Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
HASANNAH
“ W here is Coralene, Andrei?”
I asked about my friend several times over as many weeks, but the answer was the same.
She’d disappeared, Andreien’s warrior had lost her trail, and there was as yet no trace of her. Her uncles and Lord Ashlyun were looking for her as well, though Ashlyun was less worried. Or maybe more impassive. Andrei tended to be more emotive. Well, I’d be too, with Con jumping out of the shadows at me all the time, but the emotiveness would be mostly shrieking.
What Andrei didn't say, and what he tried to keep out of his mind, was the growing certainty Coralene was dead.
When he stopped responding to my pestering, I telegemed Ashlyun.
Humoring me in his quiet way, the Coal District Lord said, “She is Ninephene born and bred, Lady Hasannah. She is not adolescent. She has lived thirty years in my District navigating its dangers. She is not helpless, and when set to a task she is focused, especially when she feels a personal interest. I am not yet concerned.”
I wanted to ask what task involved her infiltrating Sahakian Arts, but I knew better.
It also took me two weeks to remember the gem.
I waited until Andrei was gone for the day and entered my bathroom, opening the drawer where I'd stashed it in the jumble of unorganized supplies and cosmetics.
My capture, and the fallout, seemed to have halted Andrei’s obsessive makeovers; he hadn't bothered with his checklists for days now.
I'd feel some relief if it wasn't a clear sign our lives still hadn't returned to normal. Those three grueling days haunted us all. Them because of their lurid imaginations, me because I knew what happened. If I could wave a wand and make us all forget so we could move on, I would.
. . .so. The gem was missing.
There wasn't necessarily a need to panic. Yet. All right, there was a need to panic, but considering my mental shields were still laughably rudimentary, I’d learned strong emotion was guaranteed to draw Andrei's attention. If he wasn't in the house, he'd telegem one of the luudthen to come to me.
These people didn't understand the concept of alone time. I'd feel offended rather than annoyed, if they weren't invading each other's personal space as well.
So there went the backup plan I needed now more than ever.
Low-grade panic welled in my chest and up my throat in the form of strangled breath. The security of that plan had helped keep me calm the last couple of weeks, like a weighted safety blanket. My reassurance I was here of my own choice, and not a prisoner.
Now it was gone.
I was under no delusion it had sprouted wings and flown away.
I closed my eyes. Either Andrei had it, or one of the luudthen had it. And if one of the luudthen had it, Andrei had it. It was keyed to me. Did he know what it was?
Ch?t ti?t.
This wasn't good.
I knew how he was going to react; not well.
But maybe amidst the melodrama of my recent life I picked it up and hid it somewhere else, rethinking my plan to hide it in plain sight. I didn't normally do that sort of thing because I liked my belongings in their specific spots so I didn't have to waste energy thinking. But I had mislaid items on enough occasions, so it was possible.
I searched my bedroom, going through the many drawers in the custom closet when I felt eyes on the back of my neck.
I straightened and turned, hating that he wasn’t stupid. Stupid men were always easier to manage.
Andrei leaned in the threshold, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes bright with an emotion that wasn't humor or anything I’d mistake as warmth. The lazy smile on his lips, more snarl than anything else.
“You should have been informed I'd be able to unkey the gem using the same methods required to key it. And that magtech of this kind often recognizes bondeds. I'd request a refund, if I were you.”
No one had to tell me he was livid, despite the mask of an almost playful tone. Seething anger flowed through our bond as if he'd been keeping it behind a mental barrier until now. Old anger, like a bruise he'd been nursing for some time.
“Do you know what it is?” I asked.
His expression smoothed. All right. Silly question.
“Why?” he asked softly.
“Would you allow another Lord to cage you? To control your life and death?”
His eyes flashed with fury, all the more bitter because of the hurt behind it. Hurt that hardened.
“What have I done to earn your distrust?”
“I don't know if distrust is the right word,” I said carefully.
Even tempered? Not at all. Try a Lord with a long, long fuse. Unfortunately for me, his fuse had been slow-burning the last several weeks and I hadn't known it.
“It's more that I understand what you are,” I said. “And I accept it. Like you should understand and accept what I am. Really cautious. Most of the time.”
He stepped forward. “This isn't about my lack of acceptance. This is about your fear.”
“You punished me, Andrei. You took away the one thing I need to—” I faltered. It always sounded ridiculous when I said it out loud. The one thing I needed to have a reason to live.
It was just ballet.
Just.
“You understood the reason for the punishment,” he said.
“I did. I do. Which doesn't mean I agree to subject myself to more in the future. And there will be more, won't there be? Eventually I'll mess up.”
He closed his eyes, taking a few long, slow breaths. When he opened them, they were teal. Only teal.
“I thought you understood the boundaries we must all live in are there for our protection. And the safety of others.”
“You believe what you're saying, don't you? Then why are humans told that if a Lord wants them, you're shit out of luck?” I shook my head, mouth twisting. “That isn't because you all have boundaries , Andrei. Maybe the Low Fae do. But that's how it always works, isn't it? One rule for the powerful, one for everyone else. You even said once that if you wanted to murder someone in the street, your mother wouldn't like it but no one would stop you.”
