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Everett

“Only foolish fae fall in love.”

Surviving the Unseelie Lands, Author Unknown

K eeping my head down, I make the trek across camp to where Gryffin’s wagon sits closest to the forest’s edge. Maddox and I have offered to make room for his between ours, but he has always refused, saying he does not like other people knowing his business. Which is something I can appreciate now that everyone in the whole camp knows that I have yet to give Leah an answer.

Whispers follow me everywhere, and it is annoying as hell. I can only imagine how Gryffin must feel.

I find my oldest friend on his steps, a stick in one hand and a chisel in the other, carefully chipping away at the graying bark.

“Who is that for?” I ask, gesturing toward the stick.

“Why does it matter?” he grumbles.

I suppose it does not matter at all. “Just wondering if you have a secret lover none of us know about.”

He digs his chisel deeper, bits of gray coming off in flakes. “Funny. Is that why you came by? To tell jokes?”

If only. “I came because I need a favor.” From the way Gryffin glowers, I have a sinking feeling this is going to be more difficult than anticipated. “I need you to convince Finn to give you his shift tonight.”

He aims the chisel toward me, as if he is about to carve my skin from my bones. “You can fuck right off with that. I was on shift for three nights last week. The only way I am leaving camp tonight is if you hold a knife to my chest.” Back to work he goes. Scrape, scrape, scraping the stick, revealing ivory flesh marked with deep grooves.

“I do not mean for you to work it. I will do it.”

His chisel stills. “Let me get this straight: You want to work Finn’s shift but will not ask him yourself. Why not?”

Because I do not want Finn knowing I am interested and asking the same fucking question. It is one thing for Maddox and Gryff to know my secrets, and another thing entirely for Finn to find out. As grumpy as Gryffin may be, he is a loyal friend and knows when to keep quiet. If Finn learned the truth, the entire village would catch wind by daybreak. And I do not want Leah—or her father—to find out.

Our chieftain might be fond enough of me to approve of his daughter’s proposal, but our relationship will not matter at all if he learns I am secretly meeting with a Seelie fae. Not that I think Kerris will show tonight. But there is no shame in hoping, is there?

“This has to do with her does it not?” Gryffin asks.

There is no point denying it. He will only harp on until he gets the truth. “It might.”

His eyes narrow. “What are your intentions?”

If only I knew.

“Do you plan on seducing her?”

My stomach tightens at the thought. Leave it to Gryff to come right out and say it. “It is not like that between us.”

His lips press flat. “But you want it to be.”

I bite my tongue until the coppery tang of blood fills my mouth. The last two days have been unbearable, all because I have wanted to see the Seelie fae so badly and she has not shown. I could have knocked on her window, but leaving her those gifts crossed enough lines. She already made the accusation of stalking once; I do not want her to be right.

“It does not matter what I want. I fucked it all up.” Even if Kerris did come back, I am not sure what I would say to her.

How do I explain this heaviness in my chest when she is near? The way she consumes my every thought, waking or dreaming? This is not the way I should be feeling when Kerris Dawn has made it clear that she only wishes to be my friend.

At least she did want that. Now, who knows?

Gryff goes back to his carving, but instead of taking all the bark in that section, he turns the stick, creating a spiral pattern. “Figures.”

“Not helpful, Gryff.” I already have enough disdain for myself; I do not need his as well.

“At least this explains why you came to me and not Maddox.”

I should have known he would figure it out. Maddox, for all his bravado and charm, thinks he knows what he is doing with females, but he has yet to receive even one proposal of marriage.

“What did you do?”

As I explain what happened, his face grows grimmer by the second, until he is full on cursing. “For an intelligent male, you have no damn sense. If you want this female, you need to let her know.”

This would be so much simpler if she were Unseelie. Kerris would not appreciate me slaying a wild boar or a stag and leaving that on her doorstep like the females of our camp.

He points at me with his chisel, the blade coming so close to my chest that he nearly takes off a chunk of my skin. “Once she realizes your true intentions, you need to open up to her. Tell her exactly how you are feeling.”

“Says the most closed-off man I know.” I would rather kill something. I am good at that.

“Just because I do not share my feelings with you does not mean I never shared them with my wife.” His voice thickens, his eyes glistening as he blinks rapidly. “I used to tell her everything.”

He rarely speaks about his wife—rarely shows emotion at all, so I am not quite sure what to do with myself. If this were Maddox, I would make fun of him. But with Gryff, it feels as if I should turn and walk away, give him some privacy to work through this and find someone else to help me.

Except there is no one else.

Gryff swipes a fist under his eyes and clears the gruffness from his throat. “I will do it. On one condition: You give me your skillet.”

“That belonged to my mother.” If he takes it, I will have to make the three-day trek to Villers to get another one.

“I do not care if it belonged to the gods themselves. Mine is in shit, and I want yours.”

His is only in shit because he does not know how to properly care for cast iron. My mother might not have been much of a cook, but she knew how to season a damn pan. “If you were a true friend, you would not ask for anything in return.”

“It is because I am a true friend that I am not asking for all of your cookware.”

What other choice do I have? To remain at home, and let one of the other males meet her at the bridge? To let her give them a box of inedible “biscuits” and have them think she is offering them more? “Fine.”

“Then we have ourselves a deal.” His nose wrinkles as he glances down at my trousers. “Do us both a favor and bathe before you meet your Seelie.”

“She is not mine.” But maybe, if I do this right, she could be.

Not forever. That would never work.

But perhaps for a little while…

“She certainly will not be if you go to her reeking of blood and guts. What did you kill anyway?”

“Took down a mountain elk in the northern forest this morning.” After what happened the other night, I had to kill something .

I leave my friend one pan poorer but with a spark of hope in my heart.

* * *

Kerris is not coming. I know that in my weary bones, but still I wait in the mist, clinging to the last vestiges of my dwindling hope.

I hate myself for the way I acted when we last met, like a youngling throwing a strop. The gifts were a pathetic apology. Tonight, I had planned on taking Gryffin’s sage advice and explaining my frustration, telling her what that food could have meant, and gauging if she did understand but was perhaps too shy to speak the truth.

But as I stand on stiff legs and stare into the unending gray, it is clear the opportunity will never come.

I have broken something that was never mine to play with.