Page 19 of The Apples Hung Like Stars
The old trials were meant to test both the mortal and fae lovers; test the mortal for fidelity and staying power, and the fae’s ability to cope with feeling utterly hopeless.
There’s very little that we immortals can’t fix, if we put our minds to it. Sure there, are some things that are more complicated than others, but there are gods for just about every ailment on the sun—and the moon—so feeling helpless isn’t something we experience all that often.
But I’m feeling it now. Everything about this situation makes me feel out of control, and if that’s howIfeel, then for Janet, who didn’t even know that the fae were real before this evening…
I look back at my mortal, eyes closed, a sheen of sweat on her brow, and slump onto the seat next to her.
She doesn’t open her eyes, but she does lean back into me and I can feel the relief radiate through her when I take her hand.
“It’s gone quiet,” she says. “You’ve made it go quiet.”
Chapter Fifteen
Janet
Goodness only knows how we look, the four of us in various states of disarray, standing in the middle of a sex club.
It’s the first clear thought I’ve had since being beset by the Pack voices, and it’s more than a little welcome.
I tighten my grip on Clíodhna’s hand and, when the voices abate, open one eye cautiously to take in the Morrígan and Ciara, properly this time. I know them now, because I am Pack. Well, I am kind of Pack; not quite in the way that they are, but Pack-enough that they accept me.
The Morrígan is taller than I fully comprehended, and I wish I could have seen her wolf when she shifted. She feels different, like I should be baring my neck in submission to her. She raises an eyebrow at me and I raise one back. I might be Pack, but I’m not her submissive.
That makes her chuckle.
Ciara is slight, beside her, red hair tied up into a jaunty ponytail that swings behind her. She looks worried.
I turn my head, and Clíodhna leans forward, her lips brushing my cheek. It’s all that I can do to smile tiredly at her.
No talking. I appreciate the fact that none of them are talking. No one in the entirety of the Golden Apple seems tobe talking, in fact. I look around, and most of them seem to be cowering away from the Morrígan.
I’m the Dark Goddess, and that puts the fae on edge, she whispers in my mind, and I can hear the laughter in her voice.They can never be entirely certain what it is that I’m going to choose to do next. It’s also why you can still hear me, when the rest of the Pack is blocked out by Clíodhna.
It’s a curious predicament to be in. Definitely a better one than being trapped in the body of a giant snake, or being hunted across a room by red-eyed banshees that look like they want to suck the marrow from my bones.
Do I want the voices to go away completely?
I don’t know. It feels like a tether, a bond to other people, and that’s something that I’ve felt has been missing from my life for a long time. And now I feel like I have two of those bonds, one to the Pack, and one to Clíodhna.
Clíodhna feels very still and very quiet. She’s been still and quiet, especially when she was building the tension for me on the cross earlier, but she neverfeltstill or quiet. She’s like a livewire, zinging into action, taking up the air in every space she walks into.
Her sister walks into my sightline; the hair on my neck pricks up and both Ciara and the Morrígan turn defensively towards her. It’s like we are all three in sync, and I can sense the disappointment from Clíodhna beside me. She feels left out.
I squeeze her hand. “If it weren’t for you,” I say, “I wouldn’t bother with any of this.”
She doesn’t reply with words, but the answering squeeze of her hand tells me everything I need to know.
“Teach me how to shut them out,” I say to the Morrígan. “Please.”
She nods, and then literally shakes herself out of her skin. All of a sudden, I’m face with a very large, very red, wolf.
“I didn’t know wolves come in that colour,” I laugh, my nervousness showing through.
Her nose nuzzles up against my hand and it’s okay, she’s Pack. I recognise her. This time I don’t hear her thoughts, Iseethem, like flashes of film, running through my brain. She’s showing me strands of thread, all different colours and it takes a minute or two with being bombarded with the same images, over and over, but I get it. The threads are the different voices in the pack. That makes sense.
Then she sends me an image of a pin and I understand what she’s meaning for me to do. I can pin the threads to a different part of my mind. They’ll always be there if I need them, but they won’t be overshadowing every minute of every day.
It takes longer than I’d like to put what she suggests into practice. Lots of thinking really hard in a particular direction, and twitchy fingers, trying to pull and move and coax things where I want them to be.
