Chapter 7
As the day goes on, my eyes wander to the front door increasingly wondering when Leon will be back. Tavien had spent the past few hours with him as they finished the last of the elixir for Viella to take tonight and Leon did not return to our rooms with him.
I give up on waiting and head towards the temporary apothecary. The early-afternoon sunbeams illuminate the hallway in golden yellows.
A dull throb starts at the back of my head, crawling up towards the crown, and I rub the back of my neck to try and ease the discomfort.
I knock lightly, a little worried he might not want company or a distraction, but unable to stay away.
A piece of me was missing even though he was only down the hall, an emptiness sitting within me whenever he wasn’t near.
All the warnings to keep him at a distance had failed—not to fall for a mortal who would be leaving soon, whom there was no future with; and we needed to discuss what we did in the garden, and how it needs to not happen again.
The attack only showed me how dangerous this place is for him.
The wooden door opens wide, and Leon is there with a smile on his face. I can’t help returning it, my heart skipping at his stare.
“Hi,’’ I whisper.
“Well, hello. How are you?” he asks. His black and gray hair is ruffled, and his first few buttons undone to reveal a dusting of dark hair over a smooth chest. His sleeves are rolled up too, with a few ink stains on his hands.
Gods, he is so beautiful. And kind and patient and protective. Everything that he is just makes me want him more, pulling me deeper into this unexpected bond.
“Good, good, yeah, great, great.’’ My face heats and I know my traitorous cheeks are turning pink.
His smile widens at my flustered response. I know he can tell I’m staring at his lips.
“Would you like to come in? An attendant brought some breakfast and tea a while ago. I’m sure it’s cold by now, but probably still good.”
I shake my head. “All the teapots are enchanted. They will stay hot forever if left alone. Never a cold teacup in Ellova.’’
“Now that is delightfully helpful. I do not know how I’m expected to leave a place where the tea is never cold.
This is truly paradise.’’ He means it in jest, but the joke hurts my heart.
My attempt to step into the room is blocked when he doesn’t move away from the door, so I end up close to him.
I should take a step back, but oh, Ellova’s grave, I both dread and wish for him to brush his lips against mine again, taste me.
He must see the longing on my face; his knowing smile is wide as he leans forward to kiss me. My breath hitching at that overwhelming strawberry and herb scent, memories of him soaked in blood. He’d been willing to die to protect me and had nearly succeeded.
I stumble back.
Whenever he is near, I feel I am being torn apart. To chase after him on this road of destruction that ends in heartache or put up a fortress around my soul to protect us both.
He must be infuriated by my inability to choose.
For a brief moment, hurt and confusion flash in his eyes and he backs away, shoulders sinking. “My apologies, Izadella, I—”
Fuck it.
His words stumble as I wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him to me. His strong hands reverently circle my soft waist and around my back. The dress I wear is backless, so when his rough hands slide over bare skin, I shiver at the touch, only feeling whole in his arms.
A whimpering moan escapes my lips as his tongue meets mine. Demanding more, he tugs me even tighter against him.
Leon spins us, kicks the door shut, and walks us past the elixir to the long workbench he has set up, the desk covered with his papers, glass measuring jars, and ingredients.
Without separating us, he hauls me up to the table and sits me in front of him, knocking over a few of the closed glass vials he was studying, sending papers flying.
The silky threads of his hair slide through my fingers.
His mouth leaves mine, and I groan in protest before he starts to chart sensual kisses along my jaw.
One hand is still on my lower back, pressing me closer, but his other hand has made its way up to my throat.
His hand has me in a loose hold. I tip my head to the side to give him better access, which he eagerly accepts, his tongue trailing up.
Leon moans low against my skin, pulling and sucking the delicate flesh of my neck.
My breaths come out unevenly at his attention. His hands don’t move from my lower back or the side of my face, and his mouth returns to mine in a rough, capturing kiss.
I’m greedy for him.
My hands caress at the dark shadow on his face. The moan he elicits from me sounds closer to a sob, and tears swell. Flashes of last night's gore as he lies nearly dead, how I almost lost him over my selfless desire to have him near, replays in my mind.
His hand is on my face when a single tear makes its way to his finger, and he pulls back without removing his hand. His gaze is full of concern, and it makes me want to cry harder.
“Leon.”
“Did you want to stop?” he asks softly, and he kisses away the new tears.
“No! Yes? I don’t know.” It comes out breathless and all at once.
He takes a step back, pulling the chair out from the desk, and sits down. Looking up at me with a gentle expression of understanding, waiting for me to process my emotions.
“Leon, I have…” I pause while I search for the words, but none of them truly can express the depths of my adoration. Don’t say love; don't say love. “…strong…feelings for you.” If I say love, there will be no turning back.
“As do I. I’m glad we’ve cleared that up.” His smile is endearing, and I try to smile in return but fail. He takes both of his hands in mine. “Run away with me?”
I gawk at him. “Leon, we have nowhere to go. You have known this from the start! Mortals aren’t meant to be here! Fae need magic, something the mortal realm is severely lacking.”
Whatever we feel for each other we are as incompatible as the sun and the moon.
“We will find a way.” He says it with some calmness, like one speaks of the weather and not the reason my soul is snapping in two.
He squeezes my hands before he brings them up to his soft lips, pressing them to my knuckles, his gold ring glinting from the crystal light above us.
“You can exist in the mortal realm with the crown. Inara did it. The crown holds all the magic you need. We could try. Maybe not forever, nothing truly is, but I would rather have a short time together than nothing at all.” He says it, but his words don’t have much hope in them.
