Page 18

Hannah

My hopes plummet. He’s talking about my lack of magic instead of the kiss.

The kiss that made my butterflies so pregnant they immediately had babies that tripled my tummy flutters. The kiss that made me moan like an adult actress trying to win the Oscars of porn. The kiss that woke up my lady bits until they screamed for attention.

Oh, god, it was the best kiss of my entire life, but clearly it meant nothing to him. It was fake, all for show, a way to convince Meloria and everyone else he loves me too much to give up on me after my face plant.

My cheeks blaze with heat as mortification twists through me.

I must be as red as a beet, which only makes all of this even worse.

One thing’s for sure. I’ll only survive the next year by staying really, really far away from Severin and his tempting lips.

I take a step back. Keep away from the smoking hot fae, Hannah.

That way lies heartbreak and forgetting all of this is fake.

“What is your magic?” He frowns at me.

“I don’t know.” I force the words past numb lips, then like a dam breaking, the rest comes out in a rush. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I don’t have any idea how to use magic.”

Severin’s eyes lock on to mine with piercing intensity as he freezes into unnatural stillness like a predator right before it pounces on prey.

An instinctive warning shivers through my body: here lies danger. So why the hell does it only make him more attractive?

“You deceived me.” He grips my chin, tilting my face upward as he studies it closely. Then he does the absolute last thing I expect—the corners of his lips quirk. “I had no idea you had it in you.”

Did that sound… admiring?

Relief rushes over me, combining with his touch into something heady. I sway toward him.

No! I jerk myself to a halt. Bad body! Remember the distance thing.

“How can you not know your own magic?” he asks.

“I only got it a couple of months ago,” I say. “And I have no idea how to figure out what it is. I tried holding Naomi’s crystal. I asked about family history. I tried to do spells and make potions. Nothing’s worked.”

“Clearly, we must make this a priority.”

“We?”

“From now until you win one of the bride trials, we spend every spare moment together.” His commanding tone rings through the garden. “I will teach you magic.”

His words echo inside me.

Every.

Spare.

Moment.

There goes my grand idea for keeping my distance!

Looks like I’m even more screwed than before.

Wanting to start immediately, he leads me to the palace library. It’s a dizzyingly cavernous room with bookcases that extend so high I get a crick in my neck trying to see the top.

A massive oak grows in the very middle of the room, its tall crown straining toward the glass dome located in the center of the ceiling.

“There’s a tree!”

“Of course there’s a tree.” Severin shoots me a perplexed look. “It’s a library.”

Must be a fae thing. I can’t wait to tell Skye about this. My librarian friend will flip.

He stops beside a long wooden table, its gleaming surface empty except for a single bronze bell.

“Bring me everything on human witches.” He rings the bell, sending its sweet musical notes echoing through the space, soon joined by the rustle of paper as scrolls and books fly from the shelves to spiral down and pile onto the table .

Okay, pile is a teensy exaggeration. The library might be huge, but when all is said and done, there are only a handful of books.

He scowls at the gathered material as if it’s personally offended him. “I expected more.”

“It’s more than I had this morning.” I sit and pull the first book toward me. Symbols fill the pages, looking like no language I’ve ever seen. “I can’t read it.”

Severin strokes the back of my hand, sending a jolt of magic shivering through me, and the symbols rearrange on the pages, turning into English.

I dive in, excited to be the first human to read these books in hundreds of years, but the longer I read, the more my joy fades.

These aren’t books that talk about how human magic works—they’re books full of stories of fae making human witches fall in love with them.

That would be fine—romantic even—but the stories never stop there.

No, the fae always disappear, using their magic to hide so they can watch their miserable lovers search for them, sometimes for years, laughing the whole time.

That one-hundred percent sounds like something Meloria would do.

But what about Severin? Is he going to do that to me? I watch him out of the corner of my eye as he unrolls a new scroll, his brow furrowed in concentration.

No, Severin told me up front we’d only be married for a year and a day, that all of this would be fake. It’s on me to remember it and not fall in love.

But I keep catching myself stealing glances at him, at the way his green eyes sharpen with intensity when he reads, at the way the muscles in his forearms flex as he unrolls a scroll. Is it any wonder those poor foolish humans of the past fell hard?

After a couple of hours, Severin slams the book he’s reading closed with a weighty thump. “Have you tried a wand?”

“Yes. No. Kind of?”

He cocks an eyebrow. “It’s certainly one of those three, since they run the entire gamut of possibilities.”

“I tried one, and it didn’t work.” I give a sheepish shrug. “It also wasn’t an official wand.” No way in hell am I admitting it was a Harry Potter wand Kayla bought years ago before JKR got problematic.

“I’ll try to procure a real one for you, but that’s the only concrete advice I can find.” Severin scowls at the books. “Everything else is useless.”

