The Faerie Prince (Creepy Hollow, #2) (26 page)

My hands seem to be shaking. I ball them into fists as I stomp back through the trees, across the grass, and up the hill. I wish I’d never seen him. Yes, it’s suspicious that there’s a guy running around pretending to be my father, but if I hadn’t seen him, I wouldn’t have all these memories swimming painfully to the front of my mind. I’d be happy and ignorant on my own little exploration mission instead of feeling like—oh hell—
like I
just lost him all over again
.

I find myself standing in front of my bedroom door blinking tears away. I place my hand against the wall and take a deep, shuddering breath. All the pain I felt when he died is threatening to resurface, and I
do not want that
. I didn’t want to feel it then, and I don’t want to feel it now.

I open the door and see Ryn sitting on the edge of my bed. I cross my arms over my chest as he stands. “He got away because you wouldn’t let me go.” My voice is quiet, but I can hear the anger simmering beneath the surface. Half an hour ago I wanted to do stupid things like run my finger over Ryn’s lips; now I don’t even want to look at him.

“I was just trying to get you to think sensibly for a moment.”

“I hate you right now.”

“No, you don’t.”

I don’t, but I hate that he’s so sure of himself. I hate that he’s right. I look down at the floor as I say, “I’d like you to leave now.”

He comes toward me. “Please don’t shut me out, V. I want to be here for you.”

I hold my hand up to stop him from coming closer. “There’s no need for you to be here. Okay, so there’s some random guy out there pretending to be my father, and I don’t know why. But that’s all it is. No big deal. It’s not like someone just died.”
Oh hell, oh hell, it
is
like he just died all over again.
A sharp pain stabs the core of my being and threatens to make me double over.

“Stop lying, Violet. I know that’s not what you’re feeling, so why don’t you just say what’s really going on in your head.”

“What are you, my freaking counselor?” I back away from him, tightening my arms around my middle. “I won’t talk to Tora about my feelings, and I sure as hell won’t talk to you either.”

“Fine, don’t talk to anyone, but at least admit you’re feeling
something
instead of going on about how it’s no big deal.”

“I am feeling something! I’m pissed off at you!”

“And?”

“And get out!” I point to the open door.

“No.”

“GET OUT!”

He walks over and slams the door shut. “No. I won’t leave you alone like this.”

“Yes, you will! Don’t you get it?
Everyone
leaves. My mother, Reed, Cecy, you, my father—and you will leave me again! I’ve been stupid enough to allow myself to care about Tora, but
that is it
. So you need to leave
now
. Go!”

He shakes his head.

“I said GET OUT, Ryn!” I shove him hard toward the door, and when he still makes no move to leave, I start pummeling his chest with my fists.

He grabs my wrists and holds my arms away from his body while I do my best to hit him some more. Why isn’t he fighting back, dammit? “That’s more like it,” he says, as though this is the kind of reaction he was hoping for all along.

Furious, I tear my arms out of his grasp. After one last shove at his chest, I cross the room to the en-suite bathing room and shut myself inside. The tears are already falling as I drop down onto the enchanted grass beside the pool and bury my head in my hands. A tremor passes through me. My throat burns. Sobs begin to shake my body.

My father. It looked just like him. He was standing right in front of me, so close he could have enveloped me in his warm, strong embrace, the way he used to when I was afraid of a storm or the children at school had been mean to me.

But it wasn’t him. He’s still dead.

And right now I miss him so much.

“Violet?”

Ugh,
why
is Ryn still here? Why didn’t I lock the door?
I curl further into myself, wrapping my arms around my waist and hoping Ryn will be scared away by the tears. Boys don’t like crying girls, right? This should be his cue to leave.

Instead, I feel him kneel down beside me. “I wasn’t there for you when it actually happened,” he says quietly. “Why can’t you let me be here for you now?”

I don’t cry in front of people.
I don’t, I don’t, I don’t.
Yet here I am, violating my own rules.

“Okay, well, you’re not hitting me anymore, so I’ll take that as a good sign.”

No. No more hitting. But I can’t stop crying, and I can’t see anything except for the blurry outline of my fingers in front of my face. What exactly does Ryn plan to do? Sit here until I cry myself out? If he’s still hoping I’ll open up and spill every thought and feeling torturing me, he’s going to be waiting a really long time.

“I’m sorry, V,” Ryn says. “When the Unseelie Queen locked us up inside my head and I came face-to-face with Reed, it really messed with my head. I can imagine seeing your dad must be doing the same thing to you.”

Messed with my head.
That’s one way of putting it.

I feel Ryn’s body shift closer to mine. His arm slides around my shoulders. I suppose he’s waiting to see whether I’ll jerk away and punch him in the face because after a few moments of sitting frozen in the same position, he wraps his other arm around me and pulls me gently against his chest.

I don’t fight him.

No one held me like this when my father died. I suppose Tora would have if I’d let her, but I didn’t. When I slammed the door and yelled at her to leave me alone, she listened. Not like Ryn, who refuses to let me shut my pain away like I’ve always done.

I lean into him and make a decision to stop fighting this losing battle against the tears. Instead, just like when I stumbled away from the Harts’ blazing house feeling sick, dizzy, and in pain, I let go and trust Ryn to catch me.

*

A fluffy white cloud of bed covers envelops me. Deliciously soft. I stretch out beneath the covers and roll onto my back. Morning light filters through the sheer curtain draped over the four-poster bed and wraps everything in a soft golden glow. I remember tears drying on my cheeks as I fell asleep last night, but morning has brought a kind of stillness within me.

