Soft, slow, comforting.
I look up, letting snow fall onto my lashes, and when I turn to glance at Rip, I find he’s already looking at me.
“So, still angry at me?” he asks with a wry tinge to his tone. I leap at it, relieved to end the silence, to move past the rebuttal on the stairwell.
“Furious.”
Rip tips his head down, as if he expected nothing less.
“You?” I ask him.
“Livid.”
Our mouths twitch in synchronicity, shared smirks tipping up at the corners.
He leans back in his chair, the spikes along his back disappearing beneath his leathers. “We’re quite the pair, you and I.”
At his words, chills scatter over my arms, even though I’m wrapped beneath the blanket. “What do you mean?”
There’s an enigmatic look on his face that I can’t decipher, and he opens his mouth to answer, but appears to reconsider, going silent once more. Flakes of snow land on his black hair, soaking into the inky locks while he considers me with that intensity I’ve grown so accustomed to.
“It’s remarkable, you know.”
“What is?” I ask.
“We might be the last two fae in the entire world, and somehow, our paths crossed that night.”
His words from before, about how my aura was a beacon that he followed, make a lump appear in my throat. “Fate does funny things.”
“It does,” he murmurs, thumb brushing against his bottom lip as he regards me.
“Can I ask you a question?”
He arches a brow. “You know the rules.”
“You know enough of my secrets,” I reply with exasperation. “I want to know how you’re tricking everyone. I saw you outside the stables, with Fake Rip.”
His eyes dance. “You mean when you were checking me out.”
My face immediately grows hot, and my mouth pops open. “I was not checking you out!”
His white teeth gleam in the night. “Little liar.”
I cross my arms. “Well?” I demand, trying my best not to look flustered.
“Well what?” he deflects with a grin.
“Figures,” I grumble. “Alright, then tell me this, why do they really call you Rip?” The question has been plucking at me, an itch I can’t find to scratch.
He crosses his ankles in front of him as he stretches out, and my eyes fall to his strong thighs before lifting back up again. “Now that is an interesting answer.”
I can’t stop myself from leaning forward more, like a dog being teased with a bone. “And?”
“And…I’ll tell you one day.”
The prick.
I roll my eyes and sit back. “When?”
His lips tilt up, making him look entirely too sexy for his own good. “When you’re no longer furious with me.”
Taking a sip of my drink, I enjoy the warmth that blooms in my chest as it travels down. “Fine, keep your secrets.”
“I do. As I keep yours.”
His reply makes my stomach tie in knots. I know I’m sitting here in the night, pretending. Pretending that he’s not King Ravinger, pretending that he doesn’t have his own plots and ploys.
“And why are you keeping my secrets?” I ask carefully.
We’re already so far down this gully, I figure why not go a little further? This might be the only chance we have at such open honesty, while our walls are splintered beneath a paper torn night.
“Because it suits me to do so.” I’m pinned with the pierce of his eyes just like a needle to a moth’s wings, and the sting is the same.
Like pebbles on an ocean floor, disappointment settles in the bottom of my gut. A warning, then. That just because it suits him for now, it doesn’t mean it will suit him always. If it were Midas, he’d wait to use the information until exactly the right moment. It’s what most kings would do.
I suppose the flutters of stomachs and squeezes of hearts just can’t be trusted. Everything that happened tonight—him carrying me, his words, the heat of his hips caught between my thighs as his lips grazed my cheek—they were stolen moments. Moments that we can’t afford to have. Not with our goals so misaligned. Maybe as Rip and Goldfinch, but as Ravinger and Auren? Never.
As much as I wish that things were simpler, different…they’re not, and I can’t pretend otherwise.
Rip straightens up. “And there it is.”
“There what is?”
He gestures at my face, as if he’s read some secret from it. “You just remembered I’m King Slade Ravinger and not just…this.”