“It was my fault, wasn’t it?” Monty says, pulling me from my mental painting.
“What was your fault?” I release his hand as we reach a fallen tree. It landed at an angle, resting in theVof another tree. Too tempted to resist, I hop onto the log and begin to cross it.
Monty stays on the ground and strolls beside the beam. “The reason you were so upset that you buried your sorrows in booze last Lughnasadh.”
I’m so surprised by his words that I nearly lose my balance. I spread my arms out wider and secure my footing before proceeding. “I wouldn’t say it wasallyour fault. I’m the one who drank too much.”
“You can tell me the truth, love,” he says, and there’s no judgment or apprehension in his tone. He truly wants to know.
I make my way to the end of the beam where it rests in the crook of the other tree, a good six feet off the ground. Monty stands at the base, arms wide. I don’t need him to catch me, but that doesn’t mean I’ll refuse. I drop off the edge with control, and Monty catches me with ease, cradling me sideways in his arms. That’s when I realize he doesn’t plan on letting me go until I tell him the truth.
I give him a sheepish look. “Well, the thing is…I’d planned on inviting you home with me for my annual visit. Only as friends, of course. It had been so long since we’d seen each other, and I wanted to catch up. I also thought you’d enjoy Cypress Hollow and the festival’s matchmaking ritual.”
His expression fills with regret. “But I was an asshole and you never got the chance to invite me.”
“I was more upset than I wanted to admit, even to myself.” I don’t want to say this next part because I don’t want him to feel any guiltier than he already does. Yet he deserves to know. “I was feeling raw for weeks afterward. On edge. The end of our friendship felt like a fissure in my heart. In my confidence. Coming home felt like running away to safety. Clyde was extra attentive to me, and I clung to that. Under the haze of inebriation, I thought maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to stay and take a mate. To give up my dreams of being an illustrator and return to my easy, predictable life where things don’t change nearly as fast as they do in seelie society. Where every day is the same and I fit in without effort.”
He pulls me tighter to his chest, nestling his face in my neck. “I’m so sorry I made you feel that way.”
“It’s truly not your fault,” I say, hugging my arms around his neck. “I needed to learn a lesson in confidence. I needed to commit once and for all to the life I wanted.”
He sets me on my feet but keeps his arms around my waist. “Thank you for telling me. And trusting I won’t spiral into self-loathing over it.”
“You’re here now, and that’s what matters. I wasn’t planning on bringing you this time, but you’re a stalker.”
“I can’t argue with that.” We proceed walking. “I truly am sorry, though. I know I’ve already said it, but I regret that I was such an ass the day I got fired. I was so afraid that we’d gotten too close. I’d felt that fear ever since the night of the gala when I saw you in seelie form for the first time. I…I sensed the spark then.”
I whip my gaze to him. “The spark? What spark?”
He rubs his neck in an adorably shy gesture. “You know how I told you I can sense a spark between potential couples? I felt it the night we stood on the balcony after the gala. You climbed upon the railing and caught cherry blossoms that were drifting on the breeze. That’s when it hit me. That you were someone I could have feelings for one day. And that fucking terrified me.”
Because, deep down, he’s always been afraid of getting hurt.
Silence falls between us. I step closer to him and bump my shoulder into his. “So…you’ve liked me all along?”
“It was a spark,” he says with a teasing roll of his eyes.
The underbrush gets denser the deeper we go. We follow game trails whenever we come across them, but the terrain becomes increasingly complex.
“Am I holding you back?” Monty asks as we climb over a series of rotted stumps on the trail. “Since you didn’t know about my fae heritage a year ago, you planned on inviting me to your hometown in a human body. Would it be faster if you were in unseelie form? If I was too? Furthermore, won’t the villagers react poorly if we show up like this?”
He makes a valid point. Our progress is certainly slower than I planned. I’ve never walked to my village on two legs. But still.
“I hoped to present myself like this,” I say. “We don’t have rules against fae entering our village in seelie form or even bringing human friends for visits, and I wanted to show them this side of me.”
Monty assesses me with a thoughtful look. “I can see the value in that, but I’ve also noticed you don’t let yourself shift into your unseelie form very often.”
I shake my head. “I promised myself I wouldn’t use my unseelie form to run away anymore.”
Monty’s fingers encircle my wrist, and he stops me on the trail, gently pulling me to face him. “From what you’ve told me, you haven’t run away in a long time. You’ve faced your fears and anxieties and continue to face them daily. You’ve gotten so strong, but I don’t want that strength to be the reason you lose a piece of yourself. You love your unseelie form. You love climbing and frolicking and curling up in high places.”
My chest tightens with yearning at his words. He’s right. I do love that. All of that.
“You deserve to enjoy both sides of yourself, Daffy Dear.”
I blow out a heavy breath. “I’ve been so afraid that returning to my unseelie form will make me want to stay in it. That it will make it easier for me to shrink down and hide when I feel nervous or too seen. But I suppose that’s just another fear I need to face. Another lesson in confidence.”
A grin breaks over his face. “That’s my girl. My brave little beast.”
