God damn it, he had to go for the jugular. Like he always did.
Sighing, she leaned away from him and shook his hand off her face. “I get it. The glass palace is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. But that isn’t a reason to stay with him.”
“Was he mean to you?” Henry asked.
“Not really. A few times, maybe, but understandably once he explained where he was coming from.”
“Did he hurt you?”
She thought back to the elemental almost tossing her off the bridge. That hadn’t been Storm, though. The two creatures were different and she couldn’t judge him on the elemental. “No. He would never hurt me.”
“Then I don’t know what you’re complaining about or running from. It sounds like he enjoys your company. He sounds like a kind man who’s trying to be better for you.” Henry stepped back and shrugged. “I think you’re running for no reason.”
Maybe she was. The fear in her chest felt very real, however, and she couldn’t shake it no matter how hard she tried.
Maybe it was because she feared loving him meant leaving all this behind. That she wouldn’t be able to see her family, her brother, or the twins. That she wouldn’t be herself because she’d have to turn into someone she wasn’t.
Ayla wasn’t the Princess of the Air Court. She wasn’t anyone more than a nanny who shared a bloodline with some very important people.
All that expectation would rest on her shoulders if she started something with him.
Or, well, continued something with him.
She knew the air faeries would look to her for guidance. She would essentially be taking the throne just by starting a relationship with Storm, and that wasn’t what she wanted.
Ayla wanted to stay in her little cottage looking after two twin boys. She wanted to garden and play with them whenever they wanted. That was her role in life.
Henry tucked a finger underneath her chin and lifted her face to look at him. “What are you going to do when you’re older, Ayla? When the boys are in school and they don’t need someone to look after them?”
“I look after you,” she whispered.
“And I love you for it, but I don’t need looking after. I’m a thirty-five-year-old man with a wife and two kids.” He tapped her chin. “And you’re an old lady who needs to find someone other than me to look after.”
“Old lady,” she scoffed. “You wish I was the old one. You’ll always have five years on me, you know.”
They’d had the argument a thousand times, and it made her feel better just to have it. Henry knew how to calm her down, but he was also right.
She couldn’t stay stuck in the mud here. Not when there was a life out there she could be living. A life she could be experiencing.
She sighed. “You’re right. I hate it when you’re right.”
He patted her thighs and stepped back. “Well, not everyone can be as amazing, charming, handsome, and all around better than everyone else.”
“Right, cause that’s what you are.” Ayla rolled her eyes, then tapped her fingers on the counter. “Can I stay a few days though? Just to get my head on straight. Before I go back and have to apologize to him a thousand times over.”
“Of course, Ayla. Stay as long as you want.”
She wasn’t hiding. She just... needed a few days. That’s all.
24
Storm rolled over and reached out his hand. How long had it been since he woken to a woman in his bed? Too long. Longer than he’d been king, that was certain.
He hadn’t been celibate after his wife’s death. There wasn’t any need to be, nor would she have wanted him to mourn her for too long. The list of women after Miriam was short, though. Eventually becoming none for a year before he became king.
He patted the bed where Ayla had fallen asleep, remembering the sweet expression on her face as she drifted off.
She hadn’t thought he was watching her; he knew that much. Storm had seen a myriad of emotions passing over her face. Fear. Anxiety. Regret. All the things he would expect from her.
Ayla thought too much. That was her greatest downfall. She was always stuck in that lovely mind of hers, and unfortunately, that meant she often over thought every emotion.
His hand met cold sheets.
Had she gotten up early to go to the bathroom? He liked to think she would have at least woken him to let him know she was going to bathe.
He sat up in bed, hair in front of his eyes. Please don’t let her have bolted, he thought. Please don’t let another person decide I’m unworthy.
Storm knew in his gut, however, what the truth was. He knew there were only a few places in the entire palace where she could hide.
“Find her,” he ordered the winds.
Three breezes and a gust swept out of the room. Perfume glasses clinked and rattled in their wake. In the long moments they took to search, he already knew their answers. One by one, they all said the same thing.
“She is not in the palace.”
Every wind who said the words ripped at his confidence. They chipped at his very soul.
He sat in the middle of his bed, alone once again. Where it used to feel bitter, now it cut. Every time he moved his heart creaked as though it were freezing in place. Alone hadn’t felt so bad before she was here. Now, it was a death sentence.
He didn’t want to rot on his own. But now the palace could be filled with the faeries, and they wouldn’t suffice. All he wanted now was her in this empty ruin or in a flourishing palace, whatever she wanted to do with it. Just as long as she was by his side.
He dropped his head into his hands and groaned.
As ever, the elemental raised its head at the worst moments. “I told you she would leave. And now she will gather those closest to her. She’s never coming back.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Why don’t you go see?”
