Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Felix
I fucked up big time, and I’m not sure if I can talk to anyone about it.
Maybe Dáithí or Jared, but that might be crossing a line.
I’m not really close enough to anyone on the team—yet—to trauma dump my private life all over them.
It’s bad enough that they know I have one.
Maybe one day, if the team culture keeps improving the way it has been.
And I definitely can’t talk to Ari about this, since talking to Ari about it is how I fucked up in the first place.
I should have realized that when a guy says he can’t make any promises and is all mysterious and angsty about it, that means he doesn’t want to talk.
It doesn’t mean “wait a month or so and then offer to be his confidant.”
This thing with Ari has been, weirdly enough, the healthiest relationship I’ve ever had.
My friends and family don’t hate him. He understands and supports my relationships with them, unlike this guy Ted I dated a few years back, who thought I was too close to my family and needed to “cut the apron strings.” He’s encouraging and supportive of my career, which has also been a pain point in past relationships.
We have common interests, common friends, incredible sex…
and I genuinely like him. I like spending time with him. I like being part of his life.
I might even love him, though the responsible adult side of me thinks I should wait a little longer before saying that. Maybe until the end of the year.
Or never, given that I’ve fucked up whatever it is we have.
Why did I tell him he could talk to me? It’s not like I’m all that good at dealing with my own feelings—what possessed me to encourage him to tell me his?
He probably thinks I’m pressuring him. He’s definitely freaking out, because ever since that day, he’s been different.
Withdrawn. Pensive. I didn’t realize exactly how much time we’d been spending together until he backed out on me two out of the last three nights.
So what am I supposed to do now? Do I tell him outright that he doesn’t have to talk about his private business, or would that just make it worse?
I could really do with some advice right now, but I don’t know who to ask.
Our relationship isn’t exactly textbook standard.
Fuck, for all I know, I’ve crossed some kind of cultural line.
Maybe elves don’t ever talk about major personal crises to their partners.
Maybe this is one of the pitfalls of an interspecies relationship that nobody told me about.
I’ve never dated an elf before, and I don’t know as much about them as I do about other species.
A hand clamps down on my shoulder, and I look up at Gline. “Are you coming?” he asks. “You’ve been sitting there daydreaming for five minutes.”
Fuck. The skating clinic. Somehow, in the middle of my internal angsting, I managed to get into my practice gear and skates. “Yeah. I’m coming.” I get up and follow him out of the room and to the ice.
Our teammates who also volunteered for this activity are already on the ice, warming up, while a group of teens watch from where they’re waiting with Erik, Ari, and what looks like a bunch of parents.
This is one of the elf-dragon outreach clinics, and the kids seem to have a mixed level of interest. Some are probably already fans, some are keen to try something new, and some would rather be elsewhere but are here because their parents never pass up a free activity.
Types of parents are the same no matter what species.
Gline and I step out onto the ice, and as if that’s his cue, Erik holds up his hands for attention and begins giving a speech.
I can’t hear it from here, but I assume it’s instructions for the afternoon.
We were told the kids would be broken up into groups based on their experience, and I volunteered to work with the ones who’ve never skated before.
Gline offered to join me, since it’s unlikely there will be that many teens here who’ve not only played hockey but also want to be goalies.
Erik turns and waves, and we all skate over and line up so he can introduce us.
I hold up my stick in acknowledgment when he says my name, then tune out as he starts dividing up the groups.
My gaze goes to Ari, who’s holding a tablet and directing teenagers on where to stand.
His hair is pulled back in a french braid today.
I haven’t seen him wear that style before—he usually prefers to leave it down or in a low ponytail.
The way this draws his hair back really emphasizes his elven facial structure.
One of the benefits of both of us working in places where humans aren’t common is that I rarely see him with any kind of glamour to change his face.
I’m glad of that—he and his people have been through enough, without him having to hide all the time.
He looks up and catches me staring at him, and his face lights up with a beautiful smile. I smile back, thrilled… and confused. If he’s smiling at me like that, does that mean he’s not thinking of ending things? Not mad at me for broaching the unbroachable subject?
But then, why the distance these past few days? What’s made him pull away from me?
ARI
Erik and I send the kids out onto the ice, watch to make sure they all end up with the right players, and then turn our attention to the parents who want to talk.
Some have questions about hockey and the outreach program, which I’m a little surprised to find I know all the answers to.
I guess I’ve learned more than I thought in this last month or so.
