Chapter 34 Doubt & Differences
Chapter thirty-four
Doubt & Differences
With my emotions and my magyk so worn down, I stumbled as soon as we arrived at the big oak tree.
Devil caught me, however, and we sank down onto what felt like a blanket.
When the dizziness wore off and I opened my eyes, I realized he had to have planned this all ahead of time, because the blanket was laid with a modest picnic.
But I eyed the basket of apples and plate of cheese-stuffed flatbreads warily.
“What is this?”
“I know Ceres is a better cook,” he said, “but I hoped you might humor my feeble attempt at an apology.”
“An apology for what?”
“For leaving you the night of the party. It was a cowardly, prideful thing to do.” He did not look me in the eye, clearly unaccustomed to apologizing.
“Devil…” I murmured, “I should be the one apologizing. You didn’t—”
“I know, but I will anyway,” he said, waving his hand dismissively.
“Now, what can a creature with nothing to his name besides a tree and a few trinkets offer a princess of the Arden to make amends for his shameful behavior?” He gave me a doe-eyed look and batted his eyelashes to diffuse the tension.
I allowed myself to laugh, falling back on the blanket and tucking a hand beneath my head.
“Hmm. Nothing to your name, but you still have not even told me your real name,” I said, watching his face carefully. He quite literally lit up, sending a few fireflies dancing across the grass.
“Well, I know how much you love a good story, and this is one of the best, if I do say so myself. Do you remember your first day in the Arden—”
“When you kidnapped me?”
“Your tone implies that you did not beg me to kidnap you.”
I rolled my eyes, but grinned. “Fair enough. Go on.”
“You asked how stories about the Devil of Arden could be generations old, when I myself am not.” I sat up on my elbows, interest piqued, as he continued.
“The reason is that there were others before me. Robin Hood, Robin Goodfellow—they began this long and glorious tradition. I merely took on their names, just as I took on the responsibility of their bargains and legacies.”
“What happened to them?”
“Some Fair Folk do die of old age, you know.” He picked up an apple and twisted the stem off. “But…the Robin I knew, my predecessor, died during the invasion of the Arden, when I was just a child. On Oberon’s orders, I took up his mantle.”
My heart sank. “But…all those stories about people being mutilated or hurt by the Devil of Arden. Was…was that you?”
He met my gaze with a non-committal shrug. “I have done what is necessary to protect my home, as any creature would. The stories keep humans out of the forest, but the stories must have some basis in truth, or no one would believe them.”
“Oh…” We fell into a tense silence, which I finally broke for my own sake. “And what about Puck?”
“Ah.” Devil pursed his lips. “That is simply what Oberon calls whichever of his servants he happens to rely on the most. It is…more of a title than anything else. A way to call us up quickly, the same way a hound is called ‘boy’, regardless of his given name.”
“But…your given name…” I said slowly, trying to prompt him. “Your real name…”
He merely shook his head, and I thought I felt my heart crack just a little as I sat up and wrapped my arms around my knees.
“You don’t have one, do you?” The question came out in a whisper. “No one ever bothered to give you one…”
“I promise, May, it does not matter,” Devil said, but I could sense his desire to simply push it aside. For a moment, the tender side of me battled against the side that needed to tease him in order to disguise my own discomfort. Typically, the latter won out.
“Well, if you have not chosen a name by now, then I think you are simply indolent,” I replied with a light smirk. “Perhaps that is why you allow everyone in the Arden to call you something different. Sheer laziness, that’s what I say.”
A faint smile bowed his lips. “Or perhaps I am not the sort of creature who needs a proper name.”
“Need or not, everyone deserves a name of their own choosing,” I said softly, allowing my tender side to win one battle. “If you had your choice now, what would you be called?” For the thousandth time, he tucked an errant curl behind my ear, then allowed his hand to linger against my cheek.
“I would be called yours,” he murmured. “If ever I could choose something for myself, May, it would be you. Puck belongs to Oberon. Robin belongs to the storybooks. But Devil is yours. Yours alone, and forever.” He watched me closely, odd eyes full of hungry hope, and I was engulfed again.
It was not the same feeling I’d had the night of the party—not a feral, animalistic desire—but a softer, more affectionate warmth, like I wanted to sink into him and disappear.
Instead, I just breathed in his scent and said, “You should not speak that way.”
“Why not?” Devil asked, leaning in and tilting my chin up. Our noses brushed together and the heat of his mouth hovered not an inch away from mine, waiting for permission. My eyes fluttered closed of their own accord.
“People might think you are in love with me,” I whispered, and the movement caused our lips to graze. But instead of kissing me, he pulled away. I cracked my eyes to see his head tilted to the side, like some quizzical, red bird.
“May…” he laughed faintly, “I am in love with you.”
It was so matter-of-fact that I almost took him at his word, but softened my voice to ask, “Devil, do you even understand what those words mean?”
“Why would you suppose I do not?”
“Well…I-I only…I thought…” Unsure how to answer without offending him, I just let out an awkward, pathetic laugh. “Because love comes from…from knowing someone, seeing who they are, even at their worst, and still choosing them anyway. You hardly know me at all.”
He gave an even more confused look. “I do know you…”
“Spying is not the same as knowing,” I insisted, even as my stomach churned with the idea that he might be right.
“Isn’t it? Have I not been privy to a thousand solitary moments where you said things to a plant or an insect that you would never say to another human?”
“Those things were…were supposed to be private…” I breathed, embarrassment burning me from head to toe. But Devil lifted my chin again, his brows knitting together in concern.
“You feel ashamed that I was listening?” he said, his voice gentle.
