Page 81 of Prince of Never

‘You’re not, like, hundreds of years old?’

‘Why?’I asked, arching an eyebrow.‘Would that be a problem?’

‘No,’ she said.‘It would just make you a dirty old man.’

‘Well, I’m not old.But I can be as dirty as you want me to be.’

‘I think you’re already dirtier than I know what to do with,’ she laughed.I loved it when she laughed.‘But I don’t understand.If fae are immortal, what’s the point of you being the heir to the throne?Won’t the queen just live forever?’

It was an effective way to bring me down from where I’d been floating about in the clouds, high on holding her.‘We can still die, we just don’t age.And most ancients eventually get tired of living and return themselves to the ether.Or the gods or the great magic or whatever you want to believe.’

She dropped her head back down and rested her cheek against my chest.‘So you’ll be king when your mother decides she’s had enough of life?’

‘Or until she’s forced to stand down.’

She didn’t say anything, and I had the sense that she was waiting for more.I could have told her all of it, then, about the prophecy that had foretold that the Unseelie crown would fall with me.That my mother would reign forever while that fate hung over my head.I could have explained why I had intended to kill her when I’d come for her, could have told her about the decades of being ground beneath the heel of the queen’s shoe, about the mantle of mistrust and suspicion that I’d worn, the desperate desire to take control of my own life after spending most of it as a puppet and an outcast, an heir in name only.But I didn’t want to poison the moment with all that.That could wait.

‘Tarian,’ she said after a while of just the sound of the winding songs of the night drakes.‘Someone told me mates often share their fiorainm with each other.’

‘They do,’ I said slowly, wondering who had told her something like that.

‘Can I tell you mine?’

I let out a breath, wrestling with the question.‘Remember what I said about it being used against you in the wrong hands.Don’t ever tell anyone unless you trust them absolutely.’

‘I trust you.’

That admission hurt in a way both bitter and sweet.It was honey to know she trusted me.And it was agony to be trusted.If I’d shared my story then, had told her the truth about my mother’s hold on me, she would have better understood what she was offering.But I was ashamed.And there was a greedy, animal part of me that wanted to know, that wanted to gather every piece of her close and hoard her for myself.‘Then yes.’

‘It’s Aurelia,’ she whispered against my skin.

‘Aurelia,’ I repeated, tasting the word, feeling the thrum of recognition in my chest.‘Golden one.’I could feel her smile as I ran my fingers down her back.‘I promise I’ll keep it safe.’

Another long silence passed.Her breathing grew slower, her body softening until I thought she might have fallen asleep.

‘What’s yours?’she asked finally, her voice so quiet the wind might have caught it and ferried it away.I didn’t answer.

And she didn’t ask again.

Chapter 34

Tarian

Iwoketoagolden dawn in my eyes and the warmth of her breath on my skin.The air kissed my cheeks with cold, but beneath the rug we were cocooned in heat, and her body was relaxed in my arms.I watched her sleep curled against my side, wishing we could just stay here on this ledge forever, where the cares of the world beyond didn’t touch us.The tip of a pointed ear peeked through her hair, which brought that outside world a little closer to home.A Seelie changeling.Unions between Seelie and Unseelie weren’t impossible, but they were uncommon.It usually required the swearing of loyalty to one court over another.But as the heir to the Unseelie throne, uniting with a Seelie female was more complicated than that.Seelie fae were bound to the magic of the Seelie throne, and it was in direct conflict with the magic that bound me to mine.And Imogen was Seelie through and through, from the complexion of her skin, her colouring, the subtle differences in the shape of her face, to the way the magic in the land around us that touched her thrummed at a different pitch to the way it did with me.

What’s more, she was a Seelie female who had merited a glamour more powerful than anything I’d ever seen on a changeling before.

But I wasn’t going to unpick that right now.Because she was stirring, her eyelids fluttering open, turning her face to me.

‘Good morning,’ she said.She shot her gaze skyward, taking in the grey spill of dawn.‘We stayed here all night.’

I brushed her hair off her forehead, caressed her cheek.‘You fell asleep.’

‘And now I’m paying for it.’She winced, arched her back.‘Who knew sleeping on the ground would be such a bad idea?’

‘I should have taken you back.’

‘No,’ she said quickly.‘It’s worth the stiff neck.’She gifted me a tentative smile, looking up at me in a way that...did things to me.‘Isn’t it?’

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