14. Miri
14
Miri
I slept better than I had in years. I didn’t know if it was because of how tired I was or the warmth and coziness of sharing a bed with my three spouses. I peeled my eyes open when a streak of bright sunlight snuck in through the blinds, hitting me in the face. Ivy still slept behind me, but Lex was gone. When I sat up, I saw Carter was gone as well.
Just me and my wife.
Just me and my girl.
I ran a finger down the side of her face, tracing the way her cheekbone dipped and became her jaw. She cracked open her gray eyes and focused on me before curling into herself and stretching, reminding me of a grumpy cat that had been unceremoniously awakened.
“Good morning, darling,” I said, giving her a sweet kiss.
She reciprocated with a smile. “Good morning.”
“How do you feel?”
“Sore,” she said, her voice gravelly from sleep. “And tired. But good.”
“Me too,” I said. “I didn’t mean to make you upset last night. With Carter.”
She shook her head. “This whole thing is hard. I spent so long thinking neither of you wanted me. I was jealous of you. And of him. Of everyone.”
“I never wanted you to feel like that.” I kissed her again. “We’re in this together. No matter what.”
“Until the end.” She grabbed my hand with hers, rubbing our vows against each other.
“Make me a promise, darling.”
“Anything,” she said, eyeing me with sincerity.
“Don’t let me disappear on you again,” I said. “If you think I don’t love you, show up and ask me. I’ll do the same for you.”
She sighed and blinked back tears, kissing my knuckles while she said, “I promise.”
“Good.” I gave her a quick peck on the forehead before pushing the covers aside to climb out of bed. “I know it’s first thing in the morning, but I need to show you something.”
She narrowed her eyes, now more serious, and sat up. “Okay.”
I cleared my throat and walked to the wilted plant in the window. It looked healthy enough; it just needed some water. When I touched it, the energy surged through me, zipping right into the orchid. It perked up and grew a few inches before I pulled my hand away.
Ivy gasped and shot to her feet, closing the distance between us. “Holy hell, Miri.”
“Shhh.” I grabbed her arms. “Lex and Carter don’t know. No one knows.”
She took a deep breath and pursed her lips, meeting my eyes. But it wasn’t surprise behind her expression. It was resolution, as if showing her my deep, dark secret had cemented something in her mind.
“Don’t freak out, okay?”
I prepared to ask what she meant, but she grabbed my wrists and tugged me close. Her eyes went white before something tightened in my mind, like someone had taken a battering ram to the mental room that held my secrets.
Memories from California whirled around us. When I first found out I could do this. When I shoved Carter up against the balcony and sucked him off for all the world to see. When I said goodbye to him at the gala and my shattered heart broke in half again. I couldn’t stop the images from flicking like a movie montage, and with them came the emotional turmoil of those months apart, like Ivy could rip the agony right out of my body if she wanted.
What is happening? What is she doing?
Everything stopped the minute she let go, and I gasped, covering my mouth with my palms. “What the bloody hell was that?”
She sighed and rubbed her fingers over her eyes. “C’mon. We have a lot to talk about.”
We found Carter and Lex at the breakfast nook in the kitchen. Lex had a cigarette between his fingers, a coffee in the other hand, a huge grin on his face. Carter fried eggs on the stove, the smell of bacon permeating from the oven while he entertained Lex with a story about filming the notorious threesome scene in the first season. The king had just learned James was in love with his queen, and instead of reprimanding him for it, he instead invited him into their bed.
I’d had to rewind it four times during my first watch through. (For purely educational purposes, of course.)
“Lorne got so fucking hard,” Carter said, “he had to sit there for a few minutes after Anthony called cut.”
“Was it you or Alexandra?” Lex asked.
Carter winked, and Lex threw his head back to guffaw.
I loved seeing him laugh. I got the sense he so rarely did when we weren’t here. I had loved the old version of Lex, the college fuckboy with a chip on his shoulder and an axe to grind with the whole fucking world. But this Lex? The man who’d grown to capture the world through his own lens? I adored him.
“Good morning,” Ivy said, kissing Carter before grabbing the carafe of coffee and pouring two mugs.
“How did you sleep?” Lex asked.
“Amazing,” I said.
“Same,” Carter agreed. “Haven’t slept that well in years.”
