Page 4 of Solstice

I took a deep breath and slid in between the sheets, grabbing Ivy’s wrists to stop her from flinging her hands at my head.

“X,” I murmured, tugging her in close. She struggled and pushed my shoulders, clawing at my chest to get away.

“No, stop it. Get off me.” She thought I was the monster in her dreams.

“X, it’s me, goddamn it. Stop. Shh.” I kissed her head and tucked her nose in my neck, forcing her to breathe me in deeply. Even asleep, she recognized my scent, and I knew hers. I could pick it out of a room full of people. Our lives had always been lived together, even when we didn’t like it.

Then it happened, the thing we’d been practicing for years. I touched her, and our minds connected.

“It’s okay,”I told her through her gift.“You’re asleep. It’s just a dream.”

She froze and took another deep breath, sighing and relaxing into me, her arms going around my waist, her face burrowing deeper into my chest.

“Lex,” she breathed.

“Ivy,” I said.

“Thank you,”she murmured mentally.“Thank you.”

She fell back to sleep, but I stayed awake and ruminated—about life, about death, about this twisted relationship I had with her.

After Samhain, Carter and Miri kept their promise. We got together every year for Christmas and took summer vacations to remote parts of the world where no one would find us, and those who did had no idea who we were.

We even visited Poppy, who I still didn’t trust completely. I won’t say I regretted suggesting we should leave her in Faerie because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. But something about her still raised the hairs on the back of my neck, even after all these years.

Did it make me a cold, heartless prick that I didn’t trust a twelve-year-old girl?

Maybe, but I could swear I looked into her eyes and saw someone older than any of us staring back out at me. That, of course, caused conflict between Ivy and me.

My fiancée loved her and thought she was the child that had never been given to her and Carter. Poppy took advantage of that. Which brought me right back around to this fractured, duct-taped thing she and I called a betrothal.

Carter and Miri would say Ivy and I had been in love with each other since we were children. While I wouldn’t go that far, I’d admit my feelings for Ivy were complex and difficult to understand.

I loved her unconditionally. A part of me couldn’t live without her and knew our square would be incomplete if she disappeared. We were a team. Partners. Together, we had to live a life we didn’t choose and make the most of it.

But lately, that wasn’t enough for me.

I’d come home to Ivy and Carter fucking in the shower, the sounds of her delighted giggle igniting a jealous fire in my gut. This time, it wasn’t about him. I’d catch her between Miri’s legs, kissing and biting and licking, and a heat rolled through me that had nothing to do with my princess. I could kiss and bite Miri anytime I wanted.

It rankled that Ivy would never do that to me, never willingly peer up from between my legs and giggle and lick me until I came on her face.

Why do I want her to?

After everything, after Midsummer and the breakup and Samhain, we should have come to some kind of understanding. Maybe that we could admit the fact we were two sides of the same coin or we could only be complete together, that half of a puzzle was no puzzle at all.

But whenever Carter left, Ivy returned to her isolation. Whenever Miri went home, Ivy retreated inside her political shell, the fake one that answered questions diplomatically and pretended like the only desire she had for me was the one that made her want to punch my teeth out.

We were political allies, faces to put on a household name.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

I hated that, most of all. I wanted to make Ivy squeal. I wanted to be in her bed when she fell asleep and roll over when she woke up. I wanted it to be real.

I didn’t know why, and it didn’t matter anymore because I realized, there in the dark, listening to the sounds of her peaceful sleep, that I’d do anything to make it happen. We’d been playing this game of wills since we were children, and I so rarely denied myself the things I wanted.

I didn’t know why I craved Ivy all of a sudden. Was it the jealousy of the others? Was it an entire lifetime of this insufferable urge finally catching up to me? Or maybe it was always there, trapped behind a door neither of us had the guts to open.

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