Sionnach removed his arm from around her shoulders, but that was it. He was silent. More than a minute passed before he answered, “Most foxes mate for life, but sometimes a fox faery has to use a bit of . . . strategy to help his mate get ready for that.” He stepped in front of her and looked directly at her. “You were still mourning your mortal life, and I didn’t know how to give you what you needed to heal. Then, I saw Jayce. I watched you become more alive, and I knew that what you needed was to be with a mortal, to be the mortal you should’ve been if Keenan hadn’t picked you.”

Rika realized that her lips had parted on a gasp. She’d known for a while that Sionnach had feelings for her, but not like this. “But you date mortals. A lot of them,” she objected.

“I like them, and I got lonely while I was waiting for . . . my plans to work.” He looked strangely embarrassed then. “It took ages just to get you to see me as a friend, then finally as my partner as Alpha. If I’d walked up to you years ago and said, ‘Hello, do want to have a litter of my kits?’ you’d never have let me any closer.”

There was no way to argue with that. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to run now. All she could say was, “You don’t do commitments.”

“Because I chose my mate a very long time ago,” he corrected gently.

“Oh.”

He started to step away from her, but she grabbed his arm.

“Wait,” she said. “I can’t do this now.” She took a breath before adding, “Not now.”

The hurt in his expression was replaced with his familiar mischievous grin. In a falsely solemn tone, he asked, “Tuesday? Or maybe Wednesday? I could wait a bit longer. Really, what’s a few days after decades?”

Rika shook her head at him, but she was smiling. “And here I’d planned on trying to convince you to . . .”

“To?” he prompted.

“Distract me with your wit and charm,” she offered.

“Just that?”

And Rika laughed before admitting, “For starters.”

“Finally getting started sounds good,” he said as he caught her hand in his.

Excerpt from Wicked Lovely

Excerpt from Wicked Lovely

Read on to discover how

WICKED LOVELY

began:

Prologue

PROLOGUE

The Summer King knelt before her. “Is this what you freely choose, to risk winter’s chill?”

She watched him—the boy she’d fallen in love with these past weeks. She’d never dreamed he was something other than human, but now his skin glowed as if flames flickered just under the surface, so strange and beautiful she couldn’t look away. “It’s what I want.”