Solstice (Midsummer #3)

8. Lex

8

Lex

T he next morning, I found Poppy sitting at the dining room table with a book outstretched in front of her and a cup of orange juice on the table at her side.

“Morning.” I lit a cigarette and went to the coffee maker, pouring myself a cup of the sweet automated bliss.

“Good morning,” she said in Russian.

I chuckled and corrected her pronunciation. “You were close.”

She tried again, getting it perfect this time.

“Was Vera upset you were gone?” I blew on my mug and brought it to my lips, turning to face her and leaning back against the counter.

“No.” She shook her head. “No one ever knows when I’m gone.”

“What do you mean?”

She shrugged. “I spend most of my time in my room anyway.”

I narrowed my eyes, remembering her running around with my younger cousin when I’d dropped her off two years ago. “I thought you liked Ursula.”

Poppy took a deep breath, her haunted eyes shifting up at me. “Ursula’s a child.”

“She’s the same age as you.”

“Physically,” she muttered like I wasn’t meant to hear it.

I pursed my lips, considering what we’d long thought about her. Time worked differently in Faerie. She looked like a twelve-year-old girl, but behind those eyes, had she seen decades? Millennia?

It didn’t matter. On this side, she was practically an infant. She didn’t know our culture or ways of life, and from the time the queen thrust her into Carter’s arms, I knew we wouldn’t be able to teach her because we couldn’t keep her. Perhaps we could have said we’d adopted her, that she’d been the remaining child of a long-lost, dying relative, but once that fairy fucker got through, he’d head straight for us if he knew we had her.

This distance was the only way to protect her. My spouses loved Poppy, and even if my gut still worried that taking her would come back to bite us in the ass, I had developed a hesitant affection for the young girl.

“You’re bored.” I tilted my head, assessing her.

“I’d rather talk with Dmitri and Vera, but they have no time for children.” She said the word like it tasted foul, and I laughed, admitting she had a point.

“How can I help?”

“Tell them I’m spending Christmas here with you.” Her eyes met mine, and she shrugged. “Tell them you sent someone for me, and I’m halfway to California by now.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose as I considered this.

“I know it’s asking a lot,” she continued, “considering you didn’t even want me.”

My gaze snapped up, echoes of my father’s voice in the back of my head.

“You were right when you said it should have been you,” he’d once told me, hatred and vile in his eyes. “And standing here today, I’d drown you in the Boston Bay myself if it meant I’d get my son back.”

“Listen to me.” I walked closer to her, put my hands on either side of her book, and leaned over the table to get eye to eye with her. “I never said I didn’t want you, and if that were the case, you wouldn’t be at my dining room table right now. You’re welcome in my home anytime, and believe me when I say people want you here.”

She didn’t say anything, just squared her jaw and shifted her gaze between my eyes.

“But none of that matters now. I have you, and you have me.” I took a deep breath and straightened. “I’ll protect you, understand?”

“Not because you want to. Because they want to.”

“Because you’re a part of this fucked-up little family.”

Poppy broke eye contact and went back to her book, pretending to ignore me while I returned to making breakfast. Eventually, Carter came down and grilled her for the same thing.

“Vera know you’re okay?” He ran a hand over her hair, mussing it before sitting down next to her.

“Vera doesn’t care where I am.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Carter looked at me before shifting his focus back to her.

“Vera is worried about Ursula’s premiere in high society.” Poppy shook her head. “The pomp is ridiculous.”

Carter grimaced and looked at me. “Call it in.”

“What?”

“Tell Vera I came and got her.” Carter leaned back in his seat. “That way, you won’t have to make up an excuse about why you didn’t say hi.”

“Really?” Poppy’s eyes lit up as she looked from Carter to me and back again.

I paused. As much as I wanted her to be where she belonged, this was dangerous. If anyone saw us with her, if word got back to our parents or the media or any ill-intentioned fairy, we’d be compromised.

But Carter gave me a look that screamed, C’mon, it’s Christmas, and what was I supposed to do? Be a fucking Scrooge? I sighed and pulled out my phone, pressing the contact for Dmitri’s secured line before turning my back on these two idiots who had me wrapped around their fingers.

* * *

Two days.

We got her for two days before we had to figure out a way to return her that seemed reasonable. Dmitri had been furious I’d sent someone for her without clearing it with him first. But I pledged not to do it again, and he agreed to put it behind us.

For those two days, I knew what my dream could be like. We didn’t think about the drama waiting for us at home. We celebrated Christmas like we might if society’s rules didn’t exist, as if I wasn’t a Fairfax, and Ivy wasn’t a Washington, and Miri wasn’t a Stuart. We huddled around the fire and played in the snow, and I took pictures of the whole fucking thing. I tried to capture my vision, the one where we grew old together, the one that came to me on a Midsummer’s morning under the clear blue sky.

We would need these memories anytime things got difficult, anytime Ivy acted like this inferno between us wasn’t real, anytime Carter couldn’t make it home for months on end or Miri threatened to marry some pretentious prick twenty years older than her.

I’d look at these photos, these happy moments, and I’d come back here. This was our family. This was our home. No matter what came for us, nothing would fucking change it. The world would have to pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

The last night we were there, I spent time on my computer, flipping through my shots long after everyone had fallen asleep. The fireplace cast the room in eerie shadows, fitting for the somber glow of the darkest time of the year. I zoomed in on a picture of Ivy, blurring something in the background before stopping to admire her eyes.

