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  “It can be like this always,” Adrian whispered, wrapping her own long talons about Samael’s breast and massaging it with desire. “Just the three of us together.”

  Samael ran her hands over Adrian’s soft smooth hips, as Hathgar continued to lap at her soaking slit. Adrian followed the guidance of Samael’s hands and shimmied forward until her own sex was poised above Samael’s lips.

  “Lower yourself a bit more, love,” she urged Adrian, who quickly obeyed. When Samael dipped her tongue into Adrian’s lips, she was greeted with a warm flood of excited energy. A delicious stream that soaked her mouth and tongue and coated her throat with a sweet, vitalizing nectar.

  Adrian moaned and her hips quivered in Samael’s embrace. Samael lapped faster at her lover’s wet opening, dragging her tongue up through the sweet nectar and around the swollen nub at the front of Adrian’s soaking sex. She swallowed, and the energy coursed down her throat, filling Samael with a warm, vital thread of energy.

  Her own orgasm built and poured from within her, replenishing Hathgar with her charged energy. Samael arched her back and cried out as he slid two fingers inside of her and, with his thumb, rubbed at the head of her sex. Her ether shuddered as climax rocked her with pleasure and satiated the giant fae between her legs.

  Filled with the sumptuous juices of Adrian, Samael gently removed her friend from above her and sat up. She stared at the dark giant and wrapped her arms about her slender legs. He stared back, a smug, enigmatic smile on his face as he stroked a hand up and down his massive, erect cock. Energy trickled from the head and Adrian lapped it up, until Hathgar moaned and jetted energy deep into her mouth.

  He looked to Adrian, who now hovered close. “Leave us for a while, beloved. I have a feeling your Samael wishes to speak with me alone.”

  Adrian looked to Samael, her wondering gaze begging she run away with them.

  “Go.” Samael dropped her head. “Do as he says.”

  Adrian muttered something, and the sound of her wings fluttering lightly as she left the clearing caused Samael to lift her head. Hathgar watched her now, not smiling, not quite frowning either. In the still light of the moon, he could’ve been an ancient gargoyle poised atop a castle wall. After all, old world humans had modeled many such stone statues after the nighttime fae guardians, but modern humans had forgotten such homages to the elementals.

  “You won’t go with us, will you?” His icy stare never wavered.

  “I…” Samael tried to hold his gaze, but she faltered, angry at herself for letting him intimidate her. “I don’t know yet. There is much for me to decide—”

  “What?” Hathgar leaned forward on his furry haunches and grabbed her arms. Samael made to bite him with her sharp fangs, but he let go. “What do you have to keep you here, night guardian? Other than duty and loneliness?”

  She stared at him blankly, frozen by his words, for she knew they were truth. Without Adrian in her nighttime world, what would Samael’s existence be like? A new guardian warrior would be appointed as her post companion in the swamps, but would they bond? Would her new companion become the cherished friend and lover Adrian had been?

  “If I am caught—if we are caught,” she whispered, and then dared a glance up at him as she spoke, “it could mean exile from the plane of Fairy, you realize?”

  He tucked a cold hand under her chin again and held her with those hawkish eyes. “We will not be caught. You have nothing to fear.” He kissed her, deep and raw.

  She pulled away from him. “I have everything to fear.” Tears tried to betray her, and she swooped off the rock and settled in the tall grass a few feet ahead of where Hathgar still hovered.

  She heard and felt the wind created by his descent. “Tell me what you fear then.” He lighted beside her and pulled her close beneath a dark wing.

  She looked up at him. “Everything you and Adrian ask of me. Traveling to a region of Fairy that is foreign to me, abandoning my duty to the Airs…” She shook her head and wiped angrily at her wet cheeks. “Trust has never come easy to me, and now, although I barely know you and I have been trained to distrust your kind, you ask me to trust you with everything I hold dear.”

  He cradled her. Samael, raised to be a skilled warrior and guardian, raised to deal with the harsh climes of nighttime and the creatures that roamed these hours, knew little of tenderness. Other than Adrian, no one had ever shown her much love. And now this gentle treatment from a giant winter elemental unnerved yet comforted her. It confused her. She wanted to trust Hathgar as Adrian did, but her fears were old, great, and strong.

