Sight of Solace: The Caelestis Sun Series Book One

by E.K. Pomfret

How has Quenen managed to live so long without being found? The unnatural magic in his eyes is obvious. Who was protecting him?

Tonight he will love me before he hates me.

“Changelings?” I read out loud. Confused at the topic he had handed us. “They’re fae with the ability to change their eyes.” Quenen says quietly. “They hold bits of magic still, and they’re seen as a potential threat to the mating system of Capsian.” He speaks thoughtfully. How does he know what they are and how had I never heard of them before? “Does that actually exist?” I scoff. “There’s more of them than you realize, Ace.”

“The sun compliments you,” he says quietly. The comment took me by surprise. “My mother says I was born from a part of the sun.” I smile softly, feeling the warmth reach my chest. It felt intimate telling him the story. Today has been such a good day. I won’t get trapped in Quenen’s flirtatious game. I have plans for tonight and I don’t want guilt to eat away at me, or that longing feeling to come back and make itself at home in my chest. Right now I feel light and happy. I want to stay in this little bubble for as long as possible.

“How cute of you to dress up for me tonight,” he growls. “however, if you keep that on, I might tear it to shreds, and that would be a shame.”

He knows. Vaela is Xade’s true mate.

I want to vomit. All of the immense pleasure I had just experienced is gone. I am once again deep in the hell of my existence. These years I had never once thought about if Xade were to find his true mate.

“A throuple, Lia.” I blink. Wait, he still truly believed I was his mate? He isn’t angry with me; he isn’t persecuting me. He is trying to get me to agree with him. “A pyramid is the strongest shape. We are both alphas, but Vaela is not.” He gestures to her. “She was made for us, Ophelia. Look at her eyes. She is a third to our soul.” She smiles at me. Completely unknowing that for fourteen years I have made Xade believe I am his mate. Taking him and preventing him from finding her.

He really thinks he gets two mates

“So where do we go from here?” I look at both of them. “Do you expect her to live here with us?” There was no way in hell I was letting her live here with Solace. “We will need to ease Solace into the idea,” Xade replies. Thank lords he’s thinking about her in this situation and not just letting his newfound lust steer his direction.

But not being respected enough to be asked or even told beforehand. That is what stirred the first bit of dislike toward Xade that I had ever felt. Fourteen years and not once had I found a quality I hadn’t liked about him, until tonight.

“Don’t keep things from me, Solace.” His voice seems to be a bit of a warning.

Or what

“If I could do that, I would change my eyes to be a deep mahogany brown, surrounded by the night sky.” Is that how he sees my eyes? I have never heard someone describe my eyes in such a beautiful way.

“If I was to get a tattoo, I would get a sun, because of its ability to light up the darkest parts of me and make me love them.”

The glow I expected my mother to have is on me instead. My hair is tousled and wavy from being washed in Cove’s shower this morning before I came home. My dark eyes were light, and happiness radiated from me. I felt truly beautiful standing here in front of this mirror. I smiled back at myself and imagined how breathtaking I could be with that set of light eyes. I closed them and brought myself back to that moment in the bathroom. I tried to imagine Cove’s wild orange eyes but they didn’t feel right either.

I suddenly feel like I need them all there with me. Anything I didn't think of Bea might be able to, or Fleur could research on a whim. Cove of course was my emotional support.

“Good to see you, little devil.” He says from behind me. She rolls her eyes at his comment but to my surprise gives him a genuine smile. Bea never smiled like that at anyone who wasn’t in our friend group. Did she like Quenen?

“He claims his roommate is a changeling and she’s willing to talk to us for research purposes.”

Hejust said not to tell anyone about his roommate

“The romance section is actually on this floor.” He says. How does he know that she likes romance books? Was he paying attention when we studied in Curiyan last week? “You can check them out in my name as long as you return them in two weeks.”

Hes the best. Cove could never

I look at Cove but know without saying, wherever I go, he will follow.

Like an obedient guard dog

This dumb pixie female. She was trying to soften me up to the idea of the three of us together.

out of the shower shaking. He had always been aggressive with me, and I had enjoyed it but this felt different. This felt like a threat. As if I truly had no other choice but to welcome Vaela into our home. I need to figure out how soon Archar could be here and fast. I couldn’t delay Xade’s wishes for much longer, and now she would be eager to start pushing me as well.

His osmium dagger, the handle formed of an unknown bone, shaped to fit in the palm of a hand. I pick it up and hold it. Its sheath lay in the box. I put it inside and place the box back in its home.

“Don’t speak of my daughter, bitch.” I shove my weight into the dagger toward her heart and she falls back gasping and weakly clawing at the knife in her chest.

I stood and watched as my eyes changed to match the color splattered across my skin. Blood red, the eyes of a murderer. I stand and stare at myself before changing them back to Vaela’s emerald green and orange eyes. I stole her mate, possessed her eyes, and now I had taken her life.

