Page 60 of Beltane

“Heal them?”Diana’s high-pitched cackle was damn near insulting. “Even I cannot bring back the dead.”

The lie hit me in the gut so hard and fast, it nearly knocked the wind out of me. Either she could do it or…they weren’t dead. A spark of hope lit deep down inside, and I almost let Poppy go. But no, I had the leverage. Diana couldn’t hold me off, fight her husband, and save Poppy at the same time.

“Don’t lie to me, you fucking bitch!” The words spewed out of my lips like an avalanche from my personal stores of ice-cold fury. “Tell me the truth! Can you bring them back?”I said this last part through our mental connection, unwilling to let Ivy in on my plans.

“Come now, Alexei,” Alberich taunted, using his magic to lash wisps of darkness out at both of us, but Diana blocked those with her corresponding white tendrils. “I took them from you. If you want them back, you must make a deal with me.”

“You know what that requires,”Diana chided, her tone patronizing and opportunistic. In our prior conversation, she’d said I was her counterpart, that she almost didn’t let me go the first time we’d met. Whatever she saw in me had prompted her advice about this battle. In the end, it would be me who decided the outcome.And here it is.

She flashed mental images of the rest of my life at her side, living in Faerie as one of her consorts. She showed me whattheirlife would be like, how Carter would father children with both Miri and Ivy, how they’d live at the cabin part-time and at Aberdeen the rest of the year. They’d grow old together, they’d die together, and I would miss it because I’d given myself to the fairy queen to ensure it happened. It wasn’t what I originally had in mind, but if it meant Miri and Carter would survive, if it meant Ivy got to have a life with them…Fuck it. There were worse ways to go.

Reluctance squeezed my lungs as I refused to admit…perhaps I had been wrong. Perhaps there was a fate. Perhaps there was a destiny. The queen had known. Carter and Siobhan had known. I’d been the stubborn idiot that refused to admit it. But now, I no longer could. I had to reconcile what I knew about my existence with how it had all been wrong.This…Thiswas the truth.

“I accept.” I said the words and tossed Poppy to the ground, glancing over my shoulder when I heard the rush of inhale from Miri first and then from Carter.

They weren’t lying on the ground, lifeless and rigid. They hadn’t been stabbed; they weren’t even dead. They pushed to their feet, completely revived and functional. I sighed, the weight of their loss lifting off my chest as I inhaled.

But my relief was short-lived.

“What did you do?” Ivy shoved my shoulders, her tearful eyes even more sorrowful. “What did you do?!”

“What I had to.” I glared at her, steeling my jaw as I prepared myself for her challenge. We didn’t have time for her to act like a pig-headed twat. We needed to move. The vortex had grown while we were fucking around, tearing up trees and decimating the ancient ruins. It had expanded past the veil, now encompassing parts of the human realm.Myrealm.

“You’re a fucking idiot!” Ivy banged her fists on my chest, nearly knocking the wind out of me. “How could you do that?”

Carter ran over to us, his hand in Miri’s, both of them as lucid and clear-headed as they were before any of this.

“What happened?” Miri shook her head.

“Did we…Did we die?” Carter’s eyes searched mine for the truth, but there was no time to explain. Ivy knew what I’d done, pain echoed out of her eyes, squeezing my heart with desperation.

“Diana,” Alberich taunted, tsking his teeth at her. “That’s cheating.”

“You forget your place, Alberich.” Diana’s commanding voice filled the space, cutting off any reply and reminding me we still had business left to handle. Just because I’d signed my soul over to the devil didn’t mean we were out of the woods yet. The walls around us were nearly opaque now, and the other fairies had long since faded from view. “Look at you! Look at the monster you’ve become!”

They continued to bicker, but I’d lost my patience for this farce. It stopped being cute four years ago, and now, I was done with this fairy-tale bullshit.

23

Ivy

Somewhere between my spouses dying and Lex accepting a demented deal with the fairy queen, reality seemed to slow down. By the time I realized Lex had an axe to Poppy’s throat, my feet weren’t moving fast enough. I couldn’t get to him. I couldn’t stop whatever he’d done that had brought Carter and Miri back.

This whole thing had been botched from the beginning, and now that we were standing in the center of it, I needed to finish it. My mind raced, all of the information we’d been told coming back to me.

“They can be stopped,” Lex said, holding my gaze. “We have to do this together.”

“The ruby dust didn’t work.” Miri shook her head, grabbing my hand on one side and Lex’s on the other. Carter took the spot next to me, slipping his big palm into my own, and once the four of us were connected…finallyconnected…the energy flowed between us, bright and magnificent and omnipotent.

Carter’s warmth cascaded up my arm, into my heart, and Miri’s delicate blossoming frost came next, complementing the avalanche of Lex’s ice-coated interior. All of it steamed against my raging inferno of iron turned to steel, radiating out of us in a massive display of emeralds and jades and forest greens, all the colors of the woods at Midsummer.

It reminded me of everything we’d been through together, all the moments when our love had saved us.

“Alberich, please my darling,” Diana roared, the wisps of her magic dwindling as his took over, strangling her energy, dimming its glory. “Please, remember us at our best.”

That sparked a memory. I’d already sent the king away once at my wedding, when I’d claimed Mount Vernon as my own and demanded he leave. I’d been able to connect with his mind and access a part of him that he’d long since forgotten. I closed my eyes and saw it there, shimmering out of the depths of his being.

“I have an idea,”I said inside my spouses’ heads, shoving my way further into their minds than I’d been before. Lex accepted me immediately, probably because I’d been there so many times, and Miri and Carter relented shortly after that. Their emotions rushed through me like a whirlwind of tangy panic and adrenaline-laced fear, but I used that as fuel.

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