Page 141 of Curse the Fae

“Several times, hours ago. Yes, I remember.”

Despite the murk, pink drenches her cheeks. “I meant the spear case.”

To celebrate her twentieth year, I had gifted Cove with a case for her weapon, as well as a rapid succession of orgasms.

I wheel my arms backward, ferrying us to the dock fronting the hut. At the ledge, I hoist her onto the planks, then haul myself out of the water, my tail shifting into legs. I settle behind Cove, tucking her against my chest. Naked, I beseech the pond to illuminate itself once more, then perch my chin on her shoulder and whisper from behind, “This gift took longer.”

“So, that’s what you were doing in the den,” she concludes while gazing at the vial. “You know, the Fables warn humans about accepting presents from Faeries.”

“My price will be pleasurable.”

At the husk in my tone, her flesh prickles. “You were mentioning the color black, but the liquid is clear.”

“Turn it upside down.”

Cove does as bid and gasps. I hear swirls of black and pearlescent white curling through the fluid, the colors saturating the contents with lightness and darkness.

“It’s beautiful,” she says.

I clear my swollen throat. “It is an elixir.”

“For what?”

I make no reply, letting the silence fill this void until she goes rigid, then whips toward me. Her head snaps over her shoulder, and her eyes sting. “Oh…oh, my Fables. Elixir, did you…”

My hands cradle her face. “I mentioned once being the ancestor of an unseelie witch and the son of two mermaids who loved to brew. One instilled the art in my blood. The others taught me everything I know.”

The vial’s contents will keep Cove alive and ageless for as long as she wishes. One drop on the tongue shall yield an extra hundred years. Should she require more, I will brew more.

I tell Cove how the final necessary ingredient had become clear: I’d needed a piece of her. The bead of perspiration had completed the mixture to create an elixir for an extended life.

We cannot be mated through fate. I cannot give her half of my immortality. But I can give her this.

The curse separates us. But potions can cure that.

If one is clever, there are methods to skirt the rules. As a Fae, I know this.

Cove’s face twitches in ways that escape me. Is she happy? Is she furious?

She has chosen this life. Yet I cannot be certain if she’ll want it forever, if given the opportunity.

I might suffocate from her response. She might drown me, as she had sworn to do long ago.

Cove’s chin trembles. “Truly?”

“Truly,” I say. “If you want this, it is yours.”

If you want me eternally, I am yours.

Make your choice.

Please.

My muscles tense. I steel myself, awaiting her decision.

Her eyes simmer, kindling with blue flames. “Yes.”

I blink. It takes a moment—one fraction of a moment—for the reply to soak in and reach my lungs. When it does, my chest hitches as though a chink has broken loose. A humid gust of air blows from my mouth.

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