“I know he does.” Rika glanced back at Jayce. “He’s not going to be content to stay in a cave in the desert though. He hasn’t left me yet, but he doesn’t visit much any more. He wants his own family, to travel, more and more things I can’t give him. We talked about it last week again. That’s why I came to see him.”

“Mortals,” Sionnach murmured. “Such confusing creatures.”

“Says the faery who can’t seem to stop dating them,” Rika teased. “What’s the latest one’s name?”

“I’ll let you know after the next party.” Sionnach draped his arm over her shoulders.

Together they watched Jayce. He looked older after only two years, and his interests were changing so quickly. He’d been her first relationship in decades; truth be told, he was her first healthy relationship despite her having lived for well over a century. What she’d had with Keenan was a cruel game: he’d merely played a role so he could steal her mortality, and she’d spent years convincing other girls not to love him. Admittedly, the whole thing was because of a curse, but that didn’t change reality. Jayce, however, had loved her for who she was. Theirs was that innocent first love she’d wanted forever ago. It just took a while to find it.

And the manipulation of a fox faery.

After several more moments of comfortable silence, Sionnach asked, “What are you going to do?”

Rika shook her head. “Miss him, I suspect. Hope he meets a mortal girl who makes him happy.”

Sionnach nodded. “Sometimes, their changes are enough to make a faery stop wooing mortals.” He shot a sideways glance at her that she pretended not to see and then added, “I think about it, too.”

“What?”

“A family,” he murmured. “Things are calm now that the courts aren’t all in a mess.”

“Someday, maybe.” She’d grown used to feigning ignorance with him.

Of course, he’d grown just as accustomed to trying to be as blunt as possible without overtly saying what he really intended. “I could learn to like living in caves.”

“True,” she agreed blandly.

He laughed and flicked her with his tail.

“Shy?”

Once he looked at her, she asked, “When you first pushed me toward him, did you have another reason? Aside from luring me out of hiding?”