Chapter 44

Ava shifted in the chair. He had given her a large vest to wear over the gown, but she still was uncomfortable because she wasn’t used to sitting with wings. “Is there a way I can get these to go away?” She pointed to one of them sticking over her shoulder.

Firo paused with the glass raised to his mouth. “Not while you’re here.”

That’s what she was afraid he’d say. “Any pointers on how sitting works with them out?”

Setting the glass down, he stood up and walked over beside her. “Yours are larger and fuller than ours, but I’m sure they work the same way.” He knelt beside her and reached between her and the chair.

She felt his hand move down her wings and bit her lip so she wouldn’t say it felt good but strange at the same time.

His hand stopped in the middle of her back. “Focus where my hand is. You can part them so they’re out of the way.”

She nodded. Concentrating on her wings was hard to do, so she zeroed in on where his hand rested. Her breath caught in her throat when she felt her wings moving—without expanding. It was like her elbows, she could point them out without moving her hands.. “That was easier than I thought.” For a brief moment, his hand touched the bare skin on her back. She held her breath, but then he stood up.

“You will learn more with your training.”

Ava adjusted her position on the chair so she wouldn’t feel like she was going to slip off the edge. “I already know that they’re an active part of the magic stuff.” She still couldn’t bring herself to say my magic.

He sat down. “Yes, but you will need to learn how to do it without their aid because there are times you cannot use them.”

Did she want to know when those times were? She decided not. “How hard is it going to be? To learn all this stuff?” She picked up her fork, suddenly starving. When he didn’t answer, she glanced across the table at him. He sat there looking at her. Not just briefly, but it was as if he was studying her. “Firo?”

He blinked. “Sorry. I get distracted when I am near to you.”

She raised a brow.

He waved his hand as if he wanted to say more but then picked up his fork and looked at the plate in front of him. “To answer your question, it is usually difficult for a fledgling to tap into their magic in the beginning, but as we know, yours is already awakened—” He stabbed a piece of the meat and then looked at her. “—I don’t see any struggles in learning to use it.”

She watched him chew. “Fledgling? Is that what I am?”

He shook his head but waited to speak until he had swallowed the food. Capri would be impressed with his table manners, she thought. “You are not. You are well beyond fledgling age.”

“So, I’m old.”

He laughed quietly. “Avalie, you are many things. Old is not one of them.”

She grinned. “I keep forgetting I’m with someone a lot older.”

“Mmm.” That was all he replied.

Looking at her plate, she took a bite of whatever the white stuff was. Her tongue felt like it exploded with the flavor of it. She didn’t know what it was and may not want to, but it tasted like nothing she’d ever tasted before. The quiet continued as they both focused on the meal. Her brain was going a hundred miles an hour, going over everything that had happened. She groaned. “I didn’t get any pictures. Fauna is going to be disappointed when I tell her about the leopard.” She leaned to take another bite, and her hair fell forward. Sighing, she flipped it back and tried to tuck it behind her ears. There was a reason she stuck with one hairstyle because it kept it out of her face. She looked at him to see him looking amused.

Reaching behind his head, he pulled out a string that had been holding his hair back. Getting up, he moved around the table until he was behind her. His fingers gently threaded through her hair as he pulled it back from her face. A shiver went down her spine, and it wasn’t in a creepy way. Once he secured it, he leaned down and kissed the side of her neck and then went and sat back down.

She sat there looking at him. Why had he done that? A better question was why she liked it so much. “How’s this supposed to work?” She blurted out.

His blue eyes questioned what she meant.

She waved her fork to motion from him to her. “This thing with us.” Setting the fork down, she picked up the glass and took a sip. “I can’t be here.” She looked around. “Okay, I was here today, but I’m pretty sure the permission that the elder gave was for me to visit there, not live here.” She scoffed. “I couldn’t anyway. I’m not leaving the rest of the women behind.” She leaned closer to the table. “We made a promise to each other, and we’ve been through some pretty rough times, so I won’t leave them.”

Firo set his fork down and sat back in the chair. “I wouldn’t ask you to.”

She nodded. “Good.”

“I do not know.” He picked up the napkin from his lap and set it on the table.

She glanced at hers, still folded and sitting where it was when they started. Frowning, she picked it up, dabbed her mouth, and then set it back down beside her plate.

“There has never been a time where a fae and halfling were paired.” He cocked his head to the side. “And I cannot leave here. I will not forgo my task of watching over the princess.” He smoothed the tablecloth. “It is a miracle that I am still allowed to be a guard after I lost one princess.” He looked back at her. “I will not fail again.”

“I get that.” She did. She understood that he had given his word and couldn’t fault him for following through. “So, then there is no us really.” Her heart thudded louder for one beat, and she didn’t know what that was about, but it made her feel weird inside. She wanted to say it was disappointment, but it was something different. Something she’d never felt before.

He was quiet for several moments, just sat there looking at her. “I don’t think I can do that.” His expression wasn’t apologetic. “I know I have watched you for your entire life, but now that I’ve spent some time with you, I cannot just walk away.”

“That doesn’t leave us many options.” Her mouth was saying words, and she didn’t know why. Her heart was doing some sort of dance inside her, causing her pulse to be very noticeable when it was usually one of those functions that just were. Inside her head, she was trying to figure out why she needed to know this. “How long are you Aireese’s guard.”

