Chapter Three
Chapter Three
They left
the Seelie Palace the following morning and traveled home in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. If not for the massive revelation from the night before—the news that Vi’s father was actually alive, that he’d been undercover all this time—Ryn would have pressed Vi for answers. Pleaded with her to explain herself. But he couldn’t ask her now. What had happened between them was insignificant in comparison to the fact that
her father was alive
. Her thoughts must be consumed by this single fact, and Ryn didn’t blame her. He could barely believe it himself.
He returned home and tried to distract himself, determined to give Vi the space she needed to come to terms with her father being alive. He waited all afternoon and most of the evening too, but eventually he couldn’t stand it any longer. He had to speak to her. He needed to understand what she was afraid of.
He took the faerie paths to her home and waited outside for several moments. He should knock. That would be the polite thing to do. But if she saw it was him, she probably wouldn’t let him inside. She probably wouldn’t even open a doorway.
Good thing Ryn had been granted access to this home long ago and could let himself in. Once inside, he looked around, but couldn’t find Vi in the living room or kitchen. He headed upstairs and crossed the landing to her bedroom. She was on the bed, looking at something on her amber. He leaned against the door frame and tapped his knuckles against it.
Her head whipped up, her body tensing at the sound. He waited for the fear he’d sensed at the graduation ball and again last night, but it was overshadowed by something far more pleasant. Something hot and heady that she stamped down a moment later. “You know you’re supposed to stand
outside
and knock, right?” she said.
“Yes, but I figured you wouldn’t let me in if you knew it was me. So I let myself in instead.”
She leaned over and placed her amber on the bedside table, forcing out a laugh. “Why wouldn’t I let you in?”
“Because you’ve been avoiding me since yesterday morning?” he suggested. “If I hadn’t caught your father for you last night, you’d have hidden in your room all evening. And if we hadn’t been forced to travel back together this morning, you definitely would have stayed away from me all day.”
“Well, you know, we don’t have to see each other every day.”
That was true, but it was fast becoming obvious to Ryn that he
wanted
to see her every day. “I suppose not, but since there’s this awkwardness between us, we should probably talk about it.” He waited for her to respond, and when she didn’t, he entered the room and moved toward the desk. “Why do I get the feeling our relationship is backwards?” He shrugged his jacket off and hung it over the back of the desk chair. “Isn’t it usually the girl who always wants to talk about feelings and the guy who bottles everything up inside?”
“I don’t bottle things up.”
“Right. Of course not.”
She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Filigree, in the form of a white rabbit with wings, hopped to the edge of the bed and leaped off, flapping furiously as he attempted to fly toward Ryn. Ryn stretched his arms out and caught Filigree before he could fall.
“So, um, how’s your mom going with that murder investigation?” Vi asked.
A not-so-subtle subject change. She really was planning to ignore the whole kiss thing. “Okay, since you clearly aren’t going to be the one to bring it up,” he said, “I’ll say it. We kissed. It was pretty damn hot. Now I want to talk about it, but I can’t because you’re being all weird. That isn’t normal for you. You’re not like other girls, remember? You don’t get silly and upset and moody. You’re cooler than that.”
“Well, Ryn, I guess I can only be cool up to a certain point. There’s a line, and when you kissed me just to prove that you were right about something, you crossed it.”
Ryn blinked. “Just to prove I was right?” Filigree struggled to free himself, so Ryn placed him on the floor. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re going to tell me you don’t remember?” Her eyebrows rose as she gave him a skeptical look. “Let me help you. We had the super-hot kiss, and then you ended it with, ‘I told you that you were missing out.’”
“Yeah, so? You
were
missing out. I wasn’t trying to prove a point; I was simply stating a fact. And that wasn’t where I planned to end it.” His skin heated at the memory of her legs wrapped around him, her lips pressing his, the sparks of magic darting across their skin. “Trust me, I could have stayed in the dark with you a whole lot longer if we hadn’t hit the wrong wall and landed in the middle of a partially demolished sitting room. Speaking of which, you haven’t asked me what happened after you bolted.”
Feigning a bored tone, she asked, “What happened after I bolted?”
“Well, it turns out Mr. Faerie Sneak had just as much right to be in there as we did. So we both agreed to pretend we’d never seen each other, and then he ran off while I was left to clean up all the mess you and I had made before Princess Olivia got back.”
“
We
made?”
“Yes, V. Shattered vases, burning cushions, overturned furniture. That was us.” He grinned. “It was one seriously hot kiss, remember?”
