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Seth kissed her softly and then pulled away. “No, I can’t.”
“Did I mention”—she let her sunlight fall around them—“that I want to be with you?”
As she knew they would, his eyes widened at the touch of sunlight on his skin; his whole body tensed as the pleasure of the sunlight slid over him. Still, he forced out a sentence: “That’s not fair.”
“Maybe I don’t want to play fair, Seth.” She breathed the words and was rewarded by his arms tightening around her. “Faeries have been seducing mortals—”
“Not mortal right now, Ash.”
“Mortals and each other,” she continued, “for centuries. You’re asking me to pretend I’m content with a few kisses?” Aislinn didn’t blush as she said it: there was no reason to hide what she wanted. “I love you, and I want you.”
He groaned. “Ash—”
She brushed her lips over his in an invitation. Thankfully, he didn’t resist, so she kissed him for real.
After only a moment, he pulled away again. “You’re killing me here, Ash.”
“Good,” she said. She’d bend a few rules, but they both knew she wasn’t going to push him beyond where he chose to go. Love wasn’t to be based on trickery.
But reminding him what he’s refusing isn’t trickery.
With sunlight pulsing in her skin, she trailed her fingertips over his chest and stomach. As she did so, she held his gaze.
His hands went to her hair, tangled there, and held her. “As much as I wish I could stay . . . even if we just do this . . . I need to go.”
She frowned, but she moved to sit beside him. “Why?”
“I’ll tell you after. Promise.” Seth played with a strand of her hair. “Trust me?”
“I do, but—”
“Please?” Seth interrupted. “I’ll explain, but I need to go now.”
“Okay.” Aislinn turned her face to kiss his palm. “Maybe afterward, I can convince you to let me lock you away for a few days. I want to. . . .”
“You’re the Summer Queen,” he said, as if that was all there was to it.
“Summer or not, there’s no one else in my bed. No one els
e has ever been there,” she reminded him.
A look of sorrow crossed his face almost too quick to see, but he didn’t point out that the only reason that was true was because Keenan hadn’t accepted her invitation. Instead, Seth only said, “I hope that’s always true.”
Me too.
Chapter 12
The Winter Queen had curled into a snowbank in her garden for a moment’s rest and found herself in one of the dreams that inevitably meant she would wake with tears on her cheeks, but someone was repeating a phrase yet again and the words were out of context: “I am sorry to wake you, but your guests are here, my Queen.”
In her dream, Donia had been walking toward the boardwalk where she’d met Keenan. Sand caked her feet. A gull cried out behind her. Donia woke. She stared up at the face of the person speaking to her. Evan. His leafy hair was brittle at the tips, frozen by the snow that fell as she’d slept. He wasn’t the one in her dreams.
“Gabriel and some of his lot are here. Not one Hound, but several.” Evan’s disdain for the Hounds was obvious in both his tone and expression. “I do not like their presence.”
Donia smiled at his protective streak. She knew as well as he did that creating allies was essential, but he still held old angers at the Hunt. She rubbed her hands over her face, letting the chill in her palms seep out to sooth her skin. Then she looked up at him as the clarity began to settle over her. “And you’ve no information yet.”
Frost clung to his skin, sparkling on him as it did on true trees. A roar from the gate drew his gaze, and when he looked back, he said only, “I do not want to invite your guests in.”
“They will not harm me,” she said evenly, as she willed the snow around her to form a throne.
