hey, buddy,” I said to Inky, who started to spark.

All good in Faerie? I asked Midnight through our bond.

All good. The stone is safe.

That was all we needed to know at this point. Len would no doubt fill in the rest of the blanks when we saw him next.

“You two keep watch,” Shadow said. “Mera and I have some business to wrap up before the great feast.”

The mists jiggled before they wrapped around us one more time and then zoomed off together looking all cute and best-friend-like.

Shadow slapped a hand across my ass then, and I moaned, wiggling against him. “Business?” I got out.

“We have an hour until the dinner,” he rumbled “Maybe even a few hours, because no one is monitoring when we arrive. Imagine what we could do in hours.”

Well, when he put it like that… Now I was laser-focused, urging the beast on like I was riding a fucking racehorse. Of course, I planned on riding this particular “horse” very soon and for that to happen, he needed to move faster.

When I kicked his side, he growled at me, jerking his head up to see what the fuck I was doing. I shrugged, holding both hands up. “What? It works for racehorses.”

That got me another slap on the ass, and I jerked against him, desperate to be naked and fucking my mate. He was still in his huge Anubis-like form, and that gave him extra speed and strength, so we made it along the hall and through the library in record time. Like, I barely even saw anyone as we dashed through, and when we entered the lair, everything inside of me was thrumming with excitement. My nerve endings were buzzing, and Shadow had better hurry the fuck up—