Chapter 38
Callum
“So you have a mate.”
Finn drops onto the bench seat next to me, two tankards of ale in hand. I take the one he offers me and indulge in a polite sip, but drowning my sorrows is the furthest thing from my mind tonight.
Well, maybe not the furthest, but the better part of me knows alcohol won’t do a damned thing to fix what’s wrong with me.
“Aye, I do.”
Finn gives me a knowing look. “That’s all you’ve got to say about it?”
Instead of answering, I look for my star.
She’s sitting at another table, deep in conversation with Vayla and Emilia.
The three of them are laughing, and it’s just another thing to admire about my mate—the ease with which she always seems to adapt to whatever situation she finds herself in.
Watching them, seeing the way the candlelight hits her face and how beautiful she is when she smiles, makes my chest ache.
“Callum,” Finn prods, and I’m not sure how long I’ve left his question sitting there unanswered.
“There’s not much more to say.” I scrub a hand down the side of my face. No. That’s not right. There’s too much to say, but nothing I can say to him. There’s only one person I want to talk to about it.
“Not much to say?” he asks flatly. “I know you’re not one to be overly sentimental, but surely you can—”
“It’s complicated, Finn. All of this is… well. It’s complicated.”
He sits back in his chair and takes a long drink of his ale. “Doesn’t seem all that complicated to me. If the Goddess ever saw fit to pair me with such a beautiful, vivacious—”
“Watch yourself.”
I don’t know where the harsh words come from.
Other demons certainly have the right to compliment my mate.
Hell, they should compliment her. Anyone who meets her surely has a dozen different praises to sing by the end of their first conversation with her.
But I’m still feeling too damned tender tonight.
I still don’t know if I have her tonight, if I’ll have her tomorrow, if I’ve already lost her, and that cursed, aching tenderness makes it intolerable to have Finn sitting here admiring her.
How much better she would have done to wind up with a demon like him.
A demon with a fortune at his disposal.
A demon who could give her stability and a future.
“That bad, huh?”
Finn’s question pulls me out of the dark spiral of my thoughts. “What’s bad?”
“How deep you’re in it with her, friend.”
His voice has taken on a different quality. Softer, more understanding, and that’s intolerable, too.
My gaze finds Seren again, only to find her looking right back at me.
In the candlelight’s glow, her eyes shine like two emeralds. Her cheeks are flushed from her conversation and the wine she’s sipped. Some of her hair has come free from the braid she plaited this morning, little wisps of it framing her face.
She’s so beautiful I can’t find it in my heart to deny Finn’s words.
Instead, I take one last sip of ale, then push my glass away.
“Aye,” I say, standing from the table. “Maybe you’re right.”
Like she’s been waiting for me to make the move, Seren says something to her friends and stands from her seat as well.
We meet in the middle of the room, and it might as well be just the two of us here alone.
Like it always does when I’m near her, everything except my star fades away.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” I say softly, nodding to the seat she just vacated. “If you want to stay longer—”
“I don’t.” She takes my hand, laces our fingers together. “Is there somewhere around here we can crash?”
“Finn’s got a room for us.” I give her a gentle tug toward the door. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
The room is beautiful.
Set into the outer core of suites carved directly into the mountain, its far wall is made up entirely of a balcony open to the night air beyond, bespelled like all these rooms are to ensure the cold doesn’t get in.
On the wall beside the door, a great stone fireplace already burning with a steady flame, and in the center of the room, a gigantic bed.
Ostentatious, really.
More than two people could ever need.
It’s perfect.
For more than one reason. Namely, for the things I can imagine doing with my mate, given that much room to lay her down and stretch my wings. But also because it means the two of us could sleep comfortably on each side without touching each other.
After our last conversation, the second scenario seems much more likely.
Seren walks ahead of me into the room, taking it all in. She sets her bag on the bench seat at the end of the bed and lets out a small, disbelieving laugh.
“What?” I ask, still half-distracted by the wonder of her, by the beauty of her, by the sheer impossibility of still having her here with me.
“All of this is just so wild, you know?”
She reaches back to undo the end of her braid, distractedly running her fingers through the long blond strands. They catch the room’s candlelight and glow a warm gold, and my own fingers ache to sink in, to wrap those strands around my hand and tip her head back, pull her to me.
“Which part?” I make myself ask instead.
“Oh, I don’t know.” She laughs again. “Being a guest at court, seeing a place like this with my own eyes. It’s just…”
“Unbelievable?”
Unable to help myself, I cross the room toward her. Stopping just a breath away, my chest clenches painfully when Seren tips her head up to meet my gaze.
