“No. I thought it was, but I’m still alive. That’s not possible.”
I do my best to give him a quick explanation of just how he escaped an early death. He’s quiet through it all, but I can tell he’s going to have questions aplenty. “You’re really okay?”
Des angles his chin in my direction. “I’m not sure. I’m too numb to tell. I’m alive, though. I think that’s the important part.”
My father’s cry of pain sends a lance straight through my heart. I don’t know what I want. For him to not be in pain? For him to be in lots of pain? For him to die? For him to be imprisoned? My fingers curl in my hair, gripping while I bite my lip through his scream of agony that I’m sure will never go away. That there are no good options feels like a condemnation I don’t want to believe is possible.
“Don’t look,” Des instructs. “Easy, easy.”
“I’m my father’s daughter!” I whisper, though it feels like a scream. “I’m a murderer!”
Des’ eyes don’t condemn me as he keeps his spine pressed to the grass. He looks on me with compassion I don’t have the grace to grant myself. “Come rest a while. It’s been a long one, yeah?”
Des uses the hand I’m holding to pull me down to lie next to him. I curl into his uninjured side and let myself go, weeping into his cheek too many years of loneliness. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner! You deserve to know who you’re marrying, and I didn’t tell you!”
Des turns his head so he can kiss my wet nose. “I married you the very first night we met. There wasn’t much time for conversations and confession. I wager there’ll be plenty more surprises ahead of us. I’m not mad. I get it.”
A loud sob bursts from me as I drape my arm over his chest. “You’re not leaving me?”
Of all things, Des chuckles. “Of course not. I’ve killed a few shifters, and it wasn’t on accident. It was self-defense, granted, but I don’t think any of us have clean hands at this point.”
I kiss his cheek over and over, finding flashes of relief in the midst of my distress. Maybe the worst isn’t going to happen. The thing I feared most doesn’t seem to want to find me. Maybe life will give me a break after all.
Maybe I did find myself some very good men.
Lexi calls to the scared fae who’ve hung back. “It’s time to move, people. There’s a village nearby where we can get you some help. If any of you needs to come to the palace while you figure things out, our guest lodging is open to you. But first things first. The nearest village has agreed to take you all in and help you locate your loved ones. We’ll march north. Are you all ready for that?”
They nod eagerly and file past us, most of them shuddering at the sight of a fae woman in a vampire’s arms in the grass. I don’t care what they think, and I’m not planning on moving from this spot any time soon. Des doesn’t condemn me, though there are plenty of stones to throw. We do our best to ignore them while we cuddle in the grass together. He needs a little more recovery time before he can be expected to stand.
Des holds me with one arm as they file past us, his lips pressed to my forehead while Salem and Lexi finish bandaging and tying up my father. When it’s time to get up and move, I see Salem’s filled my father’s mouth with his dirty sock, and then used his belt to trap it there. I don’t know why I find that funny. As an inaudible snigger slips through my lips, I wonder if maybe I’ve hit some sort of tipping point with my sanity.
Des struggles to sit up, his eyebrows bunching together as he turns his chin toward his injured shoulder. “Odd. I can’t feel my right arm. I can’t move it from the shoulder down. That’ll go away, yeah?”
I want to tell him something reassuring, but honestly, I have no idea. I don’t think they’ll tolerate lies at this point, even if they’re the sweet sort of fibs. “I don’t know. I’ve never healed a vampire from a silver infection before. I didn’t even know it would work. Maybe you should see a healer, and they can tell you better.”
Des nods, though I can see he’s disconcerted as Lexi pulls him to his feet.
“I need a minute before we get going,” Lexi tells us as the last of the fae pass us and start on their journey. He’s not looking at me, which starts my stomach churning all over again. “General Klein is secured?”
Salem’s eyes scan the abandoned field for signs of life. “Aye. Can they get to the village without us leading them?”
