Chapter 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

WREN

I am, for once in my life, completely without any idea of what to say or do.

"Maybe we should go back?" I finally venture. I've been trailing behind Caelan with my mind whirling ever since he declared he would be wooing me and ruining me for other men.

Er, males, I suppose, considering he's not a man.

"Because your feet hurt?" he asks, finally pausing, glancing over his shoulder at me.

"Well," I hedge. "Yes. I need the sapphires, but I also need to be able to walk. Maybe together we can pinpoint the location and set out tomorrow with a fresh plan?"

His long legs eat up the ground between us, and before I can adjust to his change in direction, he hauls me into his arms.

Fenn races into view, back from whatever adventure he's been having on his own, and lets out a yowl of outrage.

Caelan laughs softly at the sight, arching one of his flawless eyebrows at my familiar. "He has a lot to say for a small furry thing, doesn't he?"

"It's okay, Fenn," I say, and the fox's hackles settle down nearly immediately. He whines at me, then makes the peculiar chirping noise specific to foxes.

"He's very talkative," Caelan tells me.

"You don't need to carry me," I say, but there's not a lot of heart in the statement. My heels are nearly raw from the backs of the stiff leather boots, and the thought of walking all the way back to town is enough to make me want to lie down on the forest floor until the moss grows over my body.

"I don't need to," he repeats, huffing slightly. "What part of me courting you did you not understand?"

My face screws up as I consider his question. "Most of it?"

"In that case, this will be an incredibly easy process." He huffs in amusement, icy blue eyes narrowing as he glances down at me. "It would help if you put your arms around my neck."

"You don't seem to be struggling."

"Mm. Maybe I just want to be closer to you."

My hands are sitting awkwardly in my lap now, so I do as he suggests and loop them around his neck, my cheeks heating as our skin makes contact. Just moments ago his hands were on my breasts, his mouth against mine, and I would have let him do anything he wanted with me.

"I'll have to have a word with Piper about that cookie. She said it was an alluring spell. That was much more than that."

"Did you consider maybe you're just attracted to me?" A smile slants his lips, softening his entire face. "I think the cookie just gave you an excuse to do what you already wanted to do."

I blink. "Is that right?"

He doesn't answer though, just makes a small, amused sound in the back of his throat.

I study him as he walks. He hardly makes any noise moving over the ground, the crunching leaves and cracking branches that marked my clumsy footsteps now absent.

Fenn prances along behind us, his white-tipped fluff of a tail high in the air, making me smile.

"You love that little creature," Caelan says, and when I glance up, his gaze is on my face, steps as quiet as ever.

"Of course I do," I say, slightly surprised by the comment.

"How does it work?"

"Witches' familiars?"

"Yes. I don't know much about it." He looks annoyed by the fact that he doesn't know, and I realize it must take a lot for a cocky fae to admit they don't know something.

"When witches are ready to take a familiar, to level up their craft, typically, they begin to seek one. It's different for every witch." I smile, remembering the morning I found Fenn curled up at the foot of my bed. "Fenn came to me, and it was like a piece of my soul and magic I didn't know I'd been missing were suddenly there."

The intensity of his attention grows. "I know the feeling exactly."

I don't know how to respond to that, so I forge ahead to satisfy his curiosity. "There is a shop in Wild Oak Woods that caters to witches who need assistance finding the best familiar for them, or need help with their familiar, or want to take a secondary familiar. The witch who runs it, Rosalina, she's an animal mage. She'd probably be the one you want to ask any in-depth questions."

"So you don't summon them from the realm of hell?" he presses.

"Um, no. Well," I squint, mulling it over as I study the patchy blue sky through the leafy canopy. "I suppose you could. That wouldn't be a familiar though, not in a regular sense. That would be more like shadow magic."

"Evil?"

I blow out a breath, suddenly uncomfortable with the discussion. "You know, intent is what matters for us. Evil is in the intent, not the magic itself. Certainly shadow magic can incorporate darker components, but it just… is. The purpose of the casting determines the morality of it. This isn't my specialty either. I just do jewelry enchanting. I'm a smith, not an expert in magical theory."

"So is anything inherently evil, then?" he asks, a strange expression on his face, different than the typical self-assured smile and confidence.

"I don't know," I say simply. "I think intentions can be evil, yes. I think the will of the caster… or the being, I suppose, is the most important."

"So the Unseelie fae may not all be evil, though that is what most of the above ground world believes?"

My heart aches, my sympathetic streak on full display as I stare up at him, aghast.

"Do you think me evil?" he asks, the question light and breezy.

"I think if you were evil, you would have enjoyed my pain instead of scooping me up and insisting on carrying me home." I shrug slightly, my shoulder brushing against his chest. "I think you wouldn't have come to Wild Oak Woods at all, actually."

"Maybe I just selfishly wanted to hold you close," he says.

It shouldn't make my heart flutter, but it does. "I don't think you would even want that if you were evil, Caelan."

His eyes widen as I utter his name, such a small movement that if I hadn't been staring at his face, I wouldn't have seen it.

A silly smile spreads across my face in response, and before I can even think better of what I'm doing, my finger is moving.

"Boop."

His dark eyebrows nearly disappear into his raven-wing hair. "Did you…"

"Yes. You needed a boop."

"I needed a boop," he repeats.

"Exactly." I grin up at him, relacing my fingers around his neck. "Can't be evil if a witch is booping your nose."

"Oh, is that the rule?"

"Yes," I nod. "I can't believe you didn't know that rule already." I heave a dramatic sigh. "Simply stunned you hadn't heard that." My feet throb, and I snuggle closer into him, enjoying the smell of his shirt, his skin.

It's been a long time since I've been close to a man—er, male.

I forgot how nice it is.

And maybe something is wrong with me, but being carried around like I'm a teeny, tiny dainty doll of a person is completely delicious.

"You promise it wasn't because of the cookie?" I blurt, shame pinking my cheeks again.

"If I have to lick your cunt until you orgasm ten times and beg me to stop to prove to you that this has nothing to do with a cookie, then that's what I will do," he growls.

All the breath blasts out of me at that declaration, and I stare up at him. "Is that on the menu?"

"Do you want it to be?"

"Maybe?" I squeak. "Definitely," I add, throwing caution to the wind.

He starts running, the trees blurring by us, and I decide he's definitely, absolutely, in no way, shape, or form evil.

A real monster wouldn't be sprinting back to my house to eat me out.