“That was crazy.”
Now it was his turn to chuckle. “Yeah. It was.”
Reaching down, he pulled the blanket over us and I snuggled into his arm, falling fast asleep.
Iawoke to the morning sunlight on my face and squinted as the memories of last night hit me.
My eyes widened when I realized I was naked under the covers and Liam was gone.
Shit.
I scrambled to sit up, throwing on my clothes hastily and tearing out of the room. Did he leave me? Did he fucking have sex with me and le—?
“Whoa, turbo, slow down. You’re supposed to be healing, remember?” Liam’s voice came from the kitchen and I skidded to a stop.
“Hey.” I tried to act normal and like I hadn’t totally just panicked. At his words about healing, my arm throbbed.
“You thought I bailed, huh?” he asked, spreading peanut butter on crackers in the kitchen.
I sighed. “Maybe.”
He didn’t say anything for moment. “I thought about it.” He didn’t make eye contact, just stared at the peanut butter. “But then I thought maybe we could work together … temporarily.”
I thought about it. Temporarily. Might as well fucking cut my heart out. I gulped, and I knew in that moment that this guy was going to break me. He was going to leave me so miserably heartbroken one day, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.
“What did you have in mind?” I asked him, walking over to the kitchen and sitting down at the table. I sort of imagined waking up in his arms and having round two. Guess not.
“You need a crystal. I need a crystal. My psychotic dad, as you call him, is changing the crystals so they can’t be used by your people, but I have a guy in Seattle who might be able to help us with that.”
I raised an eyebrow. “A guy?”
He nodded. “A warlock named Jasper. He’ll know about the dark crystal and how you can … fix it … so you can save your tree or whatever you’re doing.”
I frowned at his flippant comment. “I’m saving myentireworld. The tree is linked to the land, and if it falls, so does all of Faerie and all of our people.”
He grew quiet. “Oh.”
It’s like nothing had changed since we slept together; it was back to business. I stood. “I’m going to get ready. Then we can see your guy, hunt down two crystals, and part ways.”
I slammed the chair into the table harder than I meant to and he flinched.
“Lily!” he called after me, but I kept moving fast to the bathroom.
I brushed my teeth so hard I thought my gums would bleed. How could we go from having that magical night together to this? It infuriated me and then made me desperately sad. I should never have trusted him. I was so stupid. This was a one-night, fun fling to him. He didn’t even know what soulmates were in our culture. He probably thought I was being dramatic when I spoke to the elders.
I tied my long pink hair up into a top knot and used some of the makeup that was in the drawer. Hot pink lipstick on my lips and some on my cheeks, which I blended for blush. The mascara was all crusted, but the eyeliner worked, so I did thick black wings. Might as well let this guy know what he was going to miss now. Hell hath no fury like a Fae scorned. After doing that, I took my baggy pink tank-top and tied it at the back so that it hugged my skin and showed a peek of my belly button, letting the baggy jeans hang off my hips.
Take that, you asshole.
There were two kinds of girls who liked pink, the Barbie cheerleader chick or the punk rock chick who would throat punch you. I was the latter.
I stepped out into the living room and he was waiting for me, eyes glowing amber as they raked over my body.
“I made you breakfa—”
“Let’s go. We don’t have much time,” I barked and reached for the blue door. When it opened, Mara’s hallway came into view.
“Mara!” I called out, stepping inside, not caring to look over my shoulder to see if Liam followed.
