Not just any green. Green like poison and envy and all the dangerous things that hide in shadows. Green like spring’s first leaf and moss under moonlight and the deep heart of the forest itself. They’re alive with intelligence and mischief that makes my pulse skip in a way that has nothing to do with fear.
He’s brutally beautiful in the way of sharp things, all edges and dangerous curves.
He cocks his head, studying me with unabashed curiosity. “You don’t look dead.”
“Should I be?” I ask, surprised at his audacity but not entirely put off by it.
“Not at all.” His voice is low, edged in silk and amusement that I can practically taste. “It’s just, judging by how the wolf’s been muttering and growling like a madman for the past few weeks, I assumed you were either a corpse or actively dying.”
I blink, processing this information. “Excuse me?”
He pushes off the tree fully, twirling what I now realize is a broken twig between his long fingers. “Sorry. Too soon for death jokes?”
I rise to my feet slowly, eyeing him with new wariness. There’s something about him that sets every nerve ending on high alert. Not danger, exactly, but something equally unsettling. “Who are you?”
“Locke.” He gives a shallow bow that doesn’t feel respectful in the slightest, more like mockery dressed up in manners. “At your service. Or not. Depending on your mood.”
I cross my arms over my chest, suddenly aware that I’m wearing nothing but a thin white shift dress that probably leaves little to the imagination. “Definitely not.”
He grins, white teeth flashing like a predator’s. “Starlight it is, then.”
“Starlight?”
He shrugs, the movement liquid and graceful. “Your hair. It’s the color of moonlit snow, and you’re glowing like you’ve got stars trapped under your skin. Thought it suited you better than ‘the half-dead girl in what appears to be a nightgown’.”
I shouldn’t smile. This stranger appeared out of nowhere, has been watching me without permission, and is clearly the kind of person who thinks rules are suggestions. His irreverence is so unexpected, so refreshingly different from the careful way everyone else has been treating me, that the corners of my mouth tug upward despite my better judgment.
“Locke,” I repeat, testing the name on my tongue. “You’re fae.”
He gestures around us with theatrical grandeur. “I am indeed part of the scenery.”
“I didn’t realize trees were so full of themselves.”
His grin widens, transforming his face from merely beautiful to something that could stop traffic. “Only the handsome ones.”
Gods above and below. He’s ridiculous. Beautiful. Dangerous in ways that have nothing to do with the weapons he carries.
When I look at him, really look at him, something inside my chest pulls tight. A magnetic snap, like a thread being drawn taut between us. Like the moment when a key finds its lock, when puzzle pieces slot into place. It’s the same feeling I had when I first saw Micah across path at HellNight Academy, the recognition that goes deeper than sight or sound or logic.
I take a step back, because it’s not possible. I can’t be pulled toward another person, not when I’m mated to Sam, not when my heart is already split between him and my Tether to Micah. There’s no room for whatever this is.
“Easy,” he says, voice gone softer, less teasing. “I don’t bite. Not unless asked very, very nicely.”
“I should go,” I say, turning toward where I think the path home should be. My heart is racing for reasons I don’t want to examine.
“Should you?” he calls out, and there’s something in his tone that makes me pause despite myself.
“Yes.”
“Because the forest says so? Or because you’re afraid that if you stay here much longer, you might start liking me?”
The accuracy of his observation hits too close to home. I roll my eyes, more to hide my reaction than out of real annoyance. “You’re insufferable.”
“And yet,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice, “you’re still talking to me.”
I turn and stomp away, annoyed that my cheeks are warm, that my pulse is still racing, that some traitorous part of me wants to turn around and see if he’ll follow. “I need to get back. My mate is probably wondering where I am.”
“Ah,” he says behind me, his footsteps soft on the forest floor. “So, the wolf is yours. That explains the scent clinging to you. And the general air of miserable loyalty radiating from your little cottage.”
