Chapter 24
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Ahem. So anyway. That was hot.
Fingers grazing my throat, I sit, blinking ahead at my plush prison and try to sort out my thoughts.
This…could have gone better.
Way better, I think.
And, yet, it’s genuinely unnerving how okay I am with what just happened.
I should not at all be okay with the fact Castor just told me that I chose a monster and now I’m stuck with him, but I’m a little bit too busy replaying that kiss to care.
My lungs are still struggling to regain peace after the moments of suffocation he put them through.
I can’t forget the dragging me in here on the tailend of choking me, either.
The whole situation was all very…rough. Blatant. Honest.
That’s the word.
Honest.
No pretenses, no passive aggression, no obscurity.
He meant his every horrible word, and for the first time in my life, I’m not questioning whether or not there’s anything worse waiting to jumpscare me.
The allure of knowing someone’s worst thoughts and wishes is fully intoxicating, even when those thoughts and wishes are possessive and controlling and broken.
Every step Castor takes away from me pounds along the tether—the soul bond—between us, and I dwell on everything I can glean from the connection I’m growing to recognize more and more clearly. I feel his fear, his panic, his loathing.
And, sure, okay, yeah, whatever. Understanding a monster doesn’t excuse its behavior, but it’s hard not to want to excuse it when it makes so much sense.
His insecurities and terrible wishes are practically a reflection of my own.
He wants control. Because control is safe.
I want to be powerful, because the only way I think I’ll ever trust the idea of safety is if it stems directly from me.
I want to find comfort in my own self, but beyond that?
I would very dearly like Castor to be the one helpless and craving and lost without me. I want to watch him obsess and need.
After so much affection starvation, a near violent kind of love—exactly like the one he’s just expressed—is what I want. Nothing soft. Nothing flimsy.
I want his nails to prick my throat as his teeth toy with the thought of making me bleed for him.
It’s in a moment like this where I really need Frelsi around to be either my voice of reason or my enabler of chaos. Unfortunately, she still hasn’t returned from Cael’s palace, which I am assuming means it’s full of shiny things inhibiting her ability to recall that I exist.
Shifting on the giant bear stuffed animal, I fight the sinking feeling of loneliness until it overwhelms me.
I don’t want to be alone right now.
And not just because I can’t exactly even get to the bathroom without asking for help.
I’ve just learned how it feels to perform magic. I was riding a confident high. I was limitless, capable, strong. And now I’m…here. Weak and caged. Again.
This really sucks.
And I expect it to suck for at least several hours.
Not, you know, roughly three minutes.
I haven’t even found it in myself to push out of my stuffed bear’s arms and resign to take a nap before the vibrations of Castor’s steps come plodding back along that thread connecting us.
Still seated in the stuffing where he left me, I watch him throw open his bedroom door, march to my cage, and twist the magic key in the lock.
Stomping inside, he drops to his knees before my teddy bear throne—and smashes his forehead to the tile.
Regret. Hatred. Agony.
Emotions spill off him and play the cords of our connection like guitar strings.
Raw, a swear leaves his lips. “Stop that,” he begs.
I cross my arms. “Stop what?” I’m not doing anything.
Every muscle in him constricts, and he whispers, “Hurting.”
Of course. That makes sense. These sensations I’m growing used to feeling are a two-way street.
Broken, he says, “Please forgive me. We made a deal. I could not fight it. I have had my glimpse of you, and I am in love. You have had your taste of me, and you are in pain. I will change. I will fight what I am. Please. I am so sorry that I’m…like this.”
Three minutes, and I get an apology. Three minutes, and he’s breaking in front of me.
Wow.
Wow.
His remorse takes about as long to load as ramen takes to cook.
Perhaps unbelievably cruel, I stay in my teddy throne and focus on my priorities—completely and blissfully unafraid. “Will you teach me magic, Castor?”
A shaking breath enters him and trembles out.
“You’re a faerie, so you can’t lie. In order to apologize at all you have to feel real regret.
You have to mean it. Since you must, that must also mean you’ll teach me magic now.
