by Juniper King
“But you still could have said my father sent you. You didn’t have to save me just because I was a curiosity. That still doesn’t explain things…”
The faintest smirk appeared on his lips. “Do I really have to spell it out for you? You became more than just a job.”
“What? But… I wasn’t even polite to you guys.” There was no reason for them to have felt any kind of affinity towards me at that point.
“You didn’t have to be, and at that point we didn’t really deserve it. When I saw you playing with those little kids, only to see that woman harass you just a few hours later…” It seemed as though he had more he wanted to say but decided to swallow it down instead. “We agreed not to tell you anything about your father because we knew it had to be a lie. We didn’t want to get your hopes up or play into their hands. And we didn’t tell you about your demonic ancestry because by the time we’d truly figured it out you were already in a state of mourning. We didn’t know how you would react, and we didn’t want to traumatize you any further.
“I’m sorry about the fire, I really am. It was all I could think of on such short notice, and I didn’t want you to feel like you were being kidnapped. Like I said earlier, I thought if you were desperate enough, if you had nothing else, then you could come to rely on us. God’s, it sounds terrible when you say it out loud,” he breathed out a laugh. “I didn’t expect you to be so…”
“Heartbroken?” I twisted the sheet in my hands, at a complete loss for what to say. I resented their protection when I thought they were just being incessant and overbearing, but they really did it for my benefit, even if they were a little misguided. “I understand that the night of… the attack… was hectic. But why didn’t you tell me all this from the start? In the forest, after the fire? Why did you keep it from me and let me hear it from someone else?” My voice came out smaller than I had hoped.
“Will you tell me the truth?”
I was taken aback by his sudden question. “Of course.” When had I not been honest with them?
“Would you have believed us?” Aksel asked gently. “That we were two mercenaries who had a change of heart? Would you have followed two strange men to only gods know where?”
I hung my head. I’d barely trusted them when I’d thought they were womanizing weapons merchants, let alone mercs paid to find me. If I’d known they had planned to take me from the beginning… there was no way I would have gone anywhere with them of my own volition, I would have run right back to Woodburne. And Aksel had known that from the start.
“Once we met you,” Aksel started slowly, “got to know you a little bit, we were going to leave you alone, I swear. We didn’t want to get you mixed up in all this—bounty hunters and daemons. We were thinking of ways to keep your father from coming after you again when Ilane showed up.
“At that point we knew we had to get you out, and you couldn’t go back, until this was over. And the way to keep you safest was by keeping you with us. We felt it would be best if you knew as little as possible to keep you safer. I made a decision, it may not have been the best decision, but we had little time, and even fewer options.”
My fingers clenched around the blankets in my lap. If it wasn’t Aksel and Ayre who’d gotten to me first, someone else would have. Someone who only cared about my value in gold.
The fire itself had been started by the flereous, who in turn had been sent by Ilane. They had been the cause of Branek’s death, but no one had actually been harmed from Aksel’s illusion.
They’d risked their own safety for me, fighting Ilane and battling flereous to get me out of a burning building. Aksel had come to Finfolkaheem to save me when he could have abandoned me after I said all of those horrible things about him.
“You were wrong, Aksel.”
“I know. I know apologies aren’t enough, and if I could take it back—”
“Not that.” A moment of silence passed between us. “You’re not a monster. And you’re not heartless.” I watched the tiny flame of the lamp in between us flicker. “You’re impulsive and high-handed and arrogant.” I looked up to see a look of dejection on his face. After a moment I grinned at him and his dejection morphed from brief confusion into a sheepish smirk. “But you’re also protective and compassionate when the mood strikes you. You’re not a monster.”
He huffed a small laugh, “I’ll take it.”
21
“How about this one?” I pointed to a leafy plant growing near the base of a tree.
Ayre hovered over my shoulder. “Well, my dear, if you were to eat that, you could get a rash inside your mouth, destroy your digestive tract, or your throat could close up and you would suffer a pretty unpleasant death, so I wouldn’t recommend it.”
