Realm of Illusion: an enemies to lovers fae fantasy (The Iron King's Assassin Book 3) by Thea Atkinson

Author:Thea Atkinson [Atkinson, Thea]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2023-11-20T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

I wasn't shocked to hear Mica say the Brothers Fae were in love with me. From one so young as Mica, so sweet and naïve, I imagine he saw love in a secretive glance or a courtly bow. And yet my stomach ached at the words just the same. I thought there was some truth to the words. Even if Blade had confessed in the stables that he'd never been in love, I knew he cared about me. Those days on the trail, in the tavern, the bookstore, those all revealed what had to be as confusing and distressing an emotion as it was to me.

I certainly felt that magnetic pull between us. It was getting harder and harder to resist, but resist I must. Trust and love had never shown me any quarter. With Kit's life at stake, I couldn't give them any either. Not with Blade and not with Stone. Not while both males were enslaved to a blood oath that might demand at any time that they slash through any ties of emotion they felt for anyone.

Emotions were a complex thing, so full of uncertainty and muddled nonverbal cues that I doubted even a keen sense of smell could untangle all the motivation behind them.

"You scented anger in the stables," I said. "And fear."

He nodded, waiting for me to continue.

"Well, both of those emotions are as complex as any other. Fear isn't always a fast-rising or fast-dissipating response. Sometimes it lingers. And sometimes fear creates anger. What I felt, what you sensed, came from many different stimulus."

"Is that why you and Blade spoke of violence and love?" he said. "Were you angry and afraid because you love him?"

I started. "I was angry and afraid because of things that happened to me here in Fae, things that are far from over."

He widened his nostrils, scenting for truth no doubt. He'd find the air filled with it, but I didn't want to revisit those things, truthful as they might be.

"Let's talk instead of other smells," I said. "You told me when you came in here that the room smells of the woman who used these rooms," I said, recalling my own thoughts on her and the fragrance she left behind, one even I could smell all these years later clinging to spaces like an oil. "Did you know the woman who stayed here well?"

He shook his head and those ashen locks moved like liquid. "I was a child," he said. "And I had my own mother to love me so I didn't know her well."

"Stone said he kept all of his mistresses here," I said. "How long ago did she leave?" Even though the scent permeated the undercurrents of air in the chamber, it wasn't so strong that it should have caused him to react so strongly. Unless she had recently vacated the suite.

"How long?" he asked, confused. "It's been a century since she graced the manse. I barely remember her face, but her fragrance? I can't forget it, not so long as Blade holds onto it.

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