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I don’t want to hear about Desmond’s future queen, not on the wings of what we’ve done together. It’s not like he’s making the proposal to me, after all.

I’m embarrassed that I even care. I shouldn’t, but it’s like I can’t help but open myself up to him.

“Lucky girl,” I say, pushing away from the wall, and him along with it.

I feel Des’s eyes on me as I cross through his room.

“No,” he corrects, “she won’t be the lucky one. I’ll be.”

Chapter 19

April, seven years ago

This can’t last.

I lay in the Bargainer’s arms, my eyes drifting closed as he strokes my hair. I fight sleep, not wanting to lose a moment of this.

Ever since I woke from that nightmare, my window in pieces and Des inside my room, he’s stayed with me each night until I’ve fallen asleep. Perhaps even longer.

His body feels like it was made for me, every dip and groove of it fitting against mine like puzzle pieces. But it’s more than just the way I fit against him, it’s the way he smells, a scent there is no name for, and the way his arm curls around my back.

Right in the base of my stomach there’s a sense of rightness being in his arms, like this is the only place I truly belong.

Does he feel it too? Or am I simply making fairytales out of smoke and shadows?

These are question I come back to often.

My eyelids lower, and I fight to keep them open, my gaze moving to the Bargainer’s ear. I reach out and trace the pointed edge of it.

Fae ears.

Beneath my touch, Des shudders.

“You hide these,” I say. I swear that most of the time they look blunted—human.

“Sometimes,” he agrees.

Gently, he removes my hand.

It’s quiet, the lights around the room have long since gone off. Even in the darkness, I can sense Des’s shadows blanketing me, and they make me feel safe. Before him, I had so many reasons to fear the night.

Now, I anticipate it, because it brings me him.

“Thank you,” I murmur.

“For what, cherub?” he says.

“Everything.”

He stops stroking my hair for a moment. When he begins again, I swear I feel his thumb brush across my temple. The lightest of caresses.

I begin to drift off to sleep, so I’m not sure whether I imagined the final words he breathed into the night—

“For you, no less.”

Present

After our conversation,the two of us get back to business. Namely, seeing the sleeping warriors. If the Bargainer notices that I’m being distant, he doesn’t say anything.