Page 23 of Mountain Man's Muse
Josh scowled. “Don’t say that.”
Is that what the other fae had felt when they had fled the court? Had she been the only one unwilling to leave?
“I’m putting you in danger,” she whispered. She had thought she was deceiving only a rogue hunter. But now… “I won’t let you be hurt.”
“Too late.” He lifted their joined hands to his chest.
Did he mean the imp-inflicted wounds? Or did he mean his heart?
No! She didn’t want to know. To know would only make leaving harder. She wanted the unknowing—the illusions, the dreams, the lies—as she’d never wanted anything before.
She closed her eyes, feeling the steady thud of his heart beneath her palm. “Oh, Josh…”
“I never had the chance to be a fairytale hero before.”
“You already are, to me.” She pulled away from him gently.
“We have a lot to do before sunset,” he said. “Will you help me?”
Vaile had given instructions for charms woven from yarn, ashes of the burned imp, and slivers of iron that would ignite like a flare if a fae passed too closely. After she accidentally set off one of the wards, Adelyn sat on the front steps of the porch and watched as Josh placed the charms around the yard. She wrapped her arms around her belly, feeling the gray sky and the gray iron closing around her.
“There’s a gap,” she called. “Put that one by the edge of the house closer to the barn.”
Josh adjusted the distance between the charms and then returned to her side. “Too bad these don’t make a cow-proof fence.”
She contemplated the odd way that the fae—so powerful in many respects—were different in the sunlit world. How much of the queen’s powerful rule was merely the fae’s reluctance to leave what they knew for the strangeness of the realm beyond? “Maybe if your herd had fae blood. Half-blood offspring of minotaurs would avoid iron.”
Josh laughed. “Good idea. You can introduce my cows to one after this is over.”
They gazed awkwardly into the yard as they both realized thatafterwas impossible to see. Josh ran his hand over one of the ferns curling up out of the snow beside the steps. The papery frond hissed through his fingers like a warning.
With a rumble of curiosity, he stretched one of the golden fronds between his hands, and she realized it wasn’t a piece of the fern at all.
He frowned. “Another snake skin? This wasn’t here before the imp came. I wonder—”
She reached out and took the cast-off skin from his fingers. “Enough mysteries. We still have an hour before sunset. Come inside with me.”
For a heartbeat, she thought he would turn away. But he stripped off his glove and put his hand in hers. The warmth of his palm engulfed her cold fingers. “Let’s go.”
He had clustered all the iron weapons at the front door to minimize her discomfort, but still the closeness of the metal grated on her until she retreated to the bedroom. He checked his rifle and the stock of iron bullets one last time before joining her.
She waited for him, naked in the middle of the bed.
“Adelyn…” He swayed. “We don’t have much time.”
“So hurry. If this is all we have, don’t waste a second.”
Just as well the closures on his shirt were sturdy pearl snaps. Buttons would have flown at the speed of his disrobing.
Then he was beside her in the bed, his big hands everywhere, like the agony of iron, but the opposite, a pleasure so encompassing she thought she might die.
They came together in a passionate rush that left little room for magic of any sort, and yet she felt the glow of a strange force all around them. Not a fae trick, but something they had made together, just the two of them.
She did not want to give it a name. Names had power.
In the aftermath—too brief—they clung together, limbs and fingers, even the locks of their hair, entwined.
“Adelyn,” Josh started.