“Yeah.” I push my book away, too.

One of Severin’s people calls for him from the door, and he excuses himself to go see what they want.

I pull out my phone, which I’d silenced during the trial. Both Autumn and Skye texted, Autumn a R U OK? and Skye just a bunch of hug emojis. Naomi must have told them about my fall.

The message that grabs my immediate attention is the one from Mom: Call me when you get the chance.

She picks up on the first ring.

“Hi, Mom! Did you find something?” Please say yes. I’ve already lost one trial. It’s more crucial than ever that I figure out my magic.

“Yes! Did you know tight pants on a man will reduce his sperm count? How tight are your new boyfriend’s pants? ”

I glance over at the skin-tight leather cupping Severin’s ass. “Deliciously tight” would be the truth, but admitting it will only send my mother off on a sperm-health tangent. “They’re not tight,” I lie.

“Oh, good. So did you try the washing-machine trick yet?”

“ Mommm .” God, how is she able to make me whine like a teenager? I’m a grown-ass woman! “Did you find out anything about witches in our family?”

“Not yet, but I’ll keep looking,” she says. “I read another article about sperm—”

Severin turns and walks back toward me, his long legs eating the distance. Exactly how good is fae hearing? The last thing I freaking need is him hearing my mother talk about my sex life!

“Mom, sorry. I’ve got to go,” I cut across her, raising my voice to drown out the rest of her sentence. Then I play my trump card, using the one thing guaranteed to get her off the phone quickly. “Severin’s waiting for me.”

“Oh! You go be with your young man, sweetheart!” she chirps.

The joy in her voice makes me feel extra guilty for quasi-lying to her. “Love you, Mom.”

Severin takes in my flushed face, his sharp eyes missing nothing. “Everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine.”

Or at least it is until he takes me into his arms and wraps his shadow tendrils around me. My butterflies take flight at the same time he does as he flies us up past the top of the tree and through the skylight, which swings open in a pulse of his magic.

The night air is crisp, and I snuggle closer to his warmth, even as a part of my mind hisses about keeping my distance.

Stop being stupid, I hiss back. I can’t keep my distance while we’re flying together or he’ll drop me. It’s logic and physics and stuff. It’s got nothing to do with being attracted to him. Nothing at all.

Beyond the dark edge of the forest, Ferndale Falls spreads out in front of us in a tapestry of lights painted across the landscape.

“It’s so beautiful like this,” I breathe.

“It is,” Severin agrees, his deep voice vibrating through me as his shadows press me even closer.

When I glance at him, he’s looking at me instead of the town, and the butterflies give a few hopeful wing flaps.

Stop it, I tell them. You’re not helping.

They don’t listen—they never listen, the freaking little menaces—and keep fluttering.

We fly over the town green, the familiar clock of Town Hall ringing the hour. I give directions, leading him to my cottage, close to the edge of the forest. Since Ferndale Falls puts the small in small town, it takes only a minute for us to land in my front yard.

My little one-story home is painted a soft yellow, with natural slate tiles covering the roof and a stone chimney rising from the left.

It’s pretty and cozy, the inside filled with cream-colored walls, warm oak floors, overstuffed comfy furniture, colorful rugs, and lots of cute knickknacks.

I adore my little cottage, but it’s certainly nothing like Severin’s palace .

I unlock the door and flip on the entry light, hesitating in the doorway. Do I invite him in? I’ve been inside the public parts of the palace, but the thought of Severin in my little house feels way more intimate.

He makes the decision for me, backing away and tipping his head. “I bid you goodnight.”

“Night.” But he launches himself upwards so quickly my goodbye meets empty air.

He had no reason to stay—there’s no one here to put on a show for. I try to remind myself it’s for the best. Keeping my distance will be easier with actual, you know, distance .

Finn yips and races out of the trees. “You’re here. Finally .”

I crouch down, wrapping my arms around my familiar as he gives my chin a lick. Then my stomach lets out a loud growl, and I go to scrounge for dinner in my cheery, yellow kitchen.

“Peanuts?” Finn says hopefully, dancing around my feet as I open the cupboard and pull out a can of soup.

“Sure, bud, we’ll have peanuts.” I got a bag of unsalted ones just for him.

We settle on the couch in front of the TV, and I turn on the latest reality show while we eat. The soup is salty and rich, thick with lentils and hunks of vegetables, the carrots surprisingly sweet.

In between crunching his peanuts, Finn barks snarky comments about the contestants until he makes me laugh. Then he curls up on my lap and demands scratchies, his contended purrs thrumming through me.

It’s nice, having someone else here. It makes me realize it had been a little lonely before.

You could have invited your fiancé in, a little voice whispers in my head. Then you’d really not be alone.

Fake fiancé, I reply. Fake, fake, fake.

Just like my butterflies, the voice totally ignores me.