Chapter 24 Promises and Lies
Promises and Lies
“There is nothing you can do, Arantxa,” Azul said through his teeth, practically shooting purple sparks from his no-longer-lambent eyes.
They were back in his apartments, Dy having excused herself to allow them to fight in private, though those hadn’t been her exact words.
She’d claimed needing a nap, which came as a surprise to no one.
“Even if this were your business, which it’s not, you have no ability to affect this situation. This is fae politics and—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she broke in, deliberately drawling her disdain, not above needling him a bit. “Far beyond my ken, blah, blah, blah. Don’t mind the human pet here barking in the corner.”
He rounded on her. “I never once considered you to be my pet. Never once treated you that way.”
She held up her palms. “Granted, Azul. And I know you did your best to keep me out of this, but I am being used to extort your behavior and I’m not going to stand idly by while you are forced into this marriage you don’t want.”
“It’s not that I …” he began, though he trailed off. Probably hitting a wall where he couldn’t find a way to lie around it.
“Oh right, that’s why you were fleeing the altar with fell wolves on your trail when I met you.”
He set his teeth. “You don’t fully understand the situation.”
“I know,” she bit out in return and then threw up her hands. “Because you can’t or won’t tell me. So, I’m left breaking my brain trying to guess.”
“Don’t break your brain,” he suggested, not all that nicely. “Just wait it out until the wedding ceremony. That’s only about six hours from now. Go sleep like Dy. Then you’ll be released and you can go back to your life.”
She studied him, arrested. “Is that what you want?”
“As we’ve discussed multiple times, what I want doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me,” she fired back, feeling as if she’d practically declared her undying love for him. Sure, Bandit. For your next trick, why not rip out your heart and throw it on the floor?
He opened his mouth and she braced herself, certain he was about to say that she didn’t matter either. But he closed his lips again without speaking the words they both knew were true. “I have to do this, Arantxa,” he said instead. “I’ve run from it long enough.”
“Is that why you’re here in Citrine?” she asked, hazarding that he might be able to indicate yes or no.
He shrugged, barely.
“And Lenorae knew you were here, but for some reason couldn’t get to you or force your hand and that’s why she got me to come here.”
He tilted his head back and forth, indicating she was partly correct.
“I can take you out of here,” she said, partly an offer, partly a declaration of intent.
“I can’t leave.”
She waited a beat, but he calmly held her gaze, not adding or explaining.
Did that mean he couldn’t leave of his own accord or that he was somehow physically prevented?
She suspected the former. “What would happen if you were taken out of the palace grounds, either against your will or without your knowledge?”
He burst out laughing. “What, do you propose to steal me, Bandit?”
“I am a thief and a smuggler.” She looked him up and down. “You’d be far from our most difficult heist.”
Azul sobered and came to her. Very seriously, he stroked her cheek. She shivered at the touch, wanting, craving more. “My brash outlaw,” he murmured, “this is not for you to fix. My fate has been set for a long time and you cannot change it. I won’t let you.”
We’ll see about that.
Azul read the thought, or the gist of it, in her and narrowed his eyes in warning.
“Perish that thought,” he said very quietly, and brushed a kiss over her lips.
“This is all too perilous for you and Dy. The very best I can do for you is guarantee your safe passage home by going through with this wedding that’s entirely my problem and was sealed long before you met me. ”
“I worry about you,” she replied, just as softly.
He laughed, not quite as mocking as before, genuinely amused. “Humans don’t worry about fae.”
“Dogs worry about their masters,” she shot back.
“You’re going to bring that up for the rest of our lives, aren’t you?”
She caught her breath. “Is there a rest of our lives after this? If you marry Lenorae in a few hours and I return to the human realms, I don’t think I’ll ever see you again.”
“No,” he agreed somberly. “You won’t. But we said goodbye forever before.”
“Yeah, well… It didn’t stick.” She gave him a cheeky grin he didn’t return.
“It has to stick this time, Arantxa,” he said with measured deliberateness.
“Think of me as having paid the price for your freedom from all of this, which means you must value that exchange.” He waved a hand at the luxurious prison and the lands beyond.
“You don’t belong entangled in our sticky webs. You’re better off with your own kind.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t belong there either,” she countered, regretting the words immediately. Poor poor pitiful me.
“That’s not true. You could have any man you want.
I’ve seen for myself how they fall over you.
You deserve that life you’ve always had and enjoyed.
More than being treated as lesser, which you always would be in my world, if you could even survive long, which we know you can’t. And I don’t belong in yours.”
