“Go away.” She snuffled hard against the stuffy sound of her own voice. Exactly what she needed. To be audibly stopped-up from crying. Just one more thing to be embarrassed about.
“We both know I’m not gonna do that, Galwyn. You can either let me in or I’ll stand out here singing the theme song to Gilligan’s Island until you do. What’s it gonna be?”
Galwyn almost held her breath. Getting up from her little nest of misery felt absolutely impossible. She didn’t have the strength to stand and cross the room without her knees buckling, she just knew it. Maybe if she hunkered down even lower, Kelly would eventually leave. After a few moments of stalemate, Kelly heaved a sigh from outside the door.
“I can’t believe you’re making me do this.”
But instead of breaking out in song, a key ground in the lock. Galwyn nearly leapt to her feet as her friend swung the door open and helped herself to the apartment.
Pulling her throw over her head, Galwyn cringed against being seen. “How did you get that key?”
“Are you for real? You’re exactly the kind of girl who keeps a spare under her doormat.” She pitched the key onto the table and flopped down onto the sofa. “Honestly, it’s a wonder you haven’t been murdered or something.”
Seeing Kelly only managed to make Galwyn feel even worse. After all, she had been the one to hear all about Dain’s shitty plan. Even worse, she hadn’t bothered to clue Galwyn in on it until after she had debased herself. Some fucking friend.
“What are you doing here?” The question was meant to sting, and it landed exactly on the mark. Kelly faltered, but only a bit.
“What do you think I’m doing here? I’m here to check on you.” She reached across the sofa and put a hand on her friend’s foot. “I’m here because I care about you.”
“Yeah, well…” Galwyn doubled up her tissue and dragged it under her nose. “That makes one of you.”
“Oh, come on.” Kelly leaned her head back with an odd smile. “Are we really doing this?”
“What else can I do?” Fresh tears lit into Galwyn’s eyes, and Kelly got up to find a fresh box of tissues. “In my entire life, there was only one person who ever wanted me—really wanted me—and it turns out I was just some revenge fuck. I bought every lie he tried to sell me out of sheer desperation.”
“I’m really sorry Aquaria went rogue on you both like that. Total asshole move.”
“At least she told me. I don’t want to accuse you or anything, but why didn’t you say something at the reception? Before all of this?”
“How was I supposed to know good little Galwyn would run off and hook up with a certified bad boy?” Kelly strolled back in, with a roll of toilet paper in her hands. She tossed it to her friend and reclaimed her spot on the couch. “Anyway, I hope you got all your crying out.”
“I’m working on it.” She tore off a handful of TP and blew her nose into it. “I just feel so stupid.”
“If there’s one thing you’re not, it’s stupid. You can take that from me.”
“Then why did I fall for this?”
“Because!” Kelly tucked a leg up under her and turned to face Galwyn straight on. “You were basically getting pawed over by Lord Wrinkle-Butt, and some handsome dude rolled up and plucked you out of danger. I might have fallen for it myself. Got any ice cream?”
“Freezer.” Kelly was off again. Galwyn called after her, “And thanks for reminding me about the geezer Auntie picked out for me. Just what I needed—a reminder that the only man who has ever actually found me attractive might as well be my grandfather.”
“First of all, ew. Second of all, he’s not ‘the only man.’ Cut that out.”
“Well, there’s not exactly a line up to my door! Nobody is looking for some gross little null fae troll anyway.”
“Dude, you really need to chill.” Kelly reappeared with a pint and a spoon. “You’re not gross, you’re not a troll, and there are so many worse things to be than a null. Most guys wouldn’t even care about that. You keep hoarding that like some terrible secret, and the only one who cares is you.”
She popped the lid off the ice cream, jabbed the spoon into it and handed it over to her friend. Galwyn looked at it sideways, as if it smelled funny.
“I’m not hungry. Like, at all.”
“Suit yourself.” Kelly plucked it back and scooped out a bite for herself. “Depression bod is a thing, you know. Nothing like heartbreak as a weight loss program.”
