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“Wren.” Sigurd’s hand on my shoulder jolts me back to the present. He’s so close, his scent filling my nostrils, his form blocking the rising moon and casting a shadow across me. “What’s wrong?”
I swallow, trying to measure my breathing and calm my panic. He’ll see. He’ll know. And then any help she offers will be gone.
“You have wings. Sometimes. But you’re not Unseelie.”Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me anything to convince me she’s not Unseelie.
As if on cue, wings spring from his back to tower behind him. I gasp and take a step back, but he holds me firm.
“Yes. I suppose we were all one race once, so there are some similarities. But my wings, my claws”—they glimmer in a thread of moonlight—“are summoned by my magic. Some of us can even transform into an animal completely for a time. But it’s not who we are, not our natural form. Unseelie bear their differences as part of their nature. Besides, many Unseelie these days have little magic to change themselves at all, even if they wanted to.”
Little magic at all. Except the one I met. The way she moved with the blink of an eye like them, whatever spell she cast on me…
I hug my arms around myself.
Sigurd wraps a wing around me. “You’re cold?”
“I—” The way he looks at me makes me want to spill all my truth. “How can we be safe here? What if one swooped out of the skies and took me away?”
His arm encircles me, pulling me close as his other hand rubs the mark around my wrist. “No one can take you from me. Any distance between us I will feel, and our tether only stretches so far.”
A tether?I muse. Maybe that was the strange tug I felt the other day, a reminder of our bond, a stretching of it when he was not near my side.
Sigurd draws my wrist to his lips, kissing my pulse over his tattoo. The intimate touch shatters my thoughts.
“W-what about Uncle Mark?” I ask. “Or anyone else?”
“My wards protect my territory.” Another kiss on my wrist.
“Wards?” My voice is thick and raspy.
“Mmhmm,” he mumbles against my skin. “Magical barriers keep the weak ones out. If a stronger one manages to cross, I’ll feel it.”
My nipples stiffen against the fabric of the nightgown, its silk cold against my heated skin. I really should have worn something more. “A-and have you felt any?”
His arm flexes around me, drawing me closer. Another kiss tickles the sensitive skin of my palm. “No.”
I pull my hand away, pretending to adjust my nightgown. My gaze dips to his chest, watching the rise and fall of his breaths. Anything to avoid those eyes that see too much and that touch that makes all thoughts flee.
He didn’t feel anyone cross. He hasn’t remarked on the spell she placed upon me.
Either the woman is some weird figment of my imagination, some strange woman of the Court of Air, or something’s wrong.
Sigurd pushes a lock of hair behind my ear, letting his fingers trail down the curve and along my neck. My thighs press together, a vain attempt to deny the moisture building there. All I want to do is reach out and stroke his wing, feel those feathers against my skin, lean into him and let him carry me far away from everything.
But there’ll be no going back. Once I’m trapped in his pull, I’ll become like Mark. In that, we’re alike, and I can’t let my heart get trapped here.
Gran needs me. My life isn’t mine, not yet.
It takes everything I have, but I pull away, and he lets me go, releasing me from the embrace of his arms and wings.
“Wren.”
I need a barrier. Something. Anything. And I know what will work. I hate it, but I know.
“The fae king you almost killed is Evelyn’s son.”
My heart thumps into the silence. I stiffen, waiting for his wrath.
“I see your discussion with your uncle was insightful indeed.” Sarcasm laces his words. A snap and flutter echo behind me before moonlight spills in around me.
