An Embrace of Citrus & Snow (Fallen for a Fae #1)

1. Everil

Chapter one

Everil

What was the line? Something about the world ending, not with a bang but with a whimper. Everil’s appeared to be ending with the crisp rap of knuckles against his warded and locked front door.

The utterly ordinary noise twisted in his stomach like a blade of ice. Only another fae could make it to his door. And the list of fae who might seek him out after a century was short indeed. As for the why of it, well, that was simple. Heirs didn’t get to disappear into silence and obscurity, no matter how unfortunate and disappointing they might be.

Another knock, no louder than the last. Impatient, without being aggressive. Already, it sounded like an accusation.

“Do hurry up, Everil. What’s taking you? Don’t tell me you can’t even manage to open a door. “ Nimai’s voice. It was always Nimai’s voice in his memory. The bond he’d broken. The first lover he’d betrayed.

Best to get it over with. As he made his way downstairs, Everil couldn’t help but see Brookhaven as another fae might. Peeling wallpaper. Heavy furniture that he’d never found the will to replace or rearrange. The house looked very like it had when he’d come into possession of it back in the twenties. Only shabbier. At least the previous owners hadn’t been trendy sorts, or it’d be all gilt instead of leather and dark wood.

He was delaying.

Forcing a slow breath through clenched teeth, Everil straightened his shoulders and opened the door. Not one person waiting, but two. Better and better.

The first, he recognized. Suire, with her wild curls and sharp smile. A will-o’-the-wisp, sworn to his House. They’d been friends most his life. He wasn’t sure what they were anymore .

At Suire’s side was a girl of perhaps seventeen, her face pleasantly round where it stared out from her oversized, tatterdemalion hoodie. She looked like the teens Everil sometimes saw from his window; a local kid dared to brave the woods around Brookhaven. But unlike those children, she was surrounded by a nimbus of pure power.

Everil didn’t recognize her, but that was no surprise. Gates were reborn every hundred years or so. Still, he knew who she was. Everil was the last of his line, a line that had sworn guardianship of one of Faerie’s nine Gates since before the convergence.

If this Gate, his Gate, was here, it could only mean one thing. Everil’s mother, and his mother’s bond, were dead.

Everil swallowed, waiting to feel grief and feeling only a hollow sense of inevitability. He and his mother had not parted on pleasant terms. He had let her down, and she’d made it clear that if he wished her acknowledgment, her love, he would have to do better. And better meant returning to Nimai, the man he’d last seen washed in his lover’s blood.

How appropriate, that her death would thrust him down the very path that would have earned her approval. There’d be no avoiding Nimai now.

“Please, come in,” he managed. “Suire and…”

The Gate met his gaze with a clear, green-eyed stare. “Call me Talia.”

The name came without the ring of truth, as was appropriate. Later, when he swore his oath, he would need her true name from her. But not in front of Suire.

“Talia. My blood–”

She shook her head, which only made her disappear further into her hoodie. “Can we skip all the big scary fae stuff? I mean, it’s not like you can swear your oath now.”

“Of course,” Everil murmured, habit keeping the confusion from his voice. The young Gate was very odd. He would expect his mother to have raised someone more traditional. “It can wait.”

Suire exhaled, a sound of quiet exasperation. “For my part, I’d prefer to get the formalities out of the way and return to Faerie. Everil, she came against my advice, and the sooner we get her back to your lands and sworn to you and Nimai, the better.”

Sworn to him and Nimai, as if the past century had never happened. Everil’s throat burned with the remembered taste of Nimai’s magic, that dry itch of cinnamon, and he nearly gagged.

“Now?” he asked, hating himself for asking a question with so obvious an answer.

“Cake first,” Talia interjected. “And a soda if you have any. Do you know how hard it is to get human food across the veil? Besides, we’ve been invited in. There is Protocol, Suire. ”

“This,” muttered Suire, “is what I’ve been attempting to manage. Alone. Soon enough, she’ll be your problem.”

The smirk she sent Everil was far from kind. But at least she wasn’t pretending to comfort him over his mother’s death. Later, he would surely mourn her. That hollow absence replaced by true grief.

But for now, all he could feel was dread.