“Leon. The crown is going to kill me.”
He ignores that. “You keep saying it’s not safe for me here, and last night proved you are not safe here. We can leave, go where no one can find us.”
I now have two men insisting on stealing me away, but only one tempts me.
“Ellova is my home and Nueena is about to be Realm Keeper. I…I can’t just leave…”
“We meet in the middle of our realms. I’ll build you a damn castle on the Divide.”
I take a deep breath, pulling my hands from his. “I need to tell you about my parents.”
“If it will not pain you too much to do so.” He sits back in his chair, ready for the miserable tale.
“My mother, Ambra, and the women before her were all fae. Alvina had been pregnant when she was exiled, and later my grandmother would visit Ellova in secret, eventually getting pregnant one of the few times she was here. My mother lived alone for hundreds of years after my grandmother and great-grandmother passed. The lower amounts of magic near the Divide gave them shorter lifespans, so she was left on her own. One day a young mortal woman appeared. She was a swordsmith, and the horrible king of Adreania at the time accused her of treason for sabotaging his sword when he lost a royal sword fight in front of his court.”
“Bastard.”
I wholeheartedly agree. “Her punishment was being sent into the forest to die. She was terrified and said the forest led her here. My mother was happy for the company, and they spent part of the winter making weapons. Her brothers were desperate to save their sister, so they built a tunnel to find her. The same one I traveled through each month.”
“They sound like they were very good brothers indeed,” Leon says.
“The forest means death for those who wish to harm, or seek Ellova for sinister reasons, but for grieving brothers seeking a lost sister, they were allowed to pass and found the cottage. The eldest brother was my father, Nolan, and my mother fell in love with him despite the hundreds of years between their ages. He was the best swordsmith in all of Adreania. I do not believe they knew about the madness. How could they have when my mother had been completely cut off from Ellova? Soon she was pregnant; whether by purpose or accident, I never asked.”
“How often could he see you?” Leon’s hands have found their way to my calves, where he rubs the back of them in a comforting gesture while I speak.
“Since my mother couldn’t survive on the other side of the Divide, he visited as often as he could, traveling back and forth regularly for years, but the longer he stayed with us, the more he seemed confused.
When he crossed back over the Divide, the confusion would eventually ease.
He said that when he was in Adreania, he was perfectly fine, but when he was here, on fae soil, he would forget who my mother and I were and why he was with us or believe that the fae were out to destroy the mortals as they had in the war long ago. ”
“It breaks my heart you went through this, love.”
I shake my head. “I was too young for this, but it devastated my mother. He would beg to see me, but within a few hours would forget who I was, and as a child I couldn’t understand why.
One day my mother had just gone into the garden to pull some vegetables for dinner, and he had forgotten who she was to him, thinking she was a deceiving fae who had taken me because I looked like his sister when she was young.
He must have assumed I was mortal. He tried to take me to the mortal realm, but the Merawood Forest stopped him, tangled me in branches ’til my mother arrived.
She was enraged he would try to take me across the Divide.
By nightfall he remembered everything and was beyond remorseful.
She wouldn’t allow him near the cottage again.
After that, we met in the forest at the barrier between realms, him on one side and my mother and me on the other side, daily, for a long time.
We had picnics together in the afternoons.
He would read to me while my mother made jewelry, and he even taught me how to wield a blade.
Then one day he didn’t show; his sister did.
Cyanna’s ancestor. There had been a fire at his forge. He didn’t make it.”
Leon stands, sliding between my legs, and draws me into a long and soothing hug.
“I’m so sorry, Izadella,” he whispers into my hair.
My forehead is peppered with soft presses of his lips, which only makes me squeeze him tighter.
For this part I do not want to hold eye contact, so when he tries to pull back, I cling to him.
“Fae can die from broken hearts. My mother was alone for centuries and finally found love. It broke her when he forgot who she was, and it destroyed her when he died. So, forgive my heart that demands I withdraw from you, only for it to find itself in agony if you are not near."
The room grows warmer by the second, my voice rising with panic, chest tightening with every breath I take. The air is disappearing, suddenly out of my grasp.
I finally let him pull back from me, my fingers clutching the front of his tunic, and he places a hand over my chest, near my neck. His other hand is still on my back, keeping us close together.
“Can you take a deep breath for me?” he asks in the soothing tone of a skilled healer. We do not break eye contact and Leon takes deep, exaggerated breaths that I imitate over and over again ’til the panic fades away.
“Izadella, we do not have to have this figured out today. You said it yourself: few mortals have been here, so we don’t fully know how the magic will affect me or you, or how long that might take to become noticeable.
If you say magic affects mortals differently, I believe you, and when I start to feel a bit mad or start thinking trees are singing to me, I will seek refuge in Versairen, all right? ”
He reaches up and presses a long kiss to my forehead.
“It’s been a long day. We can continue this lively discussion at a later time. You should go find Viella. I need to finish here.”
“You don’t seem worried.” It comes out more accusatory than I mean it to, but I need to know I am not alone in this panic.
His answering smile is soft and kind. “That’s because I’m not.
I will have whatever part of your life you wish to give me.
If that is ’til next week or ’til I am a wrinkled old man, that is for you to decide.
I will not be part of your regrets.” With that, he pulls me to my feet.
My heels click on the floor as he walks me to the door and holds it open for me.
Before I pass, he leans down and kisses my cheek.
“Thank you, Leon. For everything.” It is just a whisper, but I can feel his smile pressed to my skin when he kisses it one last time.
“Anything for you, Strawberries.”