“So who is to blame?” he snaps. “Who are the monsters?”
“Maybe both.” I shake my head. “Maybe every realm’s got its monsters and saviors.”
“From my side, we don’t deny that. There will always be Fae who savor the tears and glazed obedience of humans, the decimation of their magicless lives.” He appraises me with something akin to respect. “Yet there might always be a human who keeps a sanctuary for mortal fauna.”
“I’d also keep one for Fae animals, if I could. If I’d found one of them after The Trapping, I’d have treated the creature tenderly.”
Cerulean’s head swerves away, the muscles of his face working to remain impassive.
As much as I hate to admit it, I fancy this side of him. I fancy it a lot.
“Ask,” Cerulean says without turning back.
So I do. “How old were you?”
“What? The Book of Fables does not say?”
“You know it doesn’t. I reckon you’ve read it.”
“Numerous times, and so I ponder. Full truths, partial truths, and untruths. Which is more valuable to a human?”
“Stop it. I already told you, I wasn’t one of ’em, Cerulean.”
He glances at me. “You’re unlike anyone, Lark.”
The sound of my name perched on his tongue has an alarming effect. My pulse punches a rhythm in my chest, and tendril of air slides beneath my restless feet.
The horned owl swoops from the clouds, reappearing after its romp with the other avian. My heart clenches, seeing the owl’s missing eye. Yet the raptor’s got stamina, looping around us and settling on Cerulean’s shoulder. When the Fae whispers something gentle and obedient, the bird flies back to its throne on the spire.
“He requests music,” Cerulean tells me. “He does that often.”
“You grew up with ’im,” I suppose. “He’s one of the animals who raised you…the raptor you mentioned.”
“As it happens, he was the first to appear, draping my small body under his wing.” Cerulean grins with devotion. “He’s been my guide, my friend, and no less than a father to me. Yet that’s not what you meant, is it? No, I did not think so.” His affectionate mien vanishes, his eyes turning into granite. “They’d broken his wings. He was hobbling in the cage when I located him, his talons had been whittled down, and they’d gouged one of his eyes. I wanted to maul whoever had done it, my rage so acute I tasted it on my tongue, but there was no time for revenge, and I was too young. I managed to free him before the mortals did further damage.”
He notices my palm covering my mouth in horror and says, “Never fear. He’s healed, and he’s a regal, proud creature.”
Somehow, I manage to smile. “I reckon he’s a soul mate. I’ve been wondering about your connection.”
“That’s not all you’ve been wondering.”
“How’d you escape? You and your brothers? The Fables don’t say.”
“Ah. The great mystery.” Cerulean lounges, his torso flexing beneath all that ivory flesh. Hot damn. He was sexy when I met him, then ugly when I knew him, and now he’s inching his way back to my first impression.
I’m a traitor. Thinking of my sisters, I scoot away from those toned muscles. “Well? Since you think I won’t make it out of here alive, you might as well spill your secret.”
With wide, innocent eyes, he claims, “Why, I escaped by magic.”
“Fuck you, Fae.”
“Such a filthy mortal tongue.”
“Apparently this tongue scares the shit out of you, if you’re dancing around the truth. Do I need to ask it a different way?”
A single eyebrow leaps into his mussed hair. “How many ways do you have in mind?” Nevertheless, he hesitates. “I have no idea how Puck and Elixir escaped. We languished in separated locations, and they’ve never told me. We crossed paths while fleeing with those whom we’d saved, because it appears we had the same heroic idea and were the only three Fae who managed to escape, the only three left standing. Call it fate.”
“I’ll call that a Fable for sure, each of you freeing himself separately.”
I can tell Cerulean’s about to answer without answering. For some reason, he doesn’t want me to know the details. But a hummingbird flutters to my knee at that moment, tickling my thigh. With a laugh, I pet its emerald wings with my pinky, which delights the creature because it shivers.
Grinning, I watch it flit away. Then I catch Cerulean gazing at me, and whatever enigma he’d planned on spinning dies a quick death. “I did not free myself.”
