Chapter 49
I bolt across the street, leaving behind Ciona and ignoring Varrik as he calls after me.
Rushing past the water well, I skid to a stop in front of the jail cell.
The roof pitches forward, casting shade from the eave, and the bars and floorboards are made of thick, dark wood.
There’s a bed pallet in the corner of the ten-by-ten space and nothing else.
“Theo!” I grip the bars, looking at him with worried confusion.
“Esti, I thought that was you.”
“What are you doing in there?”
He looks terrible. His red hair is an oily mess, and his usually shaved jaw is mottled with patches of red stubble.
“They locked me in here last night for trying to leave.”
Mutinous, I look over my shoulder just as Varrik approaches. “I thought you said everyone was happy and adjusting,” I accuse.
He looks Theo up and down like one would inspect a sack of spoiled oats. “So, you’re the one that keeps breaking our border rules and trying to leave the burg.”
“Let Theo out.”
“This is Theo?” The look Varrik gives him is nothing short of scathing.
Theo swallows, his narrow throat bobbing. “I-I’m sorry for breaking the rules,” he stutters. “I just need to get home.”
“You can leave when I give word that it is safe to do so,” Varrik replies coolly. “As you’ve been told. Repeatedly.”
In a surprising show of anger, Theo’s cheeks flush a blotchy red. “No. I need to leave and be returned to Hamelyn immediately. I have family. Connections. If it’s money you want—”
Varrik’s expression darkens. “I have no need for your bribes.”
Theo shakes his head, eyes wide and desperate. “Please let me leave. My father needs me home. I’m engaged to be married—”
I blink in shock. “Married?”
His expression pales with guilt. “I—yes. I’m sorry, Esti. I didn’t want to tell you before and make things awkward, but . . . yes.”
My mind spins nauseatingly fast as my hands drop away from the bars. “You proposed to Gisela after only being with her for a few months?”
He scuffs his boot against the wooden floorboards. “My parents want a winter wedding.”
Something bitter tacks onto my tongue.
“She’ll be worried sick,” he adds, looking over at Varrik. “I need to get back. I promise I won’t say anything of what you’re doing here.”
Varrik tilts his head. “I know you won’t. Because you’ll be staying.”
Theo’s face tightens, his freckled hands shaking. “This isn’t right!”
“I know you are utterly inept at making good choices, because you ended things with the woman standing next to me, but I highly suggest you attempt to be a bit wiser from now on and not try to escape. You’ll get tossed in here every time. Do you understand me?”
Theo’s anger drains out, and he slumps in defeat. “Yes, I understand.”
With a tight nod, Varrik looks to me. “Let’s go.”
But I can’t leave him like this. Theo looks miserable. Our past aside, I don’t like to see him suffering. “Will you let him out of the cell?”
Varrik shakes his head.
I take hold of his arm and turn us slightly away from Theo. “Varrik, individuals can’t be sacrificed for the many,” I say quietly. “You’re doing good, but you have to do better. Please just let him out of the cell.”
“No.”
A wick of anger lights in my belly. “Yes.”
“You would argue for the man who left you for another woman, who blatantly broke the rules, and then tried to bribe me so he could run back to his new betrothed?”
He’s pressing on a wound and he knows it, which makes that lit wick burn even hotter. “Yes,” I admit. Glancing over, I eye Theo. “He won’t cause any more trouble here, will you, Theo?”
When he doesn’t answer right away, I grit my teeth. “Theodwin.”
He lets out an exasperated sigh. “Of course not. I will follow the rules. I won’t try to leave again.”
I look to Varrik and wait. His eyes burn at the edges, radiating irritation. But I have to know he can make changes. That he can see the person instead of just the bigger goal.
A fae approaches, belly rounded over his belt, holding a stick of skewered meat. “Govern,” he says in greeting as he slips toward the bench. “Can I be of assistance?”
“Release him,” Varrik says flatly. Then he turns and leaves without another word, his boots stomping away as I stare after him with my insides knotted and shoulders slumped.
The man gnaws off a piece of meat, chewing it thickly as he goes to the back of the cell with a key. “Was gonna let you out for a piss break soon, anyway.” He unlocks the door and Theo comes out with a look of relief on his face.
“Thanks, Esti.”
“Don’t be foolish again, Theo.”
His brows clash together. “Why are you chastising me? You tried to run away too. You of all people should understand that I want to get home to my family.”
My chest caves in with the fear that’s been waiting to creep in. With all the worries about my mother and aunt. I keep imagining that the messenger will return with bad news.
Or worse, with no reply at all.
“Believe me, I do understand,” I say wearily. “Just . . . don’t break the rules. He’s going to let you go soon.”
He scoffs. “Don’t tell me you actually believe that.”
My back stiffens. “I do.”
Theo looks at me with pity. It makes my teeth grind.
“I got put in a cell.”
“He has to be careful. He’s trying to save people.”
“But it’s not right how he’s doing it, and you know it.”
My emotions feel sodden and sinking. “Just be patient, okay? Don’t get in trouble again.”
He lets out a sigh, his vexation evaporating as he tries and fails to smooth out his wrinkled tunic. “I won’t. I’m just . . . scared.”
“I know. But it really will be alright. Has anyone treated you badly here?”
He shakes his head and pushes his hand through his hair, wincing when he feels how dirty it is. “I just want to get home,” he says, voice choked with emotion.
“You will, I promise.”
His burgundy eyes shine with gratitude, though when he flicks his gaze up to my exposed horns, I notice he quickly looks away. “I’m sorry for hurting you. I really am.”
