Page 49 of Crowned By the Fae King

At least I could feel that. We weren't in emotional lockdown—not yet. But we would be, if I pushed him.

We still had a revel to go to tonight. It wasn't the time to push—not yet. But it would be, very soon. I suspected more than a floor would break if someone didn't step in front of Cass and face him down.

Soulmates, I thought, with a bit of rueful amusement. I guess it's good I'm not afraid of him.

"Jealous?" he asked softly. His gold-flecked eyes searched my face. "Why?"

I laughed, unable to help it. "What do you mean, 'why'?" I asked, my disbelief coloring the words. "You're my soulmate. They've got each other." I flashed him a smile, leaning into the lightheartedness, trying to step away from the darkness. "Plus, you're, like, a seven-foot-tall fallen-angel sex warrior who mostly doesn't want to lay a finger on me. Why the hell wouldn't I be jealous of them getting to double-team you?"

His face went through a series of peculiar expressions, settling on bafflement. "I'm— That's—" He gave me a perplexed look. "I'm six foot seven."

"Tch." I shook my head at him. "It's all the same from down here, Cassie."

One corner of his mouth slanted up. "I'm also yours, Quyen. Yours alone, for as long as that's your desire," he said softly. "I wouldn't have said yes if I'd remembered." Shame flashed across his face. "They surely wouldn't have even offered, but I certainly wouldn't have said yes." Before I could say anything, he took a deep breath and added, "You don't have to commit anything like that to me. If… if you prefer Vad—"

"You'd hate that, wouldn't you?" I asked in reply. "Luckily for you, me, and the state of the palace floors, I don't. For the record, I'm not trying to start something with your best friend. I'm a bit creeped out by the fuzzy bat-wings with the hands and extra joints, and second of all, even if Danica didn't make me feel like an awkward teenager next to a supermodel, I'm pretty sure Vaduin flirts by default and didn't mean anything by it."

"He does, but he also happily follows through," Cass said, unsuccessfully trying to hide both his smile and relief. He half-spread his wings, the metal feathers sliding across each other with a musical chime. "As for wings… these ones aren't creepy, I hope?"

I snorted at that. "Now you're showing off," I said, letting him hear my amusement. "You know full well I think your wings are pretty."

Cass laughed and folded them back behind him again. "I do," he admitted. "It's a nice change of pace to have them admired. Generally people are rather leery of my wings. Leery of everything about me, actually, but definitely of my wings."

"Because they're sharp?" I asked, raising a brow.

He flashed me a bright smile, stretched out one wing, and brushed it against an empty metal sconce. His blackened-bronze feather sheared through the silver as if it wasn't there; cut so cleanly that the sconce didn't so much as quiver. The top simply toppled over in slow motion, and clanged onto the floor.

I stared at the object. Pushed myself off the door, walked over, and picked it up to stare some more.

It wasn't even warm.

"'Sharp' is one way to describe them," Cass said.

Unusual Manifestations

"That's…" I stared at the clean cut. "That's got to be magic, right?"

Cass rumbled a laugh that made me shiver. "It is, though not a spell. It's inherent to the feathers themselves. They're whisper-sharp against all metals I've tried them on, save star-iron, and about as sharp as a belt-knife against everything else." He proffered his wing, spreading the feathers. "See for yourself, if you like," he added, with a mix of shyness and eager anticipation.

I wasn't about to turn down an invitation like that. I tapped the sconce against his wing and grinned when the arm of the sconce dropped off with only the smallest amount of resistance. It was like cutting through paper. I did it again, and a third time, starting to laugh. "Holy fuck, Cass," I said, tossing a coin-sized slice of sconce up and catching it again. "That's incredible."

"You can touch them," he offered, smiling down at me with warmth in his dark eyes and his dimple showing. "Since they're metal, I can't send my power down… them…"

His eyes went unfocused as my fingers brushed down along the ridged surface of his feathers. They were cool to the touch, exactly like metal, with no give at all.

"Oh," he whispered. "That's different."

"Oh?" I asked, the sconce dangling from my hand as I traced my fingertips along the curved shape of his wing. "Can you feel it? It doesn't feel any different for me."

"It's not… they're feathers," Cass said in a daze. He let out a panting breath. "They're not supposed to have sensation. Just the slight pressure at the base, like feeling the wind stir my hair. But you, you…"

I traced F-E-E-L-T-H-I-S-? on his feather.

Cass jerked his head down in a nod. "Like phosphorescence on the sea."

"Sounds pretty," I said. A wicked impulse seized me. "What about this?" I asked, then leaned down and exhaled on his feathers.

He made a tight sound, jerking his wing forward. Pleasure shivered across the phantom of a wing behind me, the same sensation of having someone exhale their hot breath across your ear. "Yes," he said, the word guttural.

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