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The Search for Aveline

Page 27

by Stephanie Rabig


  "Alvar? Is something wrong?"

  "No, I'm just tired," he said. He could hear the frown in her voice, but refused to look up and meet her gaze. "I was actually about to go to bed when you knocked. It's been a long day."

  "Yes, but it'll be a long night, too," she pointed out as another clap of thunder made the hut shiver around them. "I don't think any of us will be getting much sleep."

  "I still intend to try," he said, for lack of a better excuse. "Here's your blanket."

  "Alvar, what is it?"

  "Nothing. I'm fine."

  "Something's bothering you," she said. "Your voice is too brittle. And you've got that crease in your brow that you always get when you're upset. I can go bunk with Junia if you'd rather be alone—"

  "I'd rather not be confused!" he said loudly. He looked up, caught a glimpse of the surprise on her face, and closed his eyes tightly. Pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath.

  "I don't understand it. I've always known what I wanted, even though I rarely tried to have it. I was hardly brave enough to pursue it, but at least I knew. And now you... You've got me so confused, Marcella."

  "What have I done?" she asked.

  "Nothing you need to apologize for," he said quietly. "I'm sorry, I'm making it sound like you've done something wrong, like this is your fault, and it's not. This is my problem."

  "Alvar, if I've done something to make you uncomfortable, if I've overstepped a boundary, please tell me. I like you too much to cause you pain."

  "And I love you," he said before he could stop himself. "That's the crux of it. I realized today that I'm in love with you."

  After a long moment had passed without a response, he finally looked up from the floor. A wine-dark blush had suffused her neck and cheeks. There was a strange light in her eyes—they seemed to gleam silver in the uncertain candlelight, like a shadowed mirror in a dark room. Her lips parted and a soft sigh escaped her.

  "You do?"

  He nodded, suddenly dizzy. "But I... I... Marcella, I don't love women. I never have. I'm an invert. Do you see why I'm so confused? It was only a handful of years ago that I finally came to terms with what I am, when I finally decided I wasn't unnatural or broken, just different. And now I meet you and I don't know what happened, I don't know why I'm suddenly feeling like this—"

  "Is that it?" she said, eyebrow arching. "You're upset because I'm a woman?"

  "Well, yes," he said softly. "I'm sorry, I know it sounds mad."

  "But that's no obstacle at all, Alvar!" She laughed, reaching out to lay a hand over his. "Just this morning, I decided I was going to tell you the full truth about myself. About how I joined the crew and why. In fact, I came here tonight to tell you everything."

  "Then your hut isn't flooded?"

  "Yes, actually, it is, but that's beside the point."

  "What do you mean 'the full truth'?" he added quickly. The strangest thrill of hope was creeping through his veins; but what the hope was for, he had no idea.

  "The truth is that I'm not a human woman," she said, eyes boring into his. "I'm fae, one of the elfkind. And I haven't always looked like this."

  The candlelight flickered, threatening to go out completely, and in the fluttering of shadows, there was a strange shift in the air, a sense of space expanding and contracting, and suddenly the face staring at Alvar was different. Marcella was gone. In her place was a decidedly masculine face and fuller body. The same eyes smiled at him, but the jaw was wider and the hand against his was heavier.

  Alvar felt his mouth sag open and couldn't stop blinking.

  "This is what I used to look like," a slightly deeper voice said. "Back when I was called Marcel."

  "I don't—but why?" Alvar spluttered.

  "The Sappho came to my family's island to make substantial repairs after a rock gouged the hull," Marcel began. "I watched them every day and came to like them from afar. I was feeling stifled with my family; I wanted desperately to strike out on my own, to have my own adventures away from their prying eyes and interfering affections. I decided The Sappho would be my escape. But in my observations, I noticed that the entire crew was female. I decided that must be a requirement, so when I revealed myself and asked to sign on, I cast a glamour over myself. I became Marcella."

  "So for all of these years, you've been pretending to be something you're not?"

  "Well, not exactly," he said slowly. "I forget that you humans tend to see things as either/or... I'm Marcel and Marcella. Male and female. And sometimes I'm neither. I just am."