I turn onto my other side—and freeze.

Ryn, in all his perfect, sleeping glory, is lying just inches from my face. Beneath my covers. In my bed. Dark strands of hair fall across his forehead, and his lips are parted ever so slightly. He looks as peaceful as I felt a second ago. His eyelids flutter, and I scoot away from him. By the time his blinking gaze comes to rest on me, I’m lying right on the edge of the bed. “Um, what are you still doing here?”

He blinks once more and says, “Well, I said I wouldn’t leave, didn’t I? Then you told me I
would
leave and, well, I had to prove you wrong.”

He removes one arm from beneath the covers and gives me the kind of grin that melts my insides. Ugh, how does he always manage to look so damn hot, even first thing in the morning?
Especially
first thing in the morning. I should ask him to leave now, but I can’t tear my eyes from his penetrating blue gaze. Without warning, I’m flooded once again with everything I feel for him. I can’t stamp it down. It’s so much more than I ever thought I’d feel for anyone that it threatens to overwhelm me. I can’t understand why these feelings aren’t exploding from every pore of my body and showering the room with warmth, joy and giddiness.

“Violet,” Ryn says quietly, his expression changing to one I can’t read. His eyes search my face as he moves a little closer to me. My heart starts jumping erratically. “I need to tell you s—”

“
VioletVioletVioletVioletViolet!
”

I jerk upright in fright and look around. Dashing across the bedroom floor is my little purple mirror. It stands on the floor below me, shrieking my name and jumping up and down on legs so tiny that it has absolutely no hope of ever getting onto the bed.

“What the flip?” Ryn says.

I reach down and grab the mirror; Tora’s face is visible in the shiny surface. I touch the glass. “Good morning, sleeping beauty,” she says. “Did I wake you?”

“Um, sort of.” Not exactly.

Tora pushes hair off her forehead. “I convinced Raven to go for an early morning run through Creepy Hollow with me. She can barely speak now, so I thought I’d check in with you instead.”

From somewhere behind Tora, Raven says, “Just . . . catching my . . . breath.”

Beside me, Ryn flops back down onto his pillow. “Flip, that thing nearly gave me a heart attack.”

Tora gives me a curious look. “Was that Ryn I just heard?”

“No.” I angle the mirror away from Ryn to make sure he can’t be seen.

Raven, her face sweaty and her cheeks flushed, pokes her head over Tora’s shoulder. “What is Ryn doing in your bedroom this early in the morning?”

“It was nobody,” I say while I push Ryn toward the edge of the bed with my foot. “And I thought you were supposed to be catching your breath.”

“All caught.”

“I hate to have to be the parental figure here,” Tora says, “but I don’t think it’s appropriate for you and Ryn to be sharing a bed.”

Ryn snorts. I give him a kick. Raven pulls back and looks at Tora. “Right, like you really have a leg to stand on in that department.”

An awkward pause passes before I say, “What are you talking about, Raven?”

“Oh, hasn’t Tora told you about the guy at the London Guild? The guy she spent so much time with when—”

“Okay,
that
is really not important right now, Raven,” Tora interrupts. But clearly it is because her cheeks are turning pink and she won’t look at me.

“Tora, are you serious?” I ask. “You’ve been hanging out with a guy? That’s great. I don’t think I’ve
ever
known you to—”

“Okay, like I’ve already said, it’s really no big deal, and we don’t need to talk about it right now. I just wanted to check in and see how you’re doing at the Seelie Court, and obviously you’re fine, so
Raven
—” she glares at Raven before looking back at me “—and I are going to go now. Okay? Have fun.”

“Wait, I wanted to ask you about—”

“Bye!”

“—the Guild,” I finish. But she’s gone. Her image vanishes from the mirror, and I see myself instead, complete with bed hair and a confused expression. The mirror folds its tiny arms over its glass surface and lies still in my palm. Well, I’m not quite sure what that was all about, but Tora is definitely getting the third degree when I get home.

“So,” Ryn says. “A mirror that stalks you until you answer it. And here I thought the only faerie technology you were interested in was Stone Age amber.”

I give him a withering look. “It was a
gift
, Ryn.”

He opens his mouth to respond, but a knock on the door silences him. “Miss Fairdale?” the person outside the door calls. It sounds like the serving woman who read out my schedule yesterday. “I’m just checking that you’re awake and ready for breakfast.”

“Oh, yeah, thanks,” I call back. To Ryn I say, “Hurry up and get out of here. We’re going to be late.”

“Do you need any help, Miss Fairdale?” The doorknob moves.

“No, no, I’m fine, thanks,” I shout hurriedly. I doubt the Seelie Court would approve of Ryn being in my bed any more than Tora would.

Breakfast is a picnic beneath a bower of trees that sprinkle us with the occasional handful of star-shaped yellow flowers. Very pretty, until they begin landing in the food. Afterward, we’re sent to observe the Royal Guard running through a few training exercises, which is when Ryn and I manage to escape to do some more exploring. I’m still a little high on all the not-just-friends feelings coursing through me, and it seems to be resulting in some reckless behavior. Like happily wandering around the palace grounds when we’re clearly
not
supposed to be doing that right now.

We find two lakes that have no stone structures built nearby, and another courtyard attached to the palace with a pool full of young faeries splashing about. On the other side of a maze constructed from low bushes, we come across a pond with a stone bridge. But after examining every stone, it’s clear there’s no sign or symbol that points to something hidden.