Hartt stilled and stared at the drink the witch offered, and her innocent, surprised expression that didn’t quite hide that glimmer of mischief her eyes had gained when she had gone for drinks.
“It is poisoned?” He looked at Fuery, sure the witch wouldn’t want to poison him.
Rosalind gasped and placed her other hand to her chest.
“You wound me. He wounds me.” She turned a hurt look on her mate, who just sighed, and then glowered at Hartt. “How ill you think of me considering I just saved your bloody life.”
Saved his life was a stretch. For a time there, he had been convinced she had been trying to finish him off.
When she pouted and her brow furrowed, he held back a sigh and took the glass with his free hand. He brought it to his nose and sniffed it. He couldn’t smell any poison, and he had trained for centuries in the art of detecting it.
He risked a sip.
His eyes watered as sharp needles pierced across his face and punctured every millimetre of his tongue. His right eye twitched viciously and he grimaced, wanted to growl as the torture didn’t abate when he swallowed the tiny sip of liquid. It only got worse. He choked and coughed as acid blazed up his throat.
Rosalind grinned from ear-to-ear. “That never gets old!”
Vail pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes and shook his head. “Little wild rose.”
Her smile faded. “I know. I know. But it’s funny.”
She drew out that word.
Hartt failed to see how it was funny. He also couldn’t believe it when Vail took a glass for himself and drank it without it affecting him. Had the male built up a tolerance to whatever infernal ingredient the juice contained?
Vail shrugged. “She uses a spell to enhance the acidity and effect of the grapefruit, but it is quick to fade and the juice is then safe to drink.”
Hartt regretted taking it so quickly now. He had a thousand questions he wanted to ask his prince as he risked another sip, such as what a grapefruit was and why the witch found the effect it had on their species so amusing.
Vail was right, though. The second sip of the drink was sweet and rich with the flavour of passionfruit and mango, and other fruits he could identify from his visits to the mortal realm.
His body screamed for nourishment of another kind, bringing to mind the tempting scent of Mackenzie’s blood. He ignored the hunger it ignited in him and focused on the juice. It would be enough to tide him over for now, until he could return to the guild and eat some fruits and vegetables to give his body the nourishment it craved. A diet of such things was enough for most elves. Blood was only necessary for regular elves when they were injured or in need of a boost to their healing for some reason.
For the tainted like him, a regular intake of small quantities of blood was vital. It helped him control the darkness, satiated it and calmed it. However, restraint was needed. Too much blood could trigger bloodlust and give the darkness a firmer hold over him, causing it to spread its tendrils deeper into his soul to squeeze out the light.
The line between not enough and too much was dangerously thin.
“Please, Rosalind,” Fuery murmured as he took a drink for himself, but didn’t touch it. He ran his free hand over his overlong blue-black hair, in danger of pulling the top half of it free from the silver clasp that held it back as his violet eyes implored the witch. “Will you take a look at the spell? I was not aware of it… if I had been, I would have… I do not know what I would have done.”
Hartt wanted to reach for him as he dropped his hand to his lap, gripped the hem of his black tunic and twisted it into his fist, an agonised and desperate edge to his expression.
The wounded look Fuery gave Hartt stirred acid in his chest worse than the grapefruit had and he looked away from his friend, dropping his gaze to his knees as that hot feeling scoured his insides.
“There was not time to ask your permission.” He was deeply aware that wasn’t an excuse for what he had done or the fact he had failed to tell Fuery about the spell. It had bound them for centuries now and he had kept it from his friend that entire time. “I should have, and I am sorry about that, but I could not lose you.”
He lifted his head and locked gazes with Fuery, hoped he saw in them how deeply he loved him and how he couldn’t live without him. He had lost too much in this world.
If he lost Fuery, he would be alone, and gods, he would easily lose himself to the darkness.
Would let it take him.
He struggled to hold Fuery’s gaze as he added, “I should have told you sooner, but… this… this is what I feared. I made a decision that day, a choice for both of us. It was either lose you or risk losing myself… and I will always pick your welfare over mine.”
Thick silence fell as Fuery stared at him, as his amethyst eyes warmed and glittered.
“Aw… you guys are so sweet.” Rosalind knotted her hands together in front of her heart. “You want a room?”
He frowned, unsure what she meant by that.
When it dawned on him, that frown became a scowl. She was insinuating that he and Fuery were engaged in more than a friendship.
“Little wild rose,” Vail gently admonished.
She shrugged. “Just asking. They’re as bad as you and Loren. All moon-eyed when you’re around each other. So many bromances in the elf world.”
“The spell.” Fuery’s tone had darkened, gaining a sharp edge that revealed his impatience.
Hartt again wanted to tell him to let it go and forget trying to learn the words that would activate the spell. Fuery must have sensed it, because he levelled a hard look on him, one that said what he wouldn’t—if Hartt would tell him the words, he wouldn’t have to get the witch involved.
There was no way in this world, Hell or Heaven, that he was going to willingly tell Fuery the words, giving him a method of drawing the darkness from Hartt. Fuery would mean well, but he would try to draw all the corruption from Hartt’s soul, and it would destroy him.
Rosalind shuffled to the edge of her seat and he glanced at her, froze in place as their eyes locked. The lighter blue that filled most of her irises sparkled, silver stars twinkling brighter and brighter and beginning to move as her magic rose to the fore. He fell into them, could feel it as a physical action, as if he was dropping towards her.
Or she was pulling him in her direction.
Her hands came up and framed his face as she peered deeper still, and a brief tangled thought crossed his mind, there and washed away in an instant.
Was she trying to see the black stains on his soul?
“That’s strange,” she murmured, her voice distant in his ears, so far away that it couldn’t rouse him.
He drifted in the warm haze, floated on it, calm and at peace even as some part of him tried to remain aware, desperate not to be left vulnerable or open to attack.
She blinked and everything shattered, fragmented into a thousand shards that rained down to reveal the drawing room of her home.
Hartt sucked down a hard breath, followed it with another one when he felt as if he couldn’t get enough air, as if he had stopped breathing at some point. Maybe he had. He looked around and forced himself to see where he was in a vain attempt to ground himself in the present just in case Rosalind wasn’t done. He couldn’t leave himself open like that again.
Not with Mackenzie out there.