Marriage of the Fae Ch. 05

Note to Readers: Thank you so, so much for all your support—comments, emails, votes. You guys keep me in touch with my writing bug. It's so fun to see people invested in the characters that bounce around in my head.

As always, all characters are 21 years or older. Keep in mind that the narrative switches perspectives between our main characters. Enjoy!

Chapter 5

Noelle

Rhys and I have breakfast in a small sunroom-type area contained within his suite. The surreal feeling of the whole thing isn't lost on me—less than a week ago, I was sitting on the laminate countertop of my apartment's six-by-six-foot kitchen, eating corn flakes straight out of the box before work. Less than a week ago I was at the office, staring down a whiteboard list of project goals for our fall software release, trying not to notice Manager Corey staring down my ass. Less than a week ago I was adding a thrill to my day by stopping by the local market after work to pick up granola bars. Now I'm in someone's suite, no, my husband's suite, no, my husband who is a mythical creature's suite, nibbling on an array of fruits and cheeses while a few servants drift in and out of the room. Jesus Christ.

Apparently I've been spacing out for too long, because said husband's hand brushes over mine and squeezes gently. I can't help but tense. "What's on your mind, little bird?"

For the two hours or so since we made our little vows to each other, he's managed to keep up his end of the bargain. Gentle touches only, if any, and pants remaining on. I have a thing or two to say about the pet names, but one step at a time.

"Nothing," I mutter. "Just...it's so different here, than...than back home. I was distracted thinking about it, is all."

His next words surprise me. "Tell me about back home."

Does he really want to know? Is this part of his new promise? It doesn't have to be—I would be perfectly happy with silence on both our ends. "Um," I begin. "I live in a little apartment outside the city. I ride my bike a lot, there are a lot of good trails there. I work at a tech company. I'm good at programming. My family lives a few hours away. They're...they're probably wondering why they haven't heard from me in a few days." My voice drops off at the last bit. I grab a slice of pale orange cheese and take a harsher bite than necessary.

Another squeeze to my hand, which I hadn't realized was still under his until now. "I shouldn't have asked. It upsets you to talk about your old life."

It's not my old life, I want to snap at him, but who am I kidding, really? Even Siobhan, my one true ally here, can't even speak about the possibility of my return to the human world. Maybe it's time to start past-tensing the All About Me spiel.

"It's fine," is all I say. Something comes to mind as I consider Siobhan and my home. "Rhys, I have a question."

"Oh?"

"Do you know much about using portals?"

I catch his frown as I look up at him. "I know the theory," he says. "You're not thinking you could try to use one, are you?"

"Siobhan mentioned that whitegrass could be used across one," I say quietly.

"Technically, yes. Though if you're thinking about trying to communicate with your family with one, it would be nearly impossible. You have no magic, to begin with, and for your message to be conveyed exactly where you wanted it, your intent would have to be incredibly strong. Priest-level, really."

"You don't have that level of magic?" I ask.

He smirks. "You give me too much credit. As a prince, I am a figurehead and a diplomat for the clan. My magical abilities are on the same level as any other very talented Fae. Think about it this way—your human leaders are given social power and great amounts of information, correct? But are they significantly better-versed in the practical ways of Earth science than, say, your top scholars?"

Huh. "No, they're not," I agree. My voice betrays my disappointment. Rhys slides closer to me.

"I'm sorry I can't provide you with more," he says. He sounds sincere. "Right now, what I can offer you are the means to learning your place here. Allow me to do that for you, and we'll at least be closer to being in better favor with the Council."

"I will," I say. "I meet with Siobhan again tomorrow night, right? I'll ask her to start going over the Elixir. Maybe once I understand that better..."

"You will be well on your way," he finishes for me. I don't think it will be that simple, but I don't want to argue, especially with a kind, well-mannered Rhys who's hitting me with an uncharacteristically boyish smile. "Are you finished eating?"

I take one more berry from a glistening wooden bowl and toss it into my mouth. "Now I am."

"Good." He pushes back from the table and stands, holding out a large hand to me. I gingerly place my fingertips in his palm, and he pulls me upright. "I wish to show you around the grounds today. You have not yet had a chance to see the beauty of this place, except in passing."

