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A small room, filled with a small amount of things, for a woman she tried to make small her entire life. I vow then that I will never let this new husband or anyone else make me feel small. I will try with all my might to stand tall. I will never live cowering again.
Whenever someone tries to tell a lie to me, I smell smoke. Whenever I tell a lie, I taste metal.
My whole life I’ve been a vessel, allowing others to fill me with their wants, needs, thoughts… There is so much of everyone else that there is no room left for me. And now, when I need something of my own creation to offer, I come up short.
“Maybe,” he whispers, “I’m trying to protect you because I’m stunning. Because if you were to look at me with those eyes that Oren tells me are like a tempest sea, I could never let you go.”
“I am that man,” he says. “Lord Fenwood was a lie.” “I am fae, I can’t lie, no matter how much I might want to. Everything I told you—everything I was then—is who I am now. You cannot pick the parts of me you enjoy and abandon the rest.”
Thank goodness I’m not the one ruling. I don’t know if I could navigate these types of decisions.
“Even though none of this is happening how I intended, I can’t shake the feeling that you’re meant to be here, with me, while I do this.”
throughout my body. “No emotions?” My eyelids are heavy. Every blink is longer than the last. His lips curve like a scythe, and I am ready for harvest. “No love.” It sounds like a promise. “Though, if you let me, I will make you feel.” “Feel what?” My voice quivers. “Everything.”
“I imagined making you mine as a man should make his wife. I ached to take you to my bed and have you until you screamed my name and your throat was raw. Until my body was the only thing you knew or wanted.”
“Love is the closest thing we have to meaning in this world. The love of a mother for her children, the love between friends, the love of a husband and wife, love for who we are and all those who strove before us to hand us the world we have now—love is why we live, why we fight, why we carry on when things get tough…it is not always easy. But it is our reprieve from true hardship, not the hardship itself.”
“Katria…” He trails off, eyes searching me. “What happened to you before you came to my home?”
“Do you love her?” I lean into the door slightly, pressing my ear against the cool wood, and hold my breath. No, I want to scream, say no. If he doesn’t love me, things remain uncomplicated. It means I haven’t made a mistake. If he doesn’t love me then— “I do,” Davien says.
I have spoken on this and I am your king.” His voice raises at the end to a near shout. Davien points at the ground, as though he is trying to stake the very earth as his own. “No…” I shake my head. “You are not my king. You are the Fae King. And I am clearly nothing but a lowly human vessel housing your magic. So fine, we ride, Your Majesty. But if there is blood today then know it is on your hands.”
“If you smirk like that at me again, I won’t be able to stop myself from kissing that smug expression off your lips.” His breath is hot on my neck, the words deep and gravelly. “Consider this your warning.”
“There were a few times in our history where in lieu of a male heir, a woman took the throne.”
“Despite all odds, I love you, Katria.”
“No you don’t,” I whisper. “I do.” He takes a step forward. “I love you in a way that I never expected to love anyone. I have always been destined to be thrown into a marriage of convenience. I never expected to love.”
But even if you had the time to ask all the questions you need answers to…only you will be able to come to terms with all you have endured. Only you can grant yourself peace now.” He presses his forehead lightly against mine. “And that peace will come from love—loving yourself.”
“Why would you do all that for me?” I whisper. “You know why.” A sly smile plays at the corners of his mouth. “Because I love you, truly. I love you in a way that makes me want to sacrifice for you. That makes me want to move the mountains, or oceans, or stars, to merely see you smile.” He strokes my cheek again, looking down at me with all the wonder in the world. “That is what love is, Katria—what it should be. You are worthy of that love, from me, from others, and from yourself.”
“I want you to kiss me all over until there is not a part of my body that you don’t know. I want you to explore me with your tongue and fingers. I want you to make me yours as a man should make his wife. I want you to go slow until I am breathless and begging, and then I want you to go hard. I want to shatter together and fall like the silvery arcs of shooting stars as we descend from heaven of our making.”
“I will do all of it…and then some,” he rasps. “And when I am done, when you are left aching, blissful, and yet still filled with desire, I will do it again. I will show you as best I am able just how loved you are.”
“I really saw you in the first moment you walked in my door. I have seen your soul, and I have fallen in love with it. So there’s nothing about the mortal casing it’s housed within that could make me love you less.”
“I’m beginning to think that the old folk tales about the fae were more accurate than I previously assumed.” “Oh?” “If I had known that stealing a human and spiriting her away to my world would fill me with such joy and give me the best sleep of my life, I would’ve done it much sooner.”
Then, somehow, I caught up to her. My arms around her, we landed hard on the walkway that stretched around the manor. My back to the stone, her on top of me.” The scent of burning flesh fills my nose and I cringe. “Everything after that was a blur. I was in shock, I think… But my back was so damaged the wound had to be cauterized. Joyce did it with an iron shovel from a set of fireplace tools.” That day was the closest I ever saw her to being worried for me. The entire time, she looked horrified, scared even. And yet, over and over, I can still hear her whispers, monster, monstrous creature,
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nooooooo omg WHAT IF she had wings, that's how she could catch up to Helen and say them and she burned her wings and now she doesn't have them anymore and that's why Joyce called her a monstrous creature???
Even after the fall, I never became afraid of heights. They always felt natural.
omgggg I really need ANSWERS and SOON. because surely it felt natural because she is supposed to FLY?????😭😭😭
“One, not a ‘kid,’” he says firmly. “And two, I know a thing’r two about love.” I snort. “What do you know about love?” “I know it when I see it.” He puffs out his chest. “Like, that night when you and Prince Davien danced. You two are in love. Anyone could see it.”
I’m halfway through my meal when it strikes me that the food still has taste.
“If Davien wasn’t the heir, then why couldn’t you wear the crown?” “I’m sure there’s some squalling babe, or boy, a distant offshoot that has just enough blood in their veins to keep the ritual alive, likely from the last true Aviness who escaped my clutches. But who that babe is?”
It stays. A perfect fit.
Finallyyyyyyyyy
