Page 126 of Bride of the Fae Prince

His deadly cunning.

His broken heart.

Do I want my husband? Everything that makes him, him? Or would I rather walk away, give him up, and save my own life? Do I want him enough to give up my life for him?

It’s not a simple question.

And I don’t have an answer.

“I need to think about it,” I say finally, lifting my head and meeting Ash’s steady gaze. He maintains eye contact, then nods.

“Send a note for a white dress, then.” He gets to his feet and picks up a sheet of parchment. He steps around his desk and approaches me, holding out the paper. “If you decide you wantto leave before Lulythinar, it’s important to have arrangements in place.”

I reach out, close my fingers around the paper. It almost feels like a betrayal to accept it. “If . . . if I choose to leave before Lulythinar, what will you do?”

His chest rises with a deep breath. “I’m not sure,” he says quietly. “Oleria said I could marry her at the last minute if I needed it. If you decided to leave. Or perhaps I’ll just . . .”

Just marry his father’s choice.

There’s no alternative. If I leave, he’ll be forced to remarry one way or another. There is no option to leave and come back later. If I leave, I give him up. Forever.

The thought creates a burning sense ofwrongnessin my gut. I don’t want to think of him marrying that beautiful winged fae. I don’t want to think of him bound to Listhra either, forced by the terms of the bargain to sire an heir.

The thought of him being with anyone else, touching anyone else, kissing anyone else—it makes me want to vomit.

He’s mine,a desperate, primal part of me demands.

I grit my teeth. I won’t make decisions based on jealousy. And yet, I cannot ignore it.

I cross my arms over my chest again, self-conscious about my nightgown. I wish I were just wearing something simple and modest. Like that dove-gray dress I wore the first morning after I arrived. It would be so much easier to have this conversation fully dre—

Something shifts in the air.

Ash’s eyes go wide.

I blink. Hardly daring to think, I look down.

The nightgown is gone. In its place? The gray gown I’d just wished I was wearing. I shoot my gaze up to Ash’s, where his jaw sags open.

“Did you do that?” I hiss, terrified of the answer.

He shakes his head vigorously. “I—no, no, I didn’t. Stella . . .” His voice trails off as his eyes trail me up and down. A slow smile spreads across his face. “You just glamoured yourself.”

“I definitely did not!”

He looks up at me, his face splitting into another of those devastating grins. He’s so beautiful like this, I’m afraid his happiness will go straight to my head, make me dizzy with the desire to be near him. Here I am, trying to make a level-headed decision about whether I’m going to go or stay, and then he looks at me like that. It’s simply not fair! And not conducive to clear thinking.

“Youdohave magic,” he whispers, perhaps to keep the staff from overhearing. “Stella, look at you!”

I look down again at the dress. It feels real to me, so very real. And yet, when I peer closer, it’s almost as if there’s a very slight shimmer on the hems. A shimmer that I never noticed when Ash had glamoured me.

I peer up at Ash, searching him for the same telltale shimmer. He is so tall, it takes me a moment to run my gaze over him from the top of his tousled hair, down the deep V of his blousy white tunic, to his rolled-up trousers and bare feet. His beauty, both his muscled form and his handsome face, could easily be glamoured. But . . . I find no shimmer.

“Are you wearing any glamours?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Shall I don one for you?”

“Please.”

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