Five days.
It’s been five endless days since I last saw Ridley. He hasn’t come by, and at first, I was trying to give him space. Space that only lasted about a day and a half before I tried to materialize to him. It proved pointless, though, because it didn’t work.
Every time I arrived where my magic thought he was, there was no Ridley anywhere to be found. To be honest, even though I know it’s irrational and he has every right to avoid me, it’s pissing me off.
I’ll own the fact that I forced distance, that I pushed him away, but he had a part to play too. The part of the egotistical asshole—my doorbell chimes, thankfully interrupting my thoughts.
Grumbling, I push up and wrap my hand around the door handle to pull it open. Bronywyn holds up a bag of what smells suspiciously like tacos, and smiles. “Thought you could use some company.”
“From you or the tacos?” I joke.
“Both.” She moves past me and into my apartment, heading straight for the couch. I follow, plopping down beside her.
“How are you feeling?”
“Normal.” I lift my sleeve and show her my tattoos. “Mostly, anyway.”
Her brows draw together, and she gently touches the huge scar severing the lines of one of my tattoos. “That’s strange. What does Ridley say about it?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
She looks honestly surprised as she stops messing with the tacos and turns her full attention to me. “You haven’t seen him?”
“No. I figured he was out of town or maybe in Faerie. You said time moves differently there, right?”
She continues to stare at me. “He’s still in Billings,” she tells me. “He’s been going out on hunts with Rainey and Elijah almost nightly.”
I ball my fists up, tightening them so much my fingernails bite into the soft flesh of my palm. “Are you serious?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. I thought you knew.”
Groaning, I sink back into my cushions. “I think I might have screwed up.”
“Hold, please.”
She reaches into the bag of tacos and hands me one. I take it, though I don’t immediately unwrap it.
“Tell me what happened.”
“You know what happened.”
“I know that he was into you. You died. He rescued you. You freaked out, tried to date your boss to make him jealous, nearly died, and now we’re here.”
“Way to sum it up,” I joke.
“I thought so,” she replies around a mouthful of taco.
“We didn’t know each other super well before you brought Walker to me,” I start. “I’ve been in quite a few shitty relationships over the years, one arrogant prick after the next—you know how it goes, and then I ended up with the one I thought was going to be perfect. Handsome, smart, capable, all those things that should have made up the bones of a fairy tale.” My thoughts darken as I recall the man I’d once believed would be my happily-ever-after. “Not too long into the relationship, he got really controlling. I didn’t belong at the hospital. Working was for men. Wouldn’t I be happy raising a family? No, I couldn’t go out with friends because it was inappropriate and reflected poorly on him and our relationship.”
“He sounds like a real prince,” she replies dryly.
“Oh yeah, I know how to pick them.” I fall silent, taking a beat to process, recalling the exact moment I woke up and realized I’d completely lost myself. “Long story short, I realized all too quickly that I’d let this asshole run nearly every aspect of my life. I’d quit going out with my friends, stopped reading because he didn’t enjoy it, and if I read while he was with me, it was rude. I changed every single aspect of my personality for this beautiful man who never thought I was capable of anything more than bearing his children and putting food on the table.” Taking a deep breath, I begin to fidget with the paper wrapper wrapped around the taco. “When I realized it, I still didn’t leave. Instead, I confronted him about it, and he slapped me. Right across the face.”
The glass on my table breaks, and I jump.
“Shit, sorry, magic got away from me.”
With a laugh, I get off the couch and kneel with her. Together, we work on picking up the shards of what had once been a crystal bowl gifted to me by the family of a patient. As soon as it’s done, we take our seats on the couch.
“Did you castrate the fucker?” Bronywyn demands.
I shake my head. “I packed my stuff and left. It could have been worse, I know that, and while I’m not emotionally scarred from it, I never, ever wanted to be with another man who tried to dictate my life.”
“Which is exactly what Ridley did when you two first met.”
“And this bond between us, I didn’t ask for it.”
“Ridley is a lot of things,” Bronywyn starts. “But I don’t get a controlling vibe from him. The fact is you were human, Rachel, and as it turns out, being a human in a supernatural world is not a great thing most of the time.”
She’s not wrong. Hell, I ended up dead. “I know that. Trust me, I do.”