Lexi folds his hands over his chest like he’s bracing himself from the weather, his shoulders hunched in and his legs shoulder-width apart, like he means business. “Yeah. One of the women is from that village, so she’s going to lead the way.” He still isn’t looking at me. “This thing you can do, this secret poisoning ability you have?” He shakes his head. “I can’t. Salem and Des didn’t know you back then. It makes sense that you didn’t tell them right away. But you know me. And you had time to come clean. You should’ve told me before we got married.”
My whole being stops all movement as the blood drains from my face. “You’re right. I was scared you wouldn’t want to be with me.”
“Well, maybe I should’ve been able to make that choice. Now it’s too late. I’m stuck in this marriage.”
His words punch me in the gut. It’s the thing I feared most, and it’s crashing atop me in waves too terrible to seem real.
But it is real. Lexi won’t even look at me.
He shakes his head, his eyes fixed on the space of grass between us. It’s only a few feet, but it feels like a prairie of distance. “You trapped me. Waited until we were legally bound and then sprang this on me. What am I supposed to do now, Lilya? I can’t exactly divorce you after making a big public spectacle of our relationship. And it’s not just Faveda that’s looking at our marriage. The whole of all three territories needs this to happen if we’re ever going to unite. You trapped me!”
Lilya. He called me Lilya. He never calls me that. That’s my name when I’m in trouble. I’m his Lily-girl. “I didn’t mean to do that to you.”
Des scoffs. “Are you having a laugh with this? Alex, you’re being a prize idiot. She was eight years old.”
Lexi points at me but still won’t look in my direction. “But she’s grown now, and should’ve told me I’m getting into bed with someone capable of murdering a roomful of children!”
He’s not wrong, but his words have grown a fist and punched me in the sternum. I stumble back at the force of his fury. They’re all true, these condemnations I put on myself. But hearing them come from his mouth, they sound cruel and unjust.
“Enough!” Salem’s chest barrels as he moves to my side. He and Des flank me, but I don’t want that. I want Lexi to be on this side too, not standing across from us with a tightness to his jaw that might never come undone. “She’s not going around poisoning people now. I bet she hasn’t done anything like tha since then.”
“I poisoned the Gorgonell,” I admit, though they already know as much. “And at the pub, I give patrons bits of a plant that makes them throw up when they’ve drunk too much and I’m worried they’ll die. And I already confessed I use eevana in the ugly cookies. I do use my magic. But I don’t go around killing people now.”
“Now,” Lexi scoffs. “Do you hear yourself? I was never the same after you died. None of those families who lost someone that day were the same. Don’t you get that? You’ve gone from victim to murderer! I can’t even look at you, I’m so mad.”
“Prison,” I suggest, my voice coming out hollow as my mouth goes dry. “I killed all those children. If it helps those families, I can go to jail.”
“Stop it!” Des shouts. “This is enough. You’re not going to jail for something you had no control over when you were a child!”
Lexi finally looks at me, but my whole body withers under the hatred laced in his glare. Never has he ever looked at me that way before. “Convenient, you offering now. You know very well children aren’t tried for capital crimes.” He shakes his head at me, as if I planned this whole series of events. “And if you
become a criminal in their eyes now, no way will they unify under your rule. I have no choice! We have to stay married and you have to keep your secret. Any window for confession to the nation closed the minute you stood to inherit the throne with me. They have to trust you if they’re going to follow us toward unification.” His accusation shoots out like a well-aimed arrow through my heart. “You planned this!”
This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening!
Salem snarls at Lexi, and I hate the sound. I don’t want them fighting. “How? How was she supposed to confess to the crime when she was a wee lass? To whom? Her da? She did tha, ye pile of shite, and she was dropped off in Jacoba for it. She barely made it alive to Neutral Territory. She served her time, as far as I’m concerned. And don’t forget tha we’re the ones who came to her with our plan. This was our idea, and she went along with it. Don’t let your gob run away with ye and rewrite the facts.”
