Page 61 of On Burning Paths

"How are you feeling?" Thorian asks quietly.

I take stock of myself. When Lyra and I were younger, we got into the spiced egg custard during Solmara, which is traditionally spiked with smoky whiskey. We woke the next morning vomiting, our heads pounding, and our mother had cheekily assigned us to helping Ivor and Hilda with chores for the day.

After last night, I expect something considerably worse.

But my head doesn't pound. There's a slight soreness between my legs, tender and present but not unpleasant, and when I bring my fingers to my neck to find the spot where Talon fed, the skin is smooth. As though it never happened.

"I feel fine," I admit. "Why don't I have a headache?"

"The gods' berries," Thorian says. "None of us will."

A beat passes. Talon's finger continues its slow path. Fenric stirs at his side, blinking slowly awake. Thorian watches my face with that careful, deliberate attention of his.

"Do you… do you regret last night?" he asks.

Fenric goes still. Talon's hand pauses.

I look at the three of them, all watching me now, and feel nothing but warm and happy.

"Not at all," I say. "Not even a little."

Something releases in the air around us.

"Good," Fenric says, and his voice is rough with sleep as he sits up, but his smile is immediate and genuine.

Talon turns his head toward me, his expression softening. "I should tell you," he says, "that your blood is unlike anything I've ever tasted. And your—" he pauses, choosing his words with what appears to be genuine consideration, "everything else did things to me that have never happened before either. Both the experience and the fact that I'm even saying this out loud."

"High praise from a vampire," Fenric says.

"The highest," Talon agrees, without irony.

Fenric props himself up on one elbow, looking across Talon at me, and grins. "For the record," he says, "I'd like it noted that I'm the happiest I've ever been to be the man with the smallest cock in the room."

Thorian closes his eyes briefly, his lips quirking.

Talon laughs, and I bury my face against Thorian's chest and laugh too, and for a little while the cave is warm and easy and I don't think about what comes next at all.

“I’m feeling… good,” I say, meaning it. After what happened last night, I should probably feel embarrassed, or awkward, but I don’t. I simply feel at home. Safe and expectant, my body already eager for the next time I can have them.

Soon, we’ll be able to do more.

That’s what Thorian said last night, with his lustful eyes locked on me. That’s what I want with the three of them, in every way.

More.

"What did you mean," I ask slowly, "by saying we could do more together later?"

Thorian shifts behind me, uncomfortable in a way I've rarely seen from him. "There are things," he says carefully, "that you could work up to. With time."

"With us," Talon adds, his voice light but his eyes anything but.

I bite my lip. "What if I think I'm ready to try?"

Thorian makes a low, pained sound. "Stop talking like that."

I can feel by his hard erection behind me that he doesn't mean it.

I take a breath, and then I do something I wouldn't have done before last night. I stand, let the blanket fall, and walk to the water. I step in slowly, feel the heat rise around me, and then turn and look back at them.