Page 63 of A Lady’s Guide to Fae Kings

Chapter Sixteen

Pippa stared up at Lachlan’s stupidly perfect face.

She felt calm, but also as if she were floating, as if she should want to push him into the sea, but she only wanted to kiss him again. It was perfectly acceptable to kiss one’s husband, after all. Even as the sweetness lingered on her tongue, the glowing vines of magic wound around them, clasping their wrists together before vanishing.

His…wife?

His declaration echoed in her mind. Surely she had heard him wrong. Eating fairy fruit was complicated business, but she had never heard of this particular consequence. She was starting to feel warm. Was her bracelet acting up again? He brushed his thumb over her bottom lip and resisted the urge to dart her tongue out to lick him. Just a little.

Was this the effects of fairy fruit?

And if not, might she pretend it was? Just for a moment?

Lachlan bent his head to kiss her so slowly, so deeply, that she felt like the first cup of wine at the feast, the first draught of sweet water after a battle. He tilted her face up toward his and dragged his tongue along hers, sipping, demanding, all focus and clever, clever patience. There were literal monsters lurking in the shadows and still Lachlan took his blessed time. He kissed her as though that was nothing compared to the chance to taste her again.

As if he had not just announced their marriage.

She was fairly certain she would have noticed if she had gotten married.

Maybe not right at the moment, but in general. That was something a person remembered. Even at a fairy feast. Wasn’t it?

He licked a drop of peach juice from her bottom lip. “Eyes on me.” He’d said that before, in his Hall, when other magic had beckoned to her.

She kissed him back, helpless against the onslaught of sensations, the tingles racing up her inner thighs, to her breasts. She had no idea a kiss could travel so well and so thoroughly. It made her want things she could not have. Things she knew better than to want.

The gold glimmer of magic reminded her that none of this was as it seemed. But surely she could worry about the ramifications later. Surely, if there was a moment to be seized, this was it.

“I want to dance,” she blurted out. She had hoped she might sound sultry, or at the very least, flirtatious. But she only sounded like herself: a bit too quiet, a bit too wry. A bit too unexpected.

Lachlan blinked at her, truly stupefied. She had taken him by surprise, and that was no small feat. “Pardon?”

“I want to dance,” she repeated. She already felt light as golden pollen. “It’s tradition, isn’t it? To dance at your own wedding?” Witches jumped over a broomstick or a fire and then spun together, wrists bound with ribbons.

Pippa knew this wasn’t a real wedding. It was Fae tricks and clever bargains. Lachlan had claimed her before she could be claimed by another. Engaging a lock only to hand her a secret key. Again. It was something of a habit with him, it seemed.

But she could pretend for just a little bit longer. She was owed a Revel, wasn’t she?

Besides, the magic of the fairy fruit had awakened another kind of magic. A spell that had lain dormant for some time, long enough that she had nearly forgotten about it.

After Lachlan had stolen the Red Grimoire, she had written the title on the soles of her feet. She’d used bewitched ink mixed with water gathered under a full moon for seeing what was hidden, the powdered bones of dead witch Librarians for persistence, and a feather quill for a clear path. It had led her in circles for an hour and then faded away. She had assumed the spell was faulty, or the book was simply too far away to be found. Which might have been the case, if it was in Elphame.

An increasingly likely hypothesis, as the bottoms of her feet were tingling.

There were too many eyes on her. She could not simply wander around aimlessly, waiting for her feet to tingle. Her moth wheeled and dipped around her, flaring light. “I know,” Pippa murmured.

“What are you up to, little wisp?” Lachlan murmured, bringing her onto the dance floor.

“Dancing.”

“Tell me, does that mild, polite expression really work on everyone?”

“Yes,” she replied, seriously. She was a bit startled he would even ask. “I am a Librarian.”

Only she wasn’t, was she? Not anymore.

“Ah-ah.” Lachlan spun her around a little faster. “No sadness.”

She held on to his arms, her glamoured moths whirling like snowflakes above them. “I wasn’t sad.”