10. Willow
Chapter 10
Willow
I t feels like a strange dream inside Legion’s study. Only a week ago, my problems revolved around avoiding babysitting duties and deciding which house to rob next. Now, I’m back in the middle of a war, caught between politics. The only difference is no one is using me as a tool. And I am mated to six demigods. Bodin’s possessive reaction proves our connection is trying to push through Titania’s enchantment.
He glares at me with expressive eyes, yet the rest of him is hard and unyielding. I should be angry—he shoved Briar. But as I look into his eyes and find vulnerability beneath the violence, I want to know why he tries to hide it. What happened in his very long life that shaped his personality? It’s hard to believe this reaction is born of Titania’s recent false narrative. It’s something else, something deeply experienced.
Emrys hasn’t moved an inch since the door closed. His rusty-colored eyes are always filled with so much bitterness. Styx lurks in the shadows between the bookcases, still pretending to read. Why do they distrust me so much? This version of them doesn’t even know me. So what did the other queens do to them?
And then there is Legion. He watches me, patiently, steadily. He is the First, the Knight Commander. He is too beautiful, enigmatic, and sophisticated to go unnoticed on a battlefield. The buttons on his double-breasted silk waistcoat accentuate his broad shoulders and athletic frame. His black silk shirt sleeves are rolled casually to his elbows, revealing muscular forearms as they rest on his desk. Long, silken hair falls from a widow’s peak. His skin is so pale and luminous that it reminds me of carved crystal. It was he who reached for me on that battlefield and locked elegant fingers around my ankle.
He who called me nothing.
And I called them monsters.
But I don’t think that makes Legion appear so sad and haunted. He probably doesn’t even remember now that Fox is gone. No, he seems to be the type who cannot be shaken from his foundations. Once he wants something, he takes it. He does not care if he must wait eons for the right time or opportunity. His hidden torment comes from somewhere else, and I want to know where. I want to banish it from his eyes so he is free to smile.
Just once.
“Willow.” A warning tone deepens his voice. He never once lowers his eyes from mine.
“Yes, Legion?” I return, blinking innocently. Maybe I also want to ruffle his control. Ignoring the rules always felt so liberating to me before. They should all try it sometime.
“Sir,” he reminds me curtly. “I am your Lord Knight Commander. You will address me—all of us—as sir.”
Baby Hunt bares his fangs at Legion, whose brows raise incredulously. Laughter peals out of me. Does Legion’s arrogance come from this false identity, or was he born with it? He clearly believes even a baby dragon with “wild” in its name should act tame around him.
“Aww, you little terror cutie.” I scratch the soft scales around Baby Hunt’s skull. “You can’t help being protective when everyone here is a big fat grump.” He thumps his hind leg, tongue lolling in pleasure as I deepen the scratch. “But I love you. I promise you yum-yums as soon as we get out of here.” When my stomach growls, I add, “I’m starving too.”
“Bodin,” Legion clips.
A grunt behind me warns of Bodin’s approach. He scoops up the baby dragon and tosses him outside the study before closing the door. He turns to me and arches an eyebrow as if to say Checkmate.
The sounds of destruction travel through the gap beneath the door. They should have let me entertain the dragon. At least we would have saved the furniture.
Bodin stalks to where Styx lurks and retrieves something I can’t distinguish. He unwraps strips of shadow to reveal the jar of stolen wisps. Holding my gaze, he crosses to Legion’s desk and drops it with a thunk.
All eyes narrow on me. After a moment, I ask, “You all remember you can’t get into my head, right? Styx can only project his thoughts to me or listen to mine . . . well, apparently, I shout them anyway. The point is, I’m not a mind reader. If you have a question, ask it.”
A fee-lion seems to have caught their tongues because they’re baffled at my question. I collect the jar and slide my butt onto the desk, crinkling the papers as I get comfortable.
Styx finally leaves the shadows and walks to stand beside Bodin. Every instinct in my body wants to look at him—to inspect his clothes and compare them to Fox’s “ostentatious” fashion sense. Instead, I swing my legs and inspect the little balls of trapped magic.
“Why do you think Titania is hoarding these in her temple with the treasures?” I muse. “More importantly, why aren’t any found in nature? Where have all the wisps gone?”
Silence.
I glance up and catch multiple gazes averting from my bare legs. Someone clears their throat, and a smirk tugs at my lips. They can’t fight their attraction to me even when they’re magically bound to forget their true natures. There is a saying in Elphyne—the Well wants what it wants. It means we can’t fight fate. If the Well blesses a union, there is no stopping it. My parents fought their attraction to each other. My brother fought his attraction to Laurel. Leaf—the most stubborn Guardian of all, fought his fate so hard that he sent himself on missions in the opposite direction of my mother’s psychic guidance to find his Well-blessed mate. He was happy being brooding and lonely for the rest of his life. As it turned out, his mate Nova turned up anyway. She was someone he loved and lost centuries ago.
“All streams lead to the Wellspring,” Styx mutters, then realizes he spoke aloud and faces the war map with a scowl.
“Listening in on my thoughts? ” I tease him, mind to mind.
Sensing I’ve made his brother uncomfortable, Emrys snarls and snatches the jar from my fingers.
“Explain yourself, Shadow.” Legion frowns at my legs. “And kindly remove yourself from my desk.”
So polite. So faerie. Ugh.
Some possessive part of me wants to get a rise out of him. It wants to obliterate that faerie decorum. It belongs to Titania and her stupid, fake rules and stupid, fake pleasantries.
