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It really should.
But it doesn’t. Quite the opposite.
“Summer.” His voice is raspy and low, his breath a cold wind. His nostrils flare as he inhales me, his pupils enlarging at whatever he smells.
Knowing what he can do, I should be terrified this close to him. At the very least, I should despise him for the way he’s treated me. The secrets I know he keeps. But I’m not in control of my body or the way it reacts to him.
I reach up, capture his inky locks inside my fingers. He watches me while I tug softly, marveling at its silkiness.
A memory nibbles the surface of my mind.
“Why do you feel so familiar?” I whisper.
“Because I am.” His fingers trail over my cheek, my lips. I gasp as their iciness leach into the flesh of my neck. Down my throat. Over my collarbone. Despite his frigid skin, the goosebumps his touch conjures, my insides warm and puddle.
Everything feels so out of control.
This is madness; it makes zero sense. I’ve never felt this way about anyone. Or maybe I have . . . but when? Why do I get the feeling it was with him?
His lips skim my ear and I nearly collapse in his arms. A part of me knows he’s affected somehow by the flute. Knows I might be too. Knows—and doesn’t care.
This is right; so very right.
“You asked me earlier what I felt around you.” His lips drag down my neck, tasting me. His arms slide around my waist and pull me tight. “Every moment I’m around you, every time I hear your laugh, all I can think about is this. Touching you, holding you. The way you taste. I want to be near you always, Princess.”
A low, groaning sound slips from his mouth.
I want to ask him how that’s possible, when he so clearly hates me. But not right now.
Later.
Now I want his lips on mine. Reaching out, I touch his jaw. I shudder at the feeling of the sharp edge pressed into my palm. The way his bottom lip curls as the pad of my thumb grazes it. First on accident—then curiosity.
And all the while as I touch his face and breathe him in, one thought eclipses all others: I’ve done this before. A hundred times. A thousand. More.
But how is that possible?
His eyes smolder, but some of the ethereal glow has faded from their depths. Before we can claw back to reality, before the flames of this madness can be snuffed out, I guide his lips to claim mine.
My heart hammers at the contact, his tongue parting my lips—
He jerks away suddenly, shaking his head as if to dislodge something. “No. This is wrong, we can’t . . .” His chest heaves. Stumbling backward, he stares at me in horror. “This should have never happened.”
I flinch like I’ve been gut-punched. “Wait, I don’t understand. Why?”
“Summer, look at me.” His voice has taken on a beautiful, hypnotic quality as he forces me to stare into his eyes. There’s magic in his voice, ancient Fae magic. I’m powerless against it; I can’t refuse. Can’t look away even as I know what he’s doing.
“Don’t,” I whisper.
“I have no choice,” he says, quietly, almost to himself. Then he finishes the glamour. “Summer Solstice, by Titania’s light, I order you to forget everything that was said and done in the last five minutes. I flew you down here, nothing more.”
Nothing. More.
I blink, a warm tear sliding from the corner of my eye as my memories start to float away. The feel of flying in his embrace. His arms wrapped around me. The swell of his lips as they brushed mine.
He’s taking all of it back.
But then something happens right as my mind goes blank; a flash of energy surges, and suddenly the memories snap back into place, clearer than before. The ruby pendant resting between my breasts pulses with heat, just like all the times before.
