Page 66 of Pixie Problems
The last week had been detrimental to my health. I’d never felt fear like I’d felt when Dice’s shop had exploded. I’d looked at Dice, and then at the crater that used to be her shop, and my knees had gone weak at the horrifying thought that if August and Cy had been a few minutes more behind us, Dice would be gone.
Just gone.
I’d have survived, but she’d be dead.
I swallowed, putting a hand to my suddenly churning stomach. And I don’t know if it was because it was night, and we were laying sated under a blanket full of stars, or if it was because there wasn’t direct eye contact happening right now, but I opened my mouth and said, “I think my sister and I were twin souls.”
Her indrawn breath was loud in the stillness of the park. She sat up and leaned closer to me so she could see me clearly. Pixies had better eyesight than humans, but less than pretty much every other paranormal out there. “Are you sure?” she asked. She sounded devastated, and for some reason her care and concern, her utter focus, warmed me enough so that I could take a deep breath again.
I nodded, swallowing again. “Yeah,” I rasped. “I wasn’t sure until today. Elves don’t have a word for it like the vampires do. We just knew that every so often two people would be more connected than normal. Sometimes friends, sometimes family, sometimes lovers. I know mates are like that, but this happens to non-mates. It happened to my sister and I.”
Dice rubbed a hand over my hurting heart and lay her head on my chest, cuddling into me. Normally, I ran hotter than her, but tonight she was warming me, inside and out. “Tell me about her.”
I thought for a minute, ordering my thoughts. “Her name was Maja. She was . . .” I hesitated for a moment. “Have you ever seen Snow White and the Seven Dwarves?”
“Yes.”
“She was a little like that. She was kind, gentle. Everyone loved her. And animals flocked to her.” I chuckled, remembering the many times Maja had gotten into trouble because she was an animal magnet. “You name it, it happened to her. My mom told me that after she brought her home from the hospital when she was born, she left the window open in the nursery for some fresh air and left the room. Later, my sister was babbling on the baby monitor, making a lot of happy sounds, so my mom thought she’d peak in and see what Maja was doing. It turned out that she’d been talking with a golden eagle, a grey wolf, and a barn owl. They were all in her room, looking into her crib. My mom said she panicked for about five seconds and was about to race forward and scoop up Maja when she realized Maja was talking to the animals . . . and they were talking back.”
“She could talk to them?Allof them?”
I nodded. “Yep. It didn’t matter if they were fish or fowl, mammal or lizard, she could speak to them. Obviously after that my parents knew it was one of Maja’s gifts, but,” I shook my head, “there were times that it created such chaos.”
Dice still had her open palm against my heart, as if she could protect me from the pain of my memories. “Did you guys have to share a room?”
I shook my head. “Thankfully not. I wouldn’t have fit with all the animals she’d kept in there.” I chuckled, remembering all the good times. Even the last memory I had of her, begging her not to go because the weather had been so bad, and then fishing her body out of the chasm the tree had smashed into the icy lake, even those memories had a sort of golden tint to them right now.
For years and years, I’d only felt an immense black hole at her loss, as if the grief kept sucking everything in, but never letting anything out. Maja had been my person. She’d understood me, loved me, teased me. We could speak telepathically, even over great distances. She’d gotten me into trouble on numerous occasions and I’d gotten her into trouble just as often, and then we’d gotten each otheroutof trouble because that was the honorable code we’d had as family. We’d been inseparable, totally unlike most siblings I’d known over the years.
For the first time since we’d lost her over a hundred years ago, the black hole released its grip, and I closed my eyes, and sobbed. All this time I’d been unable to mourn her. I’d shoved all of the sadness down into a deep, dark pit, and I’d closed the pit up. But Draven had helped me to see that by allowing myself torememberher, tofeelthe loss of her and not shove it to a dark corner of my mind, that I honored not only her life, but her death. I honored Maja.
She was gone. She’d been gone for many years. And for many years it had felt like a hole had been punched through my heart. Until my best friend Mia had come and brought light and fun into my life, and then my friendships with Draven and Mes, and then my relationship with Dice, I’d felt like I was just going through the motions. But I finally felt like I could move on. That I could heal. The sadness, the deepache,would never go away completely. I knew—because Draven had told me—that sometimes it was one step forward and three steps backward, but Iwouldmake progress. Itwouldstart to hurt less.
Dice wasn’t saying anything, but she was now wrapped around me like an anaconda, holding me tight, completely on top of me. The tightness felt safe and warm, and her bodyweight felt comforting. I tried to breathe through the tightness of my chest. My leaky eyes felt gritty like sandpaper, and my nose felt runny and swollen. I choked on my breaths, my chest shuddering. “Draven said it was okay to mourn her. To allow myself to feel her loss completely, so that I can begin to heal. I hadn’t started to do that until I began meeting with him.”
Dice nodded against my neck. Her voice was watery. “I’m going to kiss him on the mouth the next time I see him. Maybe offer him my lemon-lime soda juiced up pixie blood.”
I chuckled. “Yes to the blood, please no to the kiss. I don’t want to kill one of my best friends.”
She laughed and kissed my cheek. It was a comfort kiss. An “I’m here for you and love you,” kiss, and I melted. I seriously loved my pixie. She was everything I’d ever wanted in a mate.
Speaking of mates.
“You know, technically, we’re mates, yes?” I asked, softly rubbing her back.
“Because I have part of your soul?”
I nodded.
“Yep.”
I raised an eyebrow. “No concerns about that?”
My pixie lifted up so she could see my face, took my cheeks in her hands, leaned down so she was nose to nose, and whispered, “I’m all in, Rhys. All. In.”
Chapter20
Dice
