“Niklaas!” My shout is rough and raw but loud enough to carry across the space between us. I know he’s heard me, but instead of turning back he digs his heels into Alama’s side, sending her racing down the road away from me.
Away! He’s running away! Again! Without even looking back!
With a howl of rage, I kick Button harder than I mean to and he launches down the road like a blade from a knife-thrower’s fingers, so fast the air whistles in my ears and my heart lurches and for a terrifying second I think I’ll fall, but then I tilt my torso forward and find my seat, leaning into the wind, hovering over Button’s back as he closes in on Alama.
Closer, closer, until we’re so close I could reach out and touch Alama’s tail as it flies out behind her. She is fast, but Button is faster and carrying less weight.
Soon he’ll be carrying no weight at all.
I’m so livid I don’t stop to worry if I still have the agility to pull off a stunt like the one I’m planning, I simply grip Button’s mane in both hands to steady myself and pull my feet beneath me, crouching on the horse’s back for a bare moment to take aim before launching myself at Niklaas’s shoulders.
Time slows and I hang in the air for a second that seems to last an eternity. I realize I’m going to make it, but just barely, and then I’m landing on Alama’s back with a giddy cry, snatching handfuls of Niklaas’s shirt and clinging tight to keep from sliding off, while the startled horse screams and dances to the side of the road.
Unfortunately Niklaas isn’t holding on quite as tight. When Alama rears onto her back legs with an enraged whinny, he’s thrown from his saddle, carrying me to the ground along with him.
We land in a tangle on the grass, my legs pinned beneath his and enough of his weight on my chest that when my breath rushes out with a groan, it doesn’t want to rush back in again.
“By the Land Beyond, what’s wrong with you?” Niklaas growls as he rolls off of me. “Are you mad?”
I want to demand the same of him, to demand that he tell me what kind of cowardly bastard runs away without even saying goodbye, but I can’t pull in a breath. All I can manage is an evil glare as I curl onto my side, clutching my fist to my chest, willing my wretched lungs to breathe.
“You’ve probably broken something,” he shouts, his voice as rough as his hands are gentle as he curls his fingers under my shoulders and pulls me into a seated position. I lean over my legs, while he rubs my back, helping coax the breath back into my body. “Can you breathe?” he asks. “Can you talk? Are you—”
“Yes,” I finally manage to wheeze.
“Well, where does it hurt, you fool?”
“In here.” I jab my thumb at my chest as I turn to face him, ignoring the twinge in my shoulder that sends nasty shivers shooting down to my hip. I’m hurt, but not badly, not nearly as badly as I’ll be come morning if I don’t force Niklaas to see reason.
“Your ribs?” he asks.
“My heart, you insufferable idiot,” I shout. “I love you and you’re determined to do away with yourself, and I hate you for it!” I shove his shoulders with both hands and all my strength, sending him falling back onto his ass with a startled grunt.
“You hate me?” he asks, anger creeping into his tone. “Well, I hate you, too! All you’ve ever done is lie to me and deceive me and—”
“Risk my life for you and worry about you and tell you how beautiful and wonderful and funny you are,” I say, tears creeping into my eyes though I’m hot all over and not feeling inclined to cry, especially not now, when it looks as if Niklaas might actually be paying attention. “And laugh with you and fight with you and listen to you, and love you, even when I was sure you’d never love me because I’m not pretty enough or girly enough and my chest is too small.”
Niklaas scowls. “You’re flaming beautiful, and you know it.”
“I do not!”
“Well, you should, you thickheaded thing, but it doesn’t matter,” he says, scowl deepening. “It doesn’t matter that I can’t stop thinking about the way you looked in that dress on Evensew, or the way we— None of it matters. I can’t trust you.”
