Page 47 of Dark Sun (Wicked Lovely 6)

That question felt too hard to process. She pointed at the table. “How?”

“Close your eyes,” he said. “No different than my surly car. See with the part of you that’s not mortal.”

Katherine closed her eyes and counted,one-two-three-four-five.

On six, she opened her eyes and reached for the bottle that was beckoning her. She tilted the ink-slick wine and poured it into a glass that Urian held out.

“Dark Court,” he said simply.

“Which means what?”

The wicked look he gave her made her consider leaving the very public gathering of faeries. Instead, she lifted the glass to her lips and took a drink. It felt like swallowing shadows, and every bit of restraint she had shuddered as she took a second sip.

Urian took the glass from her hand before she could have a third sip, but rather than putting the drink on the table, he drank the rest and said, “Gancanaghsare often Dark Court. There are rare exceptions, of course . . . but you are of the Dark, Katherine of Miller.”

Any illusion that the assembled group wasn’t watching faded as Urian lifted a second bottle. Sunlight seemed to flash into the clearing as he opened it, and the wine he poured into the oil-slick remnants in the glass was thick like honey.

The crowd held a collective breath as he lifted the bright honey-wine to his lips and drained it, too. As he did, his eyes shifted so that it looked like light and shadow were twisting in his irises. A dark night with rays of light, a storm with flashes of lightning, Urian was not of one buttwocourts.

“To the exiled prince!” one of the faeries cheered.

As others took up the words, Urian chased the sunlight from his lips with another—albeit smaller measure--of that inky drink. There was more than liquor in these drinks, and she briefly wondered if the others would be as painful as the Dark Court drink was pleasurable.

She reached up to kiss him, but he stopped her with a raised hand.

He whispered, “First, I want to drown the light, Katherine.”

“Why?”

For a moment, she saw him weigh his words, but he drank a long swallow of that inky liquor first.

When he pulled her in, she realized that he was hiding something, even though his smile was the look of the thoroughly intoxicated. A few sips ought not be reason for such a drunken smile.

But whatever liquor or secrets hid in those glasses, they weren’t reason enough to refuse the kiss he pressed on her. Her lips parted, and Urian kissed her breath away.

She clutched him to her, as if he’d vanish in a blink.

When his hand slid down to cup her ass, all she could think of was a few hours earlier when he’d held her steady and led her toward bliss. A moan escaped her.

He tasted of shadows, like the wine but with something feral in between the dark and night that she’d tasted in her two sips of the wine from the Dark Court.

When he finally pulled back, Urian shifted away from the question she’d asked by saying, “No sunlight for you, Katherine. Not now. Not ever. Only shadows. That’s what we’ll do. Takethatcourt, make it our own. Leave the sunlight to others.”

And she was certain she was misunderstanding.Take a court? Weren’t all the thrones occupied?

Urian spun her into a dance that seemed to be somewhere between a waltz and a tango, flirtation and promise, and Katherine decided not to ask questions tonight.

She had already learned more about her heritage—and court affinity—in one brief day than in most of her life. The rest of the questions could wait.

By the time Urian led her to a mossy patch of ground, Katherine had been greeted by at least twenty strangers. They were, like her, mostly halflings. They seemed more eager to meet her than the faeries that hung around the edges; at least that was her impression.

“Do they not like people who are mixed?” she asked quietly.

“Mixed?”

“Half-mortal,” she clarified as he pulled her into his arms.

Urian settled her more solidly in his lap. He burrowed his nose against her throat, taking deep breaths like he needed to inhale her skin, like he had some hunger he had to fill in a way that was more than touch. “Darkness, Katherine. That’s why some of them held back. You are cut from shadows. Not everyone likes that. Plus, you are mine—”

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