She leaned away, twisting to sit sideward over his lap. His arm curled around her bent knees. With a long breath, she asked, “What did Farrah look like?”

  It was the last thing he expected. Reylan took her hand, curious as to why she wanted to know as he watched sorrow and fear clash in her amber irises. “Blonde,” he told her. “The kind like pale gold. Clear blue eyes. She was small in form, so delicate I thought I could break her with one wrong move.”

  Faythe nodded with a sad smile.

  “Why do you ask?”

  She almost looked away, but Reylan caught her chin, not wanting to miss a flicker of what troubled her. “I visited the memorial you gave her in Fenher,” she confessed. “I-I should have asked if you would be okay with it or waited for you, but we were there, and I saw the memorial field, and I—”

  “Faythe,” he cut her off. He pulled her hand, and she shuffled over until she was sitting sideways on his lap. “It makes me happy you did. That you wanted to.”

  “It’s perfect for her, where it is,” she said.

  He squeezed her thigh with gratitude.

  “I hope we can go back together.”

  He smiled. “I’d like that.”

  For a long moment of silence all they did was watch the city in perfect contentment. Reylan knew he could spend hours like this and feel not a second of time had been wasted. He stroked her skin, her hair, marveling over every touch he would never get enough of.

  “Has Livia really not found anything more about Evander?” Faythe asked quietly.

  Reylan took a deep breath. He had no reason to hide anything from her.

  “We knew he would be hard to find if he’s remained a shadow this long. He rarely uses that name, and Nessair likely would have met his end by my uncle for letting it slip in his arrogance when he thought he had you trapped.” He didn’t want to doubt Faythe for a second, but in attempt to ease both their minds, he said, “Perhaps there’s someone imitating him. He was a legacy to those crooks. I didn’t think anyone could survive what I did to him.”

  “I hope so,” Faythe said, barely a whisper that told him she didn’t believe that.

  There came tension of guilt that seized him with the ripples of Faythe’s fear she tried to suppress. For a moment he wondered if it was in fear of him. Horror as he remembered that fact of his past. Regret that she’d ever thought it was something she could accept.

  Faythe lifted her head to hold his eyes with such conviction it hypnotized him. “Not even for a moment,” she said, quiet but firm. Reylan realized he must have opened his thoughts for her to catch them. “Not even for a second have I ever feared you or your past or what you’re capable of. What I fear…” She paused. “Is myself. For the worse things I could be capable of if he is alive.”

  Gods, the agony in his chest could kill him.

  “We don’t know that yet. The state I left him in…I didn’t believe anyone could have survived that, and if he did, his revenge has been building for a long time. All I can think about is there is only one way to hurt me, Faythe.” Reylan stared into her eyes, his weakness and his strength. “You.”

  To his surprise, she gave off nothing of shadowy dread or horror or anything that indicated she was afraid. Faythe’s fingers slipped through his hair, and he relaxed with the pleasure of it. He studied her features: thoughtful, but strong and confident.

  “If he’s alive, he’d better hope to never cross my path. Seeking me to get to you would be the end of all that time spent building retribution. A waste, really.”

  Reylan’s pride exploded with his utter incredulity at the beauty of her dark side. Though the thought of her and Evander ever coming face-to-face had become a new terror at the forefront of his mind, he blessed the Spirits for a mate who was growing into such confident skin. He was continuously in awe of her, undeserving, but damn, if he couldn’t stop being a selfish bastard and just enjoy every piece of her.

  “I want to spend the night with you,” he blurted before he could rethink for her best interests. “If I’m going to miss how exquisite you look at the Comet Ball, I want you for one whole night. Tell me no. Tell me it’s reckless and it could risk the spell on these damn bracelets right when it matters the most.” His hands slipped up her waist in anticipation with her long, searching pause.

  “I can’t,” she whispered. “I want that more than anything.” She angled her head to kiss him, and he almost erupted, wanting to take her right then. Everything about her should be a temptation out of reach, yet here she was, wanting him as much he wanted her. Nothing in this world was ever easily gained or there for the taking; it had been a fight, a will, a demand to keep striving.

