Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Avaluna
Page Seven. Deities above, I will write it all down. I must. Stories are our most important legacies.
I ’m a little jealous. No, I realise I’m completely jealous of how the fae here, the ones who haven’t left a day since they were born, have lived such protected lives. They don’t know anything of war or sacrifice. They farm the seaweed, they craft anything they like and smile around fires. They might not know about the outside world, except for the stories of the lost fae, as they call them here, but maybe that’s why they are so untouched by war. They don’t have bite marks. It’s haunting to see more fae without bite marks, untouched by the vampyres, like it was back in the mansion.
There are little children here. I barely see them, but the ones I do are happy, joyful, free. A little boy runs past me and my heart warms. He could be the spitting image of my nephew. I watch him for a second before deciding to follow him. I know it’s strange, but just seeing him brings back my endless thoughts about my family. Are they okay? That is the most pressing question that plays over and over in my mind. I told them to leave the city, and they must have done, but maybe I just hope they did because the reality is too much to think about. Hope is all I have of my family now. The king didn’t know about them. I’m sure of that… But what if he did? I second-guess myself a hundred times a day, imagining horrors I wish I could push out of my mind. So many years of my life were his, and he ruined them.
It didn’t surprise me when Story said he’s still looking for me and that he wants me back. The fact that the delusional asshole thinks we could go back to the life he controlled, when I finally tasted freedom, is insane. But he was always insane. If he thinks I’ll be his blood slave again, smile, bow, undress when he wishes…no. I understand now that I’d rather be dead. I’ve found something real. I’ve tasted freedom. When someone has been caged their whole life, that first ounce of freedom is something they find themselves desperately fighting for. I’ve seen Story fight and I will be inspired by her as an example for the rest of my years in this world.
The dark-haired, pointed-eared boy runs up to a makeshift slide where three other children are taking turns going down. I sit on a bench near a house—the rotting wood is cool and damp against my back. I glance up, a sense for a different dark-haired male that runs right down my spine. Then I see him—Calix. He’s talking to Etena in an alleyway, right behind the children. Seeing them together makes my heart drop. It feels like it falls from my chest straight down to my stomach and then vanishes completely.
I know I’m jealous, and I shouldn’t be. He isn’t mine. By the deities, I’ve never had anyone that is mine. Calix looked after me, cared for me, but he doesn’t have feelings for me, because he loves her and I hate her for it. For having him. She’s stupid because she doesn’t seem to see him—or even care. They’re arguing, shouting at each other, but it’s not loud enough for me to hear. I watch, nothing but jealousy burning through me as he reaches out and touches her shoulder. She goes still. Both of them are staring at each other.
I’ve had enough of watching my heart, as tender as the remains are, shatter like glass.
I climb off the bench and run, feeling my cheeks wet with tears. I run until my legs burn, until everything blurs away, until I’m too close to the cliff’s edge. I stop, my feet digging into the ground as rocks tumble right off the edge, my dark hair swaying in the breeze. My heart is racing as I stare into the depth of darkness below. My hair flashes with red as I tuck it behind my ears and step back, away from the edge enough that I can sit down. I press my hand over my heart, feeling it race under my palm.
“A smart fae wouldn’t sit so close to the edge when dragons are about. One knock of their wing, and you’d be dead.” I tense as I hear Calix approaching, his heavy boots crunching the ground beneath him. He is slightly breathless and I realise he must have run after me. “Saw you running this way, Luna. You alright?”
“I’m fine. Just go.” I don’t dare wipe the tears from my cheeks, as I can feel his eyes fixed on my face. He doesn’t, of course. He sits right there on the edge with me.
He stares at my face, but I don’t dare look back. I stare at the mirrored crystal walls—or at least I think they’re crystal. The smooth, bouncing light around here is so bright. I almost miss the moon, the stars, the calmness of the night. I almost jump when he touches me, when he wipes the back of his finger across my cheek, collecting my tears like trophies. “I saw you looking at me and Etena… I swear I felt your stare in my soul. Etena was telling me about how she’s taken a lover, someone she met here, and it is serious.”
