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

5. Everil

Chapter five

Everil

This human, this reckless, kind stranger, was going to get himself killed. And Everil, bond-drunk and satiated for the first time in much too long, was tempted to allow it. For the first time since he’d torn himself from Nimai, he felt complete , not ragged and ruined, aching for the lost pieces of his soul. How could he help but be tempted?

Pathetic .

Yes. Pathetic. And greedy. Already, he’d hurt Bo. By bonding to him, and by telling him the truth of what he was. He’d felt the man’s pain as his own, an old wound that Everil’s very existence awakened. Bo’s feelings were impossible to mistake. So fully felt, while Everil’s were muted through centuries of practice.

Like the bond itself, like Bo’s hand in his, those emotions were intoxicating. Even where they hurt, they beckoned, calling Everil to soothe and reassure.

Ridiculous. All Everil offered Bo was old pain and new danger. It was past time to stop indulging himself. He needed to take his hand back and fix this mess. The initial rush of the bond had begun to retreat, enough that the thought of letting go of Bo wasn’t physically painful. But the pressure of it, the desire to be skin-close, to wrap Bo in his arms and hold him safe, that had yet to leave him.

It didn’t help that Bo was similarly impacted, the man leaning close and holding onto Everil’s hand. Nor that Everil’s dizziness had been replaced by a sense of drowsy contentment, a desire to curl against the poor human and simply rest. It had been days since he’d last slept.

But none of that mattered, because Nimai was still coming. However tempting Bo might be, Everil had to break the bond. He simply needed to convince Bo of the necessity and handle the matter before midnight, lest Nimai deal with the complication himself. Everil could do this. He had to do this.

“I can explain this better with the help of my ward,” he said as Bo sipped his drink. “But the quickest version is that this bond endangers you. Whatever you might believe you know of my people, we are not safe , Bo. We are not kind.”

He could feel Bo’s amusement and skepticism, that rough wariness that seemed so part of the man.

“The fae aren’t nice? I’m shocked.” Bo’s words were thick with sarcasm, spoken half to his mug. “I thought it was all quarters under pillows and chiming bells, not tales of absolutely fucking horrible things happening to humans for being stupid or unlucky. Like being drowned and eaten by a horse near any body of water bigger than a damn bathtub. The stories wrong?”

“Oh, I’m quite capable of drowning someone in a bathtub.” The dry rejoinder escaped Everil’s lips before he could check himself. Bo made a choking noise, and Everil suppressed a cringe. “Apologies. That was in poor taste. But if you put stock in the stories, you should understand why I’m a danger to you.”

The sound of stairs creaking played under his words; Talia had apparently tired of merely spying. She bounced into the room, taking in Bo without the least attempt at pretending confusion or surprise.

“Greetings, mortal,” she said, with a becoming little curtsy. “You have the pleasure of addressing Taliabelle Wintersmith Guardhaven the Third.” Talia started cackling before she could continue the ridiculous charade. Straightening up, she winked at Bo. “Kidding. I’m Talia. And you are my new favorite person. Everil, this fixes everything. ”

“It does not,” Everil objected. Where the girl got her optimism from, he couldn’t begin to imagine. It certainly wasn’t his mother.

“Your new favorite person has fuck all for context.” Bo grinned at Talia. “Except bathtub drowning kelpies and wards. I’m Bo. Hi.”

“Has he been talking in circles? I’ll bet he’s been talking in circles.” Talia dropped into the chair nearest the settee, tucking her legs under her. “It’s a fae thing. Answering directly is rude. And it’s CSI: Table Manners over there.”

Everil hadn’t the first idea what Talia was talking about, but that was a matter for later. For now, there was Bo, still tucked close, puzzled and amused by turns.

“I was endeavoring to explain,” Everil said. “The matter is complicated. ”

“It’s really not.” Talia fixed her wide, bright eyes on Bo, expression serious for once. “So, Everil’s supposed to look after me. But Protocol, that’s like Faerie law, says he needs a soulbond to do it. It’s one of those weird, pre-convergence traditions. Don’t ask. Anyway, he used to have a soulbond. But the guy’s an asshole.”

“He’s your guardian, Talia.” Already, the words had the tired feeling of an old argument.

“No. He’s not. Bo is. Or he would be if we gave our oaths. That’s what I’m saying.” Her words were sharp with irritation, and she spared Everil a glare before looking back to Bo. “The plan was, Everil goes back to the asshole because Protocol. But now he doesn’t have to. Because you.”