  For her, he would never stop.

  “We could stay here,” she said, pulling away.

  Reylan shook his head. “There’s no washroom.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I do,” he said softly, wanting to give her the world. “We can come here again. Anytime you want to escape or see the city as high up as possible. Here, maybe we can forget and just be.”

  “I like the sound of that,” she agreed. “Thank you for showing me this piece of you.”

  “There’s no part of me that isn’t yours now, Faythe.”

  CHAPTER 78

  Faythe

  Faythe’s pulse quickened her breath as she stood there in her robe. It was just a mirror. Just a damn reflection. She hadn’t glanced at herself since her world was shattered and reformed. Not once in months had she looked at her new powerful body, her delicate pointed ears. Faythe was riddled with nausea and unease to finally confront her fear.

  Reylan was preparing for bed in the washroom, and in her moment of alone time, she wanted to face it. Face herself. It seemed ridiculous, and she’d tormented for months over why she found it so difficult to look in the mirror. As if seeing what she was would change who she was.

  Faythe wasn’t afraid of seeing what she had lost. She was afraid because she had never felt more alive. In this body that was strong and powerful. And she enjoyed it. Was it a betrayal to her human heart? To want everything that came with being fae. To feel free and powerful.

  But she was also frightened to face the woman who’d died long ago and see that no amount of power or strength or goodness would pull her from her own shadow’s grasp. It was determined to hold her to her failures.

  With a deep inhale she moved toward it, but Faythe’s eyes clamped shut instantly. When she knew she was standing right in front of her reflection, she paused. Just to breathe and remember that no matter what she saw, she was Faythe Ashfyre. As human, as fae, as both. She had lived and fought to be here. She had loved and lost to survive. She would fight and rise to reign.

  With a flare of defiance, her head straightened, and her eyes slid open.

  Faythe’s chest rose and fell deeply with the drumming of her heart. Her mouth parted as she stared and stared at herself. Her eyes burned, but she didn’t blink.

  She looked just as she did before—except more.

  One face, one soul, but two stories to tell.

  As fae, her hair was waved like silk, no dull snapped ends. Her features were sharper, skin so smooth and free of imperfections. Faythe looked to her pointed ears, but while she expected to feel horror, all that struck her was awe. As if she were only now realizing…

  This was who she was always meant to be.

  This body was always hers. It changed nothing but gave her the means to fight a fairer battle.

  Then her eyes trailed to her hands, and she twisted her palms to see the gold Spirit symbols within them, attached to a vine of another language that led to someplace she still didn’t know. Her robe covered her arms where it snaked around them and past her shoulders.

  In her focus, Faythe didn’t hear Reylan emerge from the washroom, but she caught the flicker of movement in the mirror. He was still, his stare hard to decipher. His bare chest was so glorious her eyes couldn’t refrain from trailing down his sculptured abdomen. Every impressive contour of the warrior’s tanned skin was highlighted beautifully by the warm glow of candlelight. They watched each other through the reflection as he took slow steps toward her, a hunger darkening his sapphire irises that flushed her body with heat.

  Her eyes fluttered on a sharp inhale when his body pressed against her from behind, his breath caressing her from her temple down her neck as she inclined her head a fraction. Slowly, Reylan’s hands trailed over her waist, and the eye contact they shared was an electrifying challenge. He torturously undid the tie of her cotton robe, and Faythe’s breathing stuttered with her rising lust. His fingers slid into the folds, moving up until he reached her shoulders in a slow, entrancing seduction. She said nothing when he paused—an opening for her to object—and then with purposeful attention slid the robe from her.

  Reylan didn’t suppress his groan. His eyes closed for a long second upon first glance, when the material came away and dropped from his grip, exposing what she wore underneath. His voice was pure traveling gravel then as he leaned his mouth to her ear, drinking in every inch of her skin that tingled under his stare. “You’re going to be the end of me, Faythe Ashfyre. But what a blissful end it will be.”

