He stopped, still holding me but no longer dancing. “Are you certain?”

“Yes. I don’t accuse people—or fairies—of murder, unless I’m sure. But people are starting to point fingers. And they’re pointing them at Calliope.”

“Calliope?”

“She’s the center of some very unwanted attention right now,” I explained, laying on the guilt as thick as I could.

“I’m sorry. If there’s anything I can do…”

Either one of the firefly lights had flown over me, or a metaphorical light bulb had gone off above my head. “There is something you can do.” I wasn’t about to endear myself to Aubrey, but at this point I didn’t care. “You control all those in your court, don’t you?”

“I do,” he answered cautiously.

“Then promise me none of them will ever kill in my territory again.”

Aubrey’s hand twitched on my back, and his perfect smile faltered. “A second promise?”

“You did say if there was anything you can do. This is it. And if you really have control over your people, you should be able to keep this promise without trying.” Batting my eyelashes innocently, I swayed into the next step of the dance, claiming the lead but making it look like he was still in control.

“You know how to push the boundaries of my hospitality, Miss McQueen.”

“Oh, was this you being hospitable?” I cocked my head to the side and gave a look that said, Let’s not kid ourselves.

Aubrey squeezed my hand and reclaimed the lead, dancing us back to where we started. Before letting me go he stopped and stared at me a long time, and there was nothing friendly about his expression.

“I will make your promise, but you should understand something else.”

“What’s that?”

“You haven’t begun to understand how hospitable I can be.”

Chapter Thirty

Once Aubrey had melted back into the crowd, Holden and I were stuck in the ballroom with no obvious way to get back to our room. Not that I was in a massive rush to return if it was filled with Aubrey’s sex magic.

“Care to dance?” he asked.

Seeing no way to leave, and considering I wasn’t currently afraid to touch him, I didn’t think I had a reason to say no. “What the hell?” I replied, taking the hand he’d offered.

He pulled me to the center of the dance floor, the fairy guests parting around us to give us space. Holden clasped a hand on my waist, and though his movements were not as smooth or graceful as Aubrey’s had been, we soon found our rhythm and fell into step.

“This place gives me the creeps,” he admitted.

All around us gilded fairies were gawking like we were the strangest things they’d ever seen. Maybe we were, but it was hard to believe that in a world where ogres were a real thing.

“It’s certainly unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.”

“That’s saying something.” He smiled lightly and spun me, then pulled me close so we were cheek to cheek and his lips were against my ear and mine were at his.

“Are we going to make it out of here?” I asked.

“We’ve gotten out of worse.” His fingers tangled in my hair, and I felt a thrill of heat in my veins that had nothing to do with a spell. “We always manage when we’re together.”

“I’m sorry for dragging you into this.”

“I didn’t exactly kick and scream, Secret. I’d follow you anywhere.” Holden pulled back and met my gaze. His eyes were the brown of fresh dirt after a summer rain and made me think of wildness and the freedom of the woods.

“About what happened…”

Holden shook his head. “We don’t need to talk about that right now.”

“We have to go back there eventually.”

He traced his fingers down my cheek, and my pulse tripped. “When we go back to the room, it will be you and me. There won’t be a spell. Not this time. Magic can’t trick us if we’re honest with ourselves.” Stooping close to my neck, he whispered in my ear, “And I think we both know that magic would only be pushing us to do something we already want to do anyway.”

I swallowed hard. “You think you’re stronger than it?”

“I think that spell is long gone.”

We moved across the floor, and for a brief while I forgot that we were the weird ones here, in jeans instead of formal wear. For a small window of time I might as well have been Cinderella, because being in Holden’s arms made all the worry, rage and uncertainty melt away. I let myself forget why we were here and rested my cheek against his, breathing in his cool familiar scent.

This was a place I knew well, the bubble of safety inside Holden’s arms. How many times had we been on the brink of certain disaster, only to come away unscathed? How many times had his touch grounded me, reminding me everything was all right?

And how many times had I rebuffed him, in spite of everything I felt? I let my mind wander, closing my eyes and playing with the hair curling at the nape of his neck. It was soft and slid smoothly between my fingers.

“I’m afraid,” I whispered.

