Page 38 of The Fae Menagerie
"And you seduced him for fun."
"It was fun." Doyle grinned. "Not as fun as the last few months with you, though."
His face morphed from a slightly teasing grin to a quick jerk of his hair to hide his face and the tinge of blush rising in his cheeks.
I tried to argue these had been the most boring three months of my life, but I couldn't. It wasn't true. "If I must be stuck with a fae prince for the rest of my life, I'm glad it's you, and not Drummond."
Doyle's smirk returned. "He would bore you with poetry."
"I don't mind poetry." We'd read a bawdy limerick book to each other just last week.
"Or how great the dark court have become now the hunt can run wild over more and more of the human realm."
I shook my head, remembering the description of the mistress of the hunt and her dragon lover. "No, thank you. I'd rather hear about your life before Prince Drummond and … all of this."
Doyle shrugged. I followed him to the library, where we slouched together on the reading bench closest to a window. The wall was partially covered by a bookcase, but the cuddlebug children sometimes watched us while Horace took an afternoon nap.
"There isn't much to tell, really," Doyle said as we assumed our usual position. I leaned my elbow against the bench's arm, and he propped his head on my thigh. The difference was, I held no book to hide behind, and it seemed rude to look away while he told me about his life as prince of the anthousai.
I wanted to run my fingers through his thick blue hair, my new habit, but it seemed awkward while he stared at me. I fidgeted with the blanket hanging over the back of the bench until he grabbed my hand and placed it on top of his head. He never stopped talking, but his glare put my fingers to work, stroking through the long, silky strands. He closed his eyes at the first touch, but he continued with story after story of drunken revelry at parties, drunken merriment at balls, and random drunken shenanigans in the light court.
Doyle covered his mouth for a jaw-cracking yawn. "In short, I was a brat."
"You were an inebriated brat."
"Oh, you caught that?" Doyle snorted. "For the first century in here, I thought I would die without a drink."
"Why did you drink so much?"
"It made the time pass quicker?" He shrugged. "All I know is, I've been off the stuff for millennia, and I'm glad to be rid of it."
I didn't believe him, but without a bottle of wine or whatever else they might serve in the fae menagerie, I would never know.
"Aidan used to give me a sip from his flask after I sucked him. Mother put a stop to that."
I knew Doyle's relationship with Aidan had been transactional, but this seemed low, even for Aidan. "What did you see in him?"
"A way out of this place. That's all he's ever been to me."
My heart felt too large for my chest as my ribs seemed to constrict. What made me any different? He'd called me to his summoning circle for the explicit purpose of bringing me here, even though Bret was the one who shoved me across the barrier.
Why did I want to be more than a way out? Why did I even care? I didn't love Doyle. I couldn't desire him the way he had been wanted and chased through half of the fae realm, all for his big dick and drunken willingness to "fuck anything with a suitable hole that wouldn't burn my dick off" (his exact words from the story he'd just finished).
Love didn't have to mean desire, though. I'd loved my best friend in high school. Granted, that had gone very wrong when he tried to kiss me at the after-prom party, and I freaked out.
I didn't love Doyle … did I? We'd only known each other for a few months. He'd never once made a pass at me since I'd shared I was probably ace and not interested in him. He respected my boundaries.
Were we … friends? It had been decades since I'd had one. Who could blame me for not recognizing our relationship for what it was?
Friends who shared a bed and cuddled on the couch. Friends who played with each other's hair. Doyle brushed mine behind my ear occasionally, now that it was long enough to do so.
I didn't want more, but the deep ache in my chest wouldn't go away, even after we followed the clatter of dishes and smell of savory food to the kitchen for dinner.
Dinner was a dud,even for me. The potato soup was blander than usual, and the stale bread dissolved on my tongue like sand. When our stomachs growled an hour later, I followed Doyle to the kitchen to see what we could find for snacks.
He stopped in the doorway so suddenly, I stepped on his heel. "That's not normal."
He pointed out the window. In the adjoining kitchen on the opposite side of the glass, Horace braced all six appendages against the wall with his back against the door, trying to hold it closed.