  Faythe stood in a similar crimson-and-gold lace underset to the one she’d once spotted and teased him about in the outer city Sloan Market. “It’s not the same one,” she said. Her breath hitched when his hand grazed her abdomen. Reylan pressed her tighter to him, and she felt his desire at her back heating her core.

  “No. It’s so much better.” He pressed his mouth to her neck, and Faythe bit her lip to suppress the noise that caressed her throat. “Don’t do that,” he mumbled, his fingers trailing over her ribs, shooting sensations straight to her breasts, which were torturously caged behind lace. It was an effort not to come undone in his arms. “I want to hear you. Every sound I can draw from you. Gods, Faythe, you are the most exquisite thing to have ever lived.” His eyes once again locked with hers in the mirror as his lips grazed the point of her ear, and she moaned softly with the blissful torment. “As human, you could have brought a man to his knees. As fae, you could make the world bow before you.”

  Faythe tried to twist around, but his grip tightened. Reylan’s slow smile skipped a beat of her heart, sending a tremor down her spine that rattled her whole body. “Please,” she breathed, holding his gaze as it devoured her whole.

  That smile stretched to a grin. “I want you to watch as I worship you, Faythe. I want you to see that as human and as fae, every inch of you is perfect.” His hands trailed over her arms, fingers tracing that ancient vine of script. His gentle grip at her shoulders guided her to turn. Her hands met with his firm abdomen, sparking a heat that raced from her fingertips. Her eyes stayed fixed on the impressive contours of him, soaking in every inch as her hands trailed upward. Over his chest, marking every scar she remembered. Reylan’s breathing came hard, his heartbeat picking up a delightful tempo at her touch.

  Then sapphire met gold, blazing like fire and ice. Reylan claimed her entirely with that gaze. His attention flashed back to the mirror, and when Faythe glanced over her shoulder a short gasp left her. The two vines on her arms met in the middle, and Reylan’s fingers traced down her spine where all three Spirit symbols adorned her shoulder blades, wrapped in a design so beautiful it quelled her horror at seeing the markings.

  “Exquisite.” Reylan’s other hand lifted to her chin, guiding her face back around. “Powerful.” He closed that distance inch by torturous inch. “Mine.”

  A desirous tremble shook her, the inexplicable need for him sending her to desperation.

  “I need you to tell me to stop, or I’m seconds away from damning everything this night.”

  There was nothing Reylan seemed to value more than his honor and loyalty. Except her. Faythe knew what she should say. For both of them, it was best they kept apart—at least until after the ball when they could figure out something to keep the lord and Malin at bay. But thinking of them only roused her defiance. Everything she wanted was right here. Everything they deserved after all they’d been through.

  “Kiss me, Reylan.”

  He needed nothing more.

  Faythe unraveled the moment he crashed his lips to hers. A soft moan left her at the glorious friction of their bare skin, and Faythe strained on her toes to match his ferocity in the way he claimed her mouth. Her hands slid up, but he caught her wrists before she could tangle her fingers in his hair. Reylan pulled out of the kiss abruptly, his eyes so dark they devoured the sapphire, so wild her whole body shivered.

  Without warning, he spun her back around to face their reflection, but he didn’t waste a second before his hands were upon her. They dominated her waist, and Faythe could do nothing but lean against him, one of her hands reaching up to his nape, needing something to grasp so she wouldn’t give in to her weakened knees. Her fingers tightened in his hair, and she moaned louder when he massaged her breast over the red lace, his gaze turning primal as he watched her come undone for him—watched everything he was doing to her that clouded the room with both their desires.

  “Look at you,” Reylan admired, his voice near unrecognizable in his lust. His other hand reached lower. “You feel incredible.”

  Faythe’s back arched, and she failed to bite back her noises when he reached her apex over her underwear. His fingers only teased and massaged, a wicked torture. Watching his hands on her, roaming and mapping and igniting—it was an unraveling she’d never felt before, like he was determined to leave no inch of her untouched by him that night.