“Oh come down from your holy mount!” I shout. “You lied to me, too. You lied about your curse and you—”
“No, I didn’t! I didn’t tell the truth, but I didn’t—”
“And you lied about other things, too.” This time, when I shove at his shoulders, I follow him as he falls onto his back in the grass until I’m lying on top of him with my lips inches from his and my fingers tangled in his hair, until I can feel his breath rush out and his arms come around me in spite of himself. “You don’t find the thought of kissing me repulsive.”
“Aurora …”
“And when you kissed me in the grove,” I rush on, breathless all over again. “I never … I never dreamed a kiss could be like that.”
“Like what?” he asks, one hand dropping to grip my hip, sending a jolt of electricity surging through my body.
“Like opening a door to the most beautiful place I’ve ever known.” My lips drop closer to his, heart racing from being pressed against him, from feeling his warmth through my clothes and his strength coiled beneath me. “Like coming home and a wild adventure, all at the same time. Safe and dangerous, and I … I finally felt …”
My breath rushes out on a jagged sigh.
“I didn’t feel alone,” I say, voice breaking as I confess the one thing I’ve held back, the one thing I was afraid to share in the letters I’ve written him the past four days.
The only thing scarier than feeling so alone is fearing you’ll always feel that way, that no one will ever see you for all the things you are, and the things you’re afraid to be, and the person you want so desperately to become. But Niklaas did, he saw me, he knew me better than anyone, even Jor. I know he did, if only he can remember.
“Even with people I love, I’ve always felt like a piece that didn’t fit. I was fairy-blessed but not a fairy, human but with gifts that made everyone expect so much more of me. I’ve always felt alone,” I whisper, forcing myself to keep going no matter how anxious this confession makes me. “Ever since my mother died. I’m always lonely … except … except when I’m with you.”
“What about Thyne?” he asks after a moment, the flash of pain in his eyes making me realize how much I’ve underestimated his capacity for jealousy.
By the gods, if I’d known, I could have sent Thyne to convince Niklaas that there is absolutely nothing romantic between two of us.
“Thyne is like another brother to me. I love you, Niklaas, no one else, not in that way.” I trail my fingertips across his cheek, willing him to see how much I care. “I love you. If you don’t love me back anymore, tell me and I’ll let you go, but don’t run off to die because you doubt me.”
And then I kiss him, and after only a moment he kisses me back and I learn there is something better than a first kiss with Niklaas. There is a second kiss. There is his hands in my hair and his tongue slipping past my lips and his muscles flexing beneath me as he rolls us over in the grass until he hovers over me and my legs wrap around his hips and my fingers dig into his back and our kiss becomes so deep it feels like we’re the same being, the same aching body, the same full heart, the same pulse that races beneath the skin.
We kiss until the sun sets and the air grows cool, but I scarcely notice the creeping in of the autumn twilight. I have never been so warm, so dizzy, so drunk on another person. All my lines are blurry and the world has narrowed to his lips and his taste and his hint-of-a-beard rough against my skin and the delicious smell of him and the even more delicious way his hands roam over my body, touching me everywhere I’ve been dying for him to touch, making me more breathless with every moment, until I pull his shirt from his pants and run my hands up his bare back and down his chest, summoning a rumble from his throat.
“Stop.” He pulls my hands away, pinning them to the grass above my head.
“Why?” I lift my head, bringin
g my lips to his, drawing him back into another kiss with a sigh of satisfaction.
“We’re on the side of the road,” he mumbles against my mouth.
“I don’t care,” I breathe, shifting beneath him until he groans. “I don’t want to stop.” I slip my tongue out to flick his upper lip. “Don’t stop, Niklaas. Don’t—”
“And this is why you drive me mad!” he shouts, retreating so fast that I curl into a seated position like a roll-y bug discovered beneath a rock. “You never think!”
“I do t-too,” I stammer. “I just—”
“You could have killed us both!” he shouts, jumping up to pace back and forth in the grass. The sun set a good fifteen minutes ago, but there is still plenty of light left to see how irate he’s become. “You’re not fairy-blessed anymore, and even if you were, Alama and I are not. You can’t go jumping from horses without a second thought. You’re the queen, by the Pit, and people are counting on you!”