I stiffen. Last time I saw the grounds "in passing," it was on our way back from the Council meeting, before he brought me into our fancy new bedroom and held me down and hit me and...

I pull my hand out of his grasp, and watch his face harden. "What? You don't want to see the grounds, Noelle? Is there something else you'd rather do?"

The thread between us shudders ever so slightly as I take a step away from him. "I do. It's fine. Sorry. Lead the way."

Rhys closes the distance between us again, almost like we're taking part in a very slow, jerky dance. "Little one, you promised me that you would help me treat you more kindly. That involves being honest with me. Why did you pull away?"

Well, if he wants honesty, I'll give it to him. "I was just remembering the last time we walked on the grounds together," I say. "When we got back, you hit me for not wanting to have sex with you, then you raped me anyway. The automatic association isn't a fucking great one."

Honesty feels great. I don't think the feeling will last long, though.

Color rises in Rhys' usually pale face, and his violet eyes take on the look that tells me he's gearing up to do something bastardly. "Is that—" He cuts himself off suddenly. In the unexpected silence, I realize I'm physically cringing, my fingernails digging into my palms.

Rhys' gaze steadies. "You are right," he whispers.

I am? I mean, of course I am, but, what? I don't let down my defensive position.

"You're right," he repeats. "I was blinded by my anger toward the Council, by the stress of the bond...my behavior after the Council meeting was inexcusable." His eyes graze over my tensed position. "I asked you for honesty, and you gave it, Noelle. I'm not going to hurt you."

"Well that's new," I hear myself choke out.

He winces. "Yes, it is. Considering our new promises to each other, know that I will not hurt you in that way again. I only want to take you on a walking tour of your new home here. Our return to our suite will not be anything like last time." He reaches out again, tugging lightly on my arm where it's folded against my body. "Relax."

I find myself letting a bit of the tension out of the muscles in my arms as he pulls me to him. The bond certainly likes that; I feel loosening of a strain on my breastbone I didn't notice was there. Traitor.

His fingers twitch around my wrist. "Noelle, what's this?"

"What's what?"

Rhys scoops me suddenly into his arms, making me yelp. I squirm valiantly as he crosses the room, trying to kick at him from the awkward angle where my legs are dangling. New promises my ass, His Rapey Highness can't even keep his—

Rhys drops me into an overstuffed linen chair in a corner of the room and crouches in front of me. As he pulls my hand out to inspect, I finally notice what he's been on about.

"You made yourself bleed, Noelle," Rhys sighs. On the palm of my hand are four gooey red crescent marks where my nails dug in. Flipping over my other hand, I find the same evidence there.

I wrinkle my nose. "I guess your last almost-tantrum made me more nervous than I thought," I tell him.

"So you hurt yourself?"

"Oh, yes, I completely meant to maul my own hands with my fingernails. No, Rhys, it was a fucking accident."

He's staring down at the hand he still has cupped in his grasp. "You were so frightened of me that you hurt yourself," he murmurs.

"Yeah, I guess I did." Does he feel guilty? No, that would require having a soul, and I don't think he's there yet.

"Gods...you are so fragile." His voice is softer than I've ever heard it. "I'm sorry, Noelle. I've made you afraid of me. You should not have to..." He trails off, standing up. "Stay there. I'll be back in a blink."

I frown at his slip back into authoritarianism, but remain where I am, my mottled hands falling into my lap. Rhys leaves the room just long enough for the thread to start aching, returning barely a moment later with what looks like two sheets of very thin paper, pressed against each other. A few thick strands of something flat and green are between the sheets. He crouches in front of me again and peels the thin paper apart, exposing the green things to the air. An unrecognizable scent fills my nose; it's slightly earthy, but clean.

I raise an eyebrow. "Is this some kind of witch doctor stuff? They're just little scrapes, they can heal on their own."

"They shouldn't have to. I'd rather they start healing now." Rhys' voice leaves little room for argument, which makes me want to argue more.

"Really, I've gotten cuts on my hands before. Like, last week even. What are those green things?"

"Moonblade grass. It heals minor wounds. Now be quiet, Noelle, and let me help you." He gathers my wrists together in one hand and my breath audibly hitches. "I told you already, I'm not going to hurt you," he repeats.