Galwyn let out a snort of laughter and smacked Kelly on the shoulder.
“That’s the spirit! You’re laughing. Good stuff.”
As much as she hated to admit it to herself, it did feel really good to laugh. Before her friend had shown up and started helping herself to her stash, Galwyn had actually wondered if she’d ever laugh again. It had seemed pretty improbable for a while there.
“Look.” Kelly licked off the spoon, then went in for more. “You’re eventually just going to have to face the fact that you’re pretty fucking awesome.”
“Ugh. Then why don’t any guys think so?”
“Who gives a shit? Are you really gonna sit here and get all bent out of shape because boys are dumb? Who cares what guys think?”
Kelly’s casual defiance set a little sparkle in Galwyn’s stomach. Suddenly, it did seem silly to get so worked up over what happened. If she looked at it clinically, without the heightened emotions, she’d had a really hot fling at a wedding reception. Just like a billion or so other people in the world have done over the course of history. Big whoop.
“You need to get over the whole null thing too. It only seems like a big deal because everybody in Othercross has some kind of specialty. But you’re incredible all on your own, without all that crap.”
“You really think so?”
“Shit yes!” With another mouthful of ice cream, Kelly laid things out as if they were the most obvious facts imaginable. “Everybody knows the kind of mind you’ve got, but you don’t go lording it all over the place. You’re funny as hell, and you’re a stone cold fox. Galwyn, you’re a certified triple threat, if you ask me. Which you did.”
“I don’t know about all that—especially the ‘fox’ part. I’ve always felt a little too…” She hunted for a word that wouldn’t hurt too much. “Curvy?”
“Oh, you’re curvy, that’s for sure. But those curves are all in the right places. Trust me, you’re what the humans used to call a bombshell.”
Again, Kelly was so matter of fact about it all that Galwyn couldn’t help but blush at herself. The little pep talk was certainly doing its job.
“Tell you what.” Kelly hopped up and put the lid back on the ice cream. “Once you get over this crying jag, we’ll get you back out there so you can keep kicking ass, like you should have been doing all along.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you may not remember, but right before Aquaria decided to get all terrible about things, you pretty well ran the joint. And it wasn’t some guy who did that for you, you stood up for yourself all on your own. Matter of fact, you probably saved that woman’s life—Old Asshole Dain looked like he was about to take her head off, and you were like: ‘Nuh-uh. Not today, Satan.’ It was pretty bad-ass.”
She was right. Galwyn remembered how powerful she had felt when she finally stood up to Aunt Aquaria and wondered why she hadn’t done it more often. Or sooner. It had felt really good, actually. It was hard to remember what she had been so afraid of for her entire life.
Regardless of whether or not she actually believed all the things Kelly said, she was actually starting to feel better. Like she wasn’t a massive pile of dung beetle poo. Hanging onto that was what she had for the moment. She looked up at her friend, who was now leaning against the door frame to the kitchen.
“If you’re not gonna use the rest of that roll, I can put it back in the bathroom for you.”
“Yeah,” Galwyn said, slipping her glasses back on, “I think I’m done crying.”
&n
bsp; She went to lob the roll back to her friend, but she was spooked by a banging on the door, and the throw went wide. Her heart sprang up in her chest, and she put a hand over it, on instinct more than anything else. Another round of thumps sent the door rattling on its hinges.
“Dammit,” Kelly said, scooping up the TP. “Just what we need. Company.”
Chapter Nine
Dain leveled another battery of knocks on the door.
“Galwyn? It’s Dain. Please open the door.”
He hadn’t intended to speak, but his need to see her only intensified by their proximity. She was in there. He felt her. There were some indistinct murmurs, and a moment later, the door cracked open.
“What the fuck do you want, asshole?”
It was Kelly. He had only known her as the slender young witch who had danced a little too close to his table, but after the blistering confrontation with Aquaria, he doubted he would ever forget her name again.
“I need to see her.”
