“The kind where everything that hurts her makes you bleed. The kind where your breath mingles with hers and you realize you couldn’t take another one unless she was guaranteed her next breath, too. Otherwise, you’d give yours to her. That’s the kind of magic you need, you dolt. Not the faerie-dust and pointy-ear kind.”
“Why don’t you tell me how you really feel?” Allen said, smiling at him.
“Magic isn’t what you think it is.”
“I know she’ll have to go home soon, and I want her to take me with her.” He leaned forward. “I don’t want her to leave me.”
Marcus laughed. “You do have it bad, don’t you?”
“Am I doing the wrong thing?” Allen asked.
“Why are you questioning this so much?” Marcus chided. “If you love the chit, marry her.”
“You think she’ll have me?” He actually looked worried.
“Knowing Ainsley, she’ll make you miserable for the rest of your life if you don’t marry her. You’re in trouble no matter how you look at it.”
“When I’m with her…” He stopped talking and shook his head. “When I’m with her, nothing else matters.”
“I always thought her tongue was a little too sharp,” Marcus complained.
“Her tongue is just fine,” Allen said. Then he blushed profusely when he realized what he’d said. “I mean as far as what she says to me. I wasn’t referring to anything else. I wouldn’t know about anything else. Not with her.”
His brother wasn’t an innocent. He’d brought women home in the night before. Marcus could hear them in his chambers at the house they shared in Town. Allen wasn’t like Marcus. Marcus had been in love with Cecelia since before he could walk. There had never been another woman for him. And there never would be.
“Have you talked to her father?” Marcus asked.
“Not yet. I plan to. I’d like to ask his permission to call on her.”
“They’re not going to let you into the land of the fae unless you marry her. And they’re strict about human visitors even then. Things are changing in the land of the fae, but it’ll take time.” Marcus didn’t want Allen to get his hopes up too much.
“There’s no chance the fae would take our children from us, just because I’m human, is there? They wouldn’t take them at birth, like they did you and Claire and Sophia?” Allen looked worried.
“I think the danger of that happening is past. Both of Claire’s children are fae, and they haven’t come to claim them.” Though why anyone would want either of those children, he had no idea. “So stop worrying.”
“What if she doesn’t have the same feelings for me? You never had to worry about Cecelia’s feelings for you.”
“I never worried because I knew when she hated me.” He laughed. “I knew when she hated me and I knew when she forgave me and I knew when she loved me again.”
“You were an idiot,” Allen said blandly.
“I know.”
“It’s a miracle she took you back.”
“I know.”
“There’s a benefit to having a lady who has wings,” Allen said shyly.
“What’s that?”
“They can fly out their windows at night to come and see you, with no one the wiser.”
Marcus wanted to hit himself in the forehead with the heel of his hand. Why hadn’t he thought of that? “Don’t steal that girl’s virtue,” he warned. Ainsley might annoy the devil out of him, but he still adored her, and she deserved better than someone who didn’t have true feelings for her.
“You’re one to talk,” Allen said. He looked up at the painting on the wall, and Marcus felt a blush creep up his cheeks. “At least I don’t go sneaking into paintings to get her alone with me. How did you talk Mother into that, by the way?”
“It was her idea,” Marcus said with a laugh.