Page 114 of Crown of the Fae King

I quietly followed the light and found a bathroom with a slanted skylight half-covered with snow. The wind must have cleared some away. The toilet, happily, was in working order and flushed when I pulled a chain. Two chains for working the sink. One to let the water out of the pipe and another to release the water into the drain.

Thanks to a tube of toothpaste and a clean finger, I left that bathroom feeling like I’d just had a cup of Sarah’s tea, but I stopped short at the sound of Griffon gasping, then cursing, his deep voice like thunder in my heart. He ran to the front door and flung it open. I thought he was going to leave me again and shouted his name.

He spun around the grabbed the edges of the doorway. His alarm melted. He’d thought I’d tried to leave.

It took all of two seconds to get to me. The door slammed shut at the same time his arms wrapped around my waist. He lifted me onto my toes. His mouth slammed into mine and he kissed me as angrily as he’d cursed, but I didn’t mind.

Without breaking the kiss, he turned me, scooped me up with an arm behind my knees, and carried me back to the bed. I’d imagined that moment a hundred times. Now I told myself it was what I wanted, convinced myself I didn’t care what had brought us here. I’d take him any way I could get him, angry or not. I’d have one passionate memory I could hold onto for the rest of my life.

For the rest of my semi-dangerous life.

But his memory wouldn’t be sweet at all, once he learned the truth. And he’d curse the moment he’d taken me off the street in Dublin. He’d curse the day he carried my books through the library.

He hovered over me, kissing my mouth, touching my hair, my face, my neck, learning me like a blind man. I did the same, trying to press the feel of him deep in my memory so it could never fade.Please, please, please, don’t let it fade!

A little longer. Just a little more…

He stilled and I opened my eyes. He wiped a hand along the side of my face and it came away wet. He searched my eyes. I had no idea what he saw, but he buried his face beside my head, into the pillow, and growled. A long minute later, he rolled away from me. And the cold that swamped me had nothing to do with temperature.

He sat on the edge of the bed, his back to me. “You just can’t manage it, can you?”

“Manage it?”

“Loving a Fae.”

I got up and walked around the bed. He spread his knees and I stepped between them as he wrapped those powerful arms around me again. “Love a Fae? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve been doing it pretty well for a long time now.”

“Then stay with me.”

“Stay?” I didn’t understand what he was asking.

“Staywith me—”

“Griffon--”

“We can ride it out together. If we stay here, we’ll be the last to know when the world comes crashing down. We can’t change what Moire saw anyway.”

I was dying to ask what that meant but didn’t want to give him a reason to let go. “I don’t know how much of this cold I could take.”

He shook his head. “The Fae King has a hundred such places, in all climes. We can take in the beauty of the world and still keep to ourselves. It’s the stuff that dreams are made of.” He buried his face against me. “What we haveis what dreams are made of. And I bless whatever fate brought you to me.”

“You’re making this so hard.”

He stood, suddenly, and I stumbled back. He caught my upper arms and turned me. I was back on the bed, looking up into those beautiful, flashing eyes. “Hard? I mean to make it impossible, woman.” His nostrils flared, breathing me in, his attention moving from my eyes to my mouth and back again. “Do you know that if a Fae claims a human, she is his? For life?”

I laughed lightly. “I don’t believe you.”

“Shall we test it?”

I shook my head. “It’s not that simple. I love you, Griffon. I never believed I could love someone like this. I…didn’t think I was built for it. But I can’t just ignore what’s going on outside that door. Orion must be stopped, and I might be able to help. It’s my—”

“Destiny?”

I laughed again. “I was going to say my duty.”

He shook his head and drew a line along my jaw. Tears built in his eyes, making them wet. “Still pouring other people’s coffee.”

“Something like that. Loving you is already the most selfish thing I’ve ever done in my life. And whether you want it or not, later, I probably can’t stop—"

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