Page 44 of Dark Sun (Wicked Lovely 6)

Why not find a private place and—

“The guests will arrive soon,” Urian said mildly, as if he could hear her thoughts.

“You’re not a mind reader, are you?” She kept her voice teasing, despite her flash of worry. “Turn around, please?”

He did, and his gaze slid over her like lightning dancing on her skin. “No mind reading, love. Not at all. At least notyourmind. That was my way of reminding myself that we must leave, or you must cover your beautiful self. I have no compunction about an audience, but I thought . . .” He shrugged. “Perhaps not now.”

“Or ever.” Katherine rolled her eyes.

He shrugged again. “As you say. I’m flexible on the particulars as long as I’m able to be with you.”

Then he pulled his jeans on, as she stood watching him in appreciation. Katherine couldn’t say whether it was because of the godlike shape of his body or if it was some primal connection because they were bothgancanaghs, but she had to look away before the compulsion to touch him overrode sense.

“Hey?” He held out her clothes. “You aren’t alone in the thoughts you have.”

She slipped her jeans on sans underwear. Putting jeans onoverwet panties seemed like a terrible idea. “I hadn’t thought this through when I stepped into the spring with those on.”

“Armor,” he said simply. “You needed them.”

“And you in bonds?” she said in an equally light voice.

Urian caught her hand and lifted it to his lips. “Whatever rules mean that you are in my arms areexactlythe right ones, love. Intimacy requires comfort. Trust. Not simply two—or more—bodies touching. This is your journey, and I am honored to be a part of it.”

She nodded.

“And I hope, selfishly or not, that I will get to stay at your side,” he added.

“Because I’m agancanaghand—”

“Because you aremine,” he interrupted. “And because I amyours.”

ChapterTwenty

Urian

Urian had no compunction at calling himself an exiled prince, but he had rarely felt so regal as he did with Katherine at his side. She was on his arm, dressed in all but her underwear, which he’d put in his pocket. That thought was somehow more distracting than it seemed like it ought to be. How was he to overthrow kings and queens if he couldn’t stop wishing everyone and everything would vanish? He wanted her, only her, and damn his plans and dreams.

Quietly, he said, “Those are thistle fey.”

She nodded. “I’ve seen them before.”

One of the dark fey’s thistle-covered hands brushed too close to her, drawing blood from her wrist, and Urian lashed out with a sharp-edged shadow.

Blood dripped to the ground like a punctuation of his, “Do not touch her.”

“Sorry, prince.”

There were already almost fifty faeries in the wood, and somehow it seemed that they all looked at him in that next moment.

“I’m fine,” she whispered as he examined her minor injury as if it was grievous.

Urian pressed a kiss to her bleeding wrist, and when he pulled away, a swatch of shadows layered over the minor injury there.

“Mine,” he said again.

This time, though, it felt like a public declaration. A claim that needed an answer. And he looked at Katherine, feeling suddenly unsure. Whatever this was— this pressure, this uncertainty—he was at a loss to quelch it.

He found himself kneeling like a knight before a lord or lady.

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