“You’re forgetting the part where Nimai will kill him.” Everil shifted toward Bo as he spoke, his words level despite the urge to growl and pull the man closer. The remembered scent of blood mingled with the sweetness of Bo’s aura. Vanilla with the tang of copper.

Bo’s emotions turned, anger burning out the confusion and old pain. Everil wanted to reassure the man, to make it better, somehow. He told himself that anger was good. Anger meant he was taking it seriously.

“Do fae get fucked up about iron like in the stories?” Bo’s words were terse. He leaned back against Everil, a pleasant weight, and Everil made no effort to shift away. “What the hell do they have against single parents to make it ‘Protocol’?”

“Not in the ways you mean,” Everil answered. Best to stop whatever reckless notion the man had before they took root. “Pure iron is somewhat disruptive. Its resonance is intrusive.”

“He means it’s loud,” Talia interjected. “Like a high-pitched whine that doesn’t stop. I don’t notice so much, but I’m not a fae. It makes magic go a little weird, too. But it won’t actually hurt the asshole.”

Everil was beginning to regret inviting Talia down. He had hoped that, at least for the human’s sake, she’d see sense. Instead, she seemed determined to keep the human. Not that Everil, his hand still clasped in Bo’s, had much room to judge.

He was doing this for her. He needed to remember that. It would all be better once they got to Faerie. Everil would behave, and when Talia saw how well-mannered Nimai was, she’d lose track of whatever half-remembered biases she carried over from her past incarnation.

And –

And if he squeezed Bo’s hand any tighter, he was going to break it. Carefully, he untangled his fingers, curling his hand into a fist without pulling away. The bond was set. He had no excuse for pawing at the man.

“We need not concern ourselves with the properties of iron. As I said, Bo, I intend to fix this. Disengaging a soulbond is rarely done, but it’s possible. As Talia mentioned, I’ve done it before.”

Talia sucked in a breath through her teeth, but remained silent at Everil’s warning glance. There was no need for Bo to know the details. Some damage was inevitable, of course. But it was all a matter of where you made the break. Cut right, and Bo would lose nothing, only carry a bit of Everil with him. And Everil, well, Everil was accustomed to life with an incomplete soul. What did it matter if he sacrificed a bit more of his?

“Anyone else get a say in this, or is it just you?” Bo’s tone had gone hard, and irritation sparked through their bond, mingled with emotions Everil was less able to name. Hurt, perhaps.

The urge was there, as it always was. To cringe. To apologize. Bo was, in this moment, Everil’s bond. And Everil was all too familiar with how one bond could punish another without lifting a finger. That drained starvation could go on for weeks. Months. The world spinning while his skin ached from lack of touch.

“I’m merely trying to help.” Because it didn’t matter if Bo hurt him. He had to make this right.

“Help? Your kid’s telling you she doesn’t want to be around this guy, and I distinctly remember saying I wasn’t agreeing to any ‘trespass redressing’ until I heard the details. Either what we think doesn’t matter to you despite it being her life and my soul, or this shithead has you thinking he’s so fucking omnipotent that pushing back isn’t a damn option.”

It wasn’t an option. And Bo, as bond-drunk as Everil, couldn’t see that. But Everil knew better than to fool himself so. Even if the bond made Bo wish to cling, Everil offered him no honeyed sweetness, no summer sunlight and vanilla sugar on a glass of lemonade.

“Rot and dust and cold, my love. Broken things abandoned in empty fields. Forgotten there.”

He would not continue to inflict himself on Bo, no matter how much he wished to. If the man wished to hate him for that consideration, then so be it.

“Talia isn’t a child. And she doesn’t get to spend your life because she’s taken against a man she’s barely met, based on a century-old disagreement that has nothing to do with her. Nimai will not harm her, nor could he. There would be an oath. Oaths are binding.”

“And I’d turn the bastard into a dormouse if he tried,” Talia muttered, sulkily, her hood almost covering her eyes.

There was that, as well. Even if Nimai wished to harm Talia, his power was trivial when compared to a Gate’s.

“You, on the other hand, are under direct threat.” Everil forced himself to look at Bo again, for all he didn’t want to see loathing in the man’s eyes. “I’m not someone who deserves your help, Bo. I am, in your words, a murderous, flesh-eating horse. No harm will come to your soul. You have my oath on it.”

Talia snorted, bringing her knees to her chest and scowling over them. But she kept her commentary to herself.

