“That’s not—I’m not apologizing for that.”
“Because you liked it?” I asked, my face steeling. Somehow that statement was worse, so much worse than everything that had happened.
“Because I didn’t kiss her,” he said, looking at me like I was absolutely insane. “I pushed her away if you must know, and you—You were supposed to be asleep! You fell out of bed—I should have known, you are an absolutely awful actress to begin with, but then I was so worried about you and you were laying on the ground flopping about—"
Right, that little detail. “You love her,” I accused.
He squinted at me, as if trying to figure out what exactly was wrong with me. “Very obviously not, Wren. I think you should know that better than anyone.” He shook his head, leaning in to accuse me, “you lied to me.”
“I did not lie to you,” I scoffed. “You came to your own conclusion.”
“Which you did not rectify.”
“You refuse to clarify anything,” I snarled, offended even more so when he straightened, a hint of amusement showing in his eyes. “It’s not my fault if I did not care to elaborate on the truth when I saw what I did.”
“I have been grieving,” he said pointedly.
“You’re trying to get rid of me,” I accused. “That’s what this is, you’re pushing me away and have been pushing me away, and now you’re going to try to spin it as if it’s for my own good.”
“It is for your own good,” he retorted. “I am trying to do what is good for you, because you seem incapable of doing it yourself. I am trying to help you because you won’t take aid from anyone else. People like you and I are meant to be apart, we are meant to stand on opposite sides of a playing field. Even putting everything we are aside; we are not compatible on a biological level. I am… this, and you are human; you’re meant to run, you’re meant to be afraid of me, that is what the universe intends.”
I recoiled, my breath catching in my throat.
“Wren, we were never going to win.”
You don’t know that, I wanted to say. You can’t know that.
“Everything is working against us,” he muttered, his eyes traveling away from mine. “It always has been. I was just too selfish to admit it, and now people have gotten hurt in the process and things have been changed in ways that I cannot repair. Things have happened to you that I cannot fix.” Under his breath he added, “that I wish I could wipe away.”
“So, there’s no hope?” I asked, the words coming out far throatier and heavier than I would have intended. My fingers fisted in my skirt without my permission, as if that single action could somehow help me hold on to reality, to the world I knew was right, the one I had existed in just hours before.
“Alene is dead,” Luka said bitterly. “She died shortly after I left, she died going to the King, asking to become an asset to the army like you in the hopes that we would see each other once more. She died because of all the things I was too blind to see, because even when I was far away, I chased after a thing I could not have, a maid dancing across halls and laughing at jokes she would never share. All that she felt for me couldn’t amount to that, so I left and she tried to follow.” He looked sick, positively ill, as if the words he said had poisoned him and he wasn’t going to bother to fight it, “I will not let the same thing happen to you.”
“But you will let it happen to Mylene,” I said bitterly, wanting someone to blame, someone to hate.
“Mylene is chasing the things that made her sister happy in an effort to know her, she does not love me and though she wishes she does, she never will. All the same, I cannot love her. I will not subject someone to me,” he said. “I know now the way that things are meant to be.”
“Because you’re a coward,” I spat.
His eyes snapped up to mine. “I am doing what you’re incapable of.”
“No,” I said. “Because I am capable of so much more than you, Kinsley. I have gone into the woods, I have fought for my life, I have said goodbye to my mother, and I have let my life change around me without any way of controlling it. I have spent months in a god forsaken camp where I looked at you every single day and wanted you, only for you to pretend that you didn’t even know who I was while I fell asleep trying to push myself as close to the side of my tent as possible just so I could be near you! I am twice as brave and resilient as you could ever be, because I was every bit as willing to walk beside you there and zap anyone who so much as opened their mouths— I suffered, and I would continue to suffer for you. You. Are. A. Coward.”
Luka’s eyes narrowed, his face shaping into a deadly glare. “You don’t know anything.”
