She opened her eyes. “Stay.”

“Bathroom. Be right back.” He gave her a sheepish grin in hopes that she wouldn’t ask any questions. Since she couldn’t lie, he did his best to avoid lying to her in return, but they’d been down this road a few times.

She started to look at his arms, and he knew neither of them wanted to have the conversation that would follow—the one where she told him she shouldn’t come when she was like this and he panicked at the thought of her being at the loft with the Summer King instead.

She winced. “I’m sorry I thought you meant you weren’t hurt—”

He could argue, or he could distract her.

It wasn’t a difficult choice to make.

When Aislinn woke, she propped herself up on one arm and watched Seth sleep. She wasn’t sure what she’d do if she ever lost him. Sometimes she felt like he was all that held her together; he was her version of the vine that wrapped around the Summer Girls—the thread that kept her from unraveling.

And I hurt him. Again.

She could see the shadowed bruises and bright burns on his skin from her hands. He’d never complain about it, but she worried. He was so breakable in comparison to even the weakest faeries. She traced her fingertips over his shoulder, and he moved closer. In all the weirdness of the past few months since she’d become Summer Queen, he’d been there. He didn’t ask her to be all mortal or all faery; instead, he let her be herself. It was a gift she couldn’t ever repay him for. He was a gift. He’d been essential to her when she was a mortal, and he had only grown more important as she’d tried to keep steady in her new life as a faery queen.

He opened his eyes to stare up at her. “You look like you’re far away.”

“Just thinking.”

“About?” He quirked his pierced brow.

And her heart fluttered exactly as it had when she’d tried to be just friends with him. “The usual…”