My mouth grapples to respond. “What?”
“I escaped, but I did not free myself.”
“But the Fables don’t mention anyone helping you.”
“They wouldn’t, would they?” Cerulean counters. “No one else was there that night, other than me and my savior.” He glances at the sky with fondness—a disturbing sight that contracts my ribs with envy, which is right rubbish since I despise him. “Truth be told, I helped rescue the fauna, but I did not save myself. I have her to account for that.”
Her. It’s a her.
His words stir up a terrible hunch, a swirling debris of possibilities that stifles my breathing. Despair and foreboding tangle in my belly. But no, it’s only in my head, a notion concocted by my desperate heart. It’s got to be.
The night has barely begun, but when the sun rises, it’ll sweep this night into the past. With any luck, it’ll take this awful hunch with it.
“The plot thickens,” I draw out, feigning my composure. “Wait, what are you doing?”
Cerulean gets to his feet. “I’m making my grand exit. What do you think I’m doing?”
“You’re not done telling me the story.”
“Most would call it a Fable. A feather grows from my hair, after all.”
“At The Watch of Nightingales, you mentioned that I remind you of somebody.” I lick my lips. “Is it the same female? How old were you two?”
Cerulean pauses to study the tower’s highest window, as though the answers are hiding up there. “You’re a rather inquisitive one tonight. I never knew her age, nor who she was.”
I can’t let him suspect anything, so I play dumb. “Does that mean you never saw this Fae again?”
His back muscles flex. He gazes over the mantle of his shoulder and hitches a brow at me. “I never said she was a Fae.”
20
I sit there, whiplashed by his words. The hairs along my arms prickle, and my joints lock, and I can’t budge. The one who helped him escape was a mortal. He was locked in a cage, in Reverie Hollow, and a mortal girl set him loose.
This is no coincidence.
Standing beneath a blaze of white clouds, Cerulean watches my reaction. His features cinch in confusion, then tighten into skepticism as an invisible cord tugs between us, straining from my chest to his.
My intakes. His outtakes.
A connection. A memory.
I’ve kept it cloistered away, stashed in the compact shell of my heart. Now that pod’s got a crack—and it’s widening.
But this can’t be. It’s impossible.
He can’t be the boy from my past. That was less than a decade ago, and the Fae don’t mature as quickly as mortals do. Immortality means it takes longer to develop, so although I don’t know Cerulean’s age, he’s fully grown and physically too old to be that boy.
More importantly, that boy was skewered through with iron by my people. Faeries don’t come back from that. Immortality aside, they don’t rise from the dead if slain in battle.
Disjointed noises rush through the peak, the Fae fauna as nocturnal as the rest of their kin. A raptor’s call scratches the welkin. A smaller bird pipes from a tree. Leaves swish around the shaggy limbs of a wandering mountain goat.
Cerulean’s bare chest lifts, the ridges contorting. “Don’t fall off the edge, precious Lark.”
That snaps me out of it. “Don’t push me there, evil Cerulean.”
He tosses me a mild smirk that makes
no promises, then prowls around the tower’s hip while plucking his flute from the quiver and playing his music. The animals trail him, trotting and fluttering in his wake as he travels into the park. The music coils around the bend and bleeds into the shrubbery.
My ears strain toward the melody whispering from the haven. Silvery notes glide over the current, which caresses the trees and billows the hem of my nightgown. I break from my paralysis and flop backward onto the grass. My palms cover my mouth, and my eyes clench shut. A vision assaults me: a girl inventing a bunch of professions that should exist in this world but don’t, and a boy listening, convincing her that she has the power to become any of those experts.
But that boy had died. He can’t still be alive.
My fingers shake so badly that I scrub them against my thighs, failing to quell the tremors. The flute trails off, then begins anew, stroking from his end of this crest to mine. The tune changes, spiraling into a lullaby that softens the bulb in my throat. Though it’s a long time before I stop trembling, even longer before I muster the strength to open my eyes.
