“They’re beautiful,” he whispers.
“So are you.”
The words slip out before I can stop them, but I don’t regret them. Because he is beautiful, inside and out, and someone should tell him that. Someone should give him gifts and make him smile and show him that he’s worth caring about.
When he looks up at me, his eyes are bright with unshed tears, and there’s something so vulnerable in his expression that it takes my breath away. This formidable fey prince, this brilliant political strategist, this creature who could probably level a city block without breaking a sweat… and underneath it all, he’s just a boy who’s been alone his entire life.
A boy who’s never received a gift. Who doesn’t understand why someone would want to make him happy just because.
“I am grateful,” he says, and his voice breaks slightly on the words.
I want to reach for him, to pull him close and hold him until that lost expression leaves his face. I want to give him a hundred gifts, a thousand, until he stops looking so amazed that someone might care about his happiness.
Instead, I settle for moving closer on the sofa, close enough that our knees touch.
“You’re welcome,” I say softly. “Merry Christmas, Dyfri.”
For a moment, neither of us speaks. Then Dyfri carefully places the ribbon back in the box and sets it aside. When he looks at me again, there’s something different in his expression. Something open and trusting and achingly hopeful.
“Merry Christmas, Jack.”
And as we sit there in the warm glow of the Christmas tree lights, his hand finding mine and holding tight, I realise that this is what I want. Not just the Resistance, not just the cause, but this. Him. Us.
Whatever comes next, whatever dangers we’ll face, whatever impossible odds we’ll have to overcome, I want to do it all with him by my side.
I want to keep giving him gifts until he stops being surprised by kindness. I want to hold him when he is sad and make him laugh when he’s being too serious and show him every day that he’s not alone anymore.
I want to love him, completely and hopelessly and forever.
And maybe, just maybe, he might want that too.
Chapter sixteen
Dyfri
Jack is enthralled by whatever he is watching on the TV. A Christmas film he said.
Rhydian decreed that no fey can allow humans to know that we can’t see TV. It’s just flickering lights to us. Something humans could turn into a disorientating weapon if they knew.
So I have to pretend the pulsing colours make sense to me. The sound the TV emits is disjointed, but if I concentrate, I can understand the words. But it’s rarely worth the effort.
That’s why I’m watching Jack instead of the TV. I’m pretending to look at the screen, while observing Jack, only so I don’t die of boredom. It’s not at all because I like looking at him. He’s not that interesting.
Right now, his cheeks are flushed from wine and laughing, and he still has a ridiculous paper crown on his head. All lopsided.
The brightly coloured lights on the tree and the flickering TV screen are the only lights in here. The colours are swirling across his grinning face.
He looks so happy. Just… uncomplicatedly happy. Comfortable and content in his own skin. It’s deeply intriguing. I’ve never known anyone like him. Except maybe my brother Tristan. He is always inanely cheerful. But Tristan is a prince of the fey court, and that hasn’t allowed him to be naive. He knows how to play the game. How to survive.
Jack is the human leader’s son. He should be similar. But he wasn’t born into a position of power. He was not raised for this. Humans work by plotting and planning. Favours and lies. Fooling the masses into voting for you, based on the false promises you make.
It’s a strange system. And it means Jack was not born to rule. In his childhood, he was simply a normal human. A little wealthier than most, but nothing extraordinary.
So perhaps Jack Caxton is exactly as he seems. Good. Honest. Kind. Caring.
It’s a really challenging notion to accept.
Jack turns to face me.
