24. Lex
24
Lex
W hat the fuck?
That was the first thing I thought when I woke up.
What the actual fuck?
The sun hit me square in the eyes, and a blinding, splitting headache shot straight through to the other side. I winced, squinting as Ivy’s ginger hair came into focus. My arm was draped over her waist and my fingers intertwined with a heavy palm that felt like Carter’s on the other side, their foreheads touching. Miri had an arm over Carter’s ribs and her hand was latched on to Ivy’s.
Fucking hell.
Everything hurt. People say they feel like they got hit by a train the morning after doing hard drugs, but I really did. Every nerve ending I had screamed when I moved. I disentangled my hand from Carter’s and sat up, running my palms over my face to try to figure out where I was or what we’d taken.
Ecstasy, maybe? A shit ton of cocaine? My head pounded like the comedown from a serotonin overdose. I’d probably feel like hell for another twelve hours.
Wait…
No.
This was a memory. I’d already been here. I’d already done this. I reached for my pants, grabbing my pack of cigarettes to light one as I scooted myself so I leaned back against the mossy stone walls. We were in the ruins, the same run-down, decaying structure where we’d spent a night and a day under the influence of fairy magic. Judging by how much my body ached, I might say we’d done that again.
Flashes of the last few hours raced through my brain.
The battle with the fairy king and queen.
Watching Carter and Miri die right in front of me.
Hearing Ivy’s anguished cries.
Making the deal with the queen to bring them back.
Knowing, deep down, only I could make that sacrifice and go through with it.
“Shit,” Ivy said, groaning as she rolled over. “What time is it?”
Carter stretched, kissed Ivy on the mouth, and ran his hands over Miri’s arm, rolling so he could give her a peck on her nose. “Maybe nine, maybe ten? Judging by the sun.”
“This is a memory,” I said, causing all three of them to look at me.
“What?” Ivy scrunched her eyebrows together. “What do you mean?”
“Make your goodbyes,” came Diana’s voice, seemingly on the wind. “Alexei must stay.”
“Stay?” Miri sat up and winced, running her hands over her face.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Carter gaped, shifting his wide, terrified eyes to meet mine. “Why do you have to stay?”
“Oh, no,” Miri’s sorrowful tone split my chest in two. “Alexei, my prince, what did you do?”
Ivy’s burning steel gaze turned to me, nearly incinerating me where I sat. I inhaled deeper on my cigarette, praying for the nicotine to soothe the desperation rising in my chest. Everything in me wanted to lie to them, to keep one last secret for myself, but I couldn’t do that. This was the last time I’d ever see them again, and I didn’t want to spend a moment being dishonest.
“You two were dead,” I said, blinking back the tears that threatened to spill over. My chest burned, my heart throbbed, and when I looked into Ivy’s eyes, I saw echoes of my own pain reflected back at me. “I did what any of us would have done.”
“What?” Carter pushed to his feet, reaching for his gym shorts to put them on and slide them up his long legs. “What’s going on?”
“I gave myself to the queen in exchange for your lives.” Finishing my smoke, I stabbed it out and rose to my feet, likewise getting dressed, though it didn’t matter anymore. They had seen me naked a thousand times, and this was in our heads. Any second, we’d wake up on that wretched battlefield—bruised, broken, and alone.
No one said anything, only stared at me with heartache pouring out of their souls while they processed this information.
“For how long?” Miri’s voice sounded weak but hopeful.
I didn’t answer because I honestly didn’t know. That wasn’t part of the agreement, but I assumed indefinitely. Or…until I could find a way to get out of it. Something banged around in the back of my mind, urging me to pay more attention, but at that moment, all I wanted to do was relish in these last few moments with them. I didn’t know how much longer we had, and I couldn’t waste a second.
“You didn’t have to do that.” Ivy’s voice cracked when she spoke. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“It’s too late, X,” I said. “It’s already done.”
She closed her eyes, big, angry tears spilling down her cheeks while that beautiful flush crept up her neck and into her face. I watched the X appear over her pulse, delightful in how it still rattled right through me.
“I will come for you,” she said, grabbing the back of my neck to bring our foreheads together. “I won’t stop coming for you.”
My stomach churned as I imagined Ivy, old and gray, hunched over her desk, researching lore to figure out how to bring me back. “Don’t be ridiculous. The veil is closed. You ended it yourself.”