I look at him, surprised. He isn’t facing me now, and it gives me a second to truly admire him—the way his thick muscles press tightly against his dark green shirt, the way his dark hair is held back so precisely in a band, and it looks so soft, silky. His jawline is sharp, his lips a shade of pink that suits his complexion and his dark hair. When I first saw him, I saw what everyone else must, a brute with a huge body and soft brown eyes too pretty for the rest of his body. Then he smiled at me, and that smile echoed throughout my body, warming every part of me. Everything about him is precision perfect, and I feel safe around him.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt safe around a male before—other than my nephew, but he’s a kid. With Calix, it’s different. He makes me feel like he would keep me safe no matter what was coming my way. My whole life, I’ve never felt like that. “She was asking me if it was okay and if I wouldn’t cause any trouble,” he continues, “because of that bond lurking between us. Because of memories she can’t remember. But the truth is, I’ve been chasing a ghost for a long time, and that ghost is dead. That version of Etena died when she lost her memories. And even before that…” He pauses, and it feels like he’s admitting something to himself for the first time, in the safety of only my ears. “We weren’t good before. We used to argue all the time. We were together, but it was more like we accepted the bond because it was there, not because we were in love or because it was meant to be. Sometimes the bonds that lie between our souls are just that—a fleeting connection meant to help us just for that season of our lives—and we are destined for friendship. When she told me she had a lover…I didn’t feel anything.” He smiles at me, the same smile that could light up dark, lost worlds. “I don’t know what fate wanted for us, but I know that I don’t love her. I do wish her the best, even with her new lover.”
“You’re not jealous?” I ask, surprised. “I thought…well, sometimes when you look at her, it’s with longing.”
“It’s not the longing that you’re thinking of. It’s something I felt desperate for. It’s what I see when I look at Story and Ziven—or any couple, really. Two people who belong to each other, who have each other’s backs. I like to joke around and not take life too seriously, but the only thing I miss from me and Etena being together is that I wasn’t alone. I didn’t want to be alone. But I realised that my desperation to avoid loneliness had me accepting something not real. It wasn’t real between us.” Then he says one sentence that rocks the ground under my feet. “Then I met you.”
My heart seems to stop—literally stops pounding in my chest. My blood turns to ice, but not in a bad way. It’s like I’ve been on fire and he is the cool ice, calming me down. “Cal…”
He touches a strand of my hair. “Tell me I’m wrong, but I felt this bond between us, from the second I saw you, but I didn’t want to scare you with it. You just ran away from the king, and I don’t know the half of what you’ve been through, but I could see in your eyes that it was a lot. I’ve seen the same look in Story’s eyes, and I want nothing more than to kill the vampyres who made you fear life.” He pushes my hair back from my shoulder, revealing my neck. He looks at my neck for a long time, and I know he can see the echoes of bite marks there. The scars that will never heal. “You’re so beautiful. Not just in looks, but in your soul. You are a survivor.” He looks into my eyes as his words mend cracks in my heart. He thinks I’m beautiful? Even marked with a thousand bites by the king? “Now I want you to tell me everything—absolutely everything—when you can, when you want to. Because I think we’re mates, and I want you. I want your heart.”
Until he says it, I never really thought about this feeling between us. How suddenly it came on, how it felt like I knew him already and the feeling of safety I’ve always felt. Maybe even how I found the mansion in that giant forest…I was drawn there. Drawn to him. Calix is my mate. Of course he is. “I want to tell you everything too,” I admit. “I was jealous of Etena just then. I was worried that I was feeling something for you that wasn’t real or you didn’t feel too. But I felt it too, from the moment I met you.” I smile softly. “You make me feel safe, Cal. Only with you.”
He looks proud, and he grins. “My dragon let you ride her because she told me that you were my mate. She has never said that about Etena, and I know she would eat her if she tried.” He smiles faintly. “Dragons seem to know what’s in our hearts way before we do.”
I’m a big fan of his dragon now. “Your dragon’s amazing.”
“Maybe you’ll get one someday.” He winks at me. “For whatever it’s worth to you, I’m yours now. I’m always yours.”
I hesitate, my voice barely a whisper. “I don’t know that I’m ready for a relationship. All I’ve known is abuse and pain.” I look down. “I might mess us up.”
He leans in, gently kissing my cheek. I close my eyes, savouring every second of his lips on mine. I want to lean into him, kiss his lips, find out how he tastes. “For now, I just want to know you. Everything. I don’t want there to be secrets between us. I’ll tell you everything about my life too. Then we can spend as long as you want getting to know each other.” He pauses, a small smile on his lips. “Starting with, what did you see in that boy you were watching? Your smile was so warm.”
“He reminds me of my nephew,” I admit, my cheeks lifting. “I don’t know where he is at the moment, but I think I’d feel it, in my chest, if he and my sister had left to be with the deities. One day, I will find them.”
“Together,” he vows, holding out his hand. I take it, watching as he links our fingers. I tell him everything for hours. Everything about my family, about the orphanage where I was found by the king, about the years of abuse. I can see he struggles to listen to it all, but he stays at my side. He stays, and he holds my hand. He makes me feel safe.
Somehow, every crack in my heart, every crack in my soul, is changing for the better.
Maybe love—maybe love can mend us.