“Unbelievable,” she murmurs.
She steps forward and lays her head on my chest, wraps her arms around my waist. Wings pulled forward to shelter her, both arms encircling her, I rest my cheek on top of her head and my breath leaves me in a long, shaking sigh.
“We probably have to talk about it,” she says quietly.
We do. But I’ll be damned if I want to ruin the moment. Turning my head so I can run my lips over her hair, I tighten my hold on her and sigh again.
“Where do we begin?”
Seren pulls her head back and looks up at me with a wry smile. “Let’s start with our trip to Faerie tomorrow and work backward from there.”
“So you’re set on going?” It’s not a surprise, but a heavy pit of fear still settles itself in my stomach.
My fearless witch, my brave star. I’d follow her to the gates of the brimstone realm and back, but that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.
“Yeah,” she says, quiet but certain. “I’m going. And it still doesn’t mean you have to—”
“Where you go, I go, star. I told you that, and I meant it.”
Her brow creases, but she nods slowly. “And the rest of it?”
“The rest of it hasn’t changed.”
Those creases deepen, and her fingers tighten on the front of my shirt for a moment before she steps back, out of the circle of my arms.
I let her go, though the space she leaves behind is hollow and aching.
“Tell me more about this contract. There’s no way to get out of it?”
I sigh and take a seat on the bench at the end of the bed. “Not unless I want to bring a whole world of trouble down on my head. Demons take the contracts and agreements we make seriously.”
She nods and runs a hand through her hair, thinking.
“How long will it take you to earn your way out?”
“Without the treasure? A decade, maybe more.”
A brief flinch, but she presses on.
“And your mom?” she asks tentatively. “There’s no other way for her to—”
“There isn’t.”
She frowns at the interruption, but it’s not a point I want to discuss. Not now. My relationship with my mother and the fraught years between us seem far too much to handle tonight.
“Well,” Seren says, forcing some of her signature mischief back into her voice, though even I can hear right through it. “Then we’ll just have to take home the bounty tomorrow and all our problems will be solved.”
So pretty, the picture she paints.
I want to believe it.
I want to believe the answer to all my problems could be that simple.
For a moment, I let myself.
“Just like that?”
Seren smiles at the note of hope in my voice. “Just like that.”
“And what will we do when all our problems are solved?”
Her smile widens, though it trembles a little around the edges. “Whatever we want. What would that be for you?”
I hum thoughtfully. “All I’d really like is to spend some time with you. Preferably with no fae queens or hunters breathing down our necks.”
“I think I’d like that, too.”
“Maybe I’ll show you more of this realm.”
“And maybe I’ll show you more of mine.”
She sits down beside me, leans her head on my shoulder. “And don’t forget, we’ve got eleven more realms to explore, too. I’ve barely made a scratch in traveling to any of them.”
“Make that ten.” I give her a nudge with my elbow. “After tomorrow, I hope I won’t ever set foot in Faerie again.”
She laughs softly. “Okay. Deal. Ten realms to explore. A fae queen’s bounty to fund our travels. All of that sounds pretty good to me.”
“It sounds pretty good to me, too.”
It does. Goddess, it does.
Having my mate by my side and no more debts hanging around my neck. Being free again. Free to be with her, free to imagine what life might look like if I had the ability to choose for myself.
What I wouldn’t give for that pretty fantasy to be real.
Seren is quiet for a few moments before her soft voice fills the space between us.
“I’ve felt so alone for so long. The coven… for all its faults, it was somewhere to belong. And even though I don’t regret leaving… I… there’s never been… anywhere… anyone who makes me feel…”
She lets out a breath, shakes her head. I lay my hand over hers where it rests on the bench between us.
“I never want you to feel alone, star. Never with me.”
As I say the words, they settle into the bottom of my stomach like stones. Guilt, hot and sickly, rises in the back of my throat.
Because there’s no getting around the truth of it.
Stark and unavoidable. The truth that I can’t be worthy of my mate. At least not until I clear my debts and do something about the mess I’ve made of my life.
I don’t want to be a demon like my father was.
I don’t want to be a burden on those I care for.
I don’t want Seren to be waiting for me, disappointed in me, living a life less than the one she deserves because of me.
I don’t know how to say it, how to tell her, how to find words that would ever express how sorry I am, how much I wish I could give her more. Give her what she deserves.
But I don’t have to.
When I meet my witch’s eyes again, they’re hard, blazing, as if she can hear all my self-recriminations and wants to throw them right back at me.
Like she’s not going to let me retreat, not going to back down without a fight.