“If anyone realized we were mates, they would know her secret. So I had to be cruel to her. Had to fight off my feelings every second of every day. I didn’t expect her to feel the bond too. I hoped she would hate me, but when she didn’t . . . I was too weak to fight the bond anymore.
“And then something happened that changed everything. By then, the tracker wolves had moved on and she was safe again in her farmhouse. I knew going to her would only put her in danger, so I let her hate me . . . despite how it hurt me.”
I remember the night we spent together. That was a moment of weakness for him, I see now. And in his mind, when Inara and Bane tricked me into hating him once again, he let me feel that way.
To protect me no matter the price.
“She did hate you,” I whisper. “She burned with it.”
“And now?” he asks. He watches me without blinking. He’s so very, very still.
“Now, I don’t know. I need time to process this. What you’re saying . . .” I blow out a breath, sending blonde hair flying from my face.
How does one go about convincing oneself she’s a murdered Fae princess?
“You can have all the time you need,” he answers softly. “I’ll be here, waiting.”
I swallow. “I do know one thing.”
He runs a hand through his dark blue hair, his eyes wide and expectant and a little afraid.
“I can never go back to my life before,” I say. “This academy, this world, it’s my home. I don’t care if I’m not safe here. I refuse to cower and be afraid. Who knows? Maybe I can graduate and actually do some good. Change the way the Fae treat humans. That kind of stuff.”
He stares at me for a long time. Then he dons his mask, becoming the cruel, heartless prince everyone knows him to be.
As he walks away, he glances over his shoulder, lips quirked in a dark grin. “Of that, I have no doubt. See you around . . . Princess.”
Epilogue
“Chew with your mouth closed, jerk,” Jane chides, glaring at Tanner. Chatty Cat purrs in her lap, his lime-green eyes trained on her hand as she slips him bits of honeyed-ham.
Tanner rolls his eyes and chews even louder. Aunt Vi scowls at the two before turning her attention on the twins. “Forks, children. Use them. Or are we a family of heathens?”
Aunt Zinnia rushes into the dining room. Her face is red and flustered, her golden curls sticking out at all angles. She holds out a pan of cornbread between two mismatched oven mitts. “It’s here, I only burned it a little.”
“Oh, goodie,” Aunt Vi says before taking a long, careful sip of her spiked tea. I’m impressed she managed to hold back the barrage of sarcastic comments I know are loaded and ready on her sharp tongue.
Thanks to our guest, Vi’s on her best behavior.
Mack sits beside me at the table, a grin brightening her face as she takes it all in. She’s staying with me for the weekend. Technically, she’s not supposed to enter the Tainted Zone, but her dads found a way to make it happen. I know they’re worried about her because they call every couple of hours.
But after learning how I saved her life, they kinda love me. And with all that calling, Nick and Aunt Zinnia have become fast friends.
Despite Aunt Zinnia and Nick’s opposing views on the Fae, they get along gloriously. They gab for hours on the cordless phone while Aunt Vi sits at the table and glares, pretending she’s not listening in on their conversation.
“More rolls, Mackenzie?” Jane asks Mack.
Jane hasn’t stopped staring at Mack since she arrived. They don’t make girls like Mack in Amarillo, that’s for sure. Already, Jane has talked Mack into painting her nails and putting streaks of black in her red hair tonight—black, for frick’s sake.
I’ve never seen Jane so happy. I’ve never seen any of them so happy. It took a while after announcing I was attending the academy in the fall for things to return to normal, but eventually, we fell back into our dysfunctional rhythm.
It helps that I used the gold crown from the dance to buy enough food to last until winter. Turns out some people will pay a hefty price for a real gold crown from Everwilde.
“Oh!” Vi says. She throws a hand over her mouth. “We forgot to say the prayer.” With a horrified expression, Vi turns to Mack. “We aren’t normally so uncouth.”
Mack and I share an amused look, and then she smiles, putting Vi at ease. “Aunt Violet, I’ve been to dinner parties that were the toast of the Upper East Side, but hands down, this has been my favorite.”
After we’re all thoroughly stuffed, we gather the china and take turns washing and drying everything. At some point, I hear Chatty Cat mewling to go outside. He likes to watch the birds in a patch of sun right before nightfall.