Page 31 of The Maleficent Faerie
“You didn’t receive any magic?” The Void King’s words pull me out of my speculation.
I search for the familiar threads of power, pulling gently. I’m still drained to the dregs. Eonnula did not refill me.
Tears spring to my eyes again. Why am I weeping so much today? I don’t usually cry in front of others. It’s a sign of weak faith.
I want to ask someone what this means, to express the wretchedness I feel over Eonnula’s apparent disfavor.
The Void King’s fevered words echo in my mind:If you can’t talk to your enemies, who can you talk to?
“Eonnula hates me,” I burst out. “I’ve done something to anger her.”
“Why do you say that?”
“At the Lifegiving Festival, I didn’t feel the Surge. Even in the gatherings my mothers have conducted, I experience the Surge differently than others. I always thought it was because the groups were small, but—it seems I’m the problem. I’mwrong,somehow. I think I’ve always been wrong.”
Angrily I brush tears from my cheeks. When he doesn’t speak, I continue. “No matter how many times I’ve saved Dawn from death or capture, I never feel quite confident in myself. And when I fail, when I make a foolish choice or a mistake, I can’t bear it. It plagues me for days—weeks—longer.”
“I know the feeling.”
I cast him a disbelieving look. “What about everything you said just now? That you’re enough?”
“I can know that, and not always feel it.” He sighs. “As much as I tell others they can reveal themselves fully in these sessions, I have trouble allowing myself to be open. I have to maintain a certain level of control, even when I worship. If I let everything out—if I showed my true fear and rage and violence, my men would lose hope. I don’t have the luxury of experiencing all my inner pain, or yielding all control. Not ever. Not with anyone.”
He rises, stretching his wings. “But we’re talking about you, little viper. You say you’ve always felt wrong. What do you mean?”
I cringe, knocking a fist against my forehead. “Why did I tell you that? I’m so fucking stupid—”
“Don’t call yourself stupid,” he says sharply.
Startled, I glance up.
His handsome face tightens with pained disapproval. “You’re not stupid. You didn’t have a choice about any of this.”
I get to my feet, which brings me tantalizingly close to him. There’s a hands-breadth of space between our bodies, and the proximity thrills through me, a heated compulsion.
“So you think it’s true,” I say hoarsely. “You think Eonnula has cut me off for some reason. I suppose that makes you happy. Keeping a powerless Fae prisoner is so much easier, after all, isn’t it, Your Majesty?”
“Nothing about you is easy.”
I spin away with a scoff, but he catches both my hands and whirls me back to face him.
“Call me Malec,” he says.
I inhale sharply, trying to think of a taunt, a retort—but I can’t speak as his fingers curl around mine, gentle, almost caressing. I stare at the two tiny dots of green shining deep, deep in his pupils. Those glowing spots seem to advance and recede as I watch them. It’s a mesmerizing dance, and I can’t look away.
“Do your wings respond to your emotions?” His low voice reverberates through my chest, quivering along my very heartstrings. “Anger, pain, fear, joy, arousal? Are they sensitive to touch?”
Why is he curious about that? Does he think it’s related to my problem with Eonnula? I don’t suppose it can hurt to tell him. I answer in a dazed, distant voice, still entranced by his eyes. “My wings respond when I think of flying. But no, they aren’t sensitive.”
“And why do you think that is?”
“The circumstances of my birth were unique. As I said, I’m different from other Fae.”
“And that distresses you.” His eyes are liquid sin flecked with emerald light, luring me in, compelling me to confess.
“I think my distress is fairly obvious.” My words are barely a breath. Why can’t I look away?
A delicate tug at my fingers, then another. Metal sliding over skin.
