Chapter 17
E ven I can admit the situation looks bad, though which one of us it reflects more poorly on, I couldn’t say. A second later, the Unseelie King no longer stands in the doorway but directly beside us, having shifted from one spot to the other.
I let out a little squeak, my hand loosening on the hilt of the blade. Katiya, with her superior reflexes, catches it midfall before it can clatter to the ground or stab someone.
“Aimee.” He reaches for me.
Instinctively, I shrink back.
His hand clenches before dropping to his side, a soft grimace twisting up his features.
“She is awake, as you can see,” Katiya says, still sounding completely unruffled. “And she wanted to cut her hair and asked to borrow my dagger, so I let her.”
“It didn’t exactly turn out as I planned,” I mumble, touching the ends of my hair and not quite able to make myself look at him.
Standing in front of him in essentially a thick nightgown, no bra, and my hair hacked to pieces isn’t exactly how I thought things would go.
Not that I’ve had much time to consider what it would be like meeting him again, knowing who he is and how he rescued me from his people.
“You are well?” he asks, tone formal, oddly detached. Maybe he just came to see that I’m healed and will head right back out the door, leaving me here to… I don’t even know what. “Is there anything you need?”
“I am.” Or I was. Now my throat is dry and tight, and I really want to climb back under the covers and hide away.
“Though I am hungry.” Just the mention of food has my stomach rumbling again.
“And maybe some scissors so I can fix this?” I touch my hair.
Then a thought strikes me, “Oh, but you know, I have some protein bars left.” I glance over at my bag. “So maybe just the scissors?”
“What is a protein bar?” Katiya asks quietly, almost to herself.
A soft groan grumbles from the king—Kallan? Elias? I no longer know what to call him. “Do not eat those strange things.”
Finally, I glance up at him in time to catch his nose wrinkled in distaste. Katiya, on the other hand, looks positively thrilled for some reason as she glances between us.
“I will request food,” she announces a little too cheerily. Then to me, “Welcome to Altana, Aimee of the human world.” Without a backward glance, she practically skips from the room and shuts the door behind her.
The echo from its closure rings into silence that only thickens with every passing second. My chest burns, and I can’t help shifting from foot to foot, unsure of what to do with myself.
“You wanted to cut your hair,” the Unseelie King—Kallan, I settle on—says at length, the words caught somewhere between a statement and a question.
Hesitantly, I glance up at him from under my lashes.
The planes of his face have softened. And while Katiya was still dressed for battle, Kallan, is dressed more like he was when I first met him, with dark pants tucked into boots and a dark tunic as well.
Gone is the fierce some armor of the Unseelie King, though a sword still remains sheathed at his back, secured with a leather strap across his chest. It’s not the only weapon.
A smaller dagger hangs from either hip, and I’d wager there are a few more hidden on him.
They were probably there the entire time he was with me, and I just didn’t know it.
“Yes.” I glance down at the mass of dark hairs all over the floor and wince. “I’m sorry for the mess. I’ll clean it up. If there’s a broom…” I trail off, realizing he might not even know what that is.
“I’ll see that the mess is taken care of,” he says instead.
“But I—”
He shakes his head. “You want to cut it more?”
“I do. This...” I touch the ends. “I didn’t think before I cut it, and I’d rather it be more similar in length than longer on the sides.” It’s a vain thing, I know. What does hair really matter when lives are on the line?
Kallan nods in silent understanding. “I can fix it for you.”
My gaze snaps to his. “You don’t have to—”
“I want to. Please. Much better than you risking yourself with my sister’s blade.” The hint of a frown pulls at his lips.
A tinge of embarrassment warms my skin. “She ordered me not to harm myself or others.”
“Hmm,” he muses. “I would have preferred she not take the risk at all.”
“She just wanted to help,” I say, rising to her defense.
“Yes,” he agrees. “She was very curious about you and excited to meet you, though I am sorry I was not here when you awoke.” He reaches for me, the move so subtle I almost miss it, before lowering his hand and gesturing to a simple wooden chair near what looks to be a desk.
