No, not angry.
Furious.
Before I drop my palette, I set it down on top of the mahogany dresser, then perch my hands on my hips. Some of the paint smeared along the side of my right hand wipes off on my white shirt.
I don’t care.
“What’s wrong, Leannán?”
Is he fucking serious?
“Really? I don’t even know where to begin. And I told you before. It’s Elle.”
His eyebrows rise. “Ah. And I believe that I told you. I’ll call you by my name for you or your true name, should you choose to give it to me.”
Which we both know I won’t.
Whatever. “Do me a favor, okay? Stop thinking you know what’s best for me. I might just be a human, but that’s the thing. Humans aren’t perfect. They make mistakes. I’m not afraid to admit that. I can be vulnerable. I can trust, even if you want to tell me that I shouldn’t. I’m in Faerie now. I can’t go back. That’s the truth of it all. I don’t need you to make decisions for me. I’ll make my own, and if they’re mistakes, then those are mine to make, too. Got it?”
At the end of my heated rant, Rys looks so thoughtful that I wonder if my first mistake was demanding things of a fae who has no real tie to me anymore. And saying the word “favor” to one of his kind? Yeah… probably not my best idea.
But he doesn’t point that out. Instead, with a small nod, he says, “Very well. I’ll remember that in the future.”
Huh. That was easier than expected and, not gonna lie, it takes the wind out of my sails a bit. Then I realize what it was that he just said: I’ll remember that in the future. That’s not a direct statement or a promise that he’ll do better.
Of course not. But it’s the best I’m going to get out of the cocky, arrogant fae so I decide to drop it.
I shake my head. “Okay. Fine. Now, what about Jim?”
“What about him, Leannán?” he murmurs, putting enough of an accent on my nickname that it riles me up again.
I exhale roughly, blowing the air out of my nose. He’s so doing that on purpose. I know it, and I force myself to let that go, too.
Through gritted teeth, I ask, “Can you send him back?”
“I could arrange for it. He’s free to go whenever he likes. But tell me this: would he leave without you?”
We both know the answer to that. Even though I’ve known Jim for more than a decade and Rys has barely met him, it’s obvious. Now that he’s here, he’s not going anywhere without me.
And, like I already reminded Rys, I can’t leave.
Throwing my hands up, I walk away from him. I’ve had enough.
But Rys isn’t done.
“I went to see Oberon.”
He did? Spinning on my heels, I pin him with a suspicious glare. He doesn’t seem the least bit fazed by it. Uh oh. What did he do? “When?”
“While Saxon was here.”
Huh. I should’ve known better. Since Rys has spent the last week prepping us for the peace-keeping mission into the Unseelie Court, I should’ve known that the “meet” he couldn’t miss would have something to do with that.
I guess I just never expected him to run off and see the king of the Seelie Court without me.
“Yeah? Well, what did he say?”
“He refuses to release you from this trial. For some reason, he’s insisting that we’ll fail without you there.”
Oof. That? That stung. I know Rys doesn’t want me to go—he told the Summer King as much when Oberon first gave us this mission, along with a woman known as the Shadow and her Unseelie mate—but I figured, by now, he would’ve gotten used to the idea.
Guess not.
And why does he have to sound like he thinks Oberon is full of shit? Like I’ll only screw things up?
“It’s a good thing he said so, ‘cause I’m still going.”
Well, as soon as the mated couple finally get their butts back here and we can get started.
“What about your…” Rys hesitates for the slightest moment, almost as if searching for the right term. He won’t say mate, I know he won’t, and he told me once that boyfriend was a human term; heaven forbid he do anything that would make him seem like a human. No surprise then when Rys settles on simply saying, “him?”
What about Jim?
“Good question.”
Too bad I don’t have the answer to it just yet.
3
I barely sleep that night.
