“I stayed here in heat and dark, left with nothing but myself for company,” he continued. “Do you suppose I pay such favor to everyone, Katherine or Kat?”
“I know what you’re doing,” she said with a strange tremble.
“And what am I doing, Katherine?” He reached out, taking her hand in his.
“What . . .?” Katherine started to pull her hand away, and her entire body glowed as if the moon had somehow slipped into her body. She was a light that every fey thing for miles must notice.
Her voice was as shaky as he felt as she asked, “What’s happening?”
Mine.
Urian’s arm went around her as her knees buckled. He wasn’t letting go.
Ever.
“I’m going to kiss you.” He told himself it was merely a ploy, that he was simply using what tools he had, that he wasn’t seducing her for any reason other than entrapping her to aid in his cause. But Urian couldn’t lie the way she could. He wanted her the way he had never wanted anyone—or anything. This was all that mattered.
He leaned closer, lowering his mouth to steal a kiss.
One kiss.
What would it hurt? His cause was just, and if she was mortal enough to become enthralled, he’d tend to her needs as she fought at his side.
The moment his lips brushed hers, not even enough to call it a kiss, Katherine jerked away.
“Dangerous,” she croaked out.
“I’m not dangerous toyou.I don’t want to hurt you,” he swore, not a trace of mistruth in the words. “And you, my lovely, are not a mortal.”
“No. I’m dangerous to you.” She took several steps away from him, even as her hand touched her lips. “I can’t.”
“I’m safe. . . unless your lips are coated with poison. Are they?”
She shook her head. “I am. All of me.”
Urian would laugh, but she sounded so sincere. Was this a result of misinformation about faeries?
“You aren’t immune to lust. Are you, Katherine?” He watched her continue to back away, and it did nothing for the raging need he felt toward her. “Come with me. Give me this day and night, and I’ll answer every question you have. You won’t regret it, Kat. I swear this to you. No maiden or experienced woman ever has. No man either.”
Lightening flashed brightly enough in her eyes that he thought she might not be able to see around it. She felt the same fierce longing he did. Whatever had happened when he first took her hand, she’d felt it too.
“I won’t abandon you,” he promised, words he had never offered freely. He held out his hand to her, brushing her fingertips to see if that was enough to elicit another wave of desire.
It was.
“Please? Give me your day and night,” he asked, nearly begging now.
“Wait! You’re agancanagh,too.” She stared at him in a way that wasn’t lust-filled at all. “Aren’t you?”
And whatever else he was, Urian wasn’t a fool. That was fear in her eyes now.
“What do you know ofgancanaghs? I thought you claimed that faeries weren’t real, Katherine.”
She started shaking.
“Have you met one of us?” Urian could think of only one other: the one who destroyed his mother, the monster who was his father.
And if he hadn’t had enough rage toward Irial already, he felt enough to torch the earth in this moment. Seeing Katherine look at him this way, realizing that the fear she felt must’ve been because she’d had some sort of encounter with his father . . . the very thought of it sickened Urian.