Chapter 21

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

WREN

B y the time Caelan returns, I've dozed off in the chair, the crackling fire and soft cushions too cozy and snug to resist.

"Good," he murmurs in my ear, then leans closer to kiss my temple. "I'm glad you've been resting."

I crack one eye open, stretching deliciously long.

His gaze drops to my breasts, and I hold back a laugh, torn between liking how he's staring at me and wondering how in the world he could ever think himself evil.

"What's in the bag?" I settle on asking instead. Might be cowardly to ask that instead of something meaningful, but at least it's safe.

The paper rustles as he sets it down on the wooden kitchen counter, and I perk up as he pulls out a few wax-paper-wrapped packages. They fill the small space of my home with a flavorful smell, my mouth watering almost immediately.

My stomach growls in response, and Caelan arches an eyebrow at me. "You don't take very good care of yourself, do you?"

"I…" I tilt my head and screw up my mouth, because honestly, he's got me there. "I brushed my hair last night."

"I noticed."

"I have a business to run, and I have to do it all myself— The plates are in the left cupboard, no, not that one, yes, right there."

He pulls the plates out, looking so at home in my kitchen that it's hard to believe this is the first time he's been here.

I like the way he looks here.

"I noticed that too," he says, grinning as he piles a plate high with food for me.

Roast chicken with crispy golden skin, dripping with fat and herbs. Fried potatoes with some kind of spicy-looking red sauce. A hunk of fresh sourdough bread with honey butter, still steaming slightly from the oven. Then there are a number of roasted vegetables, a rainbow of carefully sliced moons.

"Where did you get all this?" I ask, absolutely stupefied by the luxury.

"The inn I'm staying at offers lunch and dinner twice a week. This just happens to be the day they offer it."

"You're staying at the Wild Oaks Inn?" I take in the feast he's brought. "And they serve that?"

"If what you're trying to say is, Caelan, I simply cannot believe you're staying somewhere so disgusting, it must be trying for your delicate fae sensibilities, the answer is yes, it is horrible and I am terribly afflicted by it."

I laugh and he grins, continuing his diatribe with gusto.

"And if you're also remarking on how such a run-down place can offer up such a delicious spread, I am just as confused as you are." He crosses over to the chair, scooping me out of it without so much as a warning and gently depositing me at my worn table. "The owner is an old man, mortal human, just regular old fellow, yes? You've met him?"

I nod. Hash Beauchamp is a bit of a legend around here, cranky and stooped with age, but proud and warm once you get to know him.

"Did you know he has a dog?"

"No, I didn't," I tell him.

He slides the plate in front of me, shaking his head as he fixes himself a plate. "He does, he has this dog who might be even older than he is. Grey muzzle, a limp, all that. The dog's name is the real point of interest, though."

"Is it?" I ask, barely able to contain my preemptive laughter.

"The dog's name is Boner." He gives me a meaningful look. "The first night I stayed there, all I heard for the first hour upon cleaning the postage stamp of a room I rented was the old man yelling, ‘HERE BONER, WHERE IS MY BONER,' over and over and over again."

I cough, choking on a potato as I laugh. "No."

"Oh, yes, yes indeed. I truly had to sit on the bed once I'd evicted all the spiders from the dark corners and ponder how, exactly, I managed to come to that point in my life."

I manage to swallow the potato, my shoulders shaking as I laugh. "I honestly don't know if I believe you. Hash Beauchamp has a dog named Boner?"

"I asked him about it, you know, once I realized it was in fact, the name of his dog and not some malfunctioning body part." He shivers dramatically, cutting his portion of chicken into neat pieces. "He said the dog just loves to chew on bones. That's why he named him that. I'm not sure he even knows slang."

"There's no way he doesn't." I can't stop laughing, and I'm afraid to eat another bite and choke. I gather all my courage and stuff a massive piece of sourdough dripping with honey butter into my mouth, though, like a real soldier.

"Who could say? Mortals are a strange group." He shakes his head again and takes a bite.

I nod emphatically, because yes, we certainly are.

"Does Hash cook the food? This chicken is," I don't have a word to adequately describe it, and I flounder along for a moment before Caelan comes to my rescue.

"It's perfect, isn't it? And no, I had the same question, but he doesn't. There's an elf who works the kitchen. He's not my biggest fan," he adds with a laugh. "But he does good work. I'm glad you're enjoying it."

We both dig into our meals with gusto, falling silent with the sound of clinking forks on china and the crackling hearth as a somewhat musical accompaniment.

"It means a lot to me," I tell him shyly, blotting my mouth with a napkin. "You taking care of me and bringing me this meal."

"It should," he agrees.

I snort, amused all over again at his cockiness. "And why should it?"

"Because I see how little you expect from the world around you. You expect people to tell you no, you expect to fail at this business, in spite of how good you are, because that's what the people around you have taught you to expect. They've failed you."

"Oh." He's rendered me speechless, and he's not done.

"I won't." Caelan delivers this promise with such certainty that it takes me aback.

"We've only just met."

"True."

"How do you know you won't get tired of me? You barely know me."

"My species has been around since the world was learning to crawl, and yet the things your kind and others above ground dream up are both baffling and beautiful all at once. I know I won't get bored of you because you're the only one that matters to me now."

It's an odd speech, both comforting and strange. He says he knows what he wants, and that I believe, because a fae of his age must know himself better than anyone.

But I also know myself, and I'm hardly a prize.

"I get cranky when it's too hot out. I hate sweating."

"Go on," he says, a mildly amused expression on his face as he sits back and studies me.

"I don't like to clean. Or cook. I'm not a good cook, either. I like to knit in my spare time, of which there is none, and read, and snuggle with Fenn by the fire. I like my socializing in small doses and get overwhelmed easily in large crowds. I've been kicked out of a coven and the jeweler's guild refuses to acknowledge the caliber of my work, so I might also be destitute soon without a steady flow of business from them."

He nods, spearing a potato and hefting it into his mouth.

"I get so involved with my work that sometimes I forget to eat or brush my hair, and I like to be right." I peer at him, waiting for him to turn tail and go running. "I let Fenn sleep on the bed with me."

"That's a deal breaker," he says smoothly.

I bristle.

"I'm not shooing Fenn out of my?—"

"I'll have to make sure you're fed and your hair is brushed then. Come on, no time like the present to get started."

"But, but?—"

"Wren, I'm out of patience for this laundry list of your so-called failings. You smell right to me, you are the most beautiful thing the sun has ever kissed with its morning light, and I want you." He arches an eyebrow, taking our empty plates and washing them in the sink, then disposing of all the trash from our meal while I look on in utter shock.

No one's ever said anything like that to me before.

Sure, I've had guys tell me I'm pretty, and from a scientific perspective I can agree that my face is pleasingly symmetrical and my skin, while prone to breakouts near the full moon, is still smooth and clear at thirty-two.

But to be spoken of like that?

That's new.

Well, a woman could get used to that kind of thing.

I stand up, coming up behind where he's rinsing his hands with the pitcher of cold water, and wrap my arms around his back.

He stiffens at the sudden touch, then slowly turns, looking down at where I've plastered myself to him.

"Thank you," I mumble, the words somewhat lost in the fabric of his shirt.

"It's what you deserve," he says, looking surprised.

"Take me to bed," I tell him.

I don't have to say it twice.