My mates liked to play.
And I liked to play, too.
I closed my eyes and relaxed into Sol’s hold. My pointy ears—something I still wasn’t fully used to—twitched as the door swept open. Then my nose picked up on the subtle hints of foliage.
Sol had created something. My affinity for earth roared to life, trying to identify the foreign substance. It wasn’t Elemental Fae in origin, but foreign. Not human, either.
My lips curled down as I tried to determine the roots. But then Sol urged me forward with his much-bigger body guiding mine from behind, pushing me into my office.
Lights flickered beyond my closed eyelids, and the door whispered closed behind us.
“Okay,” Vox said. “You can look now.”
I squinted my eyes first, nervous, then immediately widened them at the sight of my fully transformed office.
A tree stood rooted beside my desk, branches resembling vines along my ceiling and wrapping around the upper molding of my walls. Yellow, red, and orange leaves decorated the limbs, their vibrancy the embodiment of autumn colors. A breeze ran on a loop between them, spreading the fragrance of home throughout my office.
“Oh, it’s beaut—”
I jumped as a skeletal thing appeared in the corner, billowing in the wind in a ghostlike state.
My eyes widened. “What the hell is that?”
Vox and Sol followed my gaze, the former frowning and saying, “It’s supposed to be a skeleton. Like for Halloween. Exos created it using spirit magic. Did he do it wrong?”
I blinked. “He used…?” I trailed off, because, yes, I could feel it now, the hint of his element weaving through the skeletal structure, commanding it to disappear and reappear at random.
A Halloween trick.
“Oh.” I grinned. “That’s clever.” I took in the tree again. “And this is amazing. What breed is it?” I pressed my palm to the bark, asking it to speak to me, but all it did was whisper Sol’s name.
“I, uh, sort of made it up. You once told me about the leaf cycles from home, but ours don’t do that. So I created a tree with leaves naturally occurring in your autumn colors. It will always look like this. I guess we can call it an autumn oak?”
“Autumn oak,” I repeated, my heart thudding in my chest. “Yes. Oh, Sol, thank you!”
I spun around in his arms to kiss him, only to be caught off guard by the glowing pumpkin lanterns strung around my door. My eyes widened at the very real flames brightening the insides of the hollowed-out baby pumpkins. They were all strung together by strands of water swirling with spirit and air.
“Wow,” I breathed, stunned by the gorgeous use of elements.
“You like it?” Vox asked softly, his chest caressing my back as he sandwiched me between him and Sol.
“It was Vox’s idea,” my earth mate said, a note of annoyance in his tone. “He made me create all those pumpkins just for Titus to gut them.”
“And we’re making a pie from it all,” Vox added, his tone excited. “River gave us a recipe to try. I’ve already started the process back at home.”
“Pumpkin pie.” I couldn’t hold back the excitement in my voice. “Are we… are we going to have Thanksgiving this year?” We’d never really celebrated it before.
“We’re looking into it,” Sol replied, reaching up to twirl one of my blonde strands around his finger. “But we want to focus on Halloween first.”
“Yes, definitely Halloween,” Vox murmured, his lips falling to my neck. “A very memorable Halloween.”
My brow furrowed. “What do you mean? The fae don’t celebrate Halloween.”
“That doesn’t mean we can’t,” my air mate whispered against my ear before nibbling on the lobe. “Do you like your decorations, Claire?”
“I love them.” I tried to face him, but his hands landed on my hips, forcing me to remain in place.
Sol’s touch drifted from my hair to my cheek, his massive palm cupping my jaw with his trademark tenderness. “Did we get it all right, little flower?”
The ghostly skeleton chose that moment to whisper through the room, disappearing into a wall. My cheeks began to burn from smiling so hard. “It’s all perfect,” I said, meaning it. “But I don’t understand why you did this.”
“Can’t we do something nice for our mate?” Vox asked, his lips tracing the column of my neck.
“You always do nice things for me,” I replied, leaning into Sol’s palm and elongating my throat a little more for Vox’s mouth.
“Then this shouldn’t be a surprise,” Vox replied.
“But it’s a lot more than we usually do.” Last year, I just had a pumpkin on my desk. Then I’d gone a little overboard on Christmas decorations shortly after because I’d needed a little human fix. I intended to do it all over again this year, and being surrounded by autumn remnants now only made me more excited to play with winter-themed ornaments and spice up our homes with holiday cheer.
That was the upside to having multiple places to stay—it gave me that much more to decorate.
“Maybe we want to make this year extra special.” Vox’s mouth returned to my ear. “Our mate-circle is turning five years old soon.”
“Yes,” Sol agreed, his earthy gaze following the movement of his thumb as he drew a line across my bottom lip. “Consider this an anniversary gift of sorts.”
“An early one,” Vox whispered, his tone eliciting a trail of goose bumps along my skin.
I melted into them, their seductive touches lulling me into a sense of peace only my mates could inspire. They were doing this to put me at ease, to ensure I was entirely relaxed for the Interrealm Fae Council meeting.
This was just one of the many reasons why I loved them.
They always knew what I needed, their intuition tied to their abilities to read my thoughts and mine theirs. But I sensed they were hiding something from me now. Some sort of big surprise.
I didn’t pry because I wanted to enjoy whatever they had in store for me.
Sol rewarded my acquiescence with a kiss, his tongue sliding in to slowly dominate mine in a thorough and powerful way that was all him.
Vox nipped my shoulder, his hands drawing the fabric of my dress upward, the silk tickling my thighs along the way. “She’s not wearing underwear again,” he said as he revealed my hips.
“Naughty, Claire,” Sol said, then took my mouth once more before I could reply.
You guys keep ripping off my underwear, I said into their minds. It’s much more economical to go commando.
“Mmm, we’re not complaining,” Vox said, his palm flattening against my thigh before sliding toward my center.
His touch was always like this—precise and knowing.
Just as Sol maintained his possessive hold, his hand drifting from my cheek to the back of my neck to angle me to more thoroughly receive his kiss.
I lost myself to them, allowing them to guide me into the sensual act our bodies all craved.
Vox slid two fingers into me, his growl hot against my neck. “Fuck, Claire.”
“That’s exactly what I want you to do,” Sol replied, his teeth skimming my lower lip. “I want you to sink balls-deep into her sweet heat while she swallows my cock with this beautiful mouth.”