  "And you've never told the others?"

  "No. At first, I didn't tell them out of fear. I worried they would attack me, or even maroon me. Humans and fae haven't always gotten along. Then I came to know them and learned they were more open-minded than some, but by then I'd been keeping my secrets for so long that I was afraid revealing them would hurt everyone's feelings. Not knowing wasn't hurting anyone. So, I just kept quiet."

  "But you wanted to tell me."

  "Because not telling you was keeping me awake at night. I felt like you needed to know—when I've never felt that way about anyone else. I knew I could trust you. And hearing you tonight, seeing how bewildered you are, I knew the truth had to come out, for your sake."

  Alvar's head was spinning. So many things suddenly made sense. The way Marcella had always shied away from cold iron, the cannons, and Lizzie when she was working with her tools. Her love of and skill for music. Her unearthly singing voice and boundless energy. His confusing attraction for her, no, him. If Marcella had been surprisingly arousing, Marcel was a revelation. He could feel heat flooding his cheeks and knew he would have to shift soon before the positioning of his trousers became too painfully tight.

  "You should tell the others," Alvar said finally, when he felt he had a grip on solid ground once more. "I know what it's like, hiding what you really are. It can eat away at you. It can do things to your state of mind."

  "I'll tell them tomorrow," Marcel promised.

  "Do you, which do you prefer?" he asked hesitantly. "Marcel or Marcella?"

  "It depends on the day," he said with a small smile. "But with you? Marcel. Definitely Marcel."

  "Oh, that's wonderful," Alvar said fervently, grabbing handfuls of his wet cloak and pulling him close.

  Marcel's lips tasted like copper, a cool metallic tang over the wet heat of his tongue. Knowing what he was explained the shocking sizzle, like static electricity, that passed between them. It was as if fae were living batteries; perhaps they absorbed energy around them in order to cast their glamours, perhaps there was something about cold iron that disrupted that energy and that was the cause of their aversion. Alvar didn't waste much thought on such musings then, though, too absorbed in experiencing the flow of energy between them.

  When he pushed the wet cloak off Marcel's shoulders and tugged the loose shirt over his head, Alvar discovered that the zing he felt in a kiss was nothing compared to drawing his hands over Marcel's bared chest. The skin, the slight scattering of dark hair he caressed, was so hot that the palms of his hands tingled.

  "I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I love your beard," Marcel said, voice low and husky as he unbuttoned Alvar's shirt, then unbuckled his belt. "The way your hair curls. The color of your eyes. And your hands... I've been dreaming about your fingers, and I've never thought of fingers as particularly fascinating before. The way you hold that violin..."

  Alvar buried said fingers into Marcel's thick black hair, brushing against his ears. And yes, they were a little pointed, weren't they? How had no one else noticed the signs before? But perhaps Marcel had completely dropped the glamour now; perhaps this was the first time anyone had seen what he—she, they—really was, all of the otherworldly details.

  "Wait," Marcel said, pulling back. He ran his tongue over his bottom lip; it was swollen and bruised by the edges of Alvar’s teeth. "You're sure about this, aren’t you? You're not worried I put a spell on you?"

  Alv
ar blinked at him. “You haven't, have you?”

  "I don't like to use my magic on anyone but myself," Marcel promised, leaning his forehead against his. "Yet another thing my family and I didn't see eye-to-eye on."

  "I thought as much. Although..." Alvar hesitated. Struggled to draw in a shaky breath. "It's only been a few months since..."

  "You had a lover," Marcel said, enlightenment dawning abruptly. "On your ship."

  Alvar nodded and his brow furrowed.

  "What was his name?"

  "Sven."

  "Alvar, he wouldn't want you to mourn him forever. He would want you to be happy. To live your life. Don't feel guilty for doing that. I understand if you're not ready, but you shouldn't cling to a ghost forever."

  "You don't think I've a fickle heart?"

  "No, I don't. I think you've a very loving heart, if you found space in it for both me and Sven."

