Something about the raw honesty in his voice touched her. “Everyone has things they’re afraid of,” she whispered, moving closer into his arms. She slid her fingers under the hem of his shirt. “It’s part of being human.”
His eyes slipped half-closed. His fingers raked down through her hair; his hands caressed her back lightly, then found her waist, pulling her harder into him. Her head fell back, almost banging into one of the cabinets; his lips burned on her collarbone. His skin was hot under her touch. She could understand suddenly why people talked about passion as fire: She felt as if they had caught aflame and were burning like the dry Malibu hills, about to become ashes that would mix together forever.
“Tell me you love me, Emma,” he said against her throat. “Even if you don’t mean it.”
She gasped; how could he think, how could he not realize—?
There was the sound of footsteps in the studio. “Julian?” Livvy’s voice echoed through the door. “Hey, Jules, where are you?”
Emma and Julian ripped themselves away from each other in a panic. They were both disheveled, their hair mussed, their lips kiss-swollen. Nor could Emma imagine how they’d explain why they’d locked themselves into Julian’s private room.
“Juuules!” Livvy was yelling now, good-naturedly. “We’re in the library and Ty sent me to get you. . . .” Livvy paused, most likely looking around the room. “Seriously, Julian, where are you?”
The knob of the door turned.
Julian stood frozen. The knob jiggled again, the door rattling against its lock.
Emma tensed.
There was the sound of a sigh. The knob stopped jiggling. Footsteps moved away from them, and then the studio door banged closed.
Emma looked at Julian. She felt as if her blood had frozen and then unthawed suddenly; it was pounding through her veins like a spring torrent. “It’s okay,” she breathed.
Julian caught her and hugged her fiercely, his bitten-nailed hands digging into her shoulders. He gripped her so tightly she could barely breathe.
Then he let go. He did it as if he was forcing himself, as if he were starving and he was putting aside the last piece of food he had. But he did it.
“We’d better go,” he said.
Back in her bedroom, Emma showered and changed as quickly as she could. She slid on jeans and couldn’t help a wince as her T-shirt came down over her head, scraping against the bandages on her back. She was going to need new ones soon, and probably another iratze.
She headed out, only to discover that the hallway was already occupied.
“Emma,” Mark said, unhitching himself from the wall. His voice sounded tired. “Julian said you were all right. I—I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault, Mark,” she said.
“It is,” he said. “I trusted Kieran.”
“You trusted him because you loved him.”
He glanced at her, surprised. He looked off-kilter, and not just because of his eyes: It was as if someone had reached inside him and shaken the roots of his beliefs. She could still hear him screaming as Iarlath whipped first Julian and then her. “It was that clear?”
“You looked at him like—” Like I look at Julian. “Like you look at someone you love,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t realize it before. I thought you . . .” Liked Cristina, maybe? Kieran sure seemed jealous of her. “Liked girls,” she finished. “Teach me to make assumptions.”
“I do,” he said quizzically. “Like girls.”
“Oh,” she said. “You’re bisexual?”
“Last time I checked, that’s what you call it,” he said with a brief look of amusement. “There are no real words for these things in Faerie, so . . .”
She winced. “Double sorry on the assumptions.”
“It’s all right,” he said. “You are correct about Kieran. He was all I had for a long time.”
“If it makes any difference, he does love you,” said Emma. “I could see it on his face. I don’t think he expected any of us to be hurt. I think he thought they’d bring you back to Faerie, where you could be with him. He would never have thought—”
But at that, at the memory of the whip coming down not just on her back but on Julian’s, her throat closed.
“Emma,” Mark said. “The day that I was taken by the Hunt—the last thing I said to Julian was that he should stay with you. I thought of you, even when I was gone, as this delicate girl, this little thing with blond braids. I knew if anything happened to you, even then, Julian would be heartbroken.”
Emma felt her own heart skip a beat, but if Mark meant anything out of the ordinary by “heartbroken,” it wasn’t evident.
“Today, you protected him,” Mark said. “You took the whipping that was meant for him. It was not easy to watch what they did to you. I wish it had been me. I wish it a thousand times. But I know why my brother wanted to protect me. And I am grateful to you for protecting him in turn.”
Emma breathed past the tightness in her throat. “I had to do it.”
“I will always owe you,” Mark said, and his voice was the voice of a prince of Faerie, whose promises were more than promises. “Anything you want, I will give it to you.”