Page 6 of A Killing Frost

“Not usually,” I said. “He knows he’s got nothing to worry about. But you’re Cait Sidhe and only sort of under his command. If he’s going to get snitty at anybody, it’s probably you. Sorry about that.”

“No need to apologize, just... try not to give him the impression he needs to be ‘snitty’ about anything.” Jason shuddered delicately.

The dining room was surprisingly devoid of customers. It was early in the day, but reservations at Cat in the Rafters are hard to come by; according to Stacy, who actually has to make a reservation when she wants to eat there, people book tables months in advance. I gave Jason a curious look. He shook his head.

“When certain luminaries wish to dine with us, they notify me, and I give the mortal staff the night off,” he said. “You and my King aren’t the only ones dining here tonight, but you’ll have few dinner companions, and all of them fae. You can release your illusions, if you’d prefer.”

“Aw, but I’m not actually wearing mascara,” I said, in a tone that made it clear I didn’t care, and waved a hand dismissively, releasing my human disguise. It burst with the smell of copper and fresh cut grass, and Jason shot me an amused look.

“If you think my King will care, you haven’t paid as much attention to his preferences as we’ve all assumed.”

“No, he knows what he’s getting.”

The steakhouse décor was best described as “rustic,” with rough-hewn redwood walls and quaintly mismatched tables, each topped with a candle burning in a jar of thick red glass. The windows were stained glass portraits of cats, black and tabby and colorpoint and calico. Unlike many of the steakhouses I’d seen, there were no antlers or taxidermically preserved birds on the walls; the lighting came from chandeliers heavy with warm yellow bulbs that mimicked candlelight well enough to make my skin crawl but didn’t flicker. If they’d flickered, I would have run.

I don’t care for candles. They always seem to get me into trouble.

We crossed the empty dining room to a smaller door, which Jason opened to reveal Tybalt standing at attention next to a table set for two. The expected candle centerpiece was conspicuously absent, replaced by a bouquet of flowers, which, in typical Tybaltfashion, couldn’t have come from a local florist, since I doubted any of them would have out-of-season arbutus, or arbutus at all.

Jason murmured a pleasantry I didn’t quite catch and retreated, closing the door behind him and leaving the two of us alone. I started toward my fiancé, my annoyance at the way he’d brought me to the restaurant melting away at the sight of him.

Faerie has more than its fair share of beautiful men. Beauty is the specialty of the Daoine Sidhe, and of basically anyone descended from Titania, whose children have always been as striking as they are cruel. In the great annals of Faerie’s beauty, Tybalt barely even ranks. But as far as I’m concerned, he’s the best of them, and always will be.

Tall, slender, well-muscled, with brown hair banded in streaks of tabby black, and eyes the color of malachite, a dozen shades of green warring for position around the cat-slit ovals of his pupils. He looks less feline than many of his subjects, with only his eyes, hair, and the faint stripes on the skin of his back betraying the fact that he’s not secretly Daoine Sidhe. His ears are pointed, but more like mine than an actual cat’s, and he has the face of a classical sculptor’s masterpiece, strong and flawless.

There was a time when I thought he was out of my league. I still sort of do, if I’m being completely honest, but since he doesn’t agree, I try not to argue with him.

He smiled as I approached, and my chest tightened the way it always did when he looked at me like that, like I was the only thing in the world that mattered enough to smile for. “You came,” he said, and the relief in his voice was evident.

“You didn’t give me a lot of choice,” I said. “Danny wasn’t taking ‘no’ for an answer. He got May on his side just by offering to take me out of the house.”

“Well, if I’d been less forceful in my request, would you have come?” Tybalt took a step toward me. He was wearing a white button-down shirt and brown leather pants. Most of his pants are leather, either because he likes it, or because he knows how muchIlike it. Not the most comfortable material in the world, but the things it does for his ass should be illegal.

“Maybe,” I said, before admitting, “Probably not. I got a weird call from Karen just before he showed up, and I was going to go upstairs and try to relax.”

“You can relax with me instead, over a lovely dinner, and I’ll carry you home after we’re done, to enjoy less gustatory pleasures of the flesh.” He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me close, planting a kiss on my chin. “If I’d asked you on a date, you would have laughed in my face, or told me you’d be happy ordering pizza. Again. For a woman with a penchant for grand, romantic gestures, you have the least interest in actual romance of any lover I’ve ever had.”

“Yes, please tell me about your former lovers while trying to convince me to stay for dinner,” I said dryly. “That always helps me get into the mood.”

He kissed me again, more languidly this time. “Ah, but you are in my arms, and those past loves are long gone from my life, some to the night-haunts and others to their own designs, and none of them shall warm my bed again. That pleasure is reserved for you and you alone.”

I laughed as I pulled away. “Sometimes your tendency to talk like a romance novel is less confusing than others. Let me see these flowers.”

“Ever the practical one,” said Tybalt approvingly, and let me go.

It was a nice bouquet, if non-standard, mixing common flowers with things he must have gone hunting for. “Arbutus, I know,” I said. “That means ‘my love is yours alone.’ Orange blossom’s for eternal love and marriage. Little on the nose, don’t you think? And then ivy, that’s for wedded love, friendship, and fidelity. Getting ahead of yourself there, aren’t you?”

“I know you’re faithful, as you’ve never come home covered in another man’s blood without telling me about it, and I can’t imagine any lover of yours getting close to you without someone bleeding at least a little,” said Tybalt, natural smugness showing through. He circled the table, easing out a chair for me to occupy. “Still, I applaud your sense of caution. I’m ‘getting ahead of myself’ only because of the interminable length of our engagement.”

“It’s been less than two years!” I protested, laughing. My amusement turned to ashes in my mouth as I saw the hurt in his expression, brief but obvious. “Tybalt. You know I want to marry you. You know I’mexcitedto marry you. I’m not stretching this out to be cruel.”

“I also know you’re mortal, sometimes horrifyingly so, and everyday you and I remain unwed, I worry something will happen in your human world that keeps me from your side.” He stepped back from the chair. “So I bring you roses, for love, and stephanotis, to remind you that happiness awaits us on the other side of the ceremony.”

“I’ll still be mortal after we’re married,” I said, easing myself into the chair and watching him with concern. “I don’t know when I’ll be ready to let go of what’s left of my humanity, if I ever will be.” But I had been once, hadn’t I? When Tybalt had been elf-shot, and I hadn’t been sure we’d be able to wake him up? I’d promised to strip the mortality from my blood in order to still be there when he woke up and came back to me.

Was it selfish of me to hold onto my humanity, when there were people who loved me whose lives were going to be so much longer than mine if I didn’t let it go?

Tybalt looked at me gravely as he walked around the table to take his own seat. Then he smiled, chasing away the shadows in his eyes, and said, “And I’ll love you regardless of how human you remain, as I have done so far, as I have promised to do forever. But you must allow me my anxieties about the length of our engagement.”

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