Chapter 31 Right & Wrong
Chapter thirty-one
Right & Wrong
Thankfully, Devil did not try to chase after me, and I sank into the grass at Arachne’s feet, hands trembling.
“Tsk tsk,” said the spider woman. “Too much wine and ye cannae even finish a dance. Certainly no credit to your father. Immune to faerie wine, I swear that man was.” I tried to focus on her strange face in order to distract from the hornet’s nest of feelings Devil had kicked wide open inside me.
“Did he like living here?” I asked.
“What wasn’t to like?” Arachne said with a shrug. “A peaceful, abundant forest and a beautiful, adoring faerie wife.”
“So…why did he leave?”
Bitterness flooded me, knocking aside the indulgent feeling of desire from only minutes before.
It was an empty, cold sensation, and I suddenly wanted to be near Devil’s warmth again.
He was sitting on the opposite side of the clearing with Jon and Larch now, another cup of wine in hand, but his eyes were pinned on me, like always.
“Ach,” said Arachne, waving a hand through the air, “who can even begin to imagine what men are thinking? Best not to even try.” She settled back in her silken hammock chair and sipped her own wine, closing all but two of her eight eyes.
I pulled my knees up to my chest and dropped my forehead onto them, trying desperately to keep from making eye contact with Devil again.
Oberon had warned that my emotions would be heightened by the release of magyk, and he had certainly not been exaggerating.
I’d felt everything a little too keenly, but neither Devil nor faerie wine had been around to enhance the effect until now.
The wine wrapped all my sharp edges in a protective blanket, which Devil had promptly torn away.
His audacity made me so furious I could hardly think, but his mere presence made me feel so safe I did not even want to think.
Those two feelings were so irreconcilable that I decided, since I could not seem to rid myself of him, I would have to rid myself of the wine instead.
It seemed like a foolproof plan, until Arachne shifted forward and held out her empty cup.
“Help an old woman out, won’t ye, princess?”
“When will everyone stop calling me that?” I grumbled, getting to my feet.
“When ye become queen, of course.” Four of Arachne’s eyes winked.
I walked away from her on unsteady legs, realizing that I hadn’t even begun to consider the implications of my newfound identity.
When I reached for the spigot on the wine cask, there were shadows dancing across the surface of my skin, swirling like oil on water.
“Your magyk gives you away, Mayhem,” said a voice in my ear. I finished filling Arachne’s cup and steeled myself before turning to face him.
“And what, pray tell, is it giving away?” I asked, trying to sound unconcerned.
“How badly you need another drink,” Devil said.
“I am finished for the night, thank you.” I slipped past him, but neglected to hold my breath. His scent filled my nose again and I caught the corner of the trestle table with my hip. “Fuck!”
He trailed after me like a loyal hound and asked, “Are you drunk already?”
“I’m fine!”
“Let me take you home,” he offered.
I handed Arachne her cup, then turned to glare at him. “I can stumble back to your nest just fine on my own, thank you.”
“I promised Oberon I would have you home before breakfast tomorrow,” Devil said rather bitterly. “But since you’ve decided to drink yourself into a stupor, I’m afraid you will not wake up in time to keep that promise.”
I took a deep breath and narrowed my eyes at him. “We would have to fly to the Bower.”
“And?”
“You’re drunk too.”
“You think I cannot fly like this?” he chuckled.
“Not safe…” I mumbled, shaking my head. It was a poor excuse, but I did not want to risk being in close proximity to him again.
“Here.” Devil held his cup of wine out to me. “I will stop, and we can leave whenever you declare me sober enough.”
“But then I will be drunker than you are.”
He fought back a laugh. “You are already drunker than I am, Mayhem.”
“Well, I don’t…I am not…” I cast around for another excuse, but finding none, I sighed and finished off his wine, then said, “The magyk is…affecting my emotions…”
“Ah,” Devil replied, “I see. Is that why you abandoned me before I could finish the song?”
“No, that was because you were being vulgar.”
