Page 23 of Of Pixies and Promises
“Sid?”
“I hear it calling to me.”
“The lake?” She sat up.
He nodded, and despite the lurch of hope, that maybe the lake had answers to his problems, he said, “I have done bad things, Fangs. There’s no doubt in my mind that I would float. These Guardians I detested for being cruel and selfish were the ones who survived the horror of initiation. Not me. If it speaks to their character, what does that say about mine?”
“You think they were all innocent when they jumped in? They had blood on their hands too. We don’t know why the Well gives power to some fae and not others. We only know that those emerging from the initiation dedicate their lives to protecting the Well. And, yes, we know that most of the time… they turn out to be good fae.” She patted his chest. “But they didn’t all start that way. And they don’t all end that way.”
Was she saying he had a chance? “Have any humans…”
“Gone in?” she finished.
He nodded, but the sadness in her eyes answered him. He was too much of a coward to be the first. Too selfish in not wanting to leave her. He squeezed her shoulder.
“So then I should go to the Order and find Silver. If I beg her forgiveness, her vampire mate might not kill me on sight.”
“Why would he kill you?”
“Besides the fact I used to fuck his mate, I also tried to hit her when I found out she’d betrayed us.”
Nyra went silent. He craned his neck and found her angry as she traced a finger on his abdomen.
“I’m yours, Nyra,” he said.
“But won’t you come with me?” Panic tightened her voice as she sat up. “To my tribe?”
“Of course,” he said. “That’s where I intend to be, but first I need?—”
His eyes darted about, searching for an answer.
“You need closure,” she answered, cocking her head. “You need to make peace with the one you hurt?”
He nodded.
She bared her pixie fangs. “If she weren’t mated, I’d be jealous. And I’d cut the?—”
He laughed and covered her mouth. “Don’t.”
She tugged his hand away. “But you would be, too, right? I mean. If there was a male from my past that I fucked before I started my life with you. You’d feel?—”
A possessive snarl ripped out of his lips before she could finish.
“Yes,” he hissed. “I’d be jealous.”
Something flittered in her gaze, and he couldn’t tell if it was worry, doubt, or satisfaction. Her gaze softened, and she shuffled closer to trail her hands down his front. Something like regret mixed with longing filled her expression. “If we had a Well-blessed mating like your friend, we wouldn’t be in this predicament.”
Silver and Shade’s Well-blessed mating bond had presented as a matching blue, glowing arm tattoo on each of them. From what scraps of intel he’d gathered during his raids and from spies in Elphyne, they’d learned this bond was rare. Only a select few Guardians in the Twelve had the bond in all of Elphyne. Apparently, it had been centuries since another Well-blessed bond presented.
Nyra probably meant that if they had one of these rare bonds, their union would be respected and accepted by fae. But there were many reasons why it would never happen. Each Guardian was mated with a human who had been frozen and asleep for centuries from the old world. He wasbornin this time. He had no immediate link to the old world.
He also had no mana. He wasn’t fae. Inside his heart was a cold and barren place, just like the city he’d lived in his entire life. Only Nyra warmed that ice.
“We’ll make it work,” he promised. “Let’s get dressed.”
He slipped his pants, shirt, and boots on. He was about to hunt for something for Nyra to wear because her last outfit had been destroyed. But she took care of it by waving her hand and conjuring a woven leaf and vine outfit from her magic.
His brows raised. “Do all pixies wear plants?”
