Page 51 of How To Tame A Trickster Fae

I blow out a breath, suddenly uncomfortable with the discussion. “You know, intent is what matters for us. Evil is in the intent, not the magic itself. Certainly shadow magic can incorporate darker components, but it just… is. The purpose of the casting determines the morality of it. This isn’t my specialty either. I just do jewelry enchanting. I’m a smith, not an expert in magical theory.”

“So is anything inherently evil, then?” he asks, a strange expression on his face, different than the typical self-assured smile and confidence.

“I don’t know,” I say simply. “I think intentions can be evil, yes. I think the will of the caster… or the being, I suppose, is the most important.”

“So the Unseelie fae may not all be evil, though that is what most of the above ground world believes?”

My heart aches, my sympathetic streak on full display as I stare up at him, aghast.

“Do you think me evil?” he asks, the question light and breezy.

“I think if you were evil, you would have enjoyed my pain instead of scooping me up and insisting on carrying me home.” I shrug slightly, my shoulder brushing against his chest. “I think you wouldn’t have come to Wild Oak Woods at all, actually.”

“Maybe I just selfishly wanted to hold you close,” he says.

It shouldn’t make my heart flutter, but it does. “I don’t think you would even want that if you were evil, Caelan.”

His eyes widen as I utter his name, such a small movement that if I hadn’t been staring at his face, I wouldn’t have seen it.

A silly smile spreads across my face in response, and before I can even think better of what I’m doing, my finger is moving.

“Boop.”

His dark eyebrows nearly disappear into his raven-wing hair. “Did you…”

“Yes. You needed a boop.”

“I needed a boop,” he repeats.

“Exactly.” I grin up at him, relacing my fingers around his neck. “Can’t be evil if a witch is booping your nose.”

“Oh, is that the rule?”

“Yes,” I nod. “I can’t believe you didn’t know that rule already.” I heave a dramatic sigh. “Simply stunned you hadn’t heard that.” My feet throb, and I snuggle closer into him, enjoying the smell of his shirt, his skin.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been close to a man—er, male.

I forgot how nice it is.

And maybe something is wrong with me, but being carried around like I’m a teeny, tiny dainty doll of a person is completely delicious.

“You promise it wasn’t because of the cookie?” I blurt, shame pinking my cheeks again.

“If I have to lick your cunt until you orgasm ten times and beg me to stop to prove to you that this has nothing to do with a cookie, then that’s what I will do,” he growls.

All the breath blasts out of me at that declaration, and I stare up at him. “Is that on the menu?”

“Do you want it to be?”

“Maybe?” I squeak. “Definitely,” I add, throwing caution to the wind.

He starts running, the trees blurring by us, and I decide he’s definitely, absolutely, in no way, shape, or form evil.

A real monster wouldn’t be sprinting back to my house to eat me out.

CHAPTER TWENTY

WREN

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