As understanding dawns, a devilish smile overtakes his face. Slowly, he arches an eyebrow. “Did we make love?”
Holy crap, his voice just lowered two octaves, and he’s doing that magnetic thing where he looks me in the eye like I’m the most important person in the world.
Heat stings my cheeks, but I refuse to avert my eyes from his simmering stare. “Yeah.”
“No, we never had the chance. You wanted to get married first.”
“I did? That doesn’t sound like me at all.”
He reaches up, toying with an errant strand of my blonde hair. “What can I say? You wanted to lock me down as quickly as possible.”
Snorting, I almost smack his head and then think better of it, trailing a finger over the tip of his ear.
He freezes, a tremor wracking his body as a low groan slips from his lips. “You fight dirty.”
“And you’re a bastard.”
A wolfish grin curls his lips, showing off those perfect white teeth. “But you wanted to marry this bastard.”
Shimmer save me, I’m torn between strangling him and kissing him right now.
He chuckles, and we continue like that, interrogating and teasing one another until the sun sets. By the time Mack returns with Asher, we’ve gone well beyond the four questions.
Mack’s eyes widen when she spots Valerian’s head in my lap. “What the heck are you guys up to?”
Valerian glances up at me. “She doesn’t have the question leaf. Should we let it slide?”
We burst into laughter as Mack and Asher exchange puzzled looks, and I have the sudden, alarming realization that I could fall helplessly in love with this Valerian.
Not the Winter Court Prince. Not the heir to the Winter Throne. Not the Evermore I’m bound to by magic.
The beautiful, sarcastic, funny Valerian who bites his lip when he’s about to say something vulnerable and beams when I laugh at his jokes.
I don’t care what Eclipsa said, this Valerian could dare to love me.
And I him.
27
After the field trip, the weeks fly by, and Valerian finally agrees to using some of the time trying to conjure my magic to just hanging out. We ask questions. We flirt but never go far enough to lose control. We tease but don’t judge. And slowly, like flowers that only bloom in full sun, we open up to each other.
I learn things about him. Like that he prefers dark chocolate, cats over dogs, and books over movies. That he adores fashion week in New York City and tries to sneak away every year to attend. I discover he watched a forbidden Marvel movie once in the Winter Court on a bootleg iPad and was afraid to enter the mortal lands because he thought the Hulk was real.
Apparently, the prince has a dark sense of humor. He named his owl familiar Phalanx after a finger bone because the creature kept biting off the digits of Valerian’s tutors.
His favorite color is black. Not because he’s trying to be cool, but because his first memory in life is tugging on the striking onyx strands of his mother’s hair and then watching her laugh.
Slowly, the divide between us begins to disappear. It’s funny how learning little things about someone makes them more real, more imperfect . . . yet somehow that’s attractive.
Like finding out Valerian hates cheese. I should see that as a red flag, because only a psychopath would hate cheese—but instead I find it weirdly adorable. The closer Valerian and I grow, the further the bargain with Hellebore gets pushed back in my mind. Sometimes I can feel his stare across campus, or during the classes we share after lunch. But he never engages, and true to his word, the pranks have stopped.
A part of me knows his inattention is meant to lull me into a false sense of security. That the minute I truly think I’m safe, Hellebore will strike. But that part of me grows quieter as the days pass in a blur of classes, training, and tests.
Next weekend is Samhain. This year, they’re making all the shadows stay in the main hall instead of the gym, with cots set up in the lecture halls and guards posted outside.
We’re all camped out on the roof, watching the huge projector screen as an Adam Sandler movie plays. Even with the movie speakers turned all the way up, the wild, animalistic snarls from the campus below pierce the night. A bonfire rages in the distance, the smoke tinging the air and stinging the back of my throat.
I’ve been restless all day, as if I can feel the Evermore changing. Or maybe my inner Fae is reacting somehow.