part of the summer court. There’s no escaping who we are.”
He glanced at me strangely, and the fingers twisted in my brain, my vision going black around the edges. But the way he looked at me as if he knew something was wrong raised a spring of hope in my chest.
“I never thought I’d heard those words from your lips,” he said, his lips quirking with his usual Raile smirk.
Lord, if he kept smirking, he was going to make it impossible to act besotted.
“You’re making it very hard to apologize to you,” I said lightly.
He shook his head. “No, Alisa. I’m the one who owes you an apology. I wanted to protect you, I wanted to wait until we had the perfect plan. But you wanted to do the right thing. And clearly it worked out.”
“Clearly,” I said drily.
He raised an eyebrow. “Nothing? No impact? I said I’m sorry.”
“You actually didn’t say you were sorry.”
He frowned as if he were replaying his words. “Well, I meant it, anyway.”
“You’re not very good at groveling.”
His brows arched. “Are you going to grovel? You snuck out of my palace in the middle of the night like a thief.”
“I thought you said it was my palace.”
“It is yours. Because I gave it to you.”
“You’re not very good at presents or apologies, Raile.”
“Well, before you, I never bothered much with either.” His jaw stiffened, then relaxed, as if he’d just softened. “But I am a good king for my people. And I’ll try to be what you need from me as well. Two hundred years hadn’t worn down my sharp edges, but…I’m trying.”
“I know,” I said. I actually did believe that; it just didn’t change that things between us had been broken before they ever began. I wished things were different; being close to Raile like this made my heart pound. It felt as if something about me remembered something about him.
“And that’s why I want to marry you,” I said.
He frowned down at me. “Is this some trick?”
“No.” Then I repeated the words that Duncan said I told him the night I broke his heart. “I’m twenty-five. It’s time for me to start growing up.”
“Doesn’t sound like you,” he said. “I thought you’d never grow up.”
“I tried not to,” I said. I gave him that same easy, playful smile that I had used to camouflage all my feelings before, but from the stories the guys had told me, and from my diary entries, I knew now that I’d loved to play games—and I’d thought I’d always win.
Duncan was right when I’d said I’d thought I was always the smartest person in the room.
Right now, I had to hope these guys were quick enough to keep up with me—when I wasn’t myself at all.
“What changed?”
“Duncan and Az deserve better than me,” I said. I tucked my hand around his arm, pulling his corded forearm against me as we strolled through the garden together. “But you and I, Raile… we just might deserve each other.”
“I don’t actually plan for you to be miserable in the undersea,” he reminded me. “I just spun a fanciful tale of your long-term unhappiness because it delighted your brother so much. And what can I say? I’m a people pleaser.”
I sighed. “You are making this impossible.”
“I thought you enjoyed our banter.”
I certainly wasn’t up for it right now; the fuzziness in my brain made it impossible to be as glib as I should be.
I searched for something true that would drive away the doubt in his eyes. “I know I said that our past was too dark and twisted for the two of us to find a happy ending. But maybe I was too jaded. You and I were friends before too—we helped each other.”
“I’ve never stopped wanting to be your friend,” he said. Then added, “Well, maybe that first week after the hobgoblin incident. I was pretty livid.”
“Let’s forget the hobgoblin.”
“You can only say that because you’ve never shared an engagement kiss with something that lives off rotted fish.”
Seal the deal, Herrick murmured in my ear. Maybe you can’t convince him that you love him… yet… but you could convince him that you might grow to. You can convince him that you’re pathetic and miserable and alone…you dove into Azrael’s bed when you felt that way before, why not Raile’s?
My father was truly the worst at a pep talk.
“I wish I could go back to the mortal world,” I admitted. “But the truth is, I don’t belong there either. I