When I came back downstairs, dressed in the leggings and tunic I’d had on earlier and face scrubbed free of makeup, it was only Tink waiting for me, and it was jarring to see him full size. When Tink was what he liked to call “fun sized,” he was just adorable, but fully grown? There was no way you could help acknowledging how attractive he was, and that just made me feel weird.
Frowning, I looked around the foyer. “Where’s Caden?”
“He went ahead and is going to meet you in Tanner’s office,” he said in a voice so much deeper than what I was used to. “He left his car here for you to drive us.”
“Oh.” That was weird. “Did he fill you in on everything?”
“Most of it.” Tink stepped toward me. “He… he kissed you.”
Heat immediately smacked into my cheeks. “Yeah, he kind of did.”
“He didn’t kind of kiss you, Lite Bright. He looked like he was devouring your mouth.”
It had kind of felt like that.
“Brighton, I….” Tink trailed off as he slowly shook his head.
A kernel of dread took root in my stomach. “What?”
“Nothing. We should go.”
We really did need to get going, so when Tink handed me the keys that would allow me to drive Caden’s SUV, I took them. That kernel of dread grew though when Tink was unnaturally quiet as he sat in the passenger seat. And Tink, even when he was full sized, was never quiet.
And he was almost never full-sized around me, not since, well, two years ago.
When we arrived at Hotel Good Fae, Tink headed off to the cafeteria while I went to Tanner’s office and waited for Caden. I had no idea how Tink stayed as fit as he did when I swore if he wasn’t talking, he was eating something.
Must be brownie metabolism.
Taking a shallow breath, I roamed around Tanner’s office, too antsy to sit down. Okay, I wasn’t antsy. I was….
I was feeling a thousand different things. Disbelief. Anger. Shock, and then under that, under all of that, there was also anticipation.
Anticipation that had everything to do with Caden.
I rolled my eyes as I walked over to the window, ignoring the dull twinge in my side. There was a bubbling giddiness that made me feel at least a decade younger. Was that what love—
“Stop,” I told myself and then I laughed, because telling myself to stop thinking what I’d already thought was kind of pointless.
I smoothed my hands over my hair, which felt weird against my neck. I was so used to wearing it up, but Caden had said….
He’d said he liked my hair down.
Actually, he’d used far more eloquent words than that. What had he said? My hair was like—
The door opened in that moment and I spun toward it.
Caden walked in, closing the door behind him, and as he looked over at me, seeming to know exactly where I stood, I got a little lost in… well, in staring at him.
Shamefully lost.
He’d changed, too. Wearing a white dress shirt tucked into a pair of tailored black slacks, he actually looked like a prince—a mouthwatering prince.
And he’d kissed me—really kissed me.
How crazy was that?
Totally insane.
Biting down on my lower lip, I tried to stop the grin from racing across my face so I didn’t look crazy. I lost that battle as I started toward him, wanting to hug him—okay, I actually wanted to kiss him again. And I could do that, right? He’d kissed me and, well, he’d done more than that earlier, and—
“Do we have a moment?” he asked, and my smile slowly slipped from my face as I stopped. There was something… off about his tone. Empty. Cold? And his expression was utterly blank.
The sense of dread from the car ride rose as I swallowed. “Yeah, we have a couple of minutes.”
His gaze flickered over my face before settling on the window. “I just wanted… to make sure we have an understanding between us.”
“An understanding about what?” The dread gave way to a strange buzzing in my ears, adding a surreal element to all of this.
“About us.”
I started to sit down, but found I couldn’t move. “About us?” I repeated dumbly.
Still not looking at me, he nodded. “I know we have shared… intimacies, mostly under extreme circumstances, and we share this attraction.”
Incapable of moving, all I could do was stand there as what felt like a fist reached into my chest and squeezed. That was how I knew what he was about to say. My heart already knew.
“I think you’re incredibly brave, foolishly so at times,” he continued, and a rush of prickly heat crept up the back of my neck. “You’re intelligent and kind, and your beauty rivals that of the sun.”
I sucked in a shaky breath. All of that sounded… sounded wonderful and beautiful and something I felt like I’d been waiting my whole life to hear, but…
I knew where this was going.
“Stop,” I whispered, voice embarrassingly hoarse. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I do,” he said, and I closed my eyes against the sudden, unwanted burn. “You are a treasure, Brighton.”
“Okay,” I laughed, the sound coarse to my own ears. “I’m a treasure?”
“You are.” His voice softened.
I opened my eyes and I hated that. Hated how his expression wasn’t void of emotion anymore. It was strained and tense and his gaze was conflicted.
