Chapter 22 Rae
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
RAE
I rush outside the king’s apartments and hurry away, holding up my skirts. I run through the palace, attempting and failing to outpace the frantic beat of my heart. I don’t know where I’m going, only that I need to find Jai, it’s important, it’s an all-consuming need.
The sting in my chest persists, making me hiss between my teeth.
No, it doesn’t persist, I realize. It’s another one. A new tug, a new sensation. It’s as if… something worse has happened.
What’s going on? Is he being attacked? And why do I feel it? Is he in danger? The fear the thought carries with it is unwelcome, unreasonable and unavoidable.
“That would require him to care for me.—”Oh yes.
Phaethon had told me the same. Deep in my heart, I know Jai cares for me, and although I had decided not to let myself fall, it was too late all along.
He had felt familiar all along, he had said things I tried to ignore—
“I failed you.”
No, can’t think about that now. My ragged breaths echo in my ears as I climb the first flight of stairs I find, then the next. I need to get out, out into the fresh air. I’m suffocating.
I wish the spell still gripping me would unravel so that I could shift and dive into the sea, stay in its cool oblivion forever and forget myself again. Forget why I’m here, why I lingered.
Weak. I know. I need to fight the urge to hide.
After running down more corridors, opening more doors and climbing even more flights of stairs, I finally open a door and burst out into the night.
I bow over, panting, a stitch in my side.
It’s a terrace. The sea crashes on the rocks below, distant, echoing booms. Somewhere in the distance, a mermaid is singing a haunting melody, bringing memories to my mind.
Memories of me sitting with Mars on the river shore, reading from a book I’d brought to show him. Mars laughing quietly, a dimple in his cheek, fair hair falling in his eyes. My little brother running down the escarpment, yelling that I’ll be late for dinner.
Walking unsteadily to the end of the terrace, I grip the balustrade and suck in a few uneven breaths, once more resisting the urge to climb over the balustrade and jump into the water, join the mermaids, and the forgetful, finned folk of the deep.
The pull is strong. It hauled me under once already, so much so that I barely remember my time in the deep. It croons to me about quiet and peace, about a cold balm on the rekindled embers eating at my soul.
But then I hear a voice. A voice I know, full of fire. It’s the reason the flames are back, licking at the old scars in my heart.
Jai! I whirl around, scanning the terrace. Where is he?
Strange how my steps led me to him, leading me true through the still unmapped for me palace.
I don’t immediately see him, and I spin in a little circle. Darakins screech overhead, draks, too, and the mermaid’s song remains in the background, making my thoughts ache.
“Eniote, kariote.” His deep voice is whispering, hissing, rumbling. “Mainomenos, oikos dichorrages, Eos Hemera elthe… Fuck. Fuck!”
Phaethon.
I start running, my shoes thumping on the paving stones of the terrace, my arms full of my long skirts, running past pavilions and along hedges, past stone-hewn benches and tables and urns in which flowers grow.
Jai, Jai…
He’s standing at the parapet, overlooking the narrow expanse of sea between the palace and the shore, the Temple Island barely visible across from us with its tower in the middle. His jacket and shirt are a pile on the floor. A trellis nearby sends the scent of roses sailing through the air.
His dark hair is in his face—always in his face, a curtain hiding him from the world, and I itch to brush it back, to reveal those beautiful eyes of his.
But he’s hunched over as if in pain—and that’s when I finally register the knife he’s pressing to his bare chest.
“Jai… Jai, stop!” I grab his wrist, afraid to do anything more than that, because the tip of the blade is digging into his bare flesh and crimson is flowing down those hard, unreal planes of muscle, from the taut pillow of his pectoral to his cut stomach, the ridges and hollows painted with rust. “What are you doing?”
“Too much noise inside my head,” he hisses, “he keeps talking to me, it makes no sense, he keeps talking and talking and I want to kill myself to make it fucking stop!”
His hand clutching the hilt of the knife is shaking, his words hanging in the air, raw and jagged. He has fine scars all over his arms, I realize, both old and new.
“No.” I tighten my hold on his hand, both our hands wrapped around that hilt. “You can control him. You’ve done it before.”
“Hells…” He grimaces as I pull the blade out of his flesh. “The king… his bite… it helps…”
“Then let’s go to him.”