“You shouldn’t. I see all of you, May, and I adore it.
I adore the woman who speaks to bugs, and sings to her plants to keep them growing strong.
I live for the woman who is thirsty to see justice in the world but fears she might be helpless to bring it about.
I am madly, wildly in love with the woman who doubts her faith and keeps it anyway, because it makes her feel less alone.
That is who you are, and I would never have you any other way. ”
Traitorous tears filled my eyes and I turned my body away to hide them.
It was as if he had pulled a dusty book down from a neglected shelf inside me and tenderly memorized each page.
No one had ever spoken to me like this. Not even Will.
To make matters worse, it was all I could ever remember wanting—to truly be seen and known, and still loved.
But being presented with it in such a direct way opened up a well of terror and doubt inside me.
“How can you say such things?” I muttered.
“What else would you have me say? I can only speak the truth, and this is my truth, May: I love you. All of you. I have always loved you, and I—”
“Stop!” I cried, pushing myself away from him across the blanket. “Please, Devil. Please, stop. I…I cannot return your feelings.” He laughed again, and I looked back at him in horror.
“I do not expect you to return my feelings!” he said loudly. “Is that what worries you? My expectations?”
“Y-yes!” I stammered. “Why confess all this if you do not want reciprocation?”
He gaped at me. “Oh, May, of course I want it, but I would never expect or demand it from you. Is this what you put up with from human men? Listen to me. I was made for you, and so I could not hate or abandon you if I tried. As a lover, as a faithful protector, as a lowly servant, it matters not—however you would have me, I am yours.” Carefully, with his eyes pinned on me, he sat on his knees and moved closer, extending a hand.
I did not reach out to take it, but nor did I shake him away when he touched my shoulder.
All I wanted was to lean against him, allow myself to drown in the idea that he loved me, all of me, and nothing could change that.
But my doubtful heart held back. After all, how could a creature who had never truly been loved—who did not even possess a real heart—understand what it meant?
I knew, and had witnessed, that he’d only been tossed scraps of affection his entire life, and I also knew that starving people often ate too much, too quickly when they finally found food again.
But this knowledge only brought me to the realization that I cared for him too.
Perhaps I couldn’t call it love, but whatever it was had bound us together since before we were even born.
It had caused me to defend him against Oberon twice now, and it kept drawing us back together whenever we were apart.
I faced him again, with that invisible thread tugging, then pulling me against his chest. The irregular pulse beneath his ribs was strangely comforting, even if it was a reminder of how different we really were.
“You made that much harder than it needed to be, Mayhem,” he whispered as he gathered me in his arms and kissed the top of my head.
“Well…I did tell you I was going to make your life miserable.”
“If this is misery, then I am the most wretched thing in all creation.” With a satisfied sigh, he laid back on the blanket, keeping an arm around me so I was forced to fall with him.
I put my head on his chest again and gently clutched his shirt between my fingers, but with our comfortable silence came that same tiny voice in the back of my mind.
This is wrong, it whispered. He can’t love you.
He doesn’t know how, and you will end up with another broken heart.
Oberon will be angry—maybe angry enough to hurt him, and you will hurt him too.
You don’t love him, and you’re a fool for taking comfort in something so unnatural, something that can never see the light of day.
I shook my head a little, trying to rid myself of the unwelcome thoughts.
“What is it?” Devil mumbled, moving his hand up my back to play with my white braid and its green glass bead. I very nearly lied, told him it was just an insect, but I knew the only way to silence the thoughts was to prove them wrong.
“How can you be so sure of this? Of everything?” I asked him. “Don’t you ever feel…doubt?”
“What purpose would that serve?”
I burst out laughing and pushed myself up to see his face.
“It isn’t something you can control! It just…
it just happens. It creeps into your mind like a weed.
Like the Rot…” Devil put one hand behind his head, propping it up so our eyes could meet.
His fingers drifted from my hair to my jaw, and his thumb ran over my bottom lip.
“I suppose I am not made that way,” he said, “but even so, I could never doubt this, and you shouldn’t either. I promise, May, if you are only ever sure of one thing in this world, it will be me.”
Gods, I wanted to believe him. More than anything, I wanted the safety and surety he was offering, so I decided to take it.
All my doubt and all our differences be damned.
Leaning forward, I brushed the tip of my nose over his chin, then pressed my lips hesitantly to his.
But I should have known he would not suffer my attempt at coyness.
One hand slipped around the back of my head and the other found my waist, pulling me into him.
Without the suffocating haze of faerie wine, my magyk quickly took over, bathing us both in shadows.
His fireflies emerged too, dancing along the lines of smokey darkness engulfing our intertwined bodies.
He rolled sideways, dropping my head onto his forearm as he deepened the kiss, testing every limit with his hands and tongue.
This time, we were not racing sunrise or regret, and so everything slowed.
I allowed myself to feel him, to explore and taste and listen, instead of burying my desire.
A surge of fearlessness rose inside me, and I moved one of my hands beneath his shirt.
But he broke the kiss and leaned his forehead against my nose, breaths coming out short and shallow.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, sliding my other fingers into his hair and pulling gently, forcing him to look at me. He was surprisingly compliant, and I made a note of it for the future.
“Hush,” he whispered, suddenly serious. His eyes drifted up to the tree canopy above us and a line appeared between his brows. “Do you hear that?”
I sucked in my breath and lifted my head off his arm, listening hard. At first, all I heard was the babbling creek and a few notes of birdsong. But then the sounds of the forest were broken by a faint but desperate scream.
“Robin! Puck! Devil!”