Acotar and Tog [Discontinued, Will be deleted]

The Prince of Nostalgia

He did not want to admit to himself the reason he was in a good mood. When he decided to take Aelin to the commune, he did it for her, to show her something that she would not find in Rifthold and honestly to take a break from training. What he did not expect was the excitement and eagerness the flowed out of her.

He had done that and in turn, it had released something in his soul, something warm and forgotten. His nightmares last night were mild and when he awoke with the taste of her blood in his mouth, he did not want to immediately go and rip her to shreds. Instead he patiently waited for Aelin to grab breakfast. When she finally appeared, he held his small pack open for her. “Clothes.”

He did not know what to say to her. Just about everything he had ever said to her, riled her up. He couldn’t help but smile at the thought that maybe he got under her skin, just as much as she did his. He wanted to enjoy the fleeting moment of amicable silence between them, so he headed west and did not speak until they were through the wards.

“Shift, and let’s go,”

“And here I was, thinking we’d become friends.” Friends. What in the hell was this girl doing to him?  He could not find it in himself to completely reject or accept the term.

So instead he gave her a wicked grin, “It’s twenty miles, we’re running . . . Each way.”

“And where are we going?”

He didn’t know why he expected her just to comply. “There was another body—a demi-Fae from a neighboring fortress. Dumped in the same area, same patterns. I want to go to the nearby town to question the citizens, but …”

He needed to stop himself right there, he didn’t need to snarl, his kind caused this rift.

“But I need your help. It’ll be easier for the mortals to talk to you.”

“Is that a compliment?”

He clenched his jaw and rolled his eyes, “Shift, or it’ll take us twice as long.”

“I can’t. You know it doesn’t work like that.”

A month had taught him that snarling at her was not going to result in her shifting. Neither was silence, patience, or growling. Fists, curse words and vulgar gestures also did not work. The countless hours of chopping wood did not seem to phase her. He doubted that flattery would work, in that sense he knew they were the same, flattery were hollow words. Maybe a challenge.

“Don’t you want to see how fast you can run?”

“I can’t use my other form in Adarlan anyway, so what’s the point?”

Because you are here now, because we are here now and for the second day in a row he was not drowning in the past.

“The point is that you’re here now, and you haven’t properly tested your limits.”

Fine, if that point would not work, “The point is, another husk of a body was found, and I consider that to be unacceptable.”

He gave her braid a sharp tug as he taunted her, just like the times he used to taunt his cousin Sellene, “Unless you’re still frightened.”

He almost laughed as he watched her nostrils flare, he never understood what it was about tugging a braid that infuriated girls.

“The only thing that frightens me is how very much I want to throttle you.”

And there it was. The same look she had each time she had shifted. It was not out of fear that she had shifted, no it was anger.

“Hone it—the anger.”