Lexi shakes his head, his gaze returning to the grass. “I can’t do this. We’ll stay married in name only. Everyone knows you’re duty-bound to Drexdenberg and Jacoba as well, so it won’t make them suspect we’re through when you’re gone. But you have to go, Lilya. I can’t live with someone who would lie to me for that long.”
My whole being crumples in on itself, and my knees go out from under me. I drop to the grass, my face in my hands. Apologies spill from my lips, but I know there’s nothing I can do. Lexi is through with me.
Alexavier. Prince Alexavier is through with me.
I don’t see the punch, but the fist on flesh hits my ears and jerks my head up. “Salem, no! You love him!”
Salem shakes out his fist, his eyes murderous as Alexavier spits a mouthful of blood at the grass between us. “I love ye, Lily,” Salem corrects me. “I know how you’ll carry his blame around with ye. I know what it’s going to do to ye, and so does Alex. He knows, and he’s being like this anyway. Well, he can carry on by himself. Let the dead Gorgonell ye saved him from do all the listening.”
“No!” My scream hurts my throat, but I can’t be quiet about this. “Throwing me away is one thing. I deserve it, but you three can’t throw each other away! You love him! You can’t hurt him.”
Salem grabs Alexavier by the collar and jerks him in the direction of the village. “Go be perfect elsewhere.”
Des’ eyes are wet, but he nods, confirming that Alexavier needs to leave. “Goodbye, brother.”
I can’t watch him go. I don’t have it in me. He was taken from me when I was little, but now he’s walking away on his own. He wants to leave me. I’m not his Lily-girl, and he is not my prince.
Salem kneels in my eyeline, lifting my chin with a touch so gentle, I never would’ve believed him capable of punching anyone. “He’s having a bad day. Tha’s all this is. He’ll come back when he’s done licking his wounds. Until then, we’re leaving this place.”
Des winces as he helps me up with his left hand. His right arm and shoulder are still motionless. “I’m tired of the fae. We can go back to Drexdenberg or we can go to Jacoba. I don’t care which. I need to find a healer, and I’m good to go wherever.”
Salem nods as he watches Des fold me into his side. My husband’s arm is around my back while I sob quietly into Des’ collar. “Are ye sure ye don’t need to be in Drexdenberg? You’ve been away for a while.”
Des is resolute. “I’m not leaving my wife. Not after all she’s been through. I’m not cruel enough to send her into Jacoba without me, where she was dumped and scarred when she was still a kid.” His words are a dig at Alexavier, and even though Des didn’t throw a punch, it’s clear he’s just as livid at the separation. Des kisses my forehead, and I swell with love for this great man I know I don’t deserve. “It’s going to be okay, blue eyes.”
I’m shaking so badly; I don’t know how my feet find their way forward. Des’ arm doesn’t move from around my back as we walk. Though he’s the one who almost just died, he’s more concerned with my internal injuries.
Salem hoists up the General, making sure to keep my father on a tether behind us, so I don’t have to look at the man who hates me. Though General Klein is bound and gagged, I feel his presence. Each rustle of grass his boots make as they drag sets my nerves on edge.
“One foot in front of the other,” Des says as he kisses my temple. “Sometimes we don’t know the whole journey, only one step at a time. See our feet?”
I glance down and notice that he’s measured his longer strides to fit mine. “Yes.”
“We’ll get there together, yeah? Wherever we land, we’ll get there together.”
It’s a small slice of solace, but I cling to the promise that the unknown won’t always be this difficult. Des is with me, and so is Salem. And wherever they are in the world, Fiora and Ronin are in this with me, too. Though, Ronin doesn’t know my secret, so I may only have this span of time before he finds out all I’ve done. Still, I’ll take it. I’ll scoop up the moments where I have four whole people in my life and hold them tight in my heart.
The journey to Jacoba is long, and will take many days, but the road ahead to uniting the territories is far longer.
“One step at a time,” Des reminds me, his good arm bracing me and giving my side a squeeze.
So I take one weighted step toward the new way of the world.
Without Prince Alexavier.
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One.
