Page 27 of Dark Sun (Wicked Lovely 6)

“I wouldn’t force you.” He stiffened at the insult. “I know what people think of us, and whathewas like, but I’m nothing like my father.”

She looked sick now, and Urian hated that knowing that what he was had made her look so thoroughly disgusted.

“What do you know of your father?” Kat demanded. “Hisname. What was his name? When were you born? Would you be able to describe him?”

Urian stared at her.

“My father,” she started. Her voice sounded like she might weep as she added, “He was a . . . I am not human. My father was a--”

“Gancanagh?”

She nodded. “I never knew his real name. Hisothername. He went by Quill.”

“Describe him.” Urian looked at her differently, as if answers were hidden on her skin. Was she family?

“Tall. Dark. Dark hair. A laugh like . . . yours.” Katherine folded her arms over her chest as if to stop from trembling. “He said there weren’t many ofus. And I know he might have had other kids and . . .”

Urian stared at her, not able to process what this meant.

“Urian?”

“Us?” he prompted. “Why do you say ‘us’ that way?”

“Faeries like us.Gancanagh.” Katherine met his eyes with a pride he wasn’t currently able to feel. “Addictive faery poison, you know?”

“Females of our kind are unheard of,” Urian murmured, stalking closer to her. If she were family, he surely wouldn’t feel such need, such raw lust.

“I’m not only fey, though.” Katherine watched him, but not helplessly. She looked as if she hadn’t decided if she were prey or predator.

“Where is he? When did you last see him?” Urian realized belatedly that Katherine pulled away because there was a chance they were related.

“He’s dead,” she answered.

And for a flicker of a moment Urian’s lust burned away under rage. Had Irial died, and no one told him? Was there no way to satisfy the rage he felt toward the monster who had killed his mother and stolen both her throne from her and kept his from his own son?

Then she said, “Years ago. I barely remember him.”

“You’resurehe died? Your mother--”

“Is alive.” Katherine glanced at her home. “He told her to kill him if he tried to leave because he couldn’t stand the thought of her dying like that.”

He looked away. “My mother was not so fortunate.”

This time it was Katherine who reached out to him. Her hand gripped his wrist in what should’ve been a harmless gesture of comfort, but very much wasn’t. And Urian dropped to his knees in the dirt.

He knelt on the ground before her, barely able to control the sheer wave of hunger that gripped him. He needed to know for sure that she wasn’t family though. That was a perversion he couldn’t risk.

With shaking hands, he pulled out a wallet and held it out to her. “My father’s picture.”

She opened it.

“Is that him?” Urian managed to say. “Is that man your father?”

Katherine looked at it. Her lips curved in a smile, and then she looked at Urian. “No. Not even close.”

“Thank the gods.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed his face to her stomach.

When Katherine’s hand dropped to his hair, Urian let out a sound that might have embarrassed him in other circumstances. Instead, he kissed Katherine’s stomach, cursing the jeans and shirt keeping her body from his.

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