She didn’t answer, but what she
felt
suggested she remembered the kiss the same way he did. She drew in a long breath. “Okay, fine,” she said. “I’ll talk. The kiss was hot. Amazing. Incredible. You were right—clearly I was missing out by never having experienced a kiss from someone magical. And now I know, so thank you. Can we move on?”
Never had anyone sent Ryn’s heart on such a rollercoaster. One moment it seemed she’d enjoyed it as much as he had, and the next she wanted to move on. He crossed his arms. “I still don’t get it. Why do you want to move on? It’s not like you kissed me simply because you were bored and had nothing else to do at the time.”
“Oh. Well, since you know so much about my motivations, maybe you’d like to tell me why I kissed you.”
He threw his hands up, frustration finally getting the better of him. “Are you really not going to admit it?”
“Admit what?”
“You have feelings for me, Violet. Why is it so hard for you to say that?”
“Because it isn’t true.” Her arms tightened around her knees, and she refused to meet his gaze. “And because if it
were
true you’d only end up hurting me.”
“That’s ridiculous. If we have feelings for each other and we want to be together, why would I be stupid enough to hurt you?”
“Well, you probably wouldn’t do it intentionally, but after a while you’d get over whatever feelings you might have for me.” She glanced up, meeting his eyes for a moment, almost challenging him with her gaze. “I know you like the company of Undergrounders, and I can never be as exotic or exciting as the beings you’ll find down there.”
He walked forward, pressed both hands onto the bed, and leaned toward her. He made sure she was still looking at him as he said, “I don’t
want
to be with any Undergrounder, V.
I want you.
”
He felt the effect of his words on her, and it gave him hope, but the thrill was quickly chased away by doubt. “You say that …”
“I
mean
that.”
“You
think
you mean it, Ryn, and you probably do right now, but it won’t last, and where will that leave me?”
“Violet. This … what I’m feeling …” He pushed away from the bed, struggling to find the right words. “It’s so much more than anything I’ve ever felt for anyone. It’s threatening to explode out of me. How can you tell me it won’t last?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged and shook her head. “I only know one thing for sure, and it’s that you’ll break my heart.”
“No. I could never hurt you again, V. I
mean
it.” He was becoming desperate now that he could sense her fear starting to blot everything else out again. “What do I have to say to make you believe me?”
“There isn’t anything you can say, Ryn, or anything you can do. And it doesn’t matter, anyway, because I don’t feel that way about you. Things were good when we were friends. Why can’t we just leave it at that?”
Ryn let out a laugh completely devoid of humor. “You don’t feel that way about me? Now you’re just lying.”
“I am not.”
“Yes, you are.”
Her lips pressed together for a moment. Her hands tightened into fists. “You have no idea what I’m feeling, Oryn.”
“I know exactly what you’re—”
“You don’t. End of conversation.”
“YES I DO!” he shouted. “Aren’t you listening to me? I
know
what you’re feeling! I
feel
what you’re feeling! You think you’re the only one in Creepy Hollow graced with a dose of extra special magic? Well, you’re not. I feel every single flipping thing everyone around me is feeling, which, when it comes to you, usually isn’t much. But guess what? That isn’t the case anymore. I knew you were panicking when we headed onto the dance floor after graduation because I
felt
it. I knew that the moment I whispered in your ear while we were dancing was the moment you realized just how much you wanted me because I
felt
the flood of emotions that suddenly came over you. I felt it again yesterday morning when I was lying next to you in bed, and again when I was kissing you. I
know
, Violet, so don’t lie to me.”
Shocked silence greeted his outburst, and Ryn immediately regretted his honesty. He hadn’t meant to say any of that. He hadn’t meant to tell her about this odd magical ability he possessed. Not tonight, anyway. He wanted her to trust him, to feel safe, before she discovered that he could feel everything she felt.
Finally, she whispered, “What … what am I feeling now?”
Anyone who’d been watching this exchange could have accurately guessed most of what Vi was feeling, so it wasn’t as if this would prove anything. But he may as well say it out loud. “Up until about a minute ago, it was mostly desire and fear mixed in together, but right now, shock is pretty much overshadowing everything else.”
The way she looked at him now … it was as if he were a stranger. “How long have you known you can do this?”
“A long time,” he admitted quietly.
“And you never told me.”
“I—”
“You’ve always known my secret, and yet you never bothered to tell me yours.”
Dammit, this was all going wrong. He struggled to separate her intense anger from his own emotions. “Violet, I—”
“Get out of my house.”
Not working. He didn’t know if it was her anger or his that slammed into him, but his patience was suddenly at its end. He grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair and headed for the door. “Gladly. If you want to keep lying to yourself, go right ahead.”