Spin the Shadows (Dark and Wicked Fae #1) - Cate Corvin Page 0,63

days.

By the time I got a text telling me the break was over and it was time for the next round, I was practically jumping out of my skin to do something.

Every day that passed was another day that Brightkin could’ve abducted a human girl and stuffed her throat with faerie fruit and evanesce. I’d never been so eager to put on a tiny dress and a new face.

If it was the last thing I did, I was going to take this bastard down.

I pedaled hard to Thornwood, ditching my bike behind the wall and pushing the back door open. Robin appeared at the end of the hall, his collar undone, sleeves pushed up, and hair looking like he’d continually run his fingers through it for the entire two days I’d been gone.

“Wow.” I eyed him critically, dropping my backpack on a deep green velvet chair. “You’ve seen better days, boss.”

His bright eyes ran over me from head to toe before he yanked them away. “Thank you so much, Miss Appletree.”

Despite my still-simmering anger over his refusal to acknowledge what was now referred to as ‘that night’ in my head, my heart did a happy little dance at the dry tone of his voice. I’d missed that.

“I’m just keeping you firmly grounded.” I sank into the chair on the opposite side of his desk. “Did you take a break, too?”

He shook his head and sat down opposite me, still studiously avoiding looking directly at me. “No. Enjoy your date with Mr. ap Nudd?”

I blinked at him. I’d never thought to ask Gwyn for his full name. Gwyn ap Nudd. I liked the way it rolled off my tongue in my imagination. “It was great. He took me on a tour of Annwyn and the Unseelie lands.”

Robin raised an eyebrow just a touch, the corner of his mouth tightening. “That’s nice.”

Was that jealousy?

“It was nice. I planted a tree there.” I thought wistfully of my beautiful, twisted tree. “Sobek Street is an entirely false representation of what the Unseelie Court is really like.”

“That’s because even the Unseelie Court doesn’t want them in there.” Robin tapped a few keys on his laptop.

“I could see that.” If I was Queen Nicnevin, I wouldn’t let Calder in, either.

I waited patiently, trying to read an upside-down paper.

Sisse was nowhere in sight to cut the tension between us with her ill-timed innuendos. I needed to do something before the stilted conversation made my brain melt out of my ears. I’d never felt so awkward around Robin before, not even when he’d first caught me.

This was where I was meant to be, and that night wasn’t going to ruin it.

“Boss.”

Robin looked up, searching my face. “Yes, Miss Appletree?”

I resisted the urge to blurt out something stupid as a cover. “You know I love working for you, right?” I made myself hold eye contact, ignoring the heat I felt rising on my cheekbones.

It was impossible to read his expression. “It’s my hope that you enjoy it.”

“Well, I do.” I swallowed hard, almost choked on my own spit, and pushed ahead anyways. “I don’t want anything that happened between us to mess this up, and I don’t want it to be awkward, either. I want things to be like they were. You’re an excellent boss, and if you’ll still have me as an agent, I’m in. I can be a professional.”

I only tripped over three words. Pretty good, all things considered.

Robin’s blue eyes were shadowed. I’d run my fingers over the chiseled planes of his handsome face; why couldn’t that have granted me the ability to read his emotions there, too? “I know you can be, Briallen.”

It was the first time he’d said my first name since that night. I held back a sigh of relief waiting to explode out of me.

“I have no intention of losing someone destined to be an excellent Seelie agent.” He closed his laptop with a sharp snap. “If things have seemed awkward, forgive me. That’s my fault; I’ve never crossed the lines of propriety with an agent before.”

My ire rose at his new, brisk tone.

Bounds of propriety, my ass.

“I was just as culpable,” I forced myself to say. It was true, at least.

“Regardless.” Robin looked away from me again, his mouth downturned. “As your employer, it’s my job to stay in the lines. I won’t cross them again.”

A taut, painful beat passed between us. Never again?

I wanted him to cross those lines. I wanted him to tear those lines up and lay new