Chapter 1
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A deal with the unseelie fae.
With Zahra’s stream music humming up from my phone, it doesn’t matter that I’m currently in another world, sitting on a bench beside a “trod” so I can catch connection in a garden overburdened with white blossoms and purple berries.
It doesn’t matter that a tiny pixie is diving in and out of the luxurious pool a hundred feet from me.
It doesn’t matter that a man whose eyes turn things to stone is on his knees, sleeves tied back, weeding a flower bed on my left.
None of it matters.
This—watching a CapyZahra stream on my phone—lets me turn off everything I can’t bear to think about. It’s like a reset, a refuge. Zahra’s streams let me breathe through the horrors of whatever happened during my day and whatever the next day might bring.
When an old man felt he had to personally adjust my lingerie for a shoot, Zahra’s laugh erased the sensation of his hands in all the wrong places.
When the male model I was paired with stuck his tongue in my mouth, Zahra’s smile washed the feeling away.
When my mother told me the news about how the Rodrick Drew of Drew Enterprises wanted to marry me, watching Zahra on Twitch was the only thing that settled the chills.
Marrying me off was my mother’s way of assuaging her concerns where it involved me outgrowing my modelesque looks.
To her, the plan was perfect. She’d sell me to the flamboyant heir of Drew Enterprises, a millionaire CEO.
She’d get a hand in his money, convince him we needed lots of children, drop a few choice lines about a family TV show…
and if any of my kids came out half as pretty as me, well.
She had a whole plan to sell my children, too.
Curling my legs up on the bench, I try to focus on the horror game Zahra’s playing with a few friends.
Enigma’s in the group. And I adore him almost as much as I adore Zahra.
He’s wild and free and chaos in its purest form.
Even though he’s normally playing Minecraft on the WonderCraft server with StoneRogue, ManicPixieBlockBoy, FrostPlays, and his brother, Endeavor, whenever he jumps into a horror stream with anyone, he’s the least perturbed, rivaling only FrostPlays’ constantly cool demeanor.
Since Frost isn’t in this one, he must hold the unshakable fort steady…
because we all know ManicPixieBlockBoy isn’t going to.
Manie screams, again, and I giggle.
Needless to say, this stream is a collection of comfort characters for me.
It should be transporting me far, far away from thoughts of my mother.
With this—access to Zahra’s streams—I’ve regained the most normal thing I’ve ever been allowed to have. And, to top it off, I don’t have an arranged marriage looming over me anymore.
Everything is fine.
Amazing, even.
Instead of being with a man who cops feels, I’m with one who says kill me if it pleases you.
And, you know what? Maybe it will. Who knows?
So far, despite the cage, Rodrick is higher on my list of people I would kill if given the chance.
Not that I’d kill anyone. I really wouldn’t.
I’m just saying that if I were going to, there are about a hundred handsy, sexist, objectifying men who would make the cut before Castor.
Who is on his knees. Tending to plants. And humming merrily right now.
Earlier, when I asked if I might be able to watch Zahra’s stream out here tonight, he said Absolutely but…
I nearly panicked, wondering what the but entailed until his disposition took a pondering edge and he murmured, I would like you able to watch comfortably anywhere… I’ll work on a way to extend the snatches of signal so you have more freedom.
More freedom.
Screw the cage that I basically only sleep in, Castor hands me freedom before I even know to ask for it. He gives me options and choices and respects my decisions. He is so sweet I hardly know what to do with him.
If I weren’t so invested in my stream, I may see him kiss a flower bud. And I may see that flower bud majestically sprawl open a second before he smiles and whispers, “That’s my girl.”
And all of that might do things to my heart…if I weren’t so invested in my stream.
Quite wonderful it is that I’m so extremely invested in watching CapyZahra and Enigma pick on Manie as he runs screaming away from a ghost.
Witnessing Castor being so thoroughly endearing with his flowers would be detrimental for me, I fear.
Considering I absolutely didn’t witness anything, it is so strange how I can hear Stockholm calling yet again…
Alas, my phone is preoccupied.
You know, playing the stream that I am so invested in.
Manie laughs and responds shakingly to Zahra, pulling my attention off Castor. Zahra says something about how he should stream, so I open the chat to concur. The man never streams. And it’s an absolute shame, because imagine how funny it would be to see him run away screaming on camera.
My beautiful, beautiful comfort characters.
Where would I be without them?
