Page 26 of Sharpen Your Claws

What did he want? What did this mean? Once this was over, would they separate? Would Nicholas allow them to? He laid awake worrying, feeling himself slipping further and further into shadow.

10

Nicholas

Everagrimacedatthesingle bedroom apartment Nicholas rented using golden nuggets. Those nuggets would morph into balls of dirt in six months’ time, but that was the renter’s fault for not asking the right questions.

“You are sleeping here. Willingly?” Evera knocked a heel against the bed frame that creaked in response.

The warped floorboards leaned inward. A broken chandelier swayed from the ceiling where a breeze came in through the mismatched ceiling planks. Certainly not a room like the castle’s, but he had no interest in staying where the king would bother him and, potentially, his father. Laurent could find him wherever he went, but he would at least put up a challenge, if only to be mildly annoying.

“For now.” He sat on the bed waiting for sun up.

William had been more receptive toward him last night than expected. He let Nicholas hold him, if only for a moment, and joked a little. It was like reuniting the moon with the ocean.

Evera snickered and spoke as if she read his thoughts. “Your mortal won’t share a bed with you?”

“He said he needs time.”

“That is a mortal’s way of saying they don’t want you.”

“You don’t know him,” he growled.

What if I do not return your affections?William had asked. The possibility never arose in his mind. He couldn’t fathom a world where William didn’t share this voracious want more painful than dying. They were meant to be together, not because of fate. He didn’t believe in such wanton conceptions. They were meant to be because the two of them wove their future together, stitched their story bit by bit through every interaction. They would be because they wanted to be, and nothing mattered more than that.

William would come around. He would see the truth as they spent more time together. That’s what he said he needed, and last night may have proved that. They were close for a moment, and they would have more thanks to this adventure. Nicholas didn’t give a damn about missing mortals. He didn’t care about shadowed disciples. He cared about William, and if giving William his desires meant they could be together, then he would force the world on its axis if he had to.

Evera leaned against the windowsill where the off white paint chipped beneath her fingernails. “I know you well enough to recognize panic. Deceive yourself as much as you need, but that won’t change the truth; the mortal knows you’re a lost cause. The question remains whether he will escape your grasp before you choke the life out of him.”

“You sound like my father,” he spat.

“I hate the bastard, but he is far more intelligent than both of us combined.”

He shot her a spiteful look. “With how you speak, I am wondering if you want to return to Faerie. Maybe you’re waiting for me to give up hope.”

Her voice rose an octave, and nails tore into the windowsill. “You missed the one opportunity we had to change this and you’re too manic to realize that truth. My hope is gone and I see no reason to avoid the inevitable. The sooner this deal is over with, the sooner we can return to our lives.”

“Now, who is the manic one to believe either of our parents will let us do what we want without a fight? Have they not ruled over us our whole lives?” he challenged. “Alvina may not be as ruthless as Laurent, but she has sway over you, over all her children. We’re too young. We know so little compared to our parents. They will have us beneath their thumbs as long as they can. You know this, deep down in the darkest part of your heart, you know I speak true, but you are the one who refuses to see it.”

Sunlight stained the window in a warm yellow glow. Evera stepped aside when he approached, her lips set into a grim line. He opened the window, letting the metallic scent of the city waft through their nostrils.

“Follow me, return to Faerie, bicker all you want, but my mind is made up. I will fight against Laurent and Alvina until the day I die, or they do, preferably by my hand. At least that may be the greatest outcome of this change within me.” He held a hand over his chest where power surged. He thought this energy was loud before, but he couldn’t describe the sensation now. Not an itch, not a craving, a feeling of so much more pushing against every fold of his mind, yearning for freedom.

“Perhaps I can kill them,” he whispered. He didn’t know his own strength, what he was or wasn’t capable of, but he saw what Fearworn could do and he nearly tore their worlds apart. Why couldn’t Nicholas do the same with enough understanding?

“I may have fallen, but they will fall with me and if it gives me a day, a month, a year at William’s side, I will be grateful for it,” he said.

“You are quite mad,” she countered, but didn’t sound so angry about that possibility.

He slipped outside to the streets beneath the window where the damp clung to every breath.

Laurent had a long line of victories and didn’t speak of loss. At some point, Laurent had been young, impressionable, foolish even, but he never spoke on it. Why would he? That may clue Nicholas and his siblings in on a way to beat him. A story could encourage them to give defiance a chance, to stand against him and win. Nicholas never thought that possible for most of his life, but the last two years changed him. Power changed him. He knew that some way, somehow, he would get the upper hand. One may argue he already had by breaking a deal that Laurent thought would keep his son in line.

Evera didn’t believe they could go against Laurent or Alvina. While she wasn’t as old and powerful as Laurent, Alvina remained a force to be reckoned with. She had vast lands and knowledge that could end most. Standing against one, let alone both, would have most quivering in their boots. But if that meant he would be free to stay by William’s side, he would face them. He would face anything.

At the clinic, he snuck in from the windows, using the rafters to encroach upon William’s office. Last time, his presence upset the patients. No one saw him, so that should please William, and he wanted their day to start off as well as it could.

But William wasn’t in his office. Believing he came too early, Nicholas waited along the rooftop for over an hour. Evera found a mortal to deceive, chatting with them in an alley. Since she was distracted, he wandered off to the Vandervult estate, the only other place he thought William could be at such an early hour.

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