Page 162 of Bride of the Fae Prince

The words are hardly out of his mouth before a multitude of voices from below join the chorus. I nearly stagger at the beauty, the expanding strength of the music.

But then Ash is tugging me again, and I barely let myself be dragged away. The song stays with us as we go. Not even when we enter the garden I love so much—the one outside my window—is the music entirely gone.

Ash pulls me through the tunnel of roses, and I laugh as I try to keep up with him without tripping on my gown. My mask goes askew, but I don’t have a free hand to fix it.

We reach the overgrown gazebo. Singing wafts on the breeze that tangles in my hair and ruffles the sleeves on my gown. Ash stops before the steps and sweeps me a grand bow. I grin even as I blush.

“Would you dance with me, fair maiden?” he asks, pinning me with that heated gaze like a thousand fallen stars. When he looks at me like that, he holds more sway over me than fae music ever could.

He extends his hand to me.

I place my fingers in his. He presses a kiss to them.

Then he draws me up the steps, into the dark gazebo. With a sweep of his arm, a host of tiny glows like fireflies light up the small space, the cracked stone and twisted vines.

“Dance with me,” Ash whispers.

“Always, my prince,” I reply.

He reaches out, straightens my mask. Then he takes my waist and draws me to his chest so not even an inch separates us. Hismouth hovers above my hairline, warm and intimate as we begin dancing. Slowly, to the strains of the song on the air.

“I want to know everything about you, Ash,” I say to him, tilting my face up. “I want to know everything about your people. Next Lulythinar, I want to sing their song with them.”

With my glamours, I can find a place to belong where I am not always at risk.

Ash’s grip on my waist tightens. His chest expands against mine, and then his exhale stirs my hair. “Then you shall.”

At some point, we stop dancing. We simply stand together, our gazes melding into one. Ash slowly lifts a hand, places a knuckle beneath my chin, and tilts my face up to his. I close my eyes as the warmth of his mouth descends to mine.

Ash stops.

A shock goes through him.

I freeze. My eyes fly open. On instinct, I look behind us, searching for a threat. When I find nothing, I turn back to Ash.

He gazes at the back of his hand, his face turned white as the rising moon.

“A-Ash?”

“The wings are gone,” he rasps. He lifts desperate eyes to mine.

“Isn’t that a good thing?” I say, unable to keep the shaking out of my voice. “Don’t the tattoos only vanish when the bargain is fulfilled?”

“Or when it becomes impossible to fulfill them.”

“Oleria,” I gasp.

We’re running down the rose archway before everything finally processes in my brain. Ash’s face is hard, grim.

“But . . . she wasn’t supposed to do anything yet!”

His grip on mine is like iron. He doesn’t run too quickly for me to keep up, but it doesn’t take long before I’m panting, anyway.

I hate to ask, but I must know. “Does this mean . . . Does this mean she’s dead?”

The flintlike set of his jaw answers my question. Sickness swells in my stomach and nearly gets the better of me.

The music stopped.

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