Jordan snickered. “Something tells me he doesn’t mind one bit.”

The four of us went outside to one of the SUVs parked in front of the building. At the door of the building, the three of them stared at me when I slowed to push my way through the thick jelly-like demon ward.

On the other side, I wrinkled my nose. “Demon wards and Fae blood don’t mix.”

I was happy to let Chris and Jordan take the front seat of the SUV, and I climbed into the back with Nikolas. As soon as we were buckled in, his hand found mine, lacing our fingers together and sending a warm tingle up my arm.

Conversation centered mostly around what had happened at the demon market, with Chris and Jordan telling us how the gulaks had cornered them.

“What were you guys doing in a demon market in the first place?” I asked them.

“We discovered Adele has been sending letters to someone there,” Chris said. “We thought it was worth checking out.”

“People still send letters?”

Nikolas nodded. “People who suspect their electronic communications are being monitored.”

“And who have something to hide,” Chris added.

I met Chris’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Did you find anything?”

“We found the demon she was sending them to. He said he was paid to drop them in a mailbox. Inside the envelope was another envelope with an address and postage. Unfortunately, every time he tries to remember the address he draws a blank.”

“Some kind of memory spell?”

“Looks like it. Adele is proving to be more covert than we gave her credit for.”

I scowled at the seat in front of me. “So I’m learning. And I bet it’s Madeline she’s writing to. Turns out they have been friends for a lot longer than she let on to us.”

“How do you know that?” Nikolas asked.

“I brought a box of Madeline’s things back with me from New Hastings today and –”

“Whoa! Hold up.” Jordan turned in her seat to stare at me. “You went to Maine? Today? How the hell did that happen, and why is Nikolas not freaking out about it?”

“Eldeorin took me there and we didn’t stay long. I found a box of things belonging to Madeline that Nate had mentioned last fall. I was going to give them to Tristan, but I wanted to look through them first.”

“And you were okay with her going there?” Jordan asked Nikolas.

He shook his head. “I didn’t know until after she got back.”

“We were in the middle of discussing it when he got the call that you guys were in trouble.”

Jordan looked from Nikolas to me. “Discussing it. Riiight.”

“What did you find in the box, Sara?” Chris asked.

“Pictures of Madeline and Adele that were taken back in the seventies, and they look pretty chummy in them.”

Nikolas looked thoughtful for a moment. “That would have been just a few years after Madeline left Westhorne.”

Chris nodded. “Looks like we need to pay Adele another visit, Nikolas.”

“Not without me.” No way was I staying behind for this one.

“Or me,” Jordan added.

Nikolas looked at me, and I begged him with my eyes not to start that old argument again. Finally, he said, “We’ll go see her tomorrow.”

I smiled at him and mouthed, “Thank you.”

Dinner that night was a whole new experience for me. Sitting across the table from the man you love and knowing he loves you back, makes everything… better. I could have been eating plain bread and water and I don’t think I would have noticed. Jordan and Chris joined us, and there was more than one teasing comment when one of them had to repeat something they’d said to Nikolas or me. Normally, I’d be embarrassed, but I was too happy to care.

After dinner, I expected Nikolas to say he had to go to the command center. He surprised me by asking me to go for a walk instead. It was a clear night, and the moon cast a silvery glow across the grounds and reflected in the lake as we strolled around it. When we reached the gazebo, the little structure suddenly illuminated with thousands of tiny faerie lights, and I smiled to myself because I knew it had to be Eldeorin’s doing. My faerie friend might shy away from love, but he was a romantic at heart.

“Wow, it’s beautiful here.” I sighed happily as I stood by the rail and looked across the moon-kissed lake.

Nikolas wrapped his arms around me and tucked my head under his chin. “Are you warm enough?”

“Yes.” It was a chilly night, but between his body heat and the warmth coursing through me, I didn’t feel the cold. I was still trying to believe this was real, that we were here together and that Nikolas loved me. He had loved me all along. How blind the both of us had been. How many times one of us could have said the words, but we’d held back. We were quite the pair.

“What do you think would have happened if someone else had found me in Maine? Or if I’d been found when I was little?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, who knows when we would have met? I would have been just another orphan, and you might never have noticed me.” We could have gone decades without ever knowing what we were to each other.

Laughter rumbled in his chest and he pulled me closer, if that was possible. “I’m pretty sure I would have noticed you.”

His husky words and his warm breath against my temple sent a new kind of heat through me, and I began to think about where we would go from here. Nikolas and I loved each other, and there would never be anyone else for me but him. The thought of sex still made me more than a little nervous, but I wanted to take the next step in our relationship, to complete our bond and make him mine forever. Would it happen tonight? My stomach did a series of flips as an image of Nikolas and me together in that way filled my mind.