“It’s not that I…” he began, though he trailed off.Probably hitting a wall where he couldn’t find a way to lie around it.
“Oh right, that’s why you were fleeing the altar with fell wolves on your trail when I met you.”
He set his teeth.“You don’t fully understand the situation.”
“I know,” she bit out in return and then threw up her hands.“Because you can’t or won’t tell me.So, I’m left breaking my brain trying to guess.”
“Don’t break your brain,” he suggested, not all that nicely.“Just wait it out until the wedding ceremony.That’s only about six hours from now.Go sleep like Dy.Then you’ll be released and you can go back to your life.”
She studied him, arrested.“Is that what you want?”
“As we’ve discussed multiple times, what I want doesn’t matter.”
“It matters tome,” she fired back, feeling as if she’d practically declared her undying love for him.Sure, Bandit.For your next trick, why not rip out your heart and throw it on the floor?
He opened his mouth and she braced herself, certain he was about to say that she didn’t matter either.But he closed his lips again without speaking the words they both knew were true.“I have to do this, Arantxa,” he said instead.“I’ve run from it long enough.”
“Is that why you’re here in Citrine?”she asked, hazarding that he might be able to indicate yes or no.
He shrugged, barely.
“And Lenorae knew you were here, but for some reason couldn’t get to you or force your hand and that’s why she got me to come here.”
He tilted his head back and forth, indicating she was partly correct.
“I can take you out of here,” she said, partly an offer, partly a declaration of intent.
“I can’t leave.”
She waited a beat, but he calmly held her gaze, not adding or explaining.Did that mean he couldn’t leave of his own accord or that he was somehow physically prevented?She suspected the former.“What would happen if you were taken out of the palace grounds, either against your will or without your knowledge?”
He burst out laughing.“What, do you propose to steal me, Bandit?”
“Iama thief and a smuggler.”She looked him up and down.“You’d be far from our most difficult heist.”
Azul sobered and came to her.Very seriously, he stroked her cheek.She shivered at the touch, wanting, craving more.“My brash outlaw,” he murmured, “this is not for you to fix.My fate has been set for a long time and you cannot change it.I won’t let you.”
We’ll see about that.
Azul read the thought, or the gist of it, in her and narrowed his eyes in warning.“Perish that thought,” he said very quietly, and brushed a kiss over her lips.“This is all too perilous for you and Dy.The very best I can do for you is guarantee your safe passage home by going through with this wedding that’s entirely my problem and was sealed long before you met me.”
“I worry about you,” she replied, just as softly.
He laughed, not quite as mocking as before, genuinely amused.“Humans don’t worry about fae.”
“Dogs worry about their masters,” she shot back.
“You’re going to bring that up for the rest of our lives, aren’t you?”
She caught her breath.“Is there a rest of our lives after this?If you marry Lenorae in a few hours and I return to the human realms, I don’t think I’ll ever see you again.”
“No,” he agreed somberly.“You won’t.But we said goodbye forever before.”
“Yeah, well… It didn’t stick.”She gave him a cheeky grin he didn’t return.
“Ithasto stick this time, Arantxa,” he said with measured deliberateness.“Think of me as having paid the price for your freedom from all of this, which means you must value that exchange.”He waved a hand at the luxurious prison and the lands beyond.“You don’t belong entangled in our sticky webs.You’re better off with your own kind.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t belong there either,” she countered, regretting the words immediately.Poor poor pitiful me.