A gust of wind tickles the flowers and tousles the grass. Stars dust the landscape in serene white and fanciful teal.
I listen for traces of his flute, pondering if that lullaby isn’t solely for the fauna. Cerulean hadn’t been making a grand exit. He’d been offering an invitation.
End this night? Or start it?
I get to my feet, stalk along the tower’s base, cross the lawn, and track the slender trickle of water. In the park, lanky spear trees penetrate the sky, the trunks tall and slim as lances. Hedges sprout from the ground, and moonflowers droop from trellises.
A brook flops over stones like liquid glass. The path curves around a burbling fountain, its centerpiece a winged horse in flight, suspended above a wide cauldron of steam.
The flute melody beckons me with its crooked finger. Circling the rim, I navigate through another lane pressed into the grass and halt in my tracks. My chest splits in two, blood surging from the rift and flooding my body.
Cerulean’s lounging against a rock laced in pillow moss, one foot propped against the surface. He’s a vision from the pages of a Fable, his folksy fingers dancing across the instrument’s neck, the fine knuckles hopping in succession.
The fauna spread out, going about their evening. They graze and forage, their shadows dotting the paths and outcroppings. Cerulean plays for the creatures, but his eyes fix on me. His lips pucker against the instrument, his mouth swollen and dark as ink. With each suck and blow, the long stem releases sighs of music.
Somehow, the animals’ presence reverses the torrent within me, my bloodstream settling. In this land, anything’s possible. So until I know more, I need to stay calm and pace myself.
I lean against an opposite boulder. The music ebbs into a faint cry, then seeps into the night. Cerulean lifts his lips from the flute and hitches an eyebrow. “As I suspected. Couldn’t stay away?”
“Couldn’t resist calling?” I volley.
His closed mouth slants into a grin. He flips the instrument into his quiver, then crosses his arms. I’ve got him pegged by now—it’s not a standoffish pose but full of lazy intention and even lazier intimidation. This Fae’s used to dabbling in propositions. He’s used to making enticements and manipulating desires. He’s used to getting his way.
I match his pose and expression, exaggerating it to the point where Cerulean bares whetted teeth, a magical chuckle bumping from his throat. Most times, I’ve wanted to box that laughing mouth, but tonight? It unhinges a chortle from me.
It happens steadily and out of nowhere. We fall into step, Cerulean leading me down the paths, the subject of fauna and wildlife bridging the gap, a temporary link that coaxes us to behave. Once the Solitaries appointed him ruler, they erected this tower, and he knew instantly what to do with it, creating this park for survivors of The Trapping. They weren’t the ones who raised him, but they’ve become his new family all the same. He tells me anecdotes, describing the habits and personalities of each dweller. That includes the one-eyed owl, who’s a picky eater.
I compare those details to the animals’ quirks and routines back home, and we talk about mourning the ones we’ve failed to save. We contemplate the lightness and darkness of it all. We muse about the hierarchies of wildlife, their territorialities, their ability to bond with different species, and their violent impulses, like when they reject their own or attack other creatures. Sometimes it’s unprovoked, for no reason other than instinct.
Cerulean places a finger to his mouth and spreads a bundle of foliage to reveal a nest of adorable woodpecker chicks. At my urging, he shares lore about the ancient fauna, explaining how Pegasi roamed this peak before falling to the dragons.
I rattle off the problems Middle Country’s having with trade poachers. We debate about poaching for profit versus hunger and how to reconcile the two. It’s hard to condemn those who need to feed their families, people willing to trap and steal animals from private lands if it means putting food on the table. But they’re not the only ones around. The last git I fucked is an example of that, though Juniper knows that type best of all.