I retracted my hand as if the plant had jumped up to bite me, feeling a slight twinge of embarrassment at Ayre’s melodious chuckle coming from behind me.
Scavenging for dinner was an interesting experience, to say the least. If nothing else, it was a nice change of pace. Aksel hadn’t let me help with anything over the last two days, wanting me instead to rest and make sure I was fully healed. But there was only so long I could stay in an uncomfortable bed roll on the forest floor.
I had argued with him for a full fifteen minutes yesterday just to let me wash up—by myself—in the nearby river. I understood his apprehension, though, after everything that had happened, he didn’t want to let me out of his sight. Still, that didn’t make it any less annoying and overbearing. And I wasn’t an invalid. In fact, I was feeling fine. So when Ayre offered to teach me how to scavenge for food, I’d jumped at the chance. He must have sensed I was going a little stir crazy.
“Here,” Ayre pointed over to a dead tree trunk a few feet beside where I was crouching. “Polyporus squamosus. Fungi. Edible and very common. Humans sometimes call it ‘Dryads saddle’.”
A group of the fungi were growing out of the bottom of the tree trunk. I plucked a few off the tree and added them to our tote bag, already filled with some edible plants and herbs.
“If you were ever out on your own, I wouldn’t recommend picking any mushrooms unless you’re one hundred percent sure they’re edible,” Ayre continued. I still wasn’t used to his ‘teacher voice’. “Many are poisonous and can either make you sick or kill you. You might have a bit more of an endurance because of your daemon blood, but I wouldn’t want to test that theory, since humans are pretty susceptible to poisons.”
“How about I just don’t eat things off the forest floor unless you’re with me to supervise.”
He shrugged. “It’s a good thing to know. Herbs can be used for a lot more than food, in a pinch they can even be used in treating minor wounds if I’m not around.”
He peeked in the bag hanging off my shoulder. “That should be enough. If Aksel caught a couple fish, that’s a good dinner,” he said with a satisfied smile.
I stood up and dusted off the knees of my jeans, when Ayre suddenly wrapped my shoulders in a hug from behind. “Ayre?”
He breathed out a deep sigh sending a few loose strands of hair tickling across my face. “I’m just relieved,” he explained, “Things were tough when you were gone. Who would have thought one little human could have gotten so far under our skin?” His hug grew a little tighter, and though I couldn’t see it, I could almost feel the gravity of his grin. I reached up and grabbed his forearms with both hands in a kind of strange backwards hug. We stayed like that for a few seconds.
“Are you really doing okay, though?” I turned around in his arms when I heard the concern in his voice. He loosened his hold enough that I could turn to face him, but he didn’t seem to want to release me yet. “You seem a lot better than when you first woke up, but I still see you spacing out from time to time. I’ve been wanting to ask you without Aksel around. You seem to be coming back to your old self, but I was worried you might have just been pretending to keep him from worrying.”
“I’m okay,” I answered as an automatic response, but that wasn
’t quite true. What I had been through had been agonizing, mentally and physically, but being back with Aksel and Ayre, I could almost pretend it had never happened. Like it was a nightmare; something that couldn’t hurt me anymore. Raen was dead, I had killed him myself and he had deserved it. Now he couldn’t hurt me or any other woman ever again. “I will be okay, especially with you guys here with me.”
He flashed me one of his brightest smiles before surprising me with a quick kiss on my forehead, his warm lips sending a flutter through my stomach, just like what had been happening since we’d first met. Who would have thought this perverse satyr would become one of my closest friends?
A sudden rustling in the bush caught our attention. Ayre went on guard immediately, spinning me around and placing himself between me and the sound, a knife quickly appearing in his clenched hand.
“Oh, shoot, not again,” came a distant female voice.
Ayre and I looked at each other before moving through the bushes towards the voice. Slowly edging around the trunk of a large redwood, we saw a young woman trying to tug her long skirt free from the scraggly branches of a bush.
