Rising Silver Mist

by Olivia Wildenstein

  I emptied my lungs until they shriveled like shrink-wrap. Keeping my mouth closed, I waited to feel something. Not death—I wasn’t trying to drown. Especially not in a bathtub. I wanted to see if my mind would cloud and darken, if my pulse would slow to a sluggish crawl.

  I didn’t get to finish my experiment as hands closed around my arms and yanked me out so hard, my lips ripped open like two strips of Velcro. Instead of screaming, I heaved in so much air my throat felt as though it had caught fire.

  9

  The Anger

  I coughed and spluttered.

  “Did you leave your mind behind in that stupid barn?” Ace growled, eyes incandescent in the daylight slotting through the window of the guest bathroom.

  I blinked at him several times. A string of questions lurched into my head and tangled on their way out. “How did you— Why are— Were you following—” I coughed again, then remembered I was naked, and my cough turned into a gulp.

  My lower body was hidden beneath the dense bubbles, but not my breasts. Foam slid off my skin, revealing more of me than I’d ever showed Ace.

  Not that he was looking at my breasts.

  He was way too busy glowering at my face.

  I tried to yank my arms out of his grasp, but he only gripped them harder. “I’m not suicidal, Ace.”

  “Could’ve fooled me,” he muttered darkly.

  “How did you even know I was at a barn?”

  “You think I’d let you go off with an unpredictable hunter? What if he’d decided to kill you? Or lock you up? Or—”

  “Kajika might be your enemy, but he isn’t mine.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Exactly what?”

  “He could’ve taken you hostage. Used you to get leverage on me.”

  “He doesn’t think I matter that much to you. He thinks we’re just friends.”

  Ace snorted.

  “What?”

  “Come on, Cat. Kajika might be unpredictable and slightly unhinged, but he’s not stupid, and you might be fairly friendly—on good days—but you don’t go around holding people’s hands.”

  A lot of things pricked me about what he’d just said. “On good days? Am I insufferable the rest of the time?”

  A smile teetered on the corner of Ace’s mouth but vanished when his eyes finally wandered away from my face.

  “So?” I asked. “Am I?”

  “What?”

  “Ace! Eyes up.”

  He blinked, pupils pulsing, and then he unlatched his hands from my arms. I sank back underneath with a hard splash that tossed water onto his cloud-colored shirt and narrow jeans. The water-dark spot dried almost instantly.

  “How did you get into my house?”

  “Your front door was unlocked.”

  I herded soap bubbles over my chest. “You braved the wind chime?”

  He didn’t smile. “Do you still have feelings for Kajika?”

  “What? Where is this coming from?”

  He leaned back against the sink and folded his arms in front of his chest. “I saw you with him at the barn. You looked…I don’t know—” He clamped his mouth shut for a second. “You looked happy to be there with him.”

  “You mean, when he pushed me against the rope fence and stripped off my clothes?”

  Ace’s jaw reddened so fast I half-expected to see smoke curl away from his skin. “He did what?”

  I leveled my gaze on his. “You weren’t there the whole time, then.”

  “You…you did something with him?”

  The fact that Ace had jumped to that conclusion irked me. “Of course not.” I rested my head back and closed my eyes. “Nice to see how much you trust me, though.”

  Silence.

  I opened my eyes to see if Ace had left. He hadn’t. He stood over the bathtub.

  “It’s him I don’t trust,” he said.

  “I feel like we’ve already had this conversation. More than once. I have no romantic feelings for Kajika, but I don’t hate him. That might not be what you want to hear, but it’s the truth. Another truth. I don’t hold his hand—not even on good days. I don’t flirt with him, or any other guy for that matter. And I don’t lead him on. That would be cruel. I might not be the most empathetic person in the world, but I don’t like hurting people.”

  “You hurt me.” For a hundred-and-twenty-year-old man, Ace suddenly seemed very young.

  “You hurt me too.”