Storm knew better than to listen to the evil voice in his head. He knew the elemental was malevolent and only wanted to harm. Still, he asked, “How?”
A deep chuckle echoed through his mind. “Go to her room. If she’s really coming back, she would have left something.”
Surprisingly, that was a reasonable thought. She must have left something for him to find. Something so he would know she was returning, and it didn’t matter how long he had to wait. He would. For her, he’d do anything.
Storm stumbled out of bed, yanked on his pants, and ran down the hall. Why had he put her quarters so far away from his? He could have put her right next to his bedroom and suffered every night, but at least known she was safe.
The halls turned slippery under his feet, or perhaps that was his own mind trying to slow him down. Dread built in his chest until it stole all the air from his lungs.
No, he wouldn’t think this was the end. He wouldn’t let himself go down that path where only madness waited.
He threw her door open. It cracked against the glass wall and thumped a few times before standing still. He remained in the doorway, eyes wide and staring at the empty room.
Nothing.
She’d left nothing.
“Look on the dresser,” the elemental whispered. “It appears she left something after all.”
He hesitantly stepped closer to the item on the dresser. Storm lifted the picture and looked down into her beloved face. He traced her with his thumb, but his gut knew this could only mean one thing.
She wasn’t coming back.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. Why else would she leave a picture and nothing else? She wanted to leave me something to remember her by.” He didn’t want to remember her in any way other than his own memories. With magic surrounding her and air stroking her long locks.
He would miss her. So much.
The feeling brewed deep in his chest, boiling through his veins like a dark sludge. Even the veins at his wrists turned black before he could control it.
The elemental hissed in his mind, long an
d low. “The humans stole her from you, Storm. They took her because she wanted them. Not you.”
“She went back to her family,” he tried to explain. But the elemental’s words suddenly made more sense.
“Her family who are human. Her family who she thinks are better than you. They are nothing, don’t you see? Weaklings who need to be destroyed.”
No, he wouldn’t listen to this madness. The elemental had always wanted him to harm the humans. It wanted to see the world freeze and frost until there was nothing left but the faeries who survived it.
He wouldn’t entertain a creature like that. Storm dropped the picture back onto the dresser and backed out of the room. He lifted his hands and cupped his ears as though that would block out the creature’s voice. “Stop it. I will not harm them, no matter what you say.”
“Why not? They took the only thing you love and now you are all alone again, Storm. Alone. Unloved. Unwanted.”
“Stop,” he whispered. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“You don’t want to hear it, King, but you will listen.”
He ran down the hall. Away from the voice. Away from the room filled with her memories. Away from all the madness that had tailed him for so long. Too long.
Storm didn’t know where he was running to until he stood on the bridge where he’d first met Ayla. He remembered her so clearly, for her image had been imprinted in his memory. She had been strong and sure of herself, confident he would give her an audience.
Her hair had twisted in front of her lovely face, dancing in the wind who loved her just as much as he did. And damn, did he love her. In all the faerie realms, she was the only faerie who made his soul sing.
Storm grasped the hemp railing of the bridge and swayed in the breeze. He stared down into the human realm and wondered where she was hiding. Did she return to her brother? Probably. He’d proven himself worthy of her affection and time.
The brother had done all that Storm had failed to do.
“You could end all of this,” the elemental whispered. “You know what the humans have done.”
“They have lived,” he replied. “They have loved and lost. They fought and grew with each other when the faeries have hidden themselves away in any nook or cranny they could find. We cannot punish the humans for doing what we could not.”
“Doing what we couldn’t? Boy, have you not convened with the wind? Have you not felt the poison sinking through all of our veins?”
Storm didn’t know what the elemental was on about now. He just wanted to look down at the world he didn’t belong to and hope she was there, living her life in happiness.
“Ignoring me?” The pause after could only mean the elemental was up to something. Power built in his chest, growing until it threatened to swallow him up. “You don’t have to talk to me, King. But you do need to feel what your element suffers.”
An explosion of air struck Storm in the chest. He would have flown over the bridge if his body hadn’t absorbed the impact. All the air from the attack disappeared into his flesh. Then he felt all the element’s pain.
He could suddenly feel... everything. All the agony. All the hurt.
Was any clean air left? He couldn’t sense a single molecule not infected. There was only pollution and so much choking air it made his lungs fill with darkness and spew out of his mouth. Storm leaned over and vomited tar off the bridge and into the human realm.
His lungs filled with more sludge before he even breathed. Over and over he puked until he landed on his knees. He held onto the edge of the bridge and hoped he didn’t fall over the edge.
That was what the air felt? That was the element he was meant to protect?
“Whatever you felt is only a fraction of the true damage. The air is choking, dying, suffocating. No one can breathe normally anymore and it is our duty to fix it.”
“I don’t know how to help.” Storm stared down into the winds and suddenly he could see the pockets of destruction they carried with them.
