Chapter 24
Periwinkle
We’re heading back to the trailers when a waft of emotion reaches me. It washes over my body in a poignant mix of regret and longing, like chocolate so dark only the faintest sweetness laces through it.
It must be Hail, off in the distance—he’s the only one of my marked men who isn’t nearby. As the sensation saturates me from the inside out, the impression solidifies that he’s longing for me.
I stop in my hurried trek through the shadows. Raze pauses, his presence looming large and impenetrable even in his ephemeral form.
“Hail hasn’t headed back to the trailers yet,” I say. “He’s gone off somewhere in the city… I think he needs me.”
The basilisk shifter bristles protectively. “Has he run into Viscera on another rampage? We’ll let the others know and—”
“No. Not like that. I think he just wants to talk. To have someone listen.”
Raze is silent for a few beats longer. “Just to talk? The way he’s looked at you sometimes… There’s some kind of attraction between all of us with the marks, isn’t there? Not because of the bond. It amplifies feelings that were already there?”
For me as well as for them, he implies but doesn’t say.
I hesitate, careful of his own feelings. Raze might look like a toughie, but he’s got a lot of marshmallow under his brawny exterior.
No jealousy or anger taints his vibe of concern, though.
I scoot closer to him so our essence brushes together like a shadowy embrace.
“There is—and they were. But that doesn’t mean— I’m not forcing anyone into acting on them.
And even if you all wanted to act on them, I don’t have to go along with that.
You were here for me first. If you need more time—”
I get the sense of Raze shaking his head, as much as he has one in the shadows. A tingling warmth wraps around me on top of the pang of Hail’s emotions, as if I’ve taken a long sip of sugar-laced tea.
“If you’d like it…” he says. “I can tell now how happy it makes you to get close to people. To enjoy all you can with them. And then you bring that happiness with you when we’re together. I know you aren’t abandoning me, so you shouldn’t have to abandon anyone else.”
He pauses, and a trickle of anxiety seeps through his comforting aura. “Hail hasn’t always been kind to you.”
“I know. But I think he’s starting to let down all the defenses that made him snap and snark at everyone. Maybe I can peel off more of his prickles.” I give Raze another nuzzle. “And if he decides to act like a jerk after all, I’ll just leave.”
“Then I have nothing to worry about. I’ll tell everyone else that the two of you will be back later.” Raze nudges up against me in return. “Be careful. We know there’s at least one other being running around this city who doesn’t care how much misery she causes.”
“I don’t think Viscera is likely to notice me if I stay quiet, but I’ll watch out. I’ll be back with you soon.”
I flit off through the darkness toward my impression of Hail.
With night falling, more of the city is draped in shadow than not. I weave between the pools of light cast by the streetlamps and the beams sent out by car headlights, but there’s lots of room to maneuver. The late-spring warmth lingers even without the sun.
The deepening thrum of Hail’s emotions leads me to a city park. A large one, with a path branching off in several directions toward a playground, a sports field, and a large stretch of trees like a miniature forest.
I pass only a couple of humans as I enter, both of them hustling out of the park. People don’t generally like to hang out in these natural spaces once night falls, I’ve noticed.
The atmosphere probably feels even scarier when some unknown threat has been smashing up their city.
I veer toward the trees. The pang of Hail’s longing expands until it’s squeezing around my heart.
Then it softens with a buttered roll sense of relief.
As I dart across the last stretch of mini-forest before the glade where Hail is waiting, he pulls his lanky frame to his feet. He turns toward me, his mouth twisting into a crooked smile.
Since he’s taken physical form, I pull myself out of the shadows too. The moment I’m visible in front of him, his smile stretches a little wider. “You came.”
I gaze up at his coolly handsome face. “Of course I did. We’re a team, aren’t we?”
Hail’s shoulders hunch slightly.
He looks at the ground. “I’ve never been very good at acting like a part of the team. I—I wanted to tell you that I’d like to change that. At least with you. You’ve been so patient and caring with me, while I treated you like garbage—”
I touch his arm to stop him. “It’s all right. Well, treating me like garbage isn’t all right, but I know you didn’t really want to hurt me. You just have too many other feelings that keep clashing with each other and throwing you off.”
