Page 133 of The Robin on the Oak Throne

His hand touched her cheek. He looked her over, verifying her claim. “I thought I lost you.”

“You can’t get rid of me that easily,” she said, breathless for a whole new reason.

His storm-cloud eyes were serious, his mouth set in a firm line. “You went in the market…alone.”

“There was no other way.”

“You could have waitedtenminutes for me.”

“You could have trusted that I’d handle it,” she fired back.

“I did,” he said solemnly. “I waited outside for Edgar to get another coin. But it was my own team who kept me from eating goblin fruit to get to you.”

She gasped in horror. “You wouldn’t.”

“I would have if they hadn’t stopped me. I was that worried about you.”

“I was going to text you,” she conceded, “but George’s phone died. The magic must have fucked with it.”

“The market runs off of a different magical frequency. That happens.”

But she was still stuck on goblin fruit. Graves wouldn’t be stupid enough to eat the stuff. “Either way, you can’t risk yourself like that.”

His eyes widened. “And you can?”

“But goblin fruit.” She bit her lip. “I wouldn’t have wanted that, either.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “And why is that?”

She choked on her words. “Because I don’t want you to die!”

“It’d take a lot more than goblin fruit to fell me,” he said, brushing a finger against her bottom lip. “I accept that you’re independent, that you can handle yourself, that you’re bloody reckless,” he said, his British accent thickening as his emotions bubbled to the surface. “But you can’t do this all alone anymore, Wren. At some point, you are going to have to let others help you. You’re going to have to letmehelp you.”

Kierse didn’t have some witty comeback this time. He was right. She had been running on adrenaline, and going into the market alone was, frankly, stupid. It had seemed like the best choice at the time, but seeing it now through Graves’s eyes made her reconsider. He’d feared for her life. He’d almost put himself in mortal danger for her.

She’d had her guard up for so long. Graves had hurt her and betrayed her trust. But he’d more than proved himself to her—he’d had her back in the market, he’d involved her in all the planning for the auction, he’d given pieces of himself that he never would have before. And tonight, when she’d recklessly walked into the market alone, he’d believed in her even through his fear.

She felt something break in her chest. Ice shattering from around her heart. She couldn’t hold onto it all anymore—the anger, the fear, the hurt. She didn’twantto have to hold it all anymore, alone.

So she would give it to him.

“Okay,” she said. He must have seen the resolve in her eyes. “Okay.”

Then his lips were on hers, slanting against her mouth and claiming her in one smooth motion. She leaned against him, into him, feeling his warmth radiate through her like a life force. The heat of the summer pressed all around them as the sun rose on the horizon in a shock of liminal dawn golds and saffron.

She sighed into him, running her hands up the front of his faerie king costume, which looked macabre in the early morning light. His hands fisted into her new green robe, those strong arms crushing her against him. She swung her leg across his lap, straddling his firm body, and continued to kiss him as if her life depended on it. Perhaps it did.

Tonight had gone to shit. It was hard to believe they’d begun the evening doing something very similar. Now she was trembling against him from hunger, exhaustion, and the hard comedown from adrenaline. Not to mention she’d been shot and now had stitches in her arm.

It had been a long night.

She wanted to shred his faerie costume and her cult uniform in the back of the limo in the heart of the Village. Oh, how she wanted it. Except she felt the small tremor in his hand. He was not feeling as well as he was pretending to be, and neither was she.

Slowly, she pulled back, pressing one last faint kiss on his lips.

Their breaths mingled as she stared down at him from her spot on his lap. The desire was plain on his face, but it was mingled with fear and fatigue.

“We should get you home. I think some reading will do you good,” she told him, dragging her thumb across her bottom lip.

---