“Aries, don’t,” he pleads with too much emotion in his black, steely gaze.
“Leave me,” I tell him through tightly clenched teeth.
He shakes his head back and forth, the wind catching his messy dark hair.
“Fine. Say whatever you want, but I’ll be seeing you again, love. Send me away a thousand times, but you’ll always pull me right back to you,” he rambles with a twisting smile that isn’t at all filled with happiness.
My index finger lifts just slightly to trail along the outside of his clenched fist. His gaze drops to that insignificant caress, but I never look away.
“Leave me,” I whisper one more time as if I’m not sure I’ll really be able to speak the words that hurt my heart to say.
His lips part as if I fatally wounded him. Sadness shines in his beautiful eyes.
Smoke drifts around him. It devours him. And then he’s swept away.
The wind takes him away from me to the one person he’ll always be loyal to.
My father.
The fast pounding of my heart fills the silence as emotions crush into me, and I simply sit there before the three watchful fallen. I can feel their judgmental gazes assessing every little part of me.
It’s Damien who breaks the quiet.
“If you hate him, why do you summon him? Why do you cling to him? Why do you trust him?” The rage in his voice is evident.
I’m such a fucking idiot. Why did I kiss him? Why . . . why am I so bad at figuring out my own emotions?
“Why?” He echoes my own thoughts with impatience.
“Because!” I shriek with a shaking breath that I can’t seem to catch. The hurt in his amber eyes stings into me like a knife. But I force myself to finish my sentence. “Because he’s my mate.”
All three of them stare at me with shocked, dazed expressions.
I guess I’m more fucked up than they realized.
10
The Demonic Fae
Aries
I spend several days avoiding the men living in this house. Maybe I should find my own treehouse and put us all out of our misery.
The only person I haven’t pissed off is Corva.
And that’s just because she’s too oblivious with her own life to notice mine.
Her wafting, smoky dress drifts around Damien in her living room/laboratory. She’s jotting down notes about his changes and the new runes she wants to try on him.
I sit curled up at the opposite end of the hard wooden couch with my blanket and pillow like I’m a fly on the wall during their testing.
I’ve done well to hide here. Sleep here and just dwell on what I’ve done with my life.
And what I’ll do with my life.
I thought what I needed to do was kill my brother to keep people safe. Now, I don’t think that’s my responsibility. I’m already carrying around an entire poltergeist for people. Maybe that’s enough? Maybe I should just live out my long life somewhere in the woods like my sister and let the Shadow Guard take care of the rest.
“Any changes this week? Scarring? Vomiting? Has your heart stopped again?” Corva asks Damien with big watchful eyes.
Has his heart stopped again? What the fuck, Corva.
“No. I’m still stable.” His voice is quiet and it sounds so gravelly, it’s like he forced the syllables out of his mouth.
I peer at him from behind my curtain of silver hair. I regret it instantly when my gaze collides with his.
Why can’t I just forget what happened in the bathroom? I can’t even go pee without feeling like a trash fae for what I did to him. Why can’t embarrassment amnesia be a thing right now?
But to be fair, he could have just left. This isn’t only my fault. He stayed. He kissed me back. No one twisted his dick and forced him to join in on the world’s most regrettable threesome.
It wasn’t even a threesome! It wasn’t! It was like . . . a play party. A naked play party. Where his fingers most definitely touched my clit, and I didn’t even ask him to.
I’m not the only guilty one here . . .
I’m not!
Stop arguing with yourself. It’s a pathetic debate of ill wits that does not justify your actions at all, Catherine cuts in like the cunt that she is.
I force a heavy breath from my lungs, blowing my long hair out in front of my face. I try my hardest to keep Damien off my mind while sitting three feet away from him.
“Why did you want her here?” Damien asks, catching my attention and pulling my mind off of the carousel of bad decisions.
Corva looks up from her notebook and little carved pencil. Her translucent smoky hair skims around her pale face, but it never disrupts her intense gaze.
“I wanted Aries here because she’s my sister. Sisters should stick together,” she answers in the eerie way that she always does.
Damien doesn’t buy it. I don’t either, but I’m apparently better at problem solving than he is.
“Corva was exiled to the edge of the fae realm. I was exiled to the Bin. We are, however, both still princesses. And she knows that when I left, I wanted Nathiale dead more than I wanted anything else for the position he put me in. I can’t do that from the human realm. By bringing me here, she fuels my poor choices in wanting to execute my brother. If I succeed, because she’s the eldest, she will be granted a pardon and brought back to my father’s kingdom, where she will wait in line to be the next Queen of Roses.”
Corva smiles like broken glass waiting to slice me open.
I smile back.
Because I know that father will never let any of that happen. She can sit back and wait for me to kill our brother for her but she’ll never get what she wants.
Father will breed a hundred more children in his lifetime rather than let his mistress’s child sit on his throne.
You see, what dear sweet daddy doesn’t tell people is that Corva is the creation of demons and fae procreating. This is a dark secret of course, since demons and fae are forbidden by the gods to procreate. Centuries ago, the King had a wild streak though. Maybe it was just one night or maybe he was enchanted by a succubus. Maybe he has many excuses.
But Corva is living proof that for a brief moment, my father didn’t entirely despise demons.
Her smile stays permanently on her face as she slides her notes into a handsewn satchel and drapes a black cloak over her shoulders.
She never explains where she goes. She’s gone a lot, and I rather prefer it that way, but she’s either leaving because she can’t stand being around men who are nearly demons, or she’s conspiring with others. She’ll need allies once the throne is open to her after all.
None of that involve me though.
I’m starting to realize that none of this involves me.
Tonight, I’m going to leave. I don’t know where I’ll go, but I’ll find my own little isolated spot, just as she has. My life will be my own, without care about kings and princes and mutilated monsters trying to hold off becoming what they’re meant to be.
You can’t fight destiny.
And I’m officially done trying.
The door closes behind my sister with a quiet click. I sit there waiting for the fallen angel at my side to leave my little safe haven.
Seconds slip by without sound.