29. Chapter Twenty-Eight
29
William
T here was no respite in rest. Fear, anxiety, and exasperation smothered him in the night. He laid in the room full of snoring soldiers. Fabric rustled, a man coughed, another sneezed, and he stayed silent while playing out every worst-case scenario. Fearworn took Charmaine. A monstrous infection ravaged and dragged her away.
His hands fisted into the sleeping bag. His teeth pierced his bottom lip. He tasted copper among his anger, a twisting nether of fury that had him kicking his way out of the bag. Stumbling over sleeping soldiers, he wandered through the dim hall to fall into the snow outside where he rubbed the freeze against his cheeks. Snow, ice, the gray sky, all of it reminded him of another problem; Laurent.
Nicholas’ father caught them. A fae knew, a powerful one at that. Nicholas feared him and that meant he should, too. In every shadow, he worried Laurent would be there, waiting. Those eyes held death, promised a bitter end. He worried he saw them unblinking in the night, waiting to steal him away like the fae tales.
What a fool he had been. He knew better than to lie with fae, and Nicholas, of all people. William liked the danger and now he faced the consequences. Yet, he wanted nothing more than to see Nicholas at this moment. Not even for sex, just for comfort, for someone to tell him Charmaine would be alright, that she’d somehow return as if nothing awful had transpired, and that had him releasing a pitiful laugh.
Damn it all, he wanted Nicholas to hold him, to run his fingers through William’s hair and ask silly questions that would make him forget about what happened. They could lie in bed, snuggled beneath the covers. He would count the seconds between their silence, knowing Nicholas would conjure a question, a joke, or even a riddle, and he would be set at ease. Even if it was false. Hearing his voice, feeling Nicholas’ pulse beneath his fingertips became what he yearned for, what made his heart race or settle.
“Idiot.” He slammed a fist against his chest, over a traitorous heart.
“William?” Oscar called, illuminated by the torch clutched in his shivering, gloved hands. Snow crunched beneath his rushed steps. “What are you doing up so late? Are you hurt?”
“No, I… wanted some fresh air.” He stood and dusted the snow off his trousers. He took a moment to breathe, to settle the tremble in his voice. “Are you on watch duty?”
“Yeah.” Oscar’s teeth chattered behind his chapped lips. “I heard about Albie. All of us had. That…I’m sorry. It’s a real shame to have lost him.”
“We haven’t lost him for good. Fearworn wouldn’t risk creating a monster that could infect him, too.”
He repeated that to himself a thousand times. There had to be a way to get Charmaine back, to take her home. They had so much to do, so many stories and adventures they spun when sleep wouldn’t spare them. William promised to teach her how all the ladies of high society danced. Charmaine promised to teach him to sing and play the acoustic guitar. She was meant to buy a new home with her mother where she could live as her true self. He was meant to return to his family and try to be the man he should have become. They had too much to do to stop now.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Oscar asked, sniffling. Mentioning Charmaine made his eyes water.
“That there may be…” William fell quiet. A shadow shifted nearby, then a pair of fuchsia eyes blinked in the shadows. He wished to run toward them. “A cure,” he muttered.
“Wow, I ain’t ever heard you be so optimistic before.”
Not optimistic, desperate, William thought.
“I hope you’re right. Hopefully, he’s out there and we find that cure and he can come home,” Oscar said while patting William’s shoulder. His attention shifted between Oscar and Nicholas’ figure concealed by the tents. “Well, I better get a move on or I’ll be late to my post. Goodnight, William. Try to get some sleep.”
“You, too. Goodnight.”
The firelight faded. Nicholas’ eyes brightened. He flicked his fingers, beckoning William forward. In the shadows, Nicholas caught his hand. A fae shouldn’t calm his days. Nicholas’ attention shouldn’t ease his discomfort. His smooth fingers cradling William’s neck should make his teeth grind. Instead, he melted into those arms that let him breathe, slowly, deeply, exactly what he needed.
“Are you alright?” Nicholas asked. “We weren’t able to speak earlier about what happened.”
“Should we be speaking now?” Fear bubbled in William’s abdomen. He stepped aside, missing Nicholas’ touch and the foreign comfort he gave of late. “Why are you here? Someone may see.”
“My father and the generals had my attention until now. As you were not in my room, I came looking for you.” Nicholas caught his fingers, toying with them until he opened his hand. Nicholas dropped the missing ring into his palm. “I found this in my room earlier. Put it on and follow me.”
“Nicholas, I’m not in the mood for sex.”
“We are not going to my room. Trust me.” Those two words hung between them. Tempting. Risking. So different from how they started, from what they expected to come of this. Trust never should have grown between them. There was meant to be hate and lust, but trust forced it way through without either of them realizing it.
