She clutched at him, at his shoulders, his sides, her fingers digging into his skin, dragging him harder against her. He gasped into her mouth when she reached down to grab his soaking wet shirt and tore it up over his head. Her knees came up to clasp his hips and he shuddered, once, as if he were going to break.
“Have I?”
asked Mark. “Is this my home?” He looked over at Emma. “I can say this
to you because you are not a Blackthorn. You do not have Blackthorn
blood running through your veins. I have been in the land of Faerie for
years and it is a place where mortal blood is turned to fire. It is a
place of beauty and terror beyond what can be imagined here. I have
ridden with the Wild Hunt. I have carved a clear path of freedom among
the stars and outrun the wind. And now I am asked to walk upon the earth
again.”
“You belong where you’re loved,” Emma said. It was
something her father had said, something she had always believed. She
belonged here because Jules loved her and the children loved her. “Were
you loved in Faerie?”
A shadow seemed to come down over Mark’s eyes, like curtains closing in a dark room.
Snippet from Lady Midnight illustrated with the first of the Dark Artifices flower cards by Cassandra Jean x