  Giving in to her confusion and weariness, Samael leaned against him and wrapped her slender, moon-white arms about his waist. He was like a thick tree trunk, like holding a sturdy oak in her embrace. She sighed and let all the pain and fear go for a moment. It drifted out of her body in thin bruised streams of ether.

  “I know you fear me and my people. I know you fear our unknown world, but you have nothing to be frightened of,” he whispered against her ear. Samael shivered. Yes, she feared him, but she desired this primal force of winter as well. He was so potent, so intense yet tender, so feral yet kind.

  “I fear you.” She swallowed, trying to fight back the confession that threatened to spill from her lips. “But I desire you as well, and I cannot deny that. Your energy signatures are such a strange and interesting combination.” She inhaled deeply of the swirling, cold blue air above his head and surrounding his massive form. “I am bewitched by you, frost giant, I will admit.” She smiled then, and his eyes lit with a flame that thrilled her when she looked up at him. “But that does not mean you have convinced me yet.”

  Samael lifted high into the night sky and sailed over the tops of the willow and birch that dotted the edge of the swamp. She finally lighted within the gnarled fingers of an old white birch. She watched the dark sky, following Hathgar’s looming shape as he sailed toward her. He landed on the thick branch beside her and his massive muscled frame made the sturdy birch shake. Again they held one another’s gaze without speaking. His eyes blazed hawk-yellow, and she steeled herself against the glamour he exuded. Charms designed to break her will to resist.

  She smiled at him and bowed her head. “You won’t win me over. You think you will, but I won’t weaken again now that Adrian is not with us.”

  He chuckled and leapt closer.

  She gasped and drew back.

  “I don’t know why you act as if I am the enemy.” He tilted his head and his eyes surged with fierce light. Samael tried not to show weakness as he moved closer, backing her into the crook of the massive branch. “I want to take you away with Adrian. I know, I feel, the great pain you will suffer without her.”

  She narrowed her eyes and drew close to his face, trying to challenge him, stare him down. “I know there are other reasons for you agreeing to take on two energy mates. You want something from me.”

  He clenched his jaw and ran a clawed hand through his long, black waves. “Yes, I admit there is more to our proposed partnership than simply energy mating. It involves the corruption of the higher fae Adrian mentioned. We need you to join our council so we may fight it.”

  She remained silent, waiting for Hathgar to continue.

  He watched the moon as he spoke. “The Hunt begins tomorrow, with the dawn of our New Year.” He looked at her now, and the cold, unreadable flicker in his eyes made her shiver. “I am told by reliable sources that there are plans to assassinate one of the Nordic leaders and frame one of our council members for it. The higher fae want to take full control over the lower planes of Fairy.” He swallowed and looked away. As his jaw clenched and unclenched, Samael thought she saw icy tears fall down his cheeks and disappear into his beard.

  Samael stared at the dark, frozen ground far beneath them. An icy wind lifted off the swamp and blew toward them, brushing over her with cold wispy fingers. She rubbed her naked arms and took in Hathgar’s grave confession. Was he lying simply to get her to agree to leave with
him and Adrian?

  “If what you tell me is true…” She paused and sighed deeply. “Then it would rock the very foundations of our world—our dimension. There has not been a slaying, or a death, among our kind in millennia.”

  “No.” He nodded. His eyes glimmered with his despair. “But you know that there are ways to kill one of our kind.”

  Her eyes widened and she felt sickened at the very thought of an elemental trying to murder one of their own, after so many eons of peaceful co-existence. War among them now was no more than pageantry and ritual, and death on the battlefield a simple mirage to assuage their ancient tribal need for bloodshed. But death did not come to these preternaturals through mere blades or bullets. Still, Samael knew there were ways a fae could perish—secret ways known only to those of the elemental plane.

  “Why would the higher fae seek to destroy an ancient rite of peace?”