I sit scowling as he takes out one slip of grass, then the next, placing them on the palms of my hands. They sting a bit, kind of like when you put aloe on a sunburn, in a way that tells you it's working. As the grass sits on each line of cuts across my palms, it seems to be losing its color ever so slowly, like it's leaching out into my skin.

"Is it supposed to be—"

"Yes, Noelle, it is supposed to lose its color. The fluids inside the grass filter out into the wound."

"Is it safe for humans?" I glance up at him, pulling my eyes away from the grass's show.

"Perfectly." Clear violet eyes meet mine, and I'm stalled for a moment by the intensity of his gaze. The thread feels like it's thrumming along with my heartbeat. I curse silently at the thing, toying with my emotions using its sneaky physiological reward system. Making me enjoy our closeness, giving me little zaps of comfort and happiness whenever I'm face-to-face with my otherwise unsavory partner. It's some kind of fucked-up conditioning system.

It's what keeps me from pulling away when Rhys leans in closer, bending down to rest his forehead on mine. We're close, so close that all I can see are the dark fringes of his eyelashes, long enough to brush against his pale cheeks. The pleasant humming of the bond tells me this is right.

No, this is wrong. I pull back. "Is it finished yet?"

Rhys inhales sharply and looks down at my hands. Carefully he peels off the grass, which is now a much lighter shade of green than before, almost translucent.

"Am I going to wake up green tomorrow?"

He chuckles. "No. Look."

I look. Where two minutes ago there were eight bloody half-moons across my palms, now there are only eight pale pinkish crescents, barely-there relics of wounds that could be weeks old. The marks from my nails are all but vanished.

"Holy shit," I remark.

"Lovely," Rhys says. He wraps the grasses back up in their paper and tosses them across the room over his shoulder, where they land perfectly on the table among our breakfast leftovers.

"How does it—"

"I'll get you a book on it. Right now, we're late for our walk, remember?"

Didn't seem to mind dawdling when his face was inches from mine. I'll leave it alone. I shimmy out of the chair, finding it further off the ground than I expected, and land ungracefully on the floor. "You should just get me an encyclopedia at this point, with all the weird shit you have here," I tell him.

Rhys takes my hand again, leading me across the room and out the door of the suite. Hand in hand with him, considering his size, I feel like a child being toted around by an adult. "I will do my best to find you an encyclopedia regarding as much 'weird shit' as possible, little human," he says. Leaving our dishes and the strange grass behind, we walk down the halls of the palace to find a way outside.

**************

Siobhan

I had thought, perhaps, that confessing my betrayal to someone would lighten the load of it on my shoulders, not that I deserve any respite from my guilt. Fortunately for whatever particular god is in charge of my penitence, revealing to Duana my hand in Noelle's torment and the general upheaval of Clan tradition as we knew it did absolutely nothing to ease the burden on my mind.

It's partly due to the fact that since I told the Fae-witch what I had done, she's said nothing but, "Oh."

"Oh?" I said to her this morning as soon as I'd revealed my secret, as she stared impassively at me with those grey eyes. "I tell you I've committed an offense against Faekind, against the tradition of the Clans and my own honor as a Fae woman, and all you can say is, 'oh'? What do you want from me, old woman?!"

She was silent for a long time then. All morning, she's been silent.

Finally, she says, "Am I supposed to want something from you? You are the one who came to me."

I curl my fingers into my hair in frustration. "You truly have no response for me, after I've told you that I am the one who opened that portal, selfishly hoping to ruin the ceremony?"

"Would it make you feel better if I shouted at you?"

No, no, it wouldn't, I realize. I don't deserve to feel better anyway.

I don't have to speak for Duana to understand. "I didn't think so," she says. "That is why I said nothing, Siobhan."

"I'm an affront to our people."

"Perhaps you are. Why did you do it?"

"Anything I say at this point would only be a feeble excuse."

"If you tried explaining yourself to the human and to Rhys, yes. I am but an impassive ear to hear your reasoning, if you think that might help you."

