Desert Tales: A Wicked Lovely Companion Novel

EPILOGUE

TWO YEARS LATER

Rika watched Jayce talk to other students after his class. He didn’t know she was visiting; she’d wanted to surprise him. It was a strange feeling, looking at him this way. He seemed to laugh more freely when he was at his university campus, and as she watched him, she wondered if this was where they’d been meant to be all along: him living his normal life, the sort of life she never had, and her learning to let him go.

“He still loves you,” a voice said.

She turned to see the faery she’d been friends with longer than Jayce had lived. Sionnach’s smile was sad, but he didn’t have pity in his eyes.

“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?”

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.