Chapter 5 #2
Swinging her feet around, she set her sneakers on the floor, wincing when she noticed that she hadn’t even bothered taking her shoes off before she climbed into bed. Running her fingers through her long, white-blond hair, she fluffed it out while adding “change bedding” to her mental to-do list.
In the hall of their apartment, there was a linen closet. Might as well grab a new pair of sheets since she was already going out that way.
The moment she stepped out of her room, the bed was completely forgotten. As if she was made of metal and the front of the apartment was a gigantic magnet, her head swiveled toward her door, shoes shuffling that way before she even realized she was moving.
What the—
The air crackled. A shock jolted her arm, the pale blond hairs standing straight as she shook off the strangely uncomfortable feeling. Her stomach tightened, her jaw clenching shut as she realized too late what her living room felt like.
Magic. It felt like magic.
In Callie’s experience, there was only one type of faerie creature that gave off an alluring aura like that.
She tried to stop. Tried to turn around, run back to her room, climb under her blanket and hide… but she couldn’t. The pull was too strong, or maybe Callie was too weak. Whatever it was, she moved toward the front door even though her brain shouted at her to stop.
And that’s when she heard his voice whisper through the door.
“Callie...”
A shiver coursed down her spine.
Aislinn.
No. No. He couldn’t be out there. It wasn’t possible. He rejected her—he basically threw her… threw what they had together away… all in the name of the Fae Queen. She was where Ash’s loyalty lied, not Callie.
It had finally happened. Despite all of Mitch’s recent help, she’d finally lost it.
She’d snapped. It was inevitable. Though she wanted to pretend she didn’t, she missed Ash the way she missed the sun when the rain and the snow came.
She figured the only way she’d get past losing him was by stubbornly pushing forward, but the closer she got to the end of her pregnancy, the more she secretly wished he’d come back.
And now she was imagining that he had.
Only… even through the thick wood, she felt the heat of his aura pulsing toward her.
The strange tug across the apartment had led her down the hall, toward the door, and every nerve in her body was vibrating as she forced herself to stay still.
Her head ordered her to freeze while her heart… her heart was outside of the apartment.
The same way it had been since Ash stayed in Faerie while Callie was shoved back through the fiery Light Fae portal.
“Callie. I know you’re in there. I can sense you. Come to me.”
When she first met Ash, he was such a commanding presence, nearly every word out of his mouth was an order.
He’d expected her to follow them, visibly surprised when she refused. It was a power belonging to his kind, charming and compelling humans to bend to the will of the fae, but Callie’s gift made her immune.
When Ash first started to pursue her, she convinced herself that her gift was the only reason why Ash kept coming around. So unused to being told ‘no’, he kept coming back, hoping he could find a way to get her to say ‘yes’.
And he had. She said yes, and then he was gone without ever saying goodbye.
Nope. His last words to her were so, so much worse.
You can’t forsake what you’ve never wanted...
Turning, she placed her back against the door, leaning her head against it as she splayed her fingers against the wood. “Go away,” she whispered. Mitch’s door was closed and she was desperate for it to stay that way. “Just go.”
He heard her all the same.
“I can’t.”
He had to. “Go.”
“No, Calliope. I won’t.”
Callie closed her eyes. The gentle, lyrical way he said her full name… The pinch at the back of her throat was the first warning she had. The lump lodging right below the pinch came next. Tears burned behind her eyelids, but she didn’t shed them.
She didn’t open her eyes yet, either.
It had been a gift. The day they spent together—the hours in bed that led her to her current predicament—had seemed so special at the time that she wanted to prove it to him.
When it came to the fae, emotions were a weakness and talk was cheap.
He’d already taken every last piece of her soul by the time she both accepted and seduced him, but there was one thing he didn’t own.
Her name.
Callie gave him her name.
How dare he come back six months after he cast her aside and use her fucking name like that?
“Calliope.” The pang hit her all the way to the depths of her heart when the bastard did it again. ”There’s something blocking me from getting to you. Let me in.”
A laugh bubbled up her tight throat. At least that was one bit of good news.
It had been a fluke. Though she tried desperately to go back to pretending that Faerie and the fae and everything associated with Ash didn’t exist, she couldn’t help herself.
Ever since she was a kid and realized that the things she saw—things no one else could see—were real, she’d done everything she could to protect herself, including checking out every book of myths and legends on the faerie folk she could get her hands on.
Some she bought, some she borrowed, and a few she technically stole since she neglected to return them to her local library.
The most recent one she stumbled upon in the used bookstore down the block from Buster’s.
But it wasn’t the decades-old book with its yellowed, feathered pages that was her big find.
Nope. It was the recipe.
Tucked inside of the book’s dust jacket, the recipe was written in pencil on the back of an index card. That’s what it was called, too. In block letters, the words WARDING RECIPE AGAINST FAIRIES were printed at the top, followed by a list of… interesting ingredients.
Coarse salt. Iron shavings. Fresh ash. Daisies. Slivers of rowan. Red verbena.
Figuring, “what the hell,” Callie gathered as many of the ingredients as she could find before combining them in little burlap bags that she tied with twine.
Following the handwritten instructions, she hid them all over her apartment.
The idea was that the pouches would act as a repellent to creatures from Faerie.
Did it work? She had no way of knowing. It couldn’t hurt, though, and since she never expected that Ash would visit her again, she set the pouches out to make sure none of the vicious Fae Queen’s guards could, either.
Six months later and she still hadn’t gotten over the shock of that Light Fae captain appearing suddenly in her bedroom.
If the recipe could protect her even a little, it was worth a shot.
Mitch didn’t mind. The first time he found one of the pouches that she hid in the corner of the couch, she lied and told him it was a potpourri sachet and he shrugged, shoving it back where he found it without even pointing out that it smelled more like something that belonged in a kitchen than freshening up the place.
Until now, she hadn’t had another faerie visitor. She figured the recipe had to have done something, though, since Ash was on the other side of the door and he couldn’t get to her.
Good. He could stay out there.
“Let me in.”
“No.”
She wouldn’t—and not only because she wasn’t alone in the apartment.
The time when she would do anything for Ash was done and over with.
So what if he suddenly reappeared? He’d been gone long enough that her heartache had turned to bitterness.
If it meant she never stepped foot out of her place again—turning it into a true iron cage like he had mocked her for so long ago—she would if only to avoid coming face to face with Ash.
But he was stubborn. She’d never forgotten that. An arrogant fae through and through, Ash wasn’t just going to accept that.
“If you won’t let me in, then come out here. We have to talk.”
It was a little late for talking.
With a rueful laugh, she snapped back, “Yeah? Give me one reason why I should.”
“I’ll give you two,” came Ash’s haughty reply. “You’re my ffrindau, and you’re pregnant.”
It was a blessing that Callie was leaning against the door. The way her knees went weak to hear that Ash knew… well, dropping to the floor couldn’t be good for the baby.
The baby that her fae lover—not her ffrindau, she refused to think of him as her mate—wasn’t supposed to know about.