“Not happening.”
Her steely nonchalance rankled him. Dain would have loved to hate her for spilling his secret. If he were his old self, taking up a grudge against Kelly would have been only too easy. But, in the cold light of the truth of her confession, he realized he had nobody to blame but himself.
“You don’t understand. I need to talk to her.”
At his insistence, she shifted herself even more into the crack in the door.
“Oh, I understand perfectly, douchenozzle. You fucked up, got caught, and now she’s done with you. You can’t talk to Galwyn, because Galwyn isn’t interested.”
“That’s not true.”
In his core, Dain could feel Kelly’s assertion was a lie. Galwyn needed him. He knew it as surely as he knew he needed her, and he wasn’t going to be stopped by an overprotective witch. Planting a palm against the door, he pressed it open gently but firmly, and stepped past Kelly into the living room. The air was thick with the presence of his mate. He could feel her uncertainty and pain hanging like a heavy smog.
Of course, the monument of used tissues she had amassed at one end of her little sofa painted a pretty clear picture too. The clear traces of her misery only made him more determined to see her.
“Where is she?”
Kelly folded her arms and leveled a hard look at him, so Dain called out.
“Galwyn? Galwyn?”
The place was small, and his voice reverberated off the walls. In truth, he knew that she could only be down the short hallway to his right, but after barging into her apartment, he couldn’t very well storm around like a barbarian.
Not that he needed to. Galwyn was doing some storming of her own. She emerged hot from her bedroom, her face red with anger and crying.
“What are you doing here?”
“I had to come. You know I did.”
When he saw her, much of the anxiety inside him settled, but his presence only seemed to rile her up. She turned a fierce glare at her friend, who put her hands up in protest.
“He pushed past me! You don’t think I’d actually be able to keep a lug like him out, do you?”
“Couldn’t you have cast a protective spell or something?” Galwyn shot through a clenched jaw. “Something to keep him from crossing the threshold?”
“Hindsight, baby,” Kelly said with a shrug.
“Galwyn, my love, would you please listen to me?” Dain pleaded, not daring to move an inch closer for fear of scaring her off. But the shy, naive little thing he’d spotted at the reception was long gone, replaced by a proud woman who couldn’t be scared off by someone as mundane as a fae lord.
“I don’t see why I have to,” she said. “And you need to wash that word ‘love’ right out of your mouth. I’m not your love—not after the way you treated me.”
While his natural inclination was to get defensive, Dain swallowed the hard words and remained still. He deserved them. She strode back and forth in front of him while Kelly held her ground by the door.
Let her have her say, he thought. You need to hear the truth if you want this to work.
“I will admit,” she continued, “with Aunt Aquaria pushing Lord Rutherford on me, I thought I’d grown used to being degraded. But, dammit, Dain! I’ve never been so humiliated in my life. And I’m a null! To think that you could say those things to me—”
“I meant them,” he whispered, almost sending the words along the bond to see if they would land in her.
“To play me like some kind of idiot, some silly little girl you could take advantage of to try and bring my family down to your level—and for what? I’ve endured indignity after indignity in my life, and I would never dream of pulling the kind of shit you pulled on me.”
“Would you please give me a minute to explain? Even if I don’t deserve it, just a minute?
“No!” Her voice thundered in the room with undisputed authority, and all three of them started at it. She stood heaving for a second, almost bewildered by her own anger, and the newfound sensation of standing up for herself. “I can’t trust a word that comes out of your mouth, so why bother?”
Dain took a chance and stepped closer, holding her gaze. “Because you know you can trust me. Inside, that little glow we found? You can feel that you can trust me inside yourself.”
“Dain?” She leaned forward and darted her fierce gaze up into his face. “I don’t feel anything.”
That cut him to the center of his being. Even if she did feel the connection—and he knew she did—Galwyn obviously intended to smother it. There was no use trying any longer. She’d made up her mind. Maybe one day he might be able to break down her defenses, but today wasn’t that day. In a defeated daze, Dain shifted toward the door.