He grimaces. “No. I… I won’t crawl to him. Won’t depend on him. Enough.”
“Then you will control him on your own. You can…” My thoughts waver as darker lines on his chest and abdomen come into focus.
By Amphitrite, the sea queen… It’s a shape. A symbol.
“What is this?” I demand. “This shape?”
“What shape?” He grits out. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t you ever look at yourself in the mirror?”
“I try not to. Who would want to see this mess?”
This unexpected show of vulnerability hits me hard. I’ve seen him cocky and arrogant. Then again, I’ve mostly seen him with shirts and tunics buttoned up to his neck.
“You must know the effect you have on girls,” I whisper, sidelined.
“I don’t care about other girls,” he says quietly.
I ignore the heat rushing into me at his statement, at the implications. “You have lines on your stomach… and they form the symbol of the Eosphors. The all-seeing eye.”
He glances down, dark brows knitting. “They do? This mark has been there ever since I remember but it looked… different.” He swallows hard. “As for the rest, I have scars all over my body. Scars, marks, and darkness seeping into my skin. I look a real fucking treat. A mirror of my fucked-up mind.”
He’s gorgeous. Is he joking? But he seems so serious, and something about the way he talks about himself tugs on my heartstrings.
This whole mess has that particular organ in a vise.
He has never looked unsure and confused before, not like this.
He has taken off his mask, baring his soul.
It’s so damn beautiful and he doesn’t even know it.
I don’t know what possesses me, but I grab his hand and tug—and try hard not to stare at the web of scars on the inside of his arms, scars he probably put there himself while trying to control Phaethon.
“Let me show you something,” I say, and he follows me without a comment as I drag him back to the balustrade. “Here is a good spot.”
He squints. “What am I looking at?”
“Wait for it.” I check the Eosphors constellations, the distance from the land. It’s about right. If I’m wrong…
“Rae—”
“Wait. Trust me.”
“Always,” he whispers.
We both gaze out at the dark sea, the faint starlight catching on white foam off the rolling waves. Even the mermaids have fallen silent, leaving only the crash of the sea against the foundations of the palace.
It’s peaceful. Nothing is moving.
Then a flash catches my eye. “There!” I point. “Are you seeing that? That bright line on the water?”
“What is that?” He looks blank. “It’s… glowing.”
“Yes.” More glowing lines appear on the sea. More and more, until suddenly the light is everywhere. “It’s the time of the month, the time of the year, the time of the evening when the golden eels swim to the surface of the sea to lay their eggs.”
“And those… those lines are…”
“The egg strings.”
It’s funny to see him go speechless.
Almost funny, because I’m still hurting from seeing him cut himself, seeing the symbol on his torso, seeing him struggle.
The dark surface of the sea, the heaving waves, turn into a bright white lace that shifts and shimmers.
“Holy fuck, that’s beautiful,” he breathes and the lights of the sea are reflected in the dark mirrors of his eyes. “I never thought… I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.”
“It won’t last long,” I whisper. “Beautiful things, beautiful moments rarely do.”
It’s a bittersweet thought.
He turns to me, thick brows arching. “Why?”
I nod at the sea. “Watch.”
The sky is darkening. A black cloud is moving overhead. Then, with a sudden screech, peretrels and bladebills drop into the water, breaking the glowing lace. More and more of them plunge, surfacing with a squawk and a shake of their wings, taking wing once more, dripping phosphorescence.
A rain of light.
“Hells,” he mutters. “What the fuck?”
“They’re feasting. They wait all year for this moment. The eel eggs come at a perfect moment when the birds are feeding their chicks. They will feed them these eggs and watch them grow strong.”
“That’s fucking terrible,” he says, and I laugh at his indignation.
“It’s life. Life and death. And I may not have my magic back, but I know about the sea. I know its patterns, its seasons. For all the good it does me.”
“Because you’re finnfolk now.” He gazes down at me. “Oh, makhair…”
I flinch, the moment broken. “I don’t want your pity.”
“Pity? I failed you, and this is on me. But it’s not pity. I told you. You’re a miracle.”
More and more pieces are falling into place, but right now I’m shaky. The sight of him so close to shattering scared me, and at the same time grounded me in the here and now, tore me open and shoved my feelings for him into my face.