“You told me you wanted to run away with me, but you knew it wasn’t possible, you knew that those were just words, and you wouldn’t have done it if you had the chance because you’re so insufferably self-righteous that you would have decided that it somehow wasn’t right! You were relieved when I told you we wouldn’t, that we couldn’t. I know you were.”
“I loved you,” he said viciously. Loved.
And then, like he was realizing what he said, he paled just as I did, his eyes still on mine as this horrible realization of what he said hit me. I felt my lungs tighten, the threat of tears, and then—
He coughed. At first, a single cough, a loud, rasping one. Then, another. And another. Each one louder than the last, far more painful sounding than before. His hands rose up to his throat to try to soothe it, but he ended up practically clawing at it, his eyes watering as each violent cough tore through his body.
My hand flew to his neck as he bent over, struggling to stop the onslaught. His breath came out in desperate wheezes, each round of pain accompanied by a dry sob. The curse of being fae.
“I thought,” he struggled to say, his temple resting against my thigh, “that would have worked.”
My fingers tightened on the back of his shirt as my eyes clenched shut in irritation. “You look pathetic when you lie.”
He shot me a glare, his cheek still against my thigh as he gave another faint wheeze.
“You should just tell the truth,” I breathed, my hand moving up his back to stroke his hair. “You’re not getting rid of me anyway.”
“I’m trying to save you,” he said, the slightest hint of red at the edge of his lips. Blood. “It did not hurt nearly this badly the first time.”
“I don’t need to be saved from you.”
He seemed to agonize over the decision, caught between his own desire to help me and the crushing pain that assaulted his windpipe. Maybe he was wondering how long it would take to go away, or how much pain he could take. Another wave of agony coursed through his body and he flinched, his hand desperately scrambling to take purchase on my thigh.
“And you were mad at me for lying and denying it,” I mused, rolling my eyes as I let my thumb brush by the point of his ears. “I won’t tell anyone,” I said sarcastically, “it will stay our little secret.”
He whimpered, making contact with my legs and digging his nails in as he bit back another cough. I could see the tears pool in the bottom of his eyes, the pain growing too much for him to bear. He turned his head slightly so I could not see him do it, his mouth inaudibly mumbling the words and his eyes shutting in relief.
“You should say it so I can hear,” I said. “It’s not like I haven’t heard it before. Just this morning if I remember right, Kinsley, how you ever thought you could lie after that is beyond me.”
“I am not playing this game,” he said, his face sinking even further down into my thigh as he recovered from his tryst with dishonesty. “You are going to leave me behind however you can and go home.”
“But you don’t want that, do you?” I asked, my hand once again moving to his ear, running the tip of my thumb against its scars. “You don’t want me to leave, do you? Tell me you do, Luka.”
I don’t think Luka had ever looked at me with more malice. He didn’t so much as bother to open his mouth, just looking at me like he coul
d have strangled me right there.
“Poor Kinsley,” I teased, “so utterly besotted with a mortal girl that he can’t even begin to lie to her.” His eyes closed in blatant contempt, obviously eager to find a way to prove me wrong but coming up short. “I love you too, sweetheart,” I grinned, every bit of pain and weariness leaving my body, the magic all but forgotten as he laid against me. “Run away with me,” I whispered, and his eyes darted up to mine in concern, “I’m serious.”
“I was too,” he said, not coughing or wincing in the slightest. “I meant it. You only assumed otherwise.” He hissed, rubbing the sensitive skin at the base of his throat and whispering, “I couldn’t have left your side anyway.”
“At the end of the week then, when no one is watching,” I said, running my thumb again and again across his scars. “We’ll find a way to run down to that city, and we’ll go. We’ll move and we’ll keep moving west until we hit the wall of Haldia or the border with Eige, and then we’ll sneak in and never look back. It won’t be fancy, there will be no manors or military pay for us, but I think we have just enough silver to get by.”
“And then what?” He asked hoarsely, his eyes shutting as he began to imagine it.
