Page 8 of The Queen The Fae Forgot
That bottom lip quivered as I forced my question, the one that had been nagging me from the moment he announced his presence, before it could be drowned out by that once again so treacherous beating of my own heart.
“Is it really her? Tell me, truthfully, Icarus.” I asked, swallowing hard. “Is she really Ada, or is it some horrible creature made to look like her?”
“I think you know the answer to that,” Icarus said, looking down at me with hooded eyes. “What use would an imposter be here?”
“What is your real purpose here, then? Are you here to usurp me?”
“And what would be the point of that?” Icarus asked in return. He once again closed the gap between us, but not with the passion and heat that had consumed that space before. “It’s not your sister that I need, it’s you.”
It was still too much to wrap my head around.
“But … how?”
The outer corner of Icarus’ mouth twitched up as his fingers flexed slightly, as if he’d been waiting far too long to be asked just that. There was an excitement in his voice that he couldn’t hide when he spoke, a barely contained pride at his newest handiwork.
“You’ve not been the only one busy since we last saw each other.”
Once again, the image of Icarus when I called to him resurfaced. I’d wondered what kind of magic could do that to a fae. I knew little of the glamour, but still, I doubted even Shiel or the others would understand what Icarus was now claiming.
Before I could ask, Icarus leaned towards me.
“Your sister has not had her time stolen from her,” he said. “She’s lived a full life, she’s wanted for nothing. I thought that would make you happy.”
Still, I could do little but shake my head in confusion. “Happy that you’ve forced her to be here, with you, as your … your …”
“Your sister is here of her own free will, I can assure you that,” Icarus said. “I’m a monster, still, that remains true. But some lines even I will not cross. You should remember that, even now, after all the time that’s passed between us.”
If it weren’t for the wall now, once more pressed against my back, I would have stumbled back a step. For a moment, a look flickered across Icarus’ face, a look that was deceptively revealing for the dark fae. It was a haunted look, a hollow look.
“All the time …”
That look that clouded Icarus’ face darkened. “I didn’t heal from that magic in the span of a few days, Aurra … though you’d be surprised what magic you can reach for when you truly need it,” he said, that dread in his face seeping into the tone of his voice now, too. “But no, in the end, it took far longer than that. So much longer. And I don’t mean weeks or months.” His eyes bored into mine when our gaze once again met. “And all that time, there was one thought that never left my mind. In all that time, I thought often of those last moments I laid eyes on you,trulylaid eyes on you. That was what grounded me, even in the longest of my dark hours.”
Something about his voice, his face, that look in his eyes … it burned away the last of the doubt that I’d clung to. I knew he told the truth, or at least, the version of it that was true to him. He could claim all he wanted that my sister was here of her own free will. He could say that whatever strange magic he’d used to grow her into a woman instead of a child had not deprived her of a full life. He could even tell me that I was on his mind this whole time—a time that, from the pain in his eyes, was years in the making.
Claim all he wanted, I couldn’t help the deep unease that refused to unseat itself where it had settled within me.
This was, at the end of it all, just a game to him.
Every part of it was just that, a part of a greater scheme.
Still, despite all that, I was unable to keep from falling for the latest of the bait he’d laid.
“What exactly do you dwell on?” I asked. “When you think of the last time we were together?”
His answer was too quick.
“You, naked in my bed.”
“I wasn’t naked—” I started, too soon.
I was right, of course. I’d played right into his hand.
His head dipped lower, his voice all velvet. “Naked enough, then.”
Despite the betraying blush that burned my face, my own tongue at least remained my own.
“I think about how you lied to me,” I snapped back, all too quickly. “How you tricked me into submission while you gathered your guard to force me to do your bidding if I refused you. That’s what I think about, when I remember.”
