43. Sadie #2
We had less than an hour till the ball.
A maid, who stood next to Xerxes, holding supplies, gestured up the stairs and said, “The don delivered lots of formal wear yesterday so you could choose what you liked best. It’s in your closets.”
Xerxes stared down at the sheet he’d had the maids place over Walter’s dead body.
I could read the question on his face. It was the same one I was asking myself.
How were we supposed to go to a ball after everything that had happened? How were we supposed to act normal after all this?
Jax cracked his neck. “Everyone is attending. The girls and Aran. We’re sticking together.”
We all nodded in agreement, although I grimaced down at Aran’s gaping wounds.
Ascher gestured at Aran. “We need to get her a hoverchair. She can’t walk.”
Xerxes said something to the maids, and they scurried off.
“Sit here and stay,” I ordered the Ortega brothers, my limbs shaking from the strain of commanding them.
The world wobbled around me, but I forced myself to act normal as I turned to Ascher. “Please carry Aran to our bedroom. I need to clean her up.”
He nodded and picked her up gingerly.
Lucinda went to hold my hand, but Cobra picked me up before she could grab it.
“You’re almost done, Kitten. You can do this,” he whispered down at me. “Deep breaths,” he coached.
Annoyance sparked.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” I said weakly.
Cobra chuckled even though his eyes were tight with concern as he carried me to the bedroom.
The shadow snake on my back sent me images of support, like I was a weakling who needed his help.
“Fuck you,” I growled and sent back violent images. “I don’t need your help.”
“No, Kitten,” Cobra whispered as the snake sent me images of love and warmth. “I fuck you.”
He winked as he turned on the shower and set me down on the toilet next to it. Ascher gingerly set Aran on the floor next to the tub.
Cobra left the room, but Ascher lingered.
“Are you sure you don’t need help?” Ascher asked as he narrowed his eyes at my sweat-stained face and trembling muscles.
I would never forget how he’d dug the bullets out of Aran for hours, working tirelessly to save my best friend.
“Thank you,” I whispered, my voice catching.
Ascher’s tattoos rippled across his torso as he dragged his fingers along my hairline and leaned over me.
“Princess, you understand I would do anything for you?” His amber eyes were dark with intensity as he stared down at me.
“Anything,” he repeated.
I swallowed thickly. He’d thrown himself face first off a platform in the fae realm to cushion my fall with his body.
“I know, Ascher. You’ve shown me.”
The big man fell to his knees in front of me, his tattooed biceps lying on either side of the toilet as he caged me in.
Intoxicating pine filled my nose.
Ascher said, “I know I’ve fucked up in the past, and I have some anger issues, but I would go to the ends of the earth for you, Sadie.”
He swallowed thickly, flames leaping across his throat. “You’re my everything,” he said as he dragged a colorful knuckle across my lips.
The man who was closest to my age, who’d already killed hundreds of people, trembled before me.
“I love you, Princess,” Ascher whispered as he leaned his head forward so our foreheads touched.
He inhaled deeply, and his voice broke. “I love you so fucking much it terrifies me. I don’t know how to fucking take care of someone. Don’t know how to be something for anybody. But I want to be someone for you.”
I held my breath as a buzzing sensation spread across my chest.
“Princess, I want to take care of you. I want to love you.”
I exhaled shakily. “I love you too, Ascher. I want to take care of you too.”
Ascher grabbed my face and slammed his warm lips against mine, consuming me with his mouth until all I knew was the heady scent of pine.
He pulled back. “Even if you have crazy fucking friends.”
I chuckled and punched him in the arm weakly. His hands on my face were the only things keeping me sitting upright as exhaustion pummeled through me.
“Please, don’t mind me,” Aran drawled. “Should we all do celebratory anal now that we’ve established we all love each other?”
Ascher chuckled as I groaned with embarrassment.
Why was she like this?
“No, please continue,” Aran said. “I only puked in my mouth six times.” She lowered her voice in a mockery of Ascher’s. “ Oh, baby, I love you so much I just wanna protect you and have your babies and be a little bitch for you .”
“Oh, fuck off. You’re just jealous,” Ascher said as he rolled his eyes at her.
Aran continued, “Is he always this sappy? I’ve literally never been so embarrassed for someone in my entire life. Did you plan that speech beforehand, because if so, I’m ashamed for you, man. You should have come to me first.”
“All right, I’m leaving,” Ascher said as he stood up and looked down at me. “Are you sure you’re okay, Princess?”
The corners of his mouth pulled up in the cutest little smile, like he was still buzzing from telling me he loved me.
Sun god, he was adorable.
Six feet, five inches of tattoos, muscles, and sweetness.
I grinned back at him, then rolled my eyes dramatically. “We’re fine. I’m not some weak woman that’s going to collapse as soon as the men leave.” I pushed my shoulders back and projected competence. “Go get ready. We don’t have time.”
With furrowed brows, Ascher backed out of the bathroom, eyes on my face as he waited for me to ask for help.
“Love you,” he said softly, a red tint staining the tops of his golden cheeks, before he turned around and hurried away.
My heart soared as my body gave out on me at the same time. I slumped forward, exhaustion hammering through me.
“So we both agree that was cringy and embarrassing?”
“Oh, shut it,” I groaned at Aran as I collapsed onto my knees in front of her. “No, it was sweet,” I mumbled under my breath defensively.
“So how are we going to do this?” Aran asked, changing the subject with a weak chuckle, her face a bloodstained mess.
Her gore covered my skin.
“The only way we can,” I said with conviction, then awkwardly shoved her body over the lip of the tub into the shower.
Immediately, I collapsed beside her.
We lay together under the hot spray, fully clothed, unable to move, limbs tangled, as I handed her a bar of soap and we both scrubbed weakly at our skin.
The water ran red around us.
“I think we’re cursed,” I said through gritted teeth as I picked shards of glass out of my skin, the water stinging unbearably.
Aran haphazardly rubbed soap across the holes still dotting her flesh.
Bloody limbs entangled in the tub. It was a morbid scene.
“You know, they banned guns in the fae realm because enchanted bullets don’t just kill shifters.”
Aran paused.
“They also kill fae.”
Droplets slammed against the tub and hammered our sensitive flesh.
Aran turned her head and pulled her hair back to expose her neck and ears. “My hair wasn’t the only thing that changed when I took off my mother’s toe ring.”
It took me a second to process what she was showing me.
Then it hit me. “Well, fuck.”
Aran slumped against me, and I patted her head as we lay dejectedly under the warm spray.
Thinking about how everything was messed up, thinking about how nothing was what it seemed.
Because Arabella Alis Egan, fae princess, rightful ruler of the fae realm, heir to the seat of death, daughter of the fae queen, wanted fae monarch, didn’t have fae ears.
Aran wasn’t fae.