Chapter 34
CARWYNN
Pancakes.
I freaking loveeed pancakes! Their smell, the pillowy texture, how soft they feel smushed against my cheek, the way they made the muscles in my jaw sore from struggling to chew them . . .
David had tired bags under his eyes. He just stared, watching me drunkenly shovel pancakes into my mouth.
“For god’s sake! Take smaller bites, Carwynn! You’re going to choke!” he scolded. His hands braced the countertop, preparing to leap across at any moment.
Wyatt snorted, flipping another on the stove.
“Ah. This brings back memories from her early college days.” He directed an amused smile at David, plopping another heavenly flapjack down on my plate.
David rolled his eyes.
“Thunkkk yooo!” I managed, words coated in sticky syrup.
With a deep chuckle, Wyatt planted a kiss on my head. “Anytime, hun.”
Suddenly, the clink of metal on glass clawed at my ears.
Honey appeared, sitting on the counter with a plate in his pudgy hands. The pancake pieces were magically cut up into tiny, perfectly bite-sized pieces. He jabbed at them with the fork, ever the toddler spearfishing.
Clink! Clink! Clink!
I swallowed, clanking my fork down. My finger fired out, pointing at him in a curse.
“You!” I narrowed my eyes. “How can something soooooo cute . . . be such a little shit!”
Honey’s face lit up, beaming. He shoved the fork into his mouth with an overly dramatic chomp, chewing with his mouth open. When his eyes met mine, he scrunched his face into a teasing snarl, shaking it back and forth.
“Menace,” David muttered under his breath. “If I have to replace that doorbell one more time—you’re going to be banished from this house!” Scolding tone dissolved mid-threat into a yawn.
“Yeah!” I chimed in, utensil held high like a weapon of justice, a show of drunken solidarity.
David whipped around, finger extended like a loaded gun.
“Don’t even get me started with you!”
Shots fired. I recoiled and slowly dragged a glass of water to my lips with exaggerated innocence. My eyes darted away.
Don’t make eye contact. Don’t make eye contact . . .
It was a doomed strategy.
“Care to share with us how you ended up here? In the middle of the night, a sotting mess, dressed like a—” He paused, wincing when his gaze landed on my traitorous dress. “A lady of the night!”
I waved a hand down the lace on my arm.
“It’s Si-chic, David! Otherwise known as fashion.” I pointed my thumb accusingly toward the little turd on the counter. “He’s the kidnapper who dropped me on your doorstep. Then played ding-dong ditch.”
Honey feigned sleep, despite the fact his mouth was still chewing.
“No,” David pressed. “Before he brought you here.” He speared Honey an exasperated glare. “Menace he may be, but he never does anything without reason! A reason he’s currently refusing to share with me . . .”
Wyatt rubbed his lips together, nervous energy drawing a tight wrinkle between his brows.
The pancakes were working too well—soaking the booze up like it was their one mission. It was the first time all night I actually wished the overwhelming haze would come back.
Rainbow Roulette. Lochlainn’s life-altering question. Images crashed in. Cold. Sobering. A firehose blast of reality.
Damn it.
And of course, how could I forget all the reasons I’d been avoiding David. The sudden emergence of my Floramancy, the news that I’d entered into Fecunditas, and now the bombshell about Lochlainn . . .
I pushed my plate away, scraping the kitchen countertop.
“Okay.” Hot air flooded slowly out my nostrils. I combed my hands through my hair. “Soooo some stuff kinda happened recently that I’ve been meaning to tell you,” I grumbled out.
“Uh-huh,” David said, an eyebrow already doing trapeze stunts.
“Just—don’t freak out, all right?” I raised my hands in plea, but they doubled as a shield from the incoming hurricane.
His brow arched even higher.
“I—I’ve entered into Fecunditas. The Eostre Trials.” I flinched at the words.
My eyes shut, bracing for a torrent of verbal impact. Grenades, screaming, flaming arrows. Hell breaking loose. Maybe a tornado to rip the roof straight off the house.
But instead—nothing. Absolute silence.
I cracked one eye open.
David stood, arms crossed, leaning against the kitchen island. His expression was unnervingly unreadable. No screaming. No meltdown. What was happening?
Just silence. Which, somehow, seemed infinitely worse.
Wyatt’s mouth pulled in at the corner, eyes flicking toward David, as if waiting, anticipating.
“I know,” David said flatly. The words flopped out like a dead fish thrown on the table.
Just two words, but they struck like a slap across my face. The weight of the fork in my hand became too heavy, clanking on the plate.
“W-what?”
“I. Know,” David enunciated, each staccato sounding like the scuff of a gavel. “I’ve been working with Faelad on some . . . issues.”
