Page 87 of Caging Darling

“Your wish is my command,” he teases, whisking me out to the dance floor.

As soon as we set foot on the dance floor, the background music the band had been playing transitions seamlessly into something more conspicuous. From the way everyone in the crowd’s heads turn, it makes me think this is the song the Nomad opens the dance floor with every time.

It’s bold and enigmatic and somehow both lively and somber.

Powerful. That’s the word.

We glide around as if our feet are carried by wings. The Nomad is such a skilled dancer, I hardly have to think about where to move my feet, though even if he weren’t, my mother’s training would have carried me well, even to this song I’m unfamiliar with.

“Do you always follow this well?” asks the Nomad, gazing at me intently. He, like Peter, has blue eyes. But there’s something older in his. Something shrewder than Peter’s cunning, even if he’s just as wicked.

“It’s all I know how to do,” I say.

“Mm.” The Nomad has the audacity to look disappointed. “Was I correct in believing that you are bound by a bargain to that boy?” I glance down at the crook of my elbow in answer, to which he says, “That seems…less than pleasant.”

“What? Being caged? That’s what you intend to do to Tink, do you not?”

He raises a brow. “You’re on a first-name basis with the faerie now? Last I remember, you held a certain distaste for the creature. A grudge for how she clawed your face, trying to get rid of that Mating Mark, I believe?”

It stings, remembering how even from the beginning, Tink was trying to protect me. All along, she’d known the danger I wasin at the hands of Peter. Yet I’d picked her out as the villain in my story.

“That was two years ago,” I say. “Tink and I have since come to an understanding.”

The Nomad’s lip curls. “A common enemy will do that.” He glances toward Peter, still sulking in the corner.

“You don’t like him,” I say. “Why?”

The Nomad spins me around, then catches me in his sturdy arms. “I’m curious to know why you think I should.”

I shrug. “You both like to cage the things you hold dear. It seems you have a lot in common.”

The Nomad doesn’t sneer, but his smile is bland, less confident than what I’m used to.

“What? You don’t like my comparison?” I ask.

“Your Mate seems rather miserable over there.” He nods over my shoulder toward the corner I last saw Astor in. The corner I’ve been noting in the back of my mind, an anchor with every spin and twirl of the Nomad’s dance. “He’s been staring at you this entire time.”

My heart ties itself in knots, threatens to carry me away with it. “Good.”

The Nomad twirls me again, and I close my eyes on the way around so I won’t have to see Astor with the other woman, so I won’t have to fall into his gaze again.

“Which one of you betrayed the other in the end?”

“He’s been working for you, hasn’t he? Why haven’t you asked him?”

“Believe me, I have. I do love a good scandal. Unfortunately, your Mate cares little for gossip. When it comes to you, at least.”

My throat goes dry. Eager to change the subject, I say, “Why do you want Tink so badly?”

“Faerie dust is a lucrative industry. It seems obvious, doesn’t it? I thought you were more clever than that.”

The insult isn’t barbed, but it is a warning. One I don’t take. “Surely Tink’s not the only faerie left in existence. Surely you could purchase another faerie. They have to have auctions for that sort of thing.”

“Do I taste disgust on your voice, my dear?”

“You have to ask? I thought you were more clever than that.”

The Nomad smiles, though there’s no kindness in it. “I need not explain myself to you.”

---