Why am I not surprised that he’d react like that? Same ol’ Rys, huh?
“You just said—”
“No.”
“Does it have anything to do with me?” His silence is all the answer I need. “If it’s about me, you should tell me. I want to know. I think I deserve to know.”
For a second, I think Rys is going to lift me off of him and set me on the dirt. I can’t see his expression, but I can sense his annoyance. He really doesn’t want to tell me.
But he doesn’t. Instead, when his hands return to my waist, he doesn’t use them to lift me up. He tightens his grip, keeping me right where I am.
“Rys. You said.”
He lets out a breath of air. The warm breath causes one of the stray strands of my loose hair to flutter. I brush it out of my face, keeping my gaze locked on his.
I win.
“It was a simple enough bargain,” he tells me. “I gave my word to the other guards that I would be a model prisoner and give them no trouble. In return, I would take any punishment that they devised to give you. I would take them all.”
I blink, then pull back from him. I don’t go too far—I still want his warmth and, well, he’s not letting me go—but I’m definitely shocked by his response.
“What? Why would you do that?”
He goes quiet again. It only makes me realize how silent it is underground. There’s my breathing, and his, and that’s about all. I shift closer to him, the rough denim of my jeans rustling against the thin material of Rys’s pants leg.
His sigh seems to echo all around me.
“I thought I found my mate once.”
I go still. Okay. Definitely not what I expected him to say. “I remember. You told me about her.”
“I was convinced she was mine. Nothing was going to stand in my way of claiming her. Not the Fae Queen, not her soldiers, not even the girl. I’m fae. Seelie. I waited for her for so long, but it wasn’t long enough.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Time flows differently in Faerie. When I first saw her, she was barely out of her human mother’s arms—”
He can’t honestly mean—
I recoil. “You’re fucking kidding me. She was a baby?”
He keeps going, pretending like I didn’t just interrupt. “I left her and vowed to return for her when she was of age. I was still too soon, though. She was young—”
I can’t get the idea of Rys looking at a baby and seeing his mate out of my head. “How young are we talking here?”
“Fifteen.”
“That’s gross.”
“I didn’t see her as a mate, Leannán, but more the promise of one. Does that make sense to you now?”
Some? Maybe… I don’t know. And it’s not like Rys is that old. Sure, the scar makes him appear harder than the other fae, but when I look at his flawless profile, I’d put him at maybe twenty-five.
Only... aren’t fae immortal? So he may look young, but that doesn’t mean he is.
“How old are you?” I suddenly ask.
“How old are you?”