Chapter 23 #2
As we continue to ride, Sunny turns on the charm, asking Sera about what he can expect from the Fairy Lands. I let them talk, mulling over everything that has come to pass in such a short period of time. One word keeps jumping out at me—mate.
“What does mate mean to the fae?” I need her to answer the question. I can’t have the unknown rattling around in my head.
“Yes, mates.” She cocks a perfectly carved brow my way.
“It’s something truly magical. Mates are created when two souls come together and find their equals, choosing to bond to each other for life.
Once they make the choice, there’s no one else for them.
All they see is that person.” Sera holds stars in her eyes as she speaks.
“I’ve still yet to find the soul my heart calls to.
You are lucky to have found yours at such a young age. ”
I blanch, sputtering, “But I can’t be Melek’s mate. I’m human. And besides, he’s a pain in my ass most of the time.” I grumble the last bit and cover Sunny’s ears, but he waves my hands away, intent on hearing everything we have to say.
Sera laughs—a hypnotic, twinkling sound. “Oh, sweet Stormy, can’t you see the way he looks at you?”
Both of us turn to face the sourly man stalking between the kelpies, tied up in green vines, his top having been stripped away in the fight to restrain him, upper torso on full display.
Our eyes meet, and electricity snaps the air.
Fuck. “But I’m human, and Melek hates the fae.
He’s spent his whole existence trying to kill your kind. No offence.”
“None taken. People are often jealous of what they want but cannot have. Have you ever wondered why he hates my kind—his own kind—so much?” I don’t understand her meaning.
He hates the fae because all Haloians hate them.
They hate anything that opposes their winged god.
Anything that seeks to take their land or interferes with their seronds.
They hate all that is not of chosen solence.
They hate. It’s who they are. Rotten to the core.
“I don’t understand.”
She sighs, running a finger along the snout of the kelpie. “From what I can smell of him, he is at least, minimum, a quarter fae.”
“If he weren’t pure Halo, they—the council—would know. His family would be disgraced. They would’ve used them at their barbaric rituals.” They have stringent testing. So stringent, they didn’t even know I was half hollow until I was nineteen? My mind clatters.
“Fae magic is unpredictable. Halo land is notorious for dulling our power. There’s every possibility he didn’t know what he was and his magic hid itself from him. He has more human blood than fae blood.”
“That’s—” I don’t know what to say. She called him a Diviner before.
I didn’t fully register the consequences of what that meant, other than him almost killing me.
Even that doesn’t feel real. Melek has been a staunch advocate for keeping me alive.
Surely, I would’ve noticed something—anything—from our time married.
The way she talks, though, says fae lose their power in Halo, which explains why the ones they capture and use for the rituals constantly look drugged.
The magic almost sounds like it is its own sentient being, not fully controlled by the body it inhabits.
“Okay, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m not fae?” Sera cracks, her sides giving in as she falls forward. I swear, if she tells me I am, I will fall off this fucking kelpie.
“No, you’re human. That doesn’t mean a fae cannot mate with you. For him, the mate bond is very real. And unfortunately, because he refuses to acknowledge his fae side, it’s coming out in its most basic of animal forms.”
“What does that mean?”
“The beast has taken over. All fae can shift into their animalistic states as a form of survival. If we are emotionally heightened, especially when mates are involved, some can find it hard to find their way back to their more coherent logical state.”
“Are you saying Melek is going to act like this forever?” I don’t know what’s worse, him being like this forever or him turning into Commander Melek and dragging us back to Halo.
“Goddess, no. It’ll last as long as it takes him to see you are well and no one is trying to harm you. I suspect that being pregnant doesn’t help. He’s probably all over you right now.” Her wink is overly exaggerated. I mean, she isn’t wrong. When has he not been all over me?
“When do these mate bonds usually start?”
She shrugs, walking beside us across the plains.
“It could start the first time you lock eyes with someone or years after you first meet. I’ve heard some stories of fae who have been friends for decades and have gone on to have children with other people.
Then, suddenly, one day, wake up and feel the mate bond connection. Surprise! That’s very rare.”
After walking for a few hours, we make it through the tree line where the tundra meets the Fairy Lands.
