Page 212 of Flirting with Darkness

Further, further, and it didn’t move.

Maybe it really was asleep.

Still, I kept my eyes glued to it as I peeled myself from the wall and took a step towards the door.

Then it moved.

But it didn’t stand or leap or snap, its bodyshifted. Fur receded. Muscle and bone moved in ways they shouldn’t have been able to.

Understanding crept over my skin in a wave of goosebumps.

And a moment later, there lay Faolán.

He was… What had he called them when he’d told me about the werewolves? Shapechanging fae. He’d pretended he was separate from those beasts, but his kind had made them.

He wasn’t just a beast, but a monster.

Like all fae were. Like I’d always known. Oh yes, I’d let good looks and an incredible body distract me, soothe away my fears, blind me to the truth.

But here it was, lying naked on the floor of the bedroom we’d shared for the past month. Every night, he’d slept inches away, hiding teeth that could rip out my throat.

With a grumble, he sat up, rubbing his head. He blinked at me, then his gaze slid to the knife in my hand. A little frown etched between his eyebrows as he must’ve registered that it was the iron blade.

It really was Faolán.

Some part of me had clung to the idea that maybe this was a trick and when he sat up I’d see it was a wolfman, not Faolán, not the man I’d shared so much of myself with.

“Rose?” His head tilted. “Why have you—?”

But he must’ve seen something in my face that told him why I’d dared to draw iron in Elfhame.

And that I was prepared to use it.

His gaze swept over me the same way it had after our more dangerous encounters in House’s nightmarish memories. Checking me for injuries. Oneshemight’ve inflicted.

“You’re…” I couldn’t say it, and the thought tried to wriggle away, but,no, I was not letting this knowledge escape me. The house would not take this memory like it had the first night I’d seen him—trulyseenhim.

He was the wolf. He’d attacked me. Twice now.

“What have I done?” He looked down at his hands as though expecting to find incriminating evidence. His clawed fingers clenched and loosened. “I… I don’t remember. Why don’t I remember?” he muttered, shaking his head. “I wasn’t myself.”

Not himself? Did that mean his vow didn’t stand when he was thatthing? Was that form his way of being slippery with the truth?

Good gods, what a fool I’d been. Of course he’d twisted the vows to suit him. That was what fae did.

And House had helped him keep his secret with its geas.

If House had taken the memory of facing him on the edge of the forest, what other things was it stopping me from remembering? What might he have done to me? Had he, as a wolf, attacked me other times? Was that what the scars on my arm were from? Had House manufactured the whole encounter with the kelpie as a false memory to explain the injuries?

When I opened my eyes, his shoulders had slumped, and he sat, legs splayed, arms resting on his knees, looking up at me.

My heart still pounded so hard it made my face tingle: for all he looked so broken in that pose, it was a reminder that he’d attacked me.

I brought the iron blade higher, shielding myself.

I’d been stupid to thinkhewas a shield. He was a lie. All of this was.

“You’re a monster.”

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