Styx shoots me a curious sideways glance, and I assume he heard my thoughts. In the temple, he became quite impish when I warned him not to break the jars of wisps. He broke more.
“I’m quite comfortable here, thank you,” I answer Legion and swing my legs.
“Give me one turn of the hourglass with her in my chambers,” Emrys promises darkly.
“Your bed chambers?” My eager tone makes him balk. I almost laugh. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him confused or awkward like this.
“Give me half a turn,” Bodin offers with a growl. “That’s all I need to crush her insolence.”
I pretend to consider it. “Well, crushing sounds kind of hot if it involves me between the two of you.”
“Thirty seconds,” Styx counters.
“ Crimson , Styx,” I laugh, shaking my head in disbelief. “Thirty seconds?”
“One second,” he corrects, baring his sharp monstrous fangs.
“I hope you last longer than that,” I tease, mind-to-mind.
“What?” He blinks.
“In the bedroom,” I explain, waggling my brows. “You’re going to need to last longer than one second—correction—longer than thirty seconds if you want to keep up with me. Fox could go all night.”
His gaze dips to my swinging legs.
“Enough,” Legion snaps, gripping my calf to halt the next swing. “Remove yourself from my desk, Willow, or we will do it for you.”
Our eyes collide. My whole world starts in that connection but ends where his warm grip zings electricity into my limbs. I see a hint of desperation in his expression and remember what brought me here. Fox is gone.
“Fine.” I sigh, sliding from his desk and onto a guest chair. “Explain what?”
“Everything,” Legion replies. “What happened with Fox? How did you release Styx if you have no magic? How did you get out of the temple?”
Emrys slams the jar onto the desk. “Why did Bodin find that by your side as you slept in Varen’s bed?”
“Were you planning on returning to—” Bodin pauses as he pulls a crumpled letter from his pocket, unfolds it, and scowls to read. “—Elphyne?”
“With Varen?” Legion adds, his brows puckering. “Were you going to take him with you?”
“Whoa, whoa. One outrageous claim at a time.” I blink rapidly, processing which of their questions to tackle first. Wait. “What’s in the letter?” I ask. “Did Fox write it?”
He didn’t write me a letter. He let me believe everything was fine until it wasn’t. No one answers.
“You clearly know what happened.” I gesture at Styx. “He’s here. Fox isn’t because he blindsided me. He . . .”
Cherish me.
His angst-ridden voice crashes into my mind. I squeeze my eyes closed against the memory, but it’s no use. Cherish me. Cherish me. Cherish me. Each time it repeats, I remember new details. His voice broke with emotion. He was afraid. Doubtful. I hold my breath and wish away the agony. I pray to the Well, and my tears don’t spill.
“Show me,” Styx whispers into my mind.
I shake my head. “It hurts too much.”
Instead, I slip my fingers into my pocket and grip the spectacles until they cut into my wounded palm. The pain grounds me. It reminds me of my purpose.
“This is for you.” I hand Legion the spectacles. “A gift from Fox.”
Bodin intercepts, stealing them. Just like that, the illusion of my control vanishes. I snarl and launch at him, but he holds the spectacles high over his head. He is an immovable mountain of muscle. Every ounce of my training to disarm someone like him flees my mind. All I can think is that Fox honored me with that choice. It was a gift. The right is mine.
“Don’t put them on,” I warn, jumping for the prize, but he keeps jerking them out of reach. “They’re not for you.”
“I am the Knight Protector,” he snaps, dark eyes flashing. “Gifts go through me.”
“It’s probably cursed,” Styx adds, circling me like a hungry wolf. “She’s hiding something from me.”
The door bursts open. Varen storms in and heads straight for Legion, the baby Hunt hot at his feet. He slams his palms on the desk and shouts, “We’re out of honey!”
I’ve never been happier to see him. Bodin’s hand briefly lowers in the distraction, and I jump, snagging the spectacles. I dart around the desk, intending to throw myself on Legion and shove them on his face.
But my steps falter when I find him already watching me, ignoring Varen’s continued demands. Does he know? I make a split decision and drop to my knees, a silent plea in my eyes as I look up at him.
By now, the others have caught on to what happened. Varen distracted them. Styx flickers to Legion’s side, his eyes bleeding into black. Small conical spikes erupt over his brows and knuckles, and he bares a mouth full of razor-sharp fangs. Bodin and Emrys crowd closer, ready to protect their First at a moment’s notice.
A Nightmare once called Legion a prince. Right now, with all of us centered around him, I have no doubt they were right.
Fox showed me a book filled with their history. These Sluagh are six of the original seven born of the Morrigan—the Cauldron’s deity of chaos. He alluded to King Oberon owning and controlling them once. But that’s not the type of royalty I think the Nightmare spoke of. They can’t all be princes of the underworld. Fox and Bodin weren’t called princes.
I look into Legion’s beautiful, expressive eyes and see the heavy burden of leadership. I see a cunning, ruthless male willing to do anything to protect the innocent people of Avorlorna. I see a blue, glimmering teardrop beneath his left eye and am reminded of the goodness inside of them.
He might be arrogant, abrupt, and bossy, but his brothers respect him—even if they don’t remember why.
“Fox enchanted these.” I lift the brass spectacles higher. “So the wearer can see through Titania’s forgetting curse or whatever makes you forget who you really are. The enchantment works only for the original wearer and can’t be transferred. He also said the choice is mine.” I feel a dash of guilt when Styx recognizes them from the temple. He probably wonders why I didn’t choose him. Or Emrys. Or Bodin. I can’t look any of them in the eyes because the only answer is there can be no room for disobedience. “I choose you, Legion.”