The crowd of questioners has mostly dispersed when a kid comes racing in through the door from the front lobby, followed by a parent.
“Am I too late?” the teen asks breathlessly. “We got lost.”
“You’re not too late,” Erik assures him. “Let’s get you some skates. What’s your name?”
I leave him to handle the kid, and I turn to the parent. Most of the forms have been filled out already, but there are some details I need to confi—
Air sticks in my throat, and I cough to keep breathing. She’s dead. She was dead. How is she…?
“Ari?” The surprise in her voice assures me that she’s alive. Not dead. As does the wariness that races across her face, along with the cautious step back. “You’re almost the last person I expected to see here.”
“Yes—” I stop and clear the rust from my throat. “Yes,” I repeat. “I felt that way for a while, too. It’s only a temporary secondment, as part of the DEA’s outreach partnership.”
“Oh?” Her face relaxes slightly, but she’s still guarded, and it doesn’t take a genius to understand why.
“I work for the DEA, Meara. For the king’s security team. I l-left not long after you… died.” I shake my head at the absurdity of the sentence. “What happened?”
“You left?” It’s her turn to shake her head. “Of course, you must have. You wouldn’t be here otherwise. It’s just… I’ve never seen anyone else from before.”
“Me either. Well, only in battle,” I confess, and she swallows hard enough for me to see, even several feet away.
“Why did you leave?” she asks, and I take a step closer to her. This is the last thing I want to talk about, ever, and especially not where someone might overhear. I’ve spent a long time rebuilding my life and atoning for my past, and I don’t want people to know what I came from.
Maybe Raeulfr’s right and I need to allow myself more of a life, but that doesn’t erase the past or the way people will hate me.
“I heard something that… troubled me. Enough that I went looking for answers, for another perspective. I found the truth.”
“And you couldn’t stay.” She nods.
“I surrendered to the army, and they brought me to the king. He allowed me to swear service to him.” I shrug. We were never really close, and I’m not comfortable telling her details.
“You surrendered,” she repeats, awed. “You always did have too much honor for your own good. What if they’d killed you immediately?”
I don’t reply. She doesn’t need to know that I’d expected that to be the most likely outcome.
Meara sighs. “Well, I didn’t do anything as stupid as that. You obviously know the shield over our compound collapsed?”
I nod, though she doesn’t need me to. There’s no other reason I would have assumed she’d died.
“When the shield came down, I tried to stay close to my family, but we got separated, and then they were… gone. A dragon patrol found me hours later—I could barely breathe by then because of the miasma. They never knew—” She pauses and looks around to make sure nobody’s close.
“—where I’d come from. They took me to a settlement and I just… began a new life.”
“I’m glad,” I say sincerely. “And now you have a family. Congratulations.”
We both glance over to where her son is taking his first tentative steps onto the ice, Gline there to guide him.
“It wasn’t easy at first,” she admits. “Nothing was the way I’d been told it was, and I was scared of everyone. Eventually I made friends, and then I started to relax.”
“Did it make you feel more secure when you told your partner everything?” There’s a wistful note in my voice.
I’m in a different situation to Meara—she was only a teenager when she, er, didn’t die, and hadn’t begun to perform the duties we all got assigned when we got older.
I doubt anyone could have blamed her for being born to parents who made bad choices, though I understand why her young self would have been afraid of that.
“I never did.” She shakes her head vehemently. “And I never will. I won’t risk losing everything I have now.” The look she gives me is frightening in its intensity. “I’ll do whatever I must to protect my life, Ari. Don’t even think—”
I hold up my hands, shocked and sad. “Your story isn’t mine to tell. Nobody will hear it from me.”
She stares guardedly at me for a moment, then says stiffly, “Do I need to stay for the session?”
“No, but there’s some paperwork.” I walk through what we need, and then she leaves, promising to be back before the session ends. I watch her go, every breath I take searing through me.
I cannot—will not—believe that the people I’ve fought for and lived with for thousands of years would hate or harm a young woman simply for being born into a particular family.
Meara was practically a child when she was lost. Nobody could assume she was anything but innocent.
Misguided, perhaps, as we all were, but innocent nonetheless.
And yet, thousands of years later, still she fears they will.
My conversation with Raeulfr echoes loudly through my head, but it’s not the same. Meara was innocent; I was not. I did things that haunt me still. I’m right to believe that people will hate me.
Aren’t I?