He calmed then. Slightly. “I suppose I would. But I’m beginning to think that the fae you’ve been rendezvousing with is trying to kill you. Maybe he’s working with Aura.”
I scoffed. Aura hadn’t been near Malex. He’d hated her since the first time they met. But maybe Malex was trying to kill me, or test my mettle, at the very least. The fact of the matter was that he was one of the most powerful fae in the forest, and the only one willing to help sever the bond. I had no option but to do as he asked. But there was something other than concern in the Prince’s voice. Something interesting.
“Rendezvousing?”
“Yes! You meet him at night, Lord knows where, and then come home bearing his marks.”
“I met him for a few moments, and yes I do wear his marks, but I fail to see why any of that matters to you.”
He growled, gently sat the egg on the grass, and strode toward me. When his eyes met mine, they flashed with raw emotion. “I hate to see this on you,” he said as his thumb brushed over my bottom lip, his other thumb across my cheek.
“Why?” I rasped.
“Because he has had the privilege to do something I’ve wanted to do since I first laid eyes on you.”
I was speechless. But only for a second. “Then do it. Erase his mark and replace it with your own.”
chapter twelve
PHILLIP
I didn’t give her time to think or change her mind. I gathered her into my arms and melded my lips to hers, swiping my tongue across hers. She mewled and fisted the front of my shirt, pulling me closer, then her fingers raked through my hair and over my scalp and it was my turn to growl. Pressed tight against my body, she tasted sweet, dark, and magical. I knew in that moment, I was hers.
I’d been hers since I saw her hovering over her bed, if I was being honest with myself, and I didn’t understand it. I’d been brought up to fear her kind, but she wasn’t anything like father or the priests said. Luna was fierce, brave, and kind, and God, she was beautiful. I didn’t want to ever stop kissing her.
Her lips were sweet. My hands found the curves of her waist and hips, tightening on them possessively. She pulled away slowly, her eyes warily taking me in. Did she already regret the kiss, or did she want another?
I placed a chaste kiss on her cheek to erase the fae’s other mark and the crescent faded away, leaving only pale skin behind.
“We should go inside,” she said breathlessly, pushing her hair behind her ears.
I took up the dragon egg and followed her into the cottage. In the candlelight, Luna was glowing. I reached out my hand to raise her chin. “The marks are gone,” I marveled.
“You erased them,” she said simply.
It was my turn to gloat. “Of course I did.”
Luna smiled and walked back onto the porch. “Will you put the egg in my spell room?”
With those words, the locks slid open and the door parted. I sat the egg on the counter, careful to set things all around it so it didn’t roll away and break on the floor. The last thing I wanted was to go near a dragon ever again.
I joined Luna on the porch. The moonflowers blooming all around it seemed to grow as she outstretched her hands. “One more ingredient before dawn. Think we can do it?” she asked.
“I have no doubt in you, Luna.”
And I didn’t. If she could outrun a dragon, comfort a wolf while she removed his eye, and capture a ghost, the woman could do anything.
She smiled sadly. “You’d be the first.”
She was the dark witch. She’d invented her reputation to keep people away, but she did it to keep them safe from her, even though she wasn’t a danger to anyone but her sister.
She must be so lonely.
She was desperate to stop Aura, isolated from the world she once knew, and yet brave enough to face her fears. She knew her own demons well enough to keep them at bay. Luna was unapologetically who she was; darkness illuminated in pale light, kindness cloaked in snark, cold at times, but with a warmth bubbling beneath the frosted surface.
She was beautiful anger, an unabashedly wild thing living in the heart of the forest.
And while I ached for her because of her isolation, I was thankful for it at the same time. Because if anyone would take the time to peel back the layers of her, they would fall in love with her the same way I did. And where would that leave me in a long line of heart-crushed suitors?
I pinched my eyes closed.
She and I could never work. We were from two different worlds.
My father and mother needed me.
My Kingdom needed me.
She jogged down the steps and took up her broom. “Are you ready to fly?”
“Need you ask?” I teased.
But then my stomach sank. “What are we retrieving?”
“Another eye. This one from a blind person.”
I opened my mouth, unable to form words.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “I don’t feel as guilty about this one. It’s not like the person will need it.”
Callous. She was absolutely callous at times.
She sat on her broom and I joined her. I shook my head, held her waist, and we took off into the sky.
LUNA As the blind man slept deeply under my spell, I took his eye. It was like I told Phillip. He didn’t need it. His vision had already failed him, and now it would keep my sister blind to my approach.
At his side, I placed a pouch full of all the coin he would ever need if he used it wisely. I slipped into the shadows and found Phillip waiting in the darkness for me.
He raked a hand through his sandy hair. “Did you get it?”
“Yeah.”
He cringed a little. Inwardly, so did I, but I had to have the eye.
The sky was lightening overhead. We would be pushing our luck to go after another item. Best to save it for tomorrow.
“Where to next?” he asked.
“Home. Dawn will be here fast. We’ll retrieve the rest over the next few nights.”
“And then? What happens when you have all the ingredients? You cook everything up and go feed it to Aura?”
I wished it were that simple. And he wasn’t going to like what I had to do next. “I have to take the ingredients to Malex.”
Prince Phillip muttered a curse that would make a normal female blush.
He tore at his hair again. “You have to be kidding!”
Wincing, I shook my head. “I wish I were, but I need his help to make the spell.”
“Why do you need him?”
“Because he’s powerful.”
“He wants you,” he said.
I shook my head. “He wants something from me. He only pretends to want me.” That much had been clear from my visit to his cave. He watched my body, but didn’t ask for more than a couple of fairly chaste kisses. And those kisses weren’t romantic. He’d used them to gather information. Malex didn’t want me the way Phillip did. He wasn’t hungry for me in the same way.
Nor did I want him.