After Rys leaves me to my painting, I find that it doesn’t hold my interest the way that it did before he came to see me. Before he left, he conjured one of his pink apples from the tree out front, leaving it on my dresser for me. It’s a peace offering as much as it’s an unspoken command. I need to eat, and not only because it’s been hours since I have. Thanks to my addiction to faerie fruit, if I go too long without some, I get super sick. The pain is fucking terrible. I’d only spite myself if I ignored his gift.
I eat the apple. I’m not happy about it, but I eat it anyway.
It’s easier to try to sleep now that I know Jim’s been dusted. It gives me some time to figure out how I want to handle this. I know I’m going to have to be honest with him eventually, but I’m not ready yet. And it wouldn’t be fair to dump him on the spot after he came all the way to Faerie because he thought I needed him.
At least, that’s what I tell myself. Too bad my guilty conscience is calling bullshit.
Somewhere around the middle of the night, I begin to regret not taking Rys up on his offer to dust me, too. I doze on and off, bad dreams ripping me out of the little bit of sleep I get. It isn’t long before I just give up on it and decide to get this over with.
I can’t avoid him forever, even if I really, really want to.
So, instead of heading down to breakfast, I call for Lolly and ask the brownie if she can lead me to Jim’s room. I know Rys gave him one on the ground floor and, though I’ve been staying here long enough that I should know, I’m not sure which one is Jim’s.
I think Rys must have warned Lolly that I’d try to skip out on breakfast. Before she agrees, the friendly, furry domestic fairy makes me sit down and eat a fritter she prepared with some of Rys’s apples.
I choke it down under her watchful eye, smiling weakly when I’m done.
It’s not Lolly’s fault. Like everything she cooks for us, the fritter was absolutely delicious. Nope. It’s having to eat breakfast all alone that makes it rough. Even though I got up earlier than I usually do, Lolly tells me that Rys has already gone out again.
Probably to ask for another audience with the Summer King.
Freaking wonderful.
After I’m done eating, there’s no excuse. Lolly whisks my empty plate away, then comes back to lead me right to Jim’s room; the manor is large enough, twisty enough, that my shitty sense of direction means I can—and have—gotten lost inside of it. Unless I’m imagining it, Rys shoved Jim in the most out of the way room in his whole house.
I’m… probably not imagining it.
Okay. Well, here goes nothing.
I take a deep breath, let out a shaky sigh, and rap my knuckles against the closed door. “Jim? You awake in there?”
“Hel?” The familiar gruff voice I’ve known for so long calls out my name. My real name. “Is that you?”
Guess that’s a yes.
“Can I come in?”
“The door’s open.” Jim pauses for a second. “I think. I… wasn’t sure if I was supposed to leave. Your friend said not to and, you know, I didn’t think I should piss him off.”
Your friend… he probably means Rys. And if there’s one thing I can say about Jim, it’s that his instincts are usually pretty spot on. It’s like the time our former neighbor, Cameron, tried to lure me into his apartment. Sure, Jim beat the snot out of him when I screamed for help, but he always pulled the “I told you so” crap for a long time afterward. And he did. He told me he thought there was something up with that guy.
Great. I can only
imagine what his first impression of my scarred Seelie is. Considering he recognized that Rys—despite looking like an angel—is dangerous, I’ve got to wonder how he’s taking this all in stride. I would’ve thought that discovering that Faerie and the fae and magic were all real would’ve knocked him completely sideways.
It did for me, and I was raised on stories about this place.
Welp. Let’s see how he reacts to this.
The door turns easily under my hand. Okay. Not locked. Pushing it in, I swallow back my sudden nerves, tell myself again that this is Jim, and enter his room.
It’s a touch smaller than the one Rys gave me, though it’s set-up pretty much the same. I see a taller, more narrow dresser, a shower box like mine, and a massive bed taking up the middle of the room. There’s no sheer canopy surrounding it, no posts, though the bedding is the same white and gold theme as most of the house.
Jim was sitting on “his” side of the bed when I walk into the room. He’s still wearing the same clothes—faded blue and green flannel, worn jeans, and work boots—that he had on yesterday. They’re rumpled, like he slept in them, and then I remember the gold dust. Of course he slept in them.
