The Inner Circle (Return of the Ancients Book 3) by Carmen Caine, Madison Adler

spied on them. Apparently, even he had his own secrets. But I didn’t appreciate his method of protecting his secrets. I reached down and pinched his pointy little snout. Hard.
    He flattened his ears in response.
    “Ajax misunderstood,” I began, but Rafael cut me off.
    “You shouldn’t wander around by yourself at night,” he said curtly. “I’ll see you back home.”
    He didn’t wait for me to respond. He turned on his heel and headed off through the darkness towards Al’s house.
    I followed.
    Maybe it was something else, but I couldn’t help but think that Rafael was jealous. He sure acted like it. It was a thrilling thought for all that it implied. And even though I knew I should really be pressing him for details about his dealings with the Inner Circle and what they were doing with the mutant tulpa, I suddenly had to let him know that I didn’t have any romantic interest in Jareth.
    Skipping to catch up with him, I nearly slid in the snow and grabbed his arm to anchor myself.
    “Ajax is crazy,” I said breathlessly as he instinctively reached out to steady me. “Yes, I care for Jareth, but you know, he’s like a brother to me.” I gave a little laugh and added, “You know, like a really annoying obnoxious brother that you’re stuck with. Maybe that looks like something else from a dog’s point of view.”
    I wasn’t going to let Ajax off the hook. I was going to give him a nice talking to at some point. But not now. Not when I had Rafael’s full attention.
    His gray eyes bore into mine. I couldn’t tell if he believed me or not.
    Reaching up, I did something that surprised even me.  I grabbed his head, and standing on my tiptoes, pulled his lips to meet mine.
    It started as an awkward kiss. I didn’t have much experience, but it didn’t really matter. With Rafael, I knew I wasn’t being judged.
    He responded at once, and his lips parted to meet mine with a sweet tenderness that stole my breath. I shivered as a deep thrill surged down to each nerve ending.
    Suddenly, he pulled back, his lips hovering millimeters from mine. “This won’t work,” he warned softly. “No, this can’t happen, Sydney.”
    “Can’t?” I repeated, but then I remembered.
    Of course. The Tree of Life thing. The fate line that said if Rafael was to love me that he’d bring about the destruction of the dimensions.
    I frowned.
    He was the only guy that I’d ever really had an interest in. But there were so many cards stacked against us, I really didn’t see how it could work either. After all, the fact that he was a royal fairy prince from another dimension, embroiled in some kind of conspiracy, was probably a game-ender anyway.
    Embittered, I turned away. “Forget it,” I said. “Sorry.”
    “Sydney!” he called after me.
    But I just ignored him, and bursting out of the greenbelt, took refuge in Al and Betty’s house. Waving at Betty so she wouldn’t worry and putting the egg in the fridge, I escaped to my room and peeled off my wet, muddy jeans and slipped into a comfortable pair of sweats.
    I had to stay focused. I couldn’t let myself think of Rafael. It was too painful.
    With grim determination, I focused on the problems at hand.
    I watched the video of Melody several times before making up my mind. I would show it to Jareth—whenever I could get him to sit still long enough to watch it. We would have to figure out what Melody was doing to him.
    I dug my notebook out and added it to my list of issues to resolve, and then quickly glanced over the other topics to see if I’d made any progress. I drew a line down the page to make a column and titled it ‘Update’.
    First of all were the Mesmers.
    Jareth’s rune seemed to be working well, and they were obviously steering clear of the house since he’d burned his symbols in the garage. And Al was working on the Faraday idea, so I felt that everything was progressing ok. Enough so that I could work on something else for the moment, anyway.
    I stared