Vothe gives him a mischievous smile. “It also requires a great deal of kissing. An incredible amount of kissing. Huge amounts of kissing that are required every day of the courtship. It is a sacred part of the tradition dating back centuries and must be obeyed.”

Trystan’s smile broadens. “I’ve a sense you’re making this up as you go along.”

“Do you take issue with that?”

“No,” he says, suddenly breathless. “Gods, no.”

Vothe pulls him close and Trystan kisses him fiercely, his tongue sensually caressing Vothe’s, all reserve falling away as Trystan takes complete charge. As if the lightning he’s letting loose has been pent-up inside him all his life.

“It’s new,” Trystan finally says, his forehead pressed to Vothe’s, his voice ragged as desire and love pound through them both. “To feel so...happy. It’s not an emotion I’ve often felt.”

“I want to give you my fealty,” Vothe tells him, impassioned.

Trystan leans forward, his lips brushing Vothe’s as their heated tide of power rises to overtake them. “And I want to kiss you until we both drown.”

CHAPTER FOUR

MATCHMAKER

Lucretia Quillen

Xishlon night, twenty-first hour

“Are you going to kiss Jules Kristian tonight?”

Lucretia almost spits out her tea. She gapes at her friend and fellow Resistance worker Soollyndrile, a smug look on the young Wyvern matchmaker’s face as she reclines against the embroidered plum-velvet cushions of the Painted Dragon Patisserie’s cliffside seating. Soo sips her purple Xishlon tea, her unblinking, vertically slit-pupiled stare fixed on a flustered Lucretia.

“Of course not,” Lucretia protests. “We’re good friends, nothing more.”

Soo laughs and takes another sip of the glowing rose-scented tea, the two of them allies for years—two points of a network stretching from West to East, aiding Fae youth, amongst others, fleeing East.

Soo’s onyx lips, eyelids, and horns are decorated with violet Xishlon glitter, the Wyvern-shifter’s garb a shimmering riot of purple gems, her long black hair streaked with violet. Her partially dragon-shifted body is covered in ebony scales and Soo’s rare ability to hold a partial-shift is drawing more than a few stares. As is Lucretia’s green-glimmering Mage skin, but Lucretia is too shocked by Soo’s question to give much notice to any of it.

“Toiya,” Soo says, her wide, scaled nose crinkling up in apparent disbelief over Lucretia’s naivete. “Jules Kristian is not just your friend. You two need to mate. Immediately.”

Lucretia blinks at her, rendered speechless.

Soo chuckles. “Claim him as your Xishlon’vir, Lu. Claim him tonight.”

Lucretia can feel the flush blooming on her face. “You do realize I’m Gardnerian,” she sputters. “We...we don’t just claim a—” she glances around, feeling scandalous to even voice the word “—a mate. Are you quite sure he...feels that way for me?”