The forest is reminiscent of the one behind our Halo residence…
Just bigger, brighter, and clearer. No mist in sight.
A soft buzz hums along the breeze, and my eyes widen at all the new sights.
Colours I’m not sure I’ve ever witnessed mingle together to create a meld of greens, blues and yellows. I could get lost in its beauty.
Instead, another tornado circles the inside of my mind—one that won’t leave me alone.
Melek is a quarter fae. That means Sunny has fae “blood,” and so does the baby, and… “So, if Melek were to give me his blood, what would happen to me?”
Sera tilts her head as we walk through a lush underbrush.
Any extreme heat or chill that was once in the air is zapped clear, replaced with tempered warmth.
“Well, if you were fae, it would do nothing. However, because you’re human, it would most likely bind with your blood to heal you quickly, especially if you were suffering from any illness.
It could also do nothing, but because he’s a diviner and you’re his mate, it would most likely react to your body in a healing aspect. ”
“Riiiggght.” I suddenly understand my reaction to Melek’s transfusion the day before.
Like the rituals, he’s given me his solence.
The effects that the hollow have drinking from the fae are exactly what I’m experiencing with Melek’s—what Sera calls—blood inside of me.
I haven’t had a cold since Sunny was born—the first time Melek gave me his solence.
The scars on my hands are now practically nonexistent.
And when I woke up yesterday, I felt like I could take on the world despite being heavily pregnant.
Unheard of in my first pregnancy. The only illness the hollows have ever faced is their fertility crisis.
Which only leads me to my final conclusion… Melek gave me his solence, knowing it would help. He knew.
So many questions, and my husband is a raging beast, unable to answer a single one.
Sera leads the kelpie through the thick brush.
We walk for a while longer before entering a clearing and deciding to take a break, mostly for mine and Sunny’s benefit.
I keep Melek out of our son’s sight, but I make sure the grizzly beast can always see me.
My need to comfort him is still here, unfortunately.
There’s a constant push and pull inside of me to fight him and grind up against him. Maddening. That’s what he has always been, and now I know why.
We rest in a circular ring of trees, a mossy fallen trunk creating the perfect seat for us to perch on, yellow light filtering through the gaps of the leaves and branches above.
My bottom protests after being jostled around for hours.
Sunny and I nibble on some sweet orange cakes from our backpack, the male fae holding Melek back a few trees away, always in sight.
His constant silver stare is on me, heating my core.
Trying to ignore my stalker, I take in our new surroundings.
Odd. One small difference I notice as I sit in stillness is that these trees don’t carry the same markings as our ones back in Halo.
No secrets to uncover beyond their beauty.
Huh. Seraphina crouches in front of me, catching me off guard, bringing me out of my haze.
“May I?” she asks, hovering her hands over my stomach.
“Go ahead.” Knowing this fae can sense if my child is well inside me overrides any need I have to protect my body. She already proved herself by keeping Sunny safe.
Rose-tinted fingers gently land over the swell of my abdomen, my coat open, the lower half of my nightdress caked with grime.
“Oh. She is strong.” Sera’s eyes glaze over.
Her hands heat through the thermal clothing I have on underneath my nightgown—her power at the forefront.
“She is healthy.” I exhale loudly. “Even though her magic is diluted, I can feel it buzzing, waiting, almost to the same frequency as a full-blooded fae.”
My eyes fill at the news. Sera gauges my mood change instantly. “Storm, she’s well. It’s okay.” She wraps her arms around my body and hugs me tightly to her.
“What’s wrong, Mama?” Sunny asks in concern around a mouthful of cake. I look at his perfect little face, taking him in before a deafening sound cracks through the forest. An ominous roar cloaks our surroundings.
Springing backwards, Sera creates distance between us. I look for where the sound came from.
Barrelling towards us, I see Melek, rage skewing his features. Ren steps in his way, but my husband has him easily on the forest floor. I blink back my shock as the quarter-solence, no “blooded” fae takes down four other full-blooded fae before he’s once again heading toward us.
“Ser, go,” Ren shouts, and Seraphina falls back behind a grouping of trees, now invisible.
Seeing him finally lose his control is strangely euphoric. Like I was right all along. Me—I make him lose control. Snap out of it, Storm. That’s the mate bond talking. Damn it.