Page 68 of Curse the Fae

I had shared myself with a Fae, the river of the ruler, my enemy. A monster had taken my virginity, as I’d taken his. He made love to me roughly, fucked me fluidly, and I had enjoyed every moment of it. Like a raging wanton, I’d sobbed with bliss, crooned his name, and begged for more. With this viper, I’d gone mad with lust.

That’s all it was. Primal, greedy lust. My treachery had nothing to do with the truths we’d shared in The Mer Cascades or The Fountain of Tears. Had it?

I can’t tell what would be worse—to betray my people and my family for an empty tryst or to have an affair that actually means something.

The latter is moot, though. It hadn’t meant a thing.

What have I done? What have Idone?

The evidence comes into stark relief. His hair is strewn across his profile, while my own layers hang in disarray. Purple markings stain below my navel, over a single breast, and across one shoulder—the places where he’d sucked on my flesh.

We had fallen asleep afterward. We’d gone limp on the bank and knotted ourselves into a ball of limbs. Our feet and calves had extended into the water, where the pond had quivered. Faint patches of serpent skin—the fragments of a tail—radiant along Elixir’s legs where the pond touches him. If he’d been submerged, he would have shifted fully.

As deeply as he’d been hammering inside me, Elixir sleeps just as deeply, not so much as a shift in breathing. With his head flopped sideways, the seam of his mouth relaxed, and his joints slumped, the water lord resembles a marooned sea creature, a beached Fae stripped of clothing.

Normally, his expressions are either harsh, as if in the throes of battle, or as inscrutable as a stone wall. Never has he looked so peaceful, so tender, so good. I tilt my head to stare at him, and my fingers reach out, intending to brush aside his onyx mane.

Before I make contact, my hand halts, and my knuckles curl. This is wrong. I’m ruined, disgraced, and a traitor. My heart clenches, which gives way to panic lancing through my stomach.

I can’t do this. I have no right to do this.

I want to stay. I want to leave.

I want him to wake up with a sleepy, pouty face. I want him to fall into an eternal slumber, so he’ll never harm another living mortal.

I want to talk with him. I want his silence.

I want him lunging inside me again. I want him as far from me as possible.

I hate him. I don’t hate him.

I scramble to my feet, wrap myself in the torn panels of my dress, tether it closed with an errant reed, and dash from the pond. Three seconds later, I swivel back around, dart inside the cave, and pluck my spear off the ground.ThenI flee.

It takes a while to gather my composure, to orientate my present location in relation to The Fountain of Tears, where I’d found Elixir strumming the harp, and retrace my steps back to The Sunken Isle. Anxiety prickles through me as I skulk through the tunnels and cross shallow brooks. While sneaking over bridges in The Twisted Canals, I grip my spear and cast furtive glances at every alley and shadow.

How much time has passed? The resident insects and amphibians haven’t begun their eventide chorusing, so it can’t be dusk yet.

At last, I stuff my sandals into their hiding spot and plunge into the lake. I swim mindlessly and forcefully, then plow from the surface, having scarcely felt the effort, much less the water pressure. Sloshing into the chamber, I find the snake curled on the floor beneath my bed.

I move in haste, afraid of stopping to think. I discard the frayed sapphire dress, dry myself with the towel hooked behind the wardrobe door, and throw on an ivory robe. Then I give into temptation. I seek out my reflection in the lantern-lit window and inspect my disheveled appearance, from my tousled hair to my bright eyes.

Do I look any different?

A breeze rustles the robe’s sheer material and shivers the tub water. My eyes widen. I swerve toward the looming Fae several paces away, his eyes a mellow gold.

“Elixir—,” I blurt out.

“Cove—,” he rasps at the same time.

It happens again, both of us forging ahead.

“I was—”

“You were—”

We pause. The silence thickens, the air clogged with awkwardness, repentance, and dangerous longing. I feel it, sense it, lean into it.

Elixir claws through his hair. He looks utterly spent, his mane in shambles, and his leggings and robe rumpled. His expression is the tamest I’ve ever seen it, drained of creases and trenches. In fact, he looks washed ashore—befuddled and lost, unsure of how he got here.

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