  His jaw set. “You mean because I’m getting married? I don’t have a choice, Cat. I’m stuck with Angelina.” He crouched next to the tub and raked his hand through his dark gold locks. “You…you had a choice, and you picked him.”

  I raised a hand and touched his jaw. Water trickled down his neck, but steamed off him with a hiss. How was he, of all people, so insecure? “To teach me to fight. That’s all I picked him for, Ace.” Sensing how glum this conversation had made him…had made me, I asked, “What would happen if you got inside the tub with me? Would your fire steam all the water out of the bath?”

  He shut his eyes for a second. When he reopened them, they were searing. “Is that an invitation?”

  I grew flustered. “I was just curious if there would be any water left.”

  “And here I thought you were scheming to see me naked, but I should’ve known it was a science experiment.”

  I popped a bubble with my forefinger. “You know me.”

  “I’m not sure I do.” His gaze slid over my brow, my lashes, my nose, my mouth, my neck and lower still. “Sometimes, I’m not sure I do know anything about you, Cat.”

  My breath nocked against my vocal cords. “Come inside the bath with me.” I took in the uneven height of his dark eyebrows, the blueness of his irises, the soft shape of his mouth.

  A long beat passed. “Then I’ll be all wet.”

  “You’ll dry.” I studied the rainbow gleam of a soap bubble.

  In silence, he unlaced his shoes, unbuttoned his shirt. Concentration marred his features. I doubted he was concentrating on the mechanics of shoe laces and buttons. I bit my lip. Had I really just propositioned Ace to take a bath with me?

  I blushed at my audacity.

  I’d never done that before.

  Ever.

  He said he didn’t know me, but did I know my own self?

  He stood over me, jeans still on but bare chested, sculpted and golden, carved out of muscle.

  I’d trailed my hands over his chest, down his back, but I’d never seen him without a shirt.

  Wordlessly, he slid one foot inside the bath.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Your jeans are still on.”

  The water hissed and warmed, but didn’t simmer. Yet its temperature definitely increased.

  “I know.” He braced a knee on either side of my thighs, then lowered more of his glorious body inside.

  “Why?”

  He gripped the sides of the claw-footed tub. “Because I don’t want our first time to happen after a fight.”

  I didn’t want that either…

  The water rose higher, heated up more.

  “Am I about to be boiled?”

  His strained expression turned amused. “The water won’t get any hotter. But I can run some cold water if it’ll appease you.”

  “Don’t. I like my water hot.” I coasted my hands up his arms that were hard and sinewy. I wondered if he worked out. There was so much I didn’t know about him too. I told him this.

  “Ask me whatever you want.”

  I raked my fingernails over his shoulders, down the sides of his torso. “Do you have a house on Earth?”

  “No.”

  “Not even on Beaver Island?” The Woods supposedly lived there, in a luxurious, secluded compound.

  “The houses on Beaver Island are just for show.”

  “But you have a house in Neverra?”

  “Not a house per se. I live at the top of a calimbor. They are—”

  “—skytrees. Borgo told me about them.” I caressed his abdom
inal muscles that contracted and shuddered underneath my touch. “Do you have running water in Neverra?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have a bathtub?”

  “The size of a small pool.”

  “Do you have windows?” I ran my hands back down his arms. His skin pebbled.

  “Yes.” His voice had gone hoarse. He caught my hands and immobilized them. “I take it back.”

  “What do you take back?”

  “I don’t want to answer questions right now. You only get to ask me questions when you’re clothed.”

  “Is my nakedness distracting?” If I hadn’t been supremely nervous, I probably would’ve winked, but I was no femme fatale. I wasn’t a virgin either, but I had such meager experience, which wasn’t something I wanted Ace to deduce.

  His features twitched as though he were fighting some internal battle with himself. I wasn’t sure what the stakes were. I doubted he was nervous. He had trust issues, but he was neither introverted nor innocent.

  Some part of him must have won, because his features evened out. He released my hands, grabbed the edges of the tub, and curved toward me. Slowly, delicately, he touched his lips to mine. His kiss felt like a question.

