Page 21 of The Dark Fae Princess
“You make me want to die,” he whispers. “I love you, Savannah.”
I lean forward and kiss him quickly, taking my hand off him so that I can drop my feet to the floor. I take hold of him again, wondering what he would do if I put him in my mouth, when a crashing through the trees coming in our direction, makes him jump away from me like a scalded cat.
He drags his pants back up and shoves me behind him to face whatever is headed our way, only to let out a sigh and stand down.
I peek around him and see that it is just a unicorn, come to investigate who is invading his territory.
“We should leave,” Jerrick says then and the moment is gone.
“Wait! I wasn’t finished.”
He gives me a sad look and says, “You gave me something very precious, Savannah. Seeing you respond to my touch will keep me going. But this can never happen again. I should not have allowed this to get this far.”
“This?” I cry at him, feeling the hurt of his words cut me deep. “How can you just walk away? Is this all a game to you?”
“How dare you!” he rounds on me furiously. “Ihaveto walk away from you before this goes any further. A game? I’ve told you repeatedly that I love you, but you have never said it back to me. That tells me all I need to know and to get my head out of my ass and back where it belongs. I am yourprotector, but I can’t protect you when all I can think about is when I get to kiss you again. And nowthis! I am aching to take you at your word and make love to you. I want to be inside you more than I want to take my next breath. I cannot do my job when I am like this. Look at tonight! I failed you because I wasn’t with you, protecting you. I was off being angry with you for misconstruing my words. How am I supposed to guard you when all I can think about is fucking you so damn hard, you'll scream my name for the entire Kingdom to hear and everything else be damned!”
I gape at him and his outburst.
He curses and spins around, stalking off a short way.
“I’m so–sorry,” I mutter, feeling the lash of his reprimand on my essence. “For what it’s worth, I do love you. I was nervous about saying it because it’s a new feeling and I wasn’t sure how to deal with it.”
“Dammit, Savannah!” he yells at me, turning back to face me. “That just makes all of this worse! You are forbidden to the likes of me. How am I supposed to deal with this?”
“I—I thought that’s what you wanted?” I ask confused and on the verge of tears.
“Is that why you said it?” he asks me bitterly. “Because you thought I wanted it.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. Why is this happening? Why is he ruining this for me? I knew as soon as he took me in his arms up against the tree that I loved him. I should’ve said something sooner. “I’ll talk to my grandfather…we can be together.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” he snaps at me. “You are destined for a Light Fae scum-fucker that doesn’t deserve you, doesn’t deserve to have you as his wife and have you in his bed every night.”
“Stop yelling at me!” I wail, tears falling down my cheeks now.
He curses again and then comes to me. “I apologize. I’m frustrated and hurt.”
“Well, so am I!”
“So, what do we do about it?” he asks quietly. “And don’t say talk to your grandfather because that isn’t an option.”
“I don’t want you to walk away from me.”
“I don’t want to walk away.”
“Then don’t. Be with me, Jerrick, in secret, out in the open, I don’t care! You started this! You don’t get to bail on me now!”
He nods slowly but I have no idea what he is agreeing to.
After a long, long moment, in which the unicorn relinquishes his territory to us and disappears into the trees again, he says. “In secret. But we do this right, Savannah. I don’t want you to be half in.”
“I’mallin,” I inform him. “Are you?” I offer up the challenge and he knows exactly what I’m talking about.
“What about your future, Princess?”
“Let me worry about that. Are you all in, Jerrick?”
“Yes,” he says with a sigh, “because walking away from you now will be the death of me.”
