Page 19 of Never Kiss a Fae

Maybe I died in the fire?

I startled at the thought. Was this heaven? That would explain the magic, the odd scents, my bizarre connection to the elements.

“Claire,” the one closest to me murmured, his voice deep and soothing and sending a shiver down my spine.

Titus, he’d called himself.

What kind of name is Titus?

“Everyone will tell you it wasn’t your fault,” he murmured, lying down on his side and bringing our heads to the same level, about five feet of flowers separating us. “But I know those words don’t help. I used to hear them all the time. It made me so angry because no one understood. The guilt is suffocating. The agony of loss soul-destroying. And you feel so lonely, so incredibly alone.”

Sadness tinged his handsome features, pulling down his brow and his full lips. Dark memories tainted his green gaze, his history etched into the rigid lines of his long, lean body. His elbow drew up to pillow his head of thick, auburn locks, his presence somehow soothing rather than terrifying.

I didn’t know him at all.

Yet I felt that strange draw to him, just like I had with the other one. An inkling to trust, to fold myself against him, to escape in the heat of his skin.

“I’m losing my mind,” I whispered. “Completely losing my fucking mind.”

Titus chuckled. “Yeah? Me, too, sweetheart. Me, too.”

I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped me. Here this man was, an utter stranger, lying on the ground with me, commiserating over our fall into the land of insanity.

“That’s a lovely sound,” he murmured. “If a little broken.”

“This is crazy.” I shook my head, rolling to my back to stare blankly up at the cloudless sky. “I… I don’t…” No other words came to me, my mind completely shutting down. I had nothing. No comeback. No comment. Probably about a million questions I had no energy to voice. Just…nothing.

“I can’t even begin to imagine how alarming this must be for you, to have no idea you’re part fae while growing up in the Human Realm. Honestly, I don’t know much about it, having spent my whole life ingrained in fae society. I mean, I didn’t even want to attend the Academy. The Council forced me, which, it seems, they’re going to do to you, too. So, I guess I understand a little bit, but to be raised as a human and stolen to this land, I don’t blame you at all for thinking it’s crazy.”

His tenor, soft and calming, lulled me into a strange sense of comfort. I looked at him again.Reallylooked at him.

He resembled a model sprawled out for a photo shoot, apart from the slight downward curve of his mouth. But he truly resembled perfection in an almost inhuman way. There was a powerful air around him, a humming energy that seemed to sizzle between us as I held his darkening gaze.

Then I noticed his ears.

Not round like mine, but slightly pointed.

My brow furrowed. “Why do you look like an elf?”

His eyes widened. “An elf?” A laugh bubbled out of him, deep and humorous and beautiful. Hmm, yes, I did like the way he sounded, both his voice and his chuckles. “I’m a fae, sweetheart. Not an elf.”

“Do you all have pointy ears?”

“We do.”

“I don’t.”

“Because you’re a Halfling,” he said, smiling. “Your mum was a fae. Your da a human.”

The way he saidmumanddahad my lips twitching again.Now he sort of sounds like a leprechaun.But he was missing the trademark red beard.

“What’s funny?” he asked, a smile in his voice.

I shook my head. “Nothing.” I couldn’t call him a leprechaun. He’d just find me even more nuts. Which, of course, I was, considering my surroundings and the fact that I was starting to believe all this nonsense.

Ugh. What choice did I have? Clearly, I wasn’t going to wake up. And I couldn’t deny the strange sensations coursing through my veins or the slight memory of the bar flickering in my thoughts.

I burned it down.