The Unseelie Crown (Maze of Shadows, #2)

by Kathryn Ann Kingsley

She lifted her fingers from their lips and gently traced their cheek with her fingers. “This is not goodbye.” “This is not goodbye,” they repeated as they closed the distance between them, kissing her tenderly once more. They were softer than she would have imagined, being made of glass, but the embrace held no body heat that she would have expected from a normal person. She found she did not mind it at all. Their kiss was not passionate, but it was…she did not know how to describe it.

When a pair of strong fingers grasped her chin to turn her head away from Cruinn, she let out a small, surprised noise as Bayodan stole her kiss for himself. Where Cruinn was soft, Bayodan was sharp, firm, and unyielding. The scratch of his beard against her was more than a little pleasant. When they parted, she found herself just the barest bit breathless. He smirked. “This is not goodbye.”

Angry and pained. Then…then Anfar understood. And suddenly, it became so brutally clear that he nearly cussed at himself for being a fool. How had he not seen it before? Now that he knew, what was he supposed to even do about it? Because sitting there, on the throne, mulling over his grief, lost in his tragedy? Was a man deeply in love.

She never left my mind. And now that I know that she is right there?” He reached out a hand in front of him, grasping at the air. “And yet I cannot have her? Cannot speak to her? Cannot touch her?” The prince shook his head. “I want to scream at her in fury, shake her by the shoulders and demand to know what I have done to deserve her scorn, and…then…kiss it all away.”

Swallowing, wishing she had one of Titania’s bottles of wine, she spoke. “I am here to see a man about a boar.”