Page 129 of A Bargain with the Fae King

“I’m sorry I was harsh with you in the forest.” Humor leeches from his face. “When I thought you’d given away the key...” He shakes his head.

“Don’t be sorry. I’d have been angry with me too.”

The silent agreement of forgiveness passes between us.

“There’s something else I want to ask you about,” I whisper, conscious of May’s sleeping form. “Evelyn was human.”

Ambrose nods, his eyes widening ever so slightly.

“So Riven is half-fae?”

He scratches his beard and inhales in a deep breath that ruffles the blanket over him. “No. Half-fae do not exist.”

My brow wrinkles. “But how…”

“Humans amplify our magic. So, a human mother passes on even greater gifts to her fae children.”

My legs wobble. I sit down heavily in the chair next to him. My hand flies to my stomach as panic threatens to swallow me whole. “Could I…”

“Unlikely,” Ambrose says, catching my meaning.

A relieved sigh bursts free as I sink into the cushions. Thank goodness for that.

“Children are rare for us,” Ambrose continues. “Even more so with human women, but such a child would be powerful.” He looks away before his gaze settles on me again. “All the current Seelie monarchs are children of human mothers.”

Even Sigurd.

A strange sorrow leaks in like ink spreading through water. I’m everything they need. For now, and for the generations to come. But those thoughts send my head spinning in a direction I can’t begin to follow. Not now. Maybe not for a long time.

“Why did no one tell me?” Another secret. Not a lie exactly but one more thing I didn’t know.

“Would it have put you at ease?”

A small, humorless laugh tries to break free. “No.”

Hell, I’d have definitely run for the woods and never come back.

“Then you know why. But we would have once the girl was safe. Once you were happier. So many things didn’t go as we’d have preferred.” He shakes his head. “We’ll do better, if you give us a chance.”

Despite all the pain and revelations of recent days, I believe him. “No more secrets.”

“None. Anything you want to know, we’ll tell you. And then some.”

My heart lurches every time I see Riven lying still and motionless on the bed. Iason closed the wound on his chest after determining that all the poison was out. Only a round, puckered scar remains, close, far too close, to his heart. Another inch to the left, and even Iason’s powerful magic wouldn’t have saved him.

I trace the circle of that scar, the pale flesh that almost glimmers in the moonlight. The maids washed him earlier, cleaning away the last of the blood and dirt, fitting him in new pants on freshly cleaned linens. The familiar scent of honeysuckle clings to him again, wrapping around me too as I snuggle next to him on the bed. I tug a thick fur over us to shield us from the slight chill of night.

The pleasant warmth of his skin, the soft set of his lips, the way his hair trails around his face and over the pillows…the serenity of it all belies the internal struggle he still fights to heal the ravages of the poison.

“Come back to me,” I whisper, adding another kiss to his cheek. My nightly prayer. Last night’s had not been answered, but maybe tonight’s will be.

Faint sensation tickles my cheek, waking me. I blink in the darkness as the feeling comes again—a hand caressing my cheek. I gasp and shove myself upright in bed. The sight before me causes my heart to skip and stumble.

Riven stares up at me in the dark, a soft smile playing about his face.

My mouth opens in a soundless scream of joy, but his finger over my lips cuts off any words before I can utter them.

“Let me be alone with you, just for a little while.” His hand moves to cup my cheek.

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