Page 71 of Beltane

Because the young man who had envisioned his life with Ivy had always imagined Lex and Miri in that scenario. Before things were romantic, they had been our neighbors, the ones that came over on the weekends for burgers and babysat our kids when we needed a date night. And after Midsummer, after we decided we all loved each other, I couldn’t stomach thinking about a future home without them in it.

Now I faced that reality every time I woke up, and nothing seemed worth it. What good was sliding inside Ivy without Lex there to comment on it? What pleasure was there in taking her mouth without Miri pressing sweet kisses into mine? What thrill was there in getting out of bed when Lex wouldn’t be downstairs with coffee or Miri wasn’t around to make breakfast or Ivy had no motivation to smile, much less go about her routine?

I missed both of them. I missed our nights together. And when I searched my heart, I even missed Poppy. She had become a surrogate daughter, almost a little sister, and now I’d never see her again. I’d never get to reconcile what she’d done or hear her apologies. She’d been a member of our family, and now she too left an aching chasm in my soul.

“Weeds,” I said one night at our dinner table, pouring her a glass of wine as she ate her chicken parmesan in silence. At her nickname, she glanced up at me with lifeless eyes. They were perpetually swollen these days, red with tears for all that we’d been through, all that we’d lost. “You need to stop this.”

She didn’t say anything, just stared at me and grabbed her glass to take a long drink. “You, too?” She scoffed and shook her head. “How can you both just give up on him…onus?”

“I died and came back to life.” The experience had been harrowing, and I’d only just now started to peel back the layers on how that fucked me up. I couldn’t remember anything after being stabbed in the chest, and the philosophical implications of that sent me into an existential crisis every time I thought about it. But I knew one thing for certain, one thing that would guide the rest of my existence. “Life is too short to waste away in this house searching for someone who doesn’t want to be found.”

“I’m not wasting away. I’m trying to fix this.”

“Lex is gone,” I said, stammering while I spoke. “He’s on the other side of the realm, and there is no way to get to him, not unless the queen lets him out of his deal. There’s nothing to fix.”

She shook her head. “No, I refuse to believe that. Poppy must be able to help. Perhaps Siobhan could create a new ring or?—”

I cleared my throat, channeling my inner Lex when I said, “Poppy is gone. Siobhan is gone. We are still here.”Iwas still here, and I needed her.

“Carter, I can’t live without him. I—” She put her elbows on the table and dug her palms into her eyes. “—I cannot exist in a world that does not include him.”

Unable to resist her, I reached across the table to grab her hand, tugging it so she’d rise and come to me. When she settled in my lap, I wrapped my arms around her waist and leaned her against my chest, tucking her head under my chin.

“He’s my oldest friend in the world,” she sobbed. “We’ve been together since we were infants.”

“I know.” I kissed her forehead, the pain inside my chest expanding to include hers. At times like these, I wished we still had our gifts. I wished she could tunnel into my mind and give me this torture, give it all to me and I would bear it for both of us. I had long ago faced the reality that I wasn’t enough for Ivy Washington and I never would be. She needed the antagonism that Lex brought her. She needed Miri’s feminine softness. So did I.

I used to love that about our unconventional marriage, and now I hated it. If I could be enough for her, just this once, I’d do whatever I could to ease her torment.

“How could I have let this happen?” She cried into my chest, wrapping her fingers tightly around my shirt. “How could I have left him there?”

“You have to stop blaming yourself.” I twisted her so she was facing me, my hands on either side of her cheeks. “The king and queen did this to us. Lex didn’t have a choice. None of us did.”

“I could have fought harder.”

“You nearly died,” I said. “I did die. We gave it everything we had.”

She fell silent after that, and a few moments later, her soft snores told me she’d fallen asleep.

Thank fucking Lord.She hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since…well…Solstice, perhaps. Or maybe even before that. Honestly, neither had I.

Scooping my arms under her legs, I carried her down the hallway to our massive bed, burying her under the covers before grabbing the pack of cigarettes off the nightstand and walking to the balcony. Biting one between my teeth, I lit it and closed my eyes as I relished the taste and smell. It reminded me so much of him, it brought tears to my eyes.

I stared at the moon, inhaling the death stick while I prayed to whatever deity might take pity on me.

“Please help us,” I said. “If there’s a way to bring him back, to bring them both back, please tell me what I need to do.”

I waited to feel that churning in my gut, the one that told me which cards to pick in a poker game and which direction to go in the dark. I yearned to find that telltale luck that had saved my ass so many times. When nothing came, I made a sad laugh and sighed.

I used to hate the curse, and I would have done anything to get rid of it. I didn’t want to be marked, and I definitely didn’t want to be a part of some screwed-up fairy tale. But now that it was gone, I missed it. It had become a part of me, like my kidney or my liver, and I had a gaping hole where it used to be, not just because of Lex and Miri.

We had been changed and then changed back, and the return to normalcy sucked. I just didn’t understand. The last thing my luck ever told me was that there would be no sacrifice, that the queen had been messing with Lex. I had been so sure we’d end up together, that all four of us would grow old and gray just like Lex described.

I grieved my lost husband as much as both of my wives, and given the chance, I would trade all of this for one more day of what we had.

A familiar crack echoed through the night, and I turned to glance inside. Ivy still slept, too lost to the real world to have heard. But I did, and I’d recognize that noise anywhere. I walked out of the bedroom and down the hallway to the living room, glancing around.

“Poppy?” I called out, taking a slow, deep breath to calm my racing heart. She’d been in Faerie when the veil closed, but she had control over space and time. If she could teleport wherever she wanted, perhaps she could go in between the realms. “Is that you?”

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