Page 71 of The Wind and the Wild (The Keepers of Faerie #1)

I cock my head, looking into the little silver flecks in his eyes. They appear so incredibly gentle now that I cannot remember how I ever imagined him as anything other.

“ I must redecorate the library, after all,” he supplies.

I grin. “ Of course.”

“ And care for the kittens.”

“ Ah, yes, only the kittens.”

“ Yes. What else?”

“ I wouldn’t know. Would you like to meet my parents?”

His eyes widen for a moment even as he’s holding back a laugh. “ Would I now? How do they feel about the fair folk?”

“ Do you remember how I screamed and ran away the first time?”

“ Vividly.”

“ I can say it certainly won’t be that dramatic. They’ve had warning.”

He gnaws on the inside of his lip with a low chuckle. “ Perhaps I shall, then. When I have a moment away. From the kittens, of course.”

“ And the redecorating.”

“ Yes. ”

Grinning, I lean over again, utterly happy that he is so much improved and his eyes are lighter again. Taking my face in his hand, he pulls me the rest of the way down to offer another kiss.

“ Are you rested?” he murmurs. “ Are you well?”

“ Very well, thank you. I’ve slept quite a bit. I think U—my friend was rather worried I’d end up enchanted by Faerie anyhow. She’s been checking in on me. Really, I think it scared her more than it did me. Somehow.”

He chuckles, and I’m sure he caught how I nearly spoke her name once more. “ Your little friend with the long hair?”

I nod, our noses brushing.

“ The two seem delightful. I am glad you have them. We shall have to find something I can call them.”

“ I’ll ask,” I say, then return to drifting my lips along his jaw and up to his ear.

He makes a long contented sigh of a noise, whispering, “ I dreamt of you each time I slept. You walked just out of my reach until I chased you and woke. Can I tell you something?”

“ Yes, yes, tell me.”

He slides the ring back onto his finger. “ I’d already taken the ring back. It didn’t count as my gift to you. Not anymore.”

Propping myself up a little more, eyebrows pulling together, I ask, “ Oh? ”

“ Hmm. I must’ve given you something else.”

It seems as if he is hinting at something quite important. “ What else could you have given me without me knowing?”

He peers up at me with the little curl to his lips before twining his hand into my hair and guiding me back.

“ Something,” he murmurs between kisses, tucking me down into his arms until I am pressed up against him and am forced to wriggle the blankets away to get closer. “ Something very important.”

His heartbeat thumps a gentle quick rhythm under my hand, and I think less of what he is saying, the specifics of it not mattering more than the strangest understanding enveloping me.

My thumb runs over the dual point of his ear as I brush his soft silken hair over his shoulder and touch his back with the slightest pressure, careful of his healing.

“ You’re not frightened now, are you, Flower?” he murmurs again, genuine concern in his voice as last time.

“ Niamh,” I tell him.

His lips fall still on my neck until he murmurs, “ What?”

“ My name is Niamh.”

A moment more he is quiet. Then he murmurs, “ Niamh.”

Though I do not believe he is putting any magic into the word, it is certainly there. A warmth settles across my shoulders and in between my ribs, a wash of cool water followed by sunlight. I murmur, “ Aidyn.”

“ Niamh,” he whispers again, then rises back up to kiss me properly.

A furry little paw digs into my cheek, and Aidyn huffs as one of the kittens tumbles between our faces. I clap my hand over my mouth, trying to stifle my laughter with little success.

“ We are going to crush one,” he mumbles, wincing as he attempts to move the little thing off the side of the bed.

Rolling over, I pick up the two who’ve woken and tumbled out, putting them back into their basket with the few plums they’re much more interested in.

“ I keep getting interrupted,” he mutters, dragging me back over to his chest. “ All of Faerie is against me.”

“ How is your shoulder—”

“ I’m not planning on using my shoulder very much.”

I keep on giggling despite how much I tell myself it’s too much, wrapping my arms around his neck.

His hand makes a little brush of movement, and leaves scatter across the floor as the door clicks almost closed on the broken lock.

I give another huff of a laugh. My hands drift to his shoulder, and despite his proclamations, I still encounter the bandages under the thick fabric of his shirt.

Sitting up, I nudge him off his side and onto his back, half propped up on the pillows, while his eyebrows pucker together in mild distress.

“ Hush,” I tell him. “ You have a tendency for hurting yourself all over again, you know?”

“ It isn’t on purpose —”

Grinning, I kiss him, then on his nose, and then the corners of each of his eyes.

He narrows those eyes at me, hands still clasped against my ribs, their warmth seeping through the thin dress and underclothing.

Carefully, I unwind the ties of his shirt, taking the hem and sliding it upward while he eases his shoulders up with a wince, helping me slip it over his head.

I smooth my hands over the bandages with the utmost care, trying to assure myself he is feeling as better as he claims, even if he cannot be lying about it.

