Page 21 of Seduction of a Psychopomp
None of the rooms had candles lit or a fire going, as I would expect to find in whatever bedroom he was sleeping in. Maybe he used fae lights as well? But I found none of those either. At the very end of the hall, I found a small library, and I eyed the towering shelves of books with a mixture of apprehension and awe. The shelves stood menacingly tall—heavy wooden pieces that looked as old as the keep itself. Here, too, the shadows clung to the shelves and ceiling, such that the tops of them couldn’t be seen for the thick, viscous tendrils of gloom that hid the tops from my pitifully small fae light.
“Celeste?”
I shrieked like a hellcat, spinning toward the voice and trying with all my might to fling as much defensive energy as I could at whatever had spooked me—which was exactly none. No magic was flung. Several things happened at once. First, I realized I was a dummy and had been startled once again by my own husband. Then, in my futile effort to blast him with magical energy, I lost control of all my other magic, so my wings appeared and my fae light vanished, dousing me in complete darkness. And lastly, since I didn’t have much practice staying upright lately—let alone whirling around like an overwrought top—I promptly fell on my backside, pinning one of my wings painfully between my body and the stone floor. It all happened so fast that even Victor couldn’t catch me, though not for lack of trying. I suspect he could have made it in time if he hadn’t been so surprised, but before I could even register the bolt of pain from my fall, he already had me back in the air with his arms around me. He clutched me tightly against his body, and I promptly burst into tears. Not dainty, quiet, demure tears. Big, gasping, sobbing tears.
“Celeste, what’swrong?” His own voice was a panicked gasp as he swiftly carried me a few steps and then lowered into a seated position with me perched on his lap. His hands smoothed over my body, feeling for injuries, and I flinched when he tweaked the wing I’d landed on. “Are you injured?”
I shook my head, knowing he couldn’t see me in the darkness but unable to get any words out through my sobbing.
“Then why are you crying?” he responded quietly anyway, and I felt his hand gently clasp around my jaw and cheek, the way a healer might when inspecting an uncooperative child’s eyes.
I cried even harder, unable to stem the flow of tears now that they had started. I was scared, unsure, lonely, lost, sad, embarrassed, intimidated, hopeful, and relieved, all mixed in together, and none of it made any logical sense. The words simply wouldn’t form. “You just startled me,” I finally managed to get out, unable to explain the other feelings properly to this handsome stranger from another world who had married me under bizarre circumstances.
He sighed, his warm breath fanning across my face, and released his hold on my face to pull me closer for a moment. “You have nothing to fear here. I will never let anything hurt you,” he whispered. His chin rested on top of my head next to the curve of my antler and I curled my fingers into his shirt, momentarily mollified by his closeness and the sound of his beating heart.
“Why are we sitting in the dark?” I asked after sitting like this for a while, confused by the strangeness of the situation and my inability to see anything at all. It did make it easier to talk to him when I couldn’t see his striking features watching me, though.
“Because you turned out your light,” he answered matter-of-factly.
“But why areyouin the dark?” I clarified. He had been in this dark library before I entered, and I must have passed him without seeing him somehow.
He was quiet for a moment before answering. “I find it comfortable, I suppose. But I don’t think that’s what you came to find me for.”
Heat flooded into my cheeks. “I wanted to ask for the dog back,” I made myself admit.
He didn’t answer immediately, and his silence was unnerving.Talk to me. Interact with me. Say something.I was beginning to suspect that he didn’t have a lot of experience with conversation, or maybe he simply spent a lot of time in his own head thinking things through before he spoke. “Because… you were afraid?” he finally asked, sounding puzzled. His fingers touched my chin again and lifted my face toward him. I couldn’t see him, but I could almostfeelhis intimidating eyes tracking the tear marks down my cheeks.
“Can you see in the dark?” I asked, suddenly very sure that he could.
“Of course,” he confirmed. “Answer my question, Celeste.” The quiet command made my skin prickle with awareness. “Do you want the dog because you feel you need its protection?”
I tried to shake my head, but he had it caught in his hand. “No,” I said, swallowing thickly and tugging my wings more tightly against my back for comfort. “I’m just lonely.” My voice was so small I didn’t think he would even hear me, but he did.
