Page 121 of Bride of the Fae Prince

She turns tear-streaked eyes up to me, and they burn with ferocity. “You can’t make me.”

And then she has me by the neck again, dragging me down into another kiss. My gasp shifts into a groan, and I pull back on her hair, exposing her neck to my lips.

She’s going to hate me tomorrow.

I let out another groan, a very different groan. I stop, closing my eyes, breathing in the smell of her. The sound of her quick inhales, the thump of her heartbeat against my mouth. With a sigh, I press one last kiss just beneath her ear, and pull back. She tries to reach for me, but I step several paces away. I run a hand through my hair, breathing heavily.

“I’m sorry,” I say, and my voice sounds ragged even to my own ears. “I can’t keep kissing you. I won’t take advantage of you.”

Her eyes well up with fresh tears, her hair tangled as she pulls my cloak around herself. “I don’t want to say goodbye to you, Ash.”

I can’t keep listening to her, looking at her. It’s killing me. Stumbling back a few steps, I swipe angrily at a fresh stream of tears down my face. I don’t know what she means by this running away business, but it doesn’t matter. I’m going to get her out of here, anyway.

My hope, my little butterfly.

I’ll make myself let her fly away.

I turn my back on her and march to my study, nearly tripping over an end table because my vision is so blurry. When I reach the doorway, I clear my throat and call out, “Edvear! Attend to Lady Stella, please.”

With that, I slam the door.

Collapse against it. Slide until I hit the ground.

Bury my face in my hands.

I throw a quick spell around me. And then I let the sobs pour free.

They’re ugly, loud. Broken.

It must be hours later when they finally subside. I rake a hand through my hair, thinking of nothing but the feel of air filling my lungs. The crust of salt on my cheeks.

That’s when I remember Oleria’s note.

Slipping it out of my sleeve, I unfold the tiny piece of paper until it’s half the size of my hand and the writing revealed.

If your wife orders a white dress from the tailor, she’s asking for help escaping. There’s an underground network, run by one called the Ivy Mask, who smuggles humans out of Faerie. Let her escape if she tries. It’s her only chance at survival. If you need a royal wife by Lulythinar, you can have me. We canannul when it’s safe, and you will be under no vow to sire an heir. Listhra is trying to help the High King so he’ll choose her for your wife. And if you’re suspicious of my motives, know that I want nothing from you except relief from the High King’s reign. I am sick of the fear he wields like a scepter.

I fold the note back up and toss it into the fire. It turns to ash. Then I stare at the lumiral globe on my desk.

She risked her life to pen those words. I’m inclined to trust her honesty. Perhaps this is my only option to not lose the throne and Stella’s life. It doesn’t mean I wouldpossesseither, but neither would be gone forever.

What this solutiondoesn’tfix is how to get the High King offthe throne before Lulythinar is over. Because if I don’t solve that problem, then I will be bound to decimate the human lands and all but exterminate their race.

Four days.

Everything is on the line now.

But just maybe,just maybe,I can remove Stella’s life from that line.

Chapter 42

The Princess

I wake up bleary-eyedand heavy in my own room, sunlight streaming from the windows onto my face. Despite how many blinks it takes to wipe the blur from my vision, I feel very clear-headed.

The faerie poison isn’t controlling me anymore.

I sit up. I’m no longer in that sack of leaves, but a soft nightgown. Courtesy of Dottie, who helped me to bed last night. The fae women told me it was a beautiful gown, but no matter how I looked at it, it was a sack of leaves, exposing most of my legs and arms, and plenty of the rest of me where the stitching failed. Perhaps some of the tiny residual bits of magic I apparently have allowed me to see the garment for what it was, and yet in that moment, I couldn’t care. Even though a tiny voice in the back of my mind railed at me for being so indecent, it was like that part was locked in a glass vault.

---