A Court of Hearts and Hunger (Wicked Darlings, #2)

by Rebecca F. Kenney

Concealment of emotion doesn’t equal its absence.

And it’s the agony of the creative, to care deeply about the reaction of those who consume one’s art.

“Tell me, brave girl—what is troubling you? I will rectify any problem, provide anything you might require for perfect happiness.” “It’s not your job to make me happy,” I whisper. “Oh, but it is.”

I told you, sugar—it’s only you, as long as I exist.”

Strangely, I think I was waiting for her permission not to go. Waiting for Clara to give me the choice, to do the right thing, or to leave the girl to die, and remain loved either way.

“I cannot bear it when you look so sad, my Clara, my creampuff, my gumdrop, my little sugared tartlet—”

Maybe love is simply reminding someone how wonderful they are, how strong they are. Showing them the shining potential you can see. Lifting them up to be the best of themselves.

I know what I saw. I won’t be discounted as mad, drunk, or a liar. I’m none of those things. Curiosity is the dagger on which we impale ourselves.

Curiosity is the dagger on which we impale ourselves.

“Where are we going?” “To a place where everything you know will be flipped upside down.”

You are my entire realm, and I will commit any atrocity to secure your happiness.”

“But part of you loves that I’d fracture the world for you.” She gives me a wicked little smile of admission. “I feel the same way about you, though I have less power to carry out the threat.”

Two beings of a different race, gender, and background, yet we are parallel hearts, matched souls, mirrored minds. Distinctly ourselves, and yet attuned to each other, almost from the moment we met.

“I beg your pardon.” I draw myself up to my full height. “I have no nasty bits. I’m a delight from tongue to taint.”

“Humans think they are so clever for seeing through the simplest of tricks. Like a pig who prides himself on recognizing the danger of fire, once he has already been trussed and hung over the flames on a spit.”

“Because she’s mad,” says the Cat airily. “Of course, we’re all mad here, but she’s madder than most.”

“I was quiet, shy, slinking through my father’s house, trying to go unnoticed, mostly. Trying not to get into trouble. My sister was always the mischievous, rebellious one, you see, and I thought if I could be the ‘good one,’ Papa would love me.”

“Dance with me, precious.” “There’s no music.” “For you and me, there’s always music.”

“To view art is to be changed instantly,” I say softly. “When you experience it, you are perceived in unexpected ways, and in return you perceive an aspect of the world you never saw before. You are altered in the blink of an eye, and you step away as someone new.

“You need me, don’t you?” I whisper, stroking his cheek. “Poor sweet faerie. You need me to be the safe place for your heart.”

“If you don’t know where you want to go, it doesn’t matter whether you get there or not.”

“Mortals. Such short lives, and you spend them fretting over what could happen to you, or longing for something to happen to you. It’s very strange.”

“I love every part of you,” I tell her. “Would you love me if I wasn’t pretty?” I grin, pushing her down onto the sheets. “I am not purely Seelie in my affinities, precious. I don’t value their rigid ideas of the aesthetically perfect. No, I can see the beauty in what others might define as ugliness. I can glory in the unusual, the asymmetrical, even the grotesque. And I can tell you with perfect certainty that no irregularity or difference in your body would keep me from doing this—” I thrust my cock into her, one fluid motion— “as often as possible.”

“Do I love your face, your form? Oh yes.” I rock my hips, surging into her, concentrating on her reaction to keep myself from coming too soon because she feels—by the god-stars, she feels like honey and wine, like silk and velvet. “But what I love even more, dearest, is the part of you that I can never quite touch. The closer I am to you, the deeper I am inside you, the nearer I come to it—to pressing my whole self into your beautiful soul.”

“What if you are my doom, after all? Maybe I want you to unravel me. I think any end in your hands would be a beautiful one.”

Perhaps that’s what love is—the gradual disappearance of the walls between two souls. Some walls evaporate on their own; others have to be dismantled, brick by brick. Sometimes you reach out, thinking all the walls have been deconstructed, only to find a thick glass shield around the heart of the one you love. Only the heat of a persistent, intense devotion can ever soften it. I will melt Fin’s final wall, if it takes me years. That sweet, wounded heart of his is worth it.

“What’s that, darling? Fantasies I haven’t teased out of you yet?”

And those with the power to help have a responsibility to do so.”

“You have a beautiful heart.”

Faerie is two sides of a mirror. But one is a distorted reflection, warped and untrue. I have not yet decided which vision most closely aligns with my nature. I am forever caught in the middle, halfway through the looking-glass, with a foot on either side. And that is another way Clara and I are alike. She never fit into the cage she was forced to inhabit, back in her world, nor has she quite acclimated to Faerie. Yet she and I fit together. We reflect each other, mirrored souls, matched hearts.

“You’re glad she’s alive,” I say carefully. “Of course I am. But she is not the true mate of my heart.”

the immediate reassurance!! I love fin

By being in the same room, I’ll give him strength. And if anyone tries to hurt him, I will hack them to pieces, even if I die doing it.

touch him and die

“You have more reason to hate the Unseelie than most of the Fae in Lir’s kingdom,” I say. “Yet you defend the Unseelie, always. You maintain that there are good Fae here, people worth knowing.”

“About what happened to you—I won’t offer you pity, because you don’t need it,” I say softly. “But I will do anything I can to help you carry the pain.”

“I’ve done things with you that I haven’t been able to enjoy since that night. There is solace in playing roughly with you, sugar, when I know you are just as eager for it as I am. I cannot explain it, but those wicked games are a relief to me.”

“They’re a relief to me, too. For different reasons, of course—but Fin, you can’t imagine how many times I sobbed in that closet in my father’s house, knowing I would never be able to speak my fantasies aloud or share them with anyone. I knew I’d be called a freak with a sick mind. But you—you accept me. All of me. The shy parts and the wild parts, you don’t find them confusing or off-put...

“I cherish everything inside that beautiful ...

“No, sugar. When I said there was only you, I meant it. I have never been so entwined, so enchanted with anyone. Not in all my long life. You have nothing to fear.” And I mean every word, with all my heart.

is there a reassurance kink? I think I have a reassurance kink

“But one person's freedom is another's oppression. What you call freedom is just an excuse to be cruel to the weak, the defenseless, and the less fortunate.” “Yes,” she agrees without hesitation. “Complete freedom, and total bondage. Liberty and oppression.” “The two-sided coin again.”

“Wanting a different life for myself doesn’t mean I don’t care, or that I don’t miss them.”

“The best way to conquer terror is to learn about the thing you fear,”

Is there some sort of epidemic in Faerie—lovely human girls stealing the hearts of our most powerful males? Not that I’m complaining,

I am wretchedly desperate for her—for only her, ever.

“You’d deprive me of the opportunity to cook for two beautiful women?” He splays a hand over his heart. “The cruelty of it, dearest. Sit down, please. You two can chat while I prepare the food.

“Believe me, I crave you like I crave knowledge,”

A disorder of the mind does not prevent one from making a worthy contribution.”