Chapter 7
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Insecurities for all, and for all a good night.
Zahra is purple.
I’ve seen her on countless streams, playing video games on Twitch, Leopard, and YouTube. She has never been purple before. Her hair was always colored, but her skin was always a generic peachy sort of shade. Regular. Human.
Now, her half-long, half-cropped hair is a full aurora of greens and purples—both so vivid I know none of it is dye. And her eyes…they’re basically galaxies. Twinkling full of stars and asteroid belts.
Since I’m on the verge of tears and being crushed in Zahra’s purple arms, it’s hard for me to keep track of everything going on with the men. But a few things certainly do stand out.
Xios, or Alexios—which was how Zahra introduced him flippantly before dragging me inside her home and wrapping me in a hug—is standing before Castor in Zahra’s living room, yawning.
He’s tall, almost as pale as Castor, with dark hair framing his face in wisps.
If his hair were the only thing framing his face, this picture would be almost normal.
Sadly, nothing is normal anymore.
The man is in a rabbit onesie, and two lop ears fall by his cheeks while Castor—desperately—tries to make a case on why they should commit arson. Together. Right now. For reasons that he will explain when something is aflame.
Pulling back, Zahra beams at me, bracing her hands at my shoulders. “You got out,” she says. “You’re okay.” She shakes me. “You’re Danielle Storm. The supermodel.”
I wince, smiling to soften it. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. My mother…” My ex-fiancé… “The people…who would look for me…” They’re…terrifying.
Zahra laughs. “Don’t worry. Castor is an emu captain. He can send an army of birds after anyone dumb enough to mess with you.”
Castor pauses his plea for fire to whip his attention our way. “Razah, how do you know about that?”
“I talk to people.” Zahra sniffs, smug. “Doesn’t matter right now. Come on, Dani.” She sparkles. Literally. Comets race through her eyes as her skin glitters. “Come meet my baby.”
Alexios pouts, folding his arms as Zahra pulls me toward the stairs. Her feet aren’t on the ground. She is floating. All this time, I thought she was normal. I’ve been relying on her for sanity. But, turns out, she’s one of them, too.
Chipper, she babbles, “He’s sleeping, but you have to see his cute squishy face. His name is Ash. He might be eating dirt, but that’s fine. Normal. Healthy even.”
I will…take her word for it.
Since she can’t lie, and all that.
Because she’s a faerie.
?
Castor
Fire reminds me of Pollux.
Not because he’s the one who tears up and destroys anything he touches. Not because he’s violent, or all-consuming, or particularly fond of the chaos he no doubt witnesses in the dream plane.
Just because, once, his heart was breaking, and instead of going to our shining friend Cael…
he came to me. Fire was all I could think of to help burn his pain away.
So fire is what we started. And the crackle is what I listened to while he cried near me, his claws biting his flesh as deep breaths raked through his chest.
In those days, I was not the best at comfort.
In those days, I could hardly understand why Pollux cared that most people he met ran screaming from him. Fear was fun. Chaos was delightful. It was all one big game of pawns and power. And fear, I thought, was a dreadfully covetous ability to have.
Certainly more fun than death.
Even filled with selfish thoughts and pitifully unable to understand where my friend was coming from, I knew the fact Polly had gone to me in his time of need meant something.
Something great. I treasure those moments of his pain.
I treasure that he was willing to give them to me over everyone else in the world…
And, well—apparently—the me of the past actually isn’t the worst in the world when it comes to comforting ineptitude.
“Xios, if you don’t stop laughing, I may very well throw myself into this pathetic fire.” Which would, one should note, do nothing but provide appropriate dramatics. One of the “perks” of being a basilisk is a body similar to stone. My flesh neither burns nor grows particularly warm without help.
Sucking in a breath, Alexios coughs, covering an audible laugh, and—clearly smiling—says, “What makes you think I’m laughing?”
“I can feel the vibrations of your body even when you subdue the noise,” I mutter.
Heat pours from the controlled flames sitting in one of Zahra’s backyard fire pits amid the medieval town she has constructed to facilitate our Live Action Role Play days.
It is actually depressing how minuscule and restrained the poor licking flames are.
I was hoping for something bigger. Like a pallet bonfire.
Or a building.
I’m certain the bookstore downtown would go up quite swiftly…
I’d love to set that place ablaze for numerous reasons. Primarily, I’m interested in how Willow and Alana would consider me after such a heinous crime. Would they forgive me for such a wicked act? Would it matter?
After all, Alice “works” there.
I’d be dead before I could so much as witness their reactions.
Heck, I’d be dead before I could so much as light the match.
Putting effort into composing himself, Alexios clears his throat. “So. You forgot to tell Dani you two were soulmates, huh?”
A shudder works its way up my back, so I cross my arms in my sleeves and hope to hold in the warmth before me.
“I thought I had told her, but my mind has been a jumble of nonsense ever since I got within a foot of her. She’s my soulmate, Xios.
Mine. She’s here. With me. And I…I can hardly believe this is happening.
Yet I forgot to tell her the most important part. ”
“A real shame.”
I am going to stab him. “You are not helping.”
“You woke me up in the middle of the night to vent about being embarrassed. You will excuse me if I’m not being overly altruistic.”
I huff. “Right. Of course. You were cuddling with your pretty star nymph. Why would I matter? When, pray tell, did you even take her humanity and make her fully fae?”
He hums, yawning. “Sometime after we were texting the other night.”
That explains why he didn’t message me yesterday. If I know Alexios, and I like to pretend I know the only person left who considers me to be a real friend, he was having a breakdown.
“Are you well?” I ask, banishing my own feelings to the grave where they belong.
