by Fleur Smith
“Regardless of the outcome of that meeting, I will endeavor to meet with you again before we depart, if that is suitable for you, Lynnie?”
“You’re not coming with her?” I asked confused as to why he wouldn’t come to meet us with Fiona. Especially after the fear he’d shown toward Clay.
“This is a task she must undertake alone.” Aiden’s gaze flicked onto Clay again, but the guilt in his eyes when they met mine again made me think it wasn’t intentional.
Aiden shifted closer to me and Clay’s hand flinched against mine. I returned the involuntary action with a reassuring squeeze.
“And Lynnie,” Aiden’s voice dropped to a whisper as he leaned in beside my ear whispering words intended for me alone, “I have to tell you, your relationship has an intensity I never would have guessed at. Please remember that over the coming days. The world may get a tad topsy-turvy soon. However, I am certain you will be able to navigate through it with the strength you possess.”
Spinning away from us, he disappeared into the forest within a few footsteps. I stared after him with bewilderment. Despite everything I’d been through, there were clearly things that were still able to surprise me.
CHAPTER SIX
“SO TELL ME,” Clay murmured, snapping me out of my reverie.
I turned away from the vacant space that Aiden had occupied a few moments earlier to glance at Clay. He was already bending over to retrieve the bow and didn’t say anything more until he was standing back up.
”Are any more of your old boyfriends likely to appear out of nowhere today?” Whether or not he’d intended them to be, his words were sharp and seemed framed with a malicious intent. “And will they at least be human?”
“That’s not fair,” I responded in an equally sharp tone. “It’s not like I asked him to come here. I didn’t even know that he could find me again or how he has. When I left their court, I honestly never expected to see any of them again. There’s no need to be a jerk.”
“I’m sorry.” Clay’s scowl softened as I pointed out how cruel he’d been. “It just caught me by surprise, that’s all. Especially after everything else this morning.”
I knew he was talking about the possible return of the shadow. For a brief moment, I wondered whether I’d actually seen Aiden earlier, but the man had definitely been dressed in a hooded cape, not Aiden’s light gray slacks and blue shirt.
“What do you think the other one wants?” Clay swung his arm over my shoulder to pull me closer, tucking me under his arm and against his body.
“Fiona,” I reminded him.
“Her name doesn’t really matter,” he replied a touch sharper than necessary.
The tone of his voice irritated me, and I extracted myself from his hold. “Do you get that I’m here, standing in front of you right now, only because of Aiden and his court?”
His scowl returned. An instant later, when he saw I wasn’t backing down, he rolled his eyes. “What do you think Fiona wants?”
I disregarded the derisive tone he’d used when saying her name. “I don’t know, but we should probably head back. You never know what, or who, we might hit if we keep trying to hunt today. The forests seem to be full of life.”
He raised an eyebrow at me, before lifting the bow up as if he was willing to fire it into the space between the trees.
I shot him a warning glare in return, but he only rolled his eyes again in response.
Knowing it was a lost cause to argue with him, I decided to ignore his bad mood. Instead, I paced ahead, wondering what Fiona could possibly want from us.
Seeing me walk away from him seemed to shake off his malice. He rushed forward to keep up with me as he tucked the recurve under his arm. “Sorry that I was a jerk. It’s just . . . that name isn’t a good one for me.”
“Fiona?”
He flinched, and his face became an expressionless mask, answering my question without words. I didn’t want to press him for answers when we were still out in the open, under the watchful eyes of an unknown number of creatures.
“You were a massive jerk,” I said instead as I faced him, not to hurt him but to remind him not to hurt me.
At first, his face lit with shock, but after a moment turned genuinely repentant. I tried to put myself in his shoes. Because his mistrust of the fae was so deeply ingrained, it was probably a miracle that he hadn’t chased Aiden away immediately.
He stopped long enough to listen. He did that for you.
“But I get it. I know this isn’t easy for you, but you did say that you wanted to look at the world with open eyes, right?” I threw the words he’d once uttered back at him, using them to my advantage.
He reached out for my hand and, instead of ignoring it in my ire, I wrapped my fingers around his. I’d learned my lesson after our fight in the Black Forest and the scare I’d had the following morning. If it wasn’t worth fighting about, we had to let it go. I wouldn’t let the fae or anything else come between us. That didn’t mean I couldn’t try to become a bridge to lessen the gap between them. He’d need my support to be unwavering for him to even entertain the possibility of helping his enemy.
We walked back to the cabin hand-in-hand, silent and contemplative. After he dismantled the bow and stored it and the quiver away, he sat on the mattress that served as our main seating and resting place, as well as pretty much anything else we needed it to be in our two-room hut. Patting the surface beside him, he called me over to sit next to him.
Without hesitation, I crossed the room to him, settling into the space, before resting my head on his shoulder.
“I really am sorry for before,” he said. I could tell he was genuinely feeling terrible for the way he’d spoken to me, and possibly even for the words he’d said.
