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I like my name better.
Without even turning to glance behind him, he murmurs, “Someone has to,” before opening the door and disappearing inside of the box.
I let out a frustrated huff.
Ugh. How did I ever think he was attractive?
Well, easy. Because he is.
That doesn’t mean I don’t want to smack him for being an arrogant jerk.
6
There’s only one bed in our cell.
It doesn’t really occur to me that that’s a thing until the fairy lights start to dim. It’s close to light’s out. The torches will ignite shortly, throwing shadows in our cell, signaling that it’s nighttime.
And you think I would’ve picked up on that before. When Rys was in the box, showering or washing up or doing whatever it was I refused to even think about, I took the metal lantern with the faerie fire in it and tucked it all the way beneath the cot. The narrow frame is stuck to the floor—like it’s bolted, but with magic—so I can’t move it. But it’s high up enough that I can shimmy underneath it and hide the fire behind one of its posts.
It’s my only option. Unless I want to open the shower box and hide it inside of there, this is the only hiding spot that the cell offers.
I can’t do that, but Lord help me, the idea of popping open that door and peeking inside is more tempting than it should be.
Naked Rys… mm. All that tanned skin, and the gorgeous hair rippling down his back as he rinses off—
Whoa.
I shake my head. Maybe it’s due to my time hanging around Posey’s cell but, from the moment I came back to Rys’s, I can’t help but notice him. And it’s not like I didn’t already think he was fucking gorgeous. All the fae are, and something about his scar interested me even when I knew it shouldn’t. Maybe it’s the way Jim’s nose is charmingly crooked from a childhood fistfight, but strong features in a man have always attracted me way more than a pretty face.
Sure, his arrogance and the way he hushed me ticked me off, but I was over it by the time he finally left the shower box again. And maybe he feels magnanimous when he’s clean because he’s in a much better mood after he’s done.
We eat together. Because I’ve lost the stash of faerie food that I kept in bo
th of my old cells, I save half of a pomegranate and hide it under the cot, right next to the lantern. Then, because I have this irrational phobia that something’s going to happen with an unwatched flame, I keep dropping to my knees and double-checking it.
I’m doing it for about the tenth time when Rys finally says something.
“You don’t have to keep looking at it. It’s fine where it is.”
I’m halfway under the cot, my feet sticking out as I shimmy on my elbows toward the lantern. Now that it’s growing darker in the cell, the shadows tricked me into believing that the fire was blowing in a different direction. Just in case, I had to check for myself.
“I don’t want to burn the place down or anything.”
My voice comes out strained as I turn the bottom of the lantern with the tips of three fingers, assuring myself it’s still locked tight.
“Did you close the latch?”
Did I?
I turn the lantern toward me one more time to triple-check. “Yup.”
“Then you’re fine.”
“Won’t it go out?”
“It’s faerie fire,” Rys says. He makes it sound like all the explanation I need just by reminding me what it’s called. He doesn’t add idiot to the end of his sentence, but I hear it all the same.
“And?”
