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He was the feeling I couldn’t shake. The smell of home, the sense of familiarity that ran so deep that I couldn’t even begin to explain where it had started.

“No.” I said the word out loud to force myself to acknowledge it.

Wren was nothing. He wasnothing.

He was arrogant and rude, and above all else, he was cruel. His apologies were worthless, and he undid every kindness he ever displayed by following it with something unforgivable. He hated me and wished that I had never been born and he…

And he was looking right at me again.

I cursed myself under my breath and glanced away. In the heat of the moment, and under the influence of whatever was coming from those pipes, I had no idea what feelings my face betrayed. But he saw something, and now it was too late.

Hastily ending his conversation with the dark-haired woman and the High King, Wren rose to his feet and descended the few steps of the dais. My heart thudded in my chest, forcing the blood to rush through my veins three times faster than normal, and I began to feel a little lightheaded as the crowd of dancers parted for him like they found his presence repugnant.

There was no repulsion on their faces as they bowed their heads to him, though.

There was only respect—and maybe a twinge of admiration, too.

For their High King’s closest friend and most trusted advisor.

For the High Fae brute who had come into my life like a wrecking ball, and who was prowling towards me with a dangerous look in his golden eyes.

I sat up straight, steadying myself with my hands flat against the couch.

Wren was a figure of nightmares and dreams bleeding into one another as he approached me, his broad shoulders blocking out most of the room as he came to a stop with the toes of his shoes touching mine. A smirk twisted his mouth, his eyes foggy from indulging in the pleasure of Vampyrs, and no doubt a few glasses of faerie wine.

“Are you bored, my love?” he drawled.

Words. Words escaped me.

I had nothing to offer back as he bent down until his face was directly in front of mine. No sound came out of my mouth. Not even a squeak when his breath caressed my face, a heady sweetness that reeked of magic and madness.

Words.

Aura, say something.

I couldn’t.

So, I stood up instead. It was one form of language that I could master, at least. Moving my body. Taking back some of the personal space that his enormous figure and devastatingly handsome face was crowding.

Wren moved with me, keeping the same painstaking distance between us as I straightened my spine and looked directly up at him and into those eyes of wildfire and pure gold.

Say something.

“I am sosickof seeing your face,” I whispered.

The fire in his eyes flashed without a trace of anger. He spoke to me through his perfect, razor-sharp teeth. “Sowhy don’t you ever stoplookingat it?”

Saliva pooled in my mouth, thickening in the back of my throat, but I refused to swallow it down in one gulp. I held his gaze as I lifted a hand and stroked my fingertips along his jaw, ignoring the shudder that prickled along my spine at the sensation of his bare skin, and pressed my thumb and forefinger down on either side of his mouth.

And then I pointedly turned his face away from mine.

There was little resistance. His head twisted to the side, his gaze bouncing between the ceiling and the floor as he swiped his tongue along his bottom lip and a breathless chuckle rumbled through him.

Wren tilted his head, giving me a sidelong look, and shook his head. “Spiteful little beast.”

My pulse jumped. “Biteme.”

He pulled his lips back, flashing his flesh-shredding canines at me before he bent his head to my ear. I stiffened at his proximity, heart racing a hundred miles a minute, and had to clamp my teeth down on my lower lip to keep in the sound that threatened to escape as one of those canines grazed the edge of my ear.