“And then we’ll be together,” I said, “and no one will ask what you are or who I am—People know so little about the country of Whynne that we likely wouldn’t ever have to explain what you are. We’ll sleep in a little bed together as far away from whatever town Lindy is from as possible, and we’ll slowly start to forget. About Whynne, about the Unseelie, about the King and Camden; as much as is possible.”
“Sounds wonderful,” he said, “but what of our families?”
“It is wonderful,” I agreed. “And, as long as we’re together, they’ll know that we’re happy. They’ll be alright. They’re higher-ranking Seelie from upper class families, no one would ever think to hurt them.”
“You paint a beautiful life, Wren,” he said. “I only imagined us alone. No other details. Just you and me. I promised to stay with you.”
I laughed, lowering my head to be closer to his, to take in his face. There were differences, of course, between him and the Unseelie in the woods—he was nowhere near perfect—but he was there, and he was mine. “I love you,” I repeated, memorizing the details.
“I love you too, Wren,” he said, his hand reaching out for me. “I’m thankful that you’ve finally allowed me to say it. Although, I wish I had not just made such a stupid mistake.”
He pulled me down, his hand lacing in my hair and bringing my face to his, a groan escaping him as his lips touched mine. My lips moved against his on their own accord, searching for more, wanting to devour. They were met with the same intensity as he lifted himself up, his elbows resting against my thighs as he pushed further against me, a small, indulgent groan escaping him as his hands gripped my face, his fingers pressing just above my jaw.
I surprised myself by echoing the motion in kind, a whimper escaping me as his teeth brushed my lip, his sharpened canine scraping it ever so slightly. My fingertips pressed into his skin, trying to keep him there as he pulled away, his eyes meeting mine.
Very exaggeratedly, he removed one of his hands from my face, pulling it up to his and giving a performative cough into it like he was lying. I snorted, rolling my eyes as I pulled him back in, stopping just short of his lips.
“You’ve won then, Kinsley,” I said sarcastically, “I am finally done with you. I hope it was worth all of the pain and suffering.”
He chuckled, leaning forward to claim my lips with his. “So much pain,” he said, cradling my chin, “but you’ll treat it for me, won’t you?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was far too easy to get lost in Luka.
He had something about him, a way of moving that was practically all consuming. Even with the both of us frail and broken in our own ways I could forget when I was with him, when he leaned forward and kissed my neck with such reverence that I felt almost holy. The sun could dive further and further down, sinking into the horizon, and all I would be able to think about was his eyes and how they watched me give into him, how they shined when pink blossomed across my cheeks as his fingers tugged at the hem of my tunic, never removing it but so desperately wanting to. The rules of high society still haunted us, even as we sat far away from the glittering lights of city life and the expectations that came with wealth and privilege.
Our positions changed as months of reservation were brushed aside, my body in his lap and his arms capturing my waist, pulling me down as his teeth assaulted my neck. “You want a fae mark, don’t you?” He asked, licking up the column of my throat. “I’ll give you another mark.”
“You’re supposed to make a deal,” I said, closing my eyes as the glorious pain began to set in.
“A thousand years of my servitude then,” he whispered, brushing my hair aside as he moved further up my neck, “in exchange for these short moments of your time.” He paused, nipping at the delicate skin beneath my ear, “or is that not enough?”
It wasn’t real, not a bargain or a promise, but it still made me shudder all the same. My head tilted back to allow him more access, my eyes closing as I gave into the fantasy, one in which he did mark me again, one in which he promised me himself. I felt his teeth bite down ever so slightly on my neck and gave a soft whimper, arching my body so that I was even closer to him, my chest rising and falling with his.
“Wren,” he whispered, his lips pressing against the mark. “Is that not enough?” He repeated, his hands caressing my back. “Should I swear more to you?”
“It depends on the boundaries of servitude,” I said, feeling his cheek brush against me as he settled his head on me, his nose pressed to the base of my neck. “Would you do whatever I wanted? Would you give in to me whenever I demanded?”
