Page 64 of Beltane

“How am I supposed to do that without you?” Miri stepped back, wrapping her arms around Ivy’s waist and tucking her head under the ginger’s chin. I sighed, knowing they would find strength in each other.

I turned to Carter, who had his hands on his hips, staring at me with bloodshot eyes, wet streaks running down his cheeks.

“No,” he said.

“Yes.” I held my arms out. “Get in here. Tell me you love me.”

“There isn’t supposed to be a sacrifice,” he said. “We are supposed to go home together. You—” His voice broke and he cleared his throat to try to hide it. “You made me a promise.”

I nodded and rubbed the back of my neck, knowing I wouldn’t be able to hold up my end of it after all. “I hope you can forgive me, Chicago. I did save your life.”

“My life?” Carter let out a sardonic laugh and hung his head. “What is my life without you in it? What are any of our lives without you?”

“You’ll have each other.” It was hardly a consolation. If it had been any of them, if it were me on the other end of this, I wouldn’t drop it. I’d fight harder than Ivy. I’d find some way to get the queen to transfer the deal to me instead.

“What about the gift, huh?” Carter sneered. “We can’t be apart.”

“We blew our load on the big guy,” I said. “The gift is gone.”

“How do you know that?” Ivy’s choked tone nearly buckled my knees.

“We said until the end.” I forced myself to take a deep breath, to steady the pounding in my heart. “This is the end.”

“No,” Ivy cut in. “Stop saying that. I claimed the realm and everyone in it. I claimed you. You belong to me.”

I smiled, warmth settling in my gut to hear her say that. If the Ivy from this memory could see her now, she’d be pink with disbelief. I snickered to myself at the thought, but a sudden tension in my gut interrupted my sentiment. We were almost out of time. Diana had come to take me, and these were literally my last fucking words to them. I had to make them good.

“Carter, you made me a promise, too. Don’t forget it.”

My physical body stirred, and I was seconds away from opening my eyes to a foreign realm with fairies I barely knew. I memorized the way they looked and how I felt at that moment, with nothing but deep, abiding affection for these three amazing humans.

“I love you all. And for the love of fucking God, take care of each other, yeah?”

Perhaps sensing it was almost time, Carter rushed toward me, pulling me into his arms with a deep kiss on my lips. I inhaled his woodsy sandalwood scent, letting the softness of his lips yank me under.

I closed my eyes on that deep shade of indigo, and when I opened them again, I was alone.

25

Miri

Iwoke in the forest. My entire body ached. The joints in my fingers and toes cracked as I sat up and glanced around, hoping to find Lex on the other side of me, hoping our farewell hadn’t been real.

But I only found Carter and Ivy huddled together about a meter away. She kneeled on the ground, leaning into his shoulder while they both sobbed.

“I can’t believe he did this,” she said. “There has to be a way back. There has to be a way to get to him.”

I shoved my fingers into the dirt, closing my eyes and willing the life energy of the plants around me to grow, but they didn’t respond. I listened for the trees, praying I might hear their whispers, but nothing came. Only the sounds of my spouses’ tears and my own racing heart echoed through my mind. Lex, of course, had been right. Our connection to fairy magic had faded away, and whether that was because we’d cast ourselves out or because we’d spent it on the fairy king, I’d never know.

Pushing onto my knees, I crawled to Ivy and took her hands. The rush of connection that usually came from touching my wife was noticeably absent, and when I looked down at our joined palms, the scars were gone.

Our physical manifestation of the oath we’d taken,Until the end,had disappeared. In its place was clear, unblemished skin.

I grabbed Ivy’s face, holding her cheeks so I could stare into her eyes. “It’s over, my love. He wanted it this way. We need to go home.”

“We can’t leave him, Miri.” She scrunched her eyebrows and narrowed her steel gaze. “We need to go back.”

I would have sat there and argued with her for the rest of eternity if that was what it took, but footsteps cut through our anguish, and a familiar voice made me stand up.

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