“And this time,” Galwyn snarled at his back, “cast a spell so he can’t come back.”
Dain froze in place, an idea exploding in his head. That’s it! He wheeled on Kelly with a spark of hope flickering in his heart. He gripped her by the shoulders and looked into her uncertain face—this young woman could cast spells!
“Kelly.” His tongue was dry in his mouth. This had to work. “I need you to cast a truth spell on me. If you do that, then I won’t be able to lie, and Galwyn will believe me.”
“Oh, no. Nuh-uh. No can do.” She shrugged him off and went to put an arm around her friend’s shoulders. Dain’s jaw dropped in pure mystification.
“What do you mean? Why not?”
“Last time I cast a truth spell, I was lucky to get away as lightly as I did. Trust me, the whole thing was a complete fiasco—even though it was pretty freaking awesome. Regardless, afterward, I was forbidden from casting truth spells without permission.”
“But…” Dain sputtered, “I’m giving you permission. Fuck that, I’m demanding that you cast a truth spell on me.”
Kelly clucked her tongue and rolled her eyes.
“Not permission from you, dummy. Permission from them.” She waved her hand in the air as if there were invisible ears listening to her. “The folks in charge.”
“They won’t know a thing about it. Who’s going to tell? I’m asking you for it, and after we’ve done it, Galwyn isn’t going to turn you in.”
The two friends shared a look, and Kelly shrugged her shoulders.
“Whatever, outcast. It’s your funeral. Why don’t you have a seat?”
Dain’s heart leapt, and he pulled a chair into the center of the room. As he moved some things aside, a piece of needlework caught his fingers. His stomach caught up in his throat at seeing it.
“What’s this?” He traced his fingers over the design in the center of the fabric.
“It’s nothing,” Galwyn snapped, snatching it out of his hands, still percolating with anger. “It’s just a needlepoint piece I made.”
“You made that? Where did you find the pattern?”
“I didn’t find it.” She tossed it onto the sofa. “It came to me in a dream.”
“That—" He pointed to the design. “—that’s my fam
ily crest. It’s the crest for the Hellgrim clan.”
His statement hung between the three of them, and he pulled a medallion from around his neck to prove it. As he did, something shifted in Galwyn. He could feel it, and he knew she could too. With a silent gesture, Kelly invited him to the chair.
Dain seated himself, stiff-backed like a student eager to please. Stepping close to him, Kelly stilled the room with her breath, cast her hands over him, and intoned the spell into the air. The unfamiliar words washed over Dain like a kind of smoke, seeping into his lungs rather than through his ears.
There was a click at the base of his throat, and his eyes drifted open. The entire world seemed sharper, yet more diffuse at the same time. When he let out a sigh, his voice seemed to come from somewhere else entirely. Leaning over him, Kelly looked into his eyes and gave a nod.
“He’s ready.”
At Kelly’s gesture, Galwyn stepped in front of Dain, her arms still folded under her breasts. Even in his state, Dain remembered the weight of them in his hands, the delight of holding her. He hoped more than anything that he would be able to again.
“Dain Oberon, did you attend Kiki and Thayne Nicolaides’s wedding out of a desire for revenge?”
“I did.” As soon as he spoke, she snorted in disgust. “At first.”
That caught her up, and she turned back to him.
“Did you make a plan with your cousins to find one of the Murphy women and…” Her throat caught, but she pushed on. “…avail yourself on her?”
“I did. None of them wanted any part of it and tried to talk sense into me, but I refused to listen and resolved to do it on my own.”
“And did you find someone to humiliate?” Silence answered her. “Did you find it in me?”
“No,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion. “I could never knowingly hurt you, Galwyn. When I saw you, all of those terrible thoughts left me. I no longer wanted revenge. All I wanted, all I needed in the world was…you.”
“Dain.” Her hand was at her throat, and she blinked hard at the water in her eyes. She turned to Kelly. “Is that true?”
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