Chapter Seven

 

 

 

Benton

“Oh, hell no! Look what the cat dragged in! It’s Anna!”

I rushed past the entrance of the commons where Anna, Shade, Soap, and a whole lot of Teleen were hanging out after the meeting with Kilara. The Ancient had retired for the evening, which probably meant she’d left the caverns completely. They had no need to rest, so why stick around?

I reached out and picked up my sister, Anna, swinging her around as she squealed, slapping my chest to put her down.

“Benton! You drop me and you’re toast. I mean it!”

Placing her on her feet once more, I gave her a good look, beaming at seeing my little sister again. Her skin gleamed white, an unnatural porcelain. Flawless. It was strange seeing her look so immaculate, but it not her I was seeing, it was the effects of Faerie. Immortalizing the mortal.

Suppressing the frown straining against my lips, I conjured a smile. “You look great, sis.”

“And you always look like you just rolled out of bed. That’s talent.”

I wrinkled my nose. “You bet. What brings you to Teleen? Really, this place is gruesomely depressing.”

Anna peered around, taking in the commons with interest. “It’s been a while since I’ve been here. It’s not as bad as you led me to believe.”

“Oh, I forgot. You’ve been cooped up in The Withering Palace, so this must look like paradise comparing to that.”

“Let’s be honest, it’s not as bad as you think.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “You’ve been breathing too much Unseelie taint, obviously.”

She smacked my chest playfully. “Bug off, Benton. I need to speak to Shade.”

I turned and bowed, holding my arm out in my older sister’s direction. “She’s right over yonder, Your Majesty.”

“Shut up. I’m not royalty yet.”

“Yet?” I snickered. “Pardon me, Your Spoiledness.”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “You’re pathetic.”

“Thank you.”

“Any time.”

I watched her stroll toward Shade and pressed my lips together. If I could prevent her from marrying Oran, the Unseelie King, I would, but there was no changing Anna’s mind. When she got something stuck in there, it was darn near impossible to wedge it back out.

Unless….

Nautilus entered the room in a hurry, scampering to reach Anna. As he approached, he called her name, and she turned. Her face lit up like sky lanterns in a pitch-black night. I’d never seen her so excited to see anyone. She practically reached out and jumped into his arms, giving him a more than friendly squeeze.

That’s right. Nautilus had a thing for Anna. If he could lure her away from Oran, I felt sure I wouldn’t be the only one pleased. But how does anyone lure a bride away from the Unseelie king when he threatened to dissolve Shade and Dylan’s marriage? At least Soap just wanted to be my sister’s second husband, not completely dissolve anything. Oran had marched his massive army into The Scren and demanded she leave her husband for him. It was nothing short of shocking.

They released each other and began whispering to one another. I wasn’t about to intrude on their conversation or eavesdrop, so I scanned the rest of the room for something to do. Isolde happened to walk in at that very moment. Her timing was always impeccable.

“Hey, gorgeous.” I jogged up to her and held out my arms as if we hadn’t just seen each other earlier in the day, trekking through the haunted forest.

“Hello, yourself.” Isolde folder her arms and glared at me, leaving me hanging with my arms outstretched. “You didn’t tell me you had a girlfriend. Who’s Zena?”

I dropped my arms, feeling the blood drain from my face. “She’s not my girlfriend. She’s a girl, yeah, but we… me and her… we’re not that.”

“What are you then? I’ve heard from Soap you were quite cozy.”

Damn that changeling brat. I was going to have words with him later.

“We spent time together, but it wasn’t like that. I helped her find her mother, who was looking for her. And helped her find and free her brother. She’s Nephilim, like you. She just didn’t know it. I had to help her. In the process, her powers developed, and she found out she had a twin named Xyon.”

I couldn’t have sounded more outrageous. I saw that none of it was convincing Isolde that Zena and I were….

What were Zena and I? I had wanted more, but just like with Sary, life got in the way. She’d found her brother and headed off to return to her mother Rachel in the Raven faery stronghold. She wasn’t in her right mind, so they had gone off to see if they could help her. Twins. Together, they were a sight to behold. There was no severing that bond. Once again, I’d been left out in the freezing cold like always.

My luck with women was nonexistent.

“So she ditched you then?” Isolde lifted an eyebrow, invested in my answer.

I shrugged. “You could say that. I tend to send the women running for their lives.” I chuckled, but inside I felt the burn of heartache I knew all too well. “What about you? You and Ciaran were what, exactly?”

“You don’t have to worry about Ciaran. He did wake me up after a week of seeing me unconscious. He was a wreck. Poor guy couldn’t stand watching me cursed, so it lit a fire under his arse, and he got it all figured out.”

“Where is he now?”

She reached out for me and pulled me into a tight hug. “He’s not here, is he? I am. You don’t need to worry about Ciaran. He and I were never a thing. He wanted to be, but he wasn’t the one I needed.”

I perked up at her words. My heart stammered at the same time, and I felt my breath hitch from the way she held me. She was my first love, but I would love it if she were my last. Life had sent us on different paths twice now, leaving us to roam the world on our own. Now, pressed together once more, I hoped it wouldn’t be splitting our paths again.

“You know, I’ve always needed you, Isolde.”

She pulled back and peered up into my eyes, hers gleaming with affection that made my insides ripple. Her lips were the perfect shade of pink; plump and beckoning. Even though she currently hid her wings, I could feel the two nodules on her back as I stroked her skin with my hands.

“I can say the same to you, Benton. We keep getting thrown apart. How do we stop that from happening?”

“Oh, don’t worry. This time, you can rest assured that I’ll be sticking to you like the plague, like honey, like super glue, like those thorns that won’t come off your socks when you tread through the fields.”

“Hey now, don’t be like them and annoy me to death.”

“Never.”

She eyed me up and down, still pressed against my chest where I would let her stay forever. She had no idea how she affected me after all this time, but I hoped I did the same for her. She’d been so against touching me the last time we’d met, especially with her ragtag faery orphan group and Ciaran hanging around. But now, alone with just her and me in our own little world, she wasn’t wasting any time.

“Let’s get out of here.”

“Where do you want to go?” I asked.

She smiled roguishly and fluttered her eyelashes as she pulled away, tugging on my arm as she went. “Your room, silly. I’m tired of waiting for you to make the first move. Tired of waiting for the world to fall apart. You want me, you’d better come and get me.”

I grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”

Letting her drag me out of the grand hallway, my smile couldn’t be wiped off my face by anyone. Not even Kilara. Things would work out, but if they didn’t, we’d all be there for Shade. In the meantime, I needed to settle this with Isolde and show her exactly how I felt.