Tension melted away as I sank deeper into my chair, and I didn’t have to look at Endymion to know it had the same effect on him; as if the three of us had finally taken a breath.
Wanting to understand why I was fine one moment and unraveling the next, I broke the silence. “Do either of you know what just happened to me?”
“I suspect,” Caius said, steepling his fingers beneath his chin, “it has to do with you becoming fae.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at the obvious answer and held his churning gaze as it pinned me in place. After a few heartbeats, I understood that his words weren’t for my benefit, but for his—like he needed to say them aloud just to see if anyone would contradict him.
We didn’t.
Caius’ scrutiny snagged at the right side of my head—then the other—and the slight purse of his lips had Endymion’s words clanging through me for the hundredth time;you’re fae. My fingers twitched, itching to trace the tips along my ears to confirm whether they’d meet the same elegant, upturned lines that adorned the two fae sitting before me. I clasped my hands together. It was one thing to hear the truth—another entirely to feel proof of it.
Closing my eyes, I drew in a deep breath and tried to center myself. As if mocking my attempt to deny reality, my hearing sharpened.
Thump thump. Thump thump. Thump thump.
As surely as I knew my name, I knew the melodic cadence belonged to Endymion. The rhythm of his heartbeat soothed me. After a moment, my awareness caught Caius’ heartbeat—offset from Endymion’s, slightly faster. Together, they were like the soft undercurrent of a symphony.
You’re fae.
“It wasn’t a dream.” The words were thick on my tongue as I opened my eyes and met Endymion’s earnest gaze. A tear slipped free as the truth of that statement seeped into my marrow like a desert forced to swallow an unexpected deluge.
“No,” he said, voicing what his expression had already betrayed. The single word rolled over me, leaving gooseflesh in its wake.
Rubbing my arms to chase the word away, I shifted my focus to Caius. “I still don’t understand what just happened. Not the…transformation,” I hedged, still unable to say the truth aloud, “but whatever overwhelmed me.”
To my surprise, Endymion answered. “When Caius placed a hand on your shoulder,” he said softly, “I think whatever magic lingered from the Mother dissipated, as if releasing you from a trance. Like a sleepwalker being awakened, all your fae senses crashed into you at once, overwhelming you.”
I nodded absently, turning the memory over. He was right. I’d been overloaded—like my body couldn’t process the barrage of information.
My mind whirled, trying to reconcile how I’d wound uphere.
The satin bark beneath my palms.
The Mother’s comforting embrace.
The connection.
The guilt-laden relief I’d experienced when Endymion explained that Cassy and Leighton were in stasis.
Mrs. E.
And…him. King Thaddeus Artemus Alton the Third.
I shuddered as the memories flooded in—his voice, his smile, his touch, his betrayal.
The taste of bile pooled at the back of my throat, and I fought to sidestep those dangerous memories in search of what Autumn’s Second shared the night we’d thrown daggers together.
Wanting me to understand why his kin often came across as cruel, he’d explained the fae’s intricate, preternatural senses—howtheir instincts were more akin to the roaming beasts of the wild than their human counterparts.
“Like an eagle’s sight or a canine’s sense of smell,” I murmured, not meaning to say it aloud.
Endymion’s eyes softened in remembrance. “Like a bouquet of roses that aren’t roses at all.”
A rough, half-laugh escaped me. “Not roses at all,” I agreed, then turned my focus to Caius. All humor fell away as I met his ever-storming eyes. “Not a simple human woman either, I suppose.”
I could tell he was replaying the moment we’d shared on the dance floor. And oh, how that dangerous game of carefully crafted words had held more truth than either of us could’ve imagined.
“Centuries old, and a simple human woman is puzzling to me,” he said, echoing the words I’d once taunted him with—only now they rang with too much truth, as if he were sayingno more, games. For either of us.