“You asked what sort of song it was.” His peculiar, cawing laugh, and the amused light in his eyes sent another jolt of heat through me—softer and more affectionate than before.
I thought about how easy it would be to simply tip forward, lean against him, feel his arms around me, his warmth seeping under my skin…
“I want to go back now,” I whispered suddenly, taking a step toward him. “I want…to see Sir Toby, and…sleep in my bed.”
Devil just gave a soft chuckle and said, “As you wish.”
I hardly even registered saying goodbye to Aliena and the others.
The unsteadiness in my body only became worse, and I couldn’t help but feel it was more related to what had happened with the Rot than to the wine.
I had grossly overextended myself and now I was paying the price.
Shadows continued to curl between my fingers, even as I locked them around Devil’s neck.
He slipped one arm beneath my knees and one around my back, then pumped his wings a few times and took off into the chill night air.
Since I could not escape from him now, I leaned my head against the crook of his shoulder and fell silent.
The wave of feelings hit me again as soon as our skin touched, and it was everything I could do to force them down.
It’s not real, I reminded myself over and over.
You don’t really want him. The magyk is flooding you, testing you.
Don’t do anything foolish. But the longer I was in his arms, the harder it became to ignore the fact that I was on fire.
“May…” His voice came out ragged and suspicious. “What are you doing?”
I pulled myself back into the moment and realized that my lips were hovering just beneath his ear, while my fingers toyed absentmindedly with the gold hoops hanging from his other.
“Just…looking at the stars,” I told him, with a stupid, mindless giggle. I let my head fall back and the wind ripped away the silk ribbon that had been holding my hair in a loose braid all day. He suddenly dipped closer to the tree canopy and my stomach lurched.
I smacked him on the shoulder. “Don’t do that!”
“Do what?” he asked with a diabolic grin. “This?” We dropped again, then he banked so sharply, I felt like I might topple backwards out of his arms. Scrambling to lock my hands around his neck, I pressed my nose into his shoulder again.
“Careful, Mayhem,” Devil said as we dropped even lower, barely brushing over the top of the tree canopy, “or you might just find out if your theory about holding a knife to my throat is correct.” I realized that my fingernails were digging into his skin, but was too anxious to pull them away.
“Any pain I cause you is well deserved, demon,” I cried.
He did not answer, just tucked his wings in tight and shot through an opening in the trees.
I had not truly understood how fast we were going until I saw Oberon’s tree tower ahead of us.
There was no way we would slow down enough before reaching my balcony, and I braced myself for the impact.
“Ready?” Devil asked, but he did not say what I was supposed to be ready for.
All he did was drop my legs and hook both his arms around my torso, allowing my legs to dangle freely in the air.
I fought back a scream and held tight to his wrists, but he brought me down rather deftly and let go, then flared out his own wings to slow himself.
Acting on momentum alone, I stumbled across the balcony and through the archway, only stopping when I caught myself on one of the bedposts.
I slumped against it and tried to breathe through the sheer panic, but only a moment later, Devil was there too.
He very nearly slammed into me, but reached up and caught himself against the top rail of my bed with his wings out.
We both just stood for a moment, eyes locked together and chests heaving, my back pressed against the post.
Then, he looked up and smiled. “It’s a beautiful night sky you’ve created.”
I followed his gaze and saw that my shadows had covered the entire room, blocking the archway and windows, snuffing out all light except a few of his own fireflies, which spun wildly above our heads.
“A night sky is nothing without stars,” I murmured. He brought his hand up and held it flat, allowing a ball of tiny, glowing pinpricks to form in his palm.
“Go on, then,” he said softly.
I tipped my head forward and blew across his palm, sending the miniature lights floating through the air like dandelion seeds. One-by-one, they affixed themselves to my canopy of shadow in patterns reminiscent of our familiar constellations.
I looked back up at him. “My sky and your stars…”
He merely swallowed and nodded, still standing only inches away and holding onto the bed rail above my head.
