Page 115 of Crown of the Fae King

“Stay with me. One more night. Let me prove—”

“I can’t. And you have nothing to prove. But I…I do. One day soon, you’re going to understand, but I can’t explain it. Not yet.”

“You have more secrets.”

“I do.”

“At least tell me you’re keeping them from Wickham.”

“I’m keeping them from Wickham…and the rest of the world.”

He closed his eyes for a long time, then exhaled in a huff. “What if I kept you here? Never took you back?”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“You have too much faith in me.”

“No. I’ve known those kinds of people before, and you couldn’t be one of them if you tried.”

“I don’t know. I like a challenge.”

I shook my head, laid my hand on his cheek, and stared at his scruffy lips until he got the hint and kissed me. A long time later, I pushed him away. “You have to take me back.”

He pressed his head into the mattress. This time, his growl filled my entire body with chills and I laughed. Hovering over me again, he gave me his fiercest scowl. “I won’t be happy about it.”

“Come on. You frown and I’ll cry…and the wind can dry my tears.”

“Impossible. It will be half a day before we can leave.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t fly into Dublin unless it’s very, very dark.”

“Half a day? I’ll starve.”

“There’s a kitchen.”

“But is there any food?”

“I stocked up, just in case.”

“On what?”

“Pancakes.”

Late in the afternoon, when we finished our second breakfast of the day, he suddenly sobered. I braced myself for bad news.

“When this is all over,” he said, “if the Hunter is defeated, I’ll expect you to leave the rest of them…and choose me.”

I chose my response carefully, knowing what was ahead. “When this is all over, if we’re left standing, I promise I will deny you nothing.”

47

That First Step Is The Hardest

By the time we were ready to leave, I had plenty of tears for the wind to dry. I stepped outside wearing my coat and his and caught a chilly breath in my lungs. The view was…indescribable. I wasn’t looking down on an expanse of Irish cities, but upon dozens of mountaintops glowing blue-white in the darkness, lit from above by the entire universe of stars. We really were at the top of the world.

Understandably, the moon hid its ugly face in shame.

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