Spring

As I watch, brownies and sprites collect the fireflies in glass jars, their glowing bodies thudding softly against the glass.

I can only hope these aren’t the same fireflies I just released. A few alight on my arm, and I watch, transfixed, as they take to the air and begin to form . . .

Letters?

ILB.

Someone’s feeling clever. Laughing, I follow the glowing creatures through the maze, thankful for their guidance. When I’m completely lost, with no hope of ever finding my way out, I feel that exquisite little tug deep inside my core.

The one that screams Valerian is near.

A low chuckle drifts from the shadows ahead. The center of the maze is a statue of two naked lovers. They’re locked in an embrace steamy enough that heat pricks my cheeks.

Dragging my focus from the scene, I make out the Winter Prince just beyond. The fireflies swirl around him, their ethereal light matching the faint ring of gold circling his silver eyes.

“ILB?” I tease, alarmed at how nervous my voice is.

“Illustrious lover boy?” he guesses. “No, I’m definitely not a boy. Ignominious little bastard?” His eyes twinkle. “We both know little is an unfitting description of me.” Holy hell, is he trying to make me blush? “Bastard, however, is probably correct.”

My lips twitch at the corners. “Impossibly likeable bastard?”

My breath hitches as he closes the distance between us until I can feel the coolness emanating from his body, as if a winter storm rages inside him. He reaches for me, and I go completely still as his hand cups the side of my face, tilting my head to look up at him.

“I’m a bastard, Summer. I’m selfish. I’m haughty. Vain. I can be thoughtlessly cruel when it suits me, and I don’t think twice about bartering for the things I want.” He drags his thumb along the curve of my cheek. “I thought I could somehow buy you with grand gestures, like a piece of jewelry I coveted.”

He drops his hand, and I fight the urge to press my body into his. “Valerian—”

“Let me say this, please.”

I nod, steeling my heart for whatever words come next.

“When I was at your home, when I saw you around your family, I realized my mistake. I’ve been treating you like a Fae, but you’re both. You possess the ferocity and boldness of an Evermore, but a mortal’s kindness, untarnished by centuries of living in our mercurial world. And you love with abandon, no matter the price, despite the pain you’ve been dealt.” He takes my hand in his, intertwining our fingers. “You’re my mate, Summer, and I’ll never give up until you’re by my side. Your fight is my fight. Your people are my people. I’ll do whatever it takes to prove I deserve you . . . even if that means . . . daring to love you.”

Holy mother forking shite, did Valerian Sylverfrost just say the L word?

Pushing onto my toes, I brush my lips against his pointed ear, enjoying the way he shivers. “Everything you said was true. You’re vain. Selfish. Sometimes a bastard. And Fae to the core.” I pull back, just enough that he can see my face. “But you’re my bastard. My Fae. My mate. I thought forcing you to say you loved me would mend a wound that wasn’t yours to mend.”

I think of my parents. How they told me they couldn’t love me. But it was their actions that wounded me the deepest, not their words.

“I know, Summer. After the Spring Formal, I somehow took on your dreams. I saw what your mortal parents did to you. I experienced the confusion and pain you felt as your mother watched the slavers force you into a cage.” Anger turns his voice soft, lethal. “I felt your heart break as that mortal woman peered through those bars and told you that she tried to love you but couldn’t. That no one ever would.”

Air lodges in my throat. I don’t have the words to respond. My chest feels close to cracking open . . .

Looking into my eyes, Valerian presses his hand just above my heart. Drawing out my pain. Taking it as his own.

“I will never leave you. I will never hurt you. I can’t. You’re a part of me. I don’t know if that’s love or something else, something so rare it doesn’t have a name.”

Warmth trails down my left cheek. He reaches up, pooling the tear on his thumb. “Say it again,” he orders, his husky tone warming my belly.

“What?” I tease. “Bastard?”

Excitement flickers inside his silver eyes as they fixate on my lips. “Mate. Say I’m your mate. I want to watch your lips as they form the words. Then I’m going to kiss you, Summer. Hard.”

My head spins, a whirlwind of emotions churning inside me as I whisper, “My mate.”

His mouth claims mine. True to his word, his kiss is hard, unyielding, his tongue parting my lips over and over until I moan. His fingers tangle in my hair. Holding me still as his kiss deepens and . . . Shimmer save me, I’ve never been more sure of what I want than right this moment.

I want Valerian Sylverfrost.

All of him.

The bad and the good. The broken and the proud. The arrogant and the occasionally sweet.

