Clearly, I was wrong.
“Focus on choosing a husband first,” she says. “Once you are wed,thenyou can do all the research you want.”
* * *
Scientific study, my arse.
I’m two chapters into Trevor’s book and so far, it’s filled with more conjecture than facts. There’s no mention of the language the Unseelie speak or anything about what happened to their wells.
In the third chapter there are some illustrations that look nothing like the men I met. Beasts with elongated fangs that hang over rolled lips, coal-black eyes without a speck of white, and warts everywhere. The only part the illustrator got right were the longer ears, the greenish skin, and the muscles. Although in the drawing, their bodies are covered in coarse hair, kind of like boars.
And they… um…
The aren’t wearing any trousers.
The only member of the opposite sex that I have ever seen undressed is my brother when we were children, so I understand how a man’s anatomy differs from a woman’s, but this illustration cannot possibly be correct.
My door swings wide, and I snap the book closed when Nia steps inside.
“It’s almost three o’clock in the morning,” she groans on a yawn, rubbing at her squinting eyes. “What are you still doing awake?”
“Nothing.” I tuck the book under the covers.
She whips the quilt away and grabs the thing before I can stop her. Her eyes narrow. “Kerris, I thought I told you to put the Unseelie out of your—” She flips open the book, and the words die on her lips.
Even from my bed, I can see that she has stumbled upon the exact page that I’ve been staring at for the last twenty minutes.
Is it possible to die from mortification?
“Well,” she breathes, her own face as flushed as mine surely is. “I can certainly see what’s keeping you up in the middle of the night.”
I hide my flaming cheeks behind my hands, stifling my laughter. “Go away, you menace. I am only doing research.”
“Mmmhmmm. I see that. If I’d known this was the sort of ‘research’ you were doing, I wouldn’t have protested so much.”
I let my hands drop even though my face still feels as if it’s been burned by the sun. “There’s no way it’s that big.” Is there?
She tilts her head from one side to the other, then tilts the book, bringing the pages so close to her face that her eyes go crossed. “If it is, it’s larger than Nolan’s.”
“Nia!”
Her cheeks dimple with her grin. “What?” She holds the book out to me, tapping the page right next to…it. “Tell me that doesn’t look like a third arm.”
Swiping my book out of her hand, I clutch the yellowed pages to my chest. “Go back to bed and leave me alone.”
“Oh, I see how it is. Do you and your book need some privacy?”
“You are incorrigible.”
She saunters into the hall, but before she closes the door, she sticks her head back inside and wiggles her brows. “I’m not the one ‘researching.’”
14
“Research suggests the first Unseelie fae were born of shadows and darkness.”
Unseelie Fae: A Scientific Study
I’m about to break my promise to Nia.