Chapter 9
~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’d rather not talk about it.
My body is a fire of bad decisions and murky ideas. I’m delirious with heat, sipping the sweetest nectar I’ve ever had. My life is a blur of horrible, no good, awful things. Perfect little dolls in their boxes, and me, among them, biting my tongue because plastic lips aren’t meant to open.
Castor hasn’t had a single taste of the liquid he gave me, but—given that he’s the only thing in focus on the couch in this room—I can confirm he looks how I feel.
Flushed.
Delirious.
Drunk.
Mm.
I slip my fingers through his hair while he sits on the floor, resting his head on my thigh and smiling. His touch draws endless squiggles over my side and stomach, mindlessly, while I find words. Any words. All the ones I have.
Somewhere in this mess of heat, I’ve lost all my sense.
“I’m so over it. Every day, Danielle, do this.
Danielle, do that. A little to the left.
A little to the right. Did you forget to shave everywhere?
You missed a spot. I can see your lunch.
What did you have for lunch? I don’t think you should have dinner until you’ve finished your workout for today.
You don’t have enough calories left for it unless you add a run.
” I swallow another sip, overpowering the bitterness in my soul with the smooth liquid in my glass.
“It’s horrible, Castor. Everyone expects you to be perfect, less than human.
Women with trained smiles scan you from head to toe, and you know they’re thinking of the places where they’re better and the places where they’re worse because you’re thinking it, too.
You’ve been trained to think it. It’s branded in the back of your brain, and you spend the minutes before you fall asleep each night wondering how to fix it. ”
My eyes water.
I force the tears down.
“You’re never good enough, even if you’ve been on international magazine covers.
There’s rejection, and blame, and do better every single week if not every single day.
There’s a new bedroom every night during weeks packed with jobs.
New cities, new faces, new, new, new. Nothing’s stable.
Throughout all of it, the only consistent thing has been my mother.
And…” My words fizzle as a sniffle rises from my quivering chest. I don’t want to talk about her.
I don’t want to think about her. It would never be too soon if I forgot about her completely. “What is this stuff?” I murmur instead.
Castor lifts his head to press a kiss to the place where my nightgown dips into my navel. It tickles just enough to make my toes curl. “Wine.”
Faerie wine?
I swear I’ve read stories about that, and how it absolutely shouldn’t be given to humans. I’ll be drunk for days, weeks, months, years. Maybe the rest of my life.
“Don’t stop talking,” he says, nuzzling.
Right.
More words.
“I’ve never talked this much before in my life. My throat is starting to get sore.” I grimace when he begins tracing the lines of my ribs with his finger. “What are you doing?”
“You’ve just mentioned strict workouts and diets… Are you thinner than you’re supposed to be, my love?”
Yeah. Probably. Or, rather, definitely. Nevertheless, I say, “I’m on my back, and it’s the middle of the night, so I haven’t eaten anything for hours. My stomach’s concave.” It is an empty little pit. That Castor is dappling with kisses.
The first time a man kissed my stomach it was on a beach in Hawaii.
I forget exactly what brand the shoot was for, only that it was swimsuits.
I was in a bikini, but it felt like I was naked.
My modeling partner lifted me up into the wind on request, pressed a kiss to my bare skin while I smiled as though this was my honeymoon, and… that was that.
Or I wish that was that.
Afterward, that man cornered me by the flimsy changing rooms and asked if I wanted to keep pretending we were on a honeymoon.
I poke Castor in the cheek. “Why don’t you do some talking?” And stop touching me.
“You don’t like it when I touch you?”
“Did I say that out loud?”
He lifts his head away from me and removes his hand from my bones. “You did.”
I scan him as he tucks his hands into his robes. “And…you’re going to listen?”
That male model hooked his finger in the flimsy tie of my swimsuit and undid the bow. I had to catch the strings and watch for stray cameras. My mother loved scandals. Scandals sold. Romance stories of elicit acts got me interviews and TV appearances. Kept me in the public eye.
I never wanted to be there. And I definitely didn’t want naked photos of me everywhere.
“Well?” I mutter into another sucrose sip of wine.
“You didn’t answer my question. Why should I answer yours?”
“What was your question again?”
“You don’t like when I touch you?”
Even though he’s pulled away, I can still feel the snakes his fingers drew into me.
They aren’t haunting me like so many other touches have.
Maybe it’s because I’m in a nightgown and robe that covers everything from my neckline to my ankles.
Maybe it’s because we’re soulmates. A laugh bursts out of me at that thought, and Castor’s head tilts, so I wave his apparent curiosity off.
Even though he can’t see my flippant fingers, I assume he can sense them moving.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I love when strangers touch me.
Being an object for strangers to enjoy is all I live for. ”
Castor’s smile sharpens.
I tense, and my foggy mind reaches for the break in the tide as a spike of danger goes slipping down my spine.
Bracing an elbow on the couch, Castor plants his chin in his fist. “Shall I take their lives or merely their hands?”
“You really probably should get a handle on your murder happiness, actually,” I whisper. “It can’t be healthy to want to kill everyone all the time.”
“People should stop being so murderable, then,” he mutters.
The tension eases away, and I giggle, going back to playing with his hair, letting the silky strands slip through my fingers. Again and again. “People are stupid. And selfish. That doesn’t mean they should die. In some ways, life is a better punishment than death ever could be.”
Castor’s face falls. “I know that… I dislike that your life has also led you to such conclusions, my love.”
I lift a shoulder. “It’s fine. I’m numb to it.” I’m numb to a lot of things, actually. Things that maybe would keep less-numb people from drinking faerie wine with a faerie man who has in no uncertain terms expressed an interest in romantic affairs.
Anything could happen.
