Chapter Nine #2
“I'm so sorry, baby.” I stroked the crystal. “Please forgive me. I'm so sorry. Oh, fuck. Don't cry. I couldn't control myself in my dreams. I thought that . . . I guess I had to believe that they didn't matter. That it wasn't real.”
“Seren, your mind is the most real part of you, and you gave it to him.” Raza's tears overflowed, and he shook his head. “I can't look at you right now.” He slashed a finger across the crystal and vanished.
“Raza!” I screamed and fell out of my chair, onto my knees.
I just stared at the blank phone as my heart shattered.
Because he was right. Although Tiernan had done the right thing and brought us closer together, Raza had spoken the truth.
Truth I should have seen but had chosen to ignore.
“He didn't give me a chance to tell him what Astaroth had said.”
“Come here, my love.” Tiernan slid onto the floor behind me and took me onto his lap. “He will forgive you. He's just wounded right now.”
“Yes, from my claws,” I whispered. “Why does loving one man mean hurting five?”
“It will be all right.” He rocked me.
“He's right, Tiernan. I betrayed you.” I looked up at him. “All of you. I cheated on you. Why aren't you raging at me too?”
“Raza is both right and wrong. Yes, the mind is the seat of the intellect, and it even has a path to the heart, but it is not the most real part of us. The mind can be tricked too easily. It can be manipulated. The heart is not so easily fooled, but it can be misled as well. Neither of them holds all of you.”
“Then where am I?”
“In both, Seren. We are not just one part. The parts make the whole. You are mind, heart, and soul. All three come together inside this shell.” He cupped my cheek. “And it takes all three to betray.”
“And you don't think I betrayed you in my soul?”
“I don't think you betrayed me in any part of you, Seren.” Tiernan brushed his lips over mine. “God led you to love, and you have been battling it ever since. For me. For all of us. Because we asked you to. That is not a betrayal. That is boundless loyalty.”
A tear slid down my cheek. “I don't think it is, Tiernan. I think you're being kind to me because you're afraid I'll leave.”
He smiled sweetly. “No, my Twilight Star, I'm being kind because I love you, and I know you.
I know you would never willingly betray me.
You've been manipulated by a god. I know how confusing that is.
But instead of giving you my support and understanding, I left you to face your feelings alone.
The only one who showed you any compassion was Astaroth, the very man you had to stay away from.
It doesn't surprise me that when Anu lifted his influence, your minds sought each other and found a way for you to be together.”
I bent forward and wept.
“Shhh, it's all right. I'm Fey, sweetheart. I understand that you can love me fully and still love another man. I agreed to share you because I knew you could make me feel like I was the only one.”
I lifted my head. “Have I done that, though?”
“We've had rough patches, but doesn't everyone? Most of the time, yes, you make me feel like it's just you and me. And when I don't feel that way, it's only because we're with our incredible family, who I only get to be a part of because of you.”
“Thank you.” I stroked his cheek and kissed him. “Thank you for keeping me from falling apart. Raza crushed me. You put me back together.”
“Raza will realize that you've done the best you could. Now, tell me what Star said.”
“What? Oh. Oh, fuck! Star. The night before last, he told me that if I didn't go to him in reality, he would come for me in thirteen days. Last night, he reminded me that I'm down to twelve.”
“He threatened you?”
“Sort of. Star's at his breaking point. It's been eight months, and he can't escape the dreams either.”
“Are you saying that he doesn't want to dream of you?”
“I'm saying that neither of us chooses to go into those dreams, and once we're there, we can't stop ourselves from doing and saying things that we shouldn't. It's like we're cut off from everyone else. Nothing else exists. Then I wake up, and I remember all of you, and I feel so ashamed.”
“That's why you haven't told us.” Tiernan nuzzled my face. “Shame will stop the strongest heart from taking action.” He pulled back to look at me. “Let there be no shame between us, Seren. Not ever again.”
“Tiernan, I love you so much. Thank you. And I don't want there to be any shame between us either.”
“Good. Now—”
The phone started chiming again.
Tiernan helped me onto a chair, took a seat himself, and picked up the phone. He swiped a finger across the crystal to answer it. “Ah, Killian. So, you've relayed Seren's dreams to the others.”
