“Of course.” I nod. We bid our final farewells and return to the streets of Dreamsong.
“I’m glad they’re doing so well,” he says after we’re far away from the house.
“Were they not?” They seemed like an enviably normal family to me. More normal than what I ever thought possible, previously, for a family.
“Their family’s ancestral home is in what is now the Bleeding Woods. Their Court of Leaves was led by one of the last blood survivors of Aviness,” he says with a somber note. I see his hands clench and the muscles in his jaw bulge. “The Butchers drove them out of their home well before Raph was even born.”
Davien slows and shoves hands in the pockets of his loose-fitting trousers. He’s wearing a tunic that’s open low on his breastbone. The flat expanse of his chest is on display underneath a series of necklaces. He fits in so naturally here. There’s something to the air around him that just…belongs.
I suppose that’s not what surprises me. What surprises me is how envious I am of it. It’s not the fae that I want to be a part of. I just want to belong. I want some people, some place, some time to be mine. I want to not be a castaway fighting for forgotten scraps on the floors underneath tables I’ll never have a seat at.
To have a family. A table.
“If you become king, will they get to go back to their home?” I ask softly. “Will they rebuild the Court of Leaves?”
He meets my eyes, exposing the murky depths of his pain. So many things about this man are still a mystery to me. But rather than being frightened…I find myself more and more intrigued by the endless possibilities of them. I want to ask. I want to know. I want to peel back every layer of him as I feel him doing to me every time we’re together.
What’s wrong with me?
This endless push and pull between us threatens to rip me apart.
“If—when I become king, these lands will once more belong to the people who made them. The courts may return to their ancestral homes or rebuild anew, whichever speaks more to who they are now.
“I will see that the fae are strong again. That we have a seat at the table at Midscape’s Council of Kings. I will demand the lands the Elf King stole from us back and I will fight for the fae to return to the prominence we deserve. I will see every court rebuilt to keep the High Court in check, so that no king ever feels so powerful that he can act without accountability. I will use the power that’s trapped within the glass crown and the hill of the High Court to help my people however I am able for as long as I draw breath.”
I stand in awe of him. The way he speaks is filled with conviction…and not because he’s practiced these lines like Laura or Helen did before Father’s parties so they had the best chance to woo a suitor. He speaks the truth that he knows, that he has cemented onto his heart above all else.
The need to touch him becomes irresistible. A man with a noble mission is more attractive than I ever expected. I want to hold his hand and caress the soft skin of his palm. I want to press my fingers across the strong muscles of his chest and…and…my mind gutters.
Heat crashes over me, flushing my cheeks and making me shift my weight from foot to foot as it pools uncomfortably in my lower abdomen. This man makes me want dangerous things. Things I’ve never thought I wanted before and certainly never needed.
“We should return to Vena,” I say, my voice not sounding as strong as normal.
“We should.” Yet his eyes are still locked with mine, head ducked slightly. For the first time since coming to this world, he looks and sounds like the Lord Fenwood I knew in the manor.
The rest of our walk is consumed by an awkward, tense silence. Our shoulders brush seven times. But who’s counting?
Yet we both resist closing that dangerous gap between us. Because in that space was the line of no return. And somehow, in broad daylight in the middle of a busy street, we just came dangerously close to crossing it.