“I know. I get that you were surprised, but so was I. I just can’t understand how they found us. It makes me worry that maybe we aren’t as well hidden as I assumed.” The nagging thought that someone, whom I hadn’t seen or spoken to in years, could so easily find our whereabouts was terrifying. It gave credence to the notion that if the shadow had survived, it might have been able to find us. I wondered whether there was something I’d done that had created some sort of beacon to the supernatural world telegraphing my location.
What if it’s not only to the supernatural world? What if the news that Clay and I are in this little corner of the world has been spreading? Does this mean that Louise could find us easily too?
“No one else knows we’re here,” he said with certainty. “If they did, we’d have been flushed out of hiding already. Although, how do you think they got here?”
“Fairy rings,” I said without thinking. When I’d lived with Aiden and his family, I’d often traveled via the vast network of rings. I’d never realized international travel was possible, but it was the only logical explanation for how the two of them could have arrived in the wilderness without any apparent means of transportation.
“You really do know a lot about the fae don’t you?” he asked, but unlike before, his voice wasn’t harsh and judgmental.
“I ought to,” I said. “I lived with them long enough.”
“Tell me about it,” he murmured as he stared straight ahead, lost in thought.
“Tell you about what exactly?” I asked. I had my suspicions, but I wanted him to confirm it before I shared the full history of what Aiden and I had shared.
“About the two of you. You said he saved your life?”
“Yeah, he did.”
“How?”
“It’s a long story, and it starts before I knew anything about the fae.”
“Okay.”
“I told you about the other person I was with,” I said with a quiet voice. Even thinking about Brian made my stomach churn. I’d been so young and naïve, and so desperate for companionship—any form of human contact really—that I’d been willing to trust someone new simply because we were both suffering from our grief. “The one I met at a shelter who called me a freak.”
With a
nod, he guided me into his lap. I leaned into his embrace, resting my back against his chest as he wrapped his arms around me. The position actually made it easier to talk about Aiden because I was secure in Clay’s hold without having to watch the pain etch itself deeper into his features as he listened to my story. In his arms, I felt both strong and protected. I didn’t have to be the weak girl that I’d been when I’d found solace in both Brian and Aiden; the one who lived life based on the whims of other people.
“His rejection absolutely shattered me. Not because I cared about him, but because all I could think about was you and how you’d reacted when we first kissed. It was just too similar and it hurt so badly.”
After flinching at the memory, Clay held me tighter—as if to prove to both of us that he would never react like that again.
“As soon as it happened, as soon as the words left his mouth, I just had to get away. I grabbed for anything that was in my reach and left. I walked for days and days, so shaken, scared, and confused, that to this day I couldn’t tell you what I did or where I went. I didn’t care about anything anymore. I was numb and honestly, I gave up. My feet carried me through the countryside until I found myself in New York. I don’t think even you would have recognized me by then. Aiden found me in an alley when I was ready to just lie down and die. He convinced me to get back to my feet.”
I told him the rest of my story in a quiet whisper. It felt as if anything louder than that would shatter my peace of mind. For all of his bluster and hatred of fae, Clay accepted my story with a strange calmness. I told him of the friendship Aiden offered when I needed it most, skipping over the more intimate details, and avoiding the fact that I’d only left after seeing Aiden with another fae. I told him everything he needed to know, and everything I believed he could accept.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“HE WAS SPECIAL to you?” Clay asked when I finished my story. His voice held the echo of regret for mistakes he’d made years earlier. Truthfully, I didn’t blame Clay for those decisions. We’d both been so young, still trying to find our place in the world. Even with the benefit of hindsight, I couldn’t say for certain that him staying would have been a better choice—we wouldn’t have the strength we did if we hadn’t been forged and strengthened by the fire and trials we’d faced.
It was hard to explain it in a way that didn’t increase his guilt, but finding myself alone so soon after losing my father, it was only logical I would try to find someone, or something, else to fill the void. Clay clearly blamed himself for every bit of agony that I’d endured from the day he found me in Charlotte. For the first time, I wished I could erase the fae part of my history, if only to remove the pain it caused him.
I spun in his arms and offered him a rueful smile. “Yes, for a time he was. I can’t lie about it. I was in a very dark place and, for a while, he provided me with a light I never expected. I honestly don’t think I would have picked myself up off the floor if he hadn’t made me. But that’s what his family does—”
“They help the people that my family kills.” Clay cut me off.
“I wasn’t going to put it quite like that, but yeah, pretty much.”
“I know that you see them as some sort of group of miraculous saviors, but I can’t.” He sighed before closing his eyes. “They tortured Lou. The stories she told me, the nightmares she had every night, her scars . . . I had to help her deal with them all. I know what she did to you, and I hate that part of her for it, I really do. Despite that, I can’t just ignore the things that happened to her. I can’t push them out of my head or forget what the fae did. I know you want me to, and I don’t like disappointing you. For you, I really wish that I could forget it all, but I can’t. I don’t trust them, Evie. I don’t know if I have it in me to ever trust them.”
Resting my head on Clay’s shoulder, I ran my fingers through his hair. “I’m not asking you to. All I want to do is hear Fiona out. Aiden says she needs help; I want to give her that for what she did for me. But if it’s something to do with the Rain, I can’t do that without your help.”
