Page 43 of Merciless King

“And we’re off.” Dean puts the car into gear, turning around the circular driveway and pulling out towards the road. “You can put the windows down if you want. It’s a nice night.”

I tap the button, feeling the wind rush through my hair as it flows into the car, and I close my eye briefly, surrendering to the feeling of being happy for once.

I haven’t felt like this in a long time. Free, happy, looking forward to what the night might bring. If I’m being honest, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever have a night like this again, really. I know that the fact that it’s with Cayde and Dean means I shouldn’t trust it, but—I want to. I want to have this night, this happiness, just for a little while.

Dean slides his hand across the center console as he drives, resting it on my bare thigh, and I feel a tingle of warmth spread over my skin at his touch. I half expect him to push it further, to slide his hand up inside my shorts and start to finger me in the car or something, but he doesn’t. He just rests it there, the warm weight of it somehow reassuring and keeps driving until he turns down a smaller side road, and I can see lights in the distance.

“What—oh my god!”

Just past the tall line of trees all down the sides of the road, I can see it opening into the Blackmoor fairgrounds, a place that I used to love when I was a kid but hadn’t been to in so long that I’d all but forgotten about it. It’s ablaze with lights, the fall fair in full swing. As we drive towards the parking lot, I see that it’s packed with people, the air filled with the sounds of the rides and the carnival music and the smells of greasy fried food and sugar.

It’s so good that I almost want to cry, my throat choked with nostalgia. There’s no way that either of them could have known that this used to be one of my favorite places as a kid, but this was their idea for a date all the same, and that chokes me up until I think I might not be able to speak without crying.

I can feel all of my resolve to keep my walls up and my distance from them crumbling. Instead, I just feel that rush of butterflies again as Dean comes around to open my car door. Cayde gets out, too, both of them standing there looking as casual as if them taking me to the fair isn’t the strangest thing they’ve ever done since I woke up in the house.

“We thought this would be a fun date,” Cayde says, narrowing his eyes as he catches sight of my face. “Wait—is something wrong?”

“No. Not at all.” I shake my head quickly, forcing myself not to start crying. “It’s perfect.”

Dean and Cayde exchange a look, and then they both shrug, each of them offering me a hand. “Come on. Let’s go then.”

I walk in between them, hand in hand, and I feel like I’m in some kind of alternate reality, walking into the crisp fall night towards the lights and music of the fair with my—boyfriends? I’ve never thought of Cayde and Dean like that before, but maybe just for tonight. My boyfriends. It has a ring to it that I like.

“Have you ever been to the fair?” I glance between the two of them. It definitely doesn’t seem like a place that either of them would go—ever, really.

“No,” Cayde says, and Dean shakes his head. “This wasn’t exactly—the kind of place our families took us when we were kids.”

I’m hardly surprised by that. “Well, it was mine,” I say as we walk up to the gates, and Dean pulls his wallet out, paying for three tickets—something else that shocks me. I would have assumed they’d just demand to be let in, being the heirs or whatever, and Dean catches a glimpse of my expression as we walk through the wire gate.

“I’m giving back to the community,” he says with a smirk as he pockets his slim leather wallet again. “What? Did you just expect me to tell them to let us pass, I’m the Blackmoor heir?”

“That’s exactly what I expected,” I tell him, a smirk on my own face as I look up at his handsome one, his lips curling upwards as he looks down at me. “Be honest, Dean, is that the first time you’ve ever paid for something in this town?”

“Possibly.” He eyes me. “Come on, let’s get some food that’ll we’ll regret later.”

“We’re young,” Cayde says, glancing towards one of the white and aqua food trucks with lights shining from atop it, lighting up a huge circle all around. “We don’t regret anything we eat yet.”

“So you used to come here as a kid?” Dean asks as we get in line—something else that’s a new experience for him and Cayde both, I’m sure. “Your parents brought you, I guess?”

“My mom.” I shift my weight from one foot to the other, feeling my stomach tighten thinking about it. I wonder if it will evernotbe hard to think about it if those memories will ever just be good instead of something that makes my bones and teeth ache with grief. If I’ll ever be able to think about my mom’s hand in mine as she boosted me up onto the rides without feeling my heart constrict or remember my father’s boisterous laugh as we threw darts at water balloons without wanting to cry.

Maybe this was a bad idea.I know Dean and Cayde meant for this to be a fun night, that they didn’t even know this was somewhere I used to come as a kid. I can’t help but wonder what either of my parents would think if they saw me right now, between these two boys, a Blackmoor and a St. Vincent.

I already know, though, really. My father would be mistrustful. He’d say that I had nothing in common with these boys, and he’d be right, really. He’d say that we worked for the families, we didn’t mingle with them, and he’d be right about that too. My mother would be quiet but worried, her brow creasing at the sight of them, and she wouldn’t tell me to stay away because deep down, she’d be hopeful that loving one or both of these boys would mean me lifting myself out of the poverty I’d grown up in. My father would only see their arrogance and self-entitlement. Still, my mother would see a life for me in which I’d never have to wonder if the electric bill was going to be paid or calculate the cost of groceries as I put them in the cart to make sure I could afford them at checkout.

Honestly, even now, I’m not sure if my mother would tell me to leave. If she knew the intimate details of what they’ve made me do and what I’ve done with them—and please, god, don’t let her ever find out—she’d be horrified, but on the surface, my mother might not think this arrangement was so bad. “Love doesn’t fill the cupboards,” I’d heard her say more than once when I’d asked her why she was so upset when she and my father were so happy. “I love him, but I also need to make dinner.”

I glance between Dean and Cayde, both of who are studying the menu as if it’s in a foreign language instead of just offering up hamburgers and Italian sausages in brightly colored font, and I feel more conflicted than ever. There’s no one to help me make a decision anymore. My father is gone, dead because of his own choice. My mother is a servant on the Blackmoor Estate, her life in as much danger as mine. And Mia, my best and only friend, thinks that I shouldn’t trust any of the heirs. Not Cayde, or Dean, or Jaxon.

Tonight is making me feel as if she’s wrong, though. As if there’s a chance that Icantrust them, that maybe they really do want to change. To do things differently. After all, they’re standing in line with me at a cheap food truck, ordering corn dogs and burgers, Cayde asking for extra mustard. Dean is looking anxiously over at the Ferris wheel, and my heart feels lighter than it has in days or weeks or maybe even months, as if it might fly right out of my chest.

I don’t know how I’ll feel tomorrow. But right now, there’s nowhere I’d rather be than here.

Athena

“Ihaven’t had a corn dog in ages,” Cayde says, shoving his in mustard and ketchup in the cardboard container as we walk away from the food truck towards a picnic table. “I remember sneaking them from a gas station, sometimes. And then somehow my father heard about it, and I got in trouble. Not ‘appropriate’ food for me.”

“Because you’re rich?” I glance at him, taking a big bite out of my own burger, relish squeezing out around the edges of the bun. I’ve always liked relish on burgers more than actual pickles.

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