I tried to grab the reins of the mockery galloping out of my mouth, and more or less failed. This wasn't like me. But whatever constraints I'd lived by for years had disintegrated with Dartanyon. I didn't have the energy to shrug things off anymore. Not the important things. Confronting him felt good. Too good.
His blue-green irises steadily brightened as I spoke.
“But, you know,” I added, “if Mommy is disappointed, that's enough of a deterrent.”
Andrei studied my expression, eyes slightly narrowed, his dislike of my words clear.
“If you understand that,” he said, “then understand I've spent my life trying to curb the worst of the abuses, starting with myself. We have power, Hasannah. We can ruin lives. There must be checks and balances, even on my mostly mortal consort.” His smile was thin and humorless. “As you’ve proven. Your death, which you so carelessly almost walked into, would have caused a war.”
“Give me a break, Andrei. It's not the possibility of war that bothers you, it's the fact you didn't start it.”
I pushed past him, or tried. He grabbed my upper arms, pulling me against his body.
“Let me go.”
The High Lord stared at me, cold, unyielding, his hands shackles. “And so you went behind my back, and you bargained with the Ninephene, who now knows my consort is afraid of me. What she knows, Ashlyun knows. She gave you the means by which you could escape me. With no warning, no discussion.”
He wrapped a hand around my nape and yanked my head back, his kiss brutal in a way he never inflicted on me, the strength and heat of his hard body now a threat rather than a sensual promise.
“I don’t want to talk about this,” I whispered, my voice shaking when he lifted his head, his eyes still bright and hard. “You’re refusing to see things from my perspective, and it’s not like you’re incapable of it.” I pushed my hands against his chest, which did nothing. “Let me go. ”
Sometimes I forgot how intimidating Andrei could be when he shed the indolent Lord at rest persona.
The man staring down at me was the opposite of indolent, and no where near safe.
“Do you think his invisible cage is better than mine, the one you can see?”
“I know you, Hasannah. If you felt the need to use this gem, then one day you would have walked away. You wouldn’t have given me a chance to defend our life.”
“Andrei, I?—”
“Be quiet.”
Andrei dragged me out of the closet towards the bed, flinging me down. I pushed up on my elbows, glaring, meeting him as he placed a knee on the bed and leaned over me. The internal struggle not to pounce, pin me, rippled through our bond. I didn’t care. I’d just call the luudthen, and they’d beat his ass down.
But abruptly he straightened, backing away. “You're right, Anah. I can't chain you to me. Oh, I could . But I have no use for a weeping shadow at my side.”
He turned and left the bedroom.
It felt like he was telling me goodbye.
Andrei didn't speak to me the remainder of the day, or the next. He was courteous, still attentive, and he did nothing to distance the others from me the way he distanced himself. He came to my bedroom at night and lifted me into his arms, carrying me back to his bed. But he didn’t touch me other than to hold me, though the way he held me. . .
I couldn’t sleep that night. He held me like he was letting me go.
I said nothing, a slow dread building in my stomach because when it came down to it, I didn't want to leave this man, this family. I didn't want to leave this home I had been integrating myself into. None of my anger over what I considered the trampling of my basic rights of existence lessened—as I’d told him, I understood what he was. I accepted it.
It didn't mean I had to like it.
It didn't mean I had to take it.
Why couldn't he accept I needed the security of a backup plan? The way I accepted that by staying with him, I was agreeing to their twisted little societal norms. I was trying to compromise!
My resentment grew to match his until we were silently hissing at each other. The luudthen noticed, of course, and oddly enough no one said anything. Maybe they understood this was a battle we had to fight on our own, without intervention for once.
But Andrei came to me, told me to get dressed, and then escorted me into the nondescript coach. He was dressed down today, which for him meant no makeup or jewelry, and his clothing was plain and black though impeccably tailored as always. The Heir of Casakraine didn't do sweats. He also didn't do “throw on a pair of jeans and t-shirt and run to the store.”
“Where are we going?” I asked. “I’d rather you torture me here. More comfy.”
He ignored me.
I stared out the window, arms crossed over my chest as I deep breathed during the trip, ignoring him in favor of not freaking out. Sweet Jesus, I really loathed coaches now. I'd gotten a little better, but the phobia had returned with a vengeance.
As it pulled to a stop, I wiped the back of my hand on my forehead and then the back of my neck, trying to dot away the perspiration.
So busy suppressing my nausea, I didn't pay attention as Andrei helped me out of the coach. I stared at the ground as we walked—slowly, so he must have realized I felt sick. The ambient noise of the outdoor crowd gained my attention once I felt well enough to lift my head.
“I know this place.” It reminded me of the train stations of old in movies. High, soaring ceilings, marble, milling people.
This was Casakraine’s Realm Gate station. There weren't many people, because it wasn't a train station, and travel through it was almost neurotically controlled.
Andrei led me to an anti-chamber and through one wall of one-way glass I saw the gate shining between two tall pillars, looking like a sheet of shimmering energy and nothing at all like inter-dimensional portal travel.
I was hazy on the magtech involved.