“Since Ireland,” Ivy added.
The room fell silent, and my attention went to Ivy. She handed me a mug, and I took a sip. Hmm…she still knew how to make it the way I liked, the perfect mix of sugar and cream. Then she looked to Lex.
“Go on, X,” he said. “Tell them.”
She licked her lips and straightened, and Carter furrowed his brows, glancing between us. “Tell us what?”
“Remember the woman, Siobhan, and the ring she gave me?” Ivy blew on her coffee before taking a drink.
“Yeah,” I said. “You lost it in the woods, didn’t you?”
“I did. Or, at least, I thought I did.” She sighed before taking a deep breath to continue. “About six months after we got home, I had a dream where I found the ruins again. Siobhan waited for me there. She told me I looked terrible, and that I wasn’t taking care of her gift. When I told her I lost the ring, she said, ‘Did you think that was the gift?’ Then she disappeared.” Ivy brushed a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “I haven’t seen her since. When I woke up, the ring was in the bed with me.”
“In the bed with you…how?” Carter asked.
“It was just there,” Ivy explained.
“That’s not all,” Lex said, straightening. “I told you last night I asked my father if he had anything to do with you two ditching us, and he said he didn’t. I believed him because…” Lex cleared his throat and took a deep pull on his cigarette. “He confessed to wishing it had been me that died instead of my brother. He told me things he never would have said had I not made him.”
“Made him?” I asked, my eyes going to Ivy. She nodded, confirming Lex had the same special gift we did.
Oh…
OH…
“Are you saying you can make people tell the truth?” Carter said.
“I could make you tell us every filthy thought you’ve ever had about everyone in this room,” Lex said.
“Well.” Carter playfully rolled his eyes. “I’d never lie about that.”
I chuckled, and Ivy smiled before sobering and setting her focus on me.
“Miri,” Ivy said. “Show them what you can do.”
I cleared my throat and went to one of their houseplants, touching the leaf to make it preen and grow.
“Fuck.” Lex ran his hands back through his hair with one hand and stabbed his cigarette out with the other.
“How long have you known you could do that?” Carter asked.
“I found out in Malibu,” I admitted.
“The irises,” he said, as if it was all coming together in his mind.
I nodded, a tinge of guilt burning my cheeks. I probably should have told him, and maybe it revealed something sinister about us that I hadn’t. Lex and Ivy had obviously shared their secrets. Were they closer because they lived together? Or did Carter and I share a bond only because we were bonded to them?
Carter sighed and ran his hand over the back of his hair. “Okay, my turn. You got a deck of cards?”
“Sure.” Ivy pulled a small white box out of a junk drawer next to the stove.
“Shuffle them,” Carter said. “Shuffle them really good.”
Ivy did as he asked, then held the deck out to him.
“Jack of spades,” he said. “Flip over the first card.”
She did, and it was a jack of spades.
“Two of diamonds.”
Correct.
Then she went rapid-fire.
“Four of hearts, queen of diamonds, ace of spades, seven of clubs, six of diamonds.”
Bam. Bam. Bam.
He guessed them all.
“Lucky guess,” Lex said.
“Exactly.” Carter returned his attention back to the eggs still cooking on the stove. “I’m banned from two hotels in Vegas. I won over a million dollars in under three hours.”
“Jesus Christ,” Ivy said.
“Yeah.” Carter thinned his lips, looking equally embarrassed and proud of his status.
I shifted my attention back to Ivy. “And you can read minds.”
“Telepathic mind trick,” she said, holding up a hand to wave in front of us. “Your droids are not here.”
Carter snorted a laugh at her misquote and shook his head. “Close enough, Weeds.”
“Look, for a long time, I didn’t want to believe it,” Lex said. “I thought someone was fucking with us. But this? It’s something I can do to anyone. I can’t stop it.”
“None of us can,” I added.
“What the hell is going on?” Carter asked as he put the finishing touches on breakfast.
Silence.
“I have an idea,” Ivy said, just as Carter put plates in front of us. “After Ireland, we said we would move on and forget it…but I couldn’t. I was obsessed.” She bit into a piece of toast, and starving, I dove into my eggs. “I’m still kind of obsessed. I came across a story about two couples that went into the woods on Beltane. They claimed they’d only been gone a few hours, but the townspeople said they’d been lost for a week. They said they lived with the fairies and married each other. For none could stray from the others without knowing terrible ecstasy.”
