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A low chuckle drifts from the shadows ahead. The center of the maze is a statue of two naked lovers. They’re locked in an embrace steamy enough that heat pricks my cheeks.
Dragging my focus from the scene, I make out the Winter Prince just beyond. The fireflies swirl around him, their ethereal light matching the faint ring of gold circling his silver eyes.
“ILB?” I tease, alarmed at how nervous my voice is.
“Illustrious lover boy?” he guesses. “No, I’m definitely not a boy. Ignominious little bastard?” His eyes twinkle. “We both know little is an unfitting description of me.” Holy hell, is he trying to make me blush? “Bastard, however, is probably correct.”
My lips twitch at the corners. “Impossibly likeable bastard?”
My breath hitches as he closes the distance between us until I can feel the coolness emanating from his body, as if a winter storm rages inside him. He reaches for me, and I go completely still as his hand cups the side of my face, tilting my head to look up at him.
“I’m a bastard, Summer. I’m selfish. I’m haughty. Vain. I can be thoughtlessly cruel when it suits me, and I don’t think twice about bartering for the things I want.” He drags his thumb along the curve of my cheek. “I thought I could somehow buy you with grand gestures, like a piece of jewelry I coveted.”
He drops his hand, and I fight the urge to press my body into his. “Valerian—”
“Let me say this, please.”
I nod, steeling my heart for whatever words come next.
“When I was at your home, when I saw you around your family, I realized my mistake. I’ve been treating you like a Fae, but you’re both. You possess the ferocity and boldness of an Evermore, but a mortal’s kindness, untarnished by centuries of living in our mercurial world. And you love with abandon, no matter the price, despite the pain you’ve been dealt.” He takes my hand in his, intertwining our fingers. “You’re my mate, Summer, and I’ll never give up until you’re by my side. Your fight is my fight. Your people are my people. I’ll do whatever it takes to prove I deserve you . . . even if that means . . . daring to love you.”
Holy mother forking shite, did Valerian Sylverfrost just say the L word?
Pushing onto my toes, I brush my lips against his pointed ear, enjoying the way he shivers. “Everything you said was true. You’re vain. Selfish. Sometimes a bastard. And Fae to the core.” I pull back, just enough that he can see my face. “But you’re my bastard. My Fae. My mate. I thought forcing you to say you loved me would mend a wound that wasn’t yours to mend.”
I think of my parents. How they told me they couldn’t love me. But it was their actions that wounded me the deepest, not their words.
“I know, Summer. After the Spring Formal, I somehow took on your dreams. I saw what your mortal parents did to you. I experienced the confusion and pain you felt as your mother watched the slavers force you into a cage.” Anger turns his voice soft, lethal. “I felt your heart break as that mortal woman peered through those bars and told you that she tried to love you but couldn’t. That no one ever would.”
Air lodges in my throat. I don’t have the words to respond. My chest feels close to cracking open . . .
Looking into my eyes, Valerian presses his hand just above my heart. Drawing out my pain. Taking it as his own.
“I will never leave you. I will never hurt you. I can’t. You’re a part of me. I don’t know if that’s love or something else, something so rare it doesn’t have a name.”
Warmth trails down my left cheek. He reaches up, pooling the tear on his thumb. “Say it again,” he orders, his husky tone warming my belly.
“What?” I tease. “Bastard?”
Excitement flickers inside his silver eyes as they fixate on my lips. “Mate. Say I’m your mate. I want to watch your lips as they form the words. Then I’m going to kiss you, Summer. Hard.”
My head spins, a whirlwind of emotions churning inside me as I whisper, “My mate.”
His mouth claims mine. True to his word, his kiss is hard, unyielding, his tongue parting my lips over and over until I moan. His fingers tangle in my hair. Holding me still as his kiss deepens and . . . Shimmer save me, I’ve never been more sure of what I want than right this moment.
I want Valerian Sylverfrost.
All of him.
The bad and the good. The broken and the proud. The arrogant and the occasionally sweet.
“I want to be with you,” I murmur, feeling disembodied, as if the voice comes from a stranger. “To consummate the bond.”
My lips are swollen and tender as he jerks his head back to look at me. “As much as I would love that, not here. Not in this wretched place. Not when we only have a few short hours.”
“Please.”
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