Page 50 of How To Tame A Trickster Fae

“Well,” I hedge. “Yes. I need the sapphires, but I also need to be able to walk. Maybe together we can pinpoint the location and set out tomorrow with a fresh plan?”

His long legs eat up the ground between us, and before I can adjust to his change in direction, he hauls me into his arms.

Fenn races into view, back from whatever adventure he’s been having on his own, and lets out a yowl of outrage.

Caelan laughs softly at the sight, arching one of his flawless eyebrows at my familiar. “He has a lot to say for a small furry thing, doesn’t he?”

“It’s okay, Fenn,” I say, and the fox’s hackles settle down nearly immediately. He whines at me, then makes the peculiar chirping noise specific to foxes.

“He’s very talkative,” Caelan tells me.

“You don’t need to carry me,” I say, but there’s not a lot of heart in the statement. My heels are nearly raw from the backs of the stiff leather boots, and the thought of walking all the way back to town is enough to make me want to lie down on the forest floor until the moss grows over my body.

“I don’t need to,” he repeats, huffing slightly. “What part of me courting you did you not understand?”

My face screws up as I consider his question. “Most of it?”

“In that case, this will be an incredibly easy process.” He huffs in amusement, icy blue eyes narrowing as he glances down at me. “It would help if you put your arms around my neck.”

“You don’t seem to be struggling.”

“Mm. Maybe I just want to be closer to you.”

My hands are sitting awkwardly in my lap now, so I do as he suggests and loop them around his neck, my cheeks heating as our skin makes contact. Just moments ago his hands were on my breasts, his mouth against mine, and I would have let him do anything he wanted with me.

“I’ll have to have a word with Piper about that cookie. She said it was an alluring spell. That was much more than that.”

“Did you consider maybe you’re just attracted to me?” A smile slants his lips, softening his entire face. “I think the cookie just gave you an excuse to do what you already wanted to do.”

I blink. “Is that right?”

He doesn’t answer though, just makes a small, amused sound in the back of his throat.

I study him as he walks. He hardly makes any noise moving over the ground, the crunching leaves and cracking branches that marked my clumsy footsteps now absent.

Fenn prances along behind us, his white-tipped fluff of a tail high in the air, making me smile.

“You love that little creature,” Caelan says, and when I glance up, his gaze is on my face, steps as quiet as ever.

“Of course I do,” I say, slightly surprised by the comment.

“How does it work?”

“Witches’ familiars?”

“Yes. I don’t know much about it.” He looks annoyed by the fact that he doesn’t know, and I realize it must take a lot for a cocky fae to admit they don’t know something.

“When witches are ready to take a familiar, to level up their craft, typically, they begin to seek one. It’s different for every witch.” I smile, remembering the morning I found Fenn curled up at the foot of my bed. “Fenn came to me, and it was like a piece of my soul and magic I didn’t know I’d been missing were suddenly there.”

The intensity of his attention grows. “I know the feeling exactly.”

I don’t know how to respond to that, so I forge ahead to satisfy his curiosity. “There is a shop in Wild Oak Woods that caters to witches who need assistance finding the best familiar for them, or need help with their familiar, or want to take a secondary familiar. The witch who runs it, Rosalina, she’s an animal mage. She’d probably be the one you want to ask any in-depth questions.”

“So you don’t summon them from the realm of hell?” he presses.

“Um, no. Well,” I squint, mulling it over as I study the patchy blue sky through the leafy canopy. “I suppose you could. That wouldn’t be a familiar though, not in a regular sense. That would be more like shadow magic.”

“Evil?”

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