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‘But you couldn’t break our mate bond.’

‘Mate bonds are old magic, far stronger and more permanent than something like this.If it’s what you want, I could break it right now.’

Her brow rippled with a frown as she scanned my face, reading something she didn’t seem sure of.‘It would be easier for you, wouldn’t it?’she asked slowly.‘If I were fae instead of human.’

Ah.She thought this was about me.She thought I wanted to break her glamour for my own benefit.I rolled over, braced myself above her, and she looked up at me with eyes that glittered with starlight.‘Imogen, it doesn’t matter to me if you’re human or fae or banshee or hobgoblin.’I touched a hand to her face, trailed the backs of my fingers down her cheek.‘It only matters that you’re brave and open and you make fun of me like you’re not afraid of me.You’ve never felt like you belong anywhere?Maybe that’s because you’ve been waiting for me to find you.Maybe we both have.’

‘Do you really mean that?’she said, the wisp of a smile hinting at the corners of her mouth.‘It’s not just the mate bond talking?’

‘I mean it.’

She took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, then gave a resolute little nod.‘Okay.Break the glamour.I want to know who I am.’

She sat up and I loosened the laces on her dress.I slid my fingers beneath the fabric, skating across her skin and, she shivered as I found the ridge on her side.I tried not to get distracted by that response, tried not to think about the night before, tried not to think about how much I’d been thinking about the night before.This moment wasn’t about me and what I wanted.

Magic thrummed to life beneath my skin as I focused, breathing slowly and deliberately to control it, to loosen just a tendril of it, a prickle of cold in my fingertips.Only here would I do this, in a place that felt safe, where there were no threats that could trip an emotional response.Only here would I risk pressing destruction to her skin and believe I could keep it from consuming her.I found the threads of the glamour, could almost see it wrapped around her, and one by I dissolved them.

Imogen inhaled sharply, her eyes going wide, and it was like she was out of focus for a moment, like her edges became blurred.Then she was pushing away from me, sitting up and staring around her in open-mouthed wonder.

‘Oh my god,’ she breathed.‘There are so many stars!’

Another screech suddenly pierced the night as Melaie chose that moment to fish another of the ashrays out of the cave behind us.Imogen cringed down, clapping her hands over her ears.

‘Go hunt somewhere else,’ I barked at the griffin, pointing out over the ledge.She glared at me reproachfully as the creature wriggled helplessly in her beak, before ruffling her wings and leaping into the air, buffeting us with wind as she took off into the valley.When I turned my attention back to Imogen, she still had her hands at her ears, but now she was slowly fingering their pointed tips.

‘Are you alright?’I asked, touching a hand to her shoulder.

‘I really am fae,’ she said, her voice hushed, though whether it was in awe or horror, I couldn’t be sure.‘Everything is so loud.’She finally turned to me.She was still Imogen, still golden-haired and green-eyed, but sharper, more intense.

And she was, very clearly, Seelie.

My heart sank.As if this situation wasn’t already complicated enough.

‘Oh, hell,’ she said, taking me in.‘Iwantyou.Oh my god.Has it been like this for you the whole time?’

‘Since that moment in your apartment.’

She crept forwards, trailing a hand up my arm, touched her fingers to my face as she stared at me with fierce, wild eyes.‘No wonder you hated me.I can’t tell if I want to kiss you or eat you.’

‘I don’t think the two have to be mutually exclusive.’

She slid into my lap like she was just following her hands, like she couldn’t think beyond her fingertips, and I held still, watching her as she touched my hair, my neck, my shoulders, my chest.When she found her way into my shirt, I couldn’t keep my hands off her any longer.I gripped her hips and pulled her against me, stealing her mouth with mine, and she kissed me back with savage abandon, biting my lip and winding her arms around me.She tasted the same, smelled the same, felt the same beneath my hands, and I wanted her with that same burning intensity that had tormented me every moment I’d known her.

And fuck, the torment was worth it.

It was worth it when she pulled at my shirt like she was impatient to have it off me.It was worth it when I almost tore her dress to slip it from her shoulders.It was worth it when I slid my hands to her breasts and she arched her head back, exhaling a stuttering cry.When I dropped my mouth to her neck, she pulled back, took my face between her hands and looked me in the eye.

‘Am I still your curse?’she asked, breathless.

I turned my head, pressed my lips against that mark on her wrist, the one that marked her as mine.‘If you’re a curse, then damn me.I’d rather be cursed than be without you.’

An intense warmth flooded her eyes, making them gleam with a smile that seemed edged in pain.I kissed her again, wanting to dissolve whatever hurt I’d caused her before now, wanting to take back every word I’d spoken against our fated bond, every moment of anger or resentment when I’d treated her badly because I didn’t understand what I knew now deep in the marrow of my bones.That we were fated because she was meant for me.That the bond between us was a gift I didn’t deserve but had somehow been granted.That even without that bond, I still would have wanted her for my own.

She slid her hand between us, traced eager fingers over the fabric of my pants, along the length of my cock, sending shock waves of pleasure along my nerves, making me grip her tighter, pull her closer, lower her to the rug and draw my mouth down her neck.I licked the salt from her skin and traced the dips and curves of her body with my tongue as I rid her of the last of the fabric that clung to her and lay her bare beneath me.She was luminous, dressed in nothing but starlight.If I hadn’t needed her so badly, I could have stayed and stared at her all night, memorising the indent of her naval, the rise of her breasts, the hollow at the base of her throat, the gleam of desire in her eyes.

She chased my pants over my hips as I hovered over her, trailed kisses down my chest, slipped lower, and I was frozen in place by the sensation of her lips on my stomach, her hands on my thighs, until she took me in her mouth.My hands fisted the rug and I gritted my jaw to keep from moving, strung tight as the warmth of her mouth enveloped me, her tongue blazing trails of pleasure everywhere it touched.I closed my eyes, my breath hissing out of me as she took me deeper, and I could only take a few moments more of it before I had to catch her arm.

‘Come here.’The words came out rough, hungry, as I pulled her back up, parting her legs around me and dipping my hand down between us, trying to ignore the throbbing of my erection as I trailed fingers up her thigh.I watched her face as I reached her centre, savoured the way her neck arched, the way her eyelids fluttered, the way she gasped when I touched her just right.She was so fucking wet.When I slipped a finger inside her, she lifted her hips, drew her lip between her teeth, and then I had to lean in and take that lip for myself, sucking it into my mouth as I slowly eased in and out of her.