Prince of Air and Darkness (The Darkest Court)

I shrug and a few beads of blood well up along the clean edges of the cut. “I don’t know. But I think Roark may be able to figure it out.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“He helped me use the ley line tonight.”

Again, I’ve shocked Herman into silence.

“I mean it,” I say. “Roark helped me channel the ley line.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Apparently not.”

It only takes three panicked strides before Herman’s pale reflection hovers over my left shoulder in the mirror. “There has never been a recorded case of that happening, Finny. We’ve looked. Nothing in any of the Pantheons’ histories about that.”

I grip the edges of the sink hard enough that I can feel my pulse in my fingertips. “I know.”

Herman presses a hand to his mouth. One hoof taps against the linoleum while he thinks. “What the hell do you do now?”

I grab the bottle of rubbing alcohol from the shelf and snag some toilet paper. “I work with Roark,” I say, the truth of that statement ringing down into me until it peals through the ley line. And then, as an afterthought, “I’ll ask him to tutor me.”

Herman shakes his head. “No, you won’t. There are other options. Graduation is almost here. You’ll have your master’s and can get hired on somewhere that doesn’t require you to use your power regularly. There are ways around it.”

The alcohol burns, but I keep at the wound. “It’ll be fine.”

“No, it won’t. You are actually considering a relationship with the faerie prince. A working relationship with the same prince who you’ve avoided and complained about for the past six years. He has no redeeming qualities—”

In the mirror, my mouth still looks kiss-red. The ley line purrs. He has some.

I manage to swallow the words before they escape. My mind jumps back to the garden and my cheeks burn when the memory of his mouth destroys the little composure I have left.

“Lecture me tomorrow,” I say hastily, bumping past Herman so I can get to my room. “I swear you can lecture all you want, but I need some sleep first.”

“Fine. But only because I don’t want to stare at your gnarly chest anymore. And because Sue’s bringing breakfast and will help me interrogate you.”

Herman must take his laptop into his bedroom because the apartment falls silent a short time later, and that tranquility stretches on. Normally I’d appreciate it, but tonight I can’t fall asleep. It’s almost two in the morning and my heart pounds like I just finished a workout. Every time I close my eyes, all I see is Roark’s pale face inches away, those lips that met mine and shattered something inside me I didn’t even know existed.

The sardonic curve of his m

outh is a shade darker than the rest of his skin, tinged pink, the lower lip full and the upper lip marked by a sharp bow.

I can’t stop thinking about the way my scalp tingled when he gripped my hair. How his chest flexed and how his thigh quivered when I pressed against him. The sparks that shot behind my eyelids when his hips nudged mine, disassembling me completely—before he abruptly rose and vanished into the night.

He probably regrets what he did. What we did. It is Roark, after all. Like Herman said, we’ve been at each other’s throats for years, and I doubt a single night could change our animosity so easily. Besides, Roark never does anything without a clear plan in mind. The idea that he could be overwhelmed by the heat of the moment is absurd.

Except, he wasn’t in control. That was clear from the way he pulled back, the haze over his eyes, the dilation of his pupils, and the raw grunt of his curse when he realized how far gone we were.

I groan and sit up in bed. My skin is hot, too tight, and my dick is hard enough to ache. I breathe away the urge to wrap a hand around myself and tug a few times, to do anything that might take the edge off this overwhelming desire coursing through me.

It had to be Roark. You couldn’t want anyone else, could you? You didn’t even try to find someone different.

There it is. The pitiful truth that’s haunted me for years, no matter how much I ignored it. My desire has always been for Roark. No matter how much I lied to myself, I would never find anyone else who compared to him.

And now that I’ve touched him, kissed him, stunned him to the point of retreat, there’s no chance for a return to blissful ignorance.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk to him. But first I’ll sleep. I keep repeating that mantra to myself, even as I watch the minutes tick away. Tomorrow.

Roark