“A fish and a bird could fall in love but where would they live?” Cha murmured. “My mother used to say that.”
“Your mother sounds wise.”
Cha couldn’t help the laugh that cracked out of her.
“She was a bitter, worn-out, shadow of a woman who didn’t know how to love, only how to work herself to the bone.
” And Cha had spent her life not becoming that.
“If you’re so resolved on this, why did you fuck me in the salon?
Don’t tell me I was just a convenient bang because I know from those.
Nothing wrong with them, but this wasn’t that. ”
He managed to look both sad and angry. “For reasons unknown, I seem to have difficulty resisting you.”
“Yeah, well, I know the feeling, buddy,” she snarled back. Then had to laugh. “What exactly are we fighting about?”
“The fact that you must reconcile yourself to my marriage to Lenorae and leave this place—and me—forever.”
“Have you reconciled yourself?”
“I must,” he answered simply. “And it will be easier without your distracting presence, Arantxa. If you want to do something for me, then go. Please go. Just… go.” His face shuttered as he repeated the directive.
She could take a hint. “Fine. I’ll go.” She stepped away from him, forcing herself to put distance between them when all she wanted was to cling to him and never let go. “Get ready for your wedding. Dy and I will witness and then be on the ley home.”
He reached out and caught her hand, tangling her fingers with his long, velvety ones. “It’s for the best, really.”
“Your best or mine?”
He only smiled sadly. “Yours. That’s what matters most to me.”
And that’s what Lenorae had used against him. She stared back at him helplessly. “See? You can’t say that shit to me and expect me to walk away from you.”
He squeezed their joined fingers. “I never think you’ll actually listen to me.”
“Ha ha.” But she was moved, oddly and utterly. “I would miss you for the rest of my life, Azul.” She couldn’t quite bring herself to say the other words. She didn’t need to say them, not yet. Because she refused to let this be goodbye.
He didn’t miss her phrasing, the conditional tense she’d used. Really, she should have lied. She could and that would have been smoother. “Arantxa. I want you to promise me that you will leave Citrine tonight. No lingering about after the wedding coming up with cockamamie schemes.”
“Cockamamie schemes?” she echoed in horrified disgust. She poked him in the chest with a stiff finger.
“I’ll have you know that I’ve never once, in my entire life, come up with a cockamamie scheme.
All of my schemes are gold. Sometimes the execution goes awry, I’ll admit, but the schemes themselves would make angels weep in envy. ”
He chuckled, violet eyes dark, and stepped into her, sliding a hand behind her neck.
“Promise me,” he instructed, and hovered his lips just above hers, tantalizing.
She tried to close the distance, but he stayed just out of reach.
The perfect metaphor for their relationship.
“I have to hear the words, Arantxa. You might lie to me, but I know you won’t break your promise. ”
She considered carefully. “I promise to leave Citrine tonight.”
He pulled back just enough to stare into her eyes. “No tricks? No schemes, cockamamie or otherwise?”
“A promise is a promise,” she answered solemnly, lying smoothly around the edges. “And I promise to leave Citrine tonight, come hell or high water.”
At last he kissed her, so sweetly she would weep if she truly believed it would be the last time. “Thank you,” he said.
Coming from a fae, the gratitude, the acknowledgement of a debt, meant more than any declaration of enduring affection. So she kissed him back and swallowed the smile of satisfaction.
*
She left him to his wedding preparations and found Dy in the bedchamber she’d been given.
Katu draped across the bed, happy to have a nap companion.
Like Cha, Dy was still dolled up and though she’d clearly been sleeping, she sat up like Sleeping Beauty rising from enchantment, not a hair out of place.
She looked as fresh as the moment the pixies finished with her.
Cha seriously doubted the same could be said of her.
She closed the door behind her and mimed locking her lips with a key.
Bemused, Dy made a gesture, invoking a spell to give them a cone of silence. She’d developed it back when they were roomies at the academy, first so they could gossip about their classmates in peace, later so they could plot their next gig.
“I’ve been worried sick about what we’re going to do and you’ve been making out.
” Dy flipped a hand at Cha’s appearance, confirming her suspicions about being less than fresh-looking.
Purple lipstick looked great, but probably any smearing made transformed her from femme fatale to clown.
She found a towel and scrubbed it off. “Hey, I can make out and worry at the same time. Better, I have a plan now.”
“I’m agog to hear the specifics.”
“Me, too. We have two hours to figure out exactly how we’re going to abduct Prince Charming.”