Page 12 of How To Please A Princely Fae (Wild Oak Woods #3)

WILLOW

I don’t quite know what to do with myself.

I don’t quite know if I’ve ever felt this… relaxed. My whole body seems to be humming, a low buzz of limp muscles too well-pleased to be anything but relaxed and satisfied.

Not to mention, I’m so suddenly aware of every inch of my body that I don’t think I could go back to the way I have been living.

Quiet. Unnoticed.

I’ve never felt alive like I do now, unraveled and unkempt in my kitchen chair, in the arms and lap of a silver-haired fae prince who says I’m his mate.

I know that I am tired of arguing the point.

All my well-reasoned logic about why I shouldn’t be with Kieran, why I shouldn’t enjoy myself, are still there, crowding the back of my mind.

“We should set some relationship rules,” I blurt out, surprising both of us.

He stares at me with those otherworldly eyes, the color so intense I could get lost in them.

“Anything you want.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose, then drop my hands to the waist of my pants.

Kieran’s hands slide against my skin as he helps me redress. It’s intimate and unexpectedly sweet, and the simple gesture makes my throat tighten.

What I want from him is so much more than pleasure.

“Tell me,” he urges, his hands gripping the tops of my thighs, so large they easily span their width. “I would give you the world.”

“I don’t know what mating means to you.” It’s not what I meant to say.

It’s a whole lot less loaded than saying I want to be loved and cherished . It will hurt a lot less if, somehow, he got his memories back and decided this was all a horrible idea.

I swallow against the guilt and raw emotions.

His palms rub against the wool fabric of my trousers, the light purple of his skin standing out in stark relief against the taupe.

“It means forever,” he says, and his own throat bobs as he stares at me. As if he’s overwhelmed by emotion, too.

Dare to dream.

“Forever,” I repeat faintly.

He reaches out, pausing before touching me, then his palm makes contact with my cheek, his thumb stroking over my cheekbone. “It means our lives are bound together, our very souls entwined. It means what makes you happy brings me joy, what brings you pleasure makes mine, and what ails you becomes my problem to find a solution to. It means I cannot bear to think of living without you, that the very thought of it brings me a pain so sharp it feels like heartbreak.”

“Oh.” The syllable whuffs out of me in surprise.

“Oh, indeed,” he agrees, a sly smile on his face as he traces a thumb over my lips.

“Where will we live?”

“Wherever you want.”

“What if you are invited back to the Underhill?”

“There is nothing for me there,” he says, not even pausing long enough to consider it, not even breaking eye contact. “My life is with you. You are my home. Where you go, I follow.”

I clear my throat, overwhelmed, and lean back against the chair. It creaks, and I make a mental note to check the bolts. Like everything else in this house, I’m sure the kitchen table and chairs could use some work.

I could use some, too, because what Kieran is offering sounds too good to be true.

“What if you remember you hate me?”

The determination in his eyes softens, turning molten and hot. Heavy.

“Then I’ll also remember this moment, when you looked like you might cry at the thought, and despise myself for ever letting you believe such a blatant untruth.”

I sniffle, because he’s right. I feel like I might cry, straddling the ledge between wanting him and fear, between hope for the future and uncertainty at what it holds.

“What if you do?—”

“Enough,” he says, the word crisply but gently delivered. “You are my mate. What passed between us before has no bearing on how I feel for you now, and nothing can change that.”

“But—”

“Nothing.”

We both startle as the sound of claws on wood interrupts us. Something’s scratching at the door, and whatever it is, it sounds large.

A shiver of dread goes down my spine.

When a mournful howl goes up, though, and Chirp wings silently from the room, I relax.

“It’s Nerissa’s wolf familiar,” I tell Kieran.

“Great timing,” he says drily, raising an eyebrow. “So much for your rules.”

I snort in amusement, but make myself get up and go to the front door.

Sure enough, the wolf is out front, holding a rolled parchment in between delicate teeth. Chirp glides through the front door, slowing to perch on a large juniper at the edge of the forest, watching the wolf with wide, cautious eyes.

I hold my hand out and the wolf deposits the letter in my palm before turning and loping back into town.

“The coven is holding an emergency meeting,” I say, unsurprised but unsettled all the same. “They want to meet at The Listening Page.”

“I’m coming with you,” he says, his hand on the small of my back.

Not a moment later, he’s wrapped my thickest coat around my shoulders, a soft, fuzzy scarf wound around my neck.

“What about you?” I ask him. “Won’t you be cold?”

“I’m fae,” he says, as if that answers everything.

I tilt my head.

“It’s cold in the Underhill.” His lips purse slightly, and I wonder if he’s remembering more than just that. I don’t know if I even want to pry.

“All right,” I say, closing the heavy arched door behind me and locking it with the key I keep at my waist. “We can find you a coat while we’re out. I would hate for your wings to get frostbite.”

His wings ruffle in response, the vibration soothing as he places my hand in the crook of his elbow. Chirp wastes no time in joining us, lighting upon the leather patch on my shoulder I sewed in for that very purpose.

“So, rules,” Kieran says, steering me towards where the cobblestone path that leads into town begins. My greenhouse and shop are too large to fit in the town proper, and while the trek into town can be obnoxious, usually I enjoy the solitude of the walk.

Kieran’s company is welcome now, though, and my cheeks pink. My muscles all clench reflexively, in memory of the pleasure he’s just wrung from my body.

“Right,” I say, the word a bit more flimsy and weak than I anticipated. “I think we should take it slow.”

His hand covers mine, warm and strong and possessive enough that a shiver goes down my spine, one that has nothing to do with the cold.

“It, as in…?” he asks, and I blink, glancing up at him.

