Page 46 of The Heir the Fae Forgot
Because that was why I was here. That was why Icarus had me at his side.
I wasn’t here because I needed him.
I was here becauseheneededme.
That was what gave me the strength to look up into Icarus’ eyes, to meet that gaze that still made my knees want to buckle beneath me, and give him the only answer he truly deserved.
“No.”
The shock on Icarus face was worth every repercussion myverypublic refusal might have. I turned my back on him before he could try and grab hold of me again and stepped, instead, to loop my arms into one each of Zev and Finch’s.
“Come now,” I said, fixating my face towards the table at the far end of the hall. “I’m going to need a drink.”
CHAPTERTWENTY
I wasright about the faerie wine.
It was nothing like the ale I’d tried back at the inn. Nothing like the wine I’d sipped once or twice from my human father’s bottles when I thought he wasn’t looking.
No, this was far better.
And far, far more dangerous.
All it took was one sip to numb the fear I felt at refusing Icarus in front of his court. A second to make me forget the way that same court’s faces distorted as we passed.
We’d only just arrived at this cursed ball, and already, I knew, nothing good was going to come of it.
I didn’t dare look over my shoulder at Icarus after we’d left him behind. I didn’t need to, not when I’d already seen his own face mirrored back a hundred times.
Eventually, the orchestra had swelled back to life as the fae returned to dancing, but their voices now carried with them the harsh tones of whispers that all too often carried the sound of our names.
We found a space in an outer corner of the ballroom by one of the windows that no one had yet claimed. For once, I had no stomach for the faerie food as we passed. That was, perhaps, what worried me the most.
“So…” Finch said, after downing one drink and turning around so quickly, the wine already refilling his glass nearly spilled all over the front of him. “What was that, back there, with the Dark Lord?”
“I don’t know what you—”
“Your moment,” he continued, not giving me time to finish the lie, “when you were making googly eyes all at each other.”
“I…I…” I stammered, my mind going blank as I tried to come up with a response. I pointed back towards the swirling dancers, to where Icarus’ imposing figure was now conspicuously missing. “Did you not see what I just did, what’s making everyone look at me like I just dropped a baby on its head? I refused him.”
“Yes, well,” Finch said, taking another hearty swig, “I also saw what you did before that, so…”
I turned to Zev, expecting him to back me up, but he was also a little too deep in his own cup.
He saw my stare and just shrugged, his moustache stained red as he said, “I saw it too,Princess.”
I looked between the two of them, hoping to find that this was a joke, but they were all too serious. This was not the time nor the place to admit the true nature of my relationship with ‘The Dark Lord’ as Finch insisted on calling him—certainly not when I was uncertain myself what that was.
I looked at Zev and Finch and said nothing. Instead, in the uncomfortable silence that stretched between us, we all just took another drink.
All around us, the ball had taken on a life without us. I supposed the guest of honor didn’t need to be acting her part for a ball to continue being a ball...especially when there was enough faerie wine involved, which their certainly was. Instead of dancing and reveling alongside them, the guest of honor was busy hoping she might find the reason her two companion’s accusations unsettled her so much.
Aside from, of course, the fact that they were true.
A momenthadpassed between me and Icarus, more than a moment. From the second our hands touched as he led me up towards the ballroom, I’d found it impossible to hate him for what he’d planned to use me for. I’d found it impossible to hate him at all.
Maybe it was because I’d known he planned to use me all along. Maybe it was because I’d had some sneaking suspicion about what that plan was, even before I saw it for myself. Or maybe it was just because when I was with Icarus, I knew without a doubt that he wanted me.