“No,” she insisted.
“Listen to me,” I continued, yearning for more time to tell her everything I’d always left unsaid between us. I settled on the most important. “Don’t spend your life looking for me, okay? You go back to DC. You marry Miri and Carter. You pop out a bunch of little meathead gingers.”
“Lex, stop,” Ivy said through a broken sob.
“Don’t let your mother have control over you ever again. You’re stronger than her. You live your own life, understand?”
Ivy shook her head and kissed me, hard and deep. “Didn’t you hear me? I’m not going to let the fairy queen have you. I claimed you first. You’re mine.”
“X, I knew what I was doing when I made the deal.” I disentangled myself from her and stepped back, giving her one last kiss. “This is about me and Diana. Not you, not any of you.”
Ivy reluctantly hugged herself, backing away so that Miri could rush into my arms, wrapping hers around my waist, pulling me close to her. Flowers and gardenia at midnight flooded my senses, and I inhaled her floral scent, praying I never forgot it. She sobbed into my chest, holding me tighter, digging her nails into my back. “It was supposed to be me, you bloody idiot.”
“No, Princess.” I put my hands on either side of her chin and tilted her face up to mine, leaning down to press my lips against hers. “It was going to be me from the beginning.”
The man I’d been in this memory, the man of four years ago, he would have given anything to trade spots with his brother. The twenty-two-year-old version of Lex Fairfax would have laid his life down a thousand times if it meant that Marcus had gotten to live, gotten to be the one that married Ivy. In the four years since, I’d found a love and devotion that few ever got to experience…and I had it times three. It was worth the sacrifice. Now, I understood true adoration on a fundamental, unconditional level, and given the chance, I would have lived it all over again just to make the same choice.
“Please don’t let some antiquated idea of family loyalty keep you from your dreams.” I kissed the top of Miri’s head, drifting down to her soft, perfect mouth when she looked up at me. “You deserve to be happy, so be happy.”
“How am I supposed to do that without you?” Miri stepped back, wrapping her arms around Ivy’s waist and tucking her head under the ginger’s chin. I sighed, knowing they would find strength in each other.
I turned to Carter, who had his hands on his hips, staring at me with bloodshot eyes, wet streaks running down his cheeks.
“No,” he said.
“Yes.” I held my arms out. “Get in here. Tell me you love me.”
“There isn’t supposed to be a sacrifice,” he said. “We are supposed to go home together. You—” His voice broke and he cleared his throat to try to hide it. “You made me a promise.”
I nodded and rubbed the back of my neck, knowing I wouldn’t be able to hold up my end of it after all. “I hope you can forgive me, Chicago. I did save your life.”
“My life?” Carter let out a sardonic laugh and hung his head. “What is my life without you in it? What are any of our lives without you?”
“You’ll have each other.” It was hardly a consolation. If it had been any of them, if it were me on the other end of this, I wouldn’t drop it. I’d fight harder than Ivy. I’d find some way to get the queen to transfer the deal to me instead.
“What about the gift, huh?” Carter sneered. “We can’t be apart.”
“We blew our load on the big guy,” I said. “The gift is gone.”
“How do you know that?” Ivy’s choked tone nearly buckled my knees.
“We said until the end.” I forced myself to take a deep breath, to steady the pounding in my heart. “This is the end.”
“No,” Ivy cut in. “Stop saying that. I claimed the realm and everyone in it. I claimed you. You belong to me.”
I smiled, warmth settling in my gut to hear her say that. If the Ivy from this memory could see her now, she’d be pink with disbelief. I snickered to myself at the thought, but a sudden tension in my gut interrupted my sentiment. We were almost out of time. Diana had come to take me, and these were literally my last fucking words to them. I had to make them good.
“Carter, you made me a promise, too. Don’t forget it.”
My physical body stirred, and I was seconds away from opening my eyes to a foreign realm with fairies I barely knew. I memorized the way they looked and how I felt at that moment, with nothing but deep, abiding affection for these three amazing humans.
“I love you all. And for the love of fucking God, take care of each other, yeah?”
Perhaps sensing it was almost time, Carter rushed toward me, pulling me into his arms with a deep kiss on my lips. I inhaled his woodsy sandalwood scent, letting the softness of his lips yank me under.
I closed my eyes on that deep shade of indigo, and when I opened them again, I was alone.