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“Why do you need a glamour?” he pressed when I’d been silent for too long.
“I don’t want to stick out. Better to blend in.” Safer. Always safer.
His mouth tipped into a frown.
He was going to make me say it. He was going to make me face facts. “I’d rather look more fae tonight. Being the only human in the room is a novelty.” I bit my lip. “Although, I think Oberon wants to fuck me.”
Something lethal crept into his eyes at my last words.
“And do you want to fuck him?” Each word was careful, measured, and delivered just precisely enough that I felt a small spark in my chest.
“I don’t know. Do I? You sure act like fucking a fae should be on the top of my bucket list.” His answering silence felt dangerous, and somehow that was better than the nothing I’d felt before. Maybe because I was well-versed in danger and fear and anger. “What about Titania?”
“Fuck Titania and her brother? You are getting ambitious, princess.”
But I wasn’t going to let him ignore the bait, not until I’d forgotten that ache, not until I’d filled it with anger instead. “She wants you.”
“Titania wants everyone.”
“And you don’t?”
His eyes blazed with fire I couldn’t quite muster. “I think you will find that I have very particular tastes.”
“I’m aware. She’s gorgeous.”
“I don’t want Titania, Cate.”
His fiery eyes dared me to push him harder, to drag one more confession from him. But I had learned my lesson. Any closer and I would get burned. Any closer and I might not be able to escape that magnetic force he exuded as effortlessly as breathing.
When I didn’t respond, a muscle in his jaw twitched. “Be ready to leave at midnight.”
“That’s a little late for dinner, don’t you think?”
His lips curled into a smile that made my toes do the same. “It’s the Midnight Feast. And we won’t be dining.”
I shivered at the dangerous current running through his words, feeling it tug on me, feeling it pull me toward that unknown place again. I forced myself to swallow and nodded. “I’ll be ready.”
Something about his answering glower told me I wouldn’t be.
…
The trouble with getting ready for a midnight feast that was not a feast—whatever that meant—was I didn’t know how to prepare. I stared at the gown hanging on the closet door. I needed Ciara, not just to help me but to distract me, to pull me from my confusion. But I wasn’t about to risk going to find her. I settled for sending her a text message and prayed that all the strange magic in the building wouldn’t fuck with the cell reception.
It was almost laughable that I needed her to calm me down. That was supposed to be my job for her, especially tonight. Maybe I needed to steer clear of Lachlan or insist on taking one of the dozen other rooms on the top floor.
I wasn’t thinking straight around him. I had to get my shit together. Now.
Less than a month. I had less than a month to figure out what he got out of this bargain if I wanted to break it, and now the Nether Court was full of visiting fae intent on distracting me from my task. I couldn’t let them.
I took a quick shower to help settle my mind. But as I stepped out of the shower and reached for a towel, the door opened. My foot slid, and I careened, barely keeping myself upright. I snatched up the towel, draping it over my front as I spun around to find Lach.
“Don’t you knock?” I tugged the towel more tightly around myself, wondering how much he had seen.
Hooded eyes skimmed over every bare inch of my dripping skin not covered by the towel. “I did. Several times.”
“Well, obviously I didn’t hear you.” I huffed past him into the bedroom, hoping he interpreted my pink skin as a result of my shower and not his presence. If only I could do the same, but all the confusing feelings had reappeared in his presence.
“I was concerned for your safety,” he said blandly. “What if you had fallen and hit your head? You could have drowned.”