“There’s not much more to say.” I scrub a hand down the side of my face. No. That’s not right. There’s too much to say, butnothing I can say to him. There’s only one person I want to talk to about it.
“Not much to say?” he asks flatly. “I know you’re not one to be overly sentimental, but surely you can—”
“It’s complicated, Finn. All of this is… well. It’s complicated.”
He sits back in his chair and takes a long drink of his ale. “Doesn’t seem all that complicated to me. If the Goddess ever saw fit to pair me with such a beautiful, vivacious—”
“Watch yourself.”
I don’t know where the harsh words come from.
Other demons certainly have the right to compliment my mate.
Hell, theyshouldcompliment her. Anyone who meets her surely has a dozen different praises to sing by the end of their first conversation with her.
But I’m still feeling too damned tender tonight.
I still don’t know if I have her tonight, if I’ll have her tomorrow, if I’ve already lost her, and that cursed, aching tenderness makes it intolerable to have Finn sitting here admiring her.
How much better she would have done to wind up with a demon like him.
A demon with a fortune at his disposal.
A demon who could give her stability and a future.
“That bad, huh?”
Finn’s question pulls me out of the dark spiral of my thoughts. “What’s bad?”
“How deep you’re in it with her, friend.”
His voice has taken on a different quality. Softer, more understanding, and that’s intolerable, too.
My gaze finds Seren again, only to find her looking right back at me.
In the candlelight’s glow, her eyes shine like two emeralds. Her cheeks are flushed from her conversation and the wine she’s sipped. Some of her hair has come free from the braid she plaited this morning, little wisps of it framing her face.
She’s so beautiful I can’t find it in my heart to deny Finn’s words.
Instead, I take one last sip of ale, then push my glass away.
“Aye,” I say, standing from the table. “Maybe you’re right.”
Like she’s been waiting for me to make the move, Seren says something to her friends and stands from her seat as well.
We meet in the middle of the room, and it might as well be just the two of us here alone.
Like it always does when I’m near her, everything except my star fades away.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” I say softly, nodding to the seat she just vacated. “If you want to stay longer—”
“I don’t.” She takes my hand, laces our fingers together. “Is there somewhere around here we can crash?”
“Finn’s got a room for us.” I give her a gentle tug toward the door. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
The room is beautiful.
Set into the outer core of suites carved directly into the mountain, its far wall is made up entirely of a balcony open to the night air beyond, bespelled like all these rooms are to ensure the cold doesn’t get in.