Duh, Hel.
His dark brown eyes light up when he sees me. “Babe, you gotta feel this bed. It’s so damn soft. I don’t know if I’ve ever gotten such a good night’s sleep before.”
Yeah. That would be courtesy of Rys’s glittering, knock-out dust.
But I can’t tell Jim that. So, only delaying the inevitable, I shuffle my way toward his bed, purposely approaching the foot of it instead of the side where Jim’s standing now. I lay the flat of my palm on the corner of the mattress. “That’s nice.”
“I know, right? And that shower stall? It’s better than any hotel.”
A wistful smile tugs at my lips. How long has it been since I’ve seen Jim so excited?
“It was a shock when I first landed here,” I admit. “There’s a few perks to being in Faerie. The fancy shower box is definitely one of them.”
“Faerie… I didn’t quite believe that guy—you know, Saxon? When he told me that you got stuck here and that you needed me, I didn’t know what to believe. But it’s true, isn’t it?”
“The fae can’t lie. Doesn’t mean they always tell the truth,” I warn him, “but if you can pin one of them down, they can’t lie.”
“Yeah, I mean, obviously. ‘Cause here you are. Shit, Hel, you took ten years off my life with that disappearing stunt. A whole day and I couldn’t find you. I was this close to calling your folks when Saxon showed up.”
My parents… so they still don’t know that I’m gone?
I’m not sure how I feel about that. For me, it’s been more than two months. Sixty-one days to be exact. I grieved and I mourned and I had finally accepted that I would never see them or Jim again when… yeah. Now I have Jim, but my parents probably think that everything’s fine with me.
How long before time catches up to me and they get worried? With Jim with me in Faerie, who will tell them what happened to me?
And why do I automatically assume that Jim’s also going to end up stuck here in Faerie?
Jim immediately can tell that something’s not right. He drops the accusatory tone, gentling his voice as he says, “Helen... you okay?”
First Rys, now Jim. I gotta make a better effort not to let these two know I’m spiraling as hard as I am.
“Yeah. I mean, I’m doing the best I can. But that reminds me… I really need you to stop calling me that.”
“Calling you what? Your name?”
I nod. “You haven’t been here long enough. You don’t know… in Faerie? If someone gets a hold of your name—if you give it to them yourself—you’re basically turning it into a magic word. They can control you with it.”
“You’re kidding me.”
I wish I was.
“The two fae you’ve already met know you’re Jim. It’s okay. Don’t tell them you’re James Fuentes. Not even James. If they hear you say your name, if you tell them, you’re completely fucked. I mean it.”
“Wait… is that why Saxon called you ‘Hel’? I thought it was weird, like he was being too familiar with you.” Jim pauses for a second. And then, almost too casually… “There’s not… I mean, you two—”
I blink. “Are you asking me if something’s going on with me and Saxon?”
“I’m an ass. Forget I said anything.”
I wish I could. But if Jim already thinks something’s up with me and Saxon, how long before he realizes that his instincts really are spot on—but he has the wrong Seelie?
I downplay it. Hard. “Jim. How could you even think that?”
“I know. I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s just… I thought it was weird he called you ‘Hel’.”
“He’s not, though. That’s what I was trying to tell you. In Faerie, I go by ‘Elle’. No one knows my true name except for you. I’ve learned to guard it fiercely. The alternative… just—” I shake my head. I don’t want to think about what Veron or Dusk could’ve made me do if they knew my true name. “Promise me, Jimmy.”
“Hel—” At my look, he hurriedly changes it to, “Elle.” He nods. “Okay. I get it. It might take me a minute, but I’ll do it.”
“I need you to promise anyway. Please? Humor me.”
It’s not the first time I’ve said that to him. During our ten years together, I’ve probably begged him to humor me a hundred times at least.
And, what a surprise, his answer is as dismissive as it always was.
I guess some things never change.
“It’ll be fine. It’s not like I’m going to be here long enough to screw this up. Though I’ve got to say, you know a hell of a lot for only being here a day longer than me.”
