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“Do what?” I ask, still airy. I’m wanting to find anywhere else to hold my focus. It’s like my eyes refuse to look away from his.
He brings his lips close to mine, whispering against them. “Come.” His breath rolls over my skin, warm and way too inviting.
“How do you know I came?” A dumb question. I not only came, I plummeted face first across the finish line.
Rhenn smirks, giving my sides another squeeze. “Trust me, you aren’t subtle about it. It’s like you’re trying to get us caught.”
“You’d hate that, wouldn’t you? If they saw you with me.”
“There isn’t a single one of them who wouldn’t take my place.” He nips at my neck, not hard enough to puncture, just play. “But I have a reputation to uphold.” Rhenn pulls out of me, brushing his fingers through his hair.
“And screwing humans isn’t part of it?” I say flatly.
“No.” Rhenn lifts his pants back over his legs.
There’s a weird flare of anger and maybe even disappointment that flashes through me at the candid way he says it.
Rhenn looks at me, realizing he struck a nerve. I try to wipe the discontent from my face, not liking that it even upsets me. Why should it? Then again, why should he be embarrassed to be with me? What the hell is so wrong with me that God forbid anyone have any interest in me?
“It’s nothing to do with humans,” Rhenn says, taking my jaw in his hand. I stare into his silvery eyes. Eyes that haunt my dreams. “It has everything to do with you, Vix. You are unpleasant in the worst of ways.” His mouth presses firmly against mine, tugging at my bottom lip. “But you taste so sweet. Like the belladonna flower. Pretty on the outside. Nothing but poison within.”
Poison? What the hell does that mean?
“And what does that make you?” I ask as he walks away.
“Fucked,” Rhenn mutters, not turning to look back at me.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
SIENA
Irun through the woods, my bare feet padding lightly on the fallen juniper leaves. A hundred different smells circle at my nose. The woody aroma of the dampened moss-covered floor, the warm spice from the bark of the trees, even the crisp freshness of the autumn air. I breathe it in, filling my lungs with the heady scent of nature.
I thrive in the depths of the trees. It’s where my order derives its strength. We’re connected to the plants. They feed our inner souls, reaching down to the very marrow in our bones. I am alive when I’m surrounded by the buzzing charge of the world’s greenery.
A phoenix weaves through the low hanging branches overhead, its glowing red feathers swaying like flames in the light breeze. Each long ribbon of its tail leaves behind a spark of light, fading slowly as it trails behind the beautiful bird.
Spotting a phoenix is rare, and it’s said to bring luck. Something I could really use. These last few months have been hard, and I haven’t felt like myself lately. Each day gets easier, but a faerie’s feelings are really such a fickle thing. Our highs are high, which means our lows are low.
I keep running until my lungs burn and my legs ache. I’m deep in the woods now, hidden behind boulders and a maze of high climbing timber. To my right, the shallow stream hums gently. Just ahead, a herd of deer graze on the dewy grass. They do not fear me, for like them, I am one with the forest. But to my left, a sound of nature I’m not familiar with. It isn’t the thrush of an animal scratching its back on the stump of an old pine, or the fluttering flock of airborne avians taking flight.
My feet pull me toward the knocking, fingers brushing across the smooth, leafy plants along the way.
As I get closer, the muffled noises take on a more familiar tone, a harmony of sounds. Things I shouldn’t see. With each new step, the mystery reveals itself. Shallow breaths, strangled grunts.
I know I shouldn’t continue forward because I know what I will find. They think they are safe from viewing eyes, deep enough into the trees that no one will see. I can’t stop myself; my curiosity is too strong. It pushes me forward, far more interested in who would be adventurous enough to do the deed out in the open during a day where The Hunt leads everyone into the forest. It’s reckless. Or romantic. I’ve never been able to tell the two apart.
Stepping lightly over a fallen branch, I place my hand against the rough bark of a towering sequoia, then peek my head around its side.
All at once, my entire world comes crashing to a halt because what I see makes everything inside my stomach drop.
The man I’ve loved since I was a child, long before I even knew what the word meant.
He’s with her.
Rhenn has always claimed to hate the human. I knew better. You don’t hold someone you hate like that. You don’t caress their face, kiss them softly. He was never that slow with me.
He doesn’t even hear me now because he’s so lost in her.