I'm not sure what could help me. Wretched is too kind a word to describe my current state. In a remorseful pit of my own making, more like it. All of the excuses I've been feeding myself since the very beginning seem even weaker as I mull them over with Duana's stony eyes on me. Why did I do it?

I told myself I couldn't bear to marry him. That it would kill me to be bound to another person. Well done, Siobhan. Now a woman half your size and strength gets to take your place.

I already loved another. And you think that merits stealing the life of another, imbecile? Her future for your wanton desires?

I began the portal building process when I was younger and naïve. When the time came, it was all I could think about. Weak.

I didn't think it would actually work—perhaps just pull a tree or an animal through, if anything. Weak! Weak! Weak! You knew exactly what you were doing.

Humans are— I can't even go there now. Humans are what, your personal sacrificial lambs? More deserving of what you couldn't handle?

I'm staring at the floor, one hand still tight in my hair, the other braced on my leg as I sit. Duana hasn't said a word since I fell silent; she simply watches as the full weight of what I've done comes crashing down, as all the snippets of anger and guilt I've been too preoccupied to fully appreciate in the days since the Ceremony finally tip the scale. And my excuses are too weak to balance them out.

I feel like my face is sinking in on itself as I raise my head to look at Duana. Her face is like inland mud passed through a flame, utterly unchanging. My voice is barely a whisper.

"What should I do?"

"My dear Siobhan, I will give you the advice that your fellow nobles never had the good sense to heed when I gave it to them: speak the truth."

**************

Rhys

There's something almost endearing about these questions of hers. Noelle's endless queries on the names of the trees, the various faunal sounds in the nearby forest, even the nature of the architecture we pass, fill the air of our walk. Will I please show her the grass we use to make the strange paper? Are there always so few people walking about, Rhys, or is this unusual?

"Is it me?" she asks solemnly when I tell her it's an unusually quiet day in the area around the palace. It very well may be that everyone is tucked away as of late, whispering about the human who dared take the place of a princess in my marriage bed. Or perhaps about the prince who'd dare to let her. Could this really be the work of the all-powerful Elixir, or have the royals simply lost their minds? I find I'm wondering that last bit myself.

"Don't concern yourself with it," is all I say to her.

She frowns. "It is sort of my concern."

"It's not. Concern yourself with honoring the bond, and with your learning. Those things are within our control." The girl is worried about the opinions of strangers in a strange world, when she's just barely made an effort to become less strange herself. I can worry about the judgment of others enough for the both of us.

"Honoring the bond." She emphasizes each syllable, like she's testing the idea piece by piece. Truly, she would do well to do so.

"Not a difficult task," I tell her dryly.

"Yeah, convenient that the bond is so eager for us to fuck," she spits back.

Gods, I cannot have a moment of peace. I close my eyes for a moment, trying to retain my composure. When I look down to meet her gaze, there's no anger in her dark eyes, only a challenge posed adorably across her face.

"Recall your side of our deal, little bird. I have no more control over the conditions of the bond than you do. All we can do is make the best of it."

She's about to retort when Jerome trots up from behind a low-standing building the Council uses as an auxiliary meeting place. The man has impeccable timing—arguing over the nuances of our relationship is not the way I wished to spend the afternoon with Noelle.

"Prince Rhys, just the man I wanted to see!" The man smiles guilelessly, as if he hasn't most likely been waiting outside the auxiliary Council building for me to pass by. "Hello, Noelle," he adds.

Noelle's eyebrows raise; she's had the kittenish fight knocked out of her by Jerome's arrival. "Hello," she says.

Jerome turns back to me, pressing a scroll of paper into my palm. "Prince, we've just received word from Eila, who is currently at the embassy of the Red Gem Clan. This is her missive."

Eila? My mother? How long since I last heard that name?

"My mother?" I ask stupidly. Noelle shifts beside me, leaning in to look at the paper. I unroll the page, angling it away from her.

To the Council of the Grass Clan,

Word has reached me of my son's Elixir-bound marriage to a human woman.

I would like to meet this woman, and speak to my son.

I cannot disentangle myself from ambassadorial matters at this time, as I am with Red Gem. Their council also wishes to meet Rhys and his bride.

Please direct Rhys, our human, and relevant advisors to visit me there. I would also so love to see Siobhan.