Page 101 of Crown of the Fae King

“Fine. Fine. Driven to distraction waiting to hear from you, but fine. Though I worry I will soon grow sick of pancakes.” We shared a smile. “No time limit this time?”

“No time limit.”

“Good. When we weary of walking this circle, I suggest we turn and try the other direction.”

“Perfect.”

He paused long enough to drop a kiss on my head, then started again. After a long silence, he said, “You got under my skin awfully fast, Lennon.”

“Same here.”

“Wickham made a mistake.”

“Oh?”

“Haven’t we all been warned about absence making the heart grow fonder? He should have allowed us to grow sick of one another.”

I shrugged. “Maybe he knew we wouldn’t.”

The look he gave me then was almost painful. I kept walking, pretending I hadn’t seen anything, but I knew something was wrong.

“What are you not telling me?”

He sighed loudly. “Due to all the resource material missing, the college board is postponing my fall class.”

“I’m sorry. Will you teach something else?”

“No. I believe I will go home for a bit. My family is still in a state.”

My heart took a punch and I had to force air in and out of my chest. I had to remind myself that I wasn’t going to be staying in Oxford forever either.

“I’m sorry. Any idea how long?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think I’ve explained, but my brother and my sister have gone missing.”

“Griffon!”

“We haven’t given up hope. My sister has gone off before, pursuing this or that. But this time, she took our brother along.” He wove his fingers through mine and picked up the pace. “I wish…I wish we could at least speak on the phone every day. Even if all you told me was the weather.”

“I’ll see what I can do about that.”

“Promise? I ken Wickham must have a good reason to keep you all to himself, but I’ll be damned if I can think of it.”

“He just has…enemies…who might use me to hurt him.” That was one of the practiced apologies. “It won’t always be like this.”

Griffon sighed. “That’s something, at least. A little hope to get me through another day without you.” He stopped. “I think it’s time.”

“What?” I could already feel my heart tearing away from my chest.

“Time to change directions, so we don’t end up with a limp.”

The point to our meeting,other than giving me a hit of my Griffon addiction, was to passively discover if Griffon Carew was Fae. I wasn’t to ask, I wasn’t to hint. I wasn’t to bring up the subject at all. But if he did…

Privately, I was sure he was just a normal mortal whose only flaw was that he saw something in me. And I would have agreed to any litmus test if it meant I could spend time with him again.

The fact that O’Ryan had mentioned Griffon by name increased the probability of Fae-ness, at least in Wickham’s mind. Part of me was hoping it was true because…the union of a fairy and a human wouldn’t be expected to produce offspring, would it?

“Griffon?”

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