Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
The car stopped outside the most boring house on the expensive street, and I followed the prince out, sliding slowly over the leather, scooting awkwardly with the rabbit in my arms. He felt so heavy. No, that was me.
“You can walk yourself to the door,” he said, leaning away like I might accidentally brush against him again.
I nodded and walked slowly to the door that looked more ominous and terrifying the less personality it had, and it had none. The evergreens took the shape of monsters, dragons, and other things guarding the fairy king’s castle.
When I finally got to the door, I felt like eyes were watching me. Which was silly because of course eyes were watching me. The prince was standing there looking at me like I was an idiot. I sighed and knocked on the door. It opened, and the fairy king took my hand and pulled me into the shadows.
He felt like ice and hunger. It took forever to cross the darkness and step through the falls and come out into the circle of mossy cliff faces and the devil floating there, looking dead in the rainbow pool.
I held the rabbit tight and took a shaky breath. “I don’t like the darkness,” I said, looking up at the fairy king.
He smiled at me, so deviously delighted. “I know. Your discomfort is such a pleasure to me.”
I shook off his grasp and stumbled off the stone onto the blanket that was once more spread for us. I opened my boxes from The Cat’s Pause and started eating.
“You brought dinner?” he asked, raising a brow.
“I’m a fairy-goblin. I can’t live on fairy food.
Don’t you need to eat human flesh from time to time so the siren doesn’t fade away?
” I took a large bite of noodles, slurping them up like I had no manners.
I had so many manners, but I didn’t want to use them on the fairy king.
I wanted to eat my noodles and take a nap.
With the devil. Not the vicious creature who sat down opposite me.
“You didn’t bring anything for me?”
“You want some rice?” I hesitated then handed him a box.
He opened the box, sniffed, then took a bite. He made a face and put the box to the side. “It’s terrible.”
“It’s not nearly as bad as the Chinese place near the laundromat. That place is toxic. I’ve gotten food poisoning three times from eating there.”
He stared at me. “Why would you eat there more than once if you got food poisoning?”
I shrugged. “It’s cheap, and it’s between my apartment and the department store. I mean my old apartment.” Where my dad had stayed with me the last year while she was in the hospital. He went to visit her every day. Wasn’t that love?
“I see.” His voice was a low dance of mockery and mercilessness.
I smiled brightly. “The daffodil fairy told me that I’m the miraculous fruit of vengeance and whimsical oracles.
But maybe I’m actually, secretly the true downfall of the fairy king.
” I winked at him then took another bite of noodles with my chopsticks, losing a few in the process.
Oh well. This dress could use more sauciness.
Only half the skirt was missing from being caught in the door.
“Maybe so,” he replied, amused. He didn’t eat, just leaned back, poured himself a glass of rainbows and broken dreams and watched me.
It was unnerving for those dark liquid eyes to focus on me with so much intensity, but I ignored him and focused on the noodles. After I’d eaten enough to feel mostly solid, I looked at him.
“Why did your house go to war with my mother’s?”
“Because we could.”
“Right, but you could also not.”
“But someone has to choose the policy, the future, the profits, and that was going to be me.”
“And yet here you are having a picnic with some fairy-goblin accident instead of sitting on a throne somewhere choosing policy, the future, and profits. What went wrong?”
He gave me a sharp smile. “I’ve been hunting you down for twenty-five years. For me, this is exactly where I want to be.”
I nodded and pulled out my cake box. I needed chocolate with a molten caramel center. And to think I’d been eating cake with the devil so recently. I looked over at the body floating there. So weird. And today was overcast so the whole place had a depressed and desolate vibe.
I ate it out of the box with a fork, so not entirely uncivilized, but not entirely civilized either. The cake made me feel happier, slightly more confident.
“What are you eating? Something you baked?”
I nodded without looking up at him.
He caught my chin in his fingers and raised my face, forcing me to stare into his creepy seal-like eyes. “Are you going to eat without offering me any?”
I licked my lips and swallowed. “You wouldn’t like it. It’s just chocolate with a bit of brandy.”
“What feelings did you bake into it?”
“Happiness and confidence as well as a bit of hope. What would you do with any of that?”
He tilted his head as he studied me, hand still gripping my chin. “You need happiness or confidence?”
“Yes. Particularly hope.”
