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CHAPTER TEN

ADOM

I knew I was squeezing her hand too tightly. She didn’t protest. She didn’t tell me to stop. Nor did she pull away.

She followed me. Willingly. Her smaller hand rested trustingly in mine.

Each step she took alongside me loosened the grip of tension that had wound itself around my chest. Servants stopped their cleaning and dusting and general movement and bowed their heads as we made our way down the hall and up the staircase to the private quarters. The deeper we got into the palace, the more I calmed.

She was safe here. No one and nothing would take her from me.

My heart rate slowed to only three beats a second once we reached the king and queen’s chambers. I paused at the queen's bedroom door, glancing down at Charlotte. Her gaze flicked to the heavy wooden panels, then back to me. There was no fear in her eyes.

I pushed the door open, stepped inside, and pulled her in with me.

The room had been my mother's. Now it was a tomb of memories. It hadn’t been used since my father’s death, two decades past. I rarely slept in the palace. When I did, I kept to the barracks with the other warriors. The queen's room had been cleaned and prepared for our wedding night. After we said our vows and sealed the promises with a kiss, we would come here and consummate the union.

The thought had me turning to Charlotte. The sudden movement caught her off guard. She flinched, her purple wings fluttering like a startled bird preparing for flight.

The small reaction gutted me. I dropped her hand and took a step back. “I disgust you.”

“No. It’s the blood. I told you—I’m no fighter. I like pretty things. Clean things.”

The gore of the trolls still clung to my fur and tunic. The run to the capitol had taken some of it, but streaks of dark red and patches of viscera remained. The pride I usually felt in my strength, my savagery, was gone.

“I'm neither of those things; not pretty or clean."

"No," she agreed. "You're strong, fierce, and deadly.”

Her words surprised me with their honesty. She wasn’t smiling. She wasn’t trying to placate me. She simply spoke the truth.

We had nothing in common. I was strong, fierce, and deadly where she was pretty, dainty, and clean. How was this ever going to work?

The palace advisors, the Skykeeper Mages, my own mother and the fairy queen had been feeding Charlotte details about me her entire life. What I liked to read. What I liked to eat. The political views I held. They were all determined to make her the perfect shadow that would attach to my heels and live as a castoff. Reflecting me and having no opinions or thoughts of her own. Guilt had dogged my conscious for years at this notion. Until the moment she opened her mouth and asked for a strand of my hair.

This fairy had a mind of her own and a will to match it. Watching her sew a part of me into her dress had sealed both our fates. No matter our differences, there was no way in the two suns that I would let her go.

“You’re fierce, too.”

She blinked at me. Her wings fluttered as she pressed a hand to her chest. “Me?”

“You ran toward the trolls. You didn’t scream. You didn’t hide. You didn’t think of yourself. You’re not a fighter, but you still fought.”

I'd been disappointed that she hadn't pulled a dagger to defend herself. But on the run here, I realized she could've done far worse. She could've run into the danger and been hurt. Instead, she ran to my side but stayed back while I fought.

Her eyes roamed over my face, taking their time as they surveyed my mane. "You're wrong. You are pretty; your mane is very pretty."

She reached up. I felt more than saw the tingle of her power as she magick’d the gore out of my hair. She wiggled her fingers, pulling away the grime, the dried blood, and troll gore that had clung to me like a second skin. Her magic didn’t sting or burn. It was gentle, light as a breath.

“Your shoulders are so broad and sculpted—I want to tailor a coat for you.”

Her palm rested on the sleeve of my arm as though taking my measure. The filth and stains vanished from my tunic like they’d never existed. The threads shimmered, the weave tightened and mended beneath her touch.

“I feel your strength, but you’re so gentle with me.”

Her words unraveled me, one thread at a time. I stared at her, torn between awe and a desperate kind of ache. No one had touched me like this before—with care, with reverence. Her words, along with her touch, scraped against the walls I’d built, breaking through piece by piece.

“I like your growl.”

I hadn't realized I'd made a sound.

“It curls my toes. And?—”

I didn’t let her finish. I pulled her to me. Her head got buried in my chest. My fingers were inches away from her wings. I couldn't help myself. I let one finger brush against the bottom of one wing.

She inhaled sharply.

The sound sent a jolt of panic through me. I started to pull away, convinced I had scared her, hurt her. But I couldn’t move. Her hands were tangled in my mane, gripping tightly, refusing to let go.

I could have easily broken her hold. But I didn’t. Actually, I couldn’t.

She wasn’t scared.

She wasn’t disgusted.

She wanted me.

Her wings fluttered again, this time opening wide as though she were showing them off. Her palm settled flat against my chest, right over my heart. The warmth of her touch burned there, far deeper than fur or bare flesh. She sank into my core.

My hand curled roughly around her wrist to stop her. “Don’t.”

“Are you hurt there?”

Once again, I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. She should know; this wasn't a love match. It couldn't be.

She looked into my eyes, like she saw straight through me—past the walls I had spent years building, past the armor I thought impenetrable. I had stood unshaken on countless battlefields, faced beasts and trolls without flinching. But here, before this fairy with no training in war, I was defenseless. She wielded no blade, only her gaze, and I felt myself falling—terrified of the power she held over me, terrified that I wanted her to wield it.

“I want to be your bride, Adom.”

She said my name uncertainly, like she wasn't sure she had the rights to it.

“I don’t have a lot to offer—other than my loyalty and my tailoring magic. I can promise you that you’ll be the best-dressed prince in all of Lunaterra.”

Her laugh was self-deprecating. Her tooth caught her lower lip, and she chewed at it, looking at me uncertainly. Didn't she know this union was a done deal? Neither of us could back out of it. Not without dire consequences. The consequences would be damnation if she dared to even try to get away from me.

“I have your scent. If you run, I will catch you.”

Something wild sparked in those green eyes of hers. Challenge? Anticipation? Maybe both. It wasn't fear. All this time and she had never once smelled of fear of me.

“When you catch me?" She tilted her head back, her hair brushing against her cheek. "What then?”

“I will devour you like the beast that I am.”

She gasped. This time I knew it was delight. I knew it because that spark in her eyes ignited, and she grinned. At me. Had any woman ever grinned at me?

The moment between us stretched, taut and electric. Until she broke free of my hold and ran. Her laugh was the chime of a bell as she darted away. Her wings fluttered at her back, but not enough to give her flight.

She didn’t get far. Barely a few steps before I was on her. My arms closed around her waist as I lifted her off the ground.

Her laughter cut off mid-giggle. I turned and threw her onto the bed. The new linens crinkled beneath her weight. She propped herself up on her elbows, her wings once again open wide and on display for me.

I loomed over her, my shadow stretching across the bed as I placed my hands on either side of her, caging her in. “You didn’t get very far.”

Her lips parted, her cheeks flushed as she met my gaze. “I didn’t want to.”

My claws brushed against the delicate fabric of her gown. Of course, they snagged in it. She didn’t flinch, didn’t shy away. Instead, her hand lifted, her fingers trailing through the mane at the side of my face. The touch was light, reverent. It burned through me with a force that left me raw.

I couldn't hold back any longer. My lips crashed into hers. She'd said something about gentleness earlier. Whatever imaginary beast she'd conjured that performed that action was not in this room. Her lips were sweeter than anything I’d ever tasted, sweeter than unrefined sap. Fairies had evolved from flowers under Solara's gentle rays. This fairy princess was the goddess's most perfect creation.

And she would never know that this was my first kiss.