“For the length of my life, or until she is queen and releases me.” He looked down at his plate and pushed it away from the edge. “Then it becomes my choice to stay and protect her or not.”

Ava didn’t know much about him, but she did know he held honor in high regard. “You would stay.”

His gaze flicked to her. “I likely would, yes. She is also my friend, and that isn’t usual here.”

Ava nodded slowly. “Right. I understand friends.” Her appetite was suddenly gone. As if the day hadn’t been odd enough, now she was feeling all these emotions and bizarre things about the relationship she didn’t have with a man she didn’t know.

“We don’t need to discuss this now.” He sat forward. “There is much we have to do. Your training…”

“Yeah, you’re right.” She shrugged. “I don’t know why I even asked.”

“Mmm, I suspect you are feeling the pull of our magic.” His mouth twitched into a faint smile. “It’s very distracting.”

“The what?” Was that even a thing, or was he just trying to make her feel better because she was being so lame?

“Hold up your hand.” He held his over the table, his palm facing her.

She begrudged every second as she moved her hand to do the same. He watched her face and not their hands.

“Now, move it closer to mine, but don’t touch it.” He leaned forward and brought his hand toward her.

She did the same. When she stopped, a warmth touched her palm, and she knew her face showed surprise because he smiled.

“Now, slowly move it away.”

She did, and the feeling went from warmth to a slight pressure in her palm, like something was trying to hold the hand in place.

“The pull of our magic.” He sighed. “It’s been all I can do to eat since we sat this close to one another, and it’s likely why you were asking things that your facial expression relayed that it was not something you would ever wish to discuss.”

Ava pulled her hand back and clasped both in her lap. “All of this stuff is so weird.” She bit her lip and looked at him. “How do you function every day with things like this happening all around you?”

His grin was wide but brief. “I’m used to magic all around me, but what is between you and I is very new to me.”

“You’ve never felt it with a girlfriend before?” She almost lunged to grab the glass of water so she could put it in her mouth before it asked more ridiculous things.

“There have been no girlfriends since I held this squawking, beautiful infant in my arms.”

She set the glass down. “I came out screaming?” She shrugged. “That’s supposed to be good, right?” She was doing her best to ignore what he had just said. Not the infant part, but the fact that he hadn’t been with anyone in fifty years.

“What I did to you when I inadvertently marked you, I did to myself also.” His blue gaze held hers prisoner with such an intense look that she couldn’t even blink.

Ava thought of several things to say in the next few seconds, but none of them were coming out of her mouth.

“I should get you home.” He looked out the window. “I need to rest while I can. The next few days are going to be a fury of activity.”

Ava blinked. “Yeah. Right.”

“Setting up the meeting at the circle of stones is going to take an immense amount of coordination.” He pushed back from the table.

Ava nodded and stood up. “Yeah, I guess you have your work cut out for you rounding up all those people from other places.”

He pushed his chair in and then gave her an amused look. “You are one of those, Avalie, as is your friend Espy.”

Ava frowned. “What?”

He nodded. “What she saw places her in this war of trickery.”

Ava wondered if Espy knew this. She was going to have to go sit everyone down and explain things to them. Not that she understood all of it, but they should at least be in the know. “And me because my father created me for this.” Before that letter she would have felt anger about it, but now, knowing that he did care, in whatever capacity he could, made a difference in her feelings about it.

“Yes.” He held out his hand. “Although we both know you were made with great affection and not simply a piece of a plot.”

She put her head down so he wouldn’t see how that made her feel. It was as if he had read her mind. Was that part of the magic between them too?” Exhaling a quiet breath, she went over and put her hand in his. The tingle was there immediately. She wouldn’t admit it to him, but feeling it settled her heart down, and she could breathe without the tension. She looked up to see he was watching her. What was she going to do about this pretty man? Neither of them was in a place to see what could or couldn’t be between them.

“You think far too much sometimes.” He whispered and pulled her closer.

In the next moment, she was standing outside the garage door. “Will I learn how to do that?”

He released her, reached into his pocket, and pulled out her phone. “It’s something in common the fae and the divine have, so I imagine you will be able to someday.”

She took the phone and looked at it. “Do you have a phone?” She cringed at her own question. “In case I have questions.”

“If you need me, you know how to reach me.”

She hugged herself. “I thought that only worked if I was under attack or freaking out.”

He smiled. “It works in all manners.”

“Oh.” She bobbed her head. “Good to know.” She glanced to see no one was in the garage, but that could change without warning. It was bright day time here, so everyone would be up and moving. As she turned back, she noticed her wings were gone and sighed in relief.

Firo stepped closer, leaned down, and kissed her mouth. He lingered there for only a moment, but it felt like her lips were on fire and the flames were traveling fast through her. “You look beautiful with or without them.” He said, his breath brushing against her mouth. “I will see you tomorrow.” He stepped back.

Ava didn’t even get the chance to nod or say bye before he was gone from her sight.

“That was—shocking.”

She turned to see Sym standing in the garage. Her hair was cropped off on one side of her head and blacker than it had been the day before. She smiled at Ava. “Get everyone in the dining room—even Vex if she thinks she can do it. I have a lot to share.” She looked down. “I’m going to get out of this thing.” She touched the vest. She should have given it back to him.

“Good things?” Sym’s teasing smile was gone.

Ava shook her head. “I have no idea.” Grabbing the material, she jogged into the garage and up the stairs.