Page 55 of Sweetling
“I haven’t come here to argue. I only wish to speak with you, to make clear what has been obscured between us.”
“Figured you’d be sick of me by now.” It was fairly clear her bursts of temper unsettled him. She’d gotten some satisfaction last night from knowing that whatever he’d thought of her before, he hadn’t bargained on someone who would yell back.
Now, though, she was just tired.
“Never. You are myazai.”
“You keep saying that.”
“It’s the truth. I realize now it is something I should have explained long ago. But I’m getting ahead of myself.”
Molly turned to watch in amazement as Allarion bowed low to her, his long fall of silvery hair nearly hitting the floor. The sight stunned her almost as much as it left her squirming in discomfort—to see a being as tall and proud as him stooping like that…it didn’t sit right, for some reason.
“Please, I beg forgiveness of you, Molly. I’m ashamed to have raised my voice to a woman, butyouof all people. I spoke to you in anger, and that is not acceptable.”
It was a flowery apology if Molly ever heard one, but the fact that he made it at all, and he said it so earnestly…
“This is all…a lot,” she muttered, unable to think of anything better to say.
“I understand this. We are from different worlds, you and I, but I like to think the goddesses had a hand in bringing us together. That they knew we would need each other.”
He straightened to his full height, those dark eyes of his somber. The purple had gone dull, not sparkling like jewels but faded like a bruise.
“Like some other folk, the fae believe in a fated one, a perfect mate. Such a union is considered devised and blessed by the goddesses and coveted above all else. The bond betweenazaiis sacred, said to be stronger than those between the fae and their magic. I had not found mine amongst my own kind and long despaired that such a blessing would never be bestowed. And then I saw you.”
Slowly, he closed the distance between them, but rather than loom over her, he bent to kneel before her on one knee. Molly’s heart lurched in her chest, and all the blood that’d gone sluggish in her unmoving body gathered at her cheeks in a blush.
“I will be honest—it’d entered my mind to find a human mate as many of the others hoped to in the otherly village. Bonding to an Eirean woman would help secure my foothold in the native magic and hasten my own in creating the circuit I require to live.”
“So you thought, ah, I’ll just get a poor woman and take her away to my house,” she said, though without any heat. She couldn’t say she was overly surprised—how many times had she seen much the same happen to other women, especially those who didn’t have the safety of a home or business or family. They easily became prey or playthings to more powerful people.
So no, she wasn’t surprised, but she was disappointed to hear that Allarion too would do this.
She’d been beginning to hope he was different.
His wince of shame was telling. “Not quite like that, but yes, I sought an expedient option. I needed to like the woman, of course. It had to be a true union. Then, one day, I saw you—and I knew. I felt it, here.” He laid his hand over where, for a human, a heart would be. “That pull to you. I soon realized what it was—the goddesses led me to you, for you are myazai. My fated one.”
Unease clenched in her middle. “But I’m human.”
“It can happen between a fae and a human. I’ve seen it.”
“But…” Molly just couldn’t swallow this fated lover business. It was too easy. “Why me? I’m no one special. If it’s a human you wanted, Lady Aislinn could’ve introduced you to many who’d gladly be the lady of this manor.”
“I didn’t want a lady or a noblewoman or any other barmaid.” The corners of his mouth lifted, as if he tried for humor, but quickly fell. “I wantedyou,Molly. Since the moment I saw you. Your liveliness, your vitality—it filled up the room, and I was in awe. I knew within a moment why the goddesses led me to you.”
Molly shook her head. “Allarion, that person serving in the tavern isn’t me, not really. It’s an act, a persona. All barmaids do it. Patrons want a jolly serving girl. But that’s not who I am.”
His lips drew thin, and despite his strange features, she could tell this truth troubled him.
Fates, what a mess. All this because she wanted a few tips and her uncle wanted a payout. Maybe her and Brom weren’t so different, after all.
“Then who are you, Molly?”
His voice was gentle, his question soft, but it struck her with all the devastation of a killing blow. A fat tear escaped her lashes, leaving a hot trail down her cheek. That hollowness in her chest expanded wider, threatening to suck all that she was, whatever she was, down into it.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
And how pathetic was that? Separated from the tavern, she didn’t know who Molly Dunne truly was.