“I’m sure I can manage refreshments,” he said, voice level and calm. “If you’ll come this way?”

Protocol .

There was a purpose to it. Whether disappointing your family, setting fire to the life you were meant to live, or being dragged back to the bond you’d fled, there was always Protocol. It kept the tearing of hair and the gnashing of teeth to a minimum.

When your life ended, you didn’t scream. You invited your captor to sit in the parlor. You stared briefly at your empty icebox before exerting a bit of will and manifested a few slices of cake, a full teapot and service, and a can of soda. An inexact magic, manifestation. The teapot was sleek and metallic, while the cups were chipped china. One was half full, with a lipstick smudge on the rim. Usually, he’d have been more specific. At least the cake didn’t have any bites taken out of it.

Everil emptied and cleaned the cup, taking more time than necessary. Protocol , he told the twist of guilt in his stomach. You didn’t serve guests with filthy cups, either.

By the time he returned to the parlor, Suire was up and pacing by the windows while Talia had taken a book from one of his shelves and sat with her feet tucked under her, looking entirely at home.

Gates had a way of making places theirs.

“Suire?” he called as he laid the cake and tea out on the coffee table.

“No.” She turned from the windows, cutting him off with a sharp gesture. “I’m not going to listen to it, Everil. You’ve had your fun. You’ve thrown your little fit. We all gave you space, didn’t we? But now you have responsibilities. She is your responsibility. So save your breath.”

“Suire,” he said again, more firmly. “Would you like some cake? ”

The look she threw him would have set a fire, were they in Faerie. He met it with blank incuriosity. With Protocol. And cake.

He had gotten very good at Protocol in the years he spent bound to Nimai. Brownies were sticklers about it. Nimai. Again, Everil’s mouth dried as his throat tightened.

He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t do this.

“Ooo, chocolate,” Talia said, as if unaware of Suire’s glare or Everil’s answering stillness. “See, I told you I had to come along.”

“ You should be waiting with Nimai at their estate,” Suire snapped back while Everil tried not to feel each new word like a noose tightening around his neck. “It’s not appropriate for you to be prancing about like,” a scowl in Everil’s direction, “him. You see? You’re a bad influence.”

“Not fair,” Talia complained. She set down the book and picked up the cake, eating it frosting first. “We only just met. You can’t give him bad influence points until we’ve at least gotten to know each other.”

“You should already know each other,” Suire muttered, but she sat down, taking a plate of cake for herself. “This is terrible, by the way. Human food. Dreadful. There are reasons their kind writes ballads about fae banquets.”

Everil had never known a will-o’-the-wisp more hostile to humanity than Suire. It hadn’t always been that way. She’d taken it personally, his leaving Nimai. He knew she had because she’d told him, at length, what a fool he was being. She’d found Nimai for him. When his parents had given up after over a century of searching, sure their disappointment of a son couldn’t even manage a soulbond, Suire had found someone compatible, someone who would agree to take him despite his being a kelpie. Despite all his faults . And then, he’d ruined it over a human’s death.

She’d insulted his loyalty. His intelligence. His right to inherit the house she had sworn to.

Everil had listened to her, his face blank and the memory of blood making the walls drip red. And then he’d turned away.

“There’s tea,” Everil said, his words still utterly level. “If that’s more to your taste.”

Suire rolled her eyes. “You used to be fun , Everil. Never mind. Talia, finish your cake. Everil, if you need anything, fetch it. Nimai’s waiting. He’s agreed to take you back. Again. ”

“How very generous,” Everil answered, flat. The very sort of comment that had always so irritated Nimai. He would need to start watching his tongue again. He was out of the habit.

“It is generous.” Suire snapped back. “Do you have any idea what’s happened in your absence? Your poor mother, left to manage the House with only her bond and Nimai to help her? No heir, no hope of another generation? Why do you think I’m the one watching Talia? I’m all that’s left, Everil. Everyone had the sense to swear themselves to a House with an actual future.”

Everil stood a little straighter, letting the barrage of words fall like blows. Suire had the right. It wasn’t only Nimai he’d betrayed. It was his mother. His House. And yes, Suire. The last of his House, it seemed. Her and, once the oaths were said, Nimai.

