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“Aren’t you, like, hundreds of years old? Why are you acting like a spoiled child who doesn’t want to share his toys?
With half a thought, I cast out night over them. I make it soft—a blanket of black velvet instead of the abyss of nightmares. Above them, I hang stars so bright they feel close enough to touch.
Shivers run up my arms and down my spine—not just because I, too, love the image I’ve given them, but because it feels good to use this power that’s trapped in my veins. Especially when I’m around Finn and I feel so filled with it.
How am I supposed to let you go for even a minute? Don’t you realize he’ll take this as an opportunity to steal what I have—what he wants?” I stiffen. “How could he steal my power?” “Not your power. You.
“You’re sure about that? You light up when he’s around. I suspected it before, but now that we’re bonded, I feel it.”
“I loved the male I thought you were. Twice. And both were a lie.”
Knowing I’m the source of the problem means I can never do enough.
“Heal her now!” someone shouts. “Before we lose her. Orders were clear—she lives.”
“I feel it too, you know. This connection between us. This . . . awareness of you.”
“I don’t need Sebastian. I’ll have you.”
“Use your thumb to stop me from speaking again, and I will bite it.” His smile is slow and wicked, but it brings light into his eyes that I’m hungry to see. “Is that supposed to be a threat?”
I can’t explain that I inadvertently gave the crown to the golden prince or that I broke the throne—the whole court—when I took the Potion of Life. They’d hate me, and rightfully so.
“What’s wrong? Embarrassed for me to see just how little you’ve been training in our weeks apart?” I shoot out a hand of shadow and put it over his mouth to shut him up. Chuckling, Finn nips at it. I shiver as I feel the scrape of those teeth on my own skin. After that, I choose other targets for my magic.
“The last thing Finn needs is Juliana getting her claws in him.” She flashes me a smile. “With you in his room, he’ll forget she exists.”
Jealousy rears inside my chest, making me feel ugly and small, and I bow my head to hide it. “Be careful.” He chuckles. “Watch out, Princess. I might start to think you care.”
“Will you let him have everything you want so dearly?”
“Abriella. She’s bonded to him, yet you look at her like she is the stars and the moon. Like she’s rain at the end of a long summer drought. You look at her the way all the young females in Staraelia dreamed you might one day look upon them.” She pauses for a beat. “You look at her the way you looked at Isabel.”
“I was just thinking that the last time two brothers were in love with the same female, Faerie was split down the middle.”
“You’re not in love with her? You didn’t bring her here to introduce as your betrothed because you want to make sure the people from your homeland accept her by your side? There’s not a part of you that’s hoping to get Mother’s blessing on your relationship to your brother’s bonded partner?”
It’s there—a connection that’s unlike anything else. And she draws from me. Has from the beginning. I blamed it on the crown before, but . . . that’s not it.”
When she first became fae and used her power to escape the Golden Palace and lock everyone she left behind in darkness, I thought I was dying.”
“And you are not meant to serve that throne, Finn. It was made to serve you.” “It was made to serve Mab’s line, not mine.”
Feels good to be alive and know Finn is so close. Because he’s the one I want. In the dark of this dream, with nothing but my shadow for my body, he’s all I want.
“You thought you were dreaming? What else do we do in your dreams, Princess?”
“There are legends about Unseelie who could control their shadow selves. Generations ago. There’s a story about Mab. That she was captured once, locked in an iron room that nullified her power, yet she was still able to send her shadow self to destroy the guards and free herself from that prison.”
“I have met your good side,” he says. “She came out to play that night in the shower. She was a lot of fun.”
“Right here. I promise I’ll wake you before your shadow self can seduce me.” His words are laced with mischief, and I can’t help but smile.
“You think none of us notice the way you look at each other?”
“You’re the only human I’ve ever known to have been turned.
“But I can tell you that whatever you’re feeling for him shouldn’t be dismissed because of what you think you know.
“Did you ever ask yourself why Finn didn’t try to get you to bond with him that night when you were drugged?”
My feelings for one always felt like a betrayal of the other, yet one never diminished the other.”
“It’s my honor to wash the feet of my future queen,” he says softly, his fingers beginning to unlace the boots beneath my skirt. “To show my reverence and to prove my subservience.”
As I overturn the bowl, a rush of power tingles through me, and when Finn draws in a sharp breath, I know he feels it too.
Because he’s not you. Because I can’t stop thinking about our kiss or the way you comforted me last night. Because though my bond with Sebastian might heighten the things I feel about and with him, none of it compares to the way I feel when I’m close to you.
“You can trust me, you know. I realize my word doesn’t mean much to you, but it’s still true.”
In truth, she was in love with two males—both were sons of a faerie lord but born of different mothers. One son, Deaglan, was born of the lord’s wife, and one, Finnigan, was born of the lord’s peasant mistress.”
Finnigan’s mother was also a priestess. Unbeknownst to any of her peers, she was the most powerful priestess in the history of our kind. Now she’s known as Mab.”
The gods saw the truth of her argument and divided the land into opposing courts. They fractured the kingdom in two, right down the center of the Goblin Mountains and along the River of Ice.”
“She was a priestess who’d tricked the gods, who’d died and come back to life,”
Some refused to claim loyalties and escaped to the far west—the territory now known as the Wild Fae Lands.
“Mab ruled the misfits, the dreamers, the rebellious, and those dedicated to truth and integrity. They didn’t want anything to do with King Deaglan and his lies, his manipulations. They were Unseelie. They were better than Seelie because their royal line would never be tainted by Deaglan’s traitor blood.”
“Or we were,” Kane mutters, “until King Oberon decided he’d seduce the Seelie princess to destroy their court from the inside.”
“What’s wrong, Princess? Do I make you nervous?”
I’m the one who’s sorry. I’m the one who bonded with Sebastian for the wrong reasons.
I’m bonded to Sebastian. I made that choice despite Finn’s warnings, and now it can’t be undone.
“When the shadow king—and do not be fooled, that’s what Finn is to these people—when he kneels before his partner and washes her feet, it’s a very powerful symbol. He’s declaring that you are worth serving, and if he will kneel before you, then they must too.”
He chose to show his deference to you as a sign to these people that you are valuable and are to be honored from here forward.”
“I haven’t danced with her even once.” His grin grows. “But you know that because—despite avoiding me all night—you’ve barely taken your eyes off me.”
“I’m sorry I don’t stroke your ego to your liking.” He rakes his gaze over me. “It seems I find you irresistible nonetheless.”
