Rayne wanted to live in this moment forever. Sagan stood at her side and faced Nox and Korac across the forest floor. Dull gray leaves crunched underfoot and wildlife thrummed, forming a heartbeat among the trees. It matched Rayne’s racing pulse. Or was it Nox’s pounding in her chest?

With Korac at his side, Nox grinned, and Rayne knew he felt the same about this moment.

No weapons.

No flying.

One strike, one article of clothing.

Rayne checked Sagan, wearing hardly anything. Rayne’s grin broadened at the confident smile on the Seamswalker’s face. All for Korac, who—shocker—smirked back at his wife. Not at all the attitude of a man soon to be stripped of his clothes.

Nox called across the clearing, “Are you prepared for this? I won’t hold back as I usually do.”

Korac flashed with humor. “Amos, are you sure you want them to see you naked?”

“Oh Rayne’s seen me naked, babe, and she will later tonight win or lose.”

A thrill went through Rayne, skyrocketing her pulse to Nox’s incredulous, head-shaking amusement. Especially at the narrow-eyed gaze Korac was rocking. Regardless of how this match turned out, Rayne guessed Sagan had earned herself a punishment in the bedroom. Still…

Fist bump.

Rayne said, “I look forward to reading the rest of my Verse, Nox.”

His eyes flashed Atramentous. In the reflection of the chrome mirrors, Rayne saw her breathless response. Nox said, “On your mark.”

Korac said, “Get set.”

The girls shouted, “Go!”

Rayne and Sagan went running headlong at their partners, and the second before the clash, Sagan opened conduits straight ahead. The girls took them and came out running right at the boys’ backs.

Their lovers were quick and turned around in time to intercept. Before Korac could land a spin kick square in Sagan’s chest, she fell backward and through a conduit.

As Nox punched at her, Rayne used her running momentum to drop and slide across the leaves between his feet, spread in a fighting stance.

Sagan reappeared in time to grab Rayne by the wrist and pull her to her feet.

They squared off against their partners again, Rayne to Korac and Sagan to Nox, who said, “I’ll be the first to admit it. I think the male fighters require a handicap.”

Sagan jutted out the hip with her hand on it and clicked her tongue. “Figures. Let me guess. You don’t want me to Seamswalk?”

Rayne picked leaves out of her own hair, watching the transaction between her two lovers. That’s right. Nox was a lover. She was waiting for the right time to tell him.

Korac was watching Rayne intently as the other two negotiated. She wondered if he saw a flicker of her feelings for Nox in her eyes—

“So. No Seamswalking. Do you want to add no punching while you’re at it?” Sagan’s playful smile was charming as all hell.

Nox chuckled.

Korac shook his head and sighed. He reasoned, “It’s best you exercise without it. You never know what Celindria can disable.”

Good point.

“But you’ll still lose,” Rayne promised.

High five between the girls. Sagan asked, “Are you ready?”

Nox and Korac crouched into stances with firm nods. The latter crooked his hand, and the girls took off at them.

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They crossed the clearing in a series of flips. One of Xelan’s old tactics. The art of spectacle.

Sprung off a back flip, Rayne went for an aerial split kick aimed at both male fighters.

Sagan finished her overhead roll with a blow to both of their midsections.

The boys cheated and flipped out of the way, while the girls tumbled into each other.

Laid out on the forest floor, Sagan asked, “Where’d they go?”

Without Seamswalking or flying, Nox and Korac had vanished. On the edge of the clearing, the treebases formed a fork. Rayne suggested, “You take left. I’ll go right.”

Sagan grumbled about “…splitting the girls up on purpose…”

There was no arguing that point. The girls were too much of a handful together. Even knowing this was a ploy, Rayne followed the enticement of searching for Nox in the woods alone. She felt for all the world like little red riding hood seeking the big bad wolf.

“Nox,” Rayne singsonged while cautiously stepping under a low branch. “Come out and lose. I’m waiting, Stabby—”

A powerful arm wrenched Rayne up against the tree base. At the flash of his chrome Atramentous, she gasped, “Nox,” as he gripped both her wrists in one hand and pulled them high.

Nox pinned Rayne, pressed his body down the length of hers, and kissed her roughly. The purring growl deep in his chest as he tasted her coaxed the scent of honeysuckle into the air. She returned as good as he gave until he left her breathless when he pulled away and…

The sexy bastard ripped Rayne’s shirt off and smirked while he tucked it into the back of his pants. Unfulfilled potential roughed Nox’s voice as he declared, “That’s one, pretty warrior.”

