Page 23 of Power Shift
The smile fell from his face. “You could marry me.”
The bottom dropped out of my world. I stared at him for a long moment, my thoughts stretching like taffy. “I—um. That’s—um.”
“Your only true choice if you don’t want the lords to hamstring your power.”
My jaw tightened. “Once again, I think the Lords are underestimating both my tenacity and willingness to fuck their world up.”
Caelan’s eyes still glowed a deep, burnished gold. His emotions were high, and his magic was reacting, making my own react to him. The embroidery on my dress shifted, several flowers blooming against the expensive satin.
“Your dress is flowering,” Caelan said in a rumbled voice.
“I can’t marry you,” I breathed. “That would be insanity.”
The room had emptied out and someone had closed the doors, leaving me and the Lord alone. Caelan reached a calloused finger out and tilted my chin up. “Am I so terrible, Evie? Hideous to look at? Do I have a terrible personality? No sense of humor. Do you not like the way I dress? The way I speak? What is it about me that so offends you?”
My heart crashed against my ribs. “You don’t love me.”
A flash of teeth. A flicker of silver in that gold. “Says who?” he whispered, moving so close I felt the heat of his words against my lips.
“Says…everyone. Me. I say you don’t.” I was rambling. His words had taken me by surprise. Was he serious? Or baiting me? He was always baiting me, so why would this be any different?
He tucked my hair behind my ear. “Does it matter, flower girl?”
I blinked. “Uh. Yes. It does. Why wouldn’t it?”
His eyes widened a hair. “You’re a romantic. Such a wild and ferocious heart hiding such a soft, squishy middle.”
“You should never use the wordssoft, squishy middlewhen speaking to a woman.”
“Mmm. Noted. You’re changing the subject, Evangeline.”
“I swear to the gods. Stop calling me that.” I wanted to pull away but couldn’t make myself. His fingers lingered on my jaw, the touch heating my skin.
“You don’t like your name?”
“My mother calls me that.”
“And you don’t like your mother.” A non-judgmental tone, more curious than anything.
“My mother is a goddess.”
Those five words told Caelan all he needed to know. He nodded. “I do not have many dealings with the gods, but they are known to have fickle hearts. What about your father?”
He might be the king of the fae, but Cernunnos, like all the gods, was being a cagey asshat right now and refused to answer the paternity question. Cernunnos claimed now wasn’t the right time to answer but had conveniently forgotten to mentionwhenthat time might be.
“My mother never said much about him.” I shook away the spell that Caelan was casting over me and pulled away from his touch. “It’s time for me to go. I’ve already spent too much time here.”
“Is it so bad to spend time with me?” Caelan dropped his hand.
“You are a Lord. Your future lies before you like a map on a table. The world is your oyster, Caelan. Any woman, any land, anything you want, you could walk in and take it.”
His eyes slowly faded from their burnished gold to the gold-flecked stormy gray I was familiar with.
“I am a small-town florist with a hair-trigger temper when it comes to you.”
His lips twitched.
“We are not meant for each other. I’m a curiosity to you, nothing more.”