“What has he done since you came back? Has he been bossy?”
That’s the part that makes me feel insane. He really has been better since I came back. But I’m so used to expecting him to be an ass that I can’t move on. “You know how someone you hate can do something super ordinary and it will annoy you?”
“You hate Ridley?”
“No. Of course not, but he annoyed the shit out of me when we first met. I was already feeling vulnerable, given my lack of supernatural abilities, and he was making me feel worse. Constantly.”
“He was trying to protect you,” she defends.
“I know that, and given what happened to me, I understand why, but it still annoyed me.”
“You didn’t answer my question, though. Has he been acting the same since you came back?”
I sigh. “No. Not really. I mean, a little, I guess, but after what happened, I imagine that has a lot more to do with trying to protect me until I’m ready than trying to shield me from the world.”
“Exactly. And something else—mated bonds are incredibly powerful. That power, it’s not easy to control for most.”
I think of that morning when I’d appeared in the club. “Tell me about it.”
“If you want my advice—”
“Which I do,” I interrupt.
She flashes a smile. “Good, because you’re about to get it.” She plucks a tomato from the top of her taco. “Anyway, you need to take what you just told me and talk to him. I think you’ll be surprised by the response.”
“I’m not damaged,” I tell her. “I just don’t get into relationships with arrogant men.”
“Rachel, come on, all men are arrogant. Some just know how to handle themselves better than others. Your ex was a dickhead, but that doesn’t mean all men are.”
“I know they’re not.”
“And if you’re anything like me, you’d be bored as crap with someone who didn’t challenge you. Ridley? He’s going to challenge you daily.”
I snort and unwrap the taco. “He will. It’s more than that, though. The idea that my entire life has now been laid out before me, I don’t like it.”
“I get that,” she replies. “But leaving you dead wasn’t an option. You should have seen him, Rachel.”
“I know. I’ve heard.” I sigh, still staring down at the now unwrapped taco I’ve yet to touch. “I wish I knew whether his feelings were real.”
“Listen, out of everyone you know, I am more than qualified to have this particular conversation with you.” She sets her taco aside and turns to face me. “When I bonded myself to Tarnley to save him, much in the way Ridley did with you, I literally had zero clue what to expect. While I am not fae, I can tell you that, from my experience, there has to be something already there for the bond to attach to. Does the fact that his feelings developed quickly make them any less real?”
I consider her words and try to see things from his point of view. For him, this is normal, right? Supernaturals mate all the time, so for him, this would be totally typical. But I grew up human, and according to everything I know, there is no spectacular show of fireworks, no massive ‘I love you’ after the first scene. At least, not when something is real.
“Also, you should know, for a fae, this connection the two of you share? It’s really, really rare and caught him completely off guard. I can tell you that he was not happy with it, either.”
“You think what he feels is real?”
“I think what he feels confuses the shit out of him.” She reaches forward and touches my hand, so I look up at her. “Ridley is not a bad guy, Rachel. Had he been, he never would have stuck around and helped us.”
“He dated an evil witch.”
She chuckles. “True, but he didn’t know what she was, and as soon as he did, he helped us put her down. Something not a lot of people would do. Sacrificing who you love for the greater good—it’s not a great scenario for anyone.”
“Love? He loved her?” I never met Lucy—that fight was over before I fully came into the picture—but I’ve heard enough about the damage she did to know she was a monster. A power-hungry, soulless monster.
“Again, before he knew what she was. Lucy was an integral part of our community. From the outside looking in, she was a good person. When affection gets in the way, it’s easy to be tricked, right?”
My own situation—granted much, much less serious—comes to mind. I’d really believed Michael was a good man. He’d had good friends, a solid family, I never saw the manipulation coming, so to believe Ridley could have gone through something similar with Lucy, it honestly helps me see him in a different light.
“Like I said, you two are having very similar conversations with other people, and you need to be having them with each other.”
“He’s ignoring me now,” I tell her, “dematerializing before I even get there.”
She snorts. “He likely senses you coming. The air shifts a bit when a fae dematerializes.”
“Really?”
“We discovered that when Fearghas started popping up everywhere.”
“Then perhaps I should arrive in a different way.”
“I think that’s a solid plan.” Her grin spreads. “Want a ride?”