Page 6 of The Nixie and the Frost Elf

"Lucas is my flatmate," Edur says.

"Oh. Small world."

"I think that's our cue to go and dance," Sophia says, resting her hand on Lucas' arm and gesturing to the dance floor with her tail. She waves goodbye and steers him towards the other dancers.

"That wasn't subtle at all," Edur says.

"It wasn't." I fiddle with my necklace, which causes his gaze to drop to my neck.

"You're wearing it." His dark blue eyes sparkle even more than the frosts beside them.

I pause, holding it without moving. "I always wear it."

A strange expression crosses his face. "Always?"

I swallow hard. How do I tell him that I've thought about him every day? That he's occupied a lot of my thoughts, and all of my regrets? I may have physically run away, but I'm not sure that I've ever done anything to actually reject the bond between us.

"Every day," I whisper.

"I didn't realise."

"It would be hard to when you didn't see me," I point out.

His eyes fill with pain as my words register, and I regret saying them. No doubt he's already hurting over our separation. I have, and I'm the one who enforced it in the first place.

"You gave it to me," I murmur. "The necklace and water plant for my sixteenth, and the snowflake for my seventeenth." I touch it as I talk about it, thinking back to the day he'd eagerly given me them. People had teased me at the time about it being more than just friendship between us, but I'd dismissed them.

The mate bond proved that wrong.

"The snowflake was a rather conceited gift now I'm five years older."

I laugh. "Not at all. Your magic is part of you. And you were my favourite person." I frown. "Maybe you still are my favourite person."

"I hope to be." Even in the dim light of the secret room, I can see the hope in his eyes.

I swallow hard, not really sure how to respond to that. Though at least the burning of the word mate through my system has subsided somewhat now that I've agreed to a date with him. It's still there. I can feel it pulsing away within me, but it's softer, as if it knows that I'm not going to ignore it this time.

Or I hope that's what the reaction is.

"So, are you going to tell me where we're going for our date?" I ask, not really knowing how else to continue the conversation.

"I can't because I haven't heard back from the place I want to go yet," he responds. "And I don't want it to be disappointing if we can't go."

"Intriguing." I take a sip of my drink, realising that I've quite forgotten about it in the time that we've been talking. Having Edur back in my life is certainly distracting.

"I promise it'll be fun."

"I don't have any doubt about that." I smile at him, resisting the urge to reach out and touch him. We used to show each other affection like that all the time, but I know it's been a while, and he has every reason not to want to return to the same easy way of interacting with one another. It just felt so good when he held my hand during my panic attack. The moment he touched me, it felt like I could focus on that and not on the impending doom that was racing around my head. And it's nothing to do with the fact we're mates. He's helped me through panic attacks before, when he was my friend. It reminded me of that time. When it was easy between us.

"Lexi?"

I look up, meeting his dazzling blue eyes and seeing concern there. "Yes?"

"I asked you a question, and you didn't answer."

"Oh, sorry. I guess I was lost in thought."

"Anything interesting?"