Page 7 of Beltane

All we have is us.

“Look at you.” Lex raised an eyebrow. “Like death warmed over.”

“Lex,” Carter cut in, giving him acut-her-some-slackexpression, but I squeezed his hand to let him know it was okay. I deserved this.

“Fuck that.” Lex shifted his glare from Carter to me. “Poppy’s gone, the fucking fairy king has Jon and Kit, the queen’s mind is fried, and here you are.” He chuckled incredulously, rubbing his thumb over his eyebrow before inhaling deep on his cigarette and stabbing it out. “Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Lex, knock it off.” Carter’s curt tone slapped with righteous justice.

I opened my mouth, knowing I should spill my guts. “I, uh…” I cleared my throat and straightened my shoulders, staring them dead in the eye as I said, “I know my absence has been challenging, and I apologize for any inconvenience.”

“Inconvenience.” Lex’s features dropped, all pretense gone. “This is a goddamn nightmare.”

Ivy stepped toward me, her gray eyes going from accusatory to curious. She touched Lex’s arm, giving him a glance that made him clench his jaw and shift his shoulders.

“C’mon, Princess,” he continued. “You owe us an explanation.”

“What happened to you, Miri?” she murmured, her features so calm and welcoming despite all I’d put her through, all the world had put her through.

Excuses flipped through my mind faster than I could rationalize them, but in the end, I only dropped my head and murmured, “I don’t know, and I’m scared.”

Ivy nodded and closed the rest of the distance between us to pull me into her arms, tucking her head into my neck so she could inhale me deeply. God, how I had missed her. Her vanilla-sugar scent wrapped around me, reminding me of what it was like to love her, to truly be hers in every way that mattered. It took me back to that dorm room at boarding school, just her and me and our secret kisses between us. I wrapped my arms around her chest and held her so tight, I thought I might break her in two. Ivy had always been tall and statuesque, but now the hard edges of her bones dug into my skin when we touched. We were two skeletons, holding each other up. We needed rest. We needed a break.

We needed each other.

Stinging tears poured down my cheeks when she stepped away and cupped my face, bringing her soft lips to mine for a wet, loving kiss.

“I missed you,” Ivy said. “I’m so mad at you, but I love you and I missed you.”

“Please forgive me.” My chest cracked in two at the broken words, seaming itself back together again at the same time. I had longed for the rest of them as much as I had for Ivy, but there was something about my wife that set her apart. “I have so much to tell you. I just…” My heart broke, and I didn’t have the strength to say it all, even as I knew they deserved the truth.

“I forgive you,” Ivy said, kissing me again. “Whatever it is, whatever happened to you, I forgive you.” She said it over and over, kissing my nose and my cheeks, wiping away my tears with her thumbs. A weight lifted off my chest, one she didn’t even know existed, but it made me love her infinitely more. “You’re home now. That’s all that matters. I’ll take you any way I can have you.”

I choked on the guilt that came with that because I knew, even as I nodded and leaned in to kiss her again, that I was greedy for wanting a life with them. I didn’t deserve them, and my very presence put them in danger. We needed to defeat the fairy king, break this curse, and get our family back, but after that? Would they ever be safe with me here? If I were gone, they could live their lives in peace, and nothing like the scandal that had erupted when pictures of Ivy and me hit the press would happen again.

I didn’t tell Ivy that. I let her pull me into her arms and run her fingers through my hair, brushing it back from my face.

“Isn’t this a fucking picture-perfect moment?” Lex snapped, forcing Ivy to take a step away from me so she could face him. “Should I run upstairs and grab my Nokia? Or do you remember that the rest of us have been dealing with this messby ourselvesfor the last three months?” His hazel eyes pierced me with his icy cruelty, holding me in my spot.

I understood what this was. I had scared him, and now, he wanted to punish me to make sure I knew,really knew,how it had impacted him. This time, my absence had done more than break his heart. I had allowed Ivy to waste away, and whether it was because we were so connected or because this would have happened anyway, I had put us in danger.

Worst of all, I’d lefthim.Him, who had picked me up eight years ago after I returned home from boarding school, brokenhearted from leaving Ivy in the first place. Him, who had loved me and accepted me the way I was, no questions asked.

In college, Lex and I had a tumultuous relationship. We were together as much as we were broken up, which meant we’d seen the worst of each other. I called him my prince of darkness because when he got angry, he burned so cold, it hurt to be near him. He thrived in the shadows, but I, too, had a foot in the frost. I’d once reveled in his darkness with him, and when he lost his way, it was always me there leading him back to himself.

“What do you suppose I’ve been dealing with?” I couldn’t help the tremble in my voice and the shake in my limbs as the truth spilled out of me before I could stop it. I had wanted to ease into this confession, but even before his fairy gift, Lex always had a way of getting me to spill the beans. “The king is messing with my mind, and if he can do that, who knows what else he can do? There is no place safe. You should get as far away from me as you can.”

Ivy balked and recoiled while Lex raised an eyebrow. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“You don’t always have to be a dick to get what you want.” Carter shoved at Lex’s shoulder, but Lex only refocused on me and shook his head, accusation in his stare.

I opened my mouth to tell him to sod off, but a loud thump from upstairs stole my attention, and I glanced at Ivy with a raised eyebrow.

“Ah, shit,” Lex said, heading toward the second floor.

2

Miri

---