Chapter 22 #2
Inadvertently, my focus flicks to the corner where I last spotted Demi and the East Wind. No sign of them. Where might they have gone? Back to the palace? Some gloom-shrouded corner? It matters not. Eurus is free to go where he wants and spend his time with whomever he chooses.
“Would it be in poor taste for me to ask who you’ve bet on?” I ask Kip.
“No.” He keeps smiling, this god, which makes my mouth bend in response. “It would be in poor taste not to.”
I’m about to respond when a tendril of air teases the curve of my nape, and I freeze, heart aflutter. Moments later, I sense a wall of heat at my back, a presence that is both comfort and agony.
“Bird.”
The rough grate of my name in the East Wind’s mouth pebbles my skin. Outwardly, I am calm. Internally, lungs and heart are at war, each fighting to claim space inside my chest. By the Mother, am I so quick to forget what I overheard less than an hour earlier?
“Eurus,” I clip out, sipping my drink with an air of indifference. “Where’s your dear friend Demi?” The snide tone is so foreign it must belong to another. Why am I treating the goddess like an enemy? Demi is good. She is my friend.
Shoving those tumultuous thoughts aside, I gesture to my companion. “This is Kip. Have you met?”
The smaller, more affable god tilts his chin at Eurus. “Once, long ago. You likely wouldn’t remember.”
“On the contrary,” the East Wind replies coolly, “there is very little I forget.”
The musicians announce a brief interlude, and conversation rises to fill the gaps previously crammed with chords. As I take another sip of wine, Eurus steals my glass and downs the rest. He returns it to my hand as if it is perfectly normal for his lips to warm the same rim mine did seconds before.
I glare at him. “I was drinking that.”
“And now you’re not.”
I draw myself higher in my seat. Clearly, I’ve done something wrong, though I haven’t the slightest idea what. “You owe me another drink.”
“It’s time to g—”
“Now.”
He frowns, taken aback by my demand. I suppress a victorious smile as he signals the barkeep, who is so overwhelmed by customers he does not immediately notice. Eurus scowls. Kip glances at me, an eyebrow raised.
“Another wine, please,” the East Wind calls out. Two, five, seven tumblers are sent into awaiting hands. Only then does the barkeep pass Eurus a glass of wine.
He sets the drink in front of me. I blink down at it. “I was drinking white.”
A vein throbs in his temple. It looks like a great, fat worm. The image tickles me, and I tamp down a snort of laughter as he demands another glass—white, and make it snappy.
Less than a heartbeat later, my drink appears. With a sweet smile at my surly companion, I lift the glass to my mouth and sip. To his credit, he waits for me to finish my drink before saying, “Let’s go, bird. We’re late.”
“For what?” I wasn’t aware we had other plans.
He leans forward then. The scarred edge of his mouth grazes the shell of my ear, and I inhale sharply through my nose, the desire to tilt my head back and allow him easier access warring with the impulse to shove him away, the image of him and Demi a brand behind my eyes.
“I’ll tell you when we get back to the palace,” he rumbles.
Stay, or go? I look to Kip in indecision. “You’re sure I need to be there? Kip could walk me back to the palace.”
The dark-skinned immortal smiles brightly. “Absolutely—”
“No,” Eurus snarls. “We go together.”
Fine. I don’t have the patience to deal with this, and I do not want to attract any more attention to myself than I already have. With a venomous glare in Eurus’ direction, I slip off the stool and gather my coat.
Kip’s smile tilts in sadness. “I hope to see you around, Min.”
“Me, too,” I whisper, but Eurus is already dragging me toward the door using his winds to nudge aside any who block our way forward. We push out onto the street, into the driving rain.
“Will you manhandle m-me all the way to the palace?” I snip. “Or will you allow me to walk on m-my own?”
He releases me. “Apologies.” He does not sound apologetic in the least.
Do I move simply because another wills it? No. I am finished living for others. It stops here. “Why should I return with y-you? I was enjoying my evening. Just because you wish to return to the palace doesn’t mean I’m obligated to.”
“You are my assistant,” he says.
“Captive,” I correct him with a hiss, “and I have done my part. Eastern Blood is r-ready. All you need to do is win the damn tournament and dole it out like you intend.”
The rain, which falls in heavy sheets, blurs the East Wind behind an amorphous gray stretch. “Speak a little louder, will you?” he growls.
I do not care. What was it he said all those weeks ago, when I was trapped by the desperate need to alter my fate? Trust no one. Not even me.
Lady Clarisse was right. I am the queen of fools.
Turning on my heel, I stride as quickly as possible through the rain-drenched streets. Run, I think. He cannot catch you. But it is one stupid thought after another. The East Wind would launch skyward, swoop low to snag me on scaled wings. I will not relive that indignity.