Ayre and I shared another look before he sheathed his knife, though he didn’t fully relax his posture. What was a young woman doing out in the middle of the forest alone?
She flipped her short brown hair out of her face in annoyance and I caught a glimpse of her features. My eyebrows climbed up my forehead. “Sera?”
She startled, catching my eye as she looked up. Relief blossomed on her face. “Oh, it’s you—Selynna, right? You startled me, I wasn’t expecting to meet anyone else out here,” she said with a chuckle.
“Sel?” I looked up to see Ayre staring down at me with a raised eyebrow.
“This is Sera, we met in Korinth, remember? I bumped into her and she spilled her drink. She took me to the washroom to help me clean up. Here, let me help,” I said as I turned my attention back to the struggling woman. Walking carefully through the brush, I began untangling her skirt. I worked carefully to avoid ripping the delicate material. She wasn’t exactly wearing trekking attire, just a pair of flats and a lace dress, I wondered what she was doing out here in the forest.
Before I could ask, she spoke up. “I’m actually happy to have met you again, I couldn’t stop thinking about our conversation in Korinth. I’m sorry if I said something that made you feel uncomfortable,” she said as my fingers worked on getting the skirt unhooked. “It seemed like I really upset you. I felt terrible afterwards.”
I shook my head. “It wasn’t what you said, it was just, well… it’s a long story. But everything’s okay now, I’m not upset,” I flashed her a smile. “But what are you doing out here all alone in the forest?” It was getting close to dusk and the nearest town was several kilometers away.
She was carrying a tote-bag similar to mine on her shoulder, opening it for me to see inside. “My parents are herbalists. I work in their shop and often go out looking for herbs.” Whatever she was carrying in her bag was so potent that it practically assaulted my nose as soon as she opened the bag. It wasn’t an unpleasant smell, but it was certainly overpowering.
“You’re awfully far from home though, aren’t you?” I asked.
“Not at all, I live in Grimsby, remember? Just a few kilometers over that way.” She pointed through the trees towards the east.
My head twitched to the side, “I thought you said you were from Stonehaven.”
“No, no, I said my friend was from Stonehaven, I’m from Grimsby.”
“Hmm, my mistake, I guess. Isn’t it dangerous, though? Walking around the forest on your own so close to dark?”
“I am out a little deeper than usual today,” she admitted, “To be honest, I’m glad I ran into you.” Her skirt finally fell loose from the branch. “Thanks,” she breathed a sigh, “I suppose it was silly of me to wear something like this into the woods. I had planned to just stay along the path, but I saw some witch hazel growing over here and just couldn’t resist.” Her eyes flicked behind me towards where Ayre was standing. She lowered her voice and leaned in. “I see you’re still with your handsome friend from the tavern.” She smiled knowingly. “Did you ever end up meeting the other person you had been waiting for?”
“You shouldn’t be out alone this late in the evening,” I awkwardly changed the subject. “You won’t make it home before dark, what if you get lost?”
“Oh, I’ll be fine. This isn’t my first time walking home in the dark, besides, there’s still a little bit of sun left on the horizon.” She was a polite girl. I was sure she was just saying that so she wouldn’t be a burden on us.
I shook my head. “I wouldn’t feel right about letting you walk home alone. Why don’t you come and have dinner with us, then we can walk together?”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” she protested.
“I insist.” We did the back-and-forth dance of conversational politeness.
Her eyes fell to the ground, “Well, I wouldn’t want to impose, but if you insist.” As we made to leave, she reached out a slender hand to Ayre. “I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure of formally meeting. I’m Sera.”
“Ayre.” He shook her hand with all the urgency of a sleepwalker, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. No smirk, unfocused eyes, even his voice was more of a drone than his usual lyrical tones. When he and I had first met, it was nothing short of sexual harassment on his part. In a way it was probably for the best, Sera seemed a little too strait-laced to be associating with someone like Ayre. But for someone like him, the fact that he wasn’t all over someone as pretty as her actually had me a little worried.