“I know people are counting on me, but—”
“But nothing!” he shouts, making me flinch. “You have to be more levelheaded.”
“I’m trying, but you don’t make it easy!”
“You think it was easy pulling away from you?” he asks, stooping to shoot me a look that makes me shiver with wishing he were back in my arms, doing all the things we both so clearly enjoy. “But I did it, because you don’t deflower a damn queen in a field by the side of the road.”
“Deflower?” I ask, my lips stretching into a smile. “What am I, a petunia?”
“Don’t smile,” he says, his own lips twitching. “This isn’t funny.”
“Oh yes it is.” I laugh as I stand, tucking my shirt back into my pants as I turn to search for Button. “I was the one who started this. If anyone was deflowering anyone, it was me deflowering you.”
“I was deflowered long ago, Your Highness,” Niklaas says.
“Yes, I know, I haven’t forgotten what a successful whore you were.” I spy Button and Alama grazing by the side of the road a half a field away and turn back to Niklaas. “Maybe I should run to the nearest village and find a boy or two to experiment with. I mean, if the deflowering business is such a burden, I—”
“Don’t you dare,” he says, snatching me around the waist, pulling me into his arms and up his body until my feet dangle off the ground, muffling my protest with his kiss.
His kiss …
There is nothing better, nothing in the whole world.
“I could get drunk on your kisses,” I sigh against his lips.
“My kisses,” he says, arms tightening around me. “No one else’s.”
“Does this mean you’ll do it?” I ask, pulling back to look him in the eye.
“Deflower you?”
“Marry me,” I say, then add in a whisper. “Then the other. As soon as it can possibly be arranged.”
He shivers and I smile because I know he wants me as much as I want him and that we’ve finally found our way to each other and everything is going to be all right and then he says—
“No.”
—and my heart plummets.
“Why not?” I demand. “You love me, I know you do.”
“I do, more than I’ve ever loved anything,” he says, setting me on my feet. “A frightening amount considering I’ve only known you three weeks.”
“Then why?” I ask, positively sick to the bone. I can’t lose him, not when I was so certain … so sure. “I swear I will never lie to you again, even if we live to be a hundred. Even if it’s kinder to lie than to tell the truth.”
“Even if my breath stinks?” he asks, a teasing glint in his eye that makes me hopeful. “Or my gut starts to spill over my pants?”
“I’ll tell you,” I say. “I swear it. Immediately.”
“So if I ask you a question right now,” he says, humor leaving his voice. “You will be bound to tell the truth?”
“I swear it on my mother’s memory.”
“If it weren’t for my curse, would you still be considering getting married?”
I pause, but hurry to speak when I see distance creep into his eyes. “No, I wouldn’t. I won’t even be eighteen until spring. I would rather wait, but—”
“But nothing,” he says, turning to walk away. “I won’t force you—”
“No one is forcing me to do anything! Let me finish!” I grab his arm, digging my heels in until he stops. “But you don’t have a year or five, so we’ll do it now and I will never regret it because I know I’ll never love anyone the way I love you.”
“How can you know?” he asks, looking down at me with obvious skepticism. “You’re only seventeen. You’ve only kissed two people, and both of them—”
“Unlike some people, I don’t need to sample every beer in the tavern to know which one I prefer,” I say, propping my hands on my hips, not bothering to hide my frustration. He wanted me to be honest and at the moment he is honestly the most frustrating boy in Mataquin. “And we don’t have another week for me to spend praising your humbling good looks and your sweet heart and your bravery and on and on until your vanity is satisfied.”
“My vanity?” He rolls his eyes, but I see the tension easing from his expression and know I’d better get him to a priest before he finds something else to fret about.
“Yes, your vanity,” I say, tucking my hand into his arm and leading him toward the horses. “Now, you’re going to get on your horse and come back to the castle and we’re going to be married and tomorrow you’ll wake up and you won’t be a swan and I won’t be alone and neither of us will regret a damn thing.”
