CHAPTER ELEVEN
brAN
The cell is small and the walls an ugly dull gray.
There’s no window, just bars and walls, with an uncomfortable cot bolted to the floor with a thin, squishy plastic mattress atop it, and a metal toilet/sink combo in the corner- no privacy whatsoever.
There are two holding cells in the police station, and I’m the sole occupant.
I sit on the uncomfortably thin mattress and wonder where I went wrong.
Santa found his Isabella in a week. One week, and he came back to the North Pole a changed man, alive in a way none of us had seen in decades.
Timothy, Father Time himself, who spent four centuries drowning in regret, found Rachel, the reincarnation of his lost love, and learned to live in the present again.
Even Declan the leprechaun, the one with the broken luck magic who caused small disasters everywhere he stepped, found his Bee and came back to the realm whole and happy.
Maybe still not the luckiest of leprechauns, that didn’t matter because he had his mate with him, and together they created a magic and luck all of their own.
I may not be beloved like Santa or as charming as Cupid or even possess the wicked good looks of Jack Frost, but I am the Lord of the Woods. I have ruled since time began. I am not, by any measure, less deserving of love than any of those others.
And yet Alexandra flinched.
That moment replays in my mind on a hideous loop that I cannot erase or halt. I reached for her face the way I always do, and she flinched. I've touched her cheek a dozen times and never had that reaction before.
It wasn't anger or disgust. It was fear, quick and instinctive.
My stomach churns in horror and sorrow.
Everyone has always been afraid of me. Mythical beings choose their words carefully in my presence and fear saying my name out loud.
Even Timothy, who I did a favor for, and I asked for one in return, is not entirely comfortable around me and he has been around as long as I have.
The scheming elves planned this entire matchmaking attempt from a safe distance rather than approaching me directly.
Though Mistletoe had gumption enough to try to butt her way into the leprechaun and Bee’s binding ceremony and ask me for my help with sending the others to Earth to be matched, she didn’t come and talk with me directly about my wishes for a mate. I scare even a fearless elf.
I have spent my entire existence on the outside of something I cannot name, watching others move through the world with an ease I cannot understand nor hope to emulate.
I thought Alexandra was different. I foolishly let myself believe that a woman who pepper-sprayed me, called me a cereal, and refused to be impressed by anything I am, saw me. Not the title, not the power, not the thing that makes others cower. Just me- Bran.
But in the end, she could not handle who I am either.
Pressing my palms flat on my knees, I stare at the dingy wall on the other side of the small cell. I do not belong here. In this cell or in this world.
I should go home. Return to my realm, where the trees and animals know me, and the silence, though lonely, is familiar. I have a failsafe word that Timothy and I devised. I say it, and all my powers return and I step out of this borrowed mortal life like slipping off a coat that does not fit.
I do not utter it. Instead, I sit and continue staring at the wall, waiting. Though what I’m waiting for, I can’t even begin to hope for.
Time crawls by, marked by an officer bringing me meals and occasionally walking past.
Footsteps hurrying down the corridor, nothing like the officer’s heavy and measured tread, rouses me out of a trancelike state. They stop outside the holding cell, and I look up and over at the barred door.
Alexandra is standing on the other side of the bars, and the hope I didn’t want to feel expands my chest as I greedily drink in the sight of her.
She’s in black slacks that fit her long legs and wide hips perfectly and a pink ruffled shirt that hides the deep valley of her breasts.
Her blonde hair is pulled back into one of the ponytails that I adore, and I wonder if she has a pink scrunchy in it.
She loves matching her hair scrunchies to her clothes.
Her arms are crossed tightly over her chest, and she’s not smiling as she glares in at me.
“You look like a mushroom,” she says finally. “Still and silent in the cell.”
“Mushrooms used to grow on me,” I confess.
She snorts, and some of the tension eases out of her shoulders. Her blue eyes move around the cell, taking in the thin mattress I sit on and the sink/toilet combo in the corner. A slight shudder racks her frame as she steps closer to the bars.
I can see redness around her eyes. She's been crying.
The thought of her sadness makes my fingers clench on my thighs as emotions swirl in me, too vast to put into words.
“Didn't it bother you?” she asks. “Sitting in here since last night?”
Was it last night? I suppose it was.
“No.”
Her brows raise at that. “Not even a little?”
“I've waited in worse places.” I hold her gaze. “Though the company was lacking.”
She looks around, taking in the other holding cell, which is empty, and she lets out a small snort.
Uncrossing her arms, Alexandra wraps them around her middle as she stares at me, something like pain in her eyes.
I wait for what happens now, even as my heart beats like a drum, because she came.
She’s here, and I was unsure if I would ever see her again.
Swallowing hard, she straightens and collects herself. “The cabin’s owner decided not to press charges,” she says. “So you are free to go.”
That’s an unexpected development. I know my presence in his home scared the elderly man. Standing, I cross to the wall of bars that separates us. She stares up at me as her jaw clenches.
“And go where?” I ask. “Back to the realm? Where I'm surrounded, yet alone?” I hold her gaze. “I might as well stay here.”
“Bran.” Her voice softens. She steps closer, her hand coming up to grip one of the bars between us. “Don't be like that. Everyone suffers through a broken heart in their lifetime. Sometimes several.”
I look first at her hand on the bar, the knuckles white with strain, and then into the face of the woman I love. “You are all there will ever be for me.”
Gasping, she releases the bar, reaching into the holding cell and grabs my arm. I can feel her warmth and the strength of her hand. My eyes close as the scent of her fills my senses, so uniquely hers that I will never forget it, no matter how many centuries pass.
“Come on,” she says quietly. “Let's talk. But not here.”