Was that the case for all of us? Were our human mothers all so desperate that they’d bedded with fae, knowing how hard it was to live as a fae-blood, knowing that their very existence was illegal? Zephyr felt his emotions getting increasingly out of control. The water he’d denied being responsible for surged higher.
He turned and ran. They could catch him if they wanted, stop him without even moving from where they were, but he didn’t care. He needed out.
Everything is a lie.
Behind him, he could hear Lilywhite calling to him.
It didn’t matter.
A lie.
Everything is a lie.
I am no one.
As he crossed the campus, he didn’t slow to see if Lilywhite or Creed had followed him. Right now, he didn’t know how he felt about seeing her—and he didn’t want anything to do with Creed. Creed had brought them here, brought Zephyr’s father here, and Zephyr knew that if he saw Creed, he’d want nothing more than to let his aggression out on him.
He made his way through the hedge, through the walled garden, and to Belfoure, where he knew Alkamy would be. He could feel the pulse of his own blood warm at her throat, and he followed it unerringly. He’d hoped it would work as such when he gave it to her, and tonight he was grateful that the queen had allowed him to take the blood-wrought stones with him. He couldn’t make sense of much in the world, but he knew this much at least: he needed Alkamy the way he needed earth.
The familiar thrum of the city did nothing to ease his mind tonight. Neither did the friendly voices as he crossed through the main part of the Row House. It wasn’t until he reached the VIP section and Alkamy that he felt anything near calm. He didn’t hesitate. He grabbed her by both hands and jerked her into his arms. He needed this, needed the peace that only she could offer him.
She yelped in surprise and started to ask, “What—”
He cut off her question with a kiss. Behind him, he could hear voices, and several flashes of light made it obvious that cameras were capturing it all. He knew on some level that he was being foolish. He should be stronger. He shouldn’t care about the lies that were woven into his life.
He did care though. It was all fucked up. Everything felt wrong—except having Alkamy in his arms for this moment.
All of the need he’d been shoving away was in his kiss. It was the sort of starving embrace that they seemed to always share, as if there would never be another, as if this moment was the last. Every time they kissed, they both knew that one of them would say, “Not again. Remember? Not again.” Tonight, he wouldn’t be the one to say it, and he hoped she wouldn’t either.
When he finally released her, she was trembling. She didn’t pull him closer, but she didn’t run away either. He slid his hands to her hips, unable to let her escape, unable to do anything but hold on to the one person in both worlds who would never lie to him or use him.
In his peripheral vision, he could see Violet and Roan gaping at them. Beside Roan, Will’s hat was drawn low enough to shade his face, and he was staring at the ground, further hiding himself.
As Alkamy leaned against his body, not even stepping out of his arms, she reached up and stroked his face. “Talk to me.”
He shook his head, even as he reached out to touch the blood-ruby in the hollow of her throat. She was his only anchor in a sea of madness. He knew it, had known it for years, but that didn’t mean he could say it aloud. He had to be responsible, to look after the Sleepers. It was his duty, and Zephyr Ryan Waters always fulfilled his duties. He’d been waiting for years for someone to help him do that, a partner, a love of his own—and the fae he’d been promised not only didn’t seem to want him, she might be a blood relative.
Zephyr ignored everyone. He swept Alkamy into his arms and all but marched to the dance floor, carrying her like she was his bride. They passed the velvet rope. The camera flashes continued. The murmurs continued.
“You’re scaring me,” she whispered against his ear. Her expression was light, making for good pictures, staying in the role she’d always held. Unlike him, she was still doing as she should.
“I need you. Help me.” He lowered her feet to the ground, realizing as he did so that she was dressed up like a Gothic doll. Soft strips of gray silk hung in faux tatters from her waist to her calves. The winding cloth illusion was continued by the fact that some of the sections were slit high enough that decency was barely met. The top of the dress was lace with an overlay of silver—not material made to look like it, but actual silver that had been twisted into a corset. He stared at her as they stood in the middle of the dance floor, surrounded by gawkers and under the watch of three of their friends.
Violet was dragging Roan and Will to the dance floor. Despite the probability of being photographed, the boys weren’t refusing. They might not know what was going on, but they were at his side.
“I just need to hold you. If we’re on the dance floor, it’s safe. If we’re anywhere else, I don’t think I can follow the rules tonight. I don’t even want to try.” Zephyr pulled Alkamy closer again. What he really wanted was the sort of silence he could only find when they’d been intertwined together. All of his reasons for not touching her were still valid. He knew that. Right now, he didn’t care. “Tell me to stop or take me out of here or just let me hold you here.”
“I’m right here with you.” She rested her cheek against his chest. Her arms wrapped around him, keeping her as close to his body as they could be with clothes between them. She didn’t reply to his admission that he wanted to go where they could be together as they once were, but she vowed, “I’m always here for you, Zeph. Always.”
The tension that had held him like a coiled spring loosened slightly at her words and touch. He drew a deep breath, drawing in the soil and sunlight scent of her like it was the air he’d been denied. Alkamy was air and soil. She was every calming thing he needed.
In a voice so low that no one else would hear, he told her, “I met the joint court’s heir tonight, and her betrothed, and the fae who might be my father.”
Alkamy looked up at him. “Your father?”
“He has my eyes,” Zephyr admitted aloud. “Or, I guess, I have his . . . and I have his mother’s hair . . . and both of her affinities.”
He must’ve sounded as overwhelmed as he felt because Alkamy didn’t ask questions, didn’t push or even offer foolish words of comfort. She simply asked, “What do you need?”
“You.”
She stretched up to kiss him. Her kiss wasn’t the desperate clash of teeth and tongue that his had been. It was the way they’d kissed before he’d been told that relationships among them were forbidden by order of the queen.
When their waitress came out to the floor with their usual drinks on a tray, Zephyr took Alkamy’s and downed it in one go. The vile taste of alcohol burned down his throat, but as with any fae—or fae-blood, since that’s what he apparently was—the effects were quick and intense. He felt the languor seeping over him, and tonight, he embraced it.
“That was hers,” the waitress said as he put the now empty glass on her tray.
“Great,” he said. “Bring me Creed’s too.”