Page 30 of A Lady’s Guide to Fae Kings

“Fine.”

“And one more thing.” He stalked toward her with that predatory grace, that calculating gaze. He wreathed them in an icy glamour, so, were anyone to look in their direction, they would only see frost and snow and gardens at the foot of the apartments, where the roses still grew, despite the weather. They would not see a Fae professor-king with a reputation for severity and a pale-haired Librarian entirely out of her depth.

Especially when Lachlan leaned closer, light all around them shining with that particular glow of a Fae glamour. As if golden sparkles danced in the air. “As my Tithe, I need to be able to find you,” he said.

She blinked up at him. “I’m not going to run away. As if I even could.”

“All the same.”

She did not know what to expect.

Certainly not a kiss.

Not just a kiss—surely there had to be another word for it. Annihilation. Obliteration. Perfection.

A problem.

A very great problem.

Pippa had been kissed before. Despite her status as a spinster and a woman who might burn the face off a potential suitor, there had been kisses. But nothing like this.

There was nothing like this.

He slid his fingers into her hair, tightening until her head tilted back. He met her eyes, his mouth a hairsbreadth from hers. He waited, and waited, until heat raced up her thighs and her breath caught. He was barely touching her yet she could feel him everywhere. Only then did he brush his lips over hers, a gentle, teasing touch. Almost tender.

When she allowed it, the kiss deepened; it caught like a spark in a dry field. Brittle wheat stalks burned; flames shot underground and seared the roots of grasses and wildflowers. Flames licked at the sky.

All because Lachlan Thorn was kissing her.

There was nothing perfunctory about it, nothing that suggested it was duty or simply an ingredient for a spell. He kissed her as if he had been waiting to kiss her for days, months. Years.

She kissed him back because she would never have another chance.

And because she wanted to. She had thought of him every day since she had found him in the Library. And she knew it wasn’t a real kiss, but it didn’t matter. Not tonight. Not in the dark, cold, cobblestoned streets with snippets of merry songs drifting between the old buildings. Not with the thorns of her wish and her fire tightening around her; not with the looming Labyrinth.

She met the stroke of his tongue with her own, and the sound he made was part groan, part growl. It ghosted over her breasts, pooled low in her belly. It tickled the insides of her thighs. A long, deep kiss turned to sips and gentle bites, need clashing with need.

They only pulled apart to catch their breath.

And if the effects of Pippa’s magic hadn’t been nipping at her even now, she would have kissed him again, just for the pleasure of it. Just to feel that new kind of fire. But her magic, as ever, was inconvenient. Voracious.

And Lachlan’s otherworldly, mismatched eyes were already changing. Darkening, with that cold, hard edge. If he said anything to her about this being a demand of a spell, or anything at all about her social expectations as a lady, he would ruin it. He would ruin the kiss she intended to carry with her for the rest of her days.

And then she might have to stab him.

There were many reasons she kept her own counsel and bit her tongue so often. Sometimes, it saved lives.

And her own heart.

She stepped back and nodded firmly. Briskly. “Goodnight, professor.”

“Goodnight, Pippa Cavendish.”

His voice was soft, deep. She felt it in all the warm places his kisses had visited.

The glamour around them faded, gold sparks burning out, hazy air turning to ordinary snow. Pippa turned on her heel and hurried toward the library apartments, mindful of the owl swooping above her. She needed to get back to her room. Her eyes burned. A bead of sweat trickled down the back of her neck. She was on fire from the inside out.

Quickly, quickly.