He gives a hoarse chuckle. “Yeah, that’s one way of looking at it.”
His forehead furrows, but he doesn’t look up. “I don’t know how you can think I still deserve your concern. Or anything. You could tell me to get lost.”
“What good would that do anyone?”
“You wouldn’t have me hassling you anymore.”
I let out a gentle huff. “You don’t hassle me that much. And if you stayed away, I’d just wonder whether you were okay, what was happening to you—it wouldn’t stop me from caring.”
Hail’s gaze jerks up to meet mine. He stares at me for a moment. “Why? Why me?”
I grope for the right words. “I mean, it isn’t just you I care about.
Obviously. And I think every being deserves to have someone looking out for them.
But… I especially care because you care.
It doesn’t matter how much you pretend not to—I know you worry about the other shadowkind, and mortal animals too.
That’s why you’ve said so much awful stuff about humans.
That’s why you went off on your own today, isn’t it? ”
“I guess that’s true. But even that…”
Hail trails off with a grimace and sits on a fallen tree that hasn’t yet been cleared from the park woods. “Even that is me trying to make up for fucking up, in a way. It’s not like I managed to protect anyone from getting hurt in the first place.”
I sink onto the trunk about a foot away from him. “Why don’t you tell me about it? I’d like to know what made you so angry that it’s still tripping you up after all this time.”
Hail’s hands flex where they’re resting on his knees. Then he reaches out and ever so carefully wraps his slender fingers around mine.
Despite his chilly looks and often icy demeanor, his touch is nothing but warm. More heat blooms beneath my skin, echoing the flare of desire the simple touch provoked in him too.
His grip tightens as if he’s gathering his resolve.
“It was… I don’t know how many years ago.
At least a few. When I first came into being in the shadow realm, I ran into another fae who’d been alive for centuries.
He loved taking trips into the mortal realm—he spent most of his time there.
He’d tell me stories of the grand forests and the creatures that lived in them, all the things that grow and thrive… ”
Fondness and sorrow twine together with the memories he’s sharing. They squeeze around my heart. “He meant a lot to you.”
“Yes. And when he invited me to join him on his next venture mortal-side, of course I wanted to see this world for myself.”
Hail drags in a shaky breath. “We came through a rift he’d used many times before.
It was up in some northern region—he had wintry affinities like I do—and there weren’t often humans around.
He’d barely talked about them. Mostly he liked communing with the plants and the lesser creatures.
And that was good. But after he’d been showing me around the woods for a few days, we ran into a group of humans. Hunters—the regular kind.”
There’s an ominous note in his voice. I bristle instinctively. “What did they do?”
“We didn’t realize they were there,” Hail says.
“They were hidden away in one of those shelters for hunting… We’d let out our full fae forms while we wandered around, so they didn’t see fellow humans.
They saw monsters. And they treated us like that.
They started shooting, and then a few came after us with hunting knives and I don’t even know what else—they were so determined to destroy us… ”
I shift closer to him and tuck my arm right around his elbow. “They were scared. But that doesn’t make it okay. Sometimes humans do awful things when they’re scared. All kinds of beings do, I think.”
“Yeah. It was awful. They came at Resin so hard he couldn’t pull back into the shadows, and his essence was just pouring out of him. I didn’t know what to do. I’d never seen humans before, or guns, or… I was injured and scared too, and I ran off.”
He hangs his head. “They butchered him so badly he died. Just disintegrated into essence and blew away.”
A suffocating surge of guilt, grief, and frustration rolls over me.
I lean into Hail as if I can absorb enough of his anguish to relieve the burden. “I’m so sorry. That must have been so hard for you, especially when you were totally new here, and he was such a good friend to you.”
“Yeah.” The fae man’s voice comes out raw. “That’s what humans are like. They just kill whatever doesn’t fit their idea of what the world should be. We weren’t harming anything, and they still—”
His jaw clenches. “I know you think most humans are good at heart. And I’m not even saying you’re wrong. But I’ve hardly seen anything except the bad. It’s difficult to believe, no matter how much you argue it.”
“I understand. I don’t blame you for thinking that way.” I might have believed the same things if I hadn’t gotten to observe so many humans before the one who imprisoned me, if I couldn’t sample the emotions roiling inside them and know the true flavors of their hearts.