  He stared at her for a while, and Samael could see, deep in those hawk eyes, Hathgar truly was desperate and his confession to her was genuine. The knowledge that this corruption was true formed a cold fist of fear in her gut. As he continued to tell her of the planned deception, Hathgar looked away from her, and now Samael knew it was not to hide lies but to hide the pain of the truth.

  “Why destroy the peace? Because they believe we are not all equal. Some of us need to be controlled. They’ve made deals with other…” His throat worked as he swallowed hard. “With other lower dimensions, beings without scruples or any true allegiances. The Airs have called these creatures into their service.”

  She touched him and he looked at her, causing Samael to draw back for a moment. Then she settled close to him, needing the comfort of his nearness after what he’d told her. “If they bring in lower non-corporeals as a part of this plan, they risk banishment to the farthest, least habitable branches of fae.”

  Hathgar nodded. “I am aware of that, but the Airs do not plan on getting caught, and who would catch them, since they hold such strong allegiance in the high branches of fae? That is why I have sought the help of Adrian, and now you, along with many other night guardians, to help me stop them from spilling elemental blood.”

  Samael felt weak from this knowledge Hathgar shared with her. She wanted to deny his words, to shriek that his confession was untrue, but she had only to read his energy signatures to know he was telling her the truth. Her spirit felt his misery and raw honesty.

  “This sickens me,” she murmured, clutching her stomach as she swayed forward. Emotions overcame her, and Hathgar reached out to stop her from falling out of the crook formed from the birch boughs.

  “It sickens me as well.”

  Unable to muster words for a moment, Samael remained still as Hathgar held her weakened form close. Perhaps a part of her already suspected this tragedy. Some ancient subconscious shard of her soul had perhaps caught the whiff of this deceit, and now as it crashed in her conscious ether, Samael sobbed in the arms of the Nordic frost giant.

  “To be honest,” she whispered against his cold chest, her tears turning to thin icicles against his frosty skin, “the Airs have always treated me and Adrian as if we were beneath them as well, even though we are one of their elemental tribe. As night guardians, we are supposed to be revered, for the position we hold is a dangerous and long respected one.” She sniffed and felt tenderness touch her deep in her ether when he stroked the dampness from her cheek. “But instead they treat us with contemptible kindness, spitting out warmth and pleasantries at us more because they have to rather than because they want to.”

  Hathgar nodded knowingly.

  Samael raised her head and stared out at the deep darkness of the swamps. The area she and Adrian were assigned to patrol. “Why, after all these centuries of peace? How can such petty jealousies—such prejudice—exist among an advanced race such as ours?”

  Hathgar made a noise somewhere between a bitter scoff and a laugh. “I suspect it has always been there, but well hidden in the past. Now it bubbles just beneath the surface, and it must be faced, changed, for the greater good of all.”

  Samael nodded against his chest and she let the warmth deep within his ether fill her. She let her defenses down. He sighed as their energies mingled freely and sought to comfort one another. She held him tight and fought the suspicion that tried to close off her energy flow. Right now she trusted him completely and she didn’t care. Samael needed his warmth and reassurance—needed to know that in the dark and desperate days that she knew were to come, Hathgar would be there for her, with her, by her side.

  ***

  Samael marveled at the sparkling fields of snow, and Adrian held her hand while they landed in a forest atop a high, snow covered mound, safely out of sight of the night warriors that would also guard this border into the Nordic realm of fae. Night guardians were posted at all gateways. Being that all three of them had served as night guardians since they were conjured into being for just that purpose, Adrian, Samael and Hathgar had an advantage in sneaking across the border that separated the Airs from the Nordics.

  On the trip to the Nordic border, Adrian explained to Samael how Hathgar had been a proud and respected member of the Nordic Night Guardian Council, assigning territories and settling any disputes between night guardians. His word had been law.

  “Until he was betrayed,” Adrian had confessed bitterly. “An ambassador to the Airs set him up. He framed him for the serious injuries a night guardian sustained when a lower non-corporeal leaked through one of the gateways the elemental was guarding and attacked the giant.

