Because…
The world tips. A high-pitched whine rings in my skull, blotting everything out. For a second, I just stand there, throat working, heart in free fall, my head drifting somewhere overhead.
He stands with his back to me, but I’d know the lines of that bodyanywhere. The slope of his shoulders, the taper of his waist, the contours of his thighs. The drape of white hair, hanging down his back.
My mate.
My Amriel.
A strangled cry bursts out of me. He must hear it, because he slants a glance over his shoulder, one that’s almost shy. When our eyes connect, I burst into bloom. I’m a riot of heat and color inside. Of joy. Oflife.
He turns fully, his eyes shimmering with a wealth of intention. His mouth twitches, snicks up at the corner. “Princess.”
I can’t see, can’t hear, can’t breathe, can’t do anything but fly toward him, suddenly unbound from the laws of physics. I’m running and leaping, crashing against him, my arms locking around his neck, my legs clamped around his waist. I bury my face in his skin as I gasp and tremble and cry. As I haul in lungfuls of his beautiful scent. As his arms come up to cradle me close.
“I thought you were dead,” I wail. His skin is wet, and so is my face, the strands of his hair sticking to my cheeks. “Oh, goddess, I thought you were dead. I thought you’dleftme.”
He breathes deeply, his chest rising and falling, so wonderfullyalivethat I break into a fresh round of sobs. His hand skims up my back, cradles my nape. “I would never leave you. Never. Not unless I had no other choice.”
I cling to those words, let them roll through me, ride the wave of his baritone as it rumbles from his chest into mine. Then I rear back and grab his cheeks, pressing a kiss against his mouth. Hard and urgent, no softness at all. Just relief and victory andplease don’t leave me again.
He kisses me back with relish, as if we’re the only ones here. And I swear we are. There’s nothing but blue sky all around us, limitless and infinite. Eternal.
When I finally disengage and let him set me on my own two feet, I can’t look at anything else. He gazes down, his dimples on display, and though Iknowthat everyone here is staring, that silence now has this room in a death grip, none of it touches me. Nothing but the sound of the world remaking itself as our future unfurls before us.
Amriel takes my chin in his hand, his thumb smoothing along myjaw. “I’m sorry it took me so long to get here. I only…well, your sister refused to travel by gyre again. She said she’d rather die. Which is a little dramatic, if you ask me, but since she’d just saved my life, I agreed to bring her home on foot.”
My sister. Mysister.
When I look around, Carina stands nearby, her glance slanted to the side as she grinds a toe against the floor. She peeks up at me, and I throw myself at her, squeezing so tight her breath gusts against my ear. “Thank you,” I babble. “Thank you thank you thank you.”
She squeezes me back with more vigor than I thought her capable of. “Of course,” she says. “Healing him was easy. And Velindra was…interesting. To say the least.”
Something in her tone has me pulling back, holding her at arm’s length. A fae man hovers behind her—Varian, who I remember from dinner the other night. He stares at Carina, his look fond, but somehow also hungry, and…
Oh.Oh.
I suck in a gasp. I’ve seen that look before, on the Shadow’s face. And on Calen’s, when he looks at Ravenna.
My startled gaze finds Carina’s. She ducks, her cheeks pinkening. “Later,” she says, low and hurried. “We’ll talk later. When we’re not in a crowd.”
Right. The crowd.
I spin to face them. All around the room, mouths hang open, and I inch toward Amriel again, my hand groping blindly, as if to assure me he truly exists.
My fingers make contact with his sleeve, and I realize he’s wearing some type of clothing I’ve never seen before—a fitted green jacquard vest with hook closures down the front, and a snug black shirt beneath. Equally snug black pants encase his thighs. I frown, raking my gaze over him from head to toe. “What…what’re youwearing?”
“Oh, this?” he says, but his sly tone can’t erase the twinkle in his eyes. “Haven’t you seen fae formalwear before?”
I shake my head. And look around to realize all the fae are dressed similarly. Goddess, so many of them have come. Rhialla. Calen. Ravenna, who beams at me, her hands clasped excitedly beneath herchin. There are also a handful of other faces I recognize, and dozens more I don’t.
But I’ll learn. I’ll learn the names of everyone here.
“We’ve come to return your sister,” Amriel says, “but also to make you a proposition.”
I blink. “What proposition?”
“It doesn’t matter,” my father’s gruff voice cuts in. “The answer is no.”
