Chapter 27
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Nothing like a tiny heist to shake things up.
Castor
The mission was simple.
Painfully simple, even.
It’s rather annoying in moments like these when I forget that Cael is somewhat powerful. Honestly, it kinda pisses me off when I think how he—a common sluagh—became a legend, an adelidae, an erlking, all because one stupid meddling story faerie thought it might be cute.
After I recently learned that he was unseelie, I was too angry to be sensible, so I stomped into Alice’s pathetic little bookstore and demanded answers.
Graciously, she tossed me a manuscript instead of killing me right where I stood.
Idiotically, when she asked if I’d be paying with cash, card, or favor, I paid with my middle finger and marched off to read an insipid tale about a drifting spirit of death who latched onto this idea that he could end suffering, that he could be good.
Repulsive.
Irritating.
Cael.
Snarling, I don’t bother fighting the moth prince’s magic constraints as they bury thorns into my bones, because this is merely annoying, not hurtful, and it is certainly not a cruel juxtaposition after Pollux hugged me and invited me to movie night next week.
It also absolutely doesn’t add any insults to injury that I’m terribly worried about my soulmate and can sense her constant pain.
As Cael approaches, footsteps light, I mutter, “Oh sure. String up your palace guests like draining meat. Real mature.”
“Why are you here?” he asks, voice low.
The magic chains he has me in tighten, threatening.
I battle them purely to get air in my lungs. “My mate wants her pixie back. Where are you keeping her?”
Pompous as ever, Cael says, “The dark pixie is within my care, just as Danielle should be, before you do something else you’ll regret.”
My hands close into fists, but I opt for levity. “Something I’ll regret? How oddly charming, Cael. Do you believe me capable of regret now? Tell me, does that convey character growth for me—or for you?”
His hand reaches, gripping my chin tight enough that his nails pierce my flesh.
I tut. “Cael, please. I’m mated now. Do control yourself.”
“Revolting,” he mutters.
My heart pinches.
Danielle’s pain heightens, and a shot of nerves overshadows the sting of Cael’s general demeanor where it involves me these days.
How I wish I didn’t remember a time when things were different. When he cared about me. When he dared to love me. Even if pity and self-righteousness taint everything in that past, there was still…
There was still a bond of brotherhood.
Friendship.
I wanted to care about him.
I wanted to be good enough for him.
I worked so hard—futilely.
Always…always…futilely.
Cael releases me, and my chin dips, exhaustion making it impossible to hold up my head.
All I want right now is to be with my mate and for my mate to be well.
I don’t need to care about this man anymore.
So, to that end, I cease antagonizing and opt for a humbleness based in sincerity. “Please, Cael. Where is Frelsi? Danielle wants her back.”
He does not reply.
“Cael. Please. I would much rather be home with my mate right now. She is…unwell.”
“Unwell?” he echoes.
I strain myself toward calm, fight these cursed magic binds for air, and let the breath out slowly.
“Her mother had her on hormones most of her life. Now that she’s free of them, there has been a rather harsh withdrawal side effect.
I am only here to retrieve the hatchling and bring her home to her origin.
Whatever your emotions are toward me, those two belong together.
They should not be kept apart like this.
Imagine withholding Alexios from Alana.” I take another labored breath.
“And if you dare to suggest that the solution should be to bring my mate to you again, I will quite swiftly be inclined to lose all the patience I have found.”
Cael makes a low sound, then the magic binds loosen and fall away. Dropped back to the floor, I stand there a moment, flex my fingers, and let my brow furrow.
“What?” Cael asks.
“I…did not expect blatant honesty to work.”
Cael scoffs and turns. “Why am I not surprised?” Lifting two fingers, he motions. “Come. The dark pixie is this way.”
Hesitant, I follow the shush of Cael’s robes as they lead me deeper into his palace, then down…into the cool belly of a dungeon.
The vibration of our steps ricocheting off the iron bars catches me off guard. “You have a dungeon?”
“Yes? Wouldn’t most castles?”