  “The Air ambassador said Hathgar had put the young night guardian on duty alone on purpose, using this giant as an offering to the lower non-corporeal. He accused Hathgar of having secret connections with lower dimensional entities, and charged that Hathgar had a conspiracy cooked up to overthrow the Nordic Council. He even planted false evidence on Hathgar and scrambled his energy signatures so his innocence could not show through. Hathgar was exiled from the council, but allowed to stay and serve within the Nordic realms.”

  The pain that laced Adrian’s words rippled through Samael’s ether. There was no denying the story was valid, and Samael was left with little choice but to believe them.

  “Did the Nordic Night Guardian Council not defend him against these charges?” Samael asked. “Why did they not take the side of one of their own, investigate thoroughly, when such a claim was laid?”

  Adrian had stopped her for a moment then, as they had crossed a snowy mountain pass on foot, close to the Nordic border . The darkness was too thick with fog for them to travel much farther.

  “The Air that charged Hathgar was more than an elemental. He was a high ambassador and a well-trained mage. He managed to cast a glamour over most of the council, while others were in on this corruption with the mage.”

  Samael shook then with all that she knew, and all she had learned from her dear friend and the Nordic giant. In a matter of mere hours, her whole existence had managed to splinter into a chaotic mess, and she still hadn’t had time to process the truths that now shattered her world.

  They found a cave in the mountain and decided to camp until the fog cleared. It was decided they would not fly over the Nordic border when they went into the winter realms. They would stick to the land and sneak in using boulders and great snow mounds for cover. Adrian and Hathgar outlined their path on a map crudely drawn into the cave floor, and Samael studied this and committed it to memory.

  “We should be able to leave in the morning,” Adrian said, after peering out the cave’s opening. “It looks like the fog is starting to lift. Let’s get some rest for tomorrow’s trip.”

  They laid down near the small fire they had built, and together they cast a glamour around themselves and the cave opening to mask their energy signatures to any other fae who might pass close by, and to obscure their hideout. Samael tucked her wings around herself, forming a soft blanket before she drifted off to sleep on the other side of Adrian.

  Her slumb
er was a dreamless void that stretched on, until an unfamiliar energy tripped the protective spells she’d cast. Some creature had entered the cave with them. She sat up, squinting against the darkness left by the dead fire.

  Reaching beside her, she shook Adrian awake, just as a blinding flash of blue light filled their hideout. Hathgar bellowed and the silhouette of a massive giant towered over him. Adrian and Samael rushed to his side as their eyes adjusted to the renewed darkness after the brilliant flare was doused. Samael tried to blink away its imprint and focus on their attacker.

  Quickly her gaze cleared and her night vision grew sharp. There was no time to read their attacker’s energy to find out who sent him, at least not right now. Now they needed to join the battle Hathgar waged in order to save him. With the brilliant flash of light, the intruder had cast a powerful spell on Hathgar that paralyzed him. He tried to move his limbs, but the sweat beading his brow and the grimace wrinkling his face indicated how difficult movement was for him. As Samael approached and watched, his arms moved slowly, like they were swinging through air that was thicker than the mountain.

  The attacking frost giant wrapped his massive hands around Hathgar’s throat and squeezed and Hathgar could not stop him. A dazzling burst of blue light filled the cave again, and this time it did not burn out. Instead it hovered and thrummed around Hathgar and his opponent as the frost giant drained his essence.

  He knows how to kill him, Samael thought as she and Adrian began grappling with the intruder to pull him off Hathgar. She took a moment to read the frost giant and her suspicions were confirmed by the whiff of energy she received. This was no random attack. This frost giant had been tracking them since they entered the mountain pass, and he was sent to ensure they never crossed the Nordic border.

  The intruder tried to shoot balls of light at Samael and Adrian, but they expertly avoided his magic. While Adrian took to the air, swooping around the ceiling of the cave and distracting the attacking giant, Samael went to Hathgar and wrapped her hands around his shoulders. Heavy energy that curdled her stomach into a sour ball crawled over her skin. She spoke a spell to destroy this magic paralyzing him.