Page 42 of Until the Stars Fall

Slowly, his hand slipped off my neck, gliding over my shoulder and down my arm. Lacing his fingers with mine, he turned back toward the palace, tugging on my hand to urge me to follow.

I resisted, planting my feet in the grass. If I wasn’t going to kiss him in a secluded forest, I surely wasn’t going to traipse back to the palace hand-in-hand with him.

Rolling his eyes, he laughed again. “Come on, Lieke. I’m allowed to spend time with friends, aren’t I?”

Friends?

Friends.

My chest tightened around the word, as if it were a weight pressing into me.

I gritted my teeth and slipped my hand slowly out of his.

“Do you try to kiss all your friends?” I asked. He opened his mouth but said nothing. “Is that what I am to you? Just afriend?”

Try as I might, I couldn’t keep the hurt from my voice, and I had to press my lips together to keep my chin from trembling like a child. He reached his hand up to my cheek again, but I turned away from his touch, eyeing him skeptically as I waited for him to give me a bloody answer.

When he still hadn’t responded, I raised my face in challenge. “It shouldn’t be that hard to answer. What do you want from me? Do you want a friend? Fine. We can be friends, but I will not stand here and let you toy with my emotions like I’m one of those fae tarts you bring home from the tavern.”

Sheepishly, he rubbed the back of his neck, clearing his throat as he averted his eyes. Did he really not have an answer for me?

“It’s complicated,” he finally said quietly.

“You don’t say!” I slammed my eyes shut and fisted my hands, trying to calm down. Of course it was complicated. Still, he didn’t deserve my anger.

“I’m sorry,” Brennan said, pulling my attention back to him. A confused sadness played in his eyes.

I shook my head. “I shouldn’t have yelled.”

“But you’re right. I’m being unfair.”

For a long moment, we both remained quiet, but my mind was in chaos with questions I didn’t want to ask him. I didn’t know if I could stomach hearing his answers. Yet I also couldn’t move forward without knowing.

I stared down at my toe as I dug it into the grass, but then I looked up to regard him curiously from beneath my lashes. “What am I? To you, I mean.”

He drew in a deep breath and took a tentative step forward, not looking away. “Would you hate me if I say I don’t know?”

Lifting my chin, I angled my head and searched his eyes, as if maybe the true answer was hidden in their depths. “I could never hate you, Brennan. Be mad at you, yes, but hate you? Never.”

His whole body relaxed, and a hint of a smile played at the corners of his lips.

Lips you could be kissing right now.

No. I didn’t want to be kissed like that.

“Can we just be together, Lieke? Like old times?”

Old times.I repeated the words to myself, mulling them over.

Was that really what I wanted?

No. I wanted to live in a world where he loved me, where he chose me, where hecouldchoose me and didn’t have to marry someone else.

But we didn’t live in that world. If this was my only way to have him in my life, I’d take it.

“Sure, Bren,” I said finally and shrugged. “So what do you want to do?”

His smile grew, lighting up his face as he raised a single brow. “Cards?”

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