Wait? Why were we here? All of the reasons I could think of made me rethink a lifetime of conflict avoidance.
I was about to shove conflict right up Andrei’s ass.
I turned on him. “What is this, Andrei?” I fisted my hands at my sides because for the first time in my life—well, no, the second—I wanted to do real violence to someone. “This is?—”
“The Sahakian-Casakraine private entrance to the realm gate.” He continued to stare down at me, his arms folded over his chest.
“I know what the fuck it is.” He lifted a brow, probably at my language. I stepped towards him. “I want to know why you’ve brought me here?”
I knew, of course. This was the equivalent of, “don't let the door kick you on the way out.” I hadn't thought he would do that to me.
“You wanted your freedom,” he said with quiet hauteur. “Didn't you? I'm giving you what you want.”
“What kind of passive aggressive Cluster B b.s. is this? You know what I want. I never once said I wanted to go back to Earth.”
“But you don't want to remain with me.” His mouth firmed.
“I never said that either.”
“Actions speak louder than words, Hasannah.”
“And an asshole always shows his true colors at the end.” I raked him with my most contemptuous look. “I should have known you were just like?—”
“Finish that sentence, and I will strangle you.” His eyes began to glow.
I shut up.
Andrei closed his eyes and took a careful step back, loosening his arms so they fell to his side. “Forgive me. I. . .wouldn't hurt you. Like that. I have a strong visceral dislike of being compared to any of the males who have.” He opened his eyes. “And this is as difficult as I thought it would be.”
“Where are Con and Math?”
A strange expression crossed his face, and after a moment I realized it was guilt.
“They don’t know you’re pulling this stunt, do they? They’d kick your ass into the next century.”
Andrei’s lip pulled up over a fang. “What do you want , Anah? To remain here in Casakraine alone, without my protection? You can't. You're known as mine, and you're known as a developing threat or at the least, a very interesting new toy for whoever claims you. If I took away my protection, if I set you loose here in the city, you’d learn how gentle and tolerant a Lord I am. Why I have a reputation for softness, and a meek manner.”
I snorted. He believed all of that crap, and his Court coddled him and let him think they believed it too. Fine, maybe compared to some of the others he was a darling little kitten, but then none of the others lived with him.
“What I want, Andrei, is to have choice. To have power over my own life. To know if you go all High Lord on my ass?—”
“Your language has deteriorated the last several days. I don’t think I approve.”
“You’re the reason,” I retorted. “You drive me to swearing. At least I haven’t become an alcoholic.”
He sneered. “No, you just do your best to reenact some macabre version of Black Swan.”
“You saw that movie?”
Stony silence.
“You didn’t watch it with me.” That pissed me off almost as much as anything. “Who did you watch it with? I wanted to watch it with you. That was going to be one of our firsts.” When I could afford to take a mini vacation.
I strode towards him, balled my fist up, and shoved it in his gut. He didn't have the courtesy to flinch.
“Was that supposed to hurt?” he asked, looking down his nose at me.
I inhaled, struggling to be the better person. Since letting my succubus out, it was becoming increasingly more complicated. Or maybe the Cassanians were rubbing off on me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have hit you. Leli taught me.”
“You don't have to hit me to hurt me, Hasannah,” Andrei said, voice still a soft, silken whip. “You've already ripped my heart out.”
I froze. The bond was open between us so I understood those words were a rare thing for a Fae Lord. The absolute truth, not just a creative version of it that skated by their rules.
Would I ever not feel this frustration, this maw of hungry emptiness I filled with ambition? I’d thought there was a rainbow at the end of the tunnel, but it was slipping through my fingers with the elusiveness of. . .well. . .light.
“I don't want to hurt you, Andrei. Why can't you understand I need some semblance of control over my life to feel secure?”
The arrogance on his face was a chilled mask. He slammed his internal barriers shut. “And I don't make you feel secure?”
“This isn't about your male ego, High Lord!” I poked him in the side, hard.
He grabbed my finger with a snarl, spitting in rapid fire Cassanian before he stopped, took a breath, and switched back to English.
“Do you, or do you not want to leave? This is the only time I’ll offer you this choice. The only time you'll be allowed to leave Casakraine unaccompanied without lethal consequences. I had to talk myself into it, Anah. I am straining against every grain of my nature to allow this.”
My bottom lip trembled. I couldn't help it. No, I didn't want to leave him. Hell no. And like every asshole everywhere, he was making this situation black or white. Giving me only two choices, both of them false, both of them terrible. Stay in Casakraine as his coddled pet, his prisoner, or get the hell out.
Yes, I was cussing a lot more lately. Some phases in life called for foul language, though it wasn't very Zen.
“I don’t want to leave you,” I said, my shoulders slumping. “But I really hate you right now.”
My anger, the indignation, all of it drained, leaving me empty. I leaned my forehead against his chest, silent as his arms came around me.
“Be certain. I won’t offer this again. I can’t. And you’re right, if I force you to stay with me, I’m no better than Dartanyon.”
I said nothing, and after several minutes, he lead me from the station and back into the coach.
He still didn’t get it. This wasn’t a real choice.
I didn’t have the energy to argue with him.