“The humans are the ones who pollute the air,” the elemental said. “They can’t stop what they started. We have no choice other than to kill them.”
He didn’t want to. Storm wasn’t a killer. He didn’t want to end all the good things these creatures had done, even though he himself could only see the bad. He knew Ayla loved them. And if they had done something to win her affections, then surely they weren’t all that bad?
The madness spread through his body again until all he could feel was anger and rage. He wanted to hurt something. To kill something. To spread the darkness so for a few moments his own torment ended.
“My king?” the voice sliced through the air around him like a knife. “What would you have me do?”
He stared over his shoulder at the banshee standing behind him. The same banshee who had tried to kill Ayla, and the same one whose life he had taken with the darkness.
She rocked back and forth on her heels. Black sludge dripped from her hair and turned the wooden slats dark as ink. Her claws were spread wide and held ready at her sides.
He didn’t want her to do anything. He wanted her to heal, perhaps. To go home to her family and see if maybe they could end what he had done.
Except, the elemental had other plans. “If you are too weak to seek retribution, use her.”
“I am not weak.” Storm snarled the words, although he didn’t believe the words.
“Then take the true throne. The one you were meant to take all those years ago.”
The Air Court had a throne, and he’d sat upon it for many years. Storm knew the one the elemental meant, however. It was the throne that would meld their minds together for all eternity.
It was a throne he refused to sit upon. No matter what happened in his life.
“Where would you have me send the banshee?” he relented.
“To the human realm. Tell her to destroy all she finds there.”
So that was exactly what Storm did.
25
“Auntie Ay!” Ian shouted as he threw himself into her arms.
Ayla lifted him high above her head so she could see the dappled sunlight through the leaves behind him. Framed by the beauty of their backyard, he was the most perfect child she’d ever seen in her life. And Ayla had now traveled all the way to the glass palace of the Air Court.
She’d tell him the story, someday. He deserved to see the world as it was. Full of infinite possibilities and magic.
He squealed and kicked, begging to be let down so he could run to the leaf pile where his brother waited. She dropped him and he took off with all the speed of a sluggish turtle. But he was having fun.
Hands on her hips, she laughed as he plunged into the leaf pile with Ivan. The two of them wrestled until they both disappeared under the leaves Henry had raked.
Said brother strode to her side and leaned on the rake. “They’re trouble, huh?”
“More than trouble. They’re gremlins.” She drank in the sight of the twins, rolling around like puppies on the ground. “We love them all the same.”
The sun sparkled in the sky and the air was heavy with a burgeoning summer. Henry raked every spring instead of autumn, something she never understood. And the boys always loved the smell of the leaves. They’d be an Autumn Court pair.
Too bad they weren’t faeries. She would have taken them for herself.
Henry’s stare burned.
“So...” he dragged the word out.
“Yes, brother?” She eyed him, knowing what he was about to say and not liking a second of it.
“You’ve been here for a week, Ayla.” He shifted the rake, dragging it across the ground where there were no leaves. “Any thought on when you were planning on heading back?”
“Are you trying to kick me out?” She knew he wasn’t. Still, the sting of rejection was in her mind and she couldn’t get it out.
He’d never send her away unless he thought it was important. She knew Henry better than that. He wanted her to go find the man
she loved and not give up on this just because she was afraid. And she was. She still got awful butterflies in her stomach every time she thought of returning to the glass palace.
Not because she didn’t want to go. She missed the haunted palace almost as much as she had missed her home here. The thing that made her entire body lock up was the conversation she knew had to take place.
How was she supposed to explain she’d gotten cold feet? How did she apologize without making it sound like she didn’t have powerful feelings about him? The words wouldn’t come out right, she knew that for a fact. And then she’d be stuck alone again because no man with any self respect would stay with a woman who couldn’t figure out what she wanted.
Sighing, she rubbed her forehead to push back the headache blooming beneath her skull. “I don’t know.”
“What’s holding you back?”
“Everything?” she replied with a chuckle. “I don’t know, Henry. Is it worth returning to the palace just to know he might send me right back here with my tail between my legs?”
“You have a tail?” Henry’s eyes bulged out of his head. Clearly joking, although sometimes she wondered. “When did that grow in? Does that mean you’re a real faerie now?”
She nudged him with her shoulder. “Stop it.”
He laughed along with her, but then his face settled into a more serious expression. “Sis, I think you should go sooner rather than later. The longer you’re gone, the more likely he is to think it’s permanent.”
“So?” She had read a thousand romance novels in her life. Men waited for women who truly meant something to them. That’s how it worked.
“You’ll make him think you don’t want him, Ayla. And if what you said is true, there’s an elemental inside him who could screw up the world. Do you want to piss off someone with that much magic? Or with a monster inside them who wants to see the end of the human race?”
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