His smile twisted. “Give me a bite.”
I stared at him. “You want to eat my cake? But I might’ve poisoned it.”
His smile was more amused. “But then how could you eat it? You’re very delicate.”
I hesitated then cut a piece and held it out to him. Was he going to eat off my fork? Then I’d never be able to use it again. That would be way too weird.
He smiled like he could read my thoughts then his lips closed on the tines, and the cake was inside him.
He froze then, instead of falling over asleep, grabbed my throat, the one that didn’t have a collar anymore.
His eyes were terrifying as he held me close enough to break.
He smiled and held me so it could’ve looked affectionate from a distance.
I struggled against him, but he was an elevator closing on me, squishing me dead.
“Let go of me,” I panted, shoving against his iron chest.
Nothing. And I was so weak from the heaviness of the devil’s heart. Maybe he wouldn’t be better off with it inside his chest.
He sang this hissing song that sank into my brain and turned it into mush. Mushrooms. Something that made all my limbs deliciously limp and everything happy. I gazed up at the king, not struggling anymore. He was so handsome. And his scar was so delicious.
I ran a finger up his face. “I love your scar,” I murmured, sighing happily in his arms.
He jerked away from me, dumping me on the blanket while he looked more disgusted than usual.
“Don’t tempt me to kill you too quickly,” he ordered, a command that confused my jellified brain.
“Okay. I’ll tempt you to kill me too slowly.” I smiled and reached out for him. “Kiss me to death. Slowly. I promise I won’t lick you like a weirdo.” I wiggled my brows at him while he looked alarmed.
“Where’s your self-respect?” he demanded.
And then he fell over, landing hard, clearly unconscious. I climbed over to him and spent way too long singing to him and stroking his scar before my brain came back.
I yanked back from him, horror and more horror welling up and up. What the crap was wrong with me? Everything. Absolutely everything. Shouldn’t my feelings for the devil keep me from such horrifying embarrassments?
I shuddered as I made my way to the pond.
I walked into it and immediately went under.
The green water swirled around me as I struggled to the surface, gasping.
This wasn’t a shallow pond, and the water was ice.
I swam in my waterlogged, tea-party outfit to the devil, who was further out than I’d expected, and my body was much heavier than it should’ve been.
I swam and swam until I finally grabbed the devil and pulled myself up onto his still-floating body.
I sat, dripping and gasping, on his legs and stomach.
Still rock-hard abs, it was good to see.
So many scars.
I coughed and shivered until I could breathe. I moved over his body, because I was going to kiss him while kneeling on his chest. That’s how I was going to get his heart into him, right? It seemed like that made sense. A kiss of true love? I wished. I mean, on my side, but on his…
I leaned over and pressed my lips to his before I thought about how weird it was to kiss a comatose person. I mean, forget about consent. Except his heart had kind of consented, and he’d let me kiss him before so…
How long did I have to kiss his cold, stiff lips before he woke up?
He was going to wake up, right? Maybe he was really dead, dead.
Would I have to deal with the king and the enchantress on my own?
Would I have to deal with going to bed without him to kiss my forehead and wish me sweet dreams?
Would I have to wake up without him to smile at me and share how our days went?
“Please wake up,” I whispered against his mouth then pressed a desperate kiss to him, ignoring his lack of response.
I kissed him and kissed him until I was breathless. I turned my head, dropping my forehead into the skin of his bare neck. I was lying on top of him, cold, wet, and shivering, and he was frozen, still, like a floating statue. Was this it? It couldn’t be.
I caught my breath and, using his hair to pull me back up, I kissed his lips. Wait. Maybe he needed to breathe. Oxygen. To get his heart to beat. Right. And the drops my dad gave me! I took a deep breath then sealed out mouths together and breathed into his lungs.
I pulled back and gave him chest compressions, one-two, one-two, until it was time to breathe again. I did a set of twelve compressions before I collapsed on his chest, breathing hard. The drops. Then I’d try again.
I knelt on his chest, almost losing my balance and falling back into the pond, but balancing at the last moment. Finally, I got the lid off, the dropper at his mouth, and released the plunger, shooting a stream of golden liquid that smelled like the most potent goblin poisons into his mouth.
His hands grabbed my throat first, fingers digging into my flesh, closing off my air. His barbed tail was against my back. Nope, that was into my back.