Wicked Lovely (Wicked Lovely 1)
Aislinn didn’t glance his way once for the rest of the class. Afterward she all but ran from the room, hoping the taxi would be waiting as promised. If she had to face much more of Keenan’s attention, she was afraid of what she might do.
CHAPTER 12
Folks say that the only way to avoid their fury is to hunt a branch of verbena and
bind it with a five-leaved clover. This is magic against all disaster.
—Folk Tales of Brittany by Elsie Masson (1929)
When Donia walked into the library, she saw Seth. Aislinn’s friend, the one who lives in the den of steel walls. It wasn’t quite late enough to see Aislinn, but if Seth was here, perhaps Aislinn was meeting him again.
He didn’t seem to notice anyone around him, despite the mortals and faeries who were all noticing him. And why wouldn’t they? He was lovely, tempting in ways so different than Keenan: dark and still, shadows and paleness. Don’t think of Keenan. Think of the mortal. Smile for him.
She took her time, moving slowly and carefully with a casual hand for support on the vacant tables she passed, a moment’s pause to catch her breath at the new book display.
He watched.
Let him speak first. You can do this. Her gaze—hidden behind dark glasses—lingered on him for a breath or two. He sat at one of the handful of computer terminals, a pile of printouts beside him.
When she was beside the desk, she smiled at him.
He folded his pile of papers, effectively hiding what he’d been researching.
She tilted her head, trying to see what he was reading on the screen.
He clicked on something on the screen and flicked off the monitor. He pointed at her. “Donia, right? Ash didn’t introduce us last night. You’re the one who helped her?”
She nodded and held out a hand.
Instead of shaking it, he lifted it and kissed her knuckles. He has my hand. It didn’t burn like Keenan’s touch.
She froze, like quarry before the Hunt, and felt foolish for it. No one touches me. As if I still belonged to Keenan. Forbidden. Liseli swore it would change when the new Winter Girl took the staff, but that was hard to believe sometimes. It’d been decades since anyone had truly held her.
“I’m Seth. Thank you for what you did. If anything happened to her…” For a moment he looked fierce enough to rival Keenan’s best guards. “So, thanks.”
He still had her hand; she trembled as she pulled it from his grasp. He’s hers, just like Keenan is now. “Is Ash here?”
“Nope. Should be on her way from school soon.” He glanced past her to the clock that hung on the wall behind her.
She stood, indecisive for a moment.
“Did you need something?” He stared at her, as if he would like to ask her a different question.
She pushed her dark glasses farther up the bridge of her nose. Looking past him, where several of Keenan’s girls stood listening, she smiled wryly.
“Are you Ash’s…” She waved her hand in the air.
Somberly he prompted, “Ash’s what?”
“Beau?” she said, and then winced. Beau. No one uses that anymore. The years sometimes blurred, the words and the clothes and the music. It rolled together. “Her boyfriend?”
“Her beau?” he repeated. He poked his tongue at a ring in his bottom lip, and then he smiled. “No, not really.”
“Oh.” Catching an unusual scent, Donia sniffed slightly. It can’t be.
Seth stood and picked up his bag. He stepped close to her, a handsbreadth from her, as if he were trying to make her step back, asserting some sort of male dominance. That doesn’t change over the years.
She stepped back—just once—but not before she caught the slightly acrid scent of recently handled verbena, not overpowering, but there. It is. In his bag. Underneath it were the slight scents of chamomile and Saint-John’s-wort.