I buckled forward, clutching my chest, but the sensation vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving nothing but that faint ache, and a wave of tears mingling with the rain soaking my cheeks.
What the hell?
Straightening cautiously, still massaging my chest, I turned an accusing glare on Idris. That hadn’t been an attack of indigestion, that much was certain. It hadn’t even been a physical pain, not really. It was the pain of learning Nan had passed away in her sleep, of losing Grandad to a heart attack just months later, neither giving me a chance to say goodbye. The pain I saw in people’s eyes as their beloved pet slipped away in their arms. It was that heartache that no drug could reach, and it certainly wasn’t mine.
Idris surveyed me with a detached curiosity, as though mildly interested in how I’d react to whatever the hell he’d just done to me.
“What was that?” I demanded, my voice hoarse. “It hurt!”
Idris sighed, averting his gaze. “I know. That’s why I didn’t want to wake up. It’s why I tried to hate you.” His voice was steadier than it had been, but his words still came slow and slurred. Still lacked life.
I took the opportunity to study him; the sag of his shoulders, the misery clinging to every feature. It had been hidden before, by a brittle, cold veneer, but that had fallen away, revealing the truth. He was hurting.
All that animosity, all those waspish words… Everything made sense now. He wasn’t some heartless, unfeeling monster. Something was eating away at him, and if the brief bolt of pain his clever little magic trick had shared was anything to go by, it was bad.
Maybe even bad enough to do something unthinkable.
“Why were you trying to fly tonight?” I forced the question out, terrified of the answer. Once this particular truth was spoken, acknowledged, there would be no escaping it. Maybe I was already ensnared.
Idris sighed, still avoiding my gaze. “I think you already know, don’t you?” He shrugged. “But now you’re here.”
Did I know? For once in my life, I wanted to be wrong. I didn’t want to know why he would choose to fly alone at night, when he could barely stand, never mind ride. I didn’t want to know what that awful pain might drive him to. But I did know, and I hated it. Fresh tears sprang to my eyes. I had to do something, say something, anything, to make him see sense. I had to tell Anwir, or the witches, anyone who might know how to help him.
“You’re right. I’m here. Of course I am. And so is Anwir. He loves you.”
Idris laughed coldly, shaking his head and blinking at the sky.
“Did you lose somebody?” I blurted the question before I could talk myself out of it, my words leaving in a rush. Maybe there was a lost love, from the days before the curse. A beautiful fae female, as ethereal and lovely as those who’d danced at the ball. I massaged the ache in my chest again.
Idris just stared at the sky. As though on queue, a break formed, revealing the moon. Its reflection gleamed in his overly bright eyes. When he spoke, his voice was so quiet that I felt the words more than heard them. “I have nothing left. Nobody.”
I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t take it. My heart was crumbling, and it hurt. I stepped in front of him, and before he could stop me, no matter how inappropriate it might be or how much he might despise it, I threw my arms around his neck, squeezing tight, hard enough to push back against the hollow he’d somehow carved into my chest. His sodden clothes were freezing against my bare arms, and he stiffened beneath me, but I didn’t care. He needed this. He needed the comfort of knowing he wasn’t alone. I didn’t know exactly why he needed it, but I’d figure that out later. Right now, all that mattered was that he was close to someone, even if that someone was me.
I don’t hate you.
I screwed my eyes shut against his chest. “I don’t hate you either. It’ll be okay, Idris. I promise, one day, everything will be okay.”
How could it be? How could my words bring comfort when I didn’t even know if they were true? But Idris sagged against me, all the tension draining from his hard muscles. His arms wrapped me up so completely that there was nothing but his warmth seeping through our chilled skin, and the blinding beat of pain pulsing from him to me. A second, poisoned heartbeat.
How had this happened? How had I wandered away from the dancing and the music, only to end up here, with him? How had he gone from such blatant hostility to broken in my arms in only a few glasses of wine?
With his massive arms crushing me against him, I could barely move, but I stroked my fingertips through the wet hair at the nape of his neck.
With the rustle of feathers and the shifting of a hoof in the grass, Saeth leaned against Idris, gently pushing him upright. The angle shifted, and though he towered above me, he curled, enveloping me, his cheek pressed against mine. His ribs expanded and deflated with shallow yet desperate breaths, much like mine did when I was trying to hold my tears at bay.
I wouldn’t be the first to break this contact, not when I suspected he was in desperate need of it.
“I want you to make me a promise,” I whispered in his ear.
He stiffened again. I knew what he dreaded, and I longed to say it anyway. To demand that he never let this pain get the better of him. To insist that he struggle through, every day, for eternity. I wanted to scream at him to agree to my demands, but I couldn’t. I had to start small. If I was going to help him, as my soul insisted, I had to tiptoe.
“No flying tonight, okay?”
He had me pressed so close that I felt him gulp. A few heartbeats later, his cheek rasped against mine as he gave a brief nod.
I smiled weakly. It was a start. One night, one day, one step at a time.
29I Didn’t Sign Up For This
The rain eased, the relentless, icy pounding against my bare back fading to drizzle. Wrapped in Idris’ arms, I barely noticed the chill. His body heat soaked into me, and I clung to it, to him, unwilling to let go and brave the cold again. He held me right back.
I didn’t count the minutes as I trailed my fingers up and down his spine, trying to ignore the impressively muscled expanse, the dip running up its centre, and the little bumps within. It was strange to think that our two species were so similar, right down to the vertebrae, and yet so different. This male would live forever, long after I’d withered to dust. There was magic, actual magic in his veins. And yet, he felt pain just as much as any human. What had happened to the person who’d caused this grief? Had life simply taken her in a different direction, or had she died? The witches claimed fae were immortal, but I knew Idris’ father had died, leaving the throne vulnerable. I knew countless fae had been lost at Maelgwyn’s hands. Death came for them too, sometimes, and when it did, the people who loved them cried, just like the many stricken families who had brought their ailing pets to me, over my years of study.
Eventually, Idris’ breathing slowed, deepening, and it was only then that some of the tightness in my chest eased. He straightened at last, and if I’d expected him to pull away completely, to become awkward or full of bravado, I was wrong. His hands hovered at my ribs, as if he was worried I’d back away, but his eyes were soft.
“I haven’t been very nice to you,” he observed.
My mouth twitched into a smirk. Understatement of the century, or given his lifespan, the millennia. “That’s okay.” I’d glimpsed who he was under that cool, indifferent facade. Tonight, and the day of the funeral. He wielded his pain like a weapon, turned his sadness into a shield, but beneath it, I suspected someone sweet and caring lurked, waiting to be uncovered. Someone I could grow to like.
He shook his head. “No, it’s not. I’m sorry.” His hand drifted to my face, and when his fingers grazed along my jaw, to my ear, blood rushed to burn in their wake, a glowing trail.
I could barely breathe as I said, “Take me flying again when you’re sober, and I’ll forgive you.”
“Are you sober?” The disgusted accusation in his voice enticed a laugh from me.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.”
“Why?”
