A Dance with the Fae Prince (Married to Magic, #2)

by Elise Kova

for everyone who stays up late reading books about kissing

Silence is consistent and solitude is safe.

It’s his turn to laugh. The sound is as bright as sunlight and as sumptuous as velvet.

“Maybe,” he whispers, “I’m trying to protect you because I’m stunning. Because if you were to look at me with those eyes that Oren tells me are like a tempest sea, I could never let you go.”

I will never let myself fall in love. To love is pain.

“This is why I never wanted you to look at me,” he says slowly, a smirk curling his mouth dangerously. He looks as if he intends to devour me. “Because I knew if you did you’d be stunned into silence. And I never wanted to see you quiet.”

“I would never hurt you.” Truth.

He tastes of spiced honey. His skin smells of wood shavings from our earlier work and of smoke from the fires that lit the square below.

“Because I think you are the best woman of them all.” Davien looks me directly in the eyes as he says it.

“My every thought returns to you. You are like a whirlwind, down and down I spin, every time, until I’m caught in your center. Now, I know there is only one way to escape.”

“Despite all odds, I love you, Katria.”

“But I swear to you, Katria, with all I am and all I will be…as long as I draw breath, I will never let them, or anyone, hurt you again. You will never have to go back to that house. And should you ever wish to, because you feel that confronting them in the cruelty they have wrought will bring you some peace, I swear I will stand by your side if you need me.”

“Why would you do all that for me?” I whisper. “You know why.” A sly smile plays at the corners of his mouth. “Because I love you, truly.

“I would go to the ends of the earth for you.” “I would traverse worlds for you.”

I am Katria Applegate Aviness, and I will never feel small again.