“I didn’t ask about my soul,” Bo retorted. “I asked about the Protocol for fae single parents and if either her or my opinion mattered in this. Only one of which I’ve heard an answer to, by the fucking way. She’s your ward . Child or not, you’re pushing her at someone she fucking dislikes. It doesn’t matter why. If someone says, ‘person who is supposed to watch over me, I am uncomfortable around this other person in authority over me,’ you don’t fucking tell them they’re wrong because they aren’t you .”

“I–” But Everil could think of no right answer, no way to fix and soothe. He had always been miserable at such tasks.

“Yeah, no, fuck that. And fuck telling me who does or does not ‘deserve’ my help. I get to decide that. Me.” Bo leaned away, setting his cup on the table and keeping his hands to himself after. Their bond rang with his anger, summer’s lull replaced with bitterness and acid. “You want to end it and put Talia with someone she dislikes? I can’t fucking stop a murderous, flesh-eating horse. But you can fuck right off with your excuses. You can keep your damn oath. This fucker you’re so scared of finds out about me at all; I’m dead anyway. Murder happy exes don’t give a fuck if the side piece is out of the picture.”

This was Everil’s fault. He had done this to Bo. Forced a bond on him. Confused him with obligations. Clung to him, when he should have stepped away.

It was time to step away.

Everil rose to his feet with a silent shake of his head. The room remained steady, no longer spinning with Everil’s every movement. It was Bo’s energy, greedily taken, steadying him. Too much and not enough. The ache of hunger had only barely receded. Bo’s aura waited: a feast laid before him that he dared not eat.

How very fae.

The distance hurt . But Bo needed the space to clear his head. Everil walked to the window, staring out at a view that had become familiar to the point of invisibility over the decades. He’d treasured it once, Lawrence tucked against him, giddy with dreams.

“Nimai won’t harm you. Not if we sever this. He’d have no right to and nothing to gain. It’s no easy task, hunting one unknown human.” He spoke to the window, voice just loud enough to be heard. “I am trying, Bo. The requirement for a bonded pair is an old one. It isn’t about parents. I’m not Talia’s parent. It is, or was, about duality. Summer and Winter. Life and death. Seelie and unseelie. That we no longer observe those divisions has not ended the tradition. I’m not forcing this upon Talia, nor could I. She’s received offers from many potential guardians. Instead, she wishes to remain with me. Which, perforce, means accepting Nimai.”

Bo didn’t answer, but Everil could feel him. The weight of his glare, the frustration and hurt in their bond, echoing his own. He could have turned but didn’t.

“It’s that last bit where we disagree,” Talia’s words were a sulky mutter, and Everil allowed them to pass unremarked this time.

“I forced this circumstance on you, Bo. I will not force its ending. Severing a bond is”–excruciating–”complicated. While I’m certain I could sever it without damaging you, I will not do so without your consent.” Everil lifted his fingers to the glass; its cold so unlike the remembered warmth of Bo’s hand over his. “Is it so unfair of me not to wish your blood on my hands?”

“Not unfair at all. Sounds like a pretty fucking valid wish to me.”

Everil heard the soft complaint of the settee as Bo rose, and the gentle creak of the floorboards after. The ache of distance subsided as Bo approached, though not completely, a space remaining between them.

“So I thought,” Everil murmured, bitter humor under the simple words.

“Fuckface is a grown-ass man. What he does is on him. Not you.”

“Everil doesn’t believe in problems that aren’t his fault,” Talia piped in, almost sounding chipper again.

“A belief built on centuries of experience.” Everil could see Bo reflected in the window. It was surprisingly hard not to watch him. The man was so vibrant. “What do you intend, Bo?”

Just tell me what you wish me to do.

Pathetic.

“CSI: Table Manners have formal wording for this shitshow?” Bo asked in response. “The soulbond to ward a Talia thing. Or is it just ‘a bonded pair is needed to protect a person in a hoodie?’ ”

Everil rested his forehead against the glass. The tension in his shoulders threatened to ease with Bo’s nearness. He couldn’t relax into this. They had so little time before Nimai arrived. And Bo wasn’t listening.

Had he really once found humans’ irrationality endearing?

“We’d need a witness,” Talia said. The hope in her voice grated.

It wasn’t her fault, Everil reminded himself. It was, once again, his failing. She had grown up sheltered and lonely, and Everil had not been there to lobby on her behalf. Of course she wanted this clever, vivid human more than mannered, ambitious Nimai.

