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Nine
If I hadn’t been hanging upsidedown, with Teris’s hand on the back of my thigh, I probably would’ve fallen asleep on the way to his house. But we hadn’t gotten anywhere near working out all the tension between us, and I was still nervous about… well, everything.
So I didn’t fall asleep.
Teris stopped in the forest a few minutes later, crouching down. I leaned to the side, craning my head so I could see. He pulled on a thick wooden handle, and then tugged a thick sheet of dark wood upward, exposing an entrance that resembled a large, dark hole in the ground.
My heart flew into my throat when the bastard jumped down into the hole without so much as a warning, and my stomach rolled when he landed hard on the ground.
“Sorry. Magic’s a bit weak right now,” he murmured to me, stroking the back of my thigh in apology.
“Put me down before I puke on you,” I grumbled.
He smacked my ass lightly. “No.”
I kicked his side playfully, and he tickled my inner thigh, making me screech as I wiggled against him.
His chuckle rumbled against my other thigh as he strode further into the house, and I heard the wooden plank close with a soft thunk. Another, similar sound followed, and I hoped it was a lock clicking into place.
“I can’t believe I get to touch you as much as I want,” he admitted to me. His hands landed on my hips, and he finally pulled me down, setting me in a simple, comfortable chair.
He dropped into the one next to mine, and I looked around the space while he opened the boxes of food Priel and North had brought us.
The room was wide and open, simple and clean too. There was a small kitchen, a huge bed, a shelf that held the fae version of a tattoo gun, and a bathroom.
And that was it.
The sight of it reminded me of the time I’d spent with him when I first arrived in Vevol, and that put me more at ease than I’d felt in… forever.
“Well?” Teris asked, handing me a forkful of something that sort of reminded me of ultra-sticky pasta.
“The seelie live a lot simpler than the unseelie,” I said absentmindedly, spinning the fork slowly between my fingers because I still wasn’t sure my stomach was settled enough to eat. The stress I was feeling was still so damn intense. “It made me feel out of place, when I first got there. Even when we left. They like bigger houses, with multiple floors, and more furniture. I like the simplicity that you guys have. It’s more comfortable.”
“Some seelie like big houses. Just not as many.” Teris plucked the fork from my fingers, and lifted it to my lips. “Open.”
“I’m not hungr—oof.” I grumbled when he took the opportunity to push the pasta into my mouth.
“You’ve been awake, hungry, and worried about me for a long time. You’ll start to calm down when your stomach fills,” he said, filling the fork again while I struggled to chew. My nausea increased, but I managed to get the bite down after a minute.
When he lifted the fork back to my lips, I held up a finger, and he took that bite himself, loading the fork while he chewed.
“I’m nauseous,” I admitted to him.
“It’ll subside as you eat. Trust me, Nai.”
I rolled my eyes at him, but when he lifted the fork, I reluctantly ate the food off it.
He fed both of us slowly, alternating between the two of us. And as much as I didn’t want to admit it, he was right—the nausea faded as I filled my stomach.
We ate our way through both boxes of food—the other one was the fae version of rice and beans that everyone was obsessed with. By the time we were done, my body was much more relaxed, even though I still wasn’t tired.
Teris leaned toward me, cupping my face and brushing a kiss against my lips before taking the boxes and silverware to the sink. After he cleaned them, he came back over and scooped me up off the chair, holding my chest to his.
We were both too drained to care that he was still covered with mud. At least, I thought we were, until he carried me to the bathroom instead of the bedroom.
“You’re not too tired for a shower?” I asked him, surprised. I was fairly sure that the mud and blood mixture put him in a coma of sorts where he didn’t actually get any rest, because of the way his body was working. When I’d woken up from myspirit journeyto change my name, I’d needed an insane amount of sleep to recover.
He chuckled. “I’m exhausted, but you’re still wound up, and I’m covered in mud. We need to get cleaned off and calm you down before we crash.”
