32. In My Defence, It Was Hot
My pillow was drenched. I couldn’t remember ever crying as much. I was half joy, half crushing heartbreak. Idris had given me the most precious of gifts, and at the same time, shattered my soul. We’d parted ways with a promise to charge my phone whenever needed and, I thought, a tentative something growing between us. Maybe not friendship, but understanding.
But just because he’d promised to charge my phone, it didn’t mean I had to go skulking back that very same day, so reluctantly, I closed my screen, hiding my photos and videos from view. I’d spent much of the last few hours laid on my bed, quietly weeping over my camera roll, remembering half-forgotten faces, listening to voices and laughter I sometimes believed I’d never hear again. Interspersed with images of my own life came flashes in my mind of Idris’ son, smiling up at me, eternally two years old.
I couldn’t wallow forever. There was pressing work to be done.
Pocketing my phone, I slid from the bed and donned my shoes. A glimpse of my reflection showed blotchy, red skin, and eyes swollen from crying, but I merely splashed a few handfuls of cold water over my face and smothered myself in the magical dewy cream I’d used the previous night before I left my suite. My pride was unimportant in the face of bringing a modicum of peace to Mum and Dad.
On my way out of the door, I picked up the sealed envelope containing my letter home. Several ruined drafts littered the desk, some discarded because my shaking hands had taken a long time to steady, others because I’d struggled to convey my continued existence while also justifying my absence without leaving my parents to question my sanity. In the end, I’d left out any mention of Neath, settling for simple assurances that I was safe, and would return home as soon as I could. I’d explain the rest in person. They wouldn’t believe a word of it, but I owed them the truth. Until then, my handwriting and promises would have to do.
For that, I needed the rightful king.
For the second time that day, I found myself outside Anwir’s room. Faint voices drifted from the crack in the slightly open door, and when I raised my fist to knock, I paused at the sound of my own name.
“Aliza told me what you attempted last night. Are you a fool?”
I’d never heard Anwir sound like that, not even when he’d raged at me over the tiara. His voice wasn’t raised in anger, but dripping with loathing and disgust.
“No more than you believe her to be,” a second, almost identical voice retorted. “Why did you lie to her?”
Anwir had lied to me? My hand dropped to my side, and I edged closer to the door, pressing my ear to the crack.
“About what?”
“Immortality.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know that she believes you can’t do it.”
My stomach dropped, goosebumps peppering my skin.
“What does it matter? She’s mortal. A few decades and she’ll no longer be a problem.”
“Then all of that, last night… that was an act?”
“Of course it was. You didn’t seriously believe I would lower myself to immortalise a human peasant? I can only do it once, Idris, and I don’t intend to waste it.”
“This is about the witch?”
Witch? What witch? Anwir didn’t answer.
“She broke the curse.” Idris’ voice was low but simmering with barely contained rage. “You parade her as the Human Queen. Do you think our people will stand for her being set aside as soon as a crown is on your head?”
“Mypeople. Remember that, brother. And of course I don’t think that. I’ll do my duty to them and marry her, make a few princes of my own, and when she’s dead, there’ll be a new queen.”
“A witch queen?”
“Yes. But in the meantime, I have a prophecy to fulfil.”
“You need to tell her the truth. She won’t care. She doesn’t want to be queen.”
“Idris, how many times.” Anwir sounded beyond exasperated. “I need living heirs, and I cannot get them from a witch. Aliza will come round, she’ll marry me. But not if she knows the truth.”
“By our own laws, a marriage based on deception would be invalid, you know that! What if someone discovered your lies?”
“I don’t need it to be valid. I need heirs, and a disposable queen. Aliza will be dead before anyone can question its legitimacy, but she’ll leave a brood of princes and princesses behind.”
“And what if those princes and princesses inherit their mother’s mortality? Did you think of that?”
“Oh, please. Of course I did. Never fear, Idris. Humans are fertile little whores, as you well know. There’s bound to be at least one immortal amongst the children.”
An icy silence followed Anwir’s statement. When Idris spoke again, his voice oozed venom. “You don’t care about the others?”
“I suppose I’ll mourn them when the time comes, but as long as I get an heir, all will be well.”
“What if you don’t? What if they’re all mortal?”
“Then I’ll pick my favourite and use my gift. It would be regrettable, since I plan to use it on my future queen, but we all have our priorities. Not that it will come to that.”
I’d heard enough.
One foot. Then the other. I concentrated on that simple action as though I was learning how to walk again after a terrible accident. I couldn’t feel my body. Only my heart, thudding like a war drum in my ears. But with every step along the stone corridors, feeling seeped back in.
Shock. Anwir’s ruse had been grander than I’d ever imagined. I’d thought I was in on it. I’d believed him when he’d said he’d take me home.
Hurt. He’d tried to make me like him, and shamefully, he’d almost succeeded. If not for his comments at the ball and his subsequent actions, I’d still be eyeing him up. I’d been fooled by his handsome face and charming act, but that was all it was. An act. He was already counting the days until my death, leaving him free to marry some witch. Not before I’d pushed out a few little princes for him, of course.
But worse than any of that, Idris was in on it. Idris had listened to me repeat Anwir’s lies, and he hadn’t said a word. Not to me, anyway. And to think I’d wanted to help him. To think I’d wanted to ease his pain.
By the time I made it back to my rooms, I was trembling, trapped in a cyclone of raging emotions, threatening to break me into pieces.
“Hello, belle fille.”
I couldn’t even find it in me to jump.
Jacques sat outside my open window, his legs dangling over the sheer drop to the sea far below.
“What are you doing here?” My dull voice came as a surprise, considering the strength of everything I was feeling.
“I heard about your little party. Did poor Jacques not warrant an invitation?”