“I don’t even know if I can help them. I turned my back on all of that stuff years ago. I know this Aiden means a lot—”
“Meant,” I clarified. I’d left that world behind years before, and even when I believed I had to run from Clay for my safety, I hadn’t gone back. The idea of returning had never found a footing in my mind. Even in my weakest moment when I’d considered it, it hadn’t felt right. No matter how easy it would have been for me to return to Aiden’s court, the truth was that I didn’t belong there.
“Meant a lot to you, and I know Lou is a threat to us both, but she’s still my sister, and I can’t forget the things she suffered at their hands.”
“You suffered too, didn’t you?” It was evident in the stress he demonstrated even talking about her past. Although his statements weren’t a declaration of loyalty to Louise—he’d already made it clear to me that he’d kill her if she became a significant threat again—his words were a reminder that at one stage, they’d had the close relationship that twins always did. At least, they had until I’d unwittingly come between them.
Even though Clay had made the choices that inevitably led to the divide between them, it was the friendship he shared with me that had initially lit the spark. Regardless of the fact that he’d explicitly told me he didn’t blame me for the gulf, it was impossible for me to shake the guilt.
“I was the one who had to comfort her at night when the dreams became too real. Dad was never there, and Eth didn’t have a clue what to do to help her.”
All of the nights that Clay had soothed me back to sleep after I’d awakened from yet another nightmare flashed through my mind. During our time in Detroit, and even now, so many months after our reunion, visions of smoke and fire or voices shouting cruel words, regularly interrupted our slumber. Whenever those nights arrived, he was there to calm me, and it was clear that he had frequently dealt with similar situations. Even now, the reassuring words that he whispered were always exactly what I needed to hear to calm my racing heart.
“I understand,” I said. “How about a compromise?”
He tilted his head in question.
“Why don’t I meet with Fiona alone, and then once I know what it is that she needs help with, we can decide what to do together?”
He flinched. It was clear her name still bothered him.
“Why’s that name an issue for you?” I asked, brushing his hair back off his face with my fingers.
“Did I ever tell you about my mom?”
A renewed sense of guilt rushed through me. I knew he’d lost his mother during the search for Louise, but he never elaborated on that and I never asked for more information. Our conversation had dredged up demons for both of us. Since our reunion, we’d spent so much time talking about the future but avoided talking in depth about the past. Our histories were overflowing with mistakes and pain for both of us. Now that the reappearance of my past was causing him so much distress, I could only wish that we’d told each other more. I ran my fingers through his hair again to soothe him.
“You didn’t,” I said softly. “You don’t really speak about her. Would you like to tell me?” It was the first time since our initial meeting that he’d even attempted to raise the topic of his mother.
“There isn’t much to tell. She was gone long before Lou came home.”
“What was she like?”
“I only have little snatches of memories I can recall easily. The rest is fuzzy. Most of what I know about her is from stories Dad and Eth have told me.”
“Except the scent of magnolias,” I murmured. “You remembered that.”
“Yeah.” He smiled and gave me a gentle squeeze. “I only know what she looks like from photos and vague dreams I’ve had about her since she left.”
“What happened?” The regret I carried for not knowing enough about him filled me, and I wanted nothing more than to wrap him in my arms as we both lamented our pasts. I
wanted to learn more—to discover everything he was willing to share. Other questions sprung to mind, but for now, I would allow him to lead the conversation wherever he wanted it to go.
“Dad worked so hard to get Lou back from the fae, but Mom’s response was to disappear.” His voice was a quiet whisper. “Whenever we asked about her, Dad told us that she couldn’t handle what had been done to her daughter. He always said she was from one of the other elite families and apparently, she couldn’t cope with the fae winning. I’ve seen it myself, someone going off the deep end when a teammate died in the line of duty. I can only imagine what it’d be like to lose someone that means so much to you.” His eyes were hollow as he looked through me, and as if I could reach into his very soul, I could see his thoughts with perfect clarity. He was imagining what it would have been like to lose me permanently. It killed me that I’d given him so much cause for concern. “He didn’t really say much more about her. I think it hurt him too much. He lost his wife trying to rescue his daughter. Secretly, I think he felt like she’d betrayed us all by leaving. We never really knew whether she was alive or not after that.”
“That’s terrible,” I murmured. “How could she just leave without knowing her daughter was safe? How could she leave you and Ethan to deal with the loss of your sister without her to help?”
“I don’t know. Eth remembers her a little more than I do. He always says that she was different near the end, as if the life had just left her. Knowing how I felt when I was told you’d left the hospital in Detroit, and then watching you drive away in the Lincoln in Missouri, I can’t blame her really. Before I came to Europe last time, and even while I was here, I gave in to the darkness too.” We held each other tightly. Both of us had experienced the lows of life and been so near to the point of giving up. “I guess that’s why I can’t be upset about your time with Aiden because I get it. Even though I wish it hadn’t been necessary, I get it. If I could go back in time I’d—”