Page 122 of Curse of Darkness
Every time Adaia would send Vi back to me, and my wife would look at me with that blank lack of recognition…. Adaia stole years from us. Our daughter. Our time together. It feels like I’ve lost so much over the years, and now this….
“I wish it was you too.”
What?
Finn sees my startled expression. “You think I enjoy having Vi’s thoughts catch me off guard at times? Do you know how many times I’ve nearly choked on my tea, thanks to a sudden, very-visceral image of your ass? Without clothing? It’s a cursed good thing I’ve spent five hundred years centering my mind. I’ve managed to block most of it, and keep my own thoughts retained.” With a rough sigh, he looks away. “At the same time, I’m grateful that I could be here for her. She was drowning when she bonded me, Thiago. She thinks everything is her burden to shoulder, every fight hers to face. She lost you and it came close to destroying her. I’ve been trying to center her too. If I had time, I’d have her down here training with me and clearing her mind. But we don’t have time.”
“I understand all of that.” Rolling my sleeves up, I tuck them at my elbows. “Nobody ever said that what I feel is rational.”
Finn grins at me. “Prickly, territorial prince.”
“Ha, ha.”
He spreads his arms wide. “Want to hit me?”
“No.”
“Bullshit.”
Since he’s asking for it….
I kick his feet out from under him.
Or at least, I try.
Finn launches over the kick, grinning like a grimalkin in the night. “Too slow,” he mocks. “You practically nailed the choreography for your forthcoming move to my forehead.”
Rolling my shoulders, I dance on my feet. “What makes you think that wasn’t meant to be the warning?”
“Warning for what?”
“This.”
I lunge forward, slamming against him. The impact drives him back three feet. Finn’s white teeth flash at me in good humor, then he hooks an arm around my neck, flips his legs up and brings me crashing to the dirt.
We wrestle together, grinding each other’s face into the dirt, changing holds, turning the tides of battle more than half a dozen times—
Arching his hips, he flips himself to his feet like a lithe cat, and nearly kicks my head off my shoulders.
I roll away, coming up in a fighting stance. “That was distinctly not friendly.”
“That was the warm up,” he says, heading for the training rack. This time, he chooses star-forged steel. Iron is anathema to the fae, but this particular alloy holds enough other metals—off-world metals—to be touchable.
It’s also lethal.
“The warm-up?” I dust off my hands. “You nearly took my head off my shoulders.”
“You’re getting slow,” he snorts. “All that rolling around in bed with your lovely wife, and those pastries Thalia keeps feeding the pair of you…. Soon you’re going to be huffing around my training yard like a thirty-year-old mule.”
“Well, at least one of us is rolling around in bed with a lovely wife.”
“What makes you think I want a wife?”
I snort. “You keep saying such things, Finn… and then a certain ass-kicker steals your tongue. Every single time.”
Finn freezes. “Vi told you?”
“If you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about, she didn’t have to tell me. I’ve got eyes.”
