15
Changed My Mind
Melody
“You were a little hard on him,” Aris says once I put him down on the filthy carpet of our motel room.
I regard the kitchen, greasy from Blair’s late-night snacks or early-morning dinners, the empty food boxes she leaves for me to throw away.
The dim light overhead flickers, and the smell of old furniture, moth-eaten carpets, and mold in the shower seems to permeate everything after I breathed the clean air of the fae world. It looks depressing in comparison.
“Was I, huh? Funny, I always had the impression you aren’t too fond of him,” I snap back, walking over to my bed and slumping down, too weak to stand for much longer. I curl up under the blanket, pulling it over my head as Aris settles next to me.
His voice sounds in my head again. “I am not, but I know that you are. Yet I don’t know what he did to scorn you so much.”
I let out a long exhale and pull the blanket down to look at him. “You don’t? He just helped me, thinking I’d never make it far anyway.”
“And that is so bad? That he doesn’t want you far?”
“It’s not that, Aris. It’s that, all this time here, I clung to the thought that he wanted me to escape. Helped me. That this somehow meant more to him than his loyalty to Caryan.”
“I think it does, Melody,” Aris says unbearably gently, nudging my body with his snout.
“You heard him, and he made it quite clear what he meant and what he truly wants. Gods, I’ve been so stupid and na?ve and—” I cover my face in my hands, my voice breaking off as heat and embarrassment and desperation swamp me and swallow me whole.
I’m a fool. And apart from making a damn fool of myself, I never wanted him to see me like this.
But he did. And I look like a mess. Broken.
“And then he shows up and starts behaving as if Caryan did me a fucking favor and—” The words tumble out and useless, infuriating tears well in my eyes.
“I’m…I don’t know what I am. I hate this, Aris!
I hate Caryan’s control and their rules and—” My voice breaks off.
“For some inexplicable reason it’s worse than with Lyrian.
Because with Lyrian, at least I had the hope that my life would be mine one day.
And Caryan—he took that scrap of hope away.
And now I don’t even know who I am anymore.
I’m weak and tired and I feel humiliated and pathetic and a lot of other awful things. Does that make any sense?”
Aris sits up, his tail curled around his body, watching me with his golden eyes. “It all makes perfect sense, Melody. But you still do have that hope. You can still fight for that life to be yours and only yours. And what you did today was brave.”
I sit up as well—too tired to stand but too restless to lie down. I pull my thin legs to my body and wrap my arms around them. “Was it? Maybe it was just selfish.”
“Selfish?” he snorts. “You put your own life on the line for us.”
“Yeah, because I dragged you into my misery to begin with. I owe you this. At least this.”
“Stop it, Melody. You never dragged us into anything. Blair made her own decisions and, as for me, I’m so old one could assume I know what I am doing.”
I let out a shuddering breath, his words easing the knot in my chest a little, and I can breathe again. Aris’s voice drifts like a gentle, warm breeze back into my mind.
“After every storm comes the sun. After every night, the day. And your time will come, my little one. This might feel like the end now, but I promise you it is not. And I also know that you did it for us. To save us. I know who you are and what you are at heart. Because I can feel your light and goodness over the bond.”
I look up past him when Blair’s uneven footsteps sound on the cracked concrete outside. A second later, the door creaks open and she staggers in, wriggling out of her cowgirl boots, kicking them off one by one as she goes. They land with a solid thud somewhere in the room.
I already know she’s drunk as fuck by the way she curses low and dirty every time she stubs her toe on a piece of furniture. Which is surprisingly often—for someone with fae senses, crossing a relatively vast space with little in it.
I get up from the bed and walk to the other room, flipping the light switch. Blair blinks a few times when she finds me standing in the doorway, then covers her eyes with a hand and hisses like a vampire under the sun. “Fuck, human, switch that light off, it hurts my eyes.”
I don’t. Instead, I walk past her and start to make coffee.
“What the hell? You’re fucking mean,” she huffs, grabbing a pair of pink sunglasses and putting them on, her voice raspy. She smells of cigarette smoke.
“And you look kinda like a douchebag with those glasses,” I tease back.
She frowns, stopping in front of a cheap mirror on the wall to look at herself. “Really? Maybe you just want them for yourself.”
“Really. And no thanks,” I say.
She sighs but keeps them on as she follows me to the kitchen island and starts rummaging through the empty pizza boxes. I frown as she opens her mouth to take a bite from a slice that’s already green at the edges.
