Page 49 of The Heir the Fae Forgot
I couldn’t remember ever being thisclose to Finch. This close, I could see the way that light in his eyes wasn’t imagined. It was as if it came from deep inside him, begging to get out at any chance. The tips of his lashes were pale, the same golden color as his hair, as if they’d been bleached from too much time in the sun. Freckles dusted the top of his nose where the sun had bronzed his skin. The most attractive feature of all, however, were the fine lines the crinkled up at the corners of his eyes, permanent reminders of the smile that always seemed ready to spread across his face.
To call him beautiful, as he’d asked, was an understatement.
His lips hovered so close to mine that I couldn’t help but share his breath, but it wasn’t only the sweetness of wine and berries that overwhelmed my senses. His scent was like clothes that had been left too long to bleach in the sun, it was the end of summer when the wheat had ripened, it was bread toasted until the edges had just begun to burn.
Finch’s thumbs caressed my cheeks with the softness of a butterfly’s wings.
“If I could just see you smile like that, every day, for the rest of my life, I would be the happiest fae alive.”
A nervous laugh bubbled out of me. “And you wonder why I’m worried? Finch,” I pulled back slightly, to see him better, “you’ve hardly known me a month and a half. How can you say things like that when you just met me?”
“Some things,” Finch said, his voice soft and velvety as his eyes dropped from mine to my lips, where they lingered just a little too long, “some things you just know, Aurra.”
I felt my breath hitch in my throat as something squeezed at that treacherous organ in the middle of my chest. I swore he was going to kiss me. Iknewhe was going to kiss me.
And I didn’t stop him. I wasn’t going to stop him.
I almost longed for the kiss, my lips parting, my breath coming out in a sigh…but then it didn’t come.
Instead, Finch pressed his lips to my ear and whispered a promise.
“I’ll prove to you that this is no passing feeling, that you’re not like the ones before.”
“Finch—” I started, but he pressed his lips to my cheek, for just a second, to silence me. It worked.
“I pledge to you that from this moment forward, I’ll not touch another female, human or fae, until you agree to have me. I am yours, Aurra.My Princess.Only you can unbind me from this promise.”
Something inside me seized up, and I swore for a moment, my heart stopped beating.
I gasped aloud, not at the words, but at the swell of power that washed over me as Finch and I finally broke apart.
I hadn’t agreed to his pledge, his promise, but somehow…I’d felt the moment that the glamour sealed it between us.
“Lucky you, Aurra. Tonight seems to be quite the night for you indeed. You just made your first deal.”
I stumbled back from Finch, still so close that I could sense the panic in him too the moment we both realized we’d not been as alone as we thought.
I gaped at Icarus where he stood in the shadows, his wings flickering agitatedly over his shoulders. Though his face was a mask of amusement, his posture—the way he stood, the way his claws hooked around his glass, the slight cocking of his head—showed his true feelings.
And he was about as far from amused as a fae could be.
CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE
I’d facedIcarus alone many times before, felt his power before, but it had never felt like this.
From the look on his face alone, I feared the Lord of the Wildness was about the do something all of us was very much going to regret.
“Icarus…” I started, though I had no idea what to say. How much had he seen? How much had he heard?
Enough, it seemed, that it wasn’tmybody that his eyes raked over. He glared down at Finch like he was trying to decide which was the best way to begin his slow and painful dismemberment.
“You know,” Icarus continued, completely ignoring the pleading look in my eyes as he started to slowly stalk the golden haired fae still too faerie wine-drunk to stand still on his own two feet. “Fear really does do the strangest things. If I’d known telling Aurra about her glamour would send her straight into another’s arms, right in front of me in the ballIthrew for her no less, I might have been more cautious about how—and what—I told her.”
He gritted his teeth. “Perhaps I should have been more like Shiel and refused to tell her anything at all.”
A confused look crossed Finch’s face. The wine was still thick enough in his blood that he didn’t seem to sense the same imminent danger than I did.
“Aurra’s glamour? What are you talking about?”