“Mine?” Castor calls, and I look up off my phone to realize I’m smiling, and maybe I shouldn’t be.
I don’t know how I’ll explain why I’m so happy right now without waxing poetic about how much I adore Enigma and Manie, and if Castor sees them as other men in my life or as threats, I don’t know what he’s capable of.
But I do know one thing…if he hunts down and gets rid of my comfort characters…I will never forgive myself.
My smile falls.
Rising, Castor stretches his back, rolling his broad shoulders and dusting off his hands. “Are you hungry, love?”
Hungry? He made me dinner before we came out here. A prime rib roast with garlic butter potatoes and a slew of mixed vegetables. “Not really,” I say.
“Thirsty?”
“No.”
This man keeps me both fed and hydrated.
Sitting pretty here in an adorable dress I found in the magical armoire this morning, I feel like a princess.
Or the top of a seeding dandelion.
The lighter-than-air fabric I’m wearing is just as whimsical and flouncy as everything else I’ve found in the magical armoire.
The outfits in there change daily, but they are always more beautiful than anything else I’ve ever worn—no matter how many deals I’ve had with designer brands.
They’re also a hundred times more comfortable and modest, too.
Castor sits beside me. “You don’t want any snacks to go with your show?”
My show.
I bite my lip to keep from smiling. Calling a stream my show is adorable, but I am not in favor of considering Castor as adorable right now. Surely I’m not so good at complacency that I’m forgetting how he casually stabbed himself in the hand just a few days ago.
He is handsome and otherworldly and insane.
And, yes, while he is cute, he is not supposed to be this cute.
He says, “I’m sure Willow wouldn’t mind if I used Ollie’s card and went to pick you up some snacks you’re more familiar with.”
I laugh.
Castor’s head tilts. “Did I say something funny?”
Clearing my throat, I adjust my position as the leg I’m sitting on goes numb.
“No… It’s just that my mother never let me have snacks.
I’m not familiar with any of them. Sometimes, my meals looked like healthy snacks, but that was all I got to have for the whole day.
Carrot sticks and celery. A fruit. A boiled egg for protein.
” For a few months when she wanted me to get a job with a guy who was particularly interested in girls who looked anemic, she had me on a liquid diet.
For months.
After that, such snack-like meals seemed almost filling.
Castor hums, low. “I do not like your mother.”
“I don’t either.” Resting my phone in my lap while the stream continues to play, I reach for Castor’s arm. “Unfortunately, I do love her. So…please don’t do anything bad.”
“Bad?” he murmurs, almost touching me before closing his fingers and cementing his fist in his lap. “What would you consider bad?”
“Hurting her.”
“Physically or emotionally?”
“Castor.”
He pouts. His whole lip juts and everything before he puts the back of his head toward me, displaying his straight white hair partially pulled up into a small bun pinned with a jet black hair ornament.
“I could curse her jeans so that her belt loops always catch on door handles.” Soft, he mutters, “Women hate when their belt loops catch on door handles.”
Okay, the way I would actually allow that kind of retribution is uncanny. Unfortunately, I have never seen my mother in jeans. “I’m sure you have better things to do with your time.”
“I could round up another emu army. Storm your mother’s home. Have a bird lay an egg on her pillow.”
I guess Zahra did mention something about Castor being an emu captain.
I’m not certain I want to know the details of what propelled him to become one before, but I am certain I don’t want a giant bird to lay an egg on my mother’s pillow.
Ideally, I don’t want to think about her anymore. Ever.
“Castor, please,” I murmur, drawing my attention back to my phone. “My relationship with my mother is complicated, and it doesn’t even matter anymore. I ruined all her schemes by leaving home, and you took me outside where she can ever hope to reach. That’s good enough.”
“For now, I suppose,” he notes, cryptically. “There is a unique pleasure to be had in allowing the woman’s panic to sink in. She may never understand what she’s lost, but she shall suffer your absence as her life turns upside down.”
My skin goes clammy at the thought.
Every horrible thing my mother has done can’t erase the fact she has been my single source of affection and emotional closeness for my entire life.
Leaving her was the worst thing I’ve ever done, and I wouldn’t have managed it without Frelsi’s emotional support.
My little pixie friend assured me every step of the way that I wasn’t a terrible person, but the sick feeling lingers.
Frelsi countered every doubt, reminding me constantly that not wanting to marry a man nearly a decade older than me was a reasonable boundary.