He smirked, pulling back yet staying so near to me that our noses touched. “The mark is already there.”
“Another one then,” I demanded, looping my arms around his neck. “That is my first command.”
“So compelling,” he mused, his hand gripping my chin and tilting it upwards. “Perhaps I’m the human, and you’re the dangerous Unseelie.” His teeth dug down, inciting an unholy noise from me as I gave into the sensation, my nails digging down into his neck.
Which is exactly when someone else chose to clear their throat.
“Hello there,” said Adam, and I was incredibly lucky that Luka managed to grab my arm, because I imagined that jerking back and smashing my head against the ground wouldn’t have been a great feeling. “So sorry to bother the two of you.”
The light was beginning to fade, but I could see the dark flush that coated Luka’s features as he looked at Adam. I imagine my face looked the same. Adam, however, looked unfazed.
“We weren’t doing anything,” I quickly lied, earning me a quirk of Adam’s eyebrow. Luka groaned, letting his head fall to my shoulder. I was not believable in the slightest.
“Right,” Adam said slowly as, realizing how visible my lie was, I slapped my hand over my neck, giving an awkward smile. The face of innocence, even if I could feel the throb of new bruises beginning to form under my hand. “Nice to see you two are alive and well.”
“I would not say that we are well anymore,” Luka muttered, pulling his head back from my shoulder to cast Adam a scowl. His arms loosened as I pulled away from him, grimacing as I settled at his side.
“Well, you could be worse,” said Adam. “And I suppose I am here to tell you that you will be worse, unfortunately.”
“I don’t think anything could be much worse than this,” Luka said, holding his head. “Except death, maybe.” That sounded about right.
“Well, that is on the table as always,” Adam shrugged, stooping down to look at the two of us. “I hope you know that while you two were out here doing god knows what, decisions have been made in there. Now, normally I would go along with it and agree, but as it is you, Wren—I have kind of a strong moral oblig
ation to tell you that right now, as you are, that the best idea would be to run.”
“What are you talking about,” I began, squinting at him. I couldn’t imagine what sort of conversation was going on in there that would result in Adam disobeying the King.
“What I am talking about,” Adam groaned. “Is an extremely ill thought out, harebrained scheme that will most definitely result in not only your death, but mine. And as I like living quite a lot, and would like to keep on doing it, I am asking you now to please, for my sake and your own, run. Because though I would like to believe that Theo has an ounce of kindness, I learned very quickly while your sister was nearly hand to throat with Mylene that he does not. At least, not while it concerns Camden.” He levelled with me, his hand touching the back of his neck, “and since I am not currently capable of running and not being found, I reiterate—Please run.”
But Luka was, of course, not convinced, instead crossing his arms and legs, looking pointedly up at Adam in that absolutely infuriating way of his. “And how do we know that this is not a scheme on your part? Perhaps a plot to capture us and impress the King so that he might grant you some sort of favor?” Adam rolled his eyes, grabbing Luka’s arm and yanking him to his feet. This, somehow, did even less to convince him.
“Fine,” said Adam. “Because you two are so stubborn,” he reached down to me, pulling me up by my arm as well. “I will go into painstaking detail here and say that what is going on is something that involves our dearest Wren, some stupid legend about the forest, and the fact that she has managed to make it out of the depths alive not once but twice.” He wrinkled his nose, “and now Theo and Camden are sitting side by side as everyone squabbles and talking about taking her,” he gestured to me, “and leading her back into the woods after nightfall as some kind of bait. An idea that I don’t quite agree with because, as we all very well know, it wants her.” A call started in the background, the awfully familiar voice of a man that I would have very much preferred not to see. Nikolas was looking for me already. “Oh, for god’s sake—” Adam snapped, looking over his shoulder.
Quill and Cobweb (The Chronicles of Whynne Book 2) Page 18
