Page 24 of Faerie Fate (Fae Academy for Halflings #7)

Chapter Sixteen

I followed Mike, and Noren pushed past us to nose open the door. It swung wide for him and he disappeared outside with a flick of his tail, off to do whatever he wanted, with free rein.

Poppy must have spelled the place to respond to him.

She had a secret soft spot. Before life beat it out of her.

Mike kept one long-fingered hand on the stair rail, his knuckles white, and I crept behind him as rapid, desperate breaths lifted my chest. Clearly he didn’t want to be forced into sharing a bed with me. I didn’t blame him.

Who would want to be this close when I reeked of Kendrick? Mike had cleaned up and washed the sweat and filth of our journey off his skin. I had not.

The small bedroom took up the entirety of the second floor, with the slanted roof making the room feel even smaller. A solitary bed with an iron headboard and footboard rested against a set of dual windows taller than they were wide.

A hand-knitted blanket draped across the bottom of the mattress, and at its top were two pillows, stacked on top of each other.

Mike said nothing as he slung off the travel cloak. The stolen shirt and pants followed until he stood in the middle of the room in nothing but his boxers. Like he was daring me to say something despite not having the guts to meet my eyes.

The clouds from earlier passed us by and slivers of moonlight arced through the wavy glass. They cast shadows on the strong planes of his chest, the muscles that had filled out since I met him. He wasn’t the lanky, slender fae male I’d met on the side of the road all those years ago.

This version of Mike had seen too much. He’d experienced more in the years we’d known each other than all the combined time before. His flawless skin showed none of the scars from our trials but his eyes were old and weary.

“Are you coming to bed?” he asked.

He dragged his eyes higher, hesitantly, and they landed on mine, the differences in our height forcing him to look down at me. My breath caught.

It was the first time he’d looked at me, really looked at me, since the mate bond. I resisted the urge to rub my hand over the scar. Pieces of salve were still layered underneath my fingernails.

“I’d feel a lot better if I had a shower,” I muttered, pulling off my own borrowed shirt.

Mike jerked his head. “There’s a washstand over there.”

The opposite end of the room near the stairs had been set up with a neat folding screen.

Beyond it were Poppy’s personal effects, a basin that filled with magically warm water to wash and drained away when the sides were tapped three times.

She’d worked the same spell with a chamber pot in the corner and it emptied after use.

I scrubbed my face and hands with the bar of soap from a dish shaped like a black swan. The grimy sensation remained. I’d be gross until the end of time, wouldn’t I? I might not feel Kendrick but he’d left his stain inside of me.

Mike still stood there when I walked around the edge of the folding screen. His lips thinned into a line as he watched me.

My camisole was caked with blood from the initial throat cut. Rather than focus on it, I tossed the shirt aside, strangely awkward in front of Mike.

Not that being naked with him was awkward. But after whatever changed in our relationship, whatever new dynamic we existed in, for some reason it felt unnatural for him to watch me so closely.

My pants followed, and I waited until Mike got into the bed, then crawled onto the mattress beside him in only my bra and panties. I snuggled underneath the quilt, a tight fit, but secretly loving being this close to him.

If I closed my eyes and ignored the swirling in my head, then I could pretend it was old times and I was just waiting for our mate bond to finally click.

His scent surrounded me, citrus and salt and rosemary. I nestled closer on instinct and Mike automatically slung his arm over my waist, pulling me tighter to his front so that my rear notched neatly into the curve of his body.

His breath tickled my ear.

“You still smell delicious,” he whispered.

I shivered at the sensation. “Stop lying.”

He murmured something unintelligible underneath his breath, his fingers light as they skimmed along my thigh. “I’m not lying to you. Underneath it all, you’re still you.”

I wanted to ask what I smelled like to him, since each fae had a unique scent, but bit my tongue. I didn’t really want to know how much I’d changed.

Goosebumps lifted in a trail, hurrying to catch up to his touch. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to touch me this way again.”

I arched back into Mike and his growing hardness. It was an automatic response and the low purr in his chest trembled against my spine.

“Why would you think that, Tavi?”

It had been a night of honesty for me. How much more could I handle? A noise hummed in my throat and my stomach flipped. Would I be able to reconcile whatever Mike had to say in the wake of my observations? I wasn’t sure.

“With everything we’ve been through lately…” I trailed off, leaving it open-ended.

