Page 12 of My Fae Lady

My wings should have grown back, but her family had done something to them. Some horrid Seelie thing that they called justice. At my sides, my fingers tightened into fists ready for a fight.

There was more to her apron than it appeared. She dropped the shears into the right front pocket and pulled a box of chocolate bonbons from the other. “Do sit, Lord Sylvan, and I’ll reward you.”

I glowered, prepared to make this process as difficult for this Barton as possible. “I’m not your pet. I won’t be plied with treats in exchange for good behavior.”

Her lips twisted drolly, the same shade and shape of a rosebud. She held out one of the chocolates to me in the palm of her hand, and the rich, nutty scent beckoned me. “Hm. I think you don’t know that yet. You haven’t tried one.”

I slid a step closer. It had been an age since I’d eaten something so sweet. “They’re that good, you say?”

As much as I wanted to hold on to the fight in me, saving my home was reason enough to cooperate at least a little. I needed this wedding to succeed as much as she did.

Giselle raised a manicured brow at me in a dare no soldier could back away from.

Instead of taking the treat from her with my fingers, I bent low and bit the chocolate right out of her hand, showing off my sharp teeth. The gesture was meant to unnerve the puritan in her, but Giselle didn’t look remotely disturbed. Her eyes flashed a mystery violet color before returning to their usual shade of determined indigo. Her lips twitched.

The chocolate burst in my mouth, coating my tongue in luxuriant sweetness, and I made a contented noise low in my throat, triggering another flash of violet in her eyes. The shade was likely food-related. Hunger? I added this mystery color to the lavender I hadn’t yet interpreted and filed them away in the back of my mind as important information to be deciphered.

Know thy enemy, and all that . . .

She took a treat for herself, which confirmed my suspicions that the bold color changes had been hunger-related. “It’s that delicious, isn’t it?” she said.

“Woof, woof,” I agreed.

“Good boy,” she teased, then she gestured toward her stool. “Now, have a seat so I can set that mane of yours to rights. And don’t dilly-dally. We haven’t got all day.”

I made her give me two more bonbons before I would take the stool. I plopped onto the velvet cushion, feeling every bit like I was awaiting the drop of a guillotine blade while she readied her wooden comb and the threatening shears.

Gritting my teeth, I clutched at the cushion beneath me as she fought the comb through the first tangle. Then another and another. By the time she was through the next knot, my scalp was so sore not even a chocolate could appease me, and I’d torn the sides of the cushion to ribbons with my claws. Chunks of stuffing and velvet dotted the floor.

She replaced the comb with shears and snipped away at a nest of hair that could not be tamed. I growled at her like an angry bear woken early from his hibernation.

“There now,” she purred at me, running her slender fingers through the part in my hair. My skin warmed beneath her touch, and the sting of pain was tempered.

Under my breath, I grumbled, “The least you could do—”

Giselle shoved another bonbon into my mouth. Between the soothingly soft touches at the top of my scalp and the sweet burst of sugar in my mouth, I managed to keep the rest of my complaints to myself as my hair lightened around me. More dark tresses floated to the floor like plucked raven feathers caught in a whirlwind. I focused my gaze on the fireplace, pushing out images of actual feathers falling. Bloody feathers.

A deep ache in the wounds of my back made itself known, and my heart beat angrily in my breast. This house was mine, and I’d have it back soon or darkness take me.

She circled me. Gripping my chin in her hand, she turned my head this way and that. Her arms folded over her chest—a shapely chest I was grateful to have an eyeful of in my moment of need. I would not feel guilty for taking her measure now after she showed no remorse for her glances during my bath.

The lovely view didn’t make up for all of her more aggravating demands, but it certainly helped. Her battle weapon, the shears, were tucked under her arm. The gray metal glinted in the faelight.

I reached to run my fingers through my hair.

Giselle slapped my hand away.

With stubborn determination, I mussed my tresses. They were still long enough to hide the tops of my ears if I wanted them to. The lady scoffed. Then our eyes met. Hers flashed that funny lavender color before returning to their determined blue shade. A secret smile sat in the corner of her mouth.

“It’s longer than I thought you’d allow,” I said, thinking of the last few Seelie men I’d seen and how short their hair was shorn.

Her shoulders lifted, a shrug more casual than the telling tilt of her lips. “It suits you at this length.”

My cheeks filled with a smirk of my own. I snatched the box of chocolates from the stand beside me. “You like my hair long, you mean? How very Unseelie of you.”

“That’s not at all what I—”

I popped a bonbon into her open mouth. It felt good to win for once, and I eagerly awaited her counterattack. Then she surprised me. Her eyes turned a flustered green, but instead of insulting me, she grinned around the treat as she chewed, and the color of her irises softened back to indigo.