He didn’t like it, as expected, but he didn’t fight me either. After all, I was being honest with him.

Good doggy

I understand the term of dirty magic now, the city seems to hum like a machine that needs to be oiled. Even though the magic keeps the city clean it seems to have a residual film.

He’s shorter than Quenen, maybe five foot nine. But built the same, his dark hair and skin tone match as if they could be brothers. But instead of Quenen’s light-colored chrome eyes, his are dark, almost black in the light of the library. His bare chest and arms are covered in tribal tattoos, similar to Professor Velis’s.

Sepehr

“I have tried to match his but there’s something unreplicable about that chrome coloring.” I look at Quenen’s eyes and think back to myself in the bathroom mirror that day. How had I done that? Was it a trick from my mind?

“Because we are a threat to the natural mating system. If we love someone we can match their eyes and swoon them into thinking we are their mates. If the ultimate goal is to find your mate and bear children with them, then as a changeling we could keep a fae from their true path.”

“Jace at your service.” He smells of alcohol and stardust as Quenen did that night in Curiyan. His hazel eyes are spotted with gray and hazed. How did he already know my name? He and Iris both acted as if my arrival was long awaited.

Que loves to talk about sol

It’s strange, I can imagine all of us hanging out together. Bea and Sepehr would get along with their mutual withdrawn darkness. Cove could potentially get along with Jace and they would all love Iris. Fleur would even fit in, her quiet and bubbly personality would complement Iris. I reveled in the idea for a moment… the idea of our little friend group growing, even if it did include Quenen.

“It takes a while to recover the first time, but you don’t have that luxury. You will need to face your husband and daughter tonight as if none of this happened.”

“I’m coming with you,” Bea spoke first.

“It’s not a ridiculous rebellion, it’s real and it’s happening,” Bea says confidently,

Bea wants to fight

“She’s amazing,” I say, thinking of Iris and her bright green lively eyes. She was not a danger; she did not pose a threat to me or anyone around us. Why are such simple powers forbidden? A natural-born party trick if anything, but a threat to the King? Something isn’t adding up.

I calm in his presence, creating an irritating realization. I’ve somehow become bonded to him even if he is not my mate.

Ignoring the way my heart rate increased as I take a deep breath and send my intentions out to him. I don’t want to see you today. Please just give me space.

Meet me in the Curiyan study hall tomorrow and I’ll bring notes from class. Maybe I’m foolish to believe I can talk to him telepathically. How insane am I to believe him? The deep longing in my gut panged and I could have sworn I heard him in my ear say, “Okay.”

Where are you going? I ignore the voice. Had I opened myself up completely to a channel between us? Shut up. He can’t know this information. Leaving, and getting away from him will be the best way for me to sever this link he has to my mind.

“Something changed today, you let me in. I heard you this morning when you told me to stay home, the notes from class, then suddenly you locked up. What happened?” “I am not a book for you to read Quenen.”

You're literally opening and closing the book constantly to him

Don’t apologize for things that please you.

“I’ve never needed someone the way I need you.” His words hang in the air for a moment. He needs me?

Pure electricity surges through me when he takes my mouth with his. He was like fire. I involuntarily lean my body against his, electricity humming through me, taking my head on a trip outside of my body. I was within myself, within him and watching from across the room all at once.

Finally

“Let me have you.” His hands tighten around my rib cage, “Let me devour you. I’ll crawl on my hands and knees to beg for you, just give me the simple pleasure of worshiping you

How can you look at me with those eyes after kissing me and still lie to my face?” I gape at him, what is he talking about? He points to the mirror above my dresser and my breath catches in my throat. I hadn’t been hallucinating that day. I wasn’t losing my mind. The eyes I wore were his.

“I saw your eyes change when I almost kissed you that day. You know I’m your mate and yet you continue to pass me off for that brute?” His voice raises and I shrink beside him. Losing all confidence I had before. “Quenen, I don’t know,” “I thought surely you would come clean once I introduced you to Iris. I know what you are, Solace. I live with one for fucks sake. Your true eyes match mine.”

“It’s funny how everyone warned you about getting involved with me,” He pauses looking deep into the dark depths of my eyes. “Yet, no one had the decency to warn me about you.”

He looks at me, confused. If only he knew the truth. Quenen’s actions are justified, but Cove’s? I’m not sure. I’ve always felt that something was off about him. About the way he obsessed over Solace. The way he looked at her was as if he could mold her in his hands and make her into his mate. It just goes to show how right my instincts were.

I shade my eyes, but it does not dim the light. I look at my hand and see that the light was reflecting onto it. The light is coming from me. As if a fire was burning deep beneath my skin.

You Are the sun

He walks toward me and places his warm hands on my face. I glow brighter, igniting the gold in his eyes. “Quenen.” I say, shocked that he’s here in my dreamscape with me again. “Solace.” He says, his voice a delusion, “It’s always been you, Solace.”