Page 117 of By the Fae

“Human!” Goldie yelled from somewhere outside the kitchen. “Where the fuck have you got—” He stopped dead in the doorway, his eyes bulging and then narrowing as he took in everyone. “Why are you all in here?”

“Dinner’s nearly ready,” said Mal, flashing Goldie a smile and donning his rainbow oven mitts.

“Okaaay,” Goldie said. He walked over to the place between Mal’s vacant chair and me. Everyone’s eyes followed him.

I very pointedly did not look at him or my wrist in case I gave the entire game away.

He leant in front of me, deliberately trying to make eye contact but I wouldn’t let him. I jerked my head to the side and focused my gaze on the baking trays Mal was juggling in front of the oven.

“What’s going on?” Goldie asked, giving up on me and looking to Dima for help.

“Nothing!” everyone said at once, giving the indisputable impression we were all lying.

Goldie took my hand in his and lowered his voice to a whisper, “Baby girl, why—”

He paused.

His eyes dropped to mine and widened. Then they fell to our interconnected hands, to his own fingers lightly tracing the cord of the bracelet.

“Wait …” he said.

We quietly watched him while his fingertips found the amethyst stone, all breaths held.

“Oh my Gods!” he yelled. “Oh my Gods!” He shot to his feet, pulling me up with him, sending my chair flying backwards towards the oven. “Oh my Gods!”

Before I knew what was happening, and before I had a chance to straighten my dungarees, he lifted me up, my legs wrapped around his waist, and he ran around the table and out of the kitchen. Goldie held me in his big fae arms and spun me in circles in the living room.

“Oh my Gods, Holly. I am so happy right now. I love you so much,” he said to the crook of my neck. When he pulled back his head, there were tears tracking down his cheeks. Happy tears, I assumed, but his scowl was still firmly fixed in place.

“Did you ever doubt that I would put it on?”

“Not for a second, but I wanted you—needed to know that it was entirely your choice.” Goldie walked me to the window and pushed me against it, freeing his hands from my backside. He brought them up to my face. “Five hundred years,” he whispered, running his tongue along my top lip and laying butterfly kisses in its tingling wake. “Five hundred beautiful fucking years with you. My mate.”

I thumbed the points of his ears and kissed him back as though trying to prove my love was fiercer than his.

Eventually Dimaahemedinto our minds.Food’s getting cold guys. Mal’s spent a long time reading the instructions on the back of the packets and placing things on the right shelves in the oven.

We pulled apart.

“I love you,” I said.

“I love you, too.” He brought my wrist to his mouth and kissed the purple stone. “So.” Kiss. “Fucking.” Kiss. “Much.”

Goldie set me on my feet, and we walked back to the kitchen. He did not remove his hand from the bracelet.

“Sorry, everyone,” I said, when we finally returned to our seats. But nobody seemed even the teeniest bit put out. Grinning faces watched me, us, from each corner of the room.

“I called it!” Dima said, and then took a noisy slurp of his blood.

“You said an hour,” Mal said. “I was the closest.”

“I think you’ll find, originally, I said one minute.”

“Did Dima tell you?” Joey asked Goldie, bypassing the vampire entirely because whatever Goldie said had to be the truth.

“About the bracelet? No, Dima didn’t tell me. So … You were all taking bets on how long it’d take me to spot this?” Goldie said, lifting my arm up to show everyone the amethyst stone.

Abby and Joey gasped. Mal and Taurin shared a smirk. I mean, it was a pretty stone, but their reaction seemed out of proportion. It wasn’t exactly the first time they were seeing it. Abby had only just helped me to tie it on, and we all watched in awe as the enchanted fae leather magically sealed itself shut.

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