I turned the lock of my door, determined to keep lying fae and witches on the other side. I was exhausted. Hours of crying and utter betrayal were a potent mix. I plonked down on the edge of my bed and lifted my eyes to Jacques’ over-large ones, prominent in his starved face.
“I didn’t have your address.”
The vampire tutted idly. “You know where to find me.”
“Yeah, lingering behind bushes and lamp posts. It wouldn’t surprise me if you were at the ball.”
He grinned his toothy grin. “Perhaps I was.”
I wasn’t in the mood for whatever this was, some game or dance with words. I wanted to lie on my bed and think. I wanted to down a bottle of wine. I wanted to put on a nice dress and find a nice man and work out my rage.
I might not have the dress, but a man had delivered himself to my room.
“Jacques,” I said. “Come in.”
“Quoi?”
“Come in. I’m inviting you in.”
Maybe I was an idiot, letting a vampire into the coven. Maybe I didn’t care anymore.
Slowly, his eyes fixed on me, Jacques lifted one leg, then the other, over the window frame, and hopped down to the floor.
For a heartbeat, I felt like prey. A rabbit facing down a wolf. Maybe I didn’t care about that either. I shoved myself to my feet, closed the distance, and kissed him.
His back collided with the windowsill as I cupped his face, holding his lips against mine. He didn’t fight, but he didn’t reciprocate either.
I pulled my lips from his, barely. “Bite me,” I breathed.
“Aliza, no.”
“You’re hungry. You’re starving. Let me help you.” I had to help someone in this horrible world.
“I cannot.”
“You can. I want you to.” I tilted my head, exposing the side of my neck. He stiffened, tension rolling off him in waves. “I trust you.”
“Oh, mon amour, you shouldn’t.” His pierced lip brushed my skin, the metal hoop cool and smooth, sparking a glittering cascade of shivers over my body.
“You want to.” My voice was pleading and breathy.
He didn’t deny it. Hands drifted to my waist, featherlight. I squirmed, pressing the length of my body against his. My hand slid into his long hair, closing at his scalp, and I turned his head to me.
Our eyes met.
His lips crashed to mine, and for the first time, I registered the chill in his skin, in his tongue as it lapped against mine. I didn’t mind. All I cared about was hiding from the betrayal I would eventually have to face. About freeing myself, proving that I made my own choices. That I was nobody’s pawn.
Jacques twisted, and then I was the one pinned with my back to the open window. The twilight breeze caught my hair, teasing it out over the ledge. He arched me onto the sill, his mouth travelling down over my throat. A thrill of fear surged through me, swirling headily with the touch of his cold hands as they swept down my hips. I squirmed beneath his touch, my skin warring between trying to evade the chill and wanting to feel more. Feeling won. I lifted one leg, wrapping it around his hips, pushing my body against his. He gripped my thigh, his nails biting the flesh exposed by my shorts.
His other hand dragged up my top, and I lifted my arms as it slid like liquid over my head. Thank God I’d worn a pretty bra when I went hiking. I felt everything through the lace as Jacques dropped his head lower, kissing and nipping, and a moan slipped past my lips.
As though the sound broke whatever restraint he still clung to, Jacques ground his leather clad hips against mine, and before I could so much as gasp a breath, he was at my neck.
Sharp, white-hot agony erupted as his fangs sank into my flesh. I tried to move, but I was pinned, his hands holding me like vices, one still gripping my thigh, the other pulling my head to the side. But as sticky warmth spread over my shoulder, the pain died away, making room for a strange, weightless pleasure. I was floating, cut adrift in a bubbling sea of need. It rose inside me, drowning my hurt, my anger, my fear. There was only Jacques, and his mouth at my neck, and the blood flowing from me to him. I wanted to give him more. Give him everything.
I whimpered and his fangs sank deeper in response.
How long I ebbed, I couldn’t say. Forever, maybe. I grew limp, the urge to move fading from my limbs. My head might have lolled if Jacques wasn’t holding it in place, cradled in the crook of his wrist. I was as light as a feather, and as heavy as a rock. The world swirled gently around me, blurred and soft as night pressed in, carried on the soothing breeze that danced through the open window.
Distantly, I thought I heard a roar.
Sharp pain cut through my tranquil daze, followed by a spill of warmth down my chest. Jacques was gone. Without him to hold me up, I slid down the stone wall, slumping, half sitting, half sprawling.
My eyes were heavy. I wanted to sleep, but shrieks and hisses drifted slowly between my ears and my brain. My eyelids fluttered. Idris was there. And Jacques. Fighting.
Fighting?
No, they couldn’t do that. Through a veil of mist, I watched the vampire and fae battle, as though in slow motion. Idris was a head taller than Jacques, and I suspected he might be winning. His face was contorted with rage. I couldn’t let him hurt Jacques.
I stirred, trying to shift a little more upright, but without the vampire’s floaty magic, my body wouldn’t cooperate. What was that, shining on the floor? I blinked. Shards of glass. My bleary gaze followed them. Someone had tipped over my dressing table, shattering the mirror.
Irritation flickered somewhere beneath the fog. That was mine. Why did people keep breaking my stuff?
A shadow soared over me. I tried to lift my eyes to follow, but my lids flickered and almost closed.
“Aliza? Aliza!”
It took a long time for my muddy brain to recognise my own name. With immense effort, I shifted my eyes.
Yellow and green and black.
Idris.
“No,” I sighed. I didn’t want him here. The door was locked. Or was it? I thought I’d turned the key… I tried to see past the bulk of him hovering in front of me, but I slumped sideways, sliding further down the wall. I never hit the floor.
“It’s alright. Stay with me.”
I wouldn’t.
I didn’t want to.
“Hold on.”
I couldn’t.