Thief of Spring (Faeries of the Underworld, #1)

by Katherine Macdonald

“I’m not going to lie to you,” I say quietly, “I’m going to tell you the truth. I’m going to tell you that I want to keep you here. I’m going to tell you that I like you, possibly more than I’ve ever liked anyone before. I’m going to tell you that I can’t say anything like goodbye because it hurts too much. I’m going to tell you that I care about you. I’m going to tell you that this dark world is the most beautiful I have ever seen, and that… that it’s beautiful because of you. I’m going to

tell you that you’re beautiful, too, and good, and I see you, and I know you, and I like that person, and I don’t fully understand why you have to hide him, but I’m glad I get to see him. My world would be darker without you in it.” Faint fingers trace my lips. “Pretty words,” he whispers, his voice a phantom. The fingers graze over the rest of my face. “Pretty…”

“I’m sorry, am I hurting you?” “No,” he says, with a vulnerability I’m not used to, “I’m just frightened by how much I want you here.”

I reach up and kiss his cheek, but at the same moment, he turns his head, and my lips brush his, just for a moment. They hang there a little longer than they should. He smiles at me faintly. “Not a bad thing to take with me.” I crawl under the covers, sliding a hand under his shirt, against his cold flesh. “You are not going anywhere.” “Kiss me again and I’ll consider it.”

It is utterly and completely different to the Samhain kiss, with so little force, so little life, that I almost want to cry. I cling to the memory of other touches, other caresses I didn’t stop to appreciate, always assuming we’d have more time. “You undo me,” he murmurs into me. “You undo me, too.” “How shall I ever know if you’re telling the truth?” “Glamour me.” “What?” “Glamour me. Compel me to tell you the truth. I give you full permission. I… I need you to know. I need you to understand.”

He strokes back my hair, eyes glazed. “Mostly I just feel you…” He sighs. “I’m tired.” I swallow, pushing down the fear in my face. I can’t keep him awake forever. “Sleep, then. Just make sure you wake up.” “If you insist,” he returns. “You’ll stay here?” “For as long as you want me.” “I will always want you. That’s the problem, really…”

He grins underneath me. “Are you going to kiss me again?” “No,” I say, hoping my glare hides my blush, “not yet.” “Well, that’s a statement worth living for…”

“You’ve always been the most important thing in the world to me. ‘Sephone, since the moment I first saw you, I—” I creep across his chest and place a delicate kiss on his lips, soft as I can muster. “I know,” I tell him, lying down next to him. “It’s all right. I feel the same.” “You don’t,” he says. “You can’t. But thank you for your radiant lies, beautiful mortal goddess.”

We’re flint and tinder, sparking, combustible, endless and breakable all at once.

I’ll-remember-you-for-the-rest-of-my-immortal-life, etched-into-my-soul kind of feeling. I might forget your face or the smell of your skin, but I won’t ever forget you, first and final dream of my heart.”

But I want it known that I would share everything if I could, and everything I can share is yours. Truly. For as long as you want me, I am yours.” “And what if I want you forever? For the rest of my short, mortal life?” “Then you shall have me until your heart ceases to beat.” The weight is so much more when I know he cannot lie, when he means every word he says. And yet, buried in that confession is another thought, a painful choice, the reality that this cannot be forever, that I must return, and he is only allowed to set foot on mortal soil but twice a year.

He appears behind me, planting a quick kiss on my cheek, swift and sure as an arrow. “I like being the powerful one for once.” “I’m the powerful one?” “Only in the sense that you terrify me.” I snort. “Be serious.” “I can’t not be. You do terrify me. I’m terrified by how utterly besotted I am with you.” “Yeah, well, feeling’s mutual, trust me.”

“The world hasn’t been completely cruel to me,” he says, thumbing my cheeks. “It brought me to you.”

“I am not worth every bad thing in your life. No one could be worth that—” “No one but you,” he assures me. “Every bad thing that has happened, every bad thing that will—” “Don’t tempt fate—” “If I’m with you, I don’t care what happens. The rest of the world can rot.”

“That’s a sight to wake up to.” “One day you’ll get bored of it.” “No,” he says quietly, “I won’t.”

“And if something happens to you, I swear I will become every bit the monster my mother tried to make me, because my heart will die with yours.”

“Even if you do hate me,” he says quietly, stroking my cheek, “my heart is still yours; it always has been. Do with it what you will.”