Then there’s the rest of the continent. Elf territory sees its share of habitat loss, something having to do with a mortal trade for illegal magic that compromises the northern landscape. In the dragon lands, humans sell animals for entertainment—baiting games, animal fights, and other horrors where lowlifes place wagers. I’m not enlightened about the details of those regions, and Cerulean admits he’s only traveled outside of Middle Country a handful of times. All the same, the knowledge weighs down our shoulders, so we retreat into tales about the creatures of those remote lands. The hares, wolves, snow leopards, white bears, and reindeer of the north. The tigers, sphinxes, panthers, jaguars, and reptiles—including crocodiles—of the south.
We wander from corner to corner, hiking along shrouded passages and torchlit steps that lead to stacked levels with dizzying hedge routes. I spot mini bridges arching over bottomless gaps. The park is bigger than it had seemed from a distance, yet another outward perspective distorted.
I figure we’re doing this to keep one another in check, but it’s more than that. The walk is meandering, the chatter effortless, and the tension palpable. When his hand thuds against mine, a bolt sizzles from my fingers to my navel. From the corner of my eye, Cerulean’s fingers strain.
I hate that. I hate it for a thousand reasons. And I hate that one of those reasons has nothing to do with hatred.
Hours pass. Dawn unfolds itself gradually, pouring a languid blue haze onto the park. Where has the time gone?
We reach a secluded enclosure, where a gazebo crocheted with additional moonflowers perches at the cliff’s edge. Beneath a torch pole, Cerulean props one booted foot atop a mossy boulder. “Well, well, well. We’ve underestimated ourselves.”
My gaze sketches the gazebo, then returns to him. “Why haven’t you looked for her?”
The day’s first light paints his face in a netting of plant shadows. He goes rigid, then sighs dramatically, dangerously. “And here, we were doing so well.”
We were, but I’m done with doing well. We never finished talking about his past, and I’ve been avoiding the facts. But the night’s about to end, and I refuse to leave it alone.
The Fae stalks toward me. “Beware, Lark. You’re treading an unsteady path. It’s a substantial drop to the bottom, and I assure you, it will hurt.”
“All you had to say was, ‘It’s private.’”
“Is that a fact? Well then, it’s private.”
“So was my life before you took it from me.” When that doesn’t work, I sucker punch him. “Are you scared to look for her?”
His blue eyes glitter. “I haven’t had time to search. Being a ruler comes with a ruler’s schedule.”
“That’s rich. You’ve found loads of time for little ol’ me.”
A violent gale batters our clothes. He backs me up against the gazebo where
foliage chafes my nightgown. Cerulean leans in, setting his hands on either side of me and crushing the leaves in his fists. That single weave of hair swings from the rest of his layers, the feathered tip brushing my clavicles. I feel that tickle behind my knees, at the tips of my breasts, and between my thighs.
He’s everywhere, like the sky, the wind.
He slinks toward my ear and does his worst, his whisper licking across my flesh. “You’re an unfortunate priority.” I gasp as he dips his head, his dark lips abrading the column of my throat and charting a path up the center. “A rather troublesome—” then to my chin, “—tiresome,” then to the crook of my mouth, “—meddlesome one at that.”
Unwillingly, my head lolls. My eyes fall shut, a flurry of sensation prickling my skin. I’m fired up hotter than a pyre, going damn near limp in the arms of a Fae. A sexy, destructive Fae who knows what he’s doing.
“You took the words out of my mouth,” I say, my fingers instinctively landing on his waist, the points of my digits slipping under the silk trousers.
Cerulean releases a shuddering, threatening blast of air, his cunning lips less than an inch from my own. “I could take a lot more from your mouth. I could lap at every mutinous muscle contracting inside you.”
“And I could bite your tongue,” I vow while arching against him, my tits skidding over his torso.
“Or,” he proposes, sneaking his head under my jaw and skimming the rim with his lips, “you could hate-fuck me.”
Fables eternal. I feel that suggestion in the cleft between my legs.
The way he said that, passionately revolted and shamefully desperate. It sums up how I feel, too. I don’t know what’s binding us together, but it’s one relentless force.
Kiss the Fae (Dark Fables: Vicious Faeries Book 1) Page 20