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Seeing no way to leave, and considering I wasn’t currently afraid to touch him, I didn’t think I had a reason to say no. “What the hell?” I replied, taking the hand he’d offered.
He pulled me to the center of the dance floor, the fairy guests parting around us to give us space. Holden clasped a hand on my waist, and though his movements were not as smooth or graceful as Aubrey’s had been, we soon found our rhythm and fell into step.
“This place gives me the creeps,” he admitted.
All around us gilded fairies were gawking like we were the strangest things they’d ever seen. Maybe we were, but it was hard to believe that in a world where ogres were a real thing.
“It’s certainly unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. ”
“That’s saying something. ” He smiled lightly and spun me, then pulled me close so we were cheek to cheek and his lips were against my ear and mine were at his.
“Are we going to make it out of here?” I asked.
“We’ve gotten out of worse. ” His fingers tangled in my hair, and I felt a thrill of heat in my veins that had nothing to do with a spell. “We always manage when we’re together. ”
“I’m sorry for dragging you into this. ”
“I didn’t exactly kick and scream, Secret. I’d follow you anywhere. ” Holden pulled back and met my gaze. His eyes were the brown of fresh dirt after a summer rain and made me think of wildness and the freedom of the woods.
“About what happened…”
Holden shook his head. “We don’t need to talk about that right now. ”
“We have to go back there eventually. ”
He traced his fingers down my cheek, and my pulse tripped. “When we go back to the room, it will be you and me. There won’t be a spell. Not this time. Magic can’t trick us if we’re honest with ourselves. ” Stooping close to my neck, he whispered in my ear, “And I think we both know that magic would only be pushing us to do something we already want to do anyway. ”
I swallowed hard. “You think you’re stronger than it?”
“I think that spell is long gone. ”
We moved across the floor, and for a brief while I forgot that we were the weird ones here, in jeans instead of formal wear. For a small window of time I might as well have been Cinderella, because being in Holden’s arms made all the worry, rage and uncertainty melt away. I let myself forget why we were here and rested my cheek against his, breathing in his cool familiar scent.
This was a place I knew well, the bubble of safety inside Holden’s arms. How many times had we been on the brink of certain disaster, only to come away unscathed? How many times had his touch grounded me, reminding me everything was all right?
And how many times had I rebuffed him, in spite of everything I felt? I let my mind wander, closing my eyes and playing with the hair curling at the nape of his neck. It was soft and slid smoothly between my fingers.
“I’m afraid,” I whispered.
He laid a gentle kiss on me cheek, not pushing further.
“We’ll get through this,” he promised. “You know you’re only scared because you don’t want to lose control. ”
“No one wants to lose control. ” We stopped dancing, and I pulled back slightly. “Do you want to lose control?”
Holden stared at me for a moment. “With you, Secret? I want to lose everything. ”
The nameless fae woman returned Holden and me to our room, and the wall shut seamlessly behind us. After showing off our fancy footwork and making the fairy king agree to a second promise in one night, we were persona non grata for the remainder of the festivities.
Holden came up behind me, and we both stared at the bed. “How do you feel?” His mouth was right next to my ear. I twisted so we were face-to-face and found myself unable to meet his eyes.
“Very bizarre. ”
“But do you feel the influence anymore?”
I expected to detect the lingering traces of Aubrey’s spell, something that would make me feel unnaturally attracted to Holden. I still felt the attraction, but this time it wasn’t strange or unwelcome. It was just the old desire that had been between us for years. In some ways it made me more uneasy than if the attraction had been manufactured.
“I feel…fine,” I said.