“We would require a witness so willing to ignore Protocol that they would acknowledge this as a valid bond. Who would then accept the further breach of a human giving his oath to a Gate.” Everil’s sigh misted the glass. “I may know someone.”

“Yeah?” Bo asked.

Everil hadn’t spoken to Declan since the day the sluagh’s deathsight had battered them both with a vision of Lawrence’s death. Witnessing it, Nimai so terribly inventive in his cruelty, Lawrence so terrified, begging and apologetic, had broken Everil.

It had broken his friendship with Declan as well.

Given how they’d left matters between them, how poorly Everil had treated his friend, it was possible the sluagh wouldn’t come. And if he did, well, perhaps exposure to one of Faerie’s more unsettling denizens would clear Bo’s head.

“Talia, I’ll need you to contact someone for me,” Everil said, pulling back from the window. “And, should he be willing, bring him here.”

Everil had given Talia the third floor. Well, in point of fact, he had intended to give her a room on the third floor, but once she’d discovered there were four to choose from, she’d insisted that she was going to cycle between them. As a result, every time Everil went looking for her, he found her somewhere different .

It was the gold room that she led him to, throwing herself down on the coverlet and rolling over so she could watch him with her chin in her hands and feet kicking the air.

“Well?” she asked.

“I’m sorry?”

Talia’s eye-rolling was truly a subtle art. It had nuance . Most of that nuance had to do with gradations of how much of an idiot she thought Everil was being. She appeared to be particularly displeased, just now.

“Bo. Your new, well, beau. Do you like him?”

“That’s entirely immaterial.” His feelings in this, as in most things, were best ignored. That Bo was fierce and raw-edged and tasted of sugar did not bear thinking of. “And he isn’t my beau. He’s a temporary bond.”

Talia scowled, her feet picking up new velocity. “You said we’d call someone to witness the oaths.”

“We’ll ask. I highly doubt even Declan will be willing to be party to such an action.” At least, not if Everil could talk him around. “Talia, this entire circumstance places Bo in very real threat. I know I’ve told you Nimai isn’t as you imagine him. And he isn’t. But he’s still–”

“A bastard?”

“I was going to say, ‘given to intense reactions.’ Particularly where I’m concerned.”

Talia sighed and patted the bed, an action that Everil ignored, stepping over to the window instead. The sun was making its way up, shining through the autumnal leaves. He had loved this place once.

“What happened with you and Nimai?” she asked. “Sirel and Gyr wouldn’t talk about it.”

They had not spoken of Sirel. Everil’s mother. Who was, in many ways, Talia’s mother as well. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Talia shrugged. “I didn’t see much of either of them, really. When I was younger, there was always someone to watch me. And then, once I was old enough, it was mostly just me.”

“I’m sorry,” Everil said again, more sincerely. “I should have been there.”

“Nah. I get it. I knew her too, you know? She was tired mostly, I think. Or mad because nothing went the way she planned. And once she … stopped … Gyr didn’t have any reason to stick around. ”

Everil drifted from the window to the bed and settled in the spot that Talia had indicated. She scooted closer, her arm against his.

“I promise I won’t leave you,” he offered.

Talia snickered softly. “Duh. But that doesn’t have to mean him . And you still haven’t said what happened.”

“We had an argument over my preference to remain in the human realm. It grew heated. He took action against me. I broke the bond.” The words sounded flat, even to Everil’s ears.

“That’s not what I remember,” Talia said, soft.

“And what do you remember?”

“You were terrified. I remember that. Crying. Scared. And you called on my last aspect, and they opened the way. I think they tried to talk to you, but…”

“But I didn’t listen.” The previous Gate had been a friend to Everil. When he had asked for transit, they had both known what he’d find. It hadn’t mattered. Just as it hadn’t with Declan.

So many voices of reason that Everil had ignored. Before and after Lawrence’s death. And now he faced the price for his stubbornness. Talia left to raise herself. Declan, once Everil’s dearest friend, neglected for the past century. Bo in danger.

If he had only behaved .

“Everil?” Talia asked, voice soft.

“Yes?”

“ Do you like Bo? If you don’t, then there’s no point in any of it.”

“I don’t need to like him,” Everil answered. But Talia kept looking at him, all wide, worried eyes, and Everil smiled at her. “He’s charmingly coarse. And has an unfortunate sense of responsibility.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s Everil for yes.” Talia pushed herself up, sitting back on her heels. “Alright. One sluagh, coming up. Let’s get this done.”