His other hand barely brushed against my wrist. With each heavy breath gathering between us, the damning heat returned, crawling beneath my skin, but I no longer had the resolve to fight it.
I no longer cared if giving in was right or wrong, or something in between, so I parted my lips to breathe him in.
“Finish the song,” I whispered. His expression shifted, going from dazed to intensely focused in a split second, and his hand skated up my arm.
I shivered as he brushed hair away from my collarbone, then gently took hold of my jaw, thumb running over the sensitive skin beneath my ear.
In a soft rumble, not singing so much as breathing each word into the remnant of space between our bodies, he did as I asked.
“When every drop of me is spent,
and I’m drowning in your scent,
when my name hangs from your lips,
my fingers buried in your hips,
when you have me by the throat,
and I know your touch by rote,
I’m your creature through and through,
my every breath belongs to you.”
The last ounce of blood stilled inside my veins—frozen as a winter lake, taut as a bowstring, suspended in the stillness of the moment.
His thumb traced a line across my jaw, then down my chin, and his grip shifted to the back of my neck just as his wings shuttered around us.
All I could see now was his discordant eyes, and a sliver of the night sky we’d created together.
“My creature…” I murmured as he tilted my head up, lips ghosting over mine.
“Completely and entirely,” he whispered.
Oh, merciful Mother, help me. I am about to do something very stupid.
My arms wrapping around his neck broke both of us from our trance, and when I kissed him, he responded in kind.
At the tournament, his kiss had been sudden and hurried, not to mention unwelcome.
But this time, with my tacit but crystal-clear blessing, it was overwhelmingly sweet.
He tasted like wine and crisp night air, and moved with a fervent intensity matched only by the way his tongue broke past my lips.
I traced my fingertips slowly and deliberately over the sharp point of his ear, and was rewarded with a shudder that racked his entire body.
“May…” he groaned, voice full of warning.
I pulled my mouth from his just enough to smile and say, “Ohhh, so it isn’t a knife against your throat, then…”
The hand that had been holding him upright against the bedrail dropped to my waist, pulling me into him, and then we were falling.
I hit the mattress first and he threw one arm out so as not to crush me, but the lack of contact sent me into a spiral.
Seizing the front of his shirt, I dropped my legs open and let him sink on top of me.
“Is this the wine or the magyk?” he asked with his lips half-pressed against my neck and one hand roaming up my thigh.
“Both,” I gasped as his hips ground into mine.
“Then…then I should stop…”
“Don’t you dare!” My fingers tightened in his hair and dug into the corded muscle of his shoulders. But when he moved down from my neck, I lost all sense of time and place, all sense of myself, and apparently…all sense of him too.
As his teeth sunk into the top of my breast, I moaned Will’s name, and everything froze.
It took me several seconds to push through my haze and fully realize what I’d done, but Devil was already staggering away from the bed.
My walls of shadow crumbled around us, his stars flickered out one-by-one, and the too-bright moonlight streamed in.
“Devil,” I whispered, nearly choking on his name. “I didn’t mean–”
He just stumbled toward the archway and muttered, “No…no…it was more than—I shouldn’t have…”
Before I could do anything but lift my hand, he was gone over the edge of the balcony.
The only sign of him having ever been there was a lone firefly, drifting lazily in and out of the woodbine above my head.
A soft sound came from the stairs outside my room, forestalling my breakdown and I got up to investigate on shaking legs.
I found Sir Toby out on the landing, all three of his noses pressed anxiously to the bottom of my door.
“Oh, you are a godsend, aren’t you?” I whispered, stepping back and ushering the hound inside. He leapt onto my bed and sniffed around for a few moments, then let out a loud huff and dropped onto his belly. I fell beside him, scrubbing my hands over my face and groaning.
“Am I the biggest fool in all the world, or just the Arden?” I asked, but he only moved his closest head to rest on my hip and gazed up at me with six droopy eyes. “What, can’t you speak like Lord Balthazar?”
Sir Toby just whined.
“That’s alright,” I sighed, “I think I’ve had my fill of men talking anyway.”