“Please, have a seat, and I will see about your hair.”
It’s so tempting to ask about where he was, what is happening on the front, and why the other Unseelie thought I was bait.
Or better yet, what happened with the previous human they say was bait?
The questions race through my head one after another, but no matter how I think to phrase them, not a one sounds completely innocent, and I’m not ready to risk being exposed just yet.
Especially not when I don’t have the potion for Matt or a way to get it back to him.
That part, getting it home, is going to be even trickier now.
My escape plan always involved seeing through the coven’s plot to lead the Unseelie King—Kallan—into a trap.
Because otherwise, there are no open doors to my world in the Unseelie lands.
None that are known. And no sane Unseelie would let me go to the Seelie lands.
And their king? His presence is a tangible force at my back as he comes to stand behind the chair where I sit.
He may have led me along, helping me find ingredients for my potion, but he has no reason to help me finish it now, not when my presence here provides him power that he and his court need.
He never agreed to let me go after helping me anyway.
I pinch my eyes closed to stifle the emotions pricking up tears. I can’t cry. Not again. Not in front of him.
The legs of another chair scrape across the stone floor as he places it behind mine and sits.
It’s incredibly hard to be still, to be this vulnerable knowing who he is, and I can’t help but squirm in my seat.
The slide of a blade from its scabbard only makes it worse.
This feels more like an execution than a haircut.
“You’ll need to be still so I can do my best work.” His words curl around me, so close I startle, a prickle running down my spine.
“I’ll try.” I grip the seat of the chair, my fingertips digging into the wood.
Something firm and warm settles between my shoulder blades. His hand. “Try to relax.” That deep voice and the flat of his strong palm have my insides fluttering. “I have no plans to harm you. Quite the opposite.”
“Okay,” I reply, a little breathless. If only it were so easy.
Seemingly appeased, he sets to work, holding up small sections of hair, pulling them away from my body, and trimming them down. All the while, I focus on my breathing.
One deep breath in. Then back out. Again.
The slight tug and pull each time triggers a little something in me.
Part of me wants to be afraid, the memories of the attack and my dream just on the edge of my thoughts.
But strangely, Kallan’s presence is comforting, just like when he was Elias.
Though he looks different now, perhaps a deep place within me recognizes him despite the change, and knows he won’t let that happen again.
And it’s that sense of security winning out over my fears, each deep breath helping it grow.
Partway through, Kallan pauses, one section of hair held aloft. I open my eyes and stare ahead, only belatedly remembering there is no mirror, and I can’t see him where he sits behind me.
“I am sorry that you were attacked,” he says. “I never wanted you to be hurt or in danger.”
In my periphery, I see him trim away the ends of a section of hair, the pieces fluttering unchecked toward the ground. “I know,” I reply. “You told me to stay inside the wards.”
“They would have kept you safe. The moment I felt them activate, I shifted back to you.”
I pause for a moment, weighing my next words, but ultimately, I have to know. “And would you have revealed who you were then? Or did you plan to keep deceiving me?”
A heavy sigh ruffles my hair and raises chills along my neck. “I wanted to tell you, eventually.”
He hasn’t lifted another section of hair, so I twist my head around until I can see him from the corner of my eye. “But you didn’t trust me yet,” I say, “despite everything I told you about my brother and how I’m trying to help him.”
“I want to.” His face is so close that I can make out the brown flecks in his golden eyes. “But there is no one I fully trust except for my sister.”
There’s a sorrow in those words, something deeper than I can begin to understand.
Another deep sigh leaves him, his head dropping forward just a bit as his eyes close in pain. “Some time before you arrived, another human came into the Unseelie lands.”
I suck in a breath and hold it.
“It was strange,” he continues, “a human coming here from the Seelie territory of Air, for it has not happened as long as I can remember, and many avoid the border territories completely. They begged an audience with me. Pleaded sympathy for our plight and willingness to help me strengthen my power and thus help save my people.” He sighs.
“But the fates were not kind to us as I’d begun to hope. ”
“What happened?” I ask.
“Let me show you.” There’s a soft thunk as he sets the blade aside.