  I threaded my hands through his hair and lifted myself to kiss him back, pressing my naked chest against his hot skin. He growled into my mouth.

  When he dragged his lips off mine, he whispered, “Come to Neverra with me.”

  “I can’t go there.”

  Could I even pass through a portal? I was part huntress. Hunters weren’t allowed into Neverra. Perhaps they were allowed into the Hareni with their fellow Unseelie, but if I ended up there, then I’d only see Ace on the Night of Mist, which happened once a month—once a very long month. Days on Neverra weren’t equal to Earth days. And the Great Spirit only knew how friendly the Unseelie were… “Faeries would kill me if I went.”

  “Only I can kill you.”

  “Technically.”

  “I’d keep you safe, Cat.”

  “How? By locking me up inside your calimbor?”

  His lips thinned. He obviously hadn’t thought through the logistics of bringing a huntress—part huntress—into enemy territory.

  “Besides, I can’t leave my father, Ace.”

  As though speaking his name had summoned him, I heard a door bang shut, followed by my name.

  The bathroom door was thankfully not open, but it was unlocked. “I’m taking a bath, Dad,” I yelled back. “Be out in a sec!” To Ace, I said, “You need to go.”

  His face had taken that grave quality again, the one that told me he was adrift in his thoughts. Chest rising slowly, evenly—unlike mine—he lifted himself out of the bath, wet denim clinging to his long legs.

  “Can you throw me the towel on the rack?” I whispered.

  Immobile, pensive, he dripped water onto the tiled floor.

  “Ace?”

  His gaze jerked to mine.

  “Towel?” I pointed to the rack.

  He grabbed it, unfolded it, and held it out. I climbed out of the tub. He folded it around me without peeking.

  “What if I found a way?” he said.

  “Found a way to do what?”

  “To get you a portal stamp. So you could travel from Neverra to Earth whenever you wanted? Would you consider coming with me?”

  My heart quickened. Slowly, I turned to face him. “Your people would punish you. Remember what they did to Cruz? To Borgo? You’re the prince—”

  “Gregor doesn’t have the political pull to have me locked up, and my father wouldn’t dare, because if he tried, I’d spread the news that Angelina isn’t carrying my child. Having an affair is one thing. Impregnating a faerie other than your spouse? Not only is that frowned upon but the child is always expelled from the mother’s womb.”

  My stomach lurched. “They make women have abortions?”

  Ace nodded gravely.

  “That’s barbaric.” Almost as bad as the punishment they’d inflicted on Borgo when they found out he’d slept with a huntress. Thankfully, they’d stopped punishing people with castration. “What happens to the babies who are born?”

  “They are expelled from Neverra.”

  “So they die?”

  “If they aren’t pure fae, they have a chance at survival.”

  A chance? I wanted to yell at Ace that his people were cruel, but he wasn’t at fault. His father, though…his father could change things. “What if the woman was raped?” I would drop the subject after this.

  “Doesn’t matter how the child was made.” Ace delicately cupped my face, his touch feather-light. “When I inherit the throne, I will change that.”

  But until then, many would perish. Trying to eject the gory images from my mind, I asked, “If I went to Neverra with you, how would you explain my presence?”

  “You’d be my concubine.”

  The term stunned me. And the idea bothered me. “I don’t want to be your concubine.”

  He tossed his hands in the air. “I have nothing else to offer!”

  I recoiled from the sharpness of his voice. “Let me be your Earthly girlfriend. I’m okay with that.”

  And I was. For now.

  “Maybe I’m not,” he said.

  “You’d rather be my friend?”

  His lethal look shut me up. “I need to think.”

  My heart held still. “About what?”

  I never got my answer. He opened the window, levitated, and lurched out like one of my arrows. Instead of arching downward though, he shot up into the wide blue sky.

  10

  The Glass Flower

  I ran hard and fast, covering miles of trail. My lungs burned and my thighs cramped, but I kept pushing myself until my mind no longer hummed with Ace’s absence. Since our bath, he hadn’t given any sign of life. I’d texted him. Called him. Made my heart beat faster. And still he hadn’t returned.

