We hadn’t lingered near the baths, instead choosing to wander through the tunnels and explore what we could for the rest of the
day. We found an armory that made Caelum’s eyes gleam with satisfaction at the room stuffed with all manner of weaponry. The training rooms where he would need to report the next day weren’t far, just a few steps away down the labyrinth of tunnels they’d carved over time.
We’d grabbed food from the kitchen again, sitting at Skye’s table in relative privacy and avoiding the public area where the others dined together. Given my rather jarring introduction to the people of the Resistance, I wasn’t entirely certain that I felt up to dealing with more new faces in one day.
The privacy of our little bedroom felt like a welcome reprieve I didn’t want to admit, out loud, I’d needed. Not after fighting for the ability to bunk with the other women earlier in the day. Still, as Caelum drew the curtain closed, I dropped down onto one of our bedrolls with a contented sigh.
“You look tired,” Caelum said, moving to the other bedroll on the low, wood platform. I’d gotten used to sleeping wrapped up in his arms, but without the need for body heat, it felt even more intimate to choose to sleep that way.
There was no excuse that we were doing it purely for survival any longer, the only cause for us to sleep entwined being that we wanted to. Having stunned myself with the realization of the depths of my feelings for
him as they grew, I didn’t know what to expect from myself in this situation.
I was fairly certain I knew what to expect from Caelum, and that didn’t help matters.
He laid himself out on his bedroll, stretching his arms over his head as I turned to face him. He looked as relaxed as could be, as if there was no place else he could possibly belong but at my side. I wished I could have his self-assurance.
“I am. I want to sleep for a year,” I said with an awkward chuckle, lying on my back on the bedroll. His arm was angled above my head, leaving me to fill the space at his side. As tired as I was, my eyes stayed open to stare at the roof of the cave, feeling the weight of his presence beside me.
My ghosts lingered in the room, riding the waves of grief threatening to crash over me. In the previous nights since the Veil had shattered, my body had been all but broken by the time I closed my eyes for the night, exhaustion dragging me into sleep, accompanied by the sound of Caelum’s voice weaving the words of whatever story he told me.
Tonight felt different, the bone deep exhaustion not quite enough to pull me under on its own. All I could see was Brann’s judgmental stare, his warnings not to trust anyone echoing in my head and feeling as if I’d disappointed him with the choices I’d made after his death.
Caelum hummed thoughtfully, watching me as I twisted my lips. “Did they ever teach you about the Seelie and Unseelie Courts of Faerie?” he asked, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. I turned my attention his way. The sympathy in his gaze was too knowing, too aware of my emotions as they clogged my throat.
Brann’s judgment had been too quick, because how could it ever be wrong to have someone look at me as if I hung the moon from the night sky?
“They didn’t teach us anything about the Fae aside from them being evil and tales of the destruction they caused in the war,” I answered. I’d spent many evenings hunting for any hint of information in Lord Byron’s library, anything forbidden I might find, but there’d been nothing to further my knowledge about the beings, who would now drag me back to Alfheimr if they found me.
“Alfheimr has two main Courts: the Seelie and the Unseelie Fae. Each of those has their own ruler and a ruling system beneath them. The Seelie
Court claims the Fae of the Spring and Summer Courts, while the Unseelie has Autumn, Winter, and the Shadow Courts,” he said, rolling onto his side. His fingers trailed over the fabric covering my arm, sending a shiver through me in spite of the barrier between our flesh.
His obsidian eyes glimmered intently, watching my face for any hint of a reaction. “From what I know, the Seelie and Unseelie Courts have been at odds with one another for most of history, but very rarely do they engage in outright battle. They’re more likely to undermine one another through subterfuge and trickery than they are to fight in pointless wars. The curse the witches placed on the Fae has made them value life above all else.”
“The same curse that created the Mate Bonds?” I asked, recalling his story about the way the Fae had their souls splintered to share with another being.
“That one. According to the books, it also rendered the Fae unable to reproduce unless it is with their mate. It stunted the population, and with the Veil separating most of the Fae from their mates…” He shrugged his shoulders as the meaning of the statement hung between us.
“There haven’t been any children?” I asked, unable to imagine how quiet the world must have become with the lack of offspring to run around and terrorize their parents.
“I’m sure there have been some. There are the pairs who had already completed the mate bond before the Veil formed, and those few who were mated to another Fae, but the Fae have centuries of life. They were cursed to only have two children for each pairing, to control the population that could have vastly outnumbered humans.”
