Page 33 of The Queen The Fae Forgot
“These kinds of things?” I asked the question, if only to try to stop my heart from skipping the way it did when he said it. I knew what he meant. I mostly knew. But I needed to hear it from him, and in no uncertain terms. I couldn’t handle another crushing embarrassment, I couldn’t handle the shame that would follow if I was wrong—not after the embarrassment and shame that still clung to me.
Shiel wrapped his hands a little tighter again, so tight it was almost enough to stop me from drawing breath.
“I can’t get close enough to you, Aurra,” Shiel whispered. “I have to stop myself from hurting you, even now, just because I wish I could simply pull you into myself—where I can protect you, always.”
“Protect me?”
“And love you.”
His answer came so quick this time, so without hesitation, that it actuallydidstop me from drawing breath. For several beats, I looked up into those golden glowing eyes and searched them for the truth that glimmered back at me as plain as day. I didn’t need an enchantment to know that Shiel was telling me the truth.
He meant what he said.
Every golden, radiating, heat-inducing syllable of it.
It was almost painful to force myself to draw that breath I’d held, if only because it meant I had to find my own words to answer him.
“Love?”
The word sounded like a swear, the way it clawed and scratched its way up the back of my throat, like it was vomited instead of spoken. I didn’t know the last time I’d used that word. Didn’t know if I ever had. It had certainly,certainlynever been spoken to me. Not even at me,aboutme.
The outer corners of Shiel’s eyes crinkled ever so slightly, the mere sight of those soft lines sending my heart skipping so violently that my head began to spin.
“Surely, you didn’t think I was willing to give up everything, to lay down my court, my own crown, my little kingdom, for a future queen out of mereduty?”he asked. There was no condescension in his tone, only the slightest amusement. It was so foreign a sound on him, so opposite of his usual cool, calm, seriousness, that it was almost too much to comprehend. I looked up into those shining eyes flickering between mine, at the laugh building at their outer corners but not yet spilling over onto his tongue, and I felt something start to melt deep within me. “Aurra …”
His voice trailed off as one hand removed itself from my waist so he could brush back the tangled red locks that now fell along either side of my face.
For the briefest second, his eyes once again left mine to search that face, and a strange look overtook him.
That melting sensation in my stopped, hardened almost as soon as it had begun.
“What is it?” I asked, tense as the muscles that had seized deep within me.
For a second, Shiel’s mouth hung open before he found his own words. “Sometimes,” he admitted, “I miss the face of the girl I rescued from that mill.”
His words shocked me. Not because they were so unexpected, but because I felt it, too.
I’d yet to grow used to the face looking back at me in the mirror.
I started to shrink back from him, only half-consciously. My eyes turned away, but as soon as they did, Shiel tightened his grip on me, once again taking hold of me with both arms, as if to keep me from pulling back anymore.
“You’re beautiful, still, Aurra,” Shiel gasped, the sound of it forcing my eyes back up to meet his. “I just … it wasn’t this face that first drove me mad. It wasn’t this face that first stole my heart.”
I still felt myself instinctively pulling away, but Shiel didn’t relent. He held me tight, lowering his face until it was closer to mine, before he continued, voice so soft it was barely above a whisper.
“But it wasn’t your old face, either,” he said. “It was you.”
You.
Something about that one, simple word, it released the tension that had tried to pull me from him. I stopped drawing back, and instead fell into him, both of us closing that tiny gap that remained together until our lips crashed into each other, sealing our steadily shortening breaths with a kiss.
It wasn’t the first time I’d kissed Shiel, but it might as well have been. Something about that moment when our lips met, trembling and hungry, was different—and it wasn’t just because it was the first time I’d kissed him with my true form, with the lips that still felt new and foreign to me.
It was because this time, when we kissed, we didn’t hold back.
Neither of us.
It was as if there was no tomorrow, no kingdom to rule, and no expectations to meet. We were just two people, two fae, lost in the moment, lost in each other. Shiel’s lips were fierce and demanding against mine, his hands gripping me tightly as he pulled me closer to him. I could feel his heat, his strength, his passion, burning through every pore of my being. His hands roamed over my body, tracing the curves and contours of my form as if he couldn’t get enough of me. His touch was electric, sending shivers down my spine and into my core as his hands found my hair and dug into it, fisting at the curls at the nape of my neck until he dragged a soft moan from my parted lips.