Noren scrambled up the steps but rather than pushing his nose against either of us, he settled at the foot of the bed with a small huff, his business done for the night.

“We’ve been through worse,” Mike said, nipping at my earlobe. “Me and you, we keep coming back to each other. No matter what happens, we always find a way home.”

Home . That was exactly what it felt like to be with him. I was never more myself than when Mike and I shared breath.

The way he touched me felt normal. It felt like a small bridge reconnecting us to the people we’d been before Kendrick clawed into me.

I shifted, turning on my other side to stare at Mike, looping my leg over his hip. He reached behind me to grab my rear and drag me closer, keeping us pressed together.

He searched my face.

Silently, reverently, I arched up to meet his lips. Kissing him tentatively, asking permission for something I’d never needed to ask for before. We melted into each other before Mike broke contact, only to crash his lips against mine.

I’d never get used to this. To how it felt being this close to him and listening to the way he said my name under his breath. The heady sensation of having a man like Mike at my side.

He caged me against him, pinning me to the bed with his knee between my legs.

“Do you know how much I’ve missed you?” he murmured. “How fucking much I’ve missed you?”

“I’ve been here.” I slid my hand along the plane of his stomach and his lean muscles.

He dragged his fingertips along my skin, touching me gently, softly. Like I was this delicate thing.

Mike kissed my chin. “I thought I lost you.”

My eyes widened and I hissed through my teeth. “You’ll never lose me. Never . I’ll always find a way back to you.”

His gaze dropped to the scar. He didn’t say anything before he kissed me again with his eyes open. He watched my face. Looking for pain. Looking for discomfort. Inch by careful inch, we both relaxed into each other.

“I don’t want to hurt you. You’ve been through so much.”

I arched into him. “You’ll never hurt me. I’m not fragile.”

In this small cabin, with two other people and Noren right at the foot of the bed, we couldn’t go too far. If I started touching him, we would not be able to stop. I held my hand in place at his shoulder rather than trailing lower to his delicious hardness pushing against his boxers.

Mike kissed me deeply and swept this tongue along the seam of my lips until I opened for him. Our breath tangling, he swept his hand through my hair, bunching the strands between his fingers.

His opposite hand slid up from my hip, to the side of my breast, to my collarbone. Then brushed my scar.

He stilled and pulled back to leave only coldness where his warm lips had been.

“I’m sorry.” He sucked in a breath. I froze. “We should sleep.”

Mike rolled on his side, away from me, and I emptied out. No, please ?—

Too bereft to move, I lay on my side facing his back, reeling and scared. Sleep eventually found me but it didn’t help much.

Mike was the first to wake in the watery sunlight. He took every bit of heat with him as he pushed off the mattress, crossing without a sound to the pile of discarded clothes. I watched him through half closed eyes, his outline blurry, his back to me as he dressed.

Numb, I followed him. Blood had stiffened my clothing but even the magic required to clean it felt like too much of a hassle.

Poppy was still locked away in her spell room by the time we made it downstairs. Bronwen, rather than taking advantage of the time to sleep in, manned a pot on the stove. Her whistling cut off at our approach.

“I hope you guys don’t mind. I made kind of like a breakfast gumbo,” she said with a pearly toothed grin.

Mike yawned and covered his mouth with a hand. “What do you mean, a gumbo?”

“I mean I did the best with what I found in Poppy’s cold stores. The magic keeps the ingredients way fresher than any kind of fridge in the mortal world,” Bronwen said. Way too joyful for this early hour.

I dropped into a chair at the table, head in hands. I’d have killed for a cup of coffee. Or maybe one of those cauldrons full of it. “What did you find?”

“Some eggs and sausage. Along with fresh tomatoes, and something like a beef base? I’m not exactly sure.

I tried to find a pot and a spatula but there aren’t exactly regular kitchen tools here.

” Bronwen tapped out a beat to whatever song she hummed under her breath.

Stirring like a witch. “It will be delicious,” she singsonged. “I promise.”

My thoughts were too loud for me to make conversation. They drowned out even Bronwen’s humming.

Mike stalked between walls and paced the length of the cabin on a different sort of patrol than Noren. If he kept at it, I’d be dizzy again.

Silent, lost in our thoughts, the first knock of someone at the front door sounded like the blast of a cannon. I shot to my feet and Noren mimicked the motion. His growl raised my own hackles.