To his credit, he does not attempt to resume the conversation until we are back in the suite, door shut and locked. Gloom enshrouds the space as I toe off my damp shoes near the door. The evening held such promise. Now it’s just a pile of shreds.
“Why are you acting like this?” Eurus eventually says, peering at me warily from where he stands by the dining table.
“Why am I acting like this?” I scoff. “How about taking accountability for your own actions f-first.”
To this, he says, “All I want is to talk.”
I begin searching for a means to light a lamp.
“I believe our definitions of talk are vastly different. I say talk and m-mean discussion. You say talk and mean t-t-telling me what to do! And just so you know,” I add, flinging a withering glare over my shoulder, “I didn’t appreciate your treatment of me back there. ”
He runs both hands through his wet hair. “I’m sorry, I…” He sighs. “It was time to go.”
“Says who?” I search the side tables, feel along the fireplace mantel.
Where is the flint? “I was having a nice evening. What gives you the right to decide how I spend m-my time?” In my stuttering and sopping state, I do not pose much of a threat, but that cannot be helped.
At least I am speaking my mind. It is, I think, everything.
“You are in my employment,” he states. “If I say it’s time to go, then it’s time to go. That was the deal.”
And he cuts continually deeper. “Right,” I whisper. “Because it always comes back to what y-y-you want from me, is that it?” I brush past him. Eurus is who he is. I cannot change him, and I wonder why I even believed it was possible.
“Where are you going?” he demands.
“To bed.” I shove my bedroom door open—hard. A picture frame rattles loose and hits the ground.
I’ll clean it up in the morning. I need sleep, which is deaf and blind and will take me from this place. To think that in this moment I would trade the opulence of the palace for the estate’s cramped broom cupboard. At least there I knew what to expect.
Eurus dogs my heels, sweeping into the room with a cloud of crackling air. “You don’t want to talk?”
“Not really, no.” I remove my rain-damp coat and squeeze water from my hair. Eurus monitors me without blinking, and for half a heartbeat, I wish for his hood to cover his face so that I will be spared the confusion and hurt I find there.
“Clearly I’ve done something to offend you,” he grinds out.
“Yes, Eurus,” I cry, whirling around. “Your entire existence offends me!”
He stiffens, and his eyes grow dark and wounded. His wings, those gleaming, arched peaks, slump lower toward the ground.
My stomach cramps. That was too far, even for me. I did not mean to suggest it would be better if he did not exist at all, but I fear I have done exactly that. “I’m s-sorry,” I mutter. “That was unkind.” And not true.
I rub at my eyes, suddenly exhausted beyond measure.
“Look, it’s been a long day. Let’s get some sleep.
We’ll talk tomorrow.” Though I dread what I might say.
I could never have imagined desiring the East Wind in a romantic way.
That I believed—hoped—he felt similarly proves how wrong I have been—about everything.
“I think it’s best if w-we take space from one another tonight. ”
“Space.” He spits the word as I proceed to turn down my bed, fluffing the pillows to my desired softness. “Why, so you can find comfort in the arms of Kip?”
My hands pause on the fabric. Slowly, I turn to face him, strangely breathless. When I speak, there is no stumbling over my own tongue. No, for once, my words are perfectly, succinctly clear. “Are you jealous?”
His black eyes flatten with a primordial chill. “You liked him.”
He is jealous. Except that makes absolutely no sense. Why should he care who I like, when he made it explicitly clear he feels nothing for me?
“How could I like him?” I respond, far more wearily than I intend. “I do not even know him.”
“But you wanted to.”
“Maybe I did. He was nice, a good conversationalist, and seemed genuinely interested in getting to know me. The only reason I talked to him was because you abandoned me for Demi.” And if I hurl it as an accusation, well, it is what I feel, and I will no longer mask that for his benefit.
“Why should it matter that I was talking to him?”
“It matters,” the East Wind snarls, crowding my space, “because you offered him your smiles when you’ve offered me none.” His mouth dips near mine, and I inhale sharply, unable to resist the spice of his breath as it grazes my face. “Tell me why, bird.”
He is very close now. Darkness feathers our skin, and it takes everything in me not to lean into his body, no matter how alluring the pull. What might happen were I to press my lips to his and slot my tongue between?
“Funny,” I murmur. “I was thinking the same thing about you and Demi.” Whom he clearly has relations with.
The sting of that realization hurts all over again, and I turn away from him. How did it all go so wrong, so quickly? I think that is what wounds deepest. For once, I was happy, and free. “Please,” I say. “Just go.”
The East Wind brushes past me without a farewell, without… anything.