“But your castle?” I’d have much sooner expected Cael to love and friendship all dissenters into submission. I tuck my hands together in my robes. “Huh.” Wait. “Why in the realms is Frelsi in your dungeon?”
“Because she is, for lack of a more quaint word…rabid.”
This news makes me smile, until a jolt of pain runs through my connection to my poor feather. Mirth abandoned, I refocus myself on my task: retrieve the hatchling; get out of here; go home to my angel.
Farther up, a high-pitched shriek accompanies the rattling of what I believe might be…a small prison. “Cael, you lousy—” Swears erupts, specific and plentiful. “Let me go back to my Dani, you monstrous—” More enchanting vocabulary.
“My, my,” I murmur.
“She’s an explicit bundle of malice.” Cael sighs. “I asked her four times to stop stealing, then twice to stop stabbing my guards with needles, then after she killed several rats and painted a main hall with their entrails…” He sighs again, weary. “I had to put her in time out.”
Well, she’s unseelie. What do you expect?
Moron.
Dryly, I say, “This is some odd…what did you call it before? Ah. Right. Care you’ve got here.”
Frelsi gasps, and her wee voice loses its anger. “Castor?” Her tiny arms stretch beyond the bars. “Castor! Free me! Take me home!”
Home.
What a beautiful thought.
I find myself smiling again and pulling a hand from my robe in request of her cage. “I’ll take my charge off your pretty pure white hands, Cael. No need to thank me.”
There’s no way for me to be sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve just felt Cael’s eyes roll. All the same, he settles the little pixie’s prison in my palm and untwines his magic from around it. “Don’t let her out until she’s back in your domain.”
Frelsi whimpers.
Ever so slightly, I let my lip pout.
Cael stiffens. “Castor.”
My pout becomes a touch poutier.
“Castor, so help me—” Cael begins.
I unlock Frelsi’s cage, swing the door open, and free her. She exits the metal with a rambunctious cackle, and I let the prison clatter to the stone ground.
“Fear me!” she cries, zipping toward Cael with, what I suspect, is a needle.
By how he yelps, anyway.
“You little—” he snaps, concluding with a very colorful, “—twerp!”
Frelsi zips past me, hissing, “Run.”
I dance out of reach of Cael’s grasp, dodge a string of his magic, and turn on my heel to race after the darting pixie. “Always a…time, Cael!” I bolt toward the stairs after Frelsi’s maniacal giggle.
“Home to Dani! Home to Dani!” she cheers.
Home to Danielle, indeed.
Flying backward up the steps, she snips, “What took you so long to come save me?”
“My apologies, hatchling. I had assumed you were having a delightful time and would return when you were ready. How was I to know you’d mischief yourself into a cage?”
She huffs. “That Cael guy is awful. Hates fun!” She drops her pin, and I dodge over the sound of it against the floor as she collides with my cheek in a hug. “I much prefer you.”
My heart thumps.
“Prince Castor. No. King!” She beams. “You should have a whole system, too. So your subjects can swear their loyalty to you. You need a government, with less constricting rules!”
I chuckle. “I do not have any subjects to impose rules upon, hatchling.”
“Because you don’t have a system,” she insists. “Cael has a whole entire oath to join his eclipse, which is another thing you need.”
“An…eclipse?”
“A cool name for your subjects.”
Ah, right, yes. Of course. A cool name for the subjects, that I do not have.
I can hardly think of a single more important thing for me to put energy into.
I throw open a window, letting Frelsi exit first before I launch myself out and glide to the grass below. Deciding I’d really like to change the topic, I say, “So. Rat entrails?”
“It was beautiful.”
I pull her into the first of many trods leading home and murmur, “I’m sure it was.” In its own way. In a way that Cael doesn’t understand.
As the sensation of my soulmate grows closer with every step, I think I’m okay with the idea of Cael not understanding something that I do.
For the first time in my life, I’m making peace with the idea that I might always be misunderstood by people I consider to be important. So long as Danielle wants to understand me, though, that’s all that matters.