“Greetings,” Garrin said to the room, his gaze landing on Lex. Heat filled his eyes, and Lex’s breath froze in her chest.
He was really good at the fake fiancé thing. Those eyes were giving her an excellent idea of what it would be like to be desired by Garrin Branimir. And she was not immune. Combine that with her confused feelings when it came to him after their travels, and her face heated.
Garrin crossed the room and lifted Lex’s hand, his warm fingers sliding to the tips of hers. He placed a light kiss on her knuckles. “Hello.”
“Hi.” Smooth. She gave herself a mental head shake. “You cleaned up nice.”
“As did you.” His gaze skimmed her body.
Shivers raced down her spine and her belly wobbled. With food in her stomach and a warm room, her body was no longer in fight-or-flight mode and had time for less convenient reactions, like attraction. “So, future husband, what now?” she said quietly, though she wouldn’t doubt others had heard.
Garrin was her fake fiancé, as well as boyfriend to some thirty women. And that seemed about right when it came to her luck with men. A handsome man finally looked at her, and he didn’t have a secret girlfriend—he had dozens.
“Has my court treated you well?”
“Don’t I look well?”
He scanned her body in another heated stroke, and her mind scattered to the four corners of the universe. “Indeed, you do.”
She cleared her throat and said quietly, “Is there someplace we can talk that doesn’t contain a roomful of women waiting to jump your bones?”
Garrin chuckled, the sound like pure seduction, damn him. He placed a hand on the small of her back and escorted her out of the communal dressing room and down a corridor of what appeared to be bedrooms. He stopped at the last door and gestured for her to enter.
This room wasn’t as large as the others she’d been in, including Garrin’s dressing room, but it was huge in Earth terms, with kelly-green wainscoting, tall glass windows looking out onto the snow and ice landscape, and a two-story ceiling decorated in ornately painted murals of entwined lovers.
Lex glanced at the lovers, and her face heated. Fae were not modest by any stretch of the imagination. “How did you build this place in what equates to the Arctic?”
Garrin looked around. “This was built long before the land became permanent winter. Believe it or not, we used to have seasons, with allon trees as abundant in Dark Kingdom as they are everywhere in Tirnan. I never saw it, personally. It has been winter since before I was born.”
Garrin crossed the room and sat in a settee. He tugged his pants and crossed his leg over his knee. “Come,” he said. “What did you wish to discuss? Surely not the décor of Dark Kingdom castle.”
Lex walked over and, as gracefully as she could for someone used to wearing jeans and sweatshirts, sat beside him in her pretty dress. Though maybe she should have rethought the close proximity.
He smelled good. Better than he already had during their travels. And the attraction that made her stomach drop and spin was stronger now that she was inches from his large body.
Garrin’s gaze stroked her face, his eyes snagging on her lips—and there went the flutters in her belly.
Lex cleared her throat. “What are we going to do?”
His gaze slowly rose from her lips and settled on her eyes.
Lex leaned back. It was either that or she’d instinctively lean closer. But in her totally not smooth effort to keep her composure, her thigh bumped his, and her skin zinged through the fabric of her dress.
His chest rose, and his eyes dropped to her mouth.
“What are we doing?” she said, swallowing her nerves and clamping her hands together.
She’d admired men from afar. Occasionally considered what it would be like to have a boyfriend. But she’d never wanted anything the way she wanted to get closer to Garrin right now.
“You left me in that lion’s den, a-and that can’t last,” she said. “They hate me. Well, everyone except for Em. And I have no idea where you stashed my mother.”
“Lion’s den?” He lifted his eyebrow. “Your mother is with Zirel’s people and safe. Are you feeling”—he gestured with his hand and looked down her body—“the fear you had when we first met?”
What? “You mean my anxiety?”
He nodded.
“No, actually. I’m not comfortable here, but I don’t have the anxiety I usually do in new places. Which is weird.”
“That is not so strange,” he said. “You have shed powerful magic that hid your appearance on Earth. You are not the same physically or magically. It stands to reason that your emotions have changed as well.”
“I suppose.” Maybe somewhere deep down she knew something hadn’t been right back home, and the social anxiety was a result of not being able to be herself?
“Either way,” she said, daring to lean closer, “what is the plan? You can’t keep me here.”
Bad move, the leaning closer part.
“The plan,” he said, his eyes moving from her cheekbones to her neck and back to her eyes, “is for you to master your magical ability when it is safe to do so and without calling attention. Without the magic, we are either trapped in Dark Kingdom or risk death trying to escape. The strongest of us might survive travel through the Land of Ice, but most would perish.”
A shiver racked Lex’s body. They would have died if her mother hadn’t saved them. And she had only managed that because of some unseen power Lex supposedly had.
“If your powers are as strong as your mother believes,” Garrin continued, “there is hope that one day we’ll be able to leave without risk. And not only some of us, but all of us.”
“You escaped,” she pointed out. “Several times. How did you do it and survive?”
“Once. I made it through to the Earth realm only the one time, when I found you. I lost dozens of Fae soldiers over the years trying before that,” he said gravely. “My life was put at risk repeatedly, even with careful preparation. I am stronger than most in our land, save my father, but I have limits. Which is why we need a portal that isn’t affected by the magical barrier separating our land from the rest of Tirnan.”
“The ravine is what stopped you?”
Garrin nodded. “Among other things.”
“My mother said your father put her in the ravine. Do you still trust him?”
A shadow crossed Garrin’s face. “I don’t know what to believe. Your mother’s story is confounding.”
“Fae don’t lie. And my mother is Fae. And for the record, it seems I can’t lie either. I tried to, and it got stuck in my throat.”
“And you are disappointed?”
“Yes! The ability to lie is one of the best things about being human.”
Garrin smiled, then looked down and seemed to consider her words. “Your true energy level, physical form, and essence have returned. The rules that apply to Fae apply now to you as well.”
She glanced away nervously. “About that physical form business. What’s the deal with that?”
He set both feet on the ground and leaned on his forearms, making their heads level. “You don’t like your appearance?”
“It’s not that. I just…look kind of pretty compared to what I used to look like.”
“You’ve always been beautiful, whether Fae or human.”
For a moment, Lex couldn’t breathe. They were alone. He had no need to convince outsiders of his devotion, and yet he’d said the words anyway.
No one thought her pretty in the Earth realm. In Tirnan, well, she supposed the physical changes helped. But if Garrin thought her beautiful prior to the changes…
Before she could wrap her head around what he was saying, Garrin did something she never would have predicted.
He leaned over and kissed her.
And not just any kiss. Her first kiss.
Time stopped. Every breath, every sound, including her own heartbeat, magnified.
The press of his lips was soft yet firm, and he hesitated just a beat as though he didn’t want to pull away.
Her blood crackled to life and the electrical sensation that ran down her spine whenever they touched hit her tenfold.
