Chapter 18
Callum
I’ve got a crick in my neck and a twinge in my lower back when I wake up on my apartment’s floor, but the aches and pains are more than worth it for the sight that greets me.
My mate.
In my bed.
Though I know she’s only there because she thought she didn’t have anywhere better to go, having her near settles something in me.
It’s right that she’s here.
She was always supposed to be.
My beautiful, powerful, impulsive mate.
My talented, brave, resilient witch.
Everything Seren told me about herself last night still echoes in my mind. Everything about her past, her coven, the threads of obvious grief and self-recrimination in her voice.
It can’t have been easy for her to share all of that with me. It was difficult for her to be vulnerable, to delve into her painful past.
Something my witch and I have in common, apparently.
Knowing that, it’s an honor she trusted me enough to share at all. It’s an honor she decided to come back here with me, to allow me to give her at least one night of peace and safety.
Still, as I glance around the room, I have to fight back a wave of regret.
This place isn’t nearly good enough for her. I was so focused on seeing her here safely that I didn’t remember until we were on my doorstep.
Perhaps I’m just too used to it. Perhaps all the years I’ve spent roaming the realms on Myron’s orders, spending much more time away than I do here, have made it nothing but a passing thought.
This place has never been a home.
It’s a quiet, safe place to rest between jobs, but it’s never had much warmth to it. Or, rather, I’ve never bothered to add touches of warmth to make it feel like more than just somewhere I’m passing through.
Last night, though…
Having Seren here made it feel different.
It still feels different.
Her scent lingers in the air alongside the remnants of our conversation. Her things are here, her very presence making this place feel fuller.
Just having her here has already made it feel more like home.
Sentimental, fanciful thoughts I shouldn’t allow myself even a passing moment to indulge, but I can’t help it as I work to silently stretch the soreness from my muscles.
It’s early, and Seren’s still sleeping peacefully when I rise and dress as quietly as I can.
She’s bundled up in my bed, covers pulled too high for me to see her face, but I can feel her presence, hear her breathing, and there’s nothing in any of the thirteen realms I want more than to stay right here.
Or, better yet, to crawl into bed next to her, make sure she’s warm, curl myself around her and hold her until she wakes.
We’re nowhere near trusting each other or being comfortable enough around each other for that, though it does nothing to stop the fantasy from forming in my mind. I do my best to shove it away as I head for the door.
I’ve got one stop to make this morning before whatever awaits Seren and I as we resume our hunt for the fae queen’s heart. Though I’m loath to leave her, I won’t be long, and I hope she’ll sleep peacefully until I return.
The streets are quiet in the gray of early morning.
My destination is only a short half-mile away, and while most mornings I’d usually walk, I indulge in a portal today knowing it means I’ll be able to return to Seren sooner.
Luckily, it’s early enough that the streets are nearly empty, and I don’t accidentally run into any other demons as I step out of the portal and onto a familiar street corner.
It’s a better neighborhood than the one I live in, but not by much.
The houses and apartment buildings here are better maintained, filled with families, some of whom have lived here for decades. In a quieter end of the city, with streets running up and down gently sloping, tree-lined hills, it only takes another minute to reach my destination.
I knock on a door I’ve walked through thousands of times, and after a few seconds and some muted footsteps coming down the stairs, a familiar voice calls out to me from inside.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me, ma.”
I’m not surprised to find she’s already awake, despite the fact that it’s barely past dawn.
She’s been an early riser since my father was alive, when she’d be up before the sun to make sure he had food to take with him when he left for whatever he was passing off as a job at the time.
Ma never broke the habit, even though he’s been gone over ten years, and when she swings the door open, she looks like she’s been up for hours. Fully dressed, makeup on, the smell of cooking wafting out from the kitchen.
She smiles broadly. “Callum! Come in, come in.”
The inside of my childhood home hasn’t changed since I left it decades ago.
Scuffed wooden floors, worn rugs, walls covered in sun-faded artwork, and shelves filled with various curios and collectibles.
The furniture has seen better days and the whole place could use repainting and refinishing, but it’s neat as a pin, as always.
“You’re here so early,” ma says, leading the way to the small sitting area near the front windows and settling into her customary spot. “I hope nothing’s wrong.”
I murmur a non-reply as I sit, too, not able to bring myself to lie to her.
Like I knew she would, she detects the evasion immediately. She looks me up and down, eyes narrowing, and I wonder if she already knows what I’m about to say.
“Out with it then. You never show up this early just to visit.”
I reach into my pocket for a creased piece of paper—the one that was pinned on my door when Seren and I arrived yesterday—and hold it out to her.
“The bills haven’t been paid this month.”
The notice is from Ragar, the city official who oversees dues, services payments, and tax liability for her city ward. It’s not surprising he left it for me rather than her, only humiliating that he’s all too aware of our circumstances.
