Wicked Lovely (Wicked Lovely 1)

“Ooooh,” she breathed.

“Shall I explain further?” He leaned away so he could look directly at her. His beautiful Hound gave him a dangerous smile. “And to think you used to try to be a creature of reason.” She drew his lips to hers and kissed him with the sort of consuming intensity that was uniquely Ani.

Rabbit stood for a moment, not sure of how to proceed. He understood that something had happened, that it was peculiar to drink starlight, that having a faery decide to move into his home was . . . unusual. At the same time, he’d become caretaker to his sisters the same way: one day he was alone, and the next he was a big brother, acting as parent to two tiny hellions. He was a Hound, not completely but not mortal. Olivia was not Hound, but she was very much not mortal. Her actions were unexpected, but he couldn’t deny that the result felt very right.

Silently, Rabbit walked into the studio that was now a part of his house.

My home. Our home now.

She glanced at him, and for a moment he saw the flash of fear in her eyes. Why? He stared at her and briefly wished that he shared her sense of nonlinear time. Will I injure her? He hoped that he wouldn’t. His heart wasn’t as closed off as it had been before today, before he drank the tea she’d poured. He felt ready to try the feelings he knew he could— do? will?—have for her. Do I fail at them?

“What name do I call you?” she asked.

He looked at her, the faery who had apparently moved into his home, and wondered what he should feel. She began singing quietly to herself as she began painting on the wall in front of her.

“You are living here now?”

“Yes. With you.” She didn’t look back at him, but her hand stilled momentarily. “Do you know your name yet?”

“My name . . .”

Olivia made a noise that sounded very close to a growl. “I’ve waited for you for six centuries, but you weren’t born, and then you weren’t here, and now you are.” She sounded breathless now, out of sorts for the first time since they’d met. “I waited. I’ve been patient.”

Rabbit walked over to stand behind her. Tentatively, he put his arms around her. “Olivia?”

“I should have another name. I have waited.” She leaned back against him, and he saw the starlight trails of tears that slid down her cheeks. “I knew you would be sad, but I would be here. I can make you whole.” She turned in his arms. “I can be whole now. Finally.”

“With me.”

“Yes,” she breathed. Her eyes glimmered with bursts of light, and for the first time he didn’t try to look away.

“You will be with me, have waited, and we are together now,” he confirmed. She tilted her head up, waiting for the kiss that he carefully bestowed. Whatever peace he’d sought, that he’d only that morning despaired of finding, slid from her lips into his body. It wasn’t a forever peace— not yet—but it was the most right he’d felt since everything had gone so horribly wrong. Possibly before that.

He wasn’t fully Hound, but he was Hound enough to understand what Olivia had been waiting for him to figure out.

“What name is yours?” she asked softly. “You know now, don’t you?”

“Husband,” he confirmed happily. “Mate. Yours.”

And his mate began to glow; her skin shimmered with the same celestial light that was always in her eyes as she stared up at him. “Yes. Husband. Mate. Mine. I am glad you are finally home.”

“I am,” he agreed.

He couldn’t imagine ever looking away from the stars in her eyes again. For the first time since he’d entered Faerie, he had no sense of time, not because of sorrow and not because of strange cotton candy skies, but because he was lost in discovering the faery who was his mate.

Excerpt from

GRAVEMINDER

Prologue

MAYLENE PUT ONE HAND ATOP THE STONE for support; pulling herself up from the soil got harder every year. Her knees had been problem enough, but of late the arthritis had started settling in her hips. She brushed the soil from her hands and from her skirt and pulled a small bottle from her pocket. Carefully avoiding the green shoots of the tulip bulbs she’d planted, Maylene tilted the bottle over the earth.

“Here you go, dear,” she whispered. “It’s not the shine we used to sip, but it’s what I have to share.”

She stroked the top of the stone. No grass clippings had collected there; no spider silk stretched from the top. She was careful of the smallest detail.

“Do you remember those days? Back porch, sunshine, and mason jars”—she paused at the remembered sweetness— “we were so foolish then . . . thinking there was a big ol’ world out there to conquer.”