Chapter 9 #3
“I would think she’d bring out the worst in everyone,” Lexi said, feeling generous.
Still uncertain as to why he had become so ill at ease even before she mentioned the princess, she decided to grab the proverbial bull by the horns.
“What is wrong, Jeros? You were fine earlier, but the longer we sit here, the more you seem…off.”
He stared at her, then slowly lowered his knife and fork to rest on his plate. “I fear I dinna have the patience I should have.” He sat back in his chair and tossed his linen napkin to the table. “I am troubled, Lexi.”
She patted the corners of her mouth with her own napkin, then placed it beside her plate. “Are you talking about the war or about me making up my mind?”
He gave her a look that said more than any words ever could.
“I need time, Jeros. I can’t just toss away all I have ever known as if none of it ever mattered.”
“Am I not enough for ye, then?”
“I didn’t say that.” She shifted in the chair, fidgeting like a child called into the principal’s office.
“The more I get to know you, the longer we’re together…
” How could she describe it? It was like waking from a long, terrible dream and finding herself safe in the arms of who she had been looking for all along.
And yet… “It’s difficult for me to let down my walls and allow myself to become vulnerable.
Every time I did that in the past, I was hurt.
Whether from friends who turned out not to really be friends after all, or lovers who were only using me. ”
His glower darkened even more. The muscles in his strong jaw flexed, and Lexi swore she could hear his teeth grinding together.
She decided to try a different sort of reasoning to help him understand.
“If our situations were reversed, if you were the one taken from this world and dropped into mine, how would you feel? Would you be ready to never see the Seventh Realm ever again? Would you be willing to leave your people to whatever fate awaited them without you to protect them? Wouldn’t you have to think twice and weigh all the consequences before you made your decision? ”
“Yer life, yer world is not like mine. People would not die if ye dinna return.” He jerked with a curt, condescending nod. “Granted, yer people may experience a bit of uncertainty or grief, but they will adjust. It would not be the same as if I left the Seventh Realm.”
His answer bristled her. She couldn’t believe he had the gall to sit there and say her existence in her world was not as important, not as integral, as his. She might not be royalty, but she mattered. “You are an ass.”
“Honesty and trust, aye? Ye asked the question, lass. Did ye not wish to hear the truth?”
She thumped her fist on the table. “My existence in my world is just as important as your existence here.”
“Will people die if ye dinna return?” he asked with infuriating quietness.
Shoving away from the table, she rose. “I am not some insignificant breeding stock shipped in from another world to please His Royal Highness. As soon as I find a way back, I am gone. Thank you for making the decision so much easier.” She stormed from the room with Aylryd at her heels, ignoring Jeros’s call.
She had worth. If he didn’t realize that, he didn’t deserve her.
* * *
Lexi sat on the balcony floor, leaning against the coolness of the stone post, Aylryd by her side.
It had taken forever to get rid of Rill and bolt the door so no one else could bother her.
She was done. Homesick. Fed up. And more than a little ready for the biggest pity party in which she had ever indulged.
She closed her eyes against the burn of tears begging to be released. No. She wouldn’t cry. Tears helped nothing. They just stopped up her nose, gave her the hiccups, and ended up making her puke. The logical side of her grudgingly admitted that Jeros was sort of right.
No, no one would die if she didn’t return.
Maggie would miss her, and hopefully, so would the employees at Vinemagic Horse Farms. But just as Jeros had so rudely pointed out, life would go on for all of them.
Maggie would return to her own practice, taking Lexi’s clients with her.
The board would run the farm, and the lawyers would see that everyone was not only taken care of but still had a job.
Vinemagic Horse Farms would become the property of the employees, and they and the board would either see to its successful running or sell it to another family of the Lexington Horsey Set.
But none of that meant she didn’t matter or have worth beyond being some sort of Fae fated mate—whatever that amounted to other than marriage and the less than likely possibility of motherhood.
Marriage and family were important, but it was not now nor ever would be her identity.
She had worth beyond that which she did.
Mammaw had drilled that into her from a young age.
Preaching that no matter what Lexi did in her life, that was not her identity.
She was more than her job, accomplishments, friends, or if she ever married, her family.
She was Lexington Elizabeth Vine. A confused, complicated animal lover who excelled in overthinking any and every situation.
“I am me,” she whispered, sounding pitiful even to herself.
Aylryd lifted his head and trilled an almost kittenish sound that a tiger shouldn’t be able to make.
She hugged his neck and rested her cheek on his head. “I don’t know what to do, Aylryd.”
His purring helped, but didn’t provide any answers.
Even with Jeros making her so angry, she still…
she still…A heavy sigh left her, and she leaned against the pillar again and looked out across the garden bathed in the moon’s blue-white glow.
She still liked Jeros more than she should, and heaven help her, she ached for him to hold her and show her just how badly he wanted her to stay.
“Lust,” she told the night and the stars winking overhead. “Just because I lust after him doesn’t mean I love him enough to marry him.” Love him enough? “Love him at all,” she corrected in case snoozing Aylryd or the stars were really listening.
She needed to find a way back so she could think without so many distractions.
Seventh Realm was sensory overload with unicorns and faeries and whatever other mythical creatures lived here.
She’d forgotten to ask about dragons. And the war.
There was the war to worry about now. How exactly did faeries fight one another?
If they were capable of magic, how was anyone safe anywhere?
“I need to go back,” she told the moon. “I don’t belong here.”
* * *
Hands fisted on the stone balcony railing, Jeros gritted his teeth until his cheeks ached. Could he be any greater of a fool? He had as much as sat there and told Lexi she was as insignificant as a wee midge, when that was not what he meant at all.
“I am a feckin’ eejit.” He tossed back his whisky and went back inside for another.
She was…she was…She was Lexi. His Lexi. The indescribably delightful woman who belonged at his side, and the longer she was here, the more he ached for them to seal their bond.
And it wasn’t just lust. He needed her on a level of his soul that had never been touched before.
Without her, he was incomplete. Without her, he could not imagine how life would be.
She had to stay. She had to accept him and a new life here in the Seventh Realm.
He had to make this right because, if he didn’t, he would surely lose her as soon as she discovered a way back to her world.