“You?” I whisper when the silence stretches on to the point that I’m afraid he won’t continue.
“I still thought of you. I left you that letter in an attempt to make it easy should anyone claim that you didn’t have a right to that land, that home. You would have been taken care of for the rest of your mortal days. And all you had to do was follow the rules I gave you for your own benefit and stay put.”
My stomach churns, and not because I ate food from the fae world. I’m sick because I don’t smell smoke and fae can’t lie. He’s telling the truth.
All I had to do was stay put. One final night of heeding the rules and the total freedom I’ve always craved would have been mine. Davien would’ve been out of my life and his riches in the Natural World would’ve been mine.
“And here we are again.” He shakes his head. “Another night where you risk everything by not staying where you were put.”
“If you want me to go along with this, you have to start telling me what is happening. Treat me like an equal. I know I should but I can’t follow rules blindly.” Joyce has scarred me too deeply in ways I’m only beginning to understand for me to go along with something without question.
“Do you think you deserve that?” He arches his eyebrows.
“If you have any fondness—no, any respect—for me, then you’ll do this. I am not a relic that you can store on a shelf until your next ritual. I’m a breathing person. Don’t treat me like a thing and I won’t have a reason to be out of place because the place I’ll be in is the one I’ve chosen.”
Davien sighs heavily. He runs a hand through his hair. Half of it slicks back thanks to the water of the creek. The other half falls into his face. “Do you promise that’s all it will take?”
“I swear it.”
“Give me one reason why I would think you would keep your word? You swore if I unlocked the door, you wouldn’t leave. You lied.” There’s hurt on his face. Maybe that’s why he never wanted me to see him before. The man is an open book of emotion. He spent so much time in physical isolation that he never had to learn how to guard himself.
Whereas me? I learned that skill very quickly thanks to Joyce and Helen.
I shake my head slowly. I can’t think of anything I could offer him to prove I’m telling the truth. I could tell him how I taste metal when I lie. But he has no proof of what I can taste or not. Laura never said she could smell metal on my breath, the few times she indulged me with a sniff.
“I guess you don’t have any reason.” I shrug. “I guess the best thing I can do to prove it to you is to start acting in good faith myself. I’ll head back to camp, right now.”
His emotion changes. His brow softens slightly and arches upward. His eyes narrow, just a little and for only a second. It’s like watching thoughts dance across a person’s mind, exposed in a way I’ve never seen before.
I cross the creek and splash up the bank on the other side. I’m several steps away when I realize he’s not following me. “Are you coming?”
“Are you honestly planning on walking?” He chuckles. His mighty wings—all four of them—unfurl on his unspoken command and spread out behind him. So it’s true what he told me about the fae being able to summon and dismiss some of their animal features. The wings had vanished after we’d toppled in the stream and now they seem to grow in size. Slightly translucent streaks pick up the light of the forest floor. He’s positively radiant. With a mighty flap, he half jumps, half glides over the creek and steps next to me. “There’s a much faster way. And if I’m treating you like an equal, then I should extend it to you as well.” His arm wraps around my shoulders and pulls me to him. Once more the strong length of his body leaves me breathless. “Do you trust me?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
“What a state we’re in, aren’t we?” he says with a smile so dashing it should be a crime. “I can’t trust you and now you seem to have some reason why you can’t trust me.”
“Well, you did betray my trust, too,” I admit.
He seems genuinely surprised by this. “What? How?”
“You lied to me about who you are.”
His brow furrows. “What should I have said?” he asks softly; I’m staggered by the sincerity. “That your new husband was a fae who was destined to leave you? Would that have made you happy?”
I can’t meet his eyes anymore. I don’t have an answer. “I suppose I just wish things were different,” is all I can say. He hooks my chin and guides my face back to him. His eyes are open and inviting.
“I have spent my whole life wishing things were different. And we are on the cusp of it all changing. And once it changes for me, it will change for you too.” Truth. Truth. Truth. “Once I have the power that’s in you, I will see you back to your world. You’ll still have that house. You’ll still have all the riches I left behind. You will live with every comfort you want and whatever joy you can buy.”
“What about the fae in the forest?”
“They were after me, not you. Without me there, no one will come and harm you.” His arm tightens once more. “So I will ask you again, an impossible question to a human, from a fae…do you trust me? Will you trust me? Can we start over?”
I should say no. Every human instinct in my body screams no. I can’t trust this man. His very design as a fae is to be my enemy.
And yet, in a small breath, I defy even myself when I utter, “Yes.”
His movements are a blur. In one fluid motion he pulls me to his chest while reaching with his free hand to catch the backs of my knees. He bends forward and sinks low into his legs. Then, he jumps upward with a mighty flap of his wings.
