He lifted her onto the counter where she’d sat and talked to him countless times. But this time her hands were in his hair, wrapping her fingers in it, pulling him closer.
It was the most perfect kiss she’d ever had until she realized, Seth. This is Seth.
She pulled away.
“Definitely worth the wait,” Seth whispered, his arms still around her.
Her legs were on either side of him; her ankles crossed behind him. She rested her forehead on his shoulder.
Neither of them said anything.
Seth doesn’t date. This is a mistake. It’d be weird after: she’d been telling herself that for months. It hadn’t made her stop thinking traitorous thoughts.
She lifted her head to look at him. “Seven months?”
He cleared his throat. “Yeah. I thought if I was patient…I don’t know….” He gave her a nervous smile, not at all like himself. “I hoped you might stop running away…that after all the talking and time, we…”
“I can’t, I didn’t…. I need to deal with this faery thing and…Seven months?” She felt awful.
Seth’s been waiting for me?
/>
“Seven months.” He kissed her nose, like everything was normal, like nothing had changed. Then he gently lifted her off the counter and stepped away. “And I’ll keep waiting. I’m not going away, and I’m not letting them take you away.”
“I don’t know…didn’t know.” She had so many questions: What did he want? What did “waiting” mean? What did she want? None of those were things she could ask.
For the first time that she could think of, she was more comfortable thinking about faeries than anything else. “I need to deal with this—Them—right now, and…”
“I know. I don’t want you to ignore them, but just don’t ignore this, either.” He brushed back her hair and let his fingers linger on her cheek. “They’ve been stealing mortals away for centuries, but they can’t have you.”
“Maybe it’s something else.”
“I haven’t found anything, anything that suggests they go away once they find a mortal they like.” He pulled her into his arms, tenderly this time. “We’re one up since you can see them, but if this guy really is a king, I don’t think he’s going to take ‘no’ very well.”
Aislinn didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything. She just stood there in Seth’s arms as he gave voice to her growing fears.
CHAPTER 14
Fairies seem to [be] especially fond of the chase.
—The Folk-Lore of the Isle of Man by A. W. Moore (1891)
By the end of the week, Aislinn was sure of two things—being with Seth had become beyond tempting, and avoiding Keenan was utterly impossible. She needed to do something about both situations.
The faery king could navigate the school just fine, but he still trailed her like a particularly devoted stalker. There would be no waiting him out, and her careful attempts at callousness and indifference were proving futile. She could barely stay upright by the end of the day, exhausted by the sheer effort of not touching him. She needed a new approach.
Faeries chase. That rule, at least, seemed unchanged. Like the lupine fey that prowled the streets, Keenan was chasing her. She might not be physically running, but it was the same thing. So—even though it terrified her—she decided to stop, let him think he could catch her.
In her childhood that was one of the hardest lessons. Grams used to take her to the park for short trips so she could practice not-running when they sniffed and chased, so she could practice making her sudden stops seem normal, uninfluenced by the faeries chasing her. She hated those lessons. Everything inside screamed run faster when they chased, but that was fear, not reason, compelling her. If she stopped running, they lost interest. So she’d stop running from Keenan, once she figured out how to make it seem somehow natural.
She tried a few tentative smiles at Keenan as they walked toward health class.
He responded without hesitation, directing such an intensely happy look at her that she stumbled.
But when he reached out to steady her, she flinched away, and a frustrated frown returned to his face.
She tried again after they left religion class. “So do you have big plans this weekend?”