He frees a laborious breath, then—unexpectedly—rests his forehead against my shoulder.
I blink.
This man. He’s…touch averse. What is going on?
Have we attained a new level of friendship? Is he not averse to being near me?
My heart leaps as though he’s not a thief fae, known as a yamachichi, and attuned to absolutely everything around him.
He is able to take anything from souls to emotions at his whim so long as the bearer is not stronger than he.
No doubt, he can feel every hopeful, soaring emotion flooding off me, even if he would not be strong enough to take them.
He murmurs, “Zahra is so…overwhelming.” His words soften with the edge of a smile. “She lives to torture me, yet I welcome every moment like an addict.”
“I’m…happy for you.”
He chuckles. “I’m thrilled for you. When are you going to tell Pollux the truth?”
My chest tightens. “When am I going to make my case to Pollux, you mean?” I sneer.
“When am I going to say look, the universe has deemed me just as righteous as you, now forgive me for all I have done?” I scoff, but I don’t move; I am unwilling to lose the weight of Alexios’s forehead atop my shoulder.
“No, my priority is her. Which means I must cure myself of this raging stupidity before I bother with anything like telling Pollux.”
Alexios snorts. “Raging stupidity, huh? She’s fine. She has worse things than you to worry about, as far as I can tell.”
“If you’re trying to offend me, don’t be so sweet about it. She has worse things than a random man tossing her in a cage in his bedroom without a single explanation? Please. Don’t be so morbid.”
“You’re keeping her in a cage?” he murmurs, all openness, zero judgment.
Gracious.
I adore Alexios.
I sigh. “It’s a very nice, very large bird cage. I crafted every inch of it myself, enchanted it thoroughly. It will keep her comfortable and safe at night.”
“Safe from what?”
“You know from who, Xios.” I lift a hand, let my fingertips graze my blindfold. “Sometimes, when I wake up, I open my eyes. So, I’ve put multiple sets of bars and precautions between us. I am crippled with a terror that I will make a mistake and…lose her before she even wants to have me.”
“She doesn’t want anything, Castor. Her soul is a whisper of hollow emptiness. She’s given every inch of herself away in the name of survival. There is very little left for you to have at the moment.”
My fist clenches as my hand falls from my face. “I know. I can tell. My plan is to adore her into a sense of self, then maim those who have hurt her should she desire it and should it result in her peace.”
“Excellent plan.”
“I appreciat—”
“Not many specific steps to it, though, are there?”
I frown.
“And,” he begins, like an irritation, “you must remember that time isn’t on your side as long as you want Zahra and I to keep the secret of what Dani is to you from the others. My plea to trust you won’t work on Cael for long, especially not while they think you’re mad at me.”
The louse snuggles—clearly missing the part where I am, actually, growing quite livid with him.
I roll my closed eyes. My recent elaborate scheme did not at all account for Danielle being my soulmate. Now that I know better, my having prodded the most powerful faerie found family in my vicinity is a disgraceful inconvenience.
I wanted them to know threat. I wanted them aware I held a power over one in their precious fold. I wanted them to doubt one another. I wanted them to hurt. I was oblivious to how little I’d care about continuing this vengeance plot once I brought my whole heart home.
Danielle is worth more to me than ever visiting my past in the effort of justice again.
She is worth more to me than the lies that have hurt me for centuries.
I no longer care if Cael and Pollux understand me, forgive me, or want me around…
For friendship, I have Alexios, and in some ways, I also have Zahra.
But Danielle is different.
I neither have her, nor don’t. Only one thing is sure—I need her.
Finding healing for my past pales compared to the desperation I have for a future with someone the universe promises will love me at a depth unimaginable. She is the proof that hope I thought I had long since abandoned remains.
“Does she feel anything toward me that I can’t sense?” I ask.
“She feels nothing but a numb will to exist,” Alexios provides. “Be careful with her, Castor. She will put on the airs you ask for, but they won’t be anything real. She’s hopeless, practically a husk with one foot in the grave.”
A broken laugh exits the cavern of my chest, pinching my heart on its way out. “Brilliant,” I hiss. “Of all people, how am I meant to draw anything back to life?”
Alexios pulls away as our meager fire slips into spare sparks. Tucking his hands in the pockets of his rabbit onesie, he says, “Welcome to the joys of having a soulmate, buddy. They come with more than you bargain for. Just remember, your only job is to love her and be yourself.”
“Not many people like me much when I’m ‘myself’.”
“All the more reason. She exists to love you, too. Don’t forget that and fall into the same trap that smothers her light. Offering only what you think she wants is assumption. And you know what they say about people who assume.”
I do not, actually, know what this mysterious they say on the matter of assumption.
I do, however, trust Alexios. Deeply.
As long as I have been alive, I have never seen a faerie paired with their soulmate as quickly as he was. After a millenia of believing unseelie were not gifted the unique pleasure, I learned it was possible when Cael received his soulmate in Alana, then Pollux found his in Kassandra.
The answer was clear: the universe blesses when a soul is ready to love. For the unseelie, it takes longer, because we are not born of light origins. Our hearts are not created pure. We come from the darkness and must claw our way out—if ever we manage to at all.
Alexios—despite his dark origin—had not existed a full year before he was deemed ready, and I can only conclude it is because his soul was born kind.
Unseelie or not, Alexios was born gentle and good.
Since he is a creature formed from Alana’s depression, many may not see it on the surface, but selfless love crafts every inch of him.
He takes pain upon himself in an effort to spare others.
Being himself for his soulmate had to be easy. He is beautiful and genuine and naturally considerate.
The problem is…I am no longer as arrogant as I once was.
So, I know—intrinsically—that my soulmate deserves so much better than me.