Pressing my lips together, I dragged my hand through my hair as the wind seemed to whoosh out of my lungs.
“I don’t want things to be awkward between us,” he said, and another laugh crawled up my throat.
I turned back to him. “Why would it be awkward, Caden?”
He flinched at the sound of his name. “Because what we had, whatever that was, it wasn’t real. It was an act that… that got out of hand.”
There it was.
He wasn’t beating around the bush anymore, but I didn’t understand. I knew what he was saying, but it didn’t make sense.
“You told me it was real.” I managed to keep my voice steady. “You even called me out when I lied about how I felt. You said you wanted me. You just kissed me. You said you—”
“The physical part was real. How could it not be? You’re beautiful and I’m—”
“And you’re a man, and that’s just how it goes? Really?” My eyes widened. “That’s how you’re going to play this? There was just a physical attraction and that’s all?”
“I’m not playing anything. It’s just the way it is.” Caden turned from me, shoving a hand over his head, through his hair. “It’s the way it needs to be. You’re human and I’m—”
“I know what you are.” My heart pounded in my chest as I folded my arms across my stomach. “I’ve always known what you are.”
“Then you should know,” he said.
“No, I don’t. You just kissed—”
“I know I kissed you and that was—that was a stupid mistake.”
“A mistake?” I whispered.
“Things have changed.” His voice hardened now. “I don’t want things to be uncomfortable between us. We need to work together. You need to put this behind us. I already have.”
The hole in my chest cracked my heart as I stumbled back from him. I knew it shouldn’t matter. I was just acknowledging that I had feelings for him—how deep those feelings ran, I didn’t know—but there was a hole opening up in my chest.
There was no denying he meant what he said. I heard it in his voice. I saw it in his face, and I had no idea how I’d misread things with him so badly. How I could’ve been so damn foolish to think there was more to what was between us.
Humiliation festered to life, settling into my bones and spreading like a fever, flushing my skin.
Caden—no, he wasn’t Caden to me anymore. He was just the Prince, and he must’ve sensed the sharp, bitter swirl of emotions churning through me, because he stepped toward me.
“Brighton—”
“I get it.” I cut him off as I stepped to the side. “Message received.”
“I’m—”
“Don’t apologize. God, please don’t apologize. That’s….” When his face began to blur I knew I needed to get out of this room. I would not lose it in front of him. I would not cry over what could have been when there was apparently nothing in the first place. “You said… you said you wouldn’t hurt me. You lied.”
He drew back as if I’d hit him.
“I need to go,” I said.
And I did.
Ivy and Ren would’ve been here by now, waiting for us in the main common area, and I just… I just needed to get the hell out of this room.
Giving him a wide berth, I skirted around the chairs and made a beeline for the door. I made it and I made it out into the empty hallway knowing that the Prince could’ve stopped me at any moment.
But he hadn’t.
He’d chosen not to.
Acknowledging that hollowed out my chest, and I walked to the common area in a daze, focused only on breathing around the burn in my throat.
Hands shaking, I kept them fisted tight as I picked up my pace, reaching the main hall. There were fae everywhere. They spilled out from the common area, their eyes wide and the hum of excitement charged the room.
I had no idea what was going on as I scanned the unfamiliar faces. There was a shock of red hair toward the back. Ivy. She and Ren were here, which meant that was probably where Tink was. Concentrating only on getting to them, I didn’t notice the first fae to drop to their knee before me.
But then they went down in a wave, one after the other, dropping to their knees and bowing deeply, placing their right hands on the floor. All of them went down until I could see Ivy standing near the entrance to the common room and beside her was Ren. Both looked surprised as I felt.
Neither of them looked as shocked as Prince Fabian, though, which was saying something because both Ren and Ivy looked about as confused as I felt.
Prince Fabian’s long blond hair was pulled back, revealing just how pale his face was as his lips moved wordlessly.
Then he dropped to his right knee and placed his right hand onto the floor.
“What the hell?” I whispered, turning around slowly, knowing they weren’t bowing for me, because duh.
Things are different now.
I saw him in the hall I’d just hurried out of, the edges of his blond hair brushing those wide shoulders and those odd amber eyes were not on the fae who were bowing to him but on me.
“Oh my God,” I whispered as Tink’s words from the night the Prince was wounded came back to me in a rush. If he dies, then Fabian becomes King and he… he can’t be King.
Did that mean…?
He closed his eyes and a reddish-yellow glow appeared, just like it had before, as if there was a halo of light behind him. There was no flaming sword this time when the glow receded.
Instead there was a burnt gold crown atop his head.
Caden was no longer the Prince.
He was the King.
* * * *
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