“I want to be with you,” I murmur, feeling disembodied, as if the voice comes from a stranger. “To consummate the bond.”

My lips are swollen and tender as he jerks his head back to look at me. “As much as I would love that, not here. Not in this wretched place. Not when we only have a few short hours.”

“Please.”

44

Valerian’s eyes darken as something sensual and raw takes hold of him. It seeps into the air of the hedge maze, charging it with tension. A predatory intent that should scare me, but doesn’t. “Lie down.”

“What?” I squeak.

“Princess, I may possess enough willpower to resist claiming you, but you’re my mate, and there is zero chance that I’m letting you leave this maze until I’ve satisfied the restless hunger I feel inside you. Otherwise you’ll never sleep tonight.” One side of his mouth twitches. “I might also have an ulterior motive. Once I’ve shown you the perks of being my mate, you won’t be able to resist consummating the bond.”

I snort. “Arrogant much?”

“I am arrogant because I can be. You’ll understand in a moment. Now, lie down.”

And . . . this is what it feels like to blush from head to toe. My body manages the feat of feeling both numb and exploding with sensation as I do as commanded, resting on my back, knees bent.

The ground is wonderfully soft, the thick carpet of grass strewn with fallen honeysuckle buds and dew. For a breath, the raw scent of the earth and crushed petals trigger a strange sensation deep inside me, as if my slumbering Fae has woken from a long slumber.

Valerian is quiet. He stares down at me for a moment with that wicked smile and those glittering Fae eyes. “I’m going to undress you now, Princess.”

A puff of air flees my lips as he crouches low. When his fingers curl beneath the waistband of my pants, his face softens, becomes almost vulnerable as he hesitates—making sure this is what I want.

It’s this very moment, as he lets me beyond the teasing shield to the real Valerian, that I know I’ll never doubt his love for me again.

He undresses me slowly. With purpose. As if every item of clothing he removes is a declaration of his love for me. When everything but my underwear is gone, moonlight casting soft shadows along my curves, turning my skin almost iridescent, his lips stretch into a cat-ate-the-canary grin.

Except I’m the canary. And I’m so here for it.

Those same lips crush against mine. As soon as I open my mouth for him, his kiss turns surprisingly gentle. Soft. Teasing. A promise that he can be both wild and tender, savage and kind. A promise to never hurt me.

“Is this what I have to look forward to?” I quip. “A lifetime of kisses?”

A low snarl builds in his throat. “Where would my mate like to be kissed?”

“Surprise me.”

He chuckles. “As you command, Princess. But first, a bargain.”

I stiffen. I’ve had my fill of Fae bargains. “What did you have in mind?”

“If I can make you utter a single sound in the next hour, you must tell me what ILB stands for.”

“And if I don’t?” I challenge.

“Then I will spend the next few weeks learning how to remedy that failing.”

Oh, Lordy. He takes my silence as a yes. The stars appear above me as he drags his attention from my mouth to my throat, strands of his silky hair tickling my jaw. He nips his way down to my stomach as his hands slide beneath my thighs, positioning me so that . . .

Sweet mother of Fae and all things holy. The stars momentarily black out. My back arches against his surprise. My legs tremble as a live wire of heat shoots through my middle over and over and—

I bite back the rush of sound ripping up my throat. Heat consumes my body. A deep, aching heat that can only be quenched by Valerian. Every laugh Valerian utters as he works to undo me, every stroke of his fingers against my feverish skin, every piercing, consuming, mind-blowing shard of pleasure that swells my center until I’m certain I’ll shatter—all of it confirms what I must have known all along.

What some quiet, buried part of me has always known.

Valerian, this imperfectly-perfect Fae prince, is my mate.

As the stars fade in and out of my vision, blurring with the fireflies, and my voice builds in my throat, scrambling for release, I can almost imagine a future for us.

Human and Fae. Mortal and immortal. Summer and Winter.

All at once, the pressure releases, and the air violently explodes from my chest, snapping my lips wide . . .

Damn. My arrogant, smarmy, beautiful mate lifts his head to meet my gaze, eyes victorious, and says, “You lost the bargain, very loudly and adorably, I might add.”

“You . . . cheated,” I pant.

“I never cheat. But you shouldn’t feel bad about losing. I am very skilled in certain areas.” One arched eyebrow lifts, his tousled hair more messy than usual from where I clawed my fingers through it. “But if you beg, I might give you another chance to prove me wrong.”