“Yikes. You can’t eat this, Blair.” I reach to snatch it, but she’s faster, spinning away and snickering like a madwoman before sinking her teeth into it.
“And I don’t want coffee if there isn’t at least some rum in it,” she drawls, chewing, ignoring me.
Drawing a deep breath, I face her. Let’s get this over with.
“We’re going back,” I declare, arms wide, trying to sound calm while I’m absolutely not.
Because I know she’s gonna throw a fit like a toddler any second from now.
Her jaw drops while she’s still chewing before she spits out the half-eaten mass in her mouth. “What in the sweet hells are you talking—”
“My, my, Blair, I must say you have seen better days,” Riven’s voice suddenly drawls lazily from behind me, and I whirl to find him stepping out of Caryan’s angelic vortex. I glower at him.
“Coke missile,” Aris warns, and I instinctively duck. Riven dodges the can easily. Blair’s thrown it with such ferocity it digs a hole in the wall, cola spraying everywhere, showering us.
“My, my, Blair. Fae strength and inebriation among weak humans is a dangerous match,” Riven says, but the look in his eyes is suddenly furious. “You could have killed her. And then I would have had to kill you . Slowly, witch. Very slowly.”
“ Fuck you, princeling,” she seethes, ignoring his words as she rummages through the cabinet for something else to throw.
“So…these two obviously know each other,” I shoot down the bond to Aris.
“Oh, they do. And they still can’t stand each other,” Aris explains.
“A warning would have been nice. Again,” I say to Riven, not hiding my fury because he just ruined my only attempt to really talk to Blair.
“Well, agreed. He did not give me any.” Regret flickers over his features for the second he looks at me. Then he grabs me and pushes me behind him as Blair hurls a huge pan. He catches it midair, snarling, then crushes it into a lump in his fist.
“Get a grip on yourself, witch. You’re pathetic.”
“Get out of my motel!” she growls back like a wild beast.
I wriggle out of Riven’s grip. “Can you just go for a second?” I ask him. Then I look at Blair, who’s grabbed yet another pot. “Can we talk? Please? Alone?”
She pants heavily, but finally drops the pot. Riven shoots her a warning look before he strides into my room and closes the door behind him. I sigh. Really? He might as well have stayed, because with his fae senses, he can hear everything anyway.
“What the hell’s going on, human? And why is the neck-pricker suddenly here? Stepping out of one of Caryan’s fancy-ass portals?”
I swallow at the fact that she’d been Caryan’s lover once and at the pain flaring in her aura like a wildfire whenever his name is mentioned.
“I’m sorry, Blair. It all happened rather fast.” I draw in another sharp breath, meeting Aris’s golden eyes. He’s settled next to Blair, looking alert and ready to bite her should she try to throw that pot at me.
“I so would, although I’m afraid with her ethanol levels I might get drunk ,” he confirms, and I chide myself for letting my walls slip so he can read my thoughts. I should really get that in check.
I focus back on Blair. “I reached out to Caryan tonight and…I struck a deal, for us.”
“I’m going nowhere. I’m happy here,” she snaps.
I step forward and pour coffee into two cups, then hold one out to her. Coffee always helps. She peels her upper lip back from her teeth, but finally relents at the smell and takes the cup.
“You can stay here, of course. But we would be going to live in Avandal,” I say carefully, remembering how her aura once flared bright and happy when she spoke about that city.
She looks down at her coffee. Then she grabs the sunglasses and throws them into a corner before running a clawed hand through her wild hair.
Her makeup underneath is smeared, and so is her lipstick.
I wonder what she did and where she went while I try to ignore the smell of sex and sweat and men, and resist the urge to hug her tight, that damn bond demanding it after her absence.
“We could have a good life, you know,” I add slowly, still afraid to spook her again.
And still not sure how drunk she is. But hells, I can’t let her stay here.
It would mean her end. One of the wolf shifters hunting us would catch up eventually.
And drunk like this every night…. “Please, Blair, I need you there,” I add.
Finally, her amber eyes shoot up to me, clearing a little. “You don’t fucking need me. No one fucking needs me.”
“That’s not true. I do.”
“Because of that damn bond. But don’t worry, with worlds between us, it will likely go mute.”
I don’t like her words at all. I don’t need another bond that goes mute and hurts. “Please, Blair,” I try again, not sure what else to do.
“No.” She downs the coffee and then puts the mug down so hard it cracks.