“You’re dead.”

Nox inhaled the thickening of her scent, much to the ire of Rayne’s blushing face, before he quipped, “Some risks are worth dying for.”

Bad move.

In a throwback, Rayne used his grip on her wrists to tuck her knees to her chest and kick Nox square in the diaphragm. The air blew out of him in a violent exhale, and he let her go to double over, protecting his ribs.

Unable to trust herself with Nox, Rayne ran, calling into the maze of treebases, “Sagan?! Sagan, it’s a trap!”

“I know.”

Rayne turned toward Sagan’s voice. Through the brush, the War King glimpsed the Seamswalker’s violet eyes in Atramentous. Rayne asked, “Why are you… Oh.”

In the shade of a treebase, Sagan hid her naked breasts with Korac’s chain-mail shirt. The poor young woman was flushed so red Rayne couldn’t make out the freckles on her nose.

This was asinine. Into the trees Rayne yelled, “This should be beneath you, General. First you two handicap us, and now subterfuge. Have you no honor?!”

Korac’s voice ricocheted through the canopy. “Oh, believe us. To disarm such fierce warriors as yourselves with the mere promise of intimacy is quite the honor. Concede the game, and we’ll return your clothes.”

Rayne glanced over at Sagan, where she slipped into the chain-mail shirt. If they could cheat, so could the girls. While she dialed down the gravity densifier she had worn for the boys’ sakes, Rayne shouted, “I’m owed one article of clothing.”

One half of Nox’s shirt fell from a tree on Rayne’s right. Gotcha. With sixty percent of her speed, she ran up the tree and onto the branch where Nox and Korac were perched like vultures. They’d had enough time to know Rayne was no longer below, but not enough time to see her coming.

It took only fifty percent of her strength to push them off. When they fell, Rayne shouted, “No flying, remember?!”

Both men landed on the cushion of deadfall, breathless and stunned. Sagan knelt between them and flicked them enough times to relinquish all of their clothes. While doing so, she made cute noises and admonished them. “This will teach you to take advantage of us.”

Nox and Korac laid on the ground, staring up at Rayne relearning how to breathe with all the air knocked from their lungs. Simultaneously, they groaned, “You win,” and, “We concede.”

Rayne jumped down and stood over them with her hands on her hips. She glanced over at Sagan and asked, “What do you think?”

Sagan’s lips spread into a devious smile as she nodded.

While the boys got to their feet, Rayne ordered, “Strip.”

Korac froze, but Nox turned by the inches to meet Rayne’s eyes.

Quickly snatching her torn shirt from Nox’s pants, Rayne said, “You lost. Take off your clothes.”

“Both of you,” Sagan added with a wink at her husband.

Korac looked between her and Nox, asking a question, and Sagan taunted Korac with his signature cavalier shrug. From then on, the General narrowed his eyes at his wife.

Nox stood first, his hair feathered with leaves and twigs, and quirked a brow at Rayne.

She held up both halves of her shirt and looked at him through the tear. “Go ahead.”

After a shrug and a glance at Sagan, Nox unfastened the remaining half of his shirt. Following his lead, Korac stood, already shirtless, and unzipped his motorcycle pants.

Hunger bled into Sagan’s eyes as she watched her husband, while Rayne concentrated on Nox. He unlaced his leather pants and slid them down. As indicated before, neither man wore anything beneath.

A blush burned Rayne’s cheeks with all of her Verse on display on Nox’s chest and back. The reddening intensified as Korac stood with his hands on his hips looking at Rayne as if she would learn more of a lesson from this than they would. Nox picked a leaf from his General’s hair, both of them comfortable in their nudity. Meanwhile, Rayne blinked, trying to keep her eyes on their faces.

Sagan took over giving the orders. “Forward march to the loft, boys. We’ll have a pleasant view on the walk back.”

They walked ahead, still in their boots, while Sagan and Rayne followed. It was a pleasant view, and a peaceful recovery after the vigor of their fight.

Ruining the peace, Korac called from ahead, “Amos?”

“Yes?” Sagan thickened up the sweetness in her voice.

“I’ll remember this.”

The Seamswalker flushed from head to toe, and Rayne wondered how Nox would punish her once they were alone.