“Terrible ecstasy?” Carter whistled incredulously. “That sounds about right.”
“I think it means we can’t be apart,” she said. “We have to stay together until we can figure out how to break the curse.”
“Why would we want to break it?” Lex asked, scrutinizing Ivy with his piercing stare. “None of this sounds bad to me.”
“You don’t think having to get together to fuck or risk going rabid is a bad thing?” Ivy raised her eyebrows at her fiancé.
“You do?” Lex mirrored her expression, half facetious, half serious.
She rolled her eyes and shoved at his shoulder. “Shut up.”
“What if we can’t?” I asked. “What if we have to live with it for the rest of our lives?”
“Would that be the worst thing?” Carter shrugged and reached across the kitchen island to grab my hand. “That the four of us share a future. A family. I mean”—he pointed to Lex and Ivy—“half of us have been together since birth.”
Ivy flushed, and Lex curled his perfect lips into a smile.
“I’ve wanted that since the day we got hitched in the woods,” Lex said. “The cottage and the kids. The four of us old and gray and creaky together.”
“All four of us?” Ivy raised an eyebrow at him.
“Yeah, X.” He ran the back of his fingers down her cheek. “All of us. Who’s going to give me shit every day if you’re not there?”
She laughed, returning her attention to Carter and me. “I’m not giving up hope we can end this. If Siobhan did this to us, then she can undo it. I’ve had Kit looking for her since we got home from Ireland.”
“Kit knows about this?” Lex said. Suddenly, his sincerity and affection were replaced by that telltale challenge in his eyes, like he was coiled in the grass and waiting to strike.
“Not all of it,” Ivy said, trying to calm him. “She knows I need to talk to Siobhan, and she’s got access to all that facial recognition bullshit.”
Lex took a deep breath and rubbed his fingers in his eyes. “You said you wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“Kit doesn’t count,” Ivy said. “And she doesn’t know everything.”
“ You can’t keep things from me, X,” he said. “We’re partners.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Lucifer. Do you need a play-by-play of every minute of my life?” She said it, but not in the harsh or cruel way she once might have done. Now, amusement hung in every bantering word. “Carter fucked me in the closet last night. You want to know how that was, too?”
“I’m sure it was fantastic, X,” he retorted with a chilling bite in his tone, widening his eyes for debate. “If you feel so inclined, I’ll gladly take a reenactment.”
She pursed her lips and her eyes twinkled with wild amusement as she muttered, “Maybe later.”
“All right, kids,” Carter cut in with a laugh. “Can we eat breakfast in peace?”
I giggled at how so much had changed between them, evident in the way they co-existed peacefully, not to mention the pictures of Ivy in Lex’s room. But in a lot of ways, so much had stayed the same. They still got under each other’s skin like no one else could.
“How close is Kit to finding Siobhan?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I have to go to family brunch in a few days, so I’ll ask then.” Ivy rubbed at her neck and took another sip of coffee. “That’s not all. The lore talks about a fairy king and queen, these powerful beings capable of terrible things. Sometimes, they’re benevolent. Sometimes, they trick humans and enthrall them.”
“Do you think they’re real?” Carter asked.
“If fairies are real, they must be, too.” She brushed hair back behind her ear, steel eyes meeting each of us before she continued. “All I’m saying is we need to be careful. If even half those stories are true, this won’t end well for any of us.”
Carter reached across the table and grabbed her hand. “I’m with you, Weeds. Until the end.” He paused before adding, “For real this time.”
Ivy cleared her throat. “How long are you staying?”
“A week or two, at least,” I said. “Until my grandmother loses her patience and sends someone to fetch me.”
“I have a month before I’m supposed to visit my sisters,” Carter said. “I think I can hold my agent off that long.”
I warmed at the thought of Lizzie and Renee. “How are they?”
“Great. Lizzie asks about you a lot.”
“I miss her,” I said. “I should call her.”
The conversation drifted to stories about our time in Malibu, and they told us about law school. We laughed, really laughed, and my heart became so light and free.
I could stay here forever . I glanced around that breakfast table with the loves of my life. I could stay with all of them forever, and I’d never regret a thing.