Chapter 20 Rejection
TWENTY
REJECTION
The moon is celebrated differently now. Creatchin says it should be celebrated nightly, not just when it is full. My sister—an enthusiastic wolf shifter—loves this idea.
No one questions that it might be because of the last little freak out our unsteady queen had during the full moon. No one says a Goddessdamn word about the last full moon at all.
And so, here we are sipping wine and dancing beneath a tiny sliver of light that our goddess gives us. It’s . . . not the same. Why does no one realize this is not the same?
Nyra sways to the drum beat. The queen’s daughter, Vanitee, sways near her and within seconds the two are smiling and having an annoyingly good time together.
Goddess. When did I turn into Zilo’s sour ass?
I shake my head at myself and try to let the beat of the drums calm my soul. I feel the music pulse within my chest, and it is nice.
This is . . . it’s . . . nice-ish.
Seelvie keeps looking over at me from her spot next to the other fae but aside from her watchful attention only one other person meets my gaze fully. Nyra peers at me from the few yards that separate us, and she waves her hand energetically, invitingly: Red Rover, Red Rover, send Cersia right over.
Hell fae are going to clothesline my ass the moment I join them. But Nyra is my sister. I’ll do anything for her. Including walking directly into a social event when I’d rather hibernate beneath my blankets like an old bear exhausted from yelling at kids to get off his lawn all day.
The breath I push from my lungs doesn’t ease me as I stride into the vulture’s den.
Several hell fae shift away from me but make sure they have me in their eyesight.
The queen’s daughter doesn’t. She stays put, no longer dancing but judging entirely too hard for it to be polite.
There’s a polite way to glare at someone, and she has not mastered it yet.
Nyra takes my hand and twirls me over the black cobblestone of the gardens. Cool wind catches my hair, and there’s a moment that I feel like we’re children again. It’s more than a smell or a feeling; it’s a memory etched into the beats of my heart. It’s a bittersweet sensation.
Especially when her hand releases mine, and my chest collides hard into another.
Those inky eyes are now cold and cutting when the hell fae looks down on me.
Whispers scuttle around us, and neither of us moves a single muscle.
“Vanitee, I’m so sorry. That’s my fault entirely,” Nyra says in a string of endless apologies.
She’s always apologizing. I hate it.
Not everything is her fault.
“I’m sorry, Vanitee.” I lift my chin with what I hope is respect and take a solid step back.
But the damage is done.
“She doesn’t belong here,” Seelvie says flatly, shoving her way forward to be seen. She doesn’t explain or even hold any emotion as she says it. Not even hate lines her heavy brow.
“She—she does,” Nyra stutters. “She belongs here as much as I do, and I’ve never felt I belonged anywhere.”
Vanitee’s eyes soften as she gazes at my sister.
My heart sinks right to my stomach at the sound of those words.
She really feels that way? She’s always been so happy in our pack. She was always the put-together mom. The good wife. The perfect daughter.
“You’re not like her, Nyra. Not at all.” The queen’s mother all but slices right through my chest with the glare she’s giving me.
“Maybe neither of them belongs,” someone whispers like a hushed omen that shivers through the crowd.
Fuck.
Nyra’s full lips fall to a frown that I fucking hate. Vanitee’s hand slips around my sister’s waist lightly.
“I’m going to leave you guys to it. I’m not a good dancer. As you can see.” I force a smile that hurts to even form. I despise bowing out but I won’t risk alienating my sister either. Nyra’s pity smile is better than mine. Her hand brushes my arm as I walk by, and it doesn’t really amount to much.
“Don’t go, Cersia,” she whispers desolately.
But I do go. Because she’s accepted, and I’m not, and I’m just ruining her good time by being here.
And she deserves a good time.
No one deserves happiness like she does.
Within ten minutes, the group of them are right back to swaying their asses, and I’m right back on the sidelines.
As it should be, I guess.
“That was fuckin’ painful to watch, beautiful,” a rumbling tone from a salacious asshole whispers along my ear.
A real smirk twitches at the corner of my lips as his breath continues to caress the column of my neck.
“I don’t know what you mean.” My shoulders square hard, but even I can imagine what it must have looked like for me to sulk away from them with my wolfie tail between my legs.
“Really?” Big hands grip my hips slowly, fingers sinking into my flesh one by one, until he has me held intimately but roughly in his palms. “You forget rejection that quickly, huh? You’ll have to teach me your ways, because I remember every ounce of rejection you’ve ever tossed in my fuckin’ face. ”
I spin on my heels, and I’m staring up into those stormy green eyes of his. “I don’t reject you.”
Booming laughter cuts from Roman’s throat as he throws his head back and all but howls at the moon over how fucking funny I apparently am.
Has he been drinking?
“Beautiful, you’ve rejected me so many times, I’m starting to think I’m a shame slut for how often I come back for more.”
A shame slut. Why am I smiling so hard right now?
His eyes shine like starlight as he trails over every one of my features so slowly, it’s like I can feel the heat of his stare burning over my skin. With a delicate pull, he guides me a single step closer to him.
My heartbeat is competing right now with the bang of the drums.
And my heartbeat is definitely winning.
He has this way about him. A flirting cruelty that hides the softness underneath that he’ll never show anyone.
Except for me I suppose.
His nose brushes mine as his head lowers. I can taste his exhales against my tongue, and I can’t help but lift my head to him.
“If I tried to kiss you, would you reject me again?” His tone is a painful rasp. A plea of a sound.
I feel that rasp all through my core.
He thinks I like Avian and he thinks he’s just the third wheel hanging around. I don’t think that. I don’t think that at all.
“Maybe,” I whisper against his lips instead.
The smile that creases the corners of his eyes causes so many warm and helpless emotions to flood through me.
“Mmm, I’m definitely a shame slut, then,” he says just before his head lowers a fraction of an inch, and his mouth skims ever so lightly over mine.
And then a scream and a clatter of curses break through the music.
Silence falls, but it’s not alone.
A gasp of a cry is all I can hear. It’s all I can focus on as I tear myself away from Roman’s embrace.
Because I know that cry.
I’ve heard it throughout our childhood.
And I will kill anyone who makes Nyra cry.
I’m shoving my way through the circle of hell fae and shifters surrounding who I already know is lying at their feet. I will fucking end them!
When I finally spot her, Vanitee is already there. She’s cradling my sister’s head in her hands and examining the deep claw marks that bloody the pink scar along the side of her heart-shaped face.
Was it Seelvie?
Vanitee stands and spins on her own kind so fast, her long black hair fans around her. “Do not touch her! She is not your enemy! She is one of us, and if I ever find the coward who hurt her, I’ll break your hand clean off and beat you with it!”
A shifting of feet and a palpable fear sounds through the crowd. Vanitee takes Nyra’s hand and pulls her up, draping my sister’s arm around her thin shoulder as she starts to lead her away from the hungry watchers.
“Nyra,” I whisper, my hand reaching for her as she walks away.
But she doesn’t hear me.
It’s then that I can’t help but wonder . . . does she even know I’m here?
Because my sister doesn’t need me.
And it’s me who’s hurting her.
They never would have attacked her if she hadn’t brought me over to their group. They’d accept her if it wasn’t for me.
They’re right.
I don’t belong here.