Page 143 of Bride of the Midnight Prince

“It will get bloody soon if there is no intervention.” He fixes his dark gaze on me. “And that’syourland. If anyone ought to be profiting off it, it’syou.”

I wave a hand. “I’m not worried about the land or the money.”Just how on earth I’m supposed to get past them to get into the forest for my raids?

He holds out his hand to me. The tall grass waves against our calves, my skirts blowing in the wind. The sky is bright blue above us, with only a few clouds.

“I will fly back with you on one condition,” I say, not stepping close enough just yet.

“What is that?”

“That this is not the last time you take me flying.”

The dark furrow of his brow is gone in an instant, and it is as though a light has been ignited inside his eyes. He pulls me straight to his chest, his eyes sweeping over my face once before he scoops me up into his arms.

“I wouldn’t dare deprive you so cruelly,” he murmurs into my ear—and then shoots into the sky.

Chapter 46

Rahk

CaphrylWood.Shecalledit by the fae name.

I must have called it by that name enough that it has slipped into her vocabulary. I shrug off the oddity as we each change into more presentable outfits to visit the queen.

“The queen doesn’t take visitors without an appointment. Getting an appointment with her is a long process,” Kat tells me as Mary runs after her and pins her flyaway hairs.

I button my cuffs as I stride into the courtyard where our carriage is waiting. “She will see us. It is urgent, and she is fascinated by us.”

“Fascinated?” Kat hurries after me. I hand her into the carriage before stepping in after her and ducking my head beneath the low ceiling. It is late in the day and the shadows grow long. “Are you sure you’re not just flattering yourself? I saw how cold she was to you at the luncheon.”

I regard her evenly. “Queen Vivienne, for all her posturing and refusal to work with me to remove the troll, does find it vastly interesting that of all people,youseemingly chose to marry me. She wants the story. I saw it in her face at the wedding.”

“Are you good at reading people?”

I lift one eyebrow. “Yes.”

I expect her to lean forward and give a saucy reply, but instead she blinks and looks away. She scoots to the window and moves aside the curtain, watching the world move outside of our little box on wheels. I don’t feign the same disinterest, and study her openly. I trace the line of her profile to her jaw, down her throat, to the hollow between her collarbones.

What does she not want me to read on her face?

I had hoped that once we’d gotten past her deception as my servant, she would open to me the way I long for her to. In some ways she has, but there issomethingI don’t know. Something driving her—something she wants—and I cannot figure it out.

Have no fear, Kat. Your mind and motives remain a mystery to me.

Looking at her now, in her pale blue gown that compliments her dark hair and eyes well, with a simple silver chain around her long neck that someday I would very much like to kiss, I see two futures before us. One where we remain as friends, and our marriage a mutually beneficial agreement. I may not spend much time in the human lands long term, but she will remain provided for and comfortable all the days of her life. Not that she would need me to provide those things, situated as she is with her inheritance. Still, if she needed anything, she would have it.

The other future, however, sends my blood pounding.

No part of that future makes rational sense. She must stay here in the human world. I must go back to Faerie. She will live for decades more, and I will live for centuries. She will die, and I will take the throne of Nothril.

Something hot and frantic bubbles up in my gut at that thought. Even if I regularly returned to Ashbourne to visit Kat, I cannot stop her from growing old. I cannot prevent her death. When did my long life suddenly feel like the cruelest of curses?

“Is that why you came to the human lands?” Kat asks, breaking the silence unexpectedly. “To remove the troll? Did you know he would be a problem?”

I have not been sworn to secrecy regarding the Ivy Mask. I could tell her. Every fiber of my being balks at the idea, however. What would she think of me if she knew I actively worked to destroy the very person who likely rescued her mother from the depths of Faerieland?

She would despise me.

“My High King—he is the friend I mentioned before, the one named Ash—knew the troll would become a problem and sent me to address it,” I reply.

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