  Cruz had come, though. Twice he’d stopped by to check on me. Twice I’d asked him where Ace was, and he’d said Ace had sent him because he was busy. “Wedding preparations,” he’d explained.

  “Wedding preparations?” I’d asked, trying not to sound like a jealous girlfriend.

  “Did you forget he’s getting married to Angelina?”

  “I didn’t forget, but I didn’t think the prince had to involve himself in the preparations.”

  “In Neverra, we have a lot of festivities leading up to our weddings. Bride and groom must be seen together.” He’d squinted one eye. “Last night was the duobosi.”

  “The what?”

  “The coupling ceremony.”

  A chill had zinged up my spine.

  “The groom has to penetrate his bride in front of a small audience. You cannot imagine the fortune people spend to watch. Especially a royal duobosi.” Cruz had studied my face. “Usually it’s to gauge the quality of the man’s seed, but since Angelina’s already pregnant—” He’d tilted his head to the side. “I should probably let Ace explain all of this. I feel like it’s causing you pain, and I’d rather not cause you any.”

  My throat had clenched so tight I could barely swallow. I’d never been jealous of anything or anyone. Why did I care now? Was it because I didn’t know Angelina and secretly believed Ace was downplaying the importance she had in his life, or was it because being the other woman perturbed me?

  “I need to get back to Neverra.” His florescent green eyes had lingered on mine. As he’d turned to leave, he’d paused. “Are you okay, Cat?”

  I’d said yes, but I hadn’t been okay.

  I still wasn’t okay. I was a fool to believe there was nothing physical between Ace and Angelina. He might not care for her, but he had obligations, and those obligations sickened me.

  After Cruz left, I went running. So that my brand flared long and hard. So that it reminded Ace of his connection to me. Reminded him of me.

  He didn’t come.

  The following day, I laced up my sneakers and went for anoth
er run.

  I ran faster and harder than the previous day. My feet didn’t hover off the ground, and the world didn’t blur past me, yet my speed seemed to have increased.

  Was I slowly turning into a huntress?

  Water whipped my face. Rain? Minutes before, the sky had been cloudless. Like silver barbs, the raindrops needled the exposed patches of skin on my body—my shins, my forearms, my forehead, my cheeks.

  I swerved past pine trees and burgeoning bushes, snaked around the cauliflower-shaped pond and the little house I used to dream my family owned. I didn’t stop until I reached the picnic area where I’d met with Borgo last.

  Digging my fingers into a stitch in my side, I walked over to the spot where he’d exploded into ashes. A flower swayed in the gusty weather. It resembled a sunflower with its thick stem and mud-brown center, but its petals were violet and translucent, as delicate as the Murano glass vase my parents had purchased during their honeymoon.

  I touched the flower. The petals shivered as though equipped with a pulse. I plucked one and laid it in my palm. It curled on itself like a caterpillar, and then it fractured like glass and turned to dust. Instead of leaving a residue on my wet hand, the dust vanished into thin air.

  Would a human—a normal one—notice the petal’s transformation like I had? Would they see the new petal already growing out, replacing the vanished one?

  I stepped away from the flower whose head seemed to pivot toward me like a true sunflower, as though Borgo was somewhere in there.

  “What should I do?” I asked the flower, all the while thinking I should probably not speak to flowers.

  I squeezed the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes. It was a wonder it had taken me that long to completely lose it. That was probably why I suddenly cared about things I’d never cared about before. My world had finally spun off its axis.

  My hair and exercise clothes were soaked by the time I made it back to my house. My insides also felt cold and slushy.

  I desperately wanted to call Cass. Talk it all over with her. I trudged past the hearse, hopped up the porch steps, and opened our unlocked door. The wind chime clinked feverishly over my head. I closed the door, kicked off my sneakers that weighed a ton-and-a-half from caked-on mud, and then peeled off my sodden socks.