His forehead’s smooth, no sign of sarcasm on his handsome face.

“Er,” I manage. I’m not sure there’s any putting what we want physically from each other back in the bag. “As in the whole, ah, mated thing. The forever thing.”

“Well,” he draws out the word, the corners of his eyes crinkling in amusement.

I drag my attention away from him, studying the frosted cobblestones underfoot instead. Much less attractive than the fae at my side. At my arm.

“The thing about forever is that we have a long time to go at whatever speed you wish.” There is a touch of irony in his inflection, but he seems more amused at my word choice than making fun of me.

Caught between embarrassment and that intense want for him that I’m apparently utterly unable to shake, I glance back up at him and attempt to clarify.

“I mean, we should take our time to, you know, get to know each other?” It comes out wispy, unsure, and I swallow my apprehension and tilt my head up, irritated at myself.

Heavy clouds drape over the sky, a thick blanket of them that promises wet weather. My nose scrunches because it looks like snow—but certainly it’s much too early in the season for that.

“What do you want to know about me? What will set your mind at ease?” he asks, his hand still covering mine.

The closer we get to the heart of town, the more townsfolk are bustling about. More than one casts a trepidatious look up at the sky, and the threat of snow seems more likely the longer I watch them.

The longer I avoid answering his questions.

“I want to know what kind of, ah—” I flounder for the right word, completely at a loss.

“Mate,” he supplies, then surprises me by leaning down and kissing my forehead, just a swift brush of his lips against my skin.

One that sends me reeling with delight, nonetheless.

“Right,” I manage. “That. What does that look like?” I smooth my free hand over my wool pants, then tuck it back in my pocket.

Kieran steers me around a centaur, his wings buzzing slightly.

“It looks like this morning. It looks like me cherishing what fate has gifted me, and never taking you for granted. It looks like a lifetime of it.”

I glance up at him, waiting for the punchline, waiting for him to pull away and tell me he’s been joking this whole time.

But he’s serious.

“I will go as slow as you want. If that means keeping a distance from you, though…” He trails off as we pass by a female minotaur and her young calf, who stares at Kieran as if he’s never seen the fae before. Maybe he hasn’t.

I’ve kept him fairly busy at my shop.

“You need to like it here,” I pronounce firmly. “This is my home.”

“I do like it here.”

“But do you even remember any alternatives?” I know the answer to that, and I’m not sure why I’m still trying to talk us both out of the inevitable.

Probably because I’ve never been great at giving up control, and even though I want Kieran, have desperately wanted him, I don’t like feeling that I’ve suddenly been paired up with him through none of our own will.

“Does it bother you? That fate’s just… lumped us together? That you don’t have memory of your past or a say in the future?” I whisper the questions furiously, feeling wronged on his behalf.

“Not at all.” The words are final. “I have you. A mate. I am free from whatever it is that held me back from you in the first place. If my future is with you, then that is no doubt a brighter future than anything in my past, whether I remember it or not.”

We’ve stopped, and my gaze darts between his eyes, but there’s no hint of anything but the strongest conviction I’ve seen from him.

“Why is it you still don’t trust me?”

The question shatters the fragile wall I’ve tried to construct between us, all my defenses laid bare.

I could lie in this moment.

I could try to rebuild my resolve, brick by brick.

I’m so, so tired of being strong, though.

Instead, I sniffle and lean my forehead against his chest. His arm goes around my back, warm even through my thick coat, and I breathe in the scent of his skin, committing it to memory.

“I am afraid of being hurt,” I finally tell him. “I am afraid that you’ll wake up one day and remember why you… why you behaved so coldly towards me, and that this will be the dream that breaks me completely.”

The words choke out of me, true and muffled against his skin.

“If I could go back in time and change however abominably it is that I behaved towards you, I would, sweet Willow witch.” He sighs, his chest rising and falling against my cheek, clinging to him like a spider mite on a glossy green leaf. “All I can do, however, is show you that I mean what I say, and that, my darling, I promise to do with every breath I take. All I want from you is… you.”

“Not much to ask,” I say softly, and he chuckles, the sound nearly lost in the growing hubbub of the lively downtown.

“It is everything,” he says. “You have bespelled me, and for that, I am eternally gratefully.”

I blink, something about his words catching in my brain, unsticking something I didn’t know was even stuck.

“Willow, Kieran!” a voice calls out, and I jerk away from his embrace like a child caught with contraband sweets. “There you are, come on!”

It’s Wren, Caelan stalking beside her. A medium-sized dog bounds next to the other fae’s long legs, and I tilt my head at it in surprise.

No matter how often I see the creature, it surprises me that he’s no longer old and decrepit, but a young, still-growing and lovely-looking dog.

“Heel, Boner,” Caelan scolds, and I bite my lip to keep from laughing.

A lovely dog with a truly unfortunate name.

Wren catches my eye and rolls hers. Fenn, her red fox familiar, races along the street, nose twitching as he sniffs furiously at the air.

“We’re not done discussing this,” Kieran tells me in a low voice, his eyes serious but warm. “You haven’t set any rules yet, and I fully expect you to tell me exactly what you need and want from me, darling Willow.”

Darling Willow.

I can’t quite keep from smiling up at him at the new title.

“Okay,” I say, feeling lighter just for having said my piece.

Maybe I should try communicating openly more often.

Who could say?

“Hurry up, it’s freezing,” Caelan gripes, holding the door open for the two of us.

As if it’s heard, a frigid wind gusts through the streets, blowing my hair around my face and sending The Listening Page’s wood-carved sign creaking as it swings overhead.

I frown.

The wind, even in Wild Oak Woods, cannot hear.

Can it?