Page 40 of How To Please A Princely Fae

I hate how important disappointing him is while he’s under a spell.

Isn’t it?

“I don’t need as much sleep as you do,” he finally answers. “You need food.”

He gestures for me to leave the lab and meekly, I do, ashamed and on edge as we walk in tense silence to my kitchen…

An inelegant noise climbs from my mouth.

“Was that you or Chirp?” Kieran asks, huffing out a laugh.

I toss my hair, or try to, except I’ve forgotten it’s in a bun. I manage to stretch an arm up and fake a yawn, like I’m stretching and not just completely flustered about everything in my life at this moment.

Like the breakfast spread Kieran made while I slept in: scones and clotted cream and raspberry preserves. Thick, pillowy biscuits studded with dried fruit and nuts, a rasher of spiced sausages. Fresh fruit cut into shapes that mimic the fall night sky, apples in the shape of stars and pears shaped like crescent moons.

“I hope you’re hungry,” he says in a low voice, his lips brushing against my ear.

“This is too much,” I tell him, tears threatening all over again. “You can’t just come in here and?—”

“And make you breakfast? I can’t make you breakfast?” he interrupts again.

I narrow my eyes at him. “Exactly.”

He snorts, then rolls his eyes. “Too late and too bad.”

“You should have slept,” I insist as he pulls a chair out for me. The admonition sounds weaker even to my ears, but he has the decency not to laugh, just smiles softly down at me, one wing brushing my shoulder as he sits next to me.

“I am fine.”

“You should have at least gone back to the inn, you know?”

“Willow.” He emphasizes each syllable of my name, glaring at me over a plate he continues to fill with food before setting it in front of me. “Did you forget that we are supposed to stay together while the threat from the Elder Gods and wild magic persists? Or are you still considering throwing yourself at their… mercy?”

He spits out the word mercy as though it’s toxic, and I’m inclined to agree.

“I just want you to be comfortable,” I argue, resigned to the fact I’m not going to win this argument and yet still unwilling to give it up. I dip a knife into the raspberry preserves.

“I cannot possibly be comfortable if for one second I think my mate could be in danger.”

“I’m not in danger—” My knife clatters onto my plate. “Yourwhat?!”

He sighs with great gusto, rolling his pretty pale purple eyes up to the ceiling before rolling his shirt sleeve back to his elbow. A dark aubergine marking snakes up from his wrist, the botanical design as improbable as his word choice.

I flush, all my thoughts at a complete standstill, all my arguments totally forgotten.

The leaves that wind across his lavender skin are no ordinary vines—they’re the unmistakable boughs of a willow tree, dripping down his forearm like they’ve always been there.

“So now you see.”

I stuff a scone into my mouth as fast as I can, trying to buy time to think.

Unfortunately, all my mental faculties seem to be completely exhausted.

“Willow, I am yours.” He sinks to one knee beside me, his eyes beseeching, his voice desperate.

I chew slowly, crumbs spraying out over him.

Which, unfortunately, does nothing to deter him.

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