“ You need not be quite so concerned,” he says so softly the barest crackle of the hearth almost overwhelms it.

“ Shh, ” I murmur, running my fingers over and around the divots of his ribs and under his chest bone, wondering if he is indeed made of something different than I am under his skin, where the strange ripples almost like vines or something else of equal magic sit.

Still, he is incredibly soft, an entirely warm and living being.

He shivers when I take a long slow path of touches down his chest and to his sides.

His hands slide around to the buttons between my shoulder blades, carefully plucking them one at a time and sliding the fabric from my shoulders.

It is quite warm in this little room even in the gray morning, and I push the fabric the rest of the way off until the thinner underdress is left, the sleeves slipping off my shoulders and soon mostly maneuvered out of the way as well.

He mumbles something in his own tongue, gaze wandering lower than usual.

“ You do realize,” I say against his cheek, “ that I cannot understand you. I would like to hear what you are thinking.”

“ I named you correctly,” he mumbles into my hair. “ Your skin feels like flower petals. You smell sweet.”

“ Oh? ”

“ Warm grass in the sun,” he says, sounding as if this is the greatest compliment he can give me. Silly as it sounds, it still sits just as warmly in my heart.

“ Keep your arms about me,” I tell him. “ Do not ever release me.”

“ Do you know what else?” he asks, and I make a questioning noise, wanting him both to be quieter and keep speaking forever and forever. “ You did not wait for the sun to come up.”

“ It was light on my side,” I tell him. “ And I had not finished kissing you either.”

He lets off a soft hum as I touch my lips to the base of his throat and against his collarbone before returning to his mouth, where he has taken up murmuring my name when his lips are not otherwise occupied.

Twining his fingers into my hair, some of the rings catching in an uncombed lock, he pulls me harder to him, mouth sweet and hungry.

I cling to his unbruised arms, nervous and overly warm and happy.

Shuffling the thin cotton the rest of the way from me, he bundles it somewhere off to the side, pulling me over him where I won’t hurt anything still healing. My hands find what little remains of his clothing and make quick fumbling work of getting them out of the way.

“ Aidyn,” I say gently, happily terrified of all the things I wish him to do, wondering if I can say his name the same way he says my own; perhaps being on this side of Faerie will lend me that power to bewitch him as thoroughly as he has bewitched me.

By the noise that rises from his chest, stopping short as if it has caught in his throat, I feel enough as if I have succeeded.

“ Aidyn,” I say again, and he mumbles my name back to me in a way that feels as if I finally understand his whisper-song language.

His mouth touches every place I’ve been imagining, and he bundles me down into the blankets alongside him and in between his arms until we’re both trembling and his face is tucked into my neck.

I mumble, “ Oh,” against his shoulder and feel his agreeing, “ Hmm,” more as a hum in his chest than a word.

A short time later, he is tucked over me, my back against his chest where I feel the bandages and wince at the thought, though he seems quite pleased, his leg bent through the two of mine, his hand drawing lazy circles in the air, tugging gently at locks of my hair.

I turn the ring around and around on his finger, the one he gifted me then did not, and feel tears prickling at my eyes.

My throat bobs a little too much when I swallow, and I try to consider everything that brought us here and cannot wrap my thoughts about it.

My breath is a tad unsteady. Moments later, his hand falls still.

“ What is wrong? Did I—”

“ I’m happy , stop fussing,” I mumble.

He is momentarily quiet before pushing up onto his elbow to look over into my face.

I see very little but his large silver eyes squinting at me in the low light.

After a thorough study, he falls back with a contented huff.

I’d roll my eyes if it weren’t terribly endearing.

His arm tightens, tucking me flush back against his chest once more.

“ Will you take me somewhere in Faerie that you love?” I ask, reaching over to tap against the wooden floor to get the attention of the nearest kitten wobbling about. It hisses and wanders its head into my palm.

Blowing out a long breath over my ear, he says, “ All that happened at your midsummer, and you want me dragging you about the wild woods?”

“ As long as we don’t find any waterfalls where time moves strangely,” I say, grinning. “ And remember to close the passageway upon our return.”

He mumbles something in his own tongue that sounds vaguely exasperated and a little fascinated.

“ Why did it overgrow?”

“ I do not know. Neither does my da, though he thinks perhaps we went too far from it. We shall not get lost this time.”

Not with him, I certainly will not. “ So, can you think of no places?”

After a pause, he admits, “ I can.”

“ Would you like to, then?”

Another pause. “ Very much so.”

I grin again, pressing my lips into his arm and rolling over enough to see his face. He gazes down at me with a strange mixture of exasperation and smug contentment—perhaps a bit of excitement, even if his eyelids look as if they’re drooping. He nudges his nose into the side of my cheek.

“ When you are well, then,” I murmur, and kiss him against the corner of his eye.