“Yeah, I relayed,” Killian muttered. “You done fucking?”
“We are done physically reconnecting with each other, yes. For now.” Tiernan looked at me askance.
I nodded.
“Before that, Seren had meant to tell you something about Astaroth.”
“Well, put her on, and she can tell me now.”
“Raza has upset her greatly. She's not in any condition to—”
“Dude, put my wife on the fucking phone.”
I held out my hand. Tiernan gave me the phone.
“Hey, Kill,” I said.
Killian grimaced when he saw me. “Shit, what did Raza say?”
“He accused me of being unfaithful and said he couldn't stand to look at me.”
“Fuck.” Killian sighed. “Daxon and Sever are pretty angry too. Dax more so than Sever. I, uh, hell, Twilight, after talking to Raza, I kinda agree with him.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I don't know what else to say, Kill.”
“You can tell me you're sorry.”
“I'm sorry. I'm not proud of what happened.
I never saw it as cheating, because I had no choice while I was in the dream.
I tried to remember to fight it. Every night I told myself I wouldn't touch him.
But as soon as I was there, I forgot everything.
I forgot why being with Star was wrong. I guess that's not an excuse. But I am sorry.”
“Yeah, all right. What was the other thing you were going to tell us?”
I cleared my throat. “Star is upset. It's been eight months, and the dreams have driven him back into obsession. He said if I don't go to him, he'll come to me. He gave me thirteen days. I'm down to twelve.”
“That asshole threatened to abduct you?” Killian growled.
“It's not like that, Kill. It's . . . I don't know. He's losing his mind, I think. He wants to see me in person and finish this.”
“I'd say that was a good thing if not for Rowan's premonition. Now, it feels like a very bad idea. I want you to stay away from him, Seren. He can't get to you here. He'd have to come through a rath, and we can warn the rath lords to stop him.”
“If we do that, he could hurt them. Astaroth is stronger than any rath lord we have.”
Kill grimaced. “All right, we'll let him through. He can't take you. He may be stronger than rath lords, but he's no match for you, babe.”
I blinked. “Holy shit, why didn't I think of that?”
“Because you're all twisted up about this.”
“Yeah. I guess I am.”
“All right, I'll tell the others. Uh, for now, maybe you should stay in Seelie.”
“What?” I whispered.
“Babe, I'll get over this, and I'm sure the others will too, but we need some time.
Tiernan seems to be okay with it. So stay there.
Enjoy reconnecting or whatever. Give the rest of us some space.
We'll work this out.” He touched the crystal.
“I love you. I'm just really fucking mad at you right now.”
I bit my lip and nodded. “Okay, Kill. I get it.”
“Seren?”
“Yes?”
“Don't use this as an excuse to leave us.”
“Of course not. I'm not going to leave you.”
“All right. Goodnight, Twilight.”
“Goodnight, Blair.” I swiped the phone and took a deep breath to stop myself from bursting into tears again.
Despite Tiernan's words, I felt like shit.
More so because I hadn't thought of things as Raza had.
I should have. I was having sex with Star in a shared dream.
I thought it didn't matter, that it was only a dream.
But it was a shared dream, and that was a form of connection.
Did it make the sex real? I still didn't think so, but I was often wrong.
I should have told them. Maybe they could have forgiven me for the first time, what with the dream taking me unaware.
But I hadn't told them. I had once again hidden something important about Astaroth. And this time, I couldn't blame Anu.
“Oh, uh, am I interrupting a private moment?”
Tiernan and I looked over to the library's double doors.
A Vila stood there, her ghostly hand gripping the edge of one door and her long hair trailing over her sparkling dress.
Vila were wind nymphs and were often mistaken for spirits of the dead.
They could make themselves solid, but it took concentration.
Usually, they floated about in their airy form.
“No, it's fine,” Tiernan said. “We were just leaving.”
“Oh, but, um, Duchess Sorcha sent me. She told me about the blight and asked me to look into the records.
I'm the oldest archivist in the castle, so I'm the most familiar with our history.” She lifted the book in her hands, its brown leather binding turning it into a black hole against her airy self.
“I think you should see this.” She looked from Tiernan to me. “Both of you.”