Nicholas retreated. He never left tracks. The snow did not crunch beneath his steps. He moved elegantly, stopping once to urge William to follow. Hesitantly, he slipped on the ring and became Nicholas’ shadow. They swerved through the encampment, Nicholas not caring who saw him. No one, especially a mortal, could stop him from doing whatever he desired, like leaving the citadel through the gates.
William stood by the cracked wall, repaired by remnants that any soldier could find in the citadel. Charmaine leapt over this wall earlier, as if it were a mere foot off the ground rather than thirty. Soldiers patrolled the embankment and manned the gate. They gave Nicholas peculiar looks, but said nothing about his passing.
Nicholas disappeared within the tree line. William wasn’t so sure he should follow. He yearned to run after the fae, disappear with him, forget about all this, and that elated him, scarily, so. If they disappeared in that forest together, never to be seen again, he wasn’t entirely certain he’d mind.
With a shuddering breath, he slipped outside and took to the trees. He jolted when a hand snaked around his wrist. Nicholas ran, his fuchsia light fled from him like fireflies. They flickered around them, illuminating the forest floor once eerie and now beautiful.
“Where are we going?” he grunted.
“Away from there,” Nicholas replied.
William fell into a run beside him. Somehow, this felt natural, necessary. They came upon a meager clearing. Trees parted where a mound of rocks rose, clustered together. William took a seat on one, then returned the ring to his pocket, shivering under the moonlit sky.
“The moon,” he whispered, awestruck. A gray overhang hid the sky since their arrival, but here, the clouds cut apart enough to reveal the soft moonlight. Nicholas fell on the stone beside him. He did not miss how their fingers brushed, how Nicholas linked their pinkies as if it weren’t sweet.
“What happened earlier? Did the medicine not work, or you weren’t able to get to her in time?” Nicholas asked.
William slid his boots from side to side, then clicked the heels. “She changed because of me. The first two soldiers who died today, they saw me leaving your room and assumed we spent the evening together. They were threatening me when Charmaine arrived. I saw her getting irritated and tried to intervene, but one man said the wrong thing and she attacked. I tried to feed her that medicine, but her strength was too great, then she was gone.”
Nicholas wore a lopsided grin. “You did what you could?”
“Sometimes it is alright not to give words of comfort. You don’t excel at them.” William shuddered from the chill and his worries. “Your father, will he tell anyone about us?”
“Doubtful. He saw you as my plaything, and I did not dissuade him.”
“I see.” Bile rose in his throat. “And he took that fine?”
“My father cares little about what I do, so long as it doesn’t go against his plans. He will not speak of anything.”
“Is that why you came to see me? To let me know that your father approves of your plaything?” That last question came out with more bite than William meant. The words left a foul taste at the tip of his tongue. He didn’t want to be Nicholas’ plaything. He wanted to be more than that.
“No, the generals and my kin are worried about what happened to Charmaine. They had the same concerns we did. If Fearworn can change one, he can change others. They will push me to my limits. I will have little time to speak over the coming days, but I wanted you to know that my father is tracking her.”
William lurched to his feet. “What? Now, as we speak? Where is she? We have to find her.”
Nicholas caught his hand and encouraged him to sit. The fae cradled his face, speaking softly, “We will. My father tracks her as I track Fearworn. We expect she is running to him, so we will find his hideout.”
“The generals will not wait long to attack. We could find her. We can save her.”
Nicholas wore a solemn fear. “My wicked, she is lost.”
“She isn’t!” He screamed, angered by her loss but also Nicholas giving up so easily. If anyone could help, it was him, and William wanted, no, he needed that help. Nicholas clung to his neck, easing William into his arms. He struggled against the hold, fingers tearing into the shade’s arm. “You said there could be a cure. You said we will look for it.”
“We may not have the time. You are right, the generals will not wait. This is our greatest opportunity. Scouts are following her trail. They are scoping out the terrain, strategizing. Should she go to Fearworn, we will be sent and she will be in the crossfire. She may yet be among his forces.”
No gasp granted William the air he needed. Every burst was too little, then too much. Living out here like this for so long, he saw countless bodies, terrifying deaths. Now, he imagined Charmaine, her body broken, bruised and bloody, twisted beyond recognition, laying in the snow, being dumped in this wasteland rather than taken home where she belonged. He couldn’t save her. There was no bully to punch. No kids to snap back to. Only a monster with unfathomable power he couldn’t stand against and a world reminding him how ruthlessly cruel it was.
Regardless, William spoke with determination and fear. “We will find her and keep her away from battle until we find the cure.”
“Our focus must be on Fearworn.”
“Fine, do that, but I will find her. I will save her, no matter what.” He searched Nicholas’ eyes for recognition, anything to show he understood, but a fae couldn’t. “You don’t understand. I cannot lose her.”
