Chapter 27 #2
That’s all she says, tears running down her face. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers, but it doesn’t sound like it’s for me. Her reaction doesn’t help the anxiety creeping in.
“What’s happening, Sera?”
The pink fae wipes her face with the hand that isn’t covered with balm. “I’m sorry. Sometimes, the ancestral womb stories really hit a chord. Do you want to know everything—everything?”
“Yes,” I answer apprehensively. It’s probably nothing I don’t already know.
“Your mother was raped, and her mother before her, and so on. It’s something I often see in the human farmers who make their way to us. Though it seems you have not been?”
It’s a question that doesn’t sit well with me.
My husband was my first. My only. As much as I was expected to have sex with him in the beginning, we never did.
Not until I wanted it. The first time we fucked in our forest, the memory imprinted itself on my mind.
It was a euphoric awakening of my senses.
Not what I expected from sex at all. Not what I’d expected from a man I was meant to hate with abandon.
“I have not. Melek has been the only one.”
“Yes, Melek. She has a lot to say about him.”
“Who?” I ask, confused.
Her hand moves up and around, fingers pushing back from the other side. “The baby. She talks to him when you’re sleeping.” What? Melek is having one-sided conversations with our child without me? If this is true, I desperately want to know what he says.
Sera laughs. “She says he’s done it since he found out about her.
He used to whisper for her to stay. That you needed her to stay.
” My eyes begin to fill. “Then, he started to tell her stories. He says they are yours and Sunny’s stories, and he borrows them.
” I can’t hold it in any longer, and tears streak down my face.
“And most recently, he’s been telling her how proud he is of you, how strong you are.
How he will always keep her and you and Sunny safe, no matter what. ”
That’s it, my nose is dripping. Damn hormones.
I wipe my face on the pillow beside me, my heart and my soul unravelling.
“She also wants me to remind you that you must leave Sunny with Phoenix. She’s repeating it to me over and over.
He cannot come with you when you leave.” Her eyes have returned to glowing, luminescent orbs as she speaks my worst nightmare.
My body locks up. Sera pushes at another tender spot near my liver. “I’m nearly done. I promise.”
She does this last part in silence, which I’m thankful for, rubbing the last of the balm into my skin.
Bright smile back and eyes clear, she chirps, “All done! Oh, no.” She notices my blotched eyes and tear-stained pillows. I pull my dress down and sit up further on the bed. “What can I do?”
I shake my head, fidgeting with the hem of my dress.
“I expected most of that. It was—” I sniff loudly.
Sera hands me a small cotton handkerchief.
“The part where Melek talks to her each night. I know he doesn’t sleep more than a few hours, but I didn’t know he talked to her since the beginning. Did he do that with Sunny?”
Smiling softly, she answers, “Oh, sweet Storm. That man has probably been chatting all sorts of nonsense to your belly since he first got you pregnant.”
Taking a towel, she rubs at her fingers, freeing them of the balm. “What was in that?” I ask.
I can feel a slight zapping over my skin where she placed the ointment. “It’s a wound-healing balm. I’ll need to re-examine you around the full moon. The tonic should heal the scar tissue where Melek’s blood wasn’t enough.”
Seraphina goes to stand. I grab her arm. “Why do you think she keeps telling us to leave Sunny with Phoenix? We have no plans of leaving.”
Sera exhales softly, leaning back down, as if she’s about to deliver the worst news of all. Her caring eyes latch onto mine, and she places one hand on my bump.
“What do you want to know?” she asks.
I perk up. “Can you ask her?”
“Now that I’ve been able to read her field more closely, we are more easily attuned to each other. So go ahead. Let’s see what this little way-shower knows.”
“Ask her why she said Melek and I were leaving? Where are we going?” Sera’s eyes glaze over again.
“She said you are leaving soon, and that the place you are going is dark. She said you won’t like it there, but it’s the only way to keep Sunny and her safe.” That answer only leads to more questions.
“Where will she be?”
“She’ll be with you until it’s time for her to leave.”
“But how can she be with me and be safe if we leave?”
“She said there’s a plan for her.” It’s like talking to my son, the answers never specific enough to understand the whole picture. “She wants me to tell you this because she doesn’t want you to worry. That Sunny will be happy and safe with Nix, and that she will be safe as well.”
I want to pull my hair out. “That makes no sense. The whole point of us coming to the Fairy Lands was to be together and safe, not separated.”