I’m touched by his sincere tone, and I reach forward and grip his hand, squeezing lightly. “I know. You can’t control how you feel about someone,” I murmur, understanding now how true that is. “I forgive you.”
Something has shifted, and the angry hurt that had chipped a dent in my heart isn’t so deep anymore.
Now, I can see how wrong Theo was for me.
Ours was never the sort of love that stirred passion or coiled with the curls of thrill.
It was a surface sort of love, neither of us ever able to sink down deeper.
“I wish you and Gisela happiness.”
He squeezes my hand with a small smile, and I think it’s our way of saying goodbye. A real goodbye this time, because we’ve both moved on. “You’re a good person, Esti.”
He gives me a smile before he turns and leaves, and I let out a breath as I watch him walk off.
The sound of footsteps lumbering toward me has me turning, and then much to my bewilderment, Varrik is suddenly there. He snatches my hand and starts pulling me in the opposite direction. “I swear to the Fates, I leave you for one damned minute—”
“Stop walking so fast!”
“Stop touching other men,” he growls back.
I can’t help it. I smirk.
With some sixth sense, he whips his head back to look at me, catching me in the act. I suck in my cheeks, biting on the insides, but it’s too late. His narrowed glare burns a hole through my hidden dimples.
With one hard tug, he slips us between two buildings, and then we’re caught in the narrow gap. I back up, stopping just short of hitting the wall. My head tips up to meet his eyes as he stares down at me. He’s so much taller, bulkier, that his shadow swallows me whole.
Flakes of fire peel from the browns of his irises.
Smoldering.
“I thought you left,” I say.
His face is cast in partial sunlight, his cheeks tinged with heat, like his anger is boiling under the surface. “I said I will not press you, Estinya, but do not mistake me. I cannot tolerate seeing another man touching you.”
Maybe I should feel irritated at this show of jealousy, but instead, I come alive with sparks. I raise up on my tiptoes to look at him, my stomach swarming with warmth. “Why can’t I touch other men, Varrik?” I murmur.
Something dark and dangerous smokes beneath the surface as his possessiveness looms. I indulge in the heady feeling, inhaling it with relish. He leans in, and my breath spills. I shudder as he brings his mouth to skate against the side of my face.
Until we’re cheek to cheek. Stubble to skin. Bitter to sweet.
“Because I want you to only want to touch me. No one else.”
My vision tapers as his voice notches into my mind, playing over and over again like the erotic threat it is.
“I would like that.”
He pulls back just enough that I can see the surprised look in his eye. It makes his voice rasp. “Would you?”
My knees go weak. “Yes.”
I lick my lips, and his gaze tracks the movement with raw hunger. I want him to touch me. To close the thin gap. To ease this ache and do something . . . anything to fill up the widening want within me that keeps spreading.
“That fae—Theo. He doesn’t deserve you to champion him.”
“Maybe not,” I agree, my eyes skating over his face. “But he shouldn’t be locked in a cell.”
“Why not? He hurt you. He deserves worse.”
I blink at the ferocity of his words.
“Varrik . . . that’s my hurt to bear. Not yours. And it’s okay now. In a lot of ways, I’m glad he hurt me. I’m glad things ended between us. I’m not in love with him.”
“You’d better not be.” His jealousy snaps like a branch, making my breath splinter. “No one, especially him, will come between us.”
I snort. “We come between us—in case you haven’t noticed.”
Instead of butting heads with me, heat banks in his eyes. “We don’t have to,” he says, his lush lips surrounded by the bristle that my fingers itch to trace.
My pulse thumps through my thoughts as I shake my head at his intensity.
“You infuriate me, Piper.”
“You enrapture me, blight.”
I suck in a breath.
His fingers come up, splitting the fringe at my forehead so he can smooth a fingertip down my skin all the way to my mouth. My heart skips as he drags that touch across my bottom lip.
“You have a maddeningly stubborn spirit,” he says, and he’s so achingly handsome that I want to rage to the Fates for carving him so.
“Well, too bad.”
His lips curve up. “No. Too good. Every time you open your mouth, you make me want to either argue with you or kiss you. Both get my blood heated.”
“Maybe I don’t want to kiss you again.”
The smirk on his face spreads into a full grin that takes my breath away. “You may lie with your lips, but those nails of yours show me the truth.”
My eyes drop to see every single one of my fingernails burns raspberry pink.
Damn.
He lifts his finger, and I flinch when he grazes my horn. He strokes, ever so slowly, the exploratory touch making a shiver sprint down my spine. Making the heat in my body grow tenfold.
“You shouldn’t ever wear the other veillets. I like your horns out like this.”
My hands press to the wall behind me so I don’t melt to the ground. “You do?”
“Yes.” He circles a finger around my other horn before moving to ghost over my cheek. “I’ve come to realize I like seeing them very much.”
I hold back a whimper. Hold back the exhale that’s surely about to pant out. His skin pinkens at the cheeks, as if he’s feeling the same building fever.
And then, much to my disappointment, he pulls away with a noise at the back of his throat. “You’re a temptress.”
I slump slightly, trying hard to banish the fire he’s stoked.
“I believe you’re the one trying to seduce, my lord,” I say, though my breathlessness betrays me.
His mouth quirks up, making my stomach flutter. “Is it working?”
“Not at all,” I lie, before I straighten up and shoot him a smile.
Then I reach over and hold his hand like I did with Theo. Except . . . it’s entirely different. I hold Varrik’s hand like I want to pull him in close. I hold his hand like I’m asking a silent question I’m too bashful to say aloud.
In answer, Varrik enfolds my palms and fingers completely, and I realize it’s exactly how I feel whenever I’m with him.
Surrounded.