  His lips grazed her shoulder, pressing once to her throat. “You have no idea how glad I am to see that creature’s bite gone, so that someday you will only wear mine.”

  Faythe noticed then how the skin had healed completely from the unruly scar. She shuddered with the memory of the gruesome dark fae attack. Her eyes pricked, overwhelmingly relieved. The thought of his mark there sparked such primal need, and a hopeful promise for their future.

  Reylan moved around in front of her, his gaze holding her submission, reading it. Without breaking that intense stare, he reached down. Faythe’s arms instinctively wrapped around his neck, her legs around his waist—a position that was quickly becoming a favorite as she flashed the thought of him taking her this way. He walked past the bed, though not toward any wall to fulfill her fantasy. Reylan headed instead into the next room, and a wild thrill shot straight to her core when she realized his destination without looking.

  Faythe sucked in a sharp breath when her skin met with the cold bite of the grand piano. He released her with deliberate slowness.

  “Lie back for me, Faythe,” he said, so quiet, but with a lustful command that pricked her skin.

  She obeyed. Palms against the smooth, polished wood, Faythe shifted herself before reclining. On her elbows she paused, but as she read Reylan’s dark look, another shallow gasp left her when her shoulders touched the cold. It arched her back, and she turned her head to watch Reylan begin to stalk around the piano, the hunger in his eyes devouring every piece of her with his slow walk. The reaction she invoked became utterly empowering. There were no lit candles in here; only the moonlight flooding through the balcony doors illuminated her spread out for him.

  “Nothing comes close to this,” he said.

  Faythe had seen him lost to lust and claimed by love before, but this… She couldn’t place the emotion in his voice, nor what was etched in his attentive look. Something more enchanting than awe, deeper than adoration. It skipped her pulse and raced her blood.

  “No sight or sound or feeling,” he continued. Reylan let go of a long breath and came around the piano until she couldn’t incline her head to see him anymore without moving her body. “Nothing compares to you, Faythe.” His breath whispered across her ear as he planted his hands by her head and leaned in close. “Fuck, I love you more fiercely than I thought any person could be capable of.”

  Faythe’s eyes fluttered closed when his lips pressed to her bare shoulder. She almost twisted, needing to touch him back, to show him how much he meant to her. His hand ran along her throat, tilting her head back to look at him upside down.

  “Stay as you are,” he commanded, pressing a soft kiss to her lips.

  Her chest was bursting, needing some outlet, but Reylan knew there were more ways to convey his feelings. She listened, knowing his intentions. Behind her, she heard him sit on the bench and fold back the piano’s cover. The pause of silence as she held her breath for the music he would flood the room with drifted her burdens afar. Then he began to play, and the sting behind her eyes reminded her how deeply she had longed to hear this again.

  Faythe let her head fall back as she stared out through the glass doors, fixing her sights on the starry night sky while Reylan swept them away in song. A gentle melody, but it wove around her heart with a calming promise she couldn’t explain. Soundless tears slipped down for the precious memory of when she’d first heard him play. He’d lain so much bare for her without knowing she was becoming completely and wholly his all over again. That night when she was nothing more than a human consumed by fear and overwhelmed by power—not within, but in title. Before she knew just how deep and binding their bond was.

  Now so much was different, and it struck Faythe with freedom to realize she didn’t miss who she was. She’d spent so much time doubting she could accept herself, but now she wasn’t just going to embrace it; she would rise to it. As the Heir of Rhyenelle—as someone who held enough power to stop Marvellas—she was ready for it all. And it hadn’t been without Reylan taking every uncertain and dark step with her that she’d gotten here.

  Faythe’s hands ran over her navel, feeling the song shimmer over her, and she gave herself to it completely. One hand dipped lower, and she closed her eyes, tipping her head back as her body bowed off the piano. Not through lust; Faythe was so entranced by his song that touched her body with stars.

  “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

 

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