The Summer King Bundle 3 Stories - Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,94

chest or Tink singing made-up songs about eggs and bacon. I was happy for him, though. This trip would be good not only for him and Fabian, but Ivy was also right. It was far past time for Tink to see something other than the Amazon website.

Having them to help occupy my evening had also stopped me from obsessing over what had happened that afternoon—and what hadn’t.

Luckily, Tink and Fabian had been squirreled away in Tink’s room when I returned from Caden’s. Otherwise, it would’ve been hard to explain why I was wearing an oversized man’s shirt with a skirt.

Caden had never answered what came next for us, and that left me…unsettled. I wasn’t naive enough to think that sex—even great sex—equaled a relationship. But for me, well, it sort of did. I didn’t care what it meant or didn’t mean for other people, but for me, that was how I operated. That was why I was so shocked that I had done it at all. Surprised that there hadn’t been a moment where I’d thought we should pump the brakes. It also stunned me that I had been so comfortable with him afterward. In the few previous relationships I’d had, I didn’t lay around naked to chat. I was always quick to cover up. But with Caden, I never felt like I had anything to hide or any reason to.

After he’d dropped that little truth bomb about how much I’d given back to myself after the attack, he’d received a call from Tanner and had to return to Hotel Good Fae. He’d kissed me goodbye, but there’d been no promises of any sort. The only thing I think he finally accepted was that I wasn’t going to quit looking for Aric.

I’d come this far, and I wasn’t going to stop now.

When I finally did go to bed that night, I’d ended up falling right to sleep. The multiple orgasms probably had a lot to do with that, along with the popcorn-induced food coma. But throughout the day, while I searched my mother’s books for anything about Devil’s Breath and headed into the offices to comb through all the papers filed away there, my thoughts kept drifting back to Caden’s apartment. To what he’d done, what I’d done, and I came to a realization. It…it had to mean something. All of it had to. Why he didn’t want me out there looking for Aric. The reason he felt like he needed to protect me. Caden wanted me, whether he liked it or not, and that had to mean something. Because he had only been with me since he came out of the Queen’s spell, and I hadn’t been stroking his ego by stating that he could have anyone he wanted. He could, and he…he wanted me.

As I thumbed through dusty papers, scanning them, I wondered about the traditions he’d spoken of that he wanted to avoid enough to not want to be the King. Part of me still believed that he didn’t feel worthy enough after what he’d done, and I hated that for him because I knew how it felt.

My mind shifted to Ivy and Ren, who I hadn’t seen yet today.

I knew what it was to not feel good enough.

My research was about as fruitful as stressing over Caden and myself. Nothing came out of either. By the time I returned home, I had a headache from sneezing over the dusty papers that no one had looked at in ages.

I passed a small army of fae outside my place loading up suitcase after suitcase as I walked inside. I stopped counting at six bags.

Dropping my keys and purse on the foyer table, I found Tink in the living room with Fabian. Dixon sat on the couch, staring at the carrier with his ears flat. He wore a little kitty shirt that read WORLD’S WORST BACKSEAT DRIVER.

I grinned at that as I walked over, scratching the little guy’s head. “How many suitcases are you guys taking?”

“The better question would be how many suitcases is Tink taking,” Fabian answered with a smile. He looked so much like his brother, except his hair was much longer, and he wasn’t as big. Then again, most people, fae or human, weren’t as big as Caden.

“I need to make sure that I have everything I could possibly want,” Tink defended himself. “Plus, I had to pack Dixon’s toys—”

“And his cat house and cat tree.” Fabian smiled. “Along with a cat bathing suit.”

My brows lifted.