Page 105 of The Cursed Fae

Chapter thirty-six

You're Dangerous, Winter

Finding Archer proved easy; he showed up in the astrology attic shortly after I arrived. I had a weird feeling he’d followed me there. He stood in the doorway, hands shoved in the back pockets of his jeans.

“Hey,” he said.

I played with the ring around my index finger. “Hey,” I replied, my tone short.

“Still mad at me?” he guessed.

My jaw clenched. The answer was definitively yes. It was none of Archer’s business what I did with Laz. But he had a point about the excessive magic use. If not for Astrid, I might not have lived long enough to fight with Archer about it.

He stepped inside the circular room and stared up at me as I lounged in his favorite hammock. “You seem better,” he said.

“Does that mean you’ll help me?” I asked, daring to hope it would be easier than I’d expected.

Archer came over and stood directly in front of me, fingers curling through the hammock’s webbing. “I’m not trying to be a dick, okay?”

I rolled onto my side to look at him. “You’re doing a good job, regardless,” I teased, relaxing a little.

The corner of his mouth twitched like he might smile. “What you’ve been doing with Laz is dangerous. I care about you, Winter, and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

It wasn’t an apology, since he clearly didn’t think he owed me one. Maybe he didn’t. Things had become too confusing. And Archer saying he cared about me just made it worse.

“We’re not doing that stuff.” I held his gaze. “Swear to Gaia.”

He reached for my hand. Are we about to pinkie promise? I wondered. But no. He threaded his fingers with mine as he stared into my eyes. Emotion swirled through his irises hypnotically. I found myself unable to look away, not that I wanted to.

When he drew back, my skin tingled, longing for the return of his touch. There was a pang of regret in my gut that I didn’t understand. Archer broke eye contact, and the spell he had me under dissipated. Guilt made me recoil.

Why had I thought this was a good idea? There was something about him, a magnetic attraction that pulled me to him every time I entered his orbit. Whenever I was with him, I forgot all about Laz and inevitably felt like an asshole afterwards.

Archer turned to face the wall. “I’ll help you. On my terms.” He spun, expression carefully composed. “If you show up here with low magic,” he pointed toward the door, “straight to bed. Do not pass Go, do not collect a portal. Fair?”

I took an extra beat to answer him. Not because I wanted to amend his deal or anything. It was more that I hesitated to trust myself with Archer. I couldn’t slip up again and ruin my relationship with Laz. Those were all things I should’ve considered before this moment.

“Come on, Winter. I only want you to be safe,” Archer said, trying to elicit a response from me.

“I know,” I whispered. “It’s just, you need to understand Laz and I are together. This arrangement between us... it has to stay purely platonic.”

I wasn’t sure how I expected him to react. Archer was not angry, exactly. More annoyed. I got the strange impression his irritation was solely towards Laz. Did they have some issue? Like Laz’s problem with Ewan?

“I want you to be safe,” Archer repeated. “As long as you are, you can do whatever you like with whomever strikes your fancy.”

My temper stirred. “I wasn’t asking permission,” I snapped.

Hands on hips, he stared at me for an uncomfortable moment. His voice was low when he finally responded, expression unreadable. “You asked for my help. Those are my conditions, take ‘em or leave ‘em, Winter.”

I sat up and slid from the hammock ungracefully while Archer tried not to laugh at me. Not trusting myself to get too close, I kept my distance.

“Can we start tonight?”

He studied me, then crooked his finger, beckoning me closer. My shoes squeaked on the floor as I walked toward him.

“Let’s try a window into your great-grandmother’s house again,” he suggested in a tone that sounded like a peace offering.

“Sure.” I stopped just out of arm’s reach, standing with my feet shoulder width apart.

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