Page 34 of The Fae Menagerie
I obliged, and he put his head down on the table as he laughed, arms and wings flailing to either side. He almost spilled his bowl into his blue hair.
"You really think that there's a well-endowed princess out there, waiting for a big dragon cock to fill her?" I asked.
"I know for a fact there is," he said. "Princess Haestronia of the wild hunt rides her dragon naked. He can fly upside down, but some say she also has wings between her legs."
"No." I shook my head, trying to dislodge the unwelcome image. "That's enough. No more talk of the wild hunt."
He motioned toward my bowl. "Finish eating, and we'll find another history to read."
"Histories? You said they were all romances."
"They are! History is made of romances, or love stories. Fae history, anyway. Which do you prefer? Your tales of war, or ours of love?"
I didn't answer, choosing instead to drain my bowl and then wipe it clean with my remaining bread crust. Once I finished, the bowl fled my grip for the sink, and the dishes washed themselves.
"Come on," Doyle said. "Let's find another bawdy story. I love to watch you blush."
He did, and it happened often. Back home, I'd loved books, but I'd also tried to gather meaning from context. If I couldn't, I kept reading instead of researching a word's definition. That, coupled with the archaic terms in the older texts, meant I leaned over to ask Doyle the meaning when I didn't know a word, and more often than not, it was an alternate term for sex, or body parts. At one point, Doyle drew me a diagram of the female anatomy, since I'd never seen a girl fully naked in my life and probably never would.
As fortune would have it, the book we found was about two male dryads. One lived alone in the woods so long he forgot who he was, and the other was sent to find him.
This time, my questions were more relevant to our current situation. "Do fae have fated mates?"
"Some," Doyle admitted.
"Not anthousai?"
"Not for two generations. My grandmother refused her fated mate. Some say she cursed our bloodline, but she said she declared our freedom." He shrugged. "It's all about perspective, and who writes the history books."
"There are history books about your grandmother?"
He grinned. "Oh, yes. I'm surprised you haven't read one yet." We returned to the library, and he pulled a few books from their shelves. "This isn't all of them. The rest are more political. These will give you the gist of her story. After we finish the dryad book, of course."
I couldn't argue with that, though the dryad book talked a lot about kissing, and the more I studied Doyle's mouth, the more I wanted to — No. Kissing was gross. What the hell was I thinking?
Chapter
Twelve
DOYLE
Four days later,I woke from a sound sleep to find Parker thrashing about in the sheets with droplets of sweat across his forehead. I worried that his fever had returned. I tried to comfort him and got punched in the gut for my efforts. Finally, I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him back against my chest.
"Shh. You're all right."
"I don't want to go!" His voice was both a whisper and a shout at the same time. It wasn't loud enough to wake him up, and he kept thrashing against my hold.
"You're not going anywhere." I smoothed his hair back from his face. It had grown over the past month-and-a-half, long enough to tuck the blue tips behind his ears.
"Doyle." He tensed. I thought he would fight me again, but he wriggled his body closer to mine and wrapped his arms over mine, holding me to him. "Doyle, please, tell them. I want to stay."
"You're having a bad dream," I said.
He shook his head, and his hair tickled my nose. I sneezed.
Parker woke up, and the room filled with dim light. I felt him tense against me, and I gently pulled my arm from his grip.
"Don't go." He tugged me back into place and wrapped his arms even more tightly over mine. "Please."