I twisted my lip, mulling over the information and what that might mean for my future. I’d never given any thought to having children of my own, outside of the reality that they would be expected of me. If it wasn’t something I had to do for some prospective husband I didn’t want to marry, would I want them myself? “Does that mean none of us can have children outside of our mate bond?” I asked, glancing toward the curtain blocking our door. There were a great many Fae Marked within the protection of the Resistance, their marks peeking out from the fabric of their clothing as they curled up their necks. The humans vastly outnumbered them, and I didn’t doubt their ability to keep the population strong enough to thrive, but to think of wanting a child and being denied one was agonizing.
“Unless the bond is completed, humans are still able to reproduce with other humans,” he said, quirking a brow up at me. “So two Fae Marked could live an entirely human existence together, complete with children and family, so long as they never finished the bond.”
“The Fae Mark itself doesn’t mean we’re bonded to them?” I asked, my hand reaching up to touch the swirling black and white magic on his skin. It danced over his flesh in response, writhing and drawing a pulse of light from the black circle on the back of my hand.
“It connects the Fae to the Marked, in a way, so that they can find one another. But until the ceremony is completed, life forces do not join and humans don’t become eternal,” he explained, leaning forward to touch his lips to my forehead gently as I covered a yawn with my hand.
I shifted forward, curling my body into his chest. The moment his arms wrapped around my back, sleep threatened to pull me under as I drowsily asked, “What’s the ceremony?”
“The Fae have three days to complete a quest to prove their worth and bring back a gift their mate will treasure for eternity. They then make love on Faerie soil in a place surrounded by the magic of the Court. The Spring Fae have sex amongst fields of flowers. The Winter Fae have a sacred place where they’re surrounded by snow-capped mountains and frozen waterfalls. Summer Fae are surrounded by tropical waters and sandy beaches, and the Autumn Fae have sex at the tops of trees as tall as the Hollow Mountains,” he said, his voice getting quieter and quieter until it trailed off into a whisper as I fought to keep my eyes open.
“What of the Shadow Court?” I asked, just as I shut out all traces of light.
“Something far more sinister,” he murmured, his fingers tightening against my spine. “They hunt their mate in a cove, with all the monsters of Faerie to bear witness to the claiming when they catch him or her.”
I drifted off, my thoughts filled with the worst imaginings of what a monster of Faerie must look like, wishing I’d stopped him at the Autumn Court and fallen asleep to dream of people balancing in the treetops.
 |
I jolted awake.
Springing to a sitting position with a hand pressed to my chest, I heaved in deep lungfuls of air in my desperate need to catch my breath. The darkness of the room pressed in all around me, the shadows of my nightmare lingering at the forefront of my mind. Macabre images of shadow monsters devouring Brann’s body while I watched haunted me even with my eyes open.
I reached back to touch Caelum, hoping to soothe myself with his presence, only for my hand to find his bedroll empty. I turned slowly as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, looking around the small, dark cavern where the only light came from the torches in the tunnels outside the curtain that was parted slightly. There wasn’t a single sign of him in the room he’d insisted we share, the surrounding space empty.
I swallowed, sinking my teeth into my bottom lip as I threw back the light blanket he must have draped over me after I’d fallen asleep. My body felt slick with sweat from my nightmare, tricked into thinking it was trying to escape the monster chasing me down.
I moved to the end of the bedroll, getting my feet underneath me and slipping them into my boots. Standing slowly, I crossed to the curtain at the entrance of the room. Peeking through the crack into the empty hallway, I warred with myself.
I would feel ridiculous if he’d left me to go to the latrine. Wandering around to try to find him with my heart in my gut and feeling like something was very, very wrong would be sad if it turned out to be nothing. Still, I pulled the curtain back a little more and stepped out into the tunnel. The torches lining the wall lit the way as I followed them back to the
common space where all the bunk rooms fanned out in a sunburst fashion.
The tunnel was silent. Everyone in the Resistance slept the night away, the soft padding of my boots echoing through the enclosed space so loudly that I wanted to cringe. It seemed to take forever to reach the commons, the faint sound of voices whispering quietly drifting through to the mouth of the tunnel where I stood. I watched as Caelum ran a frustrated hand over his forehead. I hugged the side wall, making myself as small as possible, as he drew his hand away and spoke to Imelda.
The witch grimaced, her eyes pinching closed as she nodded up at him. She reached out slowly, grasping his hand in hers for a brief moment as she
whispered something to him. Beyond the hush of her quiet voice, the low tones barely reaching me, I couldn’t make out the words.
I only knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they had not been meant for my ears.
Caelum’s fingers closed around hers briefly, a gentle squeeze that seemed to wrap itself around my heart before he pulled back and severed the connection. He whispered something, his face hard and unyielding in a way that I hadn’t seen on him very often.
I knew he had the harsh side that I’d seen glimpses of, and he’d shown when he saw my scars, but I’d never seen how intense it became when he used it against other people. There was no wonder that I withered under the weight of his stare.