Everil couldn’t even begin to imagine how angry Nimai would be, having to rebuild the House again from nothing. His hands shook, and he gripped his wrist behind his back to hide it.

“I see.”

He watched Talia eat rather than look at Suire. With his mother gone, she was his responsibility. The most valuable asset of what one could hardly call a House. Born and reborn into their keeping through endless generations, and always in the guardianship of a bonded pair.

Protocol. It always came back to Protocol.

“Actually, I kind of like it here.” Talia gestured to her untouched soda with a forkful of cake. “I think we should stay.”

“That’s impossible,” Suire said, and this time it was Talia she glared at. “Don’t be an idiot.”

“Suire,” Everil spoke her name with the quiet danger of a river in winter. “My ward will not be spoken to that way.”

“You haven’t taken an oath,” Suire replied, but she stopped glaring in Talia’s direction. “She’s not yours yet. And until you renew your bond with Nimai, she can’t be.”

“I’m aware. I am also aware that she is mine to look after with the death of my mother and her bond.” What were the terms? He’d heard them from the cradle. “Three and three days, to give an oath of blood and binding. And until that time passes, my guardianship cannot be challenged.”

“Told you,” Talia interjected, her voice a singsong mockery. “Nine days. We have nine days. And I’m spending them here. ”

They did. They had nine days. He had nine days.

“That’s nothing but outdated tradition.”

“It’s Protocol.” Everil’s voice chilled further. He crossed the room to Talia’s chair and let his hand rest on her shoulder. It was no longer shaking. “I have nine days.”

“What difference does it make? Now. Nine days from now. Nimai is waiting. You have a duty, Everil. Your soulbond is waiting for you. He’s willing to take you back. Don’t be so fucking selfish.”

He did have a duty. There was no escaping it. But the ax need not fall today.

“Nine days,” he said, taking Suire’s mostly untouched plate from her hands. “My ward and I will take that time to get to know each other. After that, I’ll do what’s necessary.”

Suire stared up at him, and for a moment, he thought he saw regret in her eyes. “You know you’ll only upset him. He said he’d come himself if you wouldn’t listen to reason.”

“I’ll expect him in nine days, then.” He set the plate on the table and crossed to the door, “Thank you for visiting, Suire. I’ll show you out.”

“Kisses to Nimai,” Talia threw in and giggled.

“Everil?” Talia’s high, playful voice cut through the house with admirable clarity. “There’s another one.”

“Of course there is,” he called back, sitting up in his bed and fighting a wave of dizziness.

Fae, even healthy fae, fared ill if they spent too long in the human realm. Fading, they called it, that slow draining of magic. Easily rectified, for some. For Everil, a dip in naturally running water in his stallion form did the trick. And if his damaged soul required such trips more frequently than so, it was no matter. The river wasn’t far.

But for the past seven days, he’d stayed inside. Talia thought he was being ridiculous. But, whatever her objections, he was doing it for her sake. Binding one’s soul was easily done when one was open to it. Everil wasn’t open to it. The very thought of tying himself to Nimai again still closed his throat.

There had been so much blood. Lawrence’s blood. Nimai had been painted with it.

No matter. It could be forced. If Everil was only faded enough, the process should happen regardless of his desires .

Ignoring the way the walls swayed, Everil made his way to the entryway, keeping a hand on the banister, just in case. Talia was standing in front of the open door, staring at what appeared to be a small, jeweled music box.

“Tacky,” she said as he drew close. She wore another tattered hoodie, this one gray.

“If only they knew to send you someone else’s discarded sweaters. Courting has no romance anymore.”

Talia wrinkled her nose and nudged the box with her foot. “That makes it sound like you’re my boyfriend. Or maybe my dad. Going to walk me down the aisle, pops?”

“That’s a human custom.”

“And so fun.”

The first gift had arrived mere hours after Suire’s departure. No one could compel Talia to give her oath, Everil included. But they could attempt to woo her to their House. Considering how powerful Gates were, it was only natural that they try. If Talia left him for another house, they would earn instant status and power.

And Everil would be free. No returning to Faerie. No binding his soul to Nimai.