Those Washington eyes. So piercing. So hypnotizing. How had I ever thought I hated her?

Something shivered down my spine, a chill settling in my gut. I looked up to meet the haunted gaze of a pale blond woman in flowing white robes standing outside the balcony windows.

I jumped out of my seat, knocking my chair over. “Holy shit!”

Heart pounding, I took a few steps back, blinking and shaking my head to make sure I’d seen what I thought I saw. Between one breath and the next, she was gone.

Poof!

Like I’d imagined the whole thing.

What the fuck was that?

I took a tentative step closer, looking into the living room before crossing in front of the dying fireplace to the French doors. I turned the lock and opened them wide, bracing myself against the snowy winter air that burst into the vacuum of space.

“Darling?” came Miri’s voice behind me. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Just seeing things. Just delusional. Nothing to be worried about.

“Did you…” She cleared her throat and ran a hand over the back of her neck. “Did you feel something strange? Just a moment ago?”

“I thought I saw…” But it couldn’t have been—could it?

“Saw what?”

I shook my head as she came to stand next to me, wrapping her arms around my waist. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was the queen. But Miri’s thistles still held, and neither the queen nor the king could enter this side of the realm. Not without breaking their curse first or finding a key.

“Nothing,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut. “I’m just tired.”

Miri laughed and tugged me back inside, shutting the doors behind us. “Me too, darling. I could have sworn I felt the queen’s presence.”

I froze. “Are you serious?”

She shivered and tucked her head into my chest. “I wouldn’t forget magic like that. It’s…overwhelming.”

“You don’t sense it anymore?”

She shook her head and looked up at me. “I imagined it.”

I leaned down to whisper in her ear. “I saw her.”

Miri pulled back to look at me, furrowing her brows when she realized I was serious. “Do you think she’s here?”

I shrugged. “If she was…she’s gone now.”

“Lex…I…I don’t feel them anymore.” She looked down at her hands, opening and closing them.

I narrowed my gaze on her. “Feel what?”

“The thistles.” Tears welled in her eyes as she stared up at me, a sob catching in her throat. “Oh, bloody hell. I think they’re gone.”

“Gone?” My heart pounded as I leaned down to look at her. “What do you mean gone?”

“I don’t know.” Miri shook her head, wrapping her arms around me, holding on to me for strength.

I didn’t know what else to do or say, so I tugged her close and let her lean on me, the ramifications of her confession soaking in. Even if the thistles were down, there was nothing we could do about it. If she couldn’t feel them and she couldn’t rebuild them, we had to pray the king never found a way through the Veil.

We huddled together, looking out those doors, holding each other like the sun might never rise, but the vision never returned. Eventually, we went back to the couch and rekindled the fire, deciding to stay the night down there just in case.

“We’ll tell Ivy and Carter in the morning,” I said. Even then, I didn’t know what we could do about it. The thistles being gone only meant we had to be more defensive and strategic about what we did next.

Miri nodded and smiled, poking at the logs with the metal rod while I sat with my arms outstretched to the side and memorized the way the light flickered over her soft features.

Ivy told me about her conversation with Miri, how our princess might end up marrying that ancient prick sometime soon. It enraged me and disappointed me at the same time. I couldn’t stop her, none of us could, but maybe I could talk some sense into her. “The Prince of Monaco.”

She made a sad laugh and stood. “Ivy told you, did she?”

“She did.” Ivy and I didn’t keep much from each other these days.

“And?” Miri’s eyes sparkled as she sauntered closer, put her knees on either side of my hips, and sank onto my lap. She linked her fingers behind my neck and pressed her forehead to mine, and her flowery scent permeated the tense space between us.

God, how I adore her.

“And I look forward to hearing how you plan to hide your three lovers from him.”

She pressed her lips to mine in a chaste embrace. “With pretty lies and sugar-sweet kisses.”

“Miri.” I put my hands on her wrists, forcing her to look up at me. Not for the first time, I wished I had Ivy’s gift. I wished I could dig around in her head until I figured out what she was hiding behind that contemplative stare. Something about her was off. I sensed it like a splinter in my mind. “You don’t have to do this.”

“We both know that’s not true.”

“Marry Carter,” I suggested. “Or better yet, marry no one and move here anyway.”

She rolled her eyes. “I can’t do that for the same reasons as you.”

We were bound by hundreds of years of tradition and public scrutiny, we political beasts. A princess of England could never marry some random actor from the US, not unless she wanted to renounce her birthright. “We miss you. Both of us. All of us.”

“I know, darling.” She kissed me, but my lips traveled farther south, in between her collarbones and down her sternum to her breasts. I yanked her sweater down, kissing and teasing the rosy nubs of her nipples. She tasted even better than she smelled. She arched into the touch, and soon her underwear came off, my cock was outside my pants, and I was burying it deep inside her fiery warmth.

“How much longer can we go on like this?” I said, softly showing my princess I loved her. I craved her every day. “How much longer until it drives us wild?”

She kissed my face, my forehead, my nose, my chin. She calmed me. She loved me.

“We’ll be okay, my prince of darkness.” Another kiss. Another coax of her fingers across my cheeks. “We’ll be okay.”

I held her close and fucked her slowly, praying her eternal optimism could save us both.