Page 32 of Welcome to Fae Cafe

Cress smiled. “Not even close.”

He didn’t give her time to sort out her feelings before he yanked her chair toward his and stole a kiss, light and feathery and lush and infectious. And completely enchanted.

The human’s eyes were big when he pulled away, gazing at him with all the love and adoration of a silver-winged castle puppy.

Yes, she would see it all now.

He was the feared Prince of the North, dangerous assassin of—

She smacked him.

Cress’s face recoiled to the side; his lips parted in disbelief. He dragged his gaze back to her, unable to blink.

Never…

Never in his faeborn life…

“Don’t touch me,” the human said.

Deadly words rushed to the end of his tongue, but they never escaped. Cress found that he couldn’t blink. It was her face—Cress was sure that her face was gilded by the sun and beloved by the moon, molded together by the deities of the sky with soft, clay skin and an entire forest in her eyes.

Oh no…

The human’s chair squeaked. She was running out of the classroom before Cress could snatch her. He blinked away the fog spreading through his mind. He stifled a growl and stood, marching out and following her to the stairwell. She was too frantic to see him hop the rail and land silently at the bottom. He waited until Kate Kole flung herself down the last steps before he grabbed her and dragged her to the dark cranny below the rail.

His target’s hazel eyes were wild when she took him in. In them, Cress saw approximately twenty years’ worth of history and triumphs and failures and joys and pains. Though, for the life of him, hecould not spot her cruelty.

“Kiss me again, Human,” he demanded, eyeing her lush, violet-tinted lips that had not seemed sovioletorlushten minutes ago. “Immediately.”

“Let me go.” Her whisper sailed through the dimness. Cress smiled at the defeat in her tone—like that of a thornrabbit who fell from its nest and found itself before a powerful crossbeast. The surprise on her face was nearly delicious.

“Queensbane, you must have known I’d come for you,” Cress said. “No one kills a fairy and lives.”

The human tried to pull his hands off her hips.

Human chuckles echoed down from the tallest stair, and Cress’s mind scrambled through rules of the fairy law—including being spotted doing fairy works. Perhaps trapping a human was considered such a thing.

He reluctantly dropped his hands from his target’s sides, studying her wild red-purple hair, her oval-shaped mouth, and the black brand on her neck that told him she must belong to someone powerful. Only the strongest assassin houses branded their slaves.

There was also that fresh gash on her forehead from her scuttle in the alley. Cress’s brows tipped inward as he studied it, feeling an altogether different feeling when he looked at it now versus when he saw it in the street. A strange heat moved through him, and he fought the impulse to clench his fists.

“I’m surprised you let him hit you.”

Kate Kole’s face went white. “How did you…”

Cress smiled. Yes, he had been watching her. She was doomed.

“Stay away from me,” she said.

His target leapt from beneath his stare and joined the pack of humans heading away. Cress raised a hand to stop her, but he left it there, a weightless thing in the air. And he laughed, letting her get away after all.

“Yes, run from me little human,” he invited, more relieved than he could admit. “I’ll only play games with you. But my assassins will find you soon enough, and they don’t have the patience for games like I do.”

The human didn’t reply. When she swept around the corner on the heels of the others like her, Cress’s smile faded. He slumped back against the wall and slammed his palm against his thudding heart.

No. This could not be possible. No.

What wicked curse against his fairy blood was this?

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