But would I care enough about it in the morning?
Or would it just be something else to add to the list of reasons I don’t feel like a person?
What, after all, even is a body?
I keep my soul in this vessel of irrelevant feelings, but it’s not as though it matters. Time will wear away the husk, leaving nothing else behind.
“Castor.”
He lifts his head an inch off his fist. “Yes, Mine?”
“You didn’t answer my question, even though I answered yours.”
“Ah.” The touch of a smile returns to him. “Your question offends me.”
“Why?”
“You ask if I’d listen to your wishes as though I wouldn’t have thrown myself off a mountain at your request earlier.
Yes, love, I will listen to you. I’ve asked for nothing tonight but to listen to you.
If only you’d let me, I would do little else.
After all the ages I’ve spent in my own thoughts and regrets, I am eager to listen. ”
Silence consumes me, tightening my chest.
So gently, he rests against his crossed arms, careful not to touch me as he whispers, “Keep talking, Mine.”
“Regrets?” I pin the tails of his pure white hair back behind one long ear, skimming the skin as I do. “What sorts of regrets?”
He shudders and blushes. “I’d rather not say.”
“Feeling very one-sided, this conversation is, Castor.”
“What is with the anastrophe?” he murmurs.
“What?”
He motions, vaguely. “The inversion of your…” Sighing, he settles. “Never mind.”
“You aren’t even going to give me the pleasure of one figure-of-speech definition? I’ve been rambling about how much I can’t stand being a model for hours, and this is what I get?”
“I was not aware women were so fond of term definitions.”
“What are you talking about? Women love term definitions.” Ha. I crack myself up. This wine is crazy.
He chuckles. The deep, reverberating sound jostles his shoulders, and his whole being angles as close to my fingers as it can. “Anastrophe, the inversion of the usual order of words or clauses.”
“Oh, baby, baby. Careful who you say that to.”
His lips tip upward, and it’s hard to ignore the blissful joy on his face. So what if it’s splattered with red and desperation. Red is such a bold color. Like the highlights of fire and the freshest of blood.
He says, “My feather.”
I hum.
“You did not actually answer me, you know. Even I understand the tone of sarcasm.”
I let my lips rest against the coolness of my glass.
“Do you dislike when I touch you?” he repeats.
What a mean question.
Spreading my thumb along the line of his cheekbone, I slip my touch up, toward his blindfold, skim the ragged hem.
Before I can blink, he catches my hand, stopping me. “Do not.”
“I want to see your eyelashes.”
“Why?”
“I want to know if they’re also white, like your hair.”
He squeezes my hand. “Pity. That is not pertinent information where it concerns my question.”
“I don’t want to answer your question.”
He presses my knuckles to his lips. “Are you hesitant to admit you enjoy my perusal?”
“Either that or I’m afraid of what you’ll do if I reject you.”
His breath coasts across my skin. “Fair enough. I don’t mope graciously like Xios.”
“How do you mope?” I ask, removing the last drop of wine from my glass.
Castor frees my hand and stands, crossing the murky room.
His footsteps clear the fog bathing the maroon rug beneath the cherrywood coffee table as he passes, and I remember that this room is full of deep burgundys and charcoal grays.
It’s a lovely room, smaller than many of the others I’ve seen in his palace. Cozy.
He retrieves an ornate bottle of wine and returns to me while I’m trying to sit up, testing whether or not I still can.
I’m floating, like Zahra, adrift in an ocean of heat.
The couch dips when Castor sits beside me, and I nearly topple into his lap, managing to catch myself against his chest at the last second. I look up at him, dazed, just in time for him to pop the bottle’s stopper, lift the narrow spout, and down heavy gulps.
Freeing a breath, he collapses against the cushions and runs the backs of his fingers up the curve of my neck. “I throw knives at things when I mope, love.”
“Living things?”
He smiles, sharp, fangs on display. “Not usually.”
“How…comforting?” There’s a high chance I’m leaning into his caress. A higher chance it’s because I’m hopelessly tipsy and off balance. It certainly wouldn’t be because I like the way his cool touch feels against my blazing skin.
“Are you going to answer me, or am I going to mope?” he murmurs.
“I am curious about your aim…all things considered.” My head lands pitifully on his shoulder, too weighted to hold up any longer. My skull’s made of stone and my neck of straw.
Carefully, he pulls my legs over his, arranging me on his lap. One strong arm cages me in as he downs another sip of the sweet liquor.
“More?” I mumble, tucking my hands beneath my neck.
“You’re very—” He curses. “—at handling aphrodisiacs. Are you sure you want more?”
Alcohol isn’t exactly on my mother’s diet plan for me. Maybe I just want it because I’m rebelling. At the ripe old age of twenty-three, I’m finally running away from home and grasping any bad decision I can find.
When I do little more than wrap my hand around the neck of the bottle, over top of Castor’s fingers, he presses a kiss to my head. “Close your eyes for me.”
I do as I’m told, stifling a yawn as my lashes flutter closed. Castor’s fingers comb through my hair as my consciousness fades, and he rocks me in his arms once he’s moved the bottle of wine out of my reach.
As I curl into him—a perfect, powerful, dangerous stranger—the weight of my starvation crushes the air from my lungs. I am desperate for affection. Desperate.
Hugging Zahra earlier…was so nice.
Frelsi has been a balm for this marrow-deep loneliness, but she is too small to tuck me in her arms. She can’t cradle me against the erratic beat of her heart and hold tight.
So tight.
Tighter, even.
I want to be crushed into dust and turned into a blazing star.
“My love,” Castor whispers into the murkiness of my dancing thoughts, “do you dislike my touch?”
My lips part, but it’s anyone’s guess what I say before the darkness takes me.