Page 45 of The Beast King's Bride

“You were watching me all this time? Through Poe?”

“Poe?”

“The raven. I named him Poe. You spied on me through my friend?”

“The bird is your friend?” He turns around fully to look at me and I squeak, sinking into the water so fast I almost go under. “Is that normal for humans?”

“I said you should be turned away!”

His eyes seem to glow in the dimness of the cavernous space, catching the light of the lamps and torches. They drop to where I’m up to my chin in the water. “Why?”

“Don’t you have any manners?”

“I am a Fae,” he says, sinking into the water until he’s facing me, lifting a hand to my face. “Why should you expect me to have any human manners?”

Frozen and yet burning, I shiver when his long fingers touch my cheek, brushing under my eye, over my lashes. He’s so close I can see flecks of gold and copper in his blue eyes, I can see a faint scar on his jaw, I can see a slightly crooked canine between his soft lips.

Not perfect, I think. He’s not perfect. Despite the horns and the pointed ears, despite the harshness of his words, he’s flawed like us.

Flawed and so beautiful I can hardly breathe as I take in every detail of his face, his neck, his big shoulders, while his scent slithers into me, sensuous and raw and intoxicating. When did I go from hating it to liking it so much?

I ache with how much I want him. How easy would it be to shift forward, press my body to all that taut skin, those powerful muscles, press my lips to those arrogant, expressive lips…?

His eyes dip to my mouth as if he has heard my thoughts, and his thumb brushes over my lips, parting them. His breathing is becoming uneven, too, I notice with a gleam of relief. He’s affected, too, it’s not just me. That would have been embarrassing—though he is a Fae, and their effect on humans is known, and…

Oh Gods.

Placing both hands on his hard, muscular chest, I push—push myself back, that is, since he’s as unmoving as a mountain.

“No,” I whisper.

A crease appears between his dark brows, and his head cocks slightly to the side as if he’s trying to understand a foreign language. “Princess?”

“No,” I say again and slosh backward. “I’m your prisoner and this is all wrong.”

“You are my guest.”

“A guest with locked doors is a prisoner, Talen.”

He lets his hand drop into the water. “You’re right. Will you…?” He takes a deep breath. “Will you then stay a while, if I promise that afterward you can go?”

I stare at him, waiting for conditions, for a catch.

“How long?” I whisper. “How long would I have to stay?”

“A moon.”

“And then you’ll let me leave?”

He hesitates. His dark crystal eyes have dimmed. “I don’t understand,” he says slowly. “You were a servant back home. Practically a slave. Here you can live like a princess. Why would you ever want to go back?”

“To be free.”

“Were you free, though?”

I think about that. He’s right. And yet… “I’d be free to choose,” I explain.

“To choose slavery over being here, with me.”

---