  Alvar nodded and swallowed back the tears. Marcel was right: Sven would have wanted him to find someone else. He was dead and gone and nothing would ever bring him back. He wouldn't have demanded eternal fidelity to the memory of him. He wasn't going to hate Alvar for loving again, for being happy.

  When Marcel moved to kiss his cheek, Alvar surged forward and caught his lips with his. His momentum carried them both to the floor. Trousers were unbuttoned and kicked away, and Alvar learned that the fae may be different from humans in many ways, but their bodies were the same in all of the important particulars.

  "I've never been with a human," Marcel panted beneath him. "Is it always this... overwhelming?"

  "I honestly don't know," Alvar confessed, stroking and squeezing in a way that made Marcel moan. "But I can promise to try my best every time."

  As Alvar thrust, Marcel stifled his cry by biting down on his shoulder—hard. But instead of the expected flare of pain, a wave of euphoria crashed over him. It left him shivering as forcefully as the fae beneath him; it took innumerable breathless minutes to regain his senses and remember the rhythm his body wished to sway with.

  "Can you... can you hear it?" Marcel gasped. The sweat trickling down his neck smelled of sandalwood.

  "Yes," Alvar groaned, dropping his forehead to his lover's chest before sharply pivoting his hips, drawing a hiss from Marcel as his back arched off the floor. "The song..."

  He had known since they first met that they could make incredible music together. They always slipped so easily into tune... This was no different, save for one vital detail: Alvar now felt the melody through his entire body. This was music made physical; they had become the embodiment of their song. He was the bass to Marcel's alto and the crescendo was coming ever closer.

  Their timing, as ever, was in perfect unison. When Alvar slumped bonelessly forward, it was to fall straight into Marcel's waiting, if shaky, arms.

  "I feel scorched all over," Alvar mumbled.

  "I enjoyed it, too," Marcel laughed weakly. "How can you hide all of that passion? You act so quiet and calm but underneath is this wild creature."

  "I'm not an exhibitionist. Some things should stay private. Like what we just did. What I want to do later."

  "What do you want to do later?"

  "You'll just have to be patient," Alvar said pertly. "Give me enough time to catch my breath."

  "Oh, but I like you breathless. Your hair all wild. My teeth-marks on your skin."

  "That was some bite. Bet it wouldn't feel half so good for you if I returned the favor."

  "Well, now you have to test that hypothesis."

  "I think you've been spending too much time around Wilhelmina," Alvar chided. "Making love shouldn't be reduced to a scientific method."

  "No, you're right. I like the way we do it better. Spontaneous and fervent. Do you always like to be in control?"

  "Not sure how much control I really had," he confessed. "As we've already established, you tend to put me off-balance."

  "I don't mean to," Marcel said earnestly. "You took me by surprise, too. I've always felt so detached from humanity. But you drew me in like... like the Church. You made me burn with a fire that felt almost zealous."

  "I didn't think the fae believed in God—at least not the singular one."

  "We don't, as a rule." He propped himself up on an elbow, shifting into a more comfortable position against Alvar. "At first, it was just another sort of glamour. I started attending services with Jo, borrowed her Bible, got a rosary, because she'd impressed me with her independence and strength. The others always deferred to her, never questioned her, and I decided part of it had to be her faith. So I mimicked her piety to give myself that same aloofness. But the more I read, the more I heard, the less it became an act."

  "You started to believe?" Alvar's family had never been an especially devout one, though a branch of cousins had been of a monastic bent. He had attended holiday services in his youth and had owned a Bible—which had burned with the rest of the Ilsa—but he rarely thought of God. He had prayed over Sven, over his last captain, over the cook's little girl, but had never sought a conversation with God before or since. He had always looked at the truly religious with a mixture of awe and embarrassment: some had clearly found strength, solace, and purpose in their faith, and he was envious of those lucky few, but others had struck him as loud hypocrites or dangerously imbalanced.

  "I started to feel God's presence," Marcel said quietly. Sincerity rang in his voice like a bell in a steeple. "I felt His hand stretch over me. When I pray, when I sit in a Church, I feel a peace and wholeness I've never known elsewhere."

