My legs barely hold me, and I’m so fucking dizzy even my anger can’t clear my head—but I have another weapon at my disposal. Gathering my power, I lift a hand and flick my fingers.
My power slams into him and shoves him back, sending him sprawling on his ass.
Selina gasps, clapping a hand over her mouth. “What was that?”
“The curse has lifted,” I explain. “My magic is back.”
“He is a Fae,” Iason mutters, sitting up slowly. He shakes his head. “The only Fae in the palace is the merman. How is this possible?”
“Iason,” she whispers, “I—”
“Guards, get them!” He points at us, his face a mask of fury. “Take the Fae to the dungeons and bring her to me.”
Oh, the little prince is angry? He hasn’t got one drop on the ocean of rage I feel—not so much for his cowardly attack on me in the woods, the beating and the kicking and his plans to kill me, as for the way he’s treatingher.
My woman.
Moving my legs is more difficult than summoning more of my magic.
I gather water from the air, manipulate it, stretch it like dough, open my arms and form a net of mist and ice. With a flick of my wrist, I sent it upon his guards. It falls over them, much like the fishermen’s net they dropped on top of me at the lake, and traps them on the ground. They yell and groan and squirm like fish, writhing.
A cruel grin pulls on my lips as I pull more water from the air and form a ball on the palm of my hand, letting it grow. Then I send it slamming over his hated face.
And watch him drown in it.
“Adar!” Selina turns to me, her face white. “Stop. You can’t kill him!”
“I can,” I mutter. “It’s not hard. Humans are fragile. Just watch.”
“Please, don’t.”
That’s different. “He made you suffer,” I say. “He was going to force you to marry him. He was going to hit you. He insulted you.”
“All the same,” she says. “I don’t desire his death.”
I only wanted to scare him, punish him, shove his cruelty back at him. I don’t kill for sport. That’s not who I am.
But I smile at her words. Her kindness was what first drew me to her and it’s part of why I love her. I drop the water and he splutters and coughs, wiping at his face.
“Your wish is my command,” I whisper, “my love.”
She looks into my eyes as if searching for something, and it seems she finds it because she smiles back.
“Come on.” She grabs my hand. “We should get going.”
Lily and the healer are staring at us. When Selina waves at them, they slowly lift their hands to wave back.
I forget sometimes how humans feel about magic. How it scares them as much as it fascinates them.
As if everything we all go through, from birth to our death, isn’t a form of magic.
As if love isn’t the truest magic of them all.
“Selina.” I stop her, pull on her hand until she faces me. I touch her pretty face, the eyes and the mouth I love, the person I love. “Will you come with me?”
“To Faerie?” she whispers, and I nod.
“If you don’t, I will stay in this world with you. If you come with me, I will make you my wife and my queen. You will become one of us. Tell me what you want.”