Breath of Innocence Read Free

do,” he said apologetically. “Before I met her, I might spend one night with a woman every few days and that was enough to keep me going. I’m not used to storing up more energy than I need to last until the next tryst. But I haven’t had the stomach for them since I met her. The hunt has become too tedious. You are too generous to offer.”
    “She is,” Eben said, giving her a look that made her skin prickle in irritation. He always seemed to get a little bent out of shape if she initiated with anyone other than him.
    “You were on the verge of offering, too,” she said to Eben, her voice honey-smooth. “You’ve been sizing him up, wondering what it might feel like sandwiched between a Shadow and a Guardian. I love you because we have so much in common, you know. At least I don’t mind sharing.”
    With an exasperated shake of his head, Roka stood and beckoned to Rafe to follow him. “Sometimes being mated can be just as tedious, brother,” he said. He chuckled at the rude gestures Camille and Eben both directed at him.
    Eben stood, gave Camille a resigned look, and followed the two dragons.
    Camille watched the trio of perfectly toned, naked bodies saunter across the deck and disappear down the ladder to the lower deck. She marveled at the contrast between the two men she spent virtually all her time with. Eben was definitely the jealous type, but it was as though he were only selectively so. As long as it was Roka’s idea, he was on board, but they hadn’t actually shared her with another since the ritual six months earlier.
    In spite of maintaining a kind of status quo among their trio, Eben had become oddly distant lately. When the three made love, he tended to become withdrawn for a brief span afterward, seeking out solitude and leaving her alone with Roka to wonder whether they had done something wrong. Earlier that night was the first in several that she’d awoken to both warm, male bodies in her bed, but they also fallen asleep without making love. It was a rare occurrence, but it happened, particularly if she fell asleep early. She had learned later from Eben that Roka had forbidden him to wake her, “Because that kind of peace is too lovely to disrupt.”
    She understood the sentiment, having woken on many occasions to see the two of them, serene in their slumber. Serene was a bit of an overstatement, however. Eben talked in his sleep, and Roka had a habit of embracing her in the middle of the night and nuzzling her neck until she was mad with need. He swore every morning that he didn’t remember doing it.
    Camille had no compunction against waking either of them for sex, at least, and had yet to hear a complaint. She had been doing it more often lately. A series of vivid dreams had begun to visit her nightly for the last couple months, ever since Roka had broached the topic of starting a family. Dreams of a baby suckling at her breast, a tiny, beautiful bundle in her arms with golden hair like Eben’s and silver eyes like Roka’s. She would wake from them so overwhelmed with need she was sometimes blind to which one she turned to first.
    Eben had been noncommittal about the family idea initially, but the last time she’d awoken him in the dark of night he had responded to her with an urgency that matched her own. Afterward he had held her in a desperate embrace, refusing to let her go even after her soft protests.
    When the chilly ocean air finally began to affect her enough to give her goose bumps, she stood and descended into the warmer confines of the lower deck. Eben could be remote when it came to his feelings, particularly where she was concerned, so she was at a loss as to how she should get him to open up. Roka, on the other hand, was open and honest to a fault, and didn’t seem to grasp Eben’s reticence. She would have to figure out some way to get through to Eben and find out what it was that bothered him. Perhaps when they docked in Sydney, the three of them could have a night