2. Mendax
2
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O range rays of morning sun streamed across the peppy fae’s face. My smoke pushed at his lips. With every inhale, as his mouth opened, the long fingers of my smoke pressed into his throat. This all could be done and over—I could suffocate him right now. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t yet. I was acquaintances with Kaohs, the god of the underworld. Maybe he could send Caly back to me if I killed Aurelius and she died because of their tie. A shiver racked my body at the thought of her dying.
Hacking and gasping sounds filled the room, and I realized golden boy had swallowed a good deal of my smoke while I wasn’t paying attention. Quickly, I retracted it and closed my eyes.
Caly’s supple body stirred next to me. “Eli! Are you okay?” she called to the choking man. She tried to get up and go to him, but my arms remained tightly wrapped around her, as I refused to let her leave me for him.
Still coughing and choking, Aurelius struggled to answer.
Caly tried to shove my arm off, so I pretended to rouse from slumber, sleepily pulling her under me, making certain she felt how my body ached and hardened for her. I dipped my hips just enough to feel myself rub between her legs. It felt like I would die from wanting to sink inside her long before I would die from any decision the Fates made.
She sucked in a loud breath before wrapping her arms around my neck and whispering into my ear, “I know what you did. I was watching you watch him.”
I pulled back a little to see her sly smile.
Fuck, she was deviously perfect.
I rolled over and let the goddess leave me to attend to the choking puppy on the floor.
I despised that fae more than anything in this exhausting world. It was because of him and his mother that I no longer had a castle to go home to. They were the ones who had taken the lives of my mother and brother.
Anger rippled through my body as I remembered the way Aurelius’s mother had pressed her blade into the top of my brother Walter’s skull, sending him to his final resting place in Tartarus.
Aurelius would die somehow. I would kill him in the most painful way possible. I no longer cared if it bothered Caly or not. Watching her fuss over him caused a surge of unfamiliar feelings to course through me. I wanted to rip out the throat of every man who still lived, but that wasn’t the unfamiliar feeling. I was scared of losing her, and it made my soul tremble.
I continued to watch the two of them as I got dressed.
It would all be over at the end of today.
Caly’s father and the Fates had summoned the three of us to Moirai to stand trial for going against their laws. It was strictly forbidden for a person to be both bonded and tied, but aside from the legalities of the situation, which I certainly didn’t care about, the tie to Aurelius and the bond to me were slowly killing Caly. I doubted she was even aware of it with the way I had been continuously pushing my powers into the bond in an effort to keep her as healthy as possible, and I had suspicions that Aurelius was doing something similar with their tie. If we didn’t get either the tie or the bond severed today, it would kill one of us before the Fates even had the opportunity to. It needed to be done today, or I would die very soon after, if not by my own blade from the frustration of this endeavor then by giving every last drop of life I had to Caly. The simple thought of leaving her with golden boy was enough to take me down on its own, but if he drained his powers in trying to saving her, then she would die as well. That was the curse of the tie and the reason I always needed to be giving more of myself than him. Our bond didn’t operate by jeopardizing her, so I could remove myself, and she would continue on until we met again in Tartarus.
It would be the one and only selfless thing I would have ever done, but still, I would do it for her if I needed to.
“It is time to leave. Be outside in five minutes. Calypso, stay with Aurelius until we reach Lake Sheridon. The weather will be hard for you, and I am much colder than he is,” I said as I sent an icy glare at Aurelius before walking out the door.
Being a SunTamer, he would always be warmer than other fae, especially a prince of the shadows and darkness like me, and she needed to stay warm. He also needed to stay away from me before I lost control and wound up killing both of them by accident.
On the way out, I stopped by the tavern to see if any Unseelie had found their way to the Inn Between. “A shot of bone nectar,” I stated to the orc behind the counter.
“Oi, I wouldn’t take that if it was me last day,” declared the little fae to my right.
I threw back the white liquid and slid the glass back to the barkeep.
“It quite possibly is my last day,” I replied.