Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Present Day

Ryn stood

near the Seelie Court throne room, remembering his first kiss and wondering at the odd similarities between that one and the kiss that had taken place several hours earlier today. Both had happened in or near a hidden passage, and both ended with Violet running away from him. At least she’d smiled the first time. This time … Well, he’d thought it was pretty darn amazing. Vi, however, didn’t seem to agree.

Movement on the stairs caught his attention, and he looked up to see her coming down. The dress the clothes caster had put her in this evening was purple and puffy. It didn’t look too bad, but he’d bet anything she hated it. He tried to catch her gaze, but she didn’t look his way. Was that intentional, or had she simply not seen him yet?

She headed straight for someone standing beside the throne room doors. A guy Ryn was certain she didn’t know, despite the attention she was suddenly paying him. He debated whether to interrupt them and pull her aside so he could ask her what was wrong, but he didn’t want to make a scene. She’d be even less likely to confide in him if he embarrassed her.

Dinner was worse. Though Vi sat right beside him, she didn’t speak to him once, choosing instead to turn her body away and spend the entire evening in conversation with the guy on her other side. Ryn couldn’t deny the jealousy that mingled with his confusion. He wanted so badly to talk to her, to demand an explanation for why she’d run off and was now pointedly ignoring him, but the single overwhelming emotion he felt rolling off her kept him quiet: fear. It made no sense. Why was she

afraid

of him? He needed to know, but now wasn’t the time to ask. He would have to be patient and wait until he could get her alone after dinner.

That wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d hoped, however. When dinner with the Seelie Queen was finished, Vi was the first one up and out of the room. Ryn pushed past the other graduates and hurried after her, determined to speak to her before she got away. “V, hang on,” he called once he was out of the dining room. But instead of slowing, she walked faster, breaking into a run and disappearing around a corner. “Just wait, dammit.” He began running. “Violet!” She stopped at the foot of the stairs, but didn’t turn back. “I don’t get it,” he said, coming to a halt a few steps away from her. “What are you upset about?”

Slowly, she turned and faced him. He struggled to decipher the tumult of emotions that radiated from her. Fear was definitely still there, with fleeting moments of shame, desire, doubt. But Ryn’s unique ability to sense the emotions of others was just as useless as ever at understanding the

reasons

for those emotions.

Eventually, Vi said, “Can we just pretend it didn’t happen?”

Completely bewildered and more than a little hurt, Ryn couldn’t think of what to say. Before he could figure out how to get an explanation out of her, she looked past him. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. Ryn swung around, and there beneath an archway was the same man he and Vi had seen here last night. The man who looked exactly like Vi’s father.

“Hey!” she shouted as the imposter turned and fled. “Stop!”

And once again, she was running away from him.