Page 39 of How To Please A Princely Fae

And it’s going to take all of my willpower to keep the male at arm’s length, because goddess, does it feel wonderful to have someone do something so thoughtful for me.

I sniffle, wiping the back of my hand over my now-wet lashes, some of the pressure that’s dogged my steps for days finally alleviated.

My gaze lifts from the lovely assortment of soaps curing on the otherwise tidy worktable to the shelves that need to be restocked today.

Any remaining breath leaves my lungs, and my jaw drops.

They’ve been restocked.

Every ingredient sits in a perfectly straight row.

My boots tick-tick against the flagstone floor as I try to make sense of the sight before me. It’s all done perfectly. Flawless.

Each crystal vial and glass bottle has been tagged with twine.

“There’s an updated inventory sheet, too.” Kieran’s voice is a low, tired rumble, and I startle at the unexpected sound.

I swivel on the ball of my foot only to find him directly behind me, his brilliant wings extended fully behind him, half-moon circles under his eyes.

“Why?” My voice breaks on the word. “How? Did you stay up all night?”

“Because you needed help.” He shrugs one shoulder, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “And because I could give it to you. I would give you much more if you let me.” His big, warm hands bracket my upper arms and I tilt my chin up to him, not caring that tears are now openly streaming down my cheeks.

It seems cruel, this twist of fate, to give me the illusion everything I’ve ever wanted from a partner is in the male I want as a partner, only for it to be the result of some wayward spell.

“You don’t mean that,” I tell him, and it doesn’t come off as mean or callous as I’d like.

It doesn’t sound mean or callous at all. It sounds wretched, like I’ve been laid bare and vulnerable before him. Exactly as I feel on the inside.

His gaze darts between my eyes, as if he doesn’t know where to look, as if I’ve exposed myself to him and it’s too much.

It’s too much for me.

“I do mean that.”

I wriggle out of his grasp, trying to hold onto my own reality in lieu of his hands, and march around to the doorway again. Chirp nibbles at my earlobe in solidarity.

“Why can’t you believe that I want you? Want all of you?” This time, his voice breaks, and the sound hurts me.

I rub the ache in my chest.

“Because you’re under a spell, Kieran. You don’t… you don’t even like me.”

“You’ve said that over and over again,” he says fiercely, his wings buzzing behind him. “You’ve said it so often that it sounds more false every time you do. I just don’t know if you’re lying to yourself or if I was lying to both of us. Because there is no world in which I could be in the same place as you, breathe the same air as you, and not need you. Not want you. You are…” He pauses, his nostrils flaring as he inhales. “You are special.”

The strange, strangled way he says the word confuses me.

Because it doesn’t sound like it fits. It doesn’t sound like it’s what he meant to say at all.

My stomach growls.

“Did you sleep at all?” I ask him, changing the subject.

His wings buzz louder, but to his benefit, he doesn’t call out the fact I’m a coward, that I’m deathly afraid of whatever is happening between the two of us.

He doesn’t have to, though; it’s in the way he studies me, with a slight downward tilt to his chin. Kieran’s disappointed in me, and I hate it.

I hate disappointing people.

---