“The high fae council is waiting to hear back from me,” she said, hoping he would get the message and back away. He didn’t. She didn’t want to flash while she was touching him because he would be flashed with her, and that was not something Cyn wanted. That’s what she kept telling herself anyway.
“Then perhaps you should be going,” Thalion said in a low, velvety voice that had Cyn’s insides purring like a contented cat.
The tone in his voice and the look in his eyes told Cyn that he understood if she flashed while he was touching her, he would be going with her.Damn prince, she growled in her mind. Thalion was rattling her, and from the smirk on his too handsome face, he knew that as well.
“I need you to step away,” Cyn told him, keeping her eyes on his.
“And if I do not?” Thalion asked.
Attempting nonchalance, Cyn shrugged. “I suppose you will find out what Perizada thinks about having an elf prince in her home.” Cyn would report directly to Peri. The younger fae rarely faced the whole council, a fact for which she was grateful. She didn’t particularly like Alston, or Lorelle, who just happened to be Peri’s sister.
Something flashed in his eyes, but it was gone before Cyn could put a name to it. His hands began to slip away, but before they left her waist completely, Thalion leaned forward and pressed his mouth close to her ear. Her body froze as she felt the heat from his breath on her skin.
“I will see you again, Cyn … soon.” His lips pressed softly against her cheek before he finally took a step away, dropping his hands to his side.
Cyn didn’t think. She flashed before she could throw herself into his arms and beg him to put his lips back upon her body. She was shaking, and her lungs didn’t want to expand enough for her to get a deep breath. Cyn knew she couldn’t show up in front of Peri that way. She had to pull herself together. Instead of appearing in Peri’s home, she arrived just outside the fae veil in the human realm. Cyn paced the forest floor, shaking her hands at her side as she attempted to gather herself. She couldn’t remember a time in her existence where she’d been so flustered over a male.
Sure, there’d been fae men that she’d dabbled with over the centuries, but nothing serious and no one that had made her feel the way Thalion had.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Peri’s voice drew her back to the present. “You mean to tell me you were having an emotional breakdown slash epiphany and didn’t let me watch?”
“That sounds disturbingly like something Jen would say,” Alina quipped.
“I was created way before that little hussy. She acts likeme, not the other way around.”
“By all means, let’s make sure we know who was a pervert first,” the Alpha female laughed.
“Just keeping it real, wolf-queen.” Peri turned back to Cyn. “Now, why didn’t you come talk to me?”
“I was confused,” Cyn answered. “I’d never experienced anything like that, and I honestly didn’t know how to feel about it. He’s an elf. I’m a fae. The mixing of races is still taboo. Back then it was unheard of.”
Peri waved her hand as if swatting a fly away. “Fine, I get it. Now keep moving forward. He said he would see you again. When was your next encounter with the prince?”
“Well,” Cyn said as she thought back to her third encounter with Thalion. “It was a dark and stormy night…”
Peri threw her hands up as she scoffed, “Oh come on!”
Chapter 6
“You’ve captured me. My mind, body, and soul are yours. You hold power over me, and your wish is my command. You do not know it yet, but there is nothing I wouldn’t do for you. One day, you will be mine.” ~ Thalion
“You have to leave them wanting,” Reeve said, his voice sounding weaker than it had been when Thalion had arrived at the elf’s house earlier that morning. “You didn’t even taste her lips nor allow her to taste yours. I’m curious now to see what your next meeting with the lovely Cyn was like. Did she even remember you after such an anticlimactic goodbye?”
“Please, friend, do not hold back. Tell me what you really think about my inability to woo the opposite sex,” Thalion said as he leaned back in the chair and propped his right ankle on his left knee.
“What did I tell you about the dying?” his friend asked.
“That they believed they have the right to be as annoying as a drunk pixie?”
Reeve gave him a small smile. “Looks like, if nothing else, Cyn has given you a sense of humor.”
Thalion thought about all the things that Cyn had brought into his life since they’d first met. Most of all, she challenged him. She didn’t settle for his excuses, no matter how right he believed himself to be.
“I’m not getting any healthier here, prince. Please continue telling me the story of how you failed to capture the beautiful fae called Cyn.”
“I didn’t see her again for 180 days, five hours and twenty minutes. I remember because I was incredibly angry that she hadn’t kept her word to me. She’d told me that we would see each other in a few months. Instead it was half a damn year.” Thalion growled as those very emotions rolled through him. He had been livid. She’d so easily forgotten him when all he’d done was wonder what she was doing, what she was wearing, whom she was talking to. She was driving him crazy, and she didn’t even have a clue. Once again, his mind left the present and remembered a different time and place.
“We are here to see the prince,” a male fae said to the guards at the wall of the Elven castle. Thalion, unbeknownst to the fae below, had been on the wall speaking with one of his commanders and had a clear view of the fae below him. He would normally have his guards inquire as to the nature of the visit, but just before he could give the order, the fae shifted and he saw her.