  Alvar was quiet for a long, thoughtful beat. "How do you reconcile yourself with the priests and preachers who claim people like you are demonic? Unclean? I've heard priests denounce merfolk, elfkind, magicians, inverts—so many groups—as sinful and worthy of stoning, damned to Hell and irredeemable. How can you bow your head and count your rosary when such venom is thrown in your face?"

  "I pray and listen to Him. I know He is a loving God, an accepting God. He welcomes anyone into His presence. Those who choose to preach hatred and division have strayed from His true message. No one is truly innocent or pure, which means every person, regardless of what they are, is equally important and valuable to Him."

  "You don't think we're damned, then? For being what we are, for loving the way we do?"

  "I can no more change what I am than you could, Alvar. I may put on a glamour at times, and you may keep your passions private, but that doesn't change what we are beneath. It's how we were made, how He made us. Believing God would shape us this way only to condemn us to eternal damnation is to believe that He is fallible or cruel, which is impossible. He's a force of love, not hate."

  "I'd like to believe that," Alvar said softly, struck by Marcel's conviction. "I really would. But I just can't." He had only to close his eyes to see the suffering of the sick and mistreated—how could a loving God allow something like that to happen? How could He turn his back on such pain without a shred of mercy?

  "We all find our truth in different ways," Marcel replied. "Some paths are longer than others, some destinations look different from other perspectives. I understand."

  He reached out to draw his fingertips along the curve of the bearded jaw. To bend his head and press another kiss to the slightly parted lips.

  "All of the stories I've heard," Alvar said after a pleasant, warm lull, "said that the fae were as changeable as mercury, with mad tempers and feet that barely touched the ground. That they didn't so much walk as flit, that they could never stay settled, and had thoughts so fast that they could never focus on one thing for long. That they were as selfish and cruel as a child. I always imagined that someone like you would be capricious and unpredictable. But you're nothing like what I expected. Are the stories all lies, or are you an exception to the rule?"

  "I suppose, in my youth, I was little thought and all feeling," he mused. "Much of my family is what you would expect the fae to be. But in my years on The Sappho, living around humans day and night, I thin
k I've settled into patterns. My people hate patterns. They revel in surprise and confusion. But I think there's something to be said for routines and repetition. And God has been a steadying influence, too; He's grounded me. I doubt my family would recognize me now. They'd probably say I've 'gone human'."

  "Does that bother you?"

  Marcel smiled a wry, crooked smile. "I love my life here. I don't regret a thing. And I don't see 'human' as the insult they think it is. There's a lot to be said for humanity. You have some very fine qualities."

  "Such as?"

  "Your music. Your soft clothes—cotton and wool can be far more comfortable than leaves and plaited grass. Your art and beautiful buildings. Your books and languages. And now that I can speak from experience, the way you make love is very fine, indeed..."

  He didn't put the specifics into words, but he did his best to convey everything with his body: how Alvar's skin felt like silk against his, how his kisses tasted almost alcoholic on his tongue. Aunt Cressidian had once seduced a human and had told him they were like chalk, flavorless and dull, to warn him off of the experience. But Alvar was sweet and heady and soft, as warming as the coals of a fire, and he was utterly intoxicated as they grappled in the dimming light.

  "Do you know how beautiful you are?" Marcel sighed in his ear as Alvar slid deeper, filling him to the hilt. The candle flickered out and in the darkness, every movement became more intimate and overwhelming. It was difficult to discern where one body ended and the other began.

  Alvar's teeth grazed the edge of Marcel's ear and he cried out with pleasure. He clung to the sturdy arms, fingernails biting tiny half-moons across the freckled skin, and pressed his thighs to the tapered waist as they rocked together. The friction left them gasping and sweat-slicked, unable to speak as they became creatures of instinct.

  It felt like falling and flying at the same time, Alvar thought in fragments. The way their slim bodies aligned, the strength behind the pressure of their lips, the sense of fullness—it was profound. This felt like a ceremony, like some sacred act. Somehow, he wasn't surprised by what came next.

 

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