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“Don’t do this tonight, Eli. Don’t be so . . .youwhen I’m already energized.”
He nodded, somber as he rarely was. “I shall not imply so overtly that I desire you.”
“That’s a very fae way to say that.”
“If you want to speak without restraint, we will speak of everything. I will answer any question—or demonstrate. Say yes, Geneviève, and I will do anything you ask of me.”
“No.” I swallowed my fears for a moment, and before I could second-guess myself too much, I admitted, “I just . . . I can’t. If you meant nothing to me, I’d already have taped your smart mouth shut and fucked you until we couldn’t move. You know that, don’t you?”
He stepped closer to me before the words were fully said, reaching around me to unlock his door. “You won’t want my mouth taped when we are finally together.”
I could have moved aside. Ishouldhave moved. I needed Eli’s friendship. I needed the ease of someone who saw what I could truly do and still thought I was safe and good. I hid parts of myself from Jesse, from Christy and Sera, but with Eli I was more wholly myself than with anyone else I’d met in my life. I couldn’t give that up, not even for what would undoubtedly be fabulous sex.
“If,” I managed to say. “Ifwe are.”
“And if you were insignificant to me,” he said hoarsely. “I’d have seduced you by now. I adhere to your rules, Geneviève, because you are important to me. Butwhenwe are, you’ll wish you hadn’t delayed.”
We stood that way, me in the open embrace of his arms and him close enough that my magic wanted to surge into him, follow the air he’d exhaled into my hair back into his lungs, to know him inside.
“Don’t.” His words were barely a flutter against my neck. “If I must keep my words and mouth away from you, you cannot touch me with magic again. You’ve asked me to play nice. You must do the same, Geneviève.”
His reaction to my magic exploring him seemed oddly dangerous. With most people, I did so as reflexively as asking their names. A quick scan told me what I needed to know.
Maybe it was different with Eli because of what he was or what we were.
I stepped forward, into his home, and said in the lightest tone I could muster, “Drink?”
Being in his home was new, but he made me relax and I treasured that. My magic felt erratic, and there was literally no one else in New Orleans who knew what could happen if I wasn’t fast enough to contain my calls to the dead. Eli steadied me. He was strong enough to defend himself against many threats, and he had a knack for getting me to listen to reason.
“Vodka? Gin? Tequila?” He nodded to an inset to our left when we went further inside his home. Gleaming bottles, some so rare I wanted to stay right there and examine all of them, beckoned me forward.
“Damn.”
Eli smiled proudly. “Perhaps a single malt? Wine?”
“All of it?” I looked at the options. There were bars that weren’t as well stocked as his liquor cabinet.
I pulled my gaze away from the liquor and took in the larger room. Stone and earth. Light-blocking drapes—currently opened to the light of streets and stars. I felt the age in the building materials of the building. This was a structure with minimal steel, the sort of place even a full fae could visit comfortably.
“Your home is incredible.”
“I’ve worked to create a haven,” Eli said. “I am . . . happy to be in New Orleans, but I do like my creature comforts. I miss nature more than I expected. The courtyard here helps. Some of my interior architecture does, too.”
“Could you go—”
“Home?” He gave me a wry smile. “ToElphame?”
I nodded, not sure if I had already crossed a line and afraid that the wrong move or word would shatter the moment. I felt like my entire body was in stasis, not breathing, no heart beating.
“There are obligations I would need to address,” he said. “My uncle and I have an accord. I agreed to begin the process of fulfilling my duty on our next meeting. He does not ever leaveElphame. As long as I do not visit, the clock does not begin to tick.”
“You’re in exile.” I stared at him. “I had no idea. I’m so—”
“Self-imposed. I have not been cast out.” Eli gave me a fierce look. “I choose not to see my brethren. That is the choice I have accepted.”
I couldn’t say I completely understood. I could, technically, go to my childhood home. I could visit my mother, although I had to keep my visits short for her safety. And I had Jesse—who was like a brother—here with me in New Orleans, too. Like Eli, I had limited choices. I thought about home more and more these days. I couldn’t live there, or even visit there long.
“I miss fields,” I admitted. “I grew up in a space where the soil was clean. There were no surprise dead under the ground there.”
