“I’m never alone.” I tip my glass to the guards at either side ofthe couch. They maintain their distance, looking away, but I feel them keeping an eye on me.
“True. Gods forbid anything happen to the king’s precious chosen.”
“You’re one to talk when you want me too,” I snap back at him.
Wilder smirks, his golden eyes brightening as the room grows darker. “I suppose you’re right.”
I didn’t mean for my comment to be suggestive, but his acknowledgment makes me squirm. I take a sip of wine, avoiding looking at him. He’s infuriating and attractive, and I’ve had just enough wine for that combination to be incredibly confusing.
“Can I help you with something?” I ask, not meeting his gaze when I feel him continuing to stare at me.
“No. Does keeping me company bother you?”
“Why do you need my company?” I glance at the red-haired female who was pawing at him moments ago. She’s still watching him from across the room. “Seems you have quite the selection if you’re lonely. Or have you already run your way through the royal court?”
I don’t really want the answer. But there’s so little I know about Wilder outside the time he spends watching me in the training ring. I don’t even know where his room is.
The royal wing was all he said that first night he appeared.
For all I know, a different Fae shares his bed every night.
“If not more than one of them, right?”He smirks.“You think highly of me, Elorie Vale.”
“That isnotme thinking highly of you.”I glare.“You’re disgusting.”
“No worse than your precious king.”
He’s not wrong about that.
“Does the thought of occupants in my bed bother you?”He wraps his arms over the back of the couch. So close I can feel the heat ofhim. He doesn’t bother speaking out loud anymore, which simply confuses me more.
“I don’t care who you bed.”My teeth clench, and I take another sip of wine.“I’m sure you have a lot to make up for after a century in that cell.”
That part, I mean, even if this conversation is doing nothing but irritating me. Wilder was locked in a cell for a hundred years. I can’t imagine the extent of what he’s missed. I can’t imagine that long without the contact of another. How?—
“Lonely,”he finishes my thought, and I look up at him.
His golden gaze tunnels into me, and I’m no longer hearing him; I’mfeelinghim as he stares into my eyes. The emptiness of open wounds that never heal.
I roll my shoulders back, keeping my composure as I shift the conversation.“How do you do that? Talk inside my head?”
“The same way you do?”
“I don’t know how it happens. It just… does.”
This close, Wilder’s golden eyes are so many more colors than just gold. Flecks of bronze swim with shades of amber and honey. A river of light swirls in his gaze.
“Our magics allow it to happen,”he finally says.
“But I can’t wield my magic yet.”
“Doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”
I suppose he’s right. Whether I can use it or not, today was a painful reminder that it lives inside me. That it can be taken.
“Does that mean everyone can talk like this?”
He shakes his head.“No, mind whispering is rarely written about. Only certain magics let you speak through the threads of fate.”
