“Contain that excitement for your guy, sprout. You’ll ruin my suit.” He threw me a disgusted look but I did not care and pulled away my fingers from his designer black jacket.
I would be able to tell Ansgar what I’d found and show him the tea, maybe it was a way for me to visit my family whenever I wanted to. My mind bloomed with thousands of possibilities, making plans for the two of us, for a life together. Because if I had even the smallest chance to prove humans mate fae, and be with the man I loved, I would use every strand of energy I had left.
Watching my thoughts work, Rhylan stood from his seat and headed towards the door, all of a sudden in a hurry. I didn’t have time to ask him more questions because he headed outside, then stopped abruptly and looked at me with a curiosity I had never been worthy of before.
“Is this for you?” he almost sounded impressed.
“What?” I asked but he moved away from the entrance door to let me peek outside, where an ocean of gardenias illuminated the woods. They came from everywhere, growing on trees, lunging from branches, billowing from the soil. Everywhere I looked, rivers of gardenias floated around in big clusters of petals.
I nodded and Rhylan smiled. He actually threw me a genuine smile. I dare say there was even a shred of pride in his eyes.
“I’ll bring you the tea now. It’s a full moon tonight, the least you can do is go and thank him properly,” he smirked, then disappeared into a black SUV and drove away onto the corroded stone path.
I paused, giving myself time to encrypt my surroundings into memory and breathe in the soft perfume that penetrated my nostrils, when the realisation pounded through me. It was a full moon that night, Rhylan had announced and the entire forest became engulfed by gardenias. My favourite flower. A symbol that I was not forgotten to him. His mark.
He had told me the tradition, he even asked my thoughts on the matter and told me about other marks from his kingdom that members of his family or friends had chosen in the past. It was an emblem of his love for me, a motif that will accompany him for the rest of his existence, to remember me by.My mate.I trembled at the thought, sending an influx of devotion through my veins.
I paced up and down the sitting room, counting the minutes until Rhylan would be back with that tea and rehearsing a speech for Ansgar, for when I saw him. That is, if I managed to see him again. I had no knowledge of that kingdom apart from what he had told me from time to time. All I knew was that his marking was an important event and the evening would turn into a celebration, not enough to help me form a solid plan. As he was the prince, and these festivities were held in his honour, I had to think about the possibility that I might not even reach him. Maybe he lived in a palace somewhere with hundreds of guards around.
Maybe it was better to wait until tomorrow, until he finished his marking, whatever that meant, and just go to the cave in the morning to avoid any complications or get him in trouble. Even if it was possible for me to be his mate, I did not know the reaction of his family and those around him if I just showed up, unannounced and uninvited to his big day.
Rhylan knocked frantically on the door and when I moved to open, I found him restless on the threshold.
“Here,” was all he said, then started walking back to his car, the black paint gleaming in the dusk. He looked shaky and unsure. Like he regretted giving me his aunt’s tea.
“It’s okay, I decided I’m not visiting tonight after all,” I replied and tried to return the small vial back to him. I could not take the woman’s chance to see her sister one more time away, just because I felt overly excited.
He stopped in his tracks and turned towards me with a deep frown.
“I’m sorry, what?” he reprimanded.
“It’s too complicated,” I shook my head, “I’ll just wait and find him another day.” I would not, under any circumstance, tell Rhylan where and how to find Ansgar. His intentions proved noble enough until now, but I did not trust him completely.
He raised a hand, twitching his fingers in an elegant movement as though to make a point. “Excuse me, you made me go all the way back when I had serious plans,” he stopped to punctuate. “so you can decide against it in forty minutes?”
His voice echoed rasp and that unsettling darkness flickered in his eyes with anger.
“I don’t want to create complications for him. They have a party tonight,” I would not do any more explaining than that.
“And you don’t want to go to a fae party?” he looked at me incredulous, almost disgusted.
“I’m human, hello?” I used both my hands to point to myself, revealing the information to Rhylan.
“Aha…” That apathetic frown persisted on his forehead.
“How would it look when a human drinks some tea and crashes a fae party to search for her...fuckboy?” My instinct had been to use ‘mate’ a word still new in my vocabulary but I did not think it safe to reveal something that I barely discovered myself.
“Tiny sprout, are you kidding me right now?” exasperation portrayed his features.
“No, I am not,” I defended myself, skipping the fact that he continued to use that term on me when I’d specifically asked him not to.
“They won’t know you’re human. That’s what the tea is all about.” he glared at me like I was the village idiot.
“You didn’t say that before,” I defended myself. “So I would look fae?”
He huffed, drawing in a big breath. “You boil whatever it is in that thing and drink it,” he stated, pointing to the vial still in my hand. “Then you find something close to the one you want to see, something that belongs to them or a place they stay a lot in or whatever strong connection. Then you will feel sleepy and doze off, wake up in their world, boom.”
“How do you come back?”