She doesn’t take the note. She doesn’t even look at it before she rises from her chair and walks off toward the kitchen.
“Ma,” I call after her, but she just waves a hand in the air.
“It slipped my mind, that’s all.”
I stand and force myself to take a deep, steadying breath before I follow her. “Ma. What do you mean it slipped your mind?”
“There were other bills I had to pay.”
A lie, but I breathe in again and do my best to rein in my irritation. “What bills? I made sure you had enough to last until the end of the month.”
She won’t meet my eye as she fiddles with the kettle, with the canister of tea, with the cups she takes from the counter.
“There were just a few things I needed,” she hedges. “And it’s not a crime to want to go out and have a little fun every now and again.”
“I know it’s not a crime, but that money was for the bills. It was to make sure—”
“I’m not going to be lectured by my son on how I spend my money.”
It’s not your money, it’s the money I made. The money I gave you so you wouldn’t go hungry or lose your home.
The words stick on my tongue. Saying them won’t help the situation in the slightest.
It won’t change her in the slightest.
I sigh. “I’ll take care of it. I can stop by Ragar’s place and pay him for—”
“It’s not up to you to take care of me.”
I bite back a retort, but she’s not done. She takes the spoon she’s using to stir the tea and points it at me.
“It’s not, Callum. I know you think it is, but you get so… so… controlling with all of this.” She throws her hands dramatically in the air. “It makes me wish you’d just stop. Leave me be.”
“And then what?” I ask, fully unable to keep my tone even any longer. “I’m supposed to just stand by and let you lose this place? Where would you go, ma? What would happen to you?”
Her eyes cloud with tears, and I immediately feel lower than an insect for hurting her.
Only… I can’t take any of it back.
All of it’s true.
She’s got nowhere to go. No money saved.
Da made sure of that. He took every last cent with him when he ran out on his debts and his family.
And then he had the audacity to die and leave even more debt behind that fell squarely on her shoulders because he never had the courtesy to divorce her, either.
My father’s debts are taken care of thanks to my contract with Myron, but the bills keep coming, and this precarious security we’ve managed was won at the cost of her home being held as collateral until my contract is complete.
Now it’s up to me. I’ll pay down the debt which now sits squarely on my shoulders, keep ma’s bills paid, hold it all together for Goddess knows how long.
“I’ll figure something out,” she says in a small, trembling voice, and I wait for the sympathy, the quick reassurances to rise to my tongue.
They don’t come.
All I feel is that same hollow, purposeless anger. For my father, yes, but also—surprisingly—for her.
She never held da’s feet to the fire. She never stood up to him. She never pushed back when he went on his benders.
She never took us away from him.
While the more charitable part of me can understand the stress she was under, the exhaustion and misplaced loyalty, that part isn’t the loudest right now.
No, the loudest voice in my head demands to know why she can’t own up to her part in it. It demands answers, to finally have her face the reality of our lives.
It wants to remind her what I gave up, how signing my life away to work for Myron got us the money we needed to clear the debts da left, and how the money I continue to earn makes sure she has a roof over her head and food in her cupboards.
I silence that voice immediately.
It wouldn’t change anything.
It never does.
Any time we even get close to unpacking everything that’s happened and the bleak reality of where we are now, she retreats. She gets angry, or sad, or tries to rewrite history.
It wasn’t as bad as it seemed at the time. Da was trying, he really was. Things will work out all right. The future isn’t as bleak as it seems.
There’s always an excuse. Always some magickal solution to all her problems that only ever happens because I step up and take care of it.
“You’ll never have to,” I tell her. “I’ve got it covered.”
“You’re too good to me, Callum.”
The words ring hollow. So does her relief, so familiar, as we sink back into the same old tired roles.
She offers me some tea. I take it. We sit and sip awkwardly, trade some stilted conversation about my recent jobs and the part-time work she’s been trying to do with the seamstress down the street.
Eventually the tea is gone and the conversation dries up.
With nothing else to say and no desire to stay here and relive the past, I give her a brief parting kiss on the cheek and head for the door.
The sun’s fully up now, cresting the horizon and bathing the city in golden light.
The bright new day does nothing to lift my mood.
Even the thought of my mate—warm in my bed, sleep-rumpled and gorgeous—isn’t enough to cheer me. In fact, it does the opposite.
How am I supposed to be enough for her?
How am I going to create a life worthy of her when I’m barely scraping by on my own, when I have the weight of my past hanging immovable around my neck, dragging me down?
I’ve got no answers, no ideas.
Nothing but the slimmest chance.
A fae queen’s bounty that could erase my biggest mistake.
A fae queen’s bounty Seren wants to win as well.
A fae queen’s bounty only one of us can claim.