“Well, I suppose somebody has to keep you out of trouble,” he says, stopping to pull me into his arms. “Thank you.”
“For what?” I ask, lacing my fingers around his neck.
“For being so wretched stubborn. I was pretty sure it was the only thing I didn’t like about you.” He laughs beneath his breath. “But anyone else would have given up on me the fourth or fifth time I said no.”
“I guess you’ll have to add it to the list of things you love about me,” I whisper, standing on tiptoe to brush my lips against his, sighing as my entire being lights up. It’s like being filled with fairy magic but better, because this is magic we make together, Niklaas and I, something that was born and nurtured between us that can never be twisted or tainted or stolen away so long as we’re willing to fight for it.
And I will always fight for him. Always.
I feel shot through with light all the way back to the castle, all through the ceremony, and late into the night as Niklaas and I set about deflowering each other with as much tender enthusiasm as I had expected. And it is beautiful and right and by the time I drift to sleep in his arms, he is truly a part of me, a treasure I will hold close for the rest of my life, the greatest blessing, fairy or otherwise, I have ever known.
NIKLAAS
I open my eyes to sunlight flooding through unfamiliar yellow curtains, bathing the bed in gold, and for a moment I can’t remember where I am.
And then I hear her sigh and turn my head to find Aurora propped on one arm, watching me wake up, and it all comes rushing back—the breathless ride back to the castle, the wedding in the garden with the last of the autumn roses tucked into Aurora’s hair, going to bed with my best friend and learning I’ve been doing it all wrong, and needed to be deflowered, after all.
Last night was what love is supposed to feel like, terrifying and beautiful and so close you’re afraid you’ll lose a piece of yourself, but you don’t. You gain a piece of the person you love instead, a piece that makes you stronger and happier than you could have imagined possible.
Thank the gods she came after me; thank the gods I had the sense to let myself be saved or I never would have known.
“Good morning,” I mumble with a smile, reaching lazy fingers up to brush her cheek, needing to touch her. “How long have you been awake?”
“Since before the sun rose.” She leans into my touch. “I wanted to be
sure …”
“Aw, you were worried about me, you tender-hearted little thing.” I grin as I roll over, pushing her back onto the pillows.
“Of course I was, you idiot,” she says, fighting a smile as she punches my bare arm, proving marriage isn’t going to make her go easy on me. “I have important business to attend to. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life cleaning up swan droppings.”
“Is that all?” I lean close enough for our noses to brush. “The only reason you’re glad I’m still human?”
“Well … I love you,” she whispers, her fingers threading through my hair, pulling me even closer. “I suppose there’s that.”
Before I can tell her I love her, too, she’s kissing me, and one kiss leads to two, which leads to a challenge to prove love is as much fun in the daylight, and I never have been the sort who can resist a challenge that involves a beautiful girl.
A beautiful girl who loves me, who makes me feel like I’ve finally come home.
“Let’s never sleep apart,” I whisper later as we lie curled together, drifting back to sleep in the pale morning light. “I want to wake up with you every day.”
Aurora sighs. “You really are sweet, you know.”
“It’s true, your highness. I am very sweet. You should always love me,” I say, pressing a kiss to her bare shoulder.
She laughs. “I think that can be arranged.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Firstly, big thanks to the usual suspects—to Michelle Poploff and Rebecca Short for their editing prowess, to Ginger Clark for agenting finesse, and to the entire team at Delacorte Press for their excellence. Thanks to my family—to Mike for love above and beyond, and to Riley and Logan for laughs and love and the joy of being Mama to two such extraordinary people. Thanks to friend and critique partner, Julie Linker, for her keen eye and unflagging moral support, to Jennifer Redstreake-Geary for her delicious artwork, to the Debutantes of 2009 for community of the best kind, and to my mother and father for all those trips to the library. Lastly, thank you to my readers: your enthusiasm and support means so much, I am honored to tell you stories.