She nodded. “Now, tell me what happened in Idaho.”
I told her about the crystal shield, the ambush, and finally, the fire.
She winced. “I could smell the smoke the second I tried to go there. It wouldn’t let me. I panicked before I knew you had the map and started to check every door within an hour’s flight or drive.”
I unclipped my belt. “Well, thank you for finding us.”
She nodded, tucking her red hair behind her pointed fae ears. “I won’t ever leave like that again. I’m so sorry.” Guilt marred her features.
I shrugged. “It’s okay. You had somewhere to be, right?”
She grinned. “I did. And I want to show you what I’ve done.” She gestured to the door that would lead into Faerie. “Go on, open it.”
I frowned. “Okay.”
Pulling the door open, I saw the inside of my living room, and I gasped. “You…created a new door? You can do that?”
She laughed, a musical sound. “Of course. That’s my job. Now you won’t need to be schlepping through town with…the boys.”
They were standing right there, of course.
“It’s brilliant!” I could sneak Liam and Cam in anytime I wanted…even his brothers. “Thank you, Mara.”
I gave her another hug and turned to leave, following the boys and Elle back into my house. When we got inside, Liam sat on the couch and put his head in his hands.
“Well, that was a shitshow,” Elle said.
Cam rolled his eyes and muttered, “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”
She snapped her head in his direction. “Why don’t you go put some clothes on before that illusion wears off and we all get traumatized?”
A slow grin tugged at his lips. “I think you’d like it.” He winked, and her cheeks burned red.
“Focus!” I yelled. “We were ambushed. They have too many people. How are we going to get the crystals now?”
Elle cracked her knuckles. “We need an army.”
“Well, we don’t have one,” I said with a sigh. Faerie was sorely lacking in warriors.
Liam stood from the couch and met my gaze. “I do.”
My breath hitched. “What are you saying?”
He looked at Cam, then back at me. “If you’re serious about letting us live here once you restore Faerie, then I’ll call in all my guys, and we will fight with you.”
My throat tightened. “You’d do that?”
He nodded, looking around my home. “It feels…healthy here, like I can finally breathe. I want that for all of us, for my brothers…every fae.”
Tears filled my eyes. “You won’t have to worry about getting your little brothers a crystal.”
He smiled. “That would be nice.”
Elle cleared her throat. “Let’s say we can wake the queen and restore Faerie. What makes you think she will allow them to live here?”
I could hear it in her voice. Hope. She wanted them here, too. Not the bad ones who’d aligned with the Winter King, of course, but Cam, Liam, and his brothers. They were good, and I never should have thought differently.
“She will,” I promised them all.
Liam’s gaze narrowed. “And if she doesn’t? If your Elders counsel her otherwise?”
I tipped my chin high. “I’ll force her to see. Trust me.”
She was my aunt—I would make her see reason.
He nodded.
“How many men do you have?” Elle asked.
Liam seemed to count in his head. “Seventy.”
Whoa. That was great. “Hang on,” I said, “if your dad has three crystals, you have one for your brothers, and I have the rest…”
Liam’s gaze darkened. “Then how do my men survive?”
I nodded.
Cam cleared his throat. “I’m gonna take a shower and get dressed.”
He left the room, which left Elle to awkwardly say she was going to get some healing stones from Kira.
When Liam and I were alone, I murmured, “How do your men stay alive without a crystal?”
He stepped closer to me, and his eyes flashed the color of molten lava. “There are sinister ways to extract the life force from humans to keep a fae going.”
Bile rose in my throat. “Have you?”
He nodded. “Many times. I do whatever it takes to survive. Does that scare you?” He stepped closer until our bodies were flush with one another.
“No.”
It was a lie. It scared me a little. But he didn’t scare me, and I knew that was what he was really asking.
“Do you…kill humans?”
He shook his head. “No, and my men come to my house in a varying rotation to be near the crystals with my brothers. That’s why Cam and the boys were there that night. They offer security in exchange for the crystal energy.”
That was good. Then at least fewer humans were getting…whatever it was they did to them. I didn’t want to know. The word extracting sent shivers down my spine.
“Lily,” Liam whispered, leaning in, his breath against my neck.
“What?”
“I’m not like the other fae here. I never will be.”
I looked up at him, reaching to thread my fingers through his hair. “Stop trying to push me away. It won’t work.”
Something so pure and innocent crossed his face then that I could almost imagine what he’d looked like as a young boy. “I keep waiting for you to see too much darkness in me and…leave.”
My heart broke, and I noticed he was glancing at his scarred hands. Reaching out, I entwined our fingers. “I’m not scared of your past. But if you ever dump me in front of my entire village again, we’re done for good.”
A slow grin pulled at his lips. “Deal.”
He picked me up by the butt, and I straddled him, leaning in to kiss him as his lips parted eagerly. With my body pressed so close to his, I felt the eager anticipation of being near him. We kissed feverishly as he slowly walked with me up the stairs.
His fingers gripped my hair, and he pulled my face back to look at him. “Fuck. I missed you.”
When he released me, we locked into a kiss again, like two magnets. Each touch of my skin from his fingers sent heat between my legs. I rocked on his hips as he threw my bedroom door open, and