Two Pinpricks
Salem
Traveling like this is the worst. Forget the fact tha we’ve got the handicap of a vampire with us, who can only travel by night. Push aside tha Des is moving at half his normal speed, due to recovering from the immense blood loss from his silver injury. Forget tha we’re traveling with the bound and conked out General Klein—a decorated and trusted arsehole who tried to kill Des, Alex, me, a whole slew of fae, and his own daughter. Ignore tha half of our party are not welcome in fae territory. It’s the silence tha’s killing me. All tha other stuff I could figure out, but Lily’s lips haven’t opened since Alex decided he couldn’t live with her deadly abilities. I’m not sure if the tipping point for him was tha she kept it from us for so long, or if it’s tha she can only produce plants tha harm or kill. Either way, I never thought I’d see Alex take himself out of the equation. Whenever Lily’s around him, he brightens and softens and does all the things a lad in love does.
He’ll come around.
“I can’t,” Des admits, holding up his left hand for us to stop. “I have to sit down.”
“We’ve only been walking two hours. We have to make the most of the moonlight,” I remind him. It’s not like Des to ask for a break, so I know he’s more injured than he’s let on.
His breath comes out shallow, but his accent is perfectly proper, like always. “I lost too much blood. I’m not… I hate to be the one to bring up the fact that I’m a vampire, but, well, I’m a vampire, and I can’t go this long fresh off an injury without blood to get me through. I don’t know where to stop to refuel in this part of the world. I didn’t pack extra blood because I was planning on us going back to the fae palace after I unlocked the gate to the Stone Graveyard and let you all out.”
I tighten the reins of the horse I’m walking. The poor brown beast has the snoozing General Klein draped over its back. Lily bloomed a flower to keep him dozing, and tucked it in his lapel. “I can’t even guess at where we might be able to get ye some filtered blood in fae territory.”
Des swipes his left arm across his forehead to mop up the sweat. Faveda is tropical, but Des’ perspiration doesn’t look like it’s from heat. He’s fighting an infection. And losing. His right arm still hasn’t been able to move, and it’s been two days since we set off from the Stone Graveyard where we’d been trapped. We were trying to heal Faveda, and succeeded in ridding the land of the Gorgonell tha’s been turning their people to stone. One would think tha would grant us a parade or
at least a carriage to safe lodging, but tha’s not how it’s shaking out for us.
Good riddance.
Lily’s been so silent tha her presence seems to fade into the background, though because we’re mated, I’m still aware of every breath she takes. She’s in agony, losing Alex to his anger, and there’s no talking her out of punishing herself. She’s not ready to speak yet, but she glides over to Des, who’s given up on standing.
I have no idea what to do for him, other than keep him moving. “Let’s go. The longer it takes for us to reach shelter, the worse this is going to get.”
Des glowers up at me.
I’m not wrong. I mean, it’s not like it’s going to get easier for him to travel when there’s even less blood in his belly eight hours from now. “I’m already at worse, Salem. Vampires can’t live as long without blood as you all can go without food. And I’m coming off a silver injury, which no vampire’s ever survived. I’m telling you, I’m desperate to drink, or I’m as good as dead out here.”
I tilt my face skyward, asking the stars for any kind of guidance. Anything at all. “What do ye want me to do?”
Lily kneels in front of Des and tugs at her shirt collar, her eyes down and to the side as she offers him…
My stomach tightens in warning as Des’ eyes soften. “I can’t drink from you, blue eyes. The blood vampires drink has to be filtered. You know how it goes, yeah? Vampires drink filtered fae blood just fine, but not directly from the fae. In a pinch, I can drink directly from another vampire, but it looks like I’m the only one of me in fae territory.” When Lily offers her neck again, Des places his hand on hers. “I’ll only get sicker if I drink from someone who’s got Green Lightning in their system. All fae are guarded against direct vampire feedings when they take Green Lightning. It was a nice thought, though.”
She shakes her head, tugging at her collar again in offering.
Wicked Prince: Book Two in the Territorial Mates Series Page 19
