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“And?”
“The girls and I got together. One drink led to ten, and we went to the dungeons.”
“Fleur!”
“Shhhhh.” I press a finger over his lips. “You’ll alertyou know who.” My big brother can read minds from a distance. Nobody really knows how far he can reach, and the last thing I want is Et’enne mind dropping in on our conversation.
He’s put me away twice before, locked me up just like my parents did. For my own good, so people won’t hurt me while I get ahold of my magic, but still, he’s protective and controlling, and I have no idea what he’ll do if he finds out there’s a mysterious vampire visitor resistant to my magic.
“If he’s uninterested,” El’jah says, “Et’enne won’t care about him. Keeping you safe from those who are interested and can’t control themselves around you is more of our concern.”
Right. But what if I’m interested in him? I can’t say that, or El’jah will turn over the entire court looking for the vampire before I can find him again and lure him in, see if what happened last night was a fluke.
“A mated male can walk away,” I say.
“Notturnos don’t get mates,” El’jah says.
The fae get fae-ted mates, and our king is one of them. He spouted his fae-ted male wings on his wedding span before the entire world. I cried a lot that span, for my heart almost burst from happiness.
“Maybe he fed from someone and was in a trance from their magic, so it overrode his brain and he’s not seeing you correctly.”
“Is that possible?”
“Almost everything is possible.” El’jah puts my feet on the sofa.
I wiggle my toes. “You know what else he did?”
“What?”
“When I offered him my hand, he turned it and kissed the underside of my wrist.” I lift my wrist and point. “Here.”
“That’s a sign he’s one of their elders.”
Notturno elders are usually either murdered by their predecessors or live in seclusion. They’re difficult to come by, which just adds to this vampire’s appeal. “How so?”
“Back in the old age, when a notturno was approached by a powerful highborn female fairy, he would bow and wait for the offered hand. If the lady exposed her wrist, she invited his bite.”
I huff. “I did not invite anything. He invited himself by turning my wrist any which way he wanted.” The side of my neck starts tingling as if anticipating his bite.
“Might be his arrogance,” El’jah says. “Just how you like them.”
“It doesn’t matter if I like him. He left.”
“Our court?” he asks, luring me into telling him the truth about spending all night trying to find out this exact thing.
I shrug. “I didn’t look. I spent the night dancing.”
Right after the best teachers told my parents they believe I’m avoca dei luraor a Summoner, like the infamous siren Br’ar, who sank more ships and drove more males crazy than most of her kind living back then have done combined, my parents murdered everyone familiar with my magic and forbade me from leaving the Summer Court.
My brothers, although less restrictive than my parents, prefer that I stay in the court too.
It’s for my own protection as well as the protection of others.
But like a curious hummingbird flapping her wings inside a cage, I’m dying to someday escape.
5
FLEUR