His stare was calm and unwavering. Like the ear-piercing quiet before detonation of a bomb.
“So imagine my surprise when the Lord of Luckland informs me that my own daughter was nominated to enter Fecunditas!”
Wyatt silently refilled my water glass, pushing it forward like a peace offering. “We’ve known all week,” he said gently. “But were hoping you’d tell us on your own.”
David’s arms shot wide, wider than his eyes.
Here we go . . .
“Do you get a thrill from tiptoeing on Death’s doorstep?” David snapped. “Was nearly dying—not once, but twice—not enough for you?” For a moment, red, crackling energy pulsed around his body, before flickering out as he expelled a breath.
My shoulders slumped. Not from defeat, but exhaustion.
“My inkling,” I murmured. “I just know the box, the one from my dream, is somewhere in Eostre Land. It’s calling to me.” I let out a long, heavy breath that sagged at the edges. My head shook, knowing I probably sounded ridiculous.
My forehead fell to my hands on the countertop, the thump making my fork rattle.
“As far as a death wish goes,” I grumbled into the white marble.
“Guess I better start practicing the steps to dancing with it. Seems like it’ll come waltzing in sooner rather than later.
” I hesitated, not wanting to release the landmine that was about to roll off my tongue.
“Considering everyone now knows—” I swallowed. “That I’m the Skell Queen’s daughter.”
I froze. My eyes squeezed tight, holding back the burning prickle behind them.
Deafening silence.
I could hear the soft hum of wind outside brushing against the window shudders.
It was as if time stopped. Even Honey’s obnoxious snoring halted.
And for a heartbeat, as I cracked an eye open, I swore I saw something flash across his face.
An ancient, primitive thing. Then, with a blink, it vanished.
David’s body was stone. Cold, hard, lacking any physical language. I thought his soul might have left the building.
Even Wyatt had stilled, hand suspended midair, cemented to the bottle of syrup he was about to put away.
“What—what did you just say?” David’s voice was hauntingly low.
I lifted my head slowly. A single tear slid down my cheek—I wiped it away fast, trying to hide the damning evidence.
“Rainbow Roulette,” I whispered, voice cracking.
“We were playing and I got Truth or Die.” My breath turned shallow just remembering it.
“Lochlainn asked who my biological parents were.” I felt the tightness again—concrete thickening inside my throat, suffocating.
“It was killing me. I tried to fight the game’s enchantment.
I really tried. But I couldn’t breathe. So I said it—out loud, to everyone. ”
Wyatt’s knuckled cracked, fists clenching.
David gripped the edge of the counter so hard I thought the stone would crumble. A muscle in his jaw twitched dangerously.
“That prick!” David seethed. “If it weren’t for his damn luck, he’d already be dead!”
Wyatt spat a stream of curses under his breath.
I tilted my head up, looking at the glittering orb lights. Anything to avoid their eyes.
“You should have seen the way some of them looked at me.” My voice broke and tears blurred my vision, threatening to fall. “Like I was the spawn of Satan.” My chin betrayed me, trembling. “Which I very well could be.”
The ice on David’s face thawed. He walked around the island, slow but certain and placed a steady hand on mine.
“Look at me.” His tone softened, but his words carried steel.
I hesitated, then looked at him.
“Everyone fears the unknown. But I. Know. You.” David’s voice was a fierce, grounding force. A boulder in the midst of my storm. “There is no part of you that is a monster. Never has been and never will be. Do you hear me?” His eyes bore into my soul—speaking more than words.
Shakily, I nodded.
“I only ever wanted you to be safe,” he said, sorrow darkening his features. “But I know now—wrapping you in a cocoon of armor won’t protect you forever. It’ll only keep you from learning how to open your own wings.”
He leaned in and pressed a kiss to my temple, warm and anchoring. “We’ll get through this. You’re strong, Carwynn. And we’ll do everything in our power to help you grow even stronger.”
“And that’s why—” Wyatt added, cutting in with a loving smile to David. “We’re going with you to the Eostre Trials.”
“I’m sorry. You what?” I blinked. “I mean—how? When?”
“Last week,” Wyatt said. “As soon as David found out, we had Faelad add us to the roster as your advisors.” He shot me a playful wink. I could already feel the tension in the air lifting. “Lucky for you, one of your advisors competed in the Eostre Trials way back when.” He waggled his eyebrows.
Warmth bloomed inside me, radiant and unexpected, like a sliver of light cracking through a thunderhead.
Love.
These two men in front of me, who I loved with my whole, fractured heart, were about to whirl themselves into a snake pit. Into the Trials, with me. Even before I’d told them the truth.