“Lonely,” he repeated slowly, as if feeling the shape of the word in his mouth. “I shouldn’t have taken you from your family,” he said on a breath, his voice sounding shaken.
I blinked at his statement, confused by the conclusions he was drawing. I had specifically told him I wanted to leave the castle. I neededout.Now, granted, at the time I hadn’t thought it was an actual possibility, but I didn’t regret my request in the slightest. And I didn’t fear for my safety or want a guard dog. Had he thought I needed one when he left? I simplywantedto bewanted. To have a friend or at least a companion. Tears began to leak from my eyes again, but at least this time they were silent.
“I’m so sorry,” he told me, and I felt his forehead press against mine.
“No, that’s not—” I didn’t know how to explain without embarrassment, but I couldn’t allow him to feel bad for doing exactly what I had asked. I squeezed my eyes shut, as if that would somehow allow me to hide from him. “You don’t want me,” I explained, hearing my voice crack and wondering if it were actually possible to die from embarrassment. The rejection and shame I felt in that moment surely could have put me out of my misery had it been possible.
“What?” That singular word sounded so baffled and out of place that if I had been capable of humor at the moment I might have laughed.
I was depleted though, in that moment. I’d burned myself through with the heat of my embarrassment and I didn’t have it in me to repeat those words again. Completely drained and tired of being rejected, I gave myself permission to just let the tears flow.
The noise that he made was very nearly a growl, and I flinched and released my hold on his shirt as I was reminded precisely who I was sitting upon. He released my jaw, and I heard a low rattle and then a match was struck, held between his fingers before he reached to light a candle on the table beside him. I cringed at the light, but after a moment of adjustment I could now see the high-backed armchair that we were seated in, and the small stack of books on the side table in a language I couldn’t read, and the walls and walls of books looming around us. But he took my face in his hand again and turned me to look at him, and his eyes were ice picks. “Celeste,” he said, enunciating my name with excruciating precision. “What makes you think that?” That petulant frown was back, and his lips looked so soft. I’d never known anyone who could look so sinister and so tempting at the same time. This was the closest I’d ever seen to him looking upset, and a small spark of defensiveness flared to life in me.
“You aren’t around very much,” I finally answered, clutching my hands together tightly in my lap, and when he looked as though he might argue with me, I added, “and we’re barely married.”
His teeth audibly clicked when he snapped his mouth shut, and I could swear I felt his fingers tighten and release on my jaw. “What does this mean, ‘barely married’?” His stare was always intense, but the way his narrowed eyes looked right now had me wishing the candle would blow out so they wouldn’t drill into me quite so sharply. I tried to lower my gaze, but he lifted my chin to meet his eyes. There was something in them that I couldn’t read, either a flicker of anger or pain.
I winced, hating the thought of either one of those reactions.
“We haven’t even consummated our marriage,” I explained. Shouldn’t that have been obvious? Did Veardur not… do that? That seemed unlikely. They had families and children, didn’t they?
He stared at me with no reaction for so long that I wondered if he had even heard me and then blinked so rapidly I wondered if he was trying to reset his brain. “We—” he started, and then stopped with his mouth still hanging open, clearly aghast and at a loss for words. He struggled for several moments to sort his thoughts out before releasing my face to rest his elbow on the armrest, but dipping his head to make sure he had my eyes when he spoke. “You would want to do that with me?” he asked, seeming oddly skeptical about the notion.
I felt my brow wrinkle in confusion. Shouldn’t we want to? He was myhusband, but more than that, he washot. Sure, he was a little frightening, but not because he was cruel or mean. It was just the nature of who he was. And he was actually rather lovely when he brought himself to interact. He certainly wasn’t unattractive—he was built like a god and my stomach clenched just looking at his pretty, sulky face. I spent far too much time wondering what his lips felt like. Tasted like. Kissed like. Would he kiss with tongue? But I kept all those thoughts in my head and answered with a prim, “We’re not married in my culture until we do.” He frowned at me, scanning my face repeatedly for something, perhaps wondering if I were lying. “For all I know, my family might come and steal me back. They’ve already gotten what they wanted from our arrangement, after all,” I warned him. I wouldn’t put it past my mother to demand something dramatic like that, as upset as she had been about “losing me” to a non-fae.