“Two months,” I blurt out. Seriously. It just slips right out.
I had wanted to be a little more smooth about it. Yeah. That didn’t happen.
Jim’s mouth opens slightly. “What?”
“I’ve been in Faerie for two months. It’s been that long since I got lost in the park by our apartment. There was this ring of mushrooms,” I explain, “and I thought it was a joke, right? A fairy circle… it wasn’t supposed to be real. Well, it is. I ended up in Faerie two months ago. That’s how long it’s been for me.”
“So that’s what happened?”
“Yes.”
“It was an accident? Really?”
I nod.
“Actually, that sounds like something you’d do.” Jim chuckles. He freaking chuckles. “Impulsive as ever.”
Why isn’t he taking me seriously? “I’m not kidding. This is serious. You don’t know… you don’t know what I’ve been through. I need you to promise me. Don’t use my name. Don’t use yours, either. Can you promise me that?”
I think he finally realizes that I’m dead-ass serious. “Hey. Alright. Yeah. I promise.”
I exhale softly. “Thank you.” It’s okay to say that to Jim. He’s human… and that’s something the Helen he knew never would’ve had to think about.
But I’ve changed. I’ve changed a lot, and here’s Jim, looking exactly as he did the last time I saw him.
As if he can sense the way my mood goes dark, Jim looks at me. He really looks at me, much closer this time. His brow furrows, his lips turning down in a deep frown.
Hey. I did want him to take me seriously.
“Wow.” Jim whistles. “Two months, huh?”
“More than that now, but yeah.”
“It was only just the one day for me, I swear.”
He sounds so dismayed all of a sudden, I feel even worse. I didn’t think that was possible.
“I know. Faerie… it’s different here.”
“No shit.”
“I counted every day,” I tell him. It’s like I have this urge to prove I’m being honest—about this much, at least. “First thing when I woke up, I added another day to my total. I… I never wanted to lose track. I wanted to remember every d
ay, to know how long I was missing so that I could try to explain when I…” My voice cracks, but I force myself to finish my sentence, “ ...when I finally got to go home again.”
“Saxon said you needed me to go to you. Well, I’m here now. We can go back together.”
Wait a minute… he doesn’t know, does he? I thought that Saxon explained that part to Jim. I thought he told him that I needed him to come to Faerie because I couldn’t go back.
One look at the earnest expression on Jim’s face and I know I’m wrong.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
I blink. “Are you telling me that you don’t... that no one’s told you…”
Earnest becomes utterly confused. “Told me what?”
If he doesn’t know…
No, no, no—
“What have you been eating?” Not that I expect Rys would do it on purpose, but what about Lolly? The brownie is used to feeding me and all I eat is faerie fruit. “An apple? Peaches? A pear?”
He laughs. I’m on the verge of panicking, and Jim freaking laughs. “Hey, Hel. Calm down. I haven’t had anything yet. I was just wondering if I could maybe get a bite to eat when you knocked on the door.”
“Oh, thank God. Whatever you do, don’t eat anything unless me or Rys tell you that it’s safe.”
“Let me guess.” He’s definitely back to teasing me. “Another promise?”
“I want you to be safe,” I say. So I’m being defensive. Sue me. And, since I’m feeling like my back’s up against the wall, I figure I might as well go for broke. “There’s one more.”
“Lay it on me, babe.”
“No touching.”
“Huh?”
“I know how weird that sounds, but it’s true. Listen. The fae… they’re different than you and me. They have this magic, sure, and they rule Faerie, but there’s a reason why they waste their time with humans like us. You see…” How to explain this? “There’s power in a touch, okay? They can, I don’t know, steal part of your soul—”
“Like a vampire?”
And… he’s still teasing. “No. And they’re not really leeches, either. But there’s power in a touch, and if you give them permission, the only one who’ll have any power is the fae. Trust me, they don’t need anymore.”
Freed: A Supernatural Prison Romance (Imprisoned by the Fae Book 3) Page 3
