Corbin sighed. “You’ve no idea how chuffed I am to hear that. Are you tired? I’ll take you up to bed.”
“I don’t know if I am tired, but I’d like to go to bed.”
I snuggled against Corbin’s chest as he scooped me in his arms like I was a little kitten, and we wobbled out of the library. He wasn’t as steady on his feet as Arthur, cursing as he stubbed his toe on the bottom of the stair, but the kisses he trailed across my face while he carried me upstairs were uniquely his own.
Corbin pushed the door of my room open and laid me out on my bed. He stared down at my naked body, his eyes filled with a mix of awe and desire and sadness.
“I am not worthy of you,” he said.
“Don’t talk bollocks.” I grabbed him, yanked him down, forcing my tongue between his lips. It only took a moment for him to yield to me again.
Corbin always looked after everyone else, and he never asked for what he wanted. He just thought about what was best for the coven, even if it left him without anything at all. Where was his family? His parents were the ones who watched over me until Corbin was sixteen, and from the way he talked about them, they were still alive. So why weren’t they still here at Briarwood, helping him fight off the fae? There was more than enough room for everyone. And why did Corbin think he was ‘unworthy’ of me? Why did that impossible sadness flash in his eyes when he thought no one was looking?
It was there now, creeping in at the edges, even as he kissed me. Of all of us, he had the most to lose if the coven failed, because it washiscoven, rightfully. He may think that I was the High Priestess, but I knew the truth – I was just a science nerd from Arizona who had somehow walked into a fairy tale where nothing made sense, except for the fact there were four guys here who cared about me, who wanted me as much as I wanted them, and I’d be damned – I mean,buggered –if I was going to give up this opportunity.
I’d decided, after I went back to my room and read my mother’s letter again, that I was wrong to expect everything atBriarwood to be explainable by science. I expected everything to be wrapped up in a nice little theory, but everything that happened over the last few weeks has taught me that life doesn’t work like that. Maybe I still didn’t quite believe all this stuff, but Ididtrust my gut, and my gut wanted to be here at Briarwood, helping my guys fight for everything this castle represented.
All Corbin’s talk of orgies and orgasms. That image of the Priestess, so lost in her ecstasy, so different from the “purity pledge” lectures Mom had given me and Kelly. So free of guilt and shame, such a celebration of atoms colliding and electrons firing, of beautiful chemistry coming together and making sparks fly. Sex had never really appealed to me before, because I’d always framed it as a tool of the church used to control people, especially women. But not anymore.
I’d come to Briarwood to push through the grief of losing my parents and find my way again. And if sex with hot English mages would help me find my way again, then damn, I was not going to question it.
I pulled Corbin down and wrapped my body around him, giving in to my inner witch once more.
I stood at the gate to the meadow, the barrier between the safety of Briarwood and the outside world. Moonlight lit the grasses, shimmering with a light dusting of dew. My foot kicked something hard. I bent down and grabbed hold of a scuffed boot. It was enormous – a man’s size.
“Nice night for a walk, Princess.”
I dropped the boot in surprise.
Blake reclined against the gate, leaning over so his face was inside Briarwood’s territory, that self-satisfied smirk plastered across his pouty lips.
“This is my dream. It can be whatever type of night I want it to be,” I said, staring over Blake’s shoulder at the red-tinged moon. After a moment, a huge cloud rolled across the sky, obscuring the moon behind a wall of grey fog.
“Nice one. You’ve been practicing,” Blake whistled. He held out his hand, and I took it, daring someone to come and stop me.
It’s my dream, I can walk with Blake if I want to.
I opened the gate and slipped out, joining Blake in the field, beyond the protection spells preventing the fae from hurting me. I should have been terrified, but instead, a sense of liberation surged through me.This is my dream. I control it. If the fae want to come get me here, I’d like to see them try.
Blake and I walked in companionable silence down the path toward the village. I had so many questions I wanted to ask him – namely, how he came to be a human living in the realm of the fae – but as I studied his razor cheekbones and smooth porcelain skin, each one died on my lips.
That smirk never left Blake’s face, and I hated to admit that the idea crossed my mind that if I kissed him, it might get a genuine reaction out of him. I hated the fact that my lips itched to try it.
Blake stopped in his tracks, yanking my body around so I was facing the castle. Briarwood towered over the landscape, her turrets jutting out from the hillside, telling everyone for miles around who was in charge here.
Blake tightened his fingers around mine. “I want to show you something.”
“What?”
“Your kingdom, Princess.”
He raised his hand to the sky and chanted something in a low-singsong voice. The world around us changed, swirling and shifting, everything wobbling like I was looking through warped glass. After a moment, the surface smoothed out again, everything solid once more. I stood in the same field, looking up at the castle, but everything was different.
Instead of fresh, dewy grass beneath my feet, the earth was dry and parched. The neat hedgerows that circled the castle had grown into an imposing fortress of spiked bramble, so high that only the top of my bedroom tower was now visible. Dark clouds covered the sky, completely obscuring the moon and stars. These clouds hung low, and seemed heavier and denser, as though they didn’t hold water vapor, but something much more sinister. A sickly orange glow lit up the horizon and my throat burned as I breathed in the acrid, sooty air.
“Welcome.” Blake swung his arm around the air, a sardonic smile crossing his lips. “Behold the future realm of the fae.”
“But this is Earth. What did you do to it?” This had to be a trick, an Unseelie Court glamour. The fae realm was supposed to be bright and beautiful, full of luminous light and beautiful glades and never ending revels.
