Spin the Shadows (Dark and Wicked Fae #1) - Cate Corvin Page 0,60

when Gwyn’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He looked at the screen with a scowl. “Hunt business,” he said. “I’ll take you home.”

We tore back through the portal to Avilion, and the world lurched around us again as we passed back to the flip side of the world, where the sun was still bright in the sky. I blinked, tears forming against the glare.

This time, he didn’t fly over Avilion, landing the bike in Acionna Harbor. I pointed out which way to go until the roar of the bike bounced off the narrow roads of Mothwing Falls.

“Here!” I shouted in his ear.

Gwyn pulled it to a rumbling halt, and I realized we had an audience.

Carabosse was outside her shop, sitting in a rocking chair and petting her cat sìth’s pointed ears. She gave me a disapproving look.

And at the top of the stairs, by my apartment door, were two nymphs from Fairy Ferry: Nadiya Korova and Audra Brightbreeze.

They were already muttering to each other, their eyes glued to Gwyn’s bike.

“When it rains, it pours,” I muttered, climbing off the bike and pulling the helmet off. I put it back in its bag, and looked up at Gwyn, drinking in his pretty features.

“One for the road?” I asked, feeling inexplicably shy.

His teeth flashed in a grin, showing those pointed canines. “Thought you’d never ask, Bananatree.”

I didn’t bother with the cheek this time. I just stepped forward as Gwyn’s arm snaked around my waist and tilted my head to kiss him full on the mouth.

His tongue slid over my lip and I opened for him, letting out a soft moan as he kissed me deeper. I was this close to climbing up on the bike again when a voice sang out, “Briaaaallen!”

I pulled away reluctantly, feeling like a kid who’d had their candy stolen.

“See you soon,” Gwyn said, running his thumb along my lower lip. I tried to smile and stepped away, letting the bike roar down the street.

I wished I could fly away for a little longer.

Instead, I let the fairy tale fade, and went back to the bitch known as real life.

20

Their eyes were enormous as I walked up the stairs, running my fingers through my wind-wildened curls. Nadiya had left a trail of droplets that I followed like a red carpet up to my apartment door.

Audra’s pale blue hair whipped around like she stood in the center of a tiny, localized storm, betraying her excitement.

“Bri, he’s Wild Hunt. Is this why you left us?” She wrung her fingers, the same light-sky shade as her hair. “Oh, holy winds. You got caught up with them, didn’t you? You got a bad boy boyfriend and now you’re his—”

“Audra,” I interrupted, a sense of foreboding filling me and washing away some of the joy and relief Gwyn had brought me like the tide. “He’s not… not technically my boyfriend. I guess. Sort of? Maybe. We’re friends, okay?”

Nadiya raised one of her pencil-thin eyebrows, hands on her hips. “When you cut through all the bullshit you just said, that sounds an awful lot like ‘boyfriend’.”

I adjusted my windblown shirt and glared at them. “Did the two of you come here to interrogate me about my nonexistent boyfriend?”

The last thing I wanted to do was answer for my messy life to my friends. I didn’t even know what was going on.

Only last night I’d walked up these steps with Robin, and now he was acting like it had never happened.

Was Gwyn my boyfriend? He was so much more open than my tight-lipped boss, willing to tear down the wall between Lesser and Gentry like it was nothing.

He met me for morning dates with an enthusiasm Ioin had never shown.

And we kissed every time we saw each other now…

As though she were reading my thoughts, Audra said, “But you just kissed him.” Her purple eyes were enormous, staring right through me.

“Yeah, well…”

“We’re not here about your boyfriend.” Nadiya examined her bitten nails, probably pondering all the drowning she was missing out on right now. “Numa sent us to beg for you to come back to Fairy Ferry.”

I snorted, convinced I’d misheard. “Sorry, what?”

“I believe his exact words were ‘get that conceited asshole of a dryad back in here’,” Nadiya said serenely, but Audra exhaled a puff of cloud in exasperation.

“He also told us to get down on our knees and beg if we had to. I think word’s starting to get around, and he’s having a hard time getting pretty girls to work for him.”