Caring for Talia and her prior incarnations was his family’s oath. Their blood, bound to her protection. Everil had known many of her forms over the centuries, each like and unlike the last. While he wouldn’t attempt to dissuade her, nor could he bring himself to coax her to consider accepting some other fae. He knew better than most what they were capable of. They cared so little for those whose lifespans didn’t match their own.

“Oh, really, Everil. Don’t be hysterical. Do you think humans weep at the deaths of roaches? You had your little distraction. And now it’s gone. Now come. You’re embarrassing us both.”

Everil stepped closer to Talia, studying the box. He could feel the magic of it, a thrum of power that dragged at the tattered edges of his starved soul, inviting him to drink. That he could resist it meant that he was not yet as desperate as he needed to be.

“It’s not a courting gift,” he said, the words coming flat. “That’s Nimai’s magic.”

“You can tell?” Talia asked, crouching to study the box more closely.

Everil locked his shaking hands behind his back to keep from dragging her away from it. He would not poison her against Nimai. Could not. Nimai had only ever shown his capacity for cruelty to Everil. It would be necessary to keep it that way.

“Yes. I can tell.”

He knew the taste of Nimai’s magic. Cinnamon, sandalwood, and nutmeg. They had been soulbonds. Their energies perfectly matched, ideally compatible. There were many ways, Everil had learned, to be compatible.

What better match for a man who enjoyed inflicting suffering than one who shied away from pain? But that was unfair. Nimai had tried. It was Everil who’d always been the disappointment.

“Is it alright?” Talia asked. Her hands hovered over the box, but she was looking up at him, chewing at her lower lip.

“Of course. It’s your present. You may do what you wish with it.”

“Oh. Good.”

Talia stood with the box in her hand. Stained glass, burnished elm, and glinting gems. It was a delicate construction, exquisite. If Everil had tried, he could have read the power of it, guessed at what pretty enchantments Nimai had woven into it. Like most brownies, he was skilled with subtle work.

Talia cupped it in one hand, then threw it at the porch, with a rush of incandescent power. Glass shattered. Wood splintered. The gems ran like sap.

“Gross.” She was smiling when she turned back to him. “Your ex is super tacky.”

Everil stared. At her. At the smoking porch. The gems pooled into an ugly brown sludge.

“I–” He should correct her. Tell her to be respectful. Nimai wouldn’t be his ex much longer. And Talia would rely on his guardianship. The words stuck in Everil’s throat, refusing to be spoken.

“I don’t forget everything when I die.” Talia’s words lacked their usual flippancy. “It’s all impressions. Shadows. But I know not to trust him. I know you don’t trust him.”

Everil wavered in place, pulse racing as the room began to spin. “It’s a personal matter.”

“You shouldn’t do this.”

“There’s no choice .”

She turned away from him, pulling the door shut. It dragged through the brown pool, smearing it over the wood. “You could try. Tell them you can take care of me yourself.”

“No. I can’t. You know I can’t. Protocol.” He almost smiled. “Gates must be guarded by a bonded pair.”

“Then find a different bond.”

How nice it must be to be young. How lucky humans and Gates were to get to enjoy it. To die while the world still held possibility, instead of going on and on and on .

“Some bond easily. I do not.”

“Maybe you just haven’t really looked,” Talia said. Everil was beginning to recognize a pattern of alarming gaps in her knowledge.

“I have. It took over a century to locate Nimai. Suire was ceded an allotment for locating him.” His mother had grumbled over it. Giving land to upstart wisp. There was no higher gift in Faerie. “He’s the best I can do.”

No one knew why some bonded more easily than others. His mother had blamed his manners. His father, a lack of dedication. Nimai called it fate. “You were always meant for me. My wild horse. Who else would have the patience to tame you?”

“I hate this,” Talia said.

“It’s not for you to worry over. Nimai and I can get along. I promise.” The trick was to stop caring. Nimai took such delight in breaking what he loved. “Why don’t we go out? You mentioned pizza.”

Everil wanted the suggestion to chase the shadows from Talia’s eyes. It had been years since he’d last left Brookhaven and walked the streets of Skyler. And Talia was ridiculously excited to explore a ‘real live’ human town.

She shook his head at his offer and turned away, disappearing up the stairs. He didn’t follow. Why try when the path was set?