More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“Have you ever noticed that the most mind-blowing sex is with the worst trainwrecks of men? The best sex I ever had was with a guy who believed that aliens live in the Earth’s core. He lived in a yurt in his parents’ backyard, and his only job was trying to make kombucha. Which he never managed, by the way. His shoes were held together with duct tape. Mind blowing sex in the yurt, and that’s how I know there is no God.
My love—my touch—is death.
a woman wearing a thorny crown and holding a staff that glowed with a greenish light. All of them had the pointed ears of the fae, but not any fae I recognized. The image was strange and beautiful, and I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It entranced me, and yet, as I stared at it, a corrosive sorrow pooled in my chest. A sense of loss I couldn’t name.
But that’s what we’re like. The fae. We are creatures of the earth and mists. We are warriors. And when we are at our best, we transcend our bodies and commune with the gods. When was the last time you really felt alive, Ava?”
“When was the last time you lost yourself in a pleasure so intense, you forgot your name? That you forgot your own mortality? Because that is what it means to be fae. I could make you ache with pleasure until you forget the name of every human who made you think there was something wrong with you.”
“And if you think I can’t see how much that excites you, if you think I couldn’t hear your heart racing, Ava, you are mistaken. Because if it were you and me, in the oak grove on Beltane, I would have you screaming my name. Calling me your king. I would have your body responding to my every command, shuddering with pleasure underneath me, until you forgot the human world existed at all.”
We are creatures of the Wild Hunt, and we could never be anything else. If you feel we go too far, it’s only because you are living a lie about your true nature.” The corner of his mouth curled. “Because underneath it all, you are as vicious as the rest of us.”
“No,” said Torin, his eyes locked on me. “Ava is a changeling, of course.”
Andrew had made me feel safe. But Torin? He made me feel like I was standing on a precipice, about to fall off.
The corner of his lip curled. “It seems I have you exactly where I want you, my favorite changeling.”
“Your utter contempt for me is what makes it all the more exciting when I have you under my control.” His knee slid between my thighs, his face close to mine now. The edges of our blades pressed closer to me.
“So, in Faerie, it’s okay to punch a king?” “No, that’s a death penalty offense. But I won’t tell if you won’t. Here, in this clearing, there are no rules.” A sardonic smile. “And as your king, I am commanding you to play the way I want you to.”
The king—the most powerful fae in existence—looked completely and utterly alone.
He lifted a hand to trace his fingertips over my collarbone. My body sparked at the light contact. “Tell me again how much you hate me.”
“We are a match made in hell, but I have never wanted anyone more, Ava Jones,”
Our kiss was the first star in a night sky—a spark of light surrounded by darkness. The kind of kiss I’d craved my whole life and never known. Everything else faded to shadows.
“Ava.” Torin’s soft, velvety murmur came from behind me, and I turned to see him. “Everything he said is a lie.” “I know that. And I will rip his ribs from his body and leave his ravaged carcass for the vultures as a warning to others.”
