“You were.”
“You didn’t feel pressured, did you?”
I didn’t. “I felt…relief. When I saw you, I felt relief.”
Castor swears, and his fingers run through my hair, gripping. “Mine,” he says. “You aremine.” A broken laugh escapes him. “Willow was right.”
“Willow?”
“To be chosen…it is an experience I am grateful for.”
She left me with Cael on purpose. So I’d have the opportunity to choose Castor.
That’s a crazy move, but it makes so much sense. She really did drop me off and disappear back to her home library, didn’t she? It was like delivering a package. She said,Welp, my work here is done, and left.
What an odd character.
For how strange everyone I’ve met here—including Zahra in the flesh—is, it’s a wonder how much I feel as though I belong. The peculiar becomes ordinary. The odd commonplace. The unusual and broken fit right in.
For the first time in my life, I wonder if this is what it’s like to feel almost…safe.
My heart shakes as I open my mouth. “Castor?”
“Yes, love?”
“There was…something Willow said to me, that day when we talked alone.”
Castor tenses, but he repeats, “Yes…love? What was it?”
“She told me that I was powerful, like you. She said that the first step to truly accepting you as my soulmate and breaking the cycle of abuse I’ve found myself in is learning that I don’tneedyou.”
His fingers tense in my flesh, but his tone remains conversational, “What a thing to say.”
“Tonight…” I pause, feel the way he’s already turned stony around me, and risk mentioning the moth prince anyway, “…Cael asked what I was.”
Humming, Castor chuckles. “Indeed he did. You shattered his magic, love. Completely unaware, with naught but a flick of your hand. The fool no doubt is panicking. Not just anyone can dispel the magic of the erlking.”
My eyes widen. “I dispelled magic?”
“Yes? Why do you sound so shocked?”
“I’m human,” I say. “An odd one, I’ve gathered, since I can see fae and such. But…can I…domagic? Am I really capable of being as powerful as you?”
Stillness stretches. Moments pass. Castor pulls back a fraction, presses his lips together, clears his throat.
“Oh my goodness,” I say, probably much too settled, much too drunk on his touch and kisses, much too comfortable. “You forgot to tell me something insanely important again, didn’t you?”
His mouth opens. He closes it. I watch him swallow as his fingers worry shapes into my waist. “Well, there is a possibility…” He coughs. “Aslightchance that… Um.”
Risking even more, I sit myself up, putting distance between us.
His fingers, latched to me, twitch with protest before he follows my lead, sitting himself up, too. “I apologize, Mine. It’s not my intention to keep basic knowledge from you. I just get so wrapped up in other thoughts and things, and I…forget. Or think I have already. Or I assume that you know. I do that quite often. When I’m comfortable with someone, I assume they know what I know. More than I know. It happened a lot with Polly and Cael. Around them I always seemed to feel…smaller. Less.They are so smart, wise,good. I’d regularly try to outsmart them. I’d regularly fail.” His fingers smooth against my skirt as his tone softens. “In the end, that tendency became a main point of contention.” Giving his head a slight shake, he skates his touch up my body until he can fix his cool fingers against my cheek. “You are of fae blood, Mine.”
My heart thumps. “I’m…fae?”
“Partly, yes. Your faerie blood is at odds with your humanity. In time, with me, I hope that you will shed it and be reborn, fully fae, fully eager to spend an eternity at my side.”
An eternity…with him? As a faerie?
