Page 51 of The Queen The Fae Forgot
Zev glanced at me in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“Well, clearly, they have a point about being oppressed,” I said.
Finch’s brows furrowed next and he paused halfway down my boot laces. “They’re humans, Aurra.”
I shot him a look that shut both of them up.
“And I lived as one of them for all of my life, up until a couple months ago,” I snapped back. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having empathy for them. They’re not so different from us, you know.”
With all our glamour, there had to be a way to change the dynamic of our kingdom. There had to be a way for the humans and the fae to live in harmony—aside from me using my dubious glamour to force them into line.
“Look at you, already thinking like a queen,” Zev said, as if reading my thoughts. His hand reached out to cup the side of my face for a second. The touch softened something inside me, and as I looked up to meet his gaze, the rest of me started to melt too. “You’re going to make a better ruler than all the rest. I have no doubt about that.”
Finch caught my eye next held my gaze as he removed first my left boot, then my right.
“The queen’s already called her council,” he said. “Now that you know what’s going on, maybe you can work on it together.”
They were right. Maybe this could be a chance for me to really prove myself, something beyond studying endless, drole lessons. My spirits had already begun to lift by the time I felt a second pair of hands reach for the complex laces of my dress behind me.
At long last, that burst of energy that had sent my heart racing had finally begun to fade. It was only then that I looked around the room and found a familiar sight.
Three fae. One bed.
I almost laughed aloud, and might have, if it wasn’t so funny as it was surprisingly comforting.
“Just so you know,” Zev said, his lips pressing close to my ear as he undid the last of the laces, freeing me from the corset I hadn’t even noticed had been digging into my ribs, “Finch asked specifically for a room with one bed.”
“Of course, he did.”
“What can I say?” Finch asked, with a shrug. “I’m a hopeless romantic.”
“Desperate for human touch, more like,” Zev muttered.
Finch didn’t deny that, either. “The closest I’ve gotten in ages is a few pats on the head, and that was when Aurra thought I was a cat.”
A soft laugh bubbled up out of me, banishing away the rest of that cold fear that had almost taken over of me. I’d forgotten all about that.
In the midst all the recent stresses, I’d forgotten what it was like to laugh like this, to feel at ease in the company of these two fae the way I only did with them. It was like nothing had ever changed since that first night in the inn, like we were still those carefree fae that had known nothing of the terrible mess we were about to walk into.
But there was no going back to that now. We were still in the very beginning of it now, but we were too deep in to turn back. Whatever was coming was already set into motion, whether we liked it or not, we were a part of it.
And yet, despite all that, there was something about being in this room with them that made me feel like maybe, just maybe, we could still hold on to that moment from not so long ago, if only for now.
If only for a night.
It was clear that things were about to shift yet again in this already unsteady world I was about to inherit. We might not have to deal with the consequences of a rebellion tonight, but we would soon.
And there was no telling what changes that might bring.
I was the one to break the silence that had settled over us, my voice low as I spoke. “I don’t want to sleep, not just yet.”
Zev’s hand moved to my waist, fingers pressing into my skin in a way that sent shivers down my spine. “What do you want, Princess?”
It only sounded right on his lips.
It sounded so right I melted back into him, leaning my back into his chest as a heavy sigh escaped my lips. I laid there for a long moment before turning to face him, my fingers tracing the outline of his jaw. In answer, I placed my hands on his chest, my fingers brushing along the open neckline of his shirt where it met the heat of his skin. Without hesitating, I moved my hands downward until I found the bottom of his shirt and then pulled it up, over his head, only to freeze.
I’d been wrong before.