“Then explain. Tell me why you will risk so much, your life even, for one person.”
“Because I am selfish. All those years ago when I helped her, I really did it for me,” he muttered. Every word caught in his tightened throat. The tears came and they would not stop. Nicholas saw all of it again. He saw far too much, but William could not withstand the worry, the mounting fear of finding Charmaine’s broken corpse and being unable to mend her.
“You were right,” he wheezed. “I have killed the men I swore to save, and I do not regret a damn thing. Mortals are as cruel as fae, if not worse, for we pretend not to be. Children taken from their homes, sent to fight and knowing they may die, it is not strange to think that they will be angry. I told you the others took their ire out on me. First, they called me names, then they stole my food and belongings, then they beat me with fists and belts and more. Finally, some raped me. A bunch of rowdy, angry children far from home and taught how to maim and kill. Of course they would spoil. They would rot and fester into cursed beasts because that was how we survived. Except I knew I wouldn’t live much longer if they kept it up.
After I was assigned the title of medic, the beatings stopped. Healers could step out onto the field and when they begged me for help like I begged them to stop, I could spit in their face and say no. And that’s exactly what I did. I waited. I watched. When the perfect opportunity came in the middle of a battle, I stabbed the first asshole who put his hands on me so many times I lost count. The next bully was injured, and I slipped spion venom into his wound. The last, his wounds were already great, healable, but deadly, so all I had to do was wait. He begged, and I laughed, then I cried because I should have felt better.”
Nicholas’ thumb brushed the tears from William’s cheeks. “Why didn’t you?”
“Because I loved who I was before this torment, and I hate who I have become. I am scarred, mentally and,” William dug nails into his shoulders, thinking of the scars along his back. “They marked me. I will never forget what they did. They made me this way, the military and those boys. I am not stronger because of this. I am angry and hollow and tormented, barely much of a man, no, barely much of a person at all. And after all that happened to me, I heard someone screaming for help and they sounded like me. A terrified child who needed help in a place that sought to tear you apart.”
He heaved a rattled breath, overtaken by more than tears. All of it, every memory swimming in and out of his vision, as if it happened yesterday. He yearned to scream, to cry, to throw a fit, to cling to Nicholas like a dying breath. None of this should have happened. He should have grown up happy with his family, but he hadn’t, and it was one of many reasons he couldn’t have faith like so many others. Who could believe in an afterlife, in merciful gods when reality is merciless?
“All I could think about was how no one stepped in to help me,” he whimpered. “So I ran, and there Charmaine was, beaten bloody. I saw myself in her, the fear in her eyes. Those bastards laughed, as my tormentors had. I made them regret it, and I taught Charmaine to make them regret it. I went after any piece of shit who dared to do the same because I found the world is a better place without them in it. I did not help Charmaine purely out of the goodness of my heart. But I love her dearly now, even as the monster they made me to be.”
“Monster,” Nicholas echoed. He caught William by the chin, forcing their gaze to meet, capturing him within burning fuchsia light. “Listen well, William Vandervult, for I cannot lie. You are kind and vicious, cunning and infuriating, loyal and fierce. You are wholly wonderful and you are strong. You were before them, as the boy who helped the suffering and gave his family all the love in the world. And you are after, as the man protecting those he loves, regardless of how that love came to be, and protecting yourself by any means necessary. They deserved what they got. What you did was a mercy, for had I heard this and they lived, I would have shown them suffering, pain beyond comprehension, my wicked. I would have done anything you asked and more.”
Nicholas’ fingers traced the lines of his face to memorize every surface. His thumb brushed a trembling bottom lip, then a chilled cheek and around William’s ear. Nicholas’ fingers fell into William’s hair and he whispered against parted lips, “This may mean nothing to you, but I adore the positively wicked little thing that you are here and now, even if you do not.”
William kissed the troublesome bastard for making his heart ache, for making him believe every word, for letting him feel like he wasn’t utterly broken and deprived. They did deserve it. He was strong before and he is now. Hearing that from Nicholas meant more than he could explain, more than he could show, but he tried. He clung to Nicholas, tasted his lips, kissed him over and over, each more brilliant than the last.
As Nicholas held him, he cried. Nicholas gave him peace and affection in the soothing motion of his hand against his back, then kissing his temple, his cheek, his shoulder. It was too much. It wasn’t enough. He wished to stay here, to fuse, to burrow beneath Nicholas’ skin and feed off his fire, to never separate.
“We will search for the cure. I can promise that much,” Nicholas said.
“Thank you.” They stayed like that, cuddled beneath the fading moonlight, and he thought spending more nights like this for a long, long time wouldn’t be so bad.