He turned away from Imelda, coming toward the tunnel where I waited, watching the interaction. His steps faltered as his gaze landed on me, that smooth gait of his disrupted by the shock of his features before he relaxed the irritation he’d shown Imelda from his face.
He closed the distance between us, reaching up to lay his hand against the side of my cheek. It took everything in me not to jump to the conclusion rattling around in my mind, not to flinch back from the same hand that had touched hers. “What are you doing up, my star?” he asked, the gentleness in his voice feeling like a deception.
Like a punch to the gut, confirming everything I’d already known would happen, Caelum was already keeping secrets with other women.
“I feel like maybe I should be the one asking that question,” I said, tilting my head to the side as I stared up at him. My throat burned with the rawness of impending tears, and the feeling that the one thing I’d found that I wanted to keep had been torn away.
“We were discussing the warding on the tunnels. I needed to be sure it was safe for you here,” he said, brushing his thumb over my cheekbone, as if he could see the tears that I clenched my teeth to prevent, and the dread settling into the pit of my stomach.
“In the middle of the night?” I questioned, pulling back from his caress. His hand fell from my face, hanging in the air as if suspended in his disbelief that I didn’t want his touch. That I didn’t crave his torment, when my heart felt so close to shattering.
“Your jealousy is showing again, Little One. You know how much I like it,” he said, his lips tipping up as if he could diffuse the tension rolling
between us with teasing.
“Is that why you snuck out of the room you insisted we share in the dead of night? To make me feel like this?” I asked, taking a step back and putting more space between us as I wrapped my arms around myself. The warm air felt too cool against my sweatslicked skin, drawing Caelum’s attention as he stared at me inquisitively.
“Did you consider that perhaps I like your jealousy because it’s the only way you show me you care for me the way I do you?” he asked, dropping his hand to his side finally. “You’ve made no attempt to claim me as yours. In fact, you’ve denied this at every opportunity when I’ve made my intentions toward you very clear. I want you in a way that should terrify me, that consumes my every thought. I want you in a way that I know I will slaughter anyone who dares to hurt you, to touch you,” he said, pausing to run a hand through his hair. He took a small step toward me, hesitating to close the rest of the gap. “I will not watch you with other men. I will not watch you deny what is between us in every moment that my mouth is not on yours, and still act the part of a jealous lover.”
“Caelum,” I murmured, my face pinching with his words. He was right; I knew it as well as he did. My fear of being hurt stopped me from taking the plunge with him, from accepting what my heart already knew.
“I would burn the world to the ground and lay it at your feet if you so much as asked it of me, and yet you give me nothing. You’ve never once told me that you feel the same way I do.” He closed the distance between us, stepping into my space until he could trail his knuckles over my cheek. He leaned over me, his body enveloping mine and forcing me to look up into his piercing eyes as the first tear fell down to touch his fingers. He brushed it away, curling his knuckles down my jawline until he grasped my chin gently and held me still. “All you need is to say the word, and I am yours. So tell me, my star. Do you want me?”
My ears rang in the silence that stretched between us, his glimmering eyes waiting for my response.
“Yes,” I whispered, the word feeling torn from my soul, as if it splintered me inside to admit it, cleaving who I’d been in half. Half of me belonged to the mate hunting me across the Kingdom, but the half that I knew, the half that was Estrella Barlowe of Mistfell—she belonged to Caelum.
Mate be damned.
He curled his free hand around the back of my head, pulling me toward him at the same time he lunged. His mouth crashed down onto mine, his lips parting as he shared his breath with me. He entwined us, his arms surrounding me and his body backing mine into the stone wall of the tunnel.
My head pressed against the unforgiving wall, causing Caelum to pull his lips from mine. His breath came in deep, controlled sighs as he trailed his mouth over my jaw and laid kisses to the side of my neck. The pinch of his teeth came at the skin there as he sank them into my skin, squeezing in a bruising grip as bindings inside me slackened.
My body gave in, the space between my legs throbbing and begging for his touch as his hands skimmed over my waist, and he explored the body he’d conquered. “You’re going to break me,” I whispered, not having meant to speak the words out loud, but there was no boundary between us, no part of me that wanted to take back the words I should have kept to myself.
He pulled back from my neck, my skin throbbing where he’d bruised me. He stared at it for a moment before finally turning his attention to my face, his clenched jaw fading into something so tender it made my heart stall in my chest, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was always like this. Did falling in love always come with the knowledge that we were no longer alone? Was it always more than stolen kisses in the night and two bodies coming together for a few moments?
“No, Little One. I’m going to love you,” he said, touching his forehead to mine. His dark eyes glimmered, tiny specks of light shining in the obsidian, like the stars that had become my namesake. “Until you forget what it is to hurt and then long after that. Until the scars you wear like armor have faded from memory, and only we remain.”