“Ayre, are you alright? You seem off.”
His attention flicked over to me as his eyes quickly regained focus. “Sure, Sel, never better,” he said with his trademark smile. “Especially now that I have the honour of escorting two lovely ladies back to camp.”
I rolled my eyes, feeling silly I had even been concerned in the first place. “Keep those fantasies in your head where they belong.”
“The fantasies in my head have a tendency of becoming a very sensual reality.” His eyes darkened. “And I’ve yet to hear any complaints.”
I think Sera and I were wearing matching shades of red on our cheeks. “Let’s just go, you deviant.”
He chuckled, “Lead the way.”
We stepped into the clearing where Aksel already had a fire burning and three fish skewered and cooking. By the look of things, he had even taken the time to wash a set of clothes and had them hanging to dry on a nearby branch. He had the campsite looking downright homey.
As soon as he saw the three of us coming to the edge of the campsite, he jumped on us. “Who’s this?” His tone was brusque and unwelcoming. Bad start. I felt Sera shift uncomfortably behind me and Ayre kept quiet.
I was about to leapt to Sera’s defense when a thought popped into my head and I froze. Why hadn’t I realized it sooner? Aksel hadn’t worn his human guise in our company since the night he’d shown me his true form. Is he acting so standoffish because he’s not okay with another human seeing him like this? Is Sera uncomfortable with Aksel in his deydric form? Sometimes I could be such a moron.
“This is Sera, she’s a friend I met in Korinth.” Friend may have been pushing it a little bit, but I was all in now, so I figured it was okay to embellish just a little bit. “She was out in the woods gathering herbs, but I thought it was too dangerous for her to walk home alone this late in the evening, so I figured she could have dinner with us then one of you could take her back to Grimsby.” I felt winded by the end of my explanation.
“What are we, escorts now?” He crossed his arms over his chest.
“Well, we could do the typical back and forth; I’ll say I’ll walk with her, you’ll say ‘no’, we’ll argue, and eventually you’ll offer to take her anyway just to shut me up.”
He shook his head, no doubt annoyed with my conversational tactics. “And she has no problems having dinner with a deydre?�
� He asked skeptically.
I looked back and saw her vigorously shaking her head, “Not at all, it would be my pleasure.” I noticed she didn’t quite make eye contact with him when she spoke.
Aksel made a sound that resembled a grunt of acceptance. “You said you two met in Korinth?” he asked skeptically before glancing at Sera.
I found it odd that he took pause at that particular point, but based on her size and demeanor, I guess it was a little hard to believe she would have been in such a den of degenerates.
“Yeah, so what?” I was starting to feel a little defensive on her behalf.
His brows pinched together, looking from Sera back to me. “Nothing,” he shook his head absently. “Nothing. Come and get some food, it’s just about ready.”
He turned and headed back towards the fire. Ayre, who had not bothered to help at all during that exchange, walked past us to join him.
After a pause Sera piped up in her cheery way. “Your friends seem nice.”
I laughed, “Come on, let’s go get some food.”
After dinner Aksel had offered to walk Sera home without any debate. I’d suggested he just mist her there, but the idea seemed to worry her, she said she was just fine with walking. Grimsby was not terribly far from where we had made camp and Aksel could always mist back on his own after she was safely home.
Once the two had left, I stood up to stretch, wanting nothing more than to crawl into my bedroll and get some sleep. I had told Aksel I’d been feeling fine, and I had been, but I still seemed to get tired faster than before. Most likely my body still catching up after the healing process. Besides, Aksel would probably be back late anyway, so there was no sense in waiting up.
The crunch of dirt behind me announced Ayre’s approach just before he wrapped me in another backwards hug, one arm around my shoulders and the other around my stomach. I felt his cheek fall on the top of my head.