After all, everyone knows a real apology consists of the intention to do better in the future.
” I cross my legs. “I’ve already had one lesson today, but I’ll gladly take another. ”
“My love, please.” His voice shakes, and darker spots wet his dark blindfold when he lifts his face. “Do not force me to be the one to make myself obsolete.”
“Obsolete?” I plow on, heartless. “Don’t be insane, Castor.”
His lips part.
“I’d like to see more of the monster.”
“You surely do not.”
“Just because I’m human you don’t believe my words?”
His fingers flex, drawing my attention to the hairpin I made, still clasped in his hand.
Merciless, I demand, “What would you do, right now, if you let go of your restraint?”
His lip quivers, and then he sniffles, and then he says, “Openly sob.”
Oh. Well.
My crossed arms loosen. “I don’t…” My brow furrows. “That’s not very monstrous, is it?”
Homeboy’s lips part again, but no answer comes as he draws my gift to his chest, curling around it as though it is the last bastion of his sanity and strength.
I find myself slipping from the arms of my teddy bear and wrapping Castor up.
The way my heart eases as my body comes into contact with him lulls me toward a sensation of peace unlike anything I have ever experienced before.
My eyes close. I comb my fingers through his hair.
The strands slip silkily against my skin, and I find myself content with the idea of staying here, on the hard tile floor, for as long as I can.
Our soul bond is a drug in my system, dancing across the code of my cells.
The idea that I can sense his emotions from second to second has me starstruck.
No guessing. No worries. I can read his anger like his sorrow. I can read him.
And he can read me.
And when he does? He doesn’t abuse what he reads. He chooses to drop to his knees in response to my pain when he very well could have wallowed in his own emotions instead. Within minutes, he apologized for hurting me.
In all my life, I don’t think I’ve ever heard my mother apologize to me—not once. And she could have lied her way through it.
Brushing my lips against Castor’s forehead, I communicate, because I can, because he lets me.
“I want to be strong. I want to be a force of nature. I do not want to need anyone ever again. I want to find stability in myself. I want to be capable of the independence I was running toward when I left home. Because, right now, Frel not being here feels like a reminder that I can’t rely on anyone.
She helped me out of my mother’s house. She felt like a friend.
But here I am, not even two weeks into a new and frightening life, and she found other things to occupy herself with.
People are flimsy. I’m done using them as my foundation for anything. ”
“You are supposed to be able to rely on me,” Castor whispers. “Being your stability is my position—my honor as your soulmate.” His head drops. “And, yet, I have already failed.”
“I don’t know if you’ve failed, exactly. I think you’ve just been…” Human. But he’s not human. Even if he is flawed, and imperfect, and rife with emotions that I’ve considered human for my entire life. Finally, I decide to say, “Relatable.”
A cracking laugh leaves him. “Relatable?”
“I think so. You let your feelings carry you away. That’s the most relatable thing ever.”
“Danielle.”
I don’t know why, but I think I like the way he says my name. There’s an edge to it, a sweetness, a lacing of ages and supplication. He says my name like a prayer, like I am worthy of reverence. “Yes?”
“I am scared.”
“You are?” I let my mouth fall open, aghast from this revelation, which no one could have predicted nor decoded.
That is to say, he is trembling in my arms, fighting for breath, and kneeling.
But even if I didn’t have all those incredibly obvious clues, I can feel his terror like a bass chord.
His emotions make music between us, creating a symphony of dedication.
And it is beautiful. So unbelievably beautiful.
Wry, his lips curve in a self-deprecating smile. “Cruelty is lovely on you, my feather. Mock me more. I know my fear is pathetic, and humiliation is no less than I deserve.”
“I don’t mean to mock you. It’s just I didn’t know that monsters could be scared. Don’t they normally do the scaring?”
His smile tilts and slips. “In my experience…monsters are often scared of the loneliness they inflict on themselves.”
“Then…don’t inflict it?” Behold, another revelation of remarkable magnitude.
I think, there’s a small, small chance, that I might be giddy and delirious from the day’s events.