I need him. Need to feel him close. No matter what.
“Right now, I’m a woman,” I say, “of flesh and bone. I want…”
“What do you want?” His hands cup my face, thumbs smoothing over my cheeks, over my lips.
“You,” I whisper, my heart in my throat.
The king wants me to deny Jai but I have no control over this. I couldn’t deny him to save my life.
“Are you sure?” he asks softly. “You don’t know what you’re doing to me. I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t touch you, dammit.”
“I am sure,” I breathe, loving how he gives the power to me, the power to choose, to decide. “Just kiss me. Touch me. You want me, don’t you?”
“If I want you? I’d move mountains for you, don’t you know that? I fought the fae king for you and I’m ready to do it again.” He grunts. “Command me, my lady.”
The words once more hit me like a punch. “Jai…”
“And if it’s only lust you feel for me, only physical attraction, I’ll take it. Anything you can give me, makhair. Anything you’re willing to give right now. Until you’re ready.”
“Ready? For what?”
“To admit what you feel for me. To remember us.” But he doesn’t leave me time for a response. His head bows over me, but instead of kissing my mouth, he puts his warm lips on my neck. His mouth moves over my skin, latching on to my flesh, my pulse, moving upward, leaving burning kisses.
It reminds me of that betrothal oath, the exchange of blood, the link of thoughts and memories Mars and I had meant to take.
But my body is too wound up to hold onto that thought. I wind my arms around his neck, arching against him, dropping my brow to his solid shoulder. Giving him better access.
“The taste of your skin…” He groans, nuzzles the spot behind my ear that has me shuddering in his arms. “You give me this and nothing will ever be the same again.”
“Please…”
“Oh fuck.” He drags his lips up to my cheek, and then hisses.
“What is it?”
“Phaethon.” Shards of gold glint in his eyes. “I almost lost control.”
I shouldn’t relish that admission so much, but at the same time, it’s Jai I want to be with. This is so confusing.
I reach for him again. “It’s okay.”
“He’s clawing at the inside of my head. I haven’t managed to put him back into his box. He’s right under the skin of my thoughts. Touching you might set him free, let him take over me.”
“It’s okay.”
“Fuck, it’s not okay. He wants to touch you. He wants… he wants…” He turns away, fingers buried in his hair, muscular body taut like a bow string.
“Let him, Jai. Let go.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking.”
Maybe not. All I know is that I want to see Phaethon lose control, too. I want this dark side of Jai. A different creature he may be, but he inhabits the same mind, the same body.
And I want to experience all of it.
I want both of them. Is that too weird?
“You don’t understand. Phaethon is cruel. He has no concept of his strength. He can’t differentiate between pain and pleasure, which is why…”
Which could be why pain works on him, I think. Why it surprises him so much.
“He’ll hurt you,” Jai says.
“It’s all right. I can take the pain.”
“No, that’s not fucking all right. I can’t trust myself around you because he may take over. I just can’t understand…”
“Why he wants me?”
A curt nod. “He’s an Eosphor.” Said with exasperation. “They don’t even have genders. They don’t lie together. They don’t procreate. Why should they? They don’t die.”
But they do perish from time to time. And I want to talk to Phaethon. Ask about the original Eosphor. Astar.
“I can’t let him have you,” Jai says, strained.
“I’ll be fine. I don’t care.”
“Rae, Godsdammit,” he says, his voice strangled. “Stay away, just… stay away from me right now.”
Too late.
“Beware of beauty, little human lady.”
Way, way too late.
I wrap my arms around him and kiss him, an exhale escaping me, the pressure in my chest turning to light. Reveling in his taste, his scent, the feel of his strong body pressed to mine, in the way his powerful arms encircle me, how his hands slide up my back to the back of my head.
Yes. Yes, finally, finally…
His broad chest expands and contracts against me, his tongue invades my mouth, his mouth devours mine.
He bends me over backward, an arm around my back, and bows over me. Black hair draping his face, black eyes wicked and sparkling, his smirk crooked, showing that dimple I love.
A strong hand covered in dark designs closes around my neck, thumb stroking over my jugular. “Well, hello, Little Human. We meet again.”