Chapter 3 #2
“You’re free to do whatever you wish. I merely offered my home as a refuge because…
” He closed his eyes and there it was again, guilt.
Did he really hold himself responsible for Cole’s crimes?
That was a heavy weight to carry, shouldering the wrongs of others.
How tiring. “Well, we will have to see what to do about Hawthorne. I wanted to wait until we were alone, but you should know that Cole’s threat is lingering.
” North nodded toward her shoulder. “You’re still marked. ”
Sera’s hand followed his gaze, rubbing her shoulder. “What does that mean?”
“It means that you should be careful. But I will keep an eye on it. Should it develop or form into a solid shape, that is when there is cause for alarm.”
She began to thread her fingers through her hair, combing the ends with repeated motions.
His eyes dropped to her hands, then back to her face. “As long as you allow me, I mean to protect you and your friend. You have no need to be nervous.”
She laughed, but it was brittle. “Yeah, sure. I’ve heard that before.”
He closed his eyes, briefly, though no other sign of emotion slipped through the cracks. “Yes. Well. Trust is earned, I suppose.”
“Let’s just say no one has earned mine yet,” she said, huffing as she threw her hair back over her shoulder before looking up. The shift in his cold gaze made her draw back. Sera could not identify the expression that she could only describe as exposing.
“I’ll leave you to settle in. If you’ll excuse me, Miss—” Sera narrowed her eyes in admonition, and he cleared his throat. “If you’ll excuse me, Seraphina.”
All the breath left her lungs as he gave her a quick bow of his head and disappeared.
Maybe it was better if she let him call her Miss Blair.
He was obviously incapable of the simple two syllables of ‘ser-uh’ and the way his tongue caressed the flowing cadence of her full name felt like a caress against her.
Sera shut the door and locked it. She spun so her back pressed into the solid wood and a wistful sigh slipped from her lips now that she was free of his scrutiny.
He hadn’t taken his coat.
She lifted the lapel and inhaled. This room was already leagues above the nicer suites that Hawthorne had given her back when he was trying.
It was larger than her entire apartment and everything was intact.
There were proper, thick carpets over the cold floorboards.
Two inviting beds. A large window with heavy drapes.
Sera walked to the bed she had mentally claimed. She ran her fingers over the sheets. Aside from the lingering chill, they were butter soft. She spread out her arms, feeling the bounce of the mattress. Then she leapt into pure, cushiony heaven.
“Oh my gods, Seth. You have to try the beds.”
“I’m not moving. Possibly ever again,” he murmured.
She rolled further into the bed. It was way too large. Necessity always forced her to share and usually in beds half this size. This much space for just herself bordered on excessive.
A decorated, porcelain water basin with crystal clear water was next to a large dresser marked by intricate fae carvings.
The wood that made up the walls and floor was smooth and polished, an ashen brown color with the barest gossamer threads of glittery silver.
It was a perfect contrast to the deep, cooler tones of hunter green and navy in the bed canopy and curtains.
Sera slithered under the covers and warmth settled into her bones.
Her body eased into rest like she had never known comfort until this moment.
The fire had worked wonders for the room and, since she wasn’t a Summer Fae, had tempered the cold enough for her.
Her eyes drifted closed as bliss soothed her muscles into rest and the scent from North’s coat drifted into her fantasies.
It was the most restful sleep she’d ever had, plagued by dreams of gray eyes.
—
Their room was set up promptly that first day.
The sound of workers woke Sera around noon—damn morning person Seth must have let them in—and pressing a pillow over her head didn’t muffle the noise.
Over-tired and deprived of basic comforts for so long, she was tempted to take up permanent residence in this warm nest of the most luxurious sheets to ever grace her skin.
She was so comfortable that even the noise couldn’t pry her from the covers.
Then Seth’s frantic babbling drowned out everything else and Sera knew her rest had come to an end.
“Shit.”
Sera opened an eye as clothes were launched about the room.
“Shit.”
The entire case went up, landing with cacophonous thuds.
“What’s wrong?” Sera groaned, pulling the blankets with her as she sat up. Sleep burned her eyes and forced her to squint, which did help ease the disorientation of waking up in a bedchamber that even sparsely decorated couldn’t obscure the superior quality.
“I can’t believe I didn’t grab it.” Seth put his head in his hands and Sera rolled from the warmth of the bed to set her feet on the ground.
Which, in her experience, was an unpleasant and often jarring transition.
Here, however, she sank into billowy carpet and a dreamy sigh escaped her, despite Seth’s distress.
“Are you sure you looked everywhere?” she offered.
There was only one thing they could have forgotten that would make him this upset, the box holding the letters his father had sent to his mother during the war.
Seth was only three when the war ended nearly sixteen years ago, and his father never returned.
He lost his mother a few years later. The letters had become his only comfort while passed around between homes for boys and workhouses until he was of age, only to be immediately caught in Cole’s seductive web.
Sera did a cursory look over his body now that he wasn’t wrapped in miles of blanket.
The more recent bruises on his arm had reached the healing point where they looked worse before getting better.
The bruises to his soul would take much longer to heal, though.
She had to get Seth out of Cole’s reach.
Initially, she thought stealing the charm was her way toward their freedom, but she'd failed.
North's offer got Seth out of immediate danger for now. All she had to do was make sure she didn’t grow complacent and be ready to run when the current arrangement turned for the worse.
“We have to go back,” he said, lifting his head and breaking her heart with large, pleading eyes.
Sera sat next to him on his bed, absently rubbing his back when he seemed to detect the answer in her hesitance and threw his face back into his hands. “We can’t, Seth. According to North, I’m still marked by Death.”
“You are, but maybe I’m not. I could go back at night, sneak—”
“Honey, no. I obviously can’t say for sure if you’re marked as well, but even if you’re not, Cole knows we’re close. He’d use you without a thought.”
“I wanted to be happy. Even stuck here, at least we were free of him.” He tucked his knees to his chest as he cried.
“But I’ve always had those letters. Reading them was the only thing to get me through the worst when Cole first…
before you found me.” She couldn’t fully appreciate why he was so attached to the letters.
She had never loved her own mother enough to want memories of her, and her father was rarely around to create even those.
But she was still sorry, even if she couldn’t relate.
“Maybe… maybe we can go back eventually. You kept them hidden, right? There’s a chance they won’t be discovered by any new occupants.”
He was too overcome to respond with more than choked sobs.
Sera held him, watching the movers work with increasing curiosity. They heaved in a giant pot of some jungle-y heart leaf-ed thing and set it on Seth’s side of the room. A slight, but noticeable warmth emanated from its corner.
“Look, Seth, your plant’s here,” she offered.
Seth lifted his head and the glitter of tears in his eyes grew a touch brighter. With the plant and the fire, the room was now a perfectly acceptable temperature. She could stay here quite comfortably for—
The movers hauled in a large stone with glowing veins of molten red woven through the rough, cratered surface.
“A lava stone?” The tears had all but stopped as Seth walked around the bed to bask in the corner of the room now generating enough heat to melt her flesh off. “These are technically Day Fae elements, but I don’t think that Sun Fern would have been enough on its own.”
“Okay, but there was already a fire going.” She moved to her side of the room, the heat causing sweat to bead on her skin.
Seth hugged himself, rubbing his bare arms and wiggling in pleasure.
“That wasn’t enough. Sera, my gods, I have not felt comfortably warm in so long.”
She supposed if North was comfortable in the arctic outside, it made sense Seth wouldn’t be comfortable in any less than a sauna. But as the poor human in this duo of extremes, she was left with the choice to freeze or boil.
“Could we lose one of them? The Fern thing doesn’t seem to do much, maybe we can—”
“I’m not giving up a plant! I haven’t seen Sun Ferns since leaving Summer.” He dipped down to bury his face in the leaves, breathing deeply. “They smell like home.”
“Well, I’m not sweating like an animal for the rest of our time here.
” She pinched the front of her dress, trying to pull some of the fabric back so her skin could breathe.
“Do you know how quickly smell can build on your body in this kind of heat? And I barely packed any of my cosmetics. Only what was already in my kit.”
“I’m not asking them to take it back.” Seth hugged his arms over the leaves of the Sun Fern. “Please, just let me have some real warmth for two seconds.”