Page 163 of Promise of Darkness
“You’ve never asked me that before,” he says.
“Maybe I never dared. I could see it in your face when we were fleeing Blaedwyn’s castle. And most Seelie don’t have wings, but some do.” I brush my hands against the sleek smooth skin of his back, where his wings should be. “Your eyes go dark when these appear.”
He shudders, as if the sensation of my hands is too much. With a shiver that contorts his face, the wings appear. And the tattoos on his chest darken.
My breath catches as I behold them.
Those feathers are sleek and glossy, and spun from pure midnight. I always thought—or was told—that the Unseelie are ugly, beastly creatures, but he’s not. He’s beautiful in a way that makes my heart race.
“May I touch them?”
He nods.
And then my hands brush against them. “Do you fly?”
“I can.” His voice roughens. “Sometimes I need to escape the city and I head north, to the mountains where the goblin clans reside. There’s nothing more freeing than hurtling yourself through those icy peaks, risking death on the wind.”
“But you don’t dare cross into Unseelie.”
“No. I don’t.”
He vanishes his wings. It almost seems as though some of his vitality and power disappear. He’s utter perfection in any form, but I love the wildness of his other side, the feral carnality of it.
“Your shadows. Your Darkness. It’s your Unseelie side fighting to break free, isn’t it?” It’s the reason I’ve never seen those sorts of tattoos before. They’re not from the Seelie courts.
Thiago laces his fingers through mine. “I’ll tell you the truth one day, I promise. If you stand before your mother’s court and choose me, then I will tell you the truth.”
But not before.
I tug my fingers from his. It’s clear he doesn’t think we’ll be able to break the curse. “Believe in us. Believe inme!”
Thiago draws back, his mouth set in a thin line. “I’ve spent every day of the last thirteen years believing in you. That doesn’t negate the truth—everything we’ve tried has failed.”
“The Morai said—”
“The Morai speak in riddles,” he snarls. “Their words cannot always be trusted.”
It makes me wonder what they promised him when he sought them out. There’s a reason they warned him never to return. I cross my arms over my chest, determined not to take offense. “They can’t lie.”
I’d told him everything as we lay in each other’s arms. But I hadn’t realized that he didn’t feel the same surge of hope I felt.
“It doesn’t mean they speak the truth,” he warns. “There are a thousand ways to word something, to make a fool believe.”
“Are you calling me a fool?” My voice sounds cold, even to my own ears.
Thiago freezes, as if he realizes he’s gone too far. “I think you want to believe them,” he replies carefully.
If I don’t believe them, then we have no hope.
And hope is the only thing I can live for.
But it’s suddenly clear that whatever hope he held is gone, dying away like a guttering candle. I can’t entirely blame him. How many times have I promised my love? How many times have I forgotten it? The years have clearly taken their toll.
“Perhaps I was the fool,” he says, “who wanted to believe.” He turns away from me, the muscles in his broad back quivering with anger as grabs the poker by the fireplace and stabs at the fire. “They promised me the love of my life, though they never promised her heart in return. They said I could have a piece of her, but only a piece. I never understood what that meant until you forgot me the first time.”
Crossing the carpets, I wrap my arms around him. His wings are gone, the darkness inside him vanishing. There’s only the prince, with his wicked eyes and his guarded heart.
“I’m sorry.”