He laid a gentle kiss on me cheek, not pushing further.

“We’ll get through this,” he promised. “You know you’re only scared because you don’t want to lose control.”

“No one wants to lose control.” We stopped dancing, and I pulled back slightly. “Do you want to lose control?”

Holden stared at me for a moment. “With you, Secret? I want to lose everything.”

The nameless fae woman returned Holden and me to our room, and the wall shut seamlessly behind us. After showing off our fancy footwork and making the fairy king agree to a second promise in one night, we were persona non grata for the remainder of the festivities.

Holden came up behind me, and we both stared at the bed. “How do you feel?” His mouth was right next to my ear. I twisted so we were face-to-face and found myself unable to meet his eyes.

“Very bizarre.”

“But do you feel the influence anymore?”

I expected to detect the lingering traces of Aubrey’s spell, something that would make me feel unnaturally attracted to Holden. I still felt the attraction, but this time it wasn’t strange or unwelcome. It was just the old desire that had been between us for years. In some ways it made me more uneasy than if the attraction had been manufactured.

“I feel…fine,” I said.

He brushed a strand of hair off my cheek and cupped my chin, angling my face upwards so I was looking at him.

“Just fine?”

My pulse tripped slightly, and I let myself lean into his touch, my hand covering his on my face. “As fine as I can given the environment.”

“Still beats being thrown in a pit,” he reminded me, alluding to our experience of being trapped by swamp werewolves.

“Most things beat that.”

Holden dropped his hand from my face, then kissed my forehead. This time his lips lingered longer than they had during the dance, and when he pulled away, we stared at each other for a long, breathless moment.

“Sit down,” he told me, nodding towards the bed. His tone was suddenly very serious.

“Why?”

He gave me an arch look, and I knew arguing would be pointless. Besides, it was just a bed. Sitting on a bed didn’t mean I was automatically agreeing to anything. He only wanted to talk.

Who was I kidding?

“How’s your arm?” I asked, pointing to the bloodied shirtsleeve covering the place where Desmond had bitten him. It was an obvious attempt to distract him, though I wasn’t sure why I was trying to.

“It’s healed.”

“Let me look.”

Hesitantly I sat on the bed, and he stood in front of me. I lifted his arm with my hands cupped under his elbow, rolling up his soiled shirt. The sticky residue of old blood made my fingers gluey, making them stick to the cotton fabric as I turned up the material. When the crook of his arm was mere inches from my lips, I shifted my gaze from the still-damp blood and back up to his eyes. His pupils had widened, turning his irises a dark, fierce black. The hunger that twisted his features had nothing to do with a need for feeding. I recognized the look, and it was pure sex.

I stared at Holden, his bloody arm right under my mouth, and I voiced a question both my rational and monstrous selves wanted the answer to. “What are we doing?”

“Whatever we want. It’s just you and me right now. Whatever we do is up to us.”

My internal debate was between the consequences of our actions and rewards. Which was greater? I had wanted to sleep with Holden for so long I’d lost track, and our chemistry was undeniable. First I’d been afraid I only wanted to sleep with him because of Aubrey’s spell, but now all I felt was him and the unique hot feeling that made me want to rip his clothes off. That wasn’t magic. That was just Holden.

Why was I thinking so much about this?

Having lived a life of consequences, both good and bad, I decided it was time to do what I wanted. Damn what the fairy king thought he knew about me, damn the guilt of the human world and the people who said I shouldn’t. I didn’t owe anyone anything.

But maybe I owed Holden and me this night.

Chapter Thirty-One

“Are you sure?” Holden asked as I stood, and my hands went to the buttons on his shirt. “I mean really really sure?” His eyes were dark, and I knew there was a fine line of self-restraint holding him back. One nudge was all it would take, and I wanted to give him that nudge.

I thought about it, though, as much as I was able to think in our current situation.

“I want to do this,” I replied, unbuttoning his shirt fully and pushing it off his shoulders.

He stared at me long and hard, and I met his gaze steadily, without batting an eyelash. “I won’t be able to stop once we start,